30 BC – Octavian (later known as Augustus) enters Alexandria, Egypt, bringing it under the control of the Roman Republic.
AD 69 – Batavian rebellion: The Batavians in Germania Inferior (Netherlands) revolt under the leadership of Gaius Julius Civilis.
527 – Justinian I becomes the sole ruler of the Byzantine Empire.
607 – Ono no Imoko is dispatched as envoy to the Sui court in China (Traditional Japanese date: July 3, 607).
902 – Taormina, the last Byzantine stronghold in Sicily, is captured by the Aghlabids army, concluding the Muslim conquest of Sicily.
1203 – Isaac II Angelos, restored Eastern Roman Emperor, declares his son Alexios IV Angelos co-emperor after pressure from the forces of the Fourth Crusade.
1291 – The Old Swiss Confederacy is formed with the signature of the Federal Charter.
1469 – Louis XI of France founds the chivalric order called the Order of Saint Michael in Amboise.
1498 – Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to visit what is now Venezuela.
1571 – The Ottoman conquest of Cyprus is concluded, by the surrender of Famagusta.
1620 – Speedwell leaves Delfshaven to bring pilgrims to America by way of England.
1664 – Ottoman forces are defeated in the battle of Saint Gotthard by an Austrian army led by Raimondo Montecuccoli, resulting in the Peace of Vasvár.
1714 – George, Elector of Hanover, becomes King George I of Great Britain, marking the beginning of the Georgian era of British history.
1759 – Seven Years’ War: The Battle of Minden, an allied Anglo-German army victory over the French. In Britain this was one of a number of events that constituted the Annus Mirabilis of 1759 and is celebrated as Minden Day by certain British Army regiments.
1774 – British scientist Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen gas, corroborating the prior discovery of this element by German-Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
1798 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay): Battle begins when a British fleet engages the French Revolutionary Navy fleet in an unusual night action.
1800 – The Acts of Union 1800 are passed which merge the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1801 – First Barbary War: The American schooner USS Enterprise captures the Tripolitan polacca Tripoli in a single-ship action off the coast of modern-day Libya.
1834 – Slavery is abolished in the British Empire as the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 comes into force, although it remains legal in the possessions of the East India Company until the passage of the Indian Slavery Act, 1843.
1842 – The Lombard Street riot erupts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
1849 – Joven Daniel wrecks at the coast of Araucanía, Chile, leading to allegations that local Mapuche tribes murdered survivors and kidnapped Elisa Bravo.
1855 – The first ascent of Monte Rosa, the second highest summit in the Alps.
1876 – Colorado is admitted as the 38th U.S. state.
1893 – Henry Perky patents shredded wheat.
1894 – The First Sino-Japanese War erupts between Japan and China over Korea.
1907 – The start of the first Scout camp on Brownsea Island, the origin of the worldwide Scouting movement.
1911 – Harriet Quimby takes her pilot’s test and becomes the first U.S. woman to earn an Aero Club of America aviator’s certificate.
1914 – The German Empire declares war on the Russian Empire at the opening of World War I. The Swiss Army mobilizes because of World War I.
1927 – The Nanchang Uprising marks the first significant battle in the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party. This day is commemorated as the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army.
1933 – Anti-Fascist activists Bruno Tesch, Walter Möller, Karl Wolff, and August Lütgens are executed by the Nazi regime in Altona.
1936 – The Olympics opened in Berlin with a ceremony presided over by Adolf Hitler.
1937 – Josip Broz Tito reads the resolution “Manifesto of constitutional congress of KPH” to the constitutive congress of KPH (Croatian Communist Party) in woods near Samobor.
1943 – World War II: Operation Tidal Wave also known as “Black Sunday”, was a failed American attempt to destroy Romanian oil fields.
1944 – World War II: The Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi German occupation breaks out in Warsaw, Poland.
1946 – Leaders of the Russian Liberation Army, a force of Russian prisoners of war that collaborated with Nazi Germany, are executed in Moscow, Soviet Union for treason.
1950 – Guam is organized as a United States commonwealth as President Harry S. Truman signs the Guam Organic Act.
1957 – The United States and Canada form the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).
1960 – Dahomey (later renamed Benin) declares independence from France.
1960 – Islamabad is declared the federal capital of the Government of Pakistan.
1961 – U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara orders the creation of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the nation’s first centralized military espionage organization.
1964 – The former Belgian Congo is renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
1965 – Frank Herbert’s novel, Dune was published for the first time. It was named as the world’s best-selling science fiction novel in 2003.
1966 – Charles Whitman kills 16 people at the University of Texas at Austin before being killed by the police.
1966 – Purges of intellectuals and imperialists becomes official China policy at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
1968 – The coronation is held of Hassanal Bolkiah, the 29th Sultan of Brunei.
1971 – The Concert for Bangladesh, organized by former Beatle George Harrison, is held at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
1974 – Cyprus dispute: The United Nations Security Council authorizes the UNFICYP to create the “Green Line”, dividing Cyprus into two zones.
1980 – Vigdís Finnbogadóttir is elected President of Iceland and becomes the world’s first democratically elected female head of state.
1980 – A train crash kills 18 people in County Cork, Ireland.
1981 – MTV begins broadcasting in the United States and airs its first video, “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles.
1984 – Commercial peat-cutters discover the preserved bog body of a man, called Lindow Man, at Lindow Moss, Cheshire, England.
1988 – A British soldier was killed in the Inglis Barracks bombing in London, England.
1993 – The Great Mississippi and Missouri Rivers Flood of 1993 comes to a peak.
1998 – The establishment of Muslim Medics, one of the largest student-led societies in Imperial College London that provides both academic and wellbeing support to medical students of all backgrounds.
2004 – A supermarket fire kills 396 people and injures 500 others in Asunción, Paraguay.
2007 – The I-35W Mississippi River bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, collapses during the evening rush hour, killing 13 people and injuring 145.
2008 – The Beijing–Tianjin Intercity Railway begins operation as the fastest commuter rail system in the world.
2008 – Eleven mountaineers from international expeditions died on K2, the second-highest mountain on Earth in the worst single accident in the history of K2 mountaineering.
2017 – A suicide attack on a mosque in Herat, Afghanistan kills 20 people.
Births on August 1
10 BC – Claudius, Roman emperor (d. 54)
126 – Pertinax, Roman emperor (d. 193)
845 – Sugawara no Michizane, Japanese scholar and politician (d. 903)
992 – Hyeonjong, Korean king (d. 1031)
1068 – Taizu, Chinese emperor (d. 1123)
1313 – Kōgon, Japanese emperor (d. 1364)
1377 – Go-Komatsu, Japanese emperor (d. 1433)
1385 – John FitzAlan, 13th Earl of Arundel (d. 1421)
1410 – Jan IV, count of Nassau-Dillenburg (d. 1475)
1492 – Wolfgang, German prince (d. 1566)
1520 – Sigismund II, Polish king (d. 1572)
1545 – Andrew Melville, Scottish theologian and scholar (d. 1622)
1555 – Edward Kelley, English spirit medium (d. 1597)
1579 – Luis Vélez de Guevara, Spanish author and playwright (d. 1644)
1626 – Sabbatai Zevi, Montenegrin rabbi and theorist (d. 1676)
1630 – Thomas Clifford, 1st Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, English politician, Lord High Treasurer (d. 1673)
1659 – Sebastiano Ricci, Italian painter (d. 1734)
1713 – Charles I, German duke and prince (d. 1780)
1714 – Richard Wilson, Welsh painter and academic (d. 1782)
1738 – Jacques François Dugommier, French general (d. 1794)
1744 – Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, French soldier, biologist, and academic (d. 1829)
1770 – William Clark, American soldier, explorer, and politician, 4th Governor of Missouri Territory (d. 1838)
1778 – Mary Jefferson Eppes, daughter of Thomas Jefferson who died in childbirth (d. 1804)
1779 – Francis Scott Key, American lawyer, author, and poet (d. 1843)
1779 – Lorenz Oken, German-Swiss botanist, biologist, and ornithologist (d. 1851)
1809 – William B. Travis, American colonel and lawyer (d. 1836)
1815 – Richard Henry Dana, Jr., American lawyer and politician (d. 1882)
1818 – Maria Mitchell, American astronomer and academic (d. 1889)
1819 – Herman Melville, American novelist, short story writer, and poet (d. 1891)
1831 – Antonio Cotogni, Italian opera singer and educator (d. 1918)
1843 – Robert Todd Lincoln, American lawyer and politician, 35th United States Secretary of War (d. 1926)
1856 – George Coulthard, Australian footballer and cricketer (d. 1883)
1858 – Gaston Doumergue, French lawyer and politician, 13th President of France (d. 1937)
1858 – Hans Rott, Austrian organist and composer (d. 1884)
1860 – Bazil Assan, Romanian engineer and explorer (d. 1918)
1861 – Sammy Jones, Australian cricketer (d. 1951)
1865 – Isobel Lilian Gloag, English painter (d. 1917)
1871 – John Lester, American cricketer and soccer player (d. 1969)
1877 – George Hackenschmidt, Estonian-English wrestler and strongman (d. 1968)
1878 – Konstantinos Logothetopoulos, Greek physician and politician, Prime Minister of Greece (d. 1961)
1881 – Otto Toeplitz, German mathematician and academic (d. 1940)
1885 – George de Hevesy, Hungarian-German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1966)
1889 – Walter Gerlach, German physicist and academic (d. 1979)
1891 – Karl Kobelt, Swiss lawyer and politician, 52nd President of the Swiss Confederation (d. 1968)
1893 – Alexander of Greece (d. 1920)
1894 – Ottavio Bottecchia, Italian cyclist (d. 1927)
1898 – Morris Stoloff, American composer and musical director (d. 1980)
1899 – Raymond Mays, English race car driver and businessman (d. 1980)
1900 – Otto Nothling, Australian cricketer and rugby player (d. 1965)
1901 – Francisco Guilledo, Filipino boxer (d. 1925)
1903 – Paul Horgan, American historian, author, and academic (d. 1995)
1905 – Helen Sawyer Hogg, American-Canadian astronomer and academic (d. 1993)
1907 – Eric Shipton, Sri Lankan-English mountaineer and explorer (d. 1977)
1910 – James Henry Govier, English painter and illustrator (d. 1974)
1910 – Walter Scharf, American pianist and composer (d. 2003)
1910 – Gerda Taro, German war photographer (d. 1937)
1911 – Jackie Ormes, American journalist and cartoonist (d. 1985)
1912 – David Brand, Australian politician, 19th Premier of Western Australia (d. 1979)
1912 – Gego, German-Venezuelan sculptor and academic (d. 1994)
1912 – Henry Jones, American actor (d. 1999)
1914 – Jack Delano, American photographer and composer (d. 1997)
1914 – Alan Moore, Australian painter and educator (d. 2015)
1914 – J. Lee Thompson, English-Canadian director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2002)
1916 – Fiorenzo Angelini, Italian cardinal (d. 2014)
1916 – Anne Hébert, Canadian author and poet (d. 2000)
1918 – T. J. Jemison, American minister and activist (d. 2013)
1919 – Stanley Middleton, English author (d. 2009)
1920 – Raul Renter, Estonian economist and chess player (d. 1992)
1921 – Jack Kramer, American tennis player, sailor, and sportscaster (d. 2009)
1921 – Pat McDonald, Australian actress (d. 1990)
1922 – Arthur Hill, Canadian-American actor (d. 2006)
1923 – Val Bettin, American actor
1924 – Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (d. 2015)
1924 – Frank Havens, American canoeist (d. 2018)
1924 – Marcia Mae Jones, American actress and singer (d. 2007)
1924 – Frank Worrell, Barbadian cricketer (d. 1967)
1925 – Ernst Jandl, Austrian poet and author (d. 2000)
1926 – George Hauptfuhrer, American basketball player and lawyer (d. 2013)
1926 – Hannah Hauxwell, English TV personality (d. 2018)
1927 – María Teresa López Boegeholz, Chilean oceanographer (d. 2006)
1927 – Anthony G. Bosco, American bishop (d. 2013)
1928 – Jack Shea, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2013)
1929 – Hafizullah Amin, Afghan educator and politician, Afghan Minister of Foreign Affairs (d. 1979)
1929 – Ann Calvello, American roller derby racer (d. 2006)
1929 – Leila Abashidze, Georgian actress (d. 2018)
1930 – Lionel Bart, English composer (d. 1999)
1930 – Pierre Bourdieu, French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher (d. 2002)
1930 – Julie Bovasso, American actress and writer (d. 1991)
1930 – Lawrence Eagleburger, American lieutenant and politician, 62nd United States Secretary of State (d. 2011)
1930 – Károly Grósz, Hungarian politician, 51st Prime Minister of Hungary (d. 1996)
1930 – Geoffrey Holder, Trinidadian-American actor, singer, dancer, and choreographer (d. 2014)
1931 – Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1931 – Trevor Goddard, South African cricketer (d. 2016)
1932 – Meir Kahane, American-Israeli rabbi and activist, founded the Jewish Defense League (d. 1990)
1932 – Meena Kumari, Indian actress (d. 1972)
1933 – Dom DeLuise, American actor, singer, director, and producer (d. 2009)
1933 – Masaichi Kaneda, Japanese baseball player and manager (d. 2019)
1933 – Teri Shields, American actress, producer, and agent (d. 2012)
1933 – Dušan Třeštík, Czech historian and author (d. 2007)
1934 – John Beck, New Zealand cricketer (d. 2000)
1934 – Derek Birdsall, English graphic designer
1935 – Geoff Pullar, English cricketer (d. 2014)
1936 – W. D. Hamilton, Egyptian born British biologist, psychologist, and academic (d. 2000)
1936 – Yves Saint Laurent, Algerian-French fashion designer, co-founded Yves Saint Laurent (d. 2008)
1936 – Laurie Taylor, English sociologist, radio host, and academic
1937 – Al D’Amato, American lawyer and politician
1939 – Bob Frankford, English-Canadian physician and politician (d. 2015)
1939 – Terry Kiser, American actor
1939 – Stephen Sykes, English bishop and theologian (d. 2014)
1939 – Robert James Waller, American author and photographer (d. 2017)
1940 – Mervyn Kitchen, English cricketer and umpire
1940 – Henry Silverman, American businessman, founded Cendant
1940 – Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, Iranian writer and actor
1941 – Ron Brown, American captain and politician, 30th United States Secretary of Commerce (d. 1996)
1941 – Étienne Roda-Gil, French songwriter and screenwriter (d. 2004)
1942 – Jerry Garcia, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1995)
1942 – Giancarlo Giannini, Italian actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1944 – Dmitry Nikolayevich Filippov, Russian banker and politician (d. 1998)
1945 – Douglas Osheroff, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1946 – Boz Burrell, English singer-songwriter, bass player, and guitarist (d. 2006)
1946 – Rick Coonce, American drummer (d. 2011)
1946 – Richard O. Covey, American colonel, pilot, and astronaut
1946 – Fiona Stanley, Australian epidemiologist and academic
1947 – Lorna Goodison, Jamaican poet and author
1947 – Chantal Montellier, French comics creator and artist
1948 – Avi Arad, Israeli-American screenwriter and producer, founded Marvel Studios
1948 – Cliff Branch, American football player
1948 – David Gemmell, English journalist and author (d. 2006)
1949 – Kurmanbek Bakiyev, Kyrgyzstani politician, 2nd President of Kyrgyzstan
1949 – Jim Carroll, American poet, author, and musician (d. 2009)
1949 – Ray Nettles, American football player (d. 2009)
1950 – Roy Williams, American basketball player and coach
1951 – Tim Bachman, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1951 – Tommy Bolin, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1976)
1951 – Pete Mackanin, American baseball player, coach, and manager
1952 – Zoran Đinđić, Serbian philosopher and politician, 6th Prime Minister of Serbia (d. 2003)
1953 – Robert Cray, American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist
1953 – Howard Kurtz, American journalist and author
1954 – Trevor Berbick, Jamaican-Canadian boxer (d. 2006)
1954 – James Gleick, American journalist and author
1954 – Benno Möhlmann, German footballer and manager
1957 – Taylor Negron, American actor and screenwriter (d. 2015)
1958 – Rob Buck, American guitarist and songwriter (d. 2000)
1958 – Michael Penn, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1958 – Kiki Vandeweghe, American basketball player and coach
1959 – Joe Elliott, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1960 – Chuck D, American rapper and songwriter
1960 – Suzi Gardner, American rock singer-songwriter and guitarist
1962 – Jacob Matlala, South African boxer (d. 2013)
1963 – Demián Bichir, Mexican-American actor and producer
1963 – Coolio, American rapper, producer, and actor
1963 – John Carroll Lynch, American actor
1963 – Koichi Wakata, Japanese astronaut and engineer
1963 – Dean Wareham, New Zealand singer-songwriter and guitarist
1964 – Adam Duritz, American singer-songwriter and producer
1964 – Fiona Hyslop, Scottish businesswoman and politician
1964 – Augusta Read Thomas, American composer, conductor and educator
1965 – Brandt Jobe, American golfer
1965 – Sam Mendes, English director and producer
1966 – James St. James, American club promoter and author
1967 – Gregg Jefferies, American baseball player and coach
1967 – José Padilha, Brazilian director, producer and screenwriter
1968 – Stacey Augmon, American basketball player and coach
1968 – Dan Donegan, American heavy metal guitarist and songwriter
1968 – Shigetoshi Hasegawa, Japanese baseball player and sportscaster
1969 – Andrei Borissov, Estonian footballer and manager
1969 – Kevin Jarvis, American baseball player and scout
1969 – Graham Thorpe, English cricketer and journalist
1970 – Quentin Coryatt, American football player
1970 – David James, English footballer and manager
1970 – Eugenie van Leeuwen, Dutch cricketer
1972 – Nicke Andersson, Swedish singer-songwriter and guitarist
1972 – Christer Basma, Norwegian footballer and coach
1972 – Todd Bouman, American football player and coach
1972 – Thomas Woods, American historian, economist, and academic
1973 – Gregg Berhalter, American soccer player and coach
1973 – Veerle Dejaeghere, Belgian runner
1973 – Edurne Pasaban, Spanish mountaineer
1974 – Cher Calvin, American journalist
1974 – Marek Galiński, Polish cyclist (d. 2014)
1974 – Tyron Henderson, South African cricketer
1974 – Dennis Lawrence, Trinidadian footballer and coach
1974 – Beckie Scott, Canadian skier
1975 – Vhrsti, Czech author and illustrator
1976 – Don Hertzfeldt, American animator, producer, screenwriter, and voice actor
1976 – Søren Jochumsen, Danish footballer
1976 – Nwankwo Kanu, Nigerian footballer
1976 – David Nemirovsky, Canadian ice hockey player
1976 – Hasan Şaş, Turkish footballer and manager
1976 – Cristian Stoica, Romanian-Italian rugby player
1977 – Marc Denis, Canadian ice hockey player and sportscaster
1977 – Haspop, French-Moroccan dancer, choreographer, and actor
1977 – Darnerien McCants, American-Canadian football player
1977 – Damien Saez, French singer-songwriter and guitarist
1977 – Yoshi Tatsu, Japanese wrestler and boxer
1978 – Andy Blignaut, Zimbabwean cricketer
1978 – Björn Ferry, Swedish biathlete
1978 – Dhani Harrison, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1978 – Chris Iwelumo, Scottish footballer
1978 – Edgerrin James, American football player
1979 – Junior Agogo, Ghanaian footballer
1979 – Nathan Fien, Australian-New Zealand rugby league player
1979 – Jason Momoa, American actor, director, and producer
1980 – Mancini, Brazilian footballer
1980 – Romain Barras, French decathlete
1980 – Esteban Paredes, Chilean footballer
1981 – Dean Cox, Australian footballer
1981 – Pia Haraldsen, Norwegian journalist and author
1981 – Christofer Heimeroth, German footballer
1981 – Stephen Hunt, Irish footballer
1981 – Jamie Jones-Buchanan, English rugby player
1982 – Basem Fathi, Jordanian footballer
1982 – Montserrat Lombard, English actress, director, and screenwriter
1983 – Bobby Carpenter, American football player
1983 – Craig Clarke, New Zealand rugby player
1983 – Julien Faubert, French footballer
1983 – David Gervasi, Swiss decathlete
1984 – Steve Feak, American game designer
1984 – Francesco Gavazzi, Italian cyclist
1984 – Brandon Kintzler, American baseball player
1984 – Bastian Schweinsteiger, German footballer
1985 – Stuart Holden, Scottish-American soccer player
1985 – Adam Jones, American baseball player
1985 – Cole Kimball, American baseball player
1985 – Tendai Mtawarira, South African rugby player
1985 – Kris Stadsgaard, Danish footballer
1985 – Dušan Švento, Slovak footballer
1986 – Damien Allen, English footballer
1986 – Anton Strålman, Swedish ice hockey player
1986 – Andrew Taylor, English footballer
1986 – Elena Vesnina, Russian tennis player
1986 – Mike Wallace, American football player
1987 – Iago Aspas, Spanish footballer
1987 – Karen Carney, English women’s football winger
1987 – Sébastien Pocognoli, Belgian footballer
1987 – Lee Wallace, Scottish footballer
1988 – Mustafa Abdellaoue, Norwegian footballer
1988 – Patryk Małecki, Polish footballer
1988 – Bodene Thompson, New Zealand rugby league player
1989 – Madison Bumgarner, American baseball player
1989 – Tiffany Hwang, Korean American singer, songwriter, and actress
1990 – Aledmys Díaz, Cuban baseball player
1990 – Jean Hugues Gregoire, Mauritian swimmer
1990 – Elton Jantjies, South African rugby player
1991 – Piotr Malarczyk, Polish footballer
1991 – Marco Puntoriere, Italian footballer
1992 – Austin Rivers, American basketball player
1992 – Mrunal Thakur, Indian actress
1993 – Álex Abrines, Spanish basketball player
1993 – Leon Thomas III, American actor and singer
1994 – Sergeal Petersen, South African rugby player
1994 – Ayaka Wada, Japanese singer
1996 – Katie Boulter, English tennis player
2001 – Park Si-eun, South Korean actress
Deaths on August 1
30 BC – Mark Antony, Roman general and politician (b. 83 BC)
371 – Eusebius of Vercelli, Italian bishop and saint (b. 283)
527 – Justin I, Byzantine emperor (b. 450)
873 – Thachulf, duke of Thuringia
946 – Ali ibn Isa al-Jarrah, Abbasid vizier (b. 859)
946 – Lady Xu Xinyue, Chinese queen (b. 902)
953 – Yingtian, Chinese Khitan empress (b. 879)
984 – Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester
1098 – Adhemar of Le Puy, French papal legate
1137 – Louis VI, king of France (b. 1081)
1146 – Vsevolod II of Kiev, Russian prince
1227 – Shimazu Tadahisa, Japanese warlord (b. 1179)
1252 – Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, Italian archbishop and explorer (b. 1180)
1299 – Conrad de Lichtenberg, Bishop of Strasbourg (b. 1240)
1402 – Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, English politician, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports (b. 1341)
1457 – Lorenzo Valla, Italian author and educator (b. 1406)
1464 – Cosimo de’ Medici, Italian ruler (b. 1386)
1494 – Giovanni Santi, artist and father of Raphael (b. c. 1435)
1541 – Simon Grynaeus, German theologian and scholar (b. 1493)
1543 – Magnus I, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg (b. 1488)
1546 – Peter Faber, French Jesuit theologian (b. 1506)
1557 – Olaus Magnus, Swedish archbishop, historian, and cartographer (b. 1490)
1580 – Albrecht Giese, Polish-German politician and diplomat (b. 1524)
1589 – Jacques Clément, French assassin of Henry III of France (b. 1567)
1603 – Matthew Browne, English politician (b. 1563)
1714 – Anne, Queen of Great Britain (b. 1665)
1787 – Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori, Italian bishop and saint (b. 1696)
1795 – Clas Bjerkander, Swedish meteorologist, botanist, and entomologist (b. 1735)
1796 – Sir Robert Pigot, 2nd Baronet, English colonel and politician (b. 1720)
1798 – François-Paul Brueys d’Aigalliers, French admiral (b. 1753)
1807 – John Boorman, English cricketer (b. c. 1754)
1807 – John Walker, English actor, philologist, and lexicographer (b. 1732)
1808 – Lady Diana Beauclerk, English painter and illustrator (b. 1734)
1812 – Yakov Kulnev, Russian general (b. 1763)
1851 – William Joseph Behr, German publicist and academic (b. 1775)
1863 – Jind Kaur Majarani (Regent) of the Sikh Empire (b. 1817)
1866 – John Ross, American tribal chief (b. 1790)
1869 – Peter Julian Eymard, French Priest and Founder Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament (b. 1811)
1869 – Richard Dry, Australian politician, 7th Premier of Tasmania (b. 1815)
1903 – Calamity Jane, American frontierswoman and scout (b. 1853)
1911 – Edwin Austin Abbey, American painter and illustrator (b. 1852)
1911 – Samuel Arza Davenport, American lawyer and politician (b. 1843)
1918 – John Riley Banister, American cowboy and police officer (b. 1854)
1920 – Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Indian lawyer and journalist (b. 1856)
1921 – T.J. Ryan, Australian politician, 19th Premier of Queensland (b. 1876)
1922 – Donát Bánki, Hungarian engineer (b. 1856)
1929 – Syd Gregory, Australian cricketer (b. 1870)
1938 – Edmund C. Tarbell, American painter and academic (b. 1862)
1943 – Lydia Litvyak, Russian lieutenant and pilot (b. 1921)
1944 – Manuel L. Quezon, Filipino soldier, lawyer, and politician, 2nd President of the Philippines (b. 1878)
1959 – Jean Behra, French race car driver (b. 1921)
1963 – Theodore Roethke, American poet (b. 1908)
1966 – Charles Whitman, American murderer (b. 1941)
1967 – Richard Kuhn, Austrian-German biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize Laureate (b. 1900)
1970 – Frances Farmer, American actress (b. 1913)
1970 – Doris Fleeson, American journalist (b. 1901)
1970 – Otto Heinrich Warburg, German physician and physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1883)
1973 – Gian Francesco Malipiero, Italian composer and educator (b. 1882)
1973 – Walter Ulbricht, German soldier and politician (b. 1893)
1974 – Ildebrando Antoniutti, Italian cardinal (b. 1898)
1977 – Francis Gary Powers, American captain and pilot (b. 1929)
1980 – Patrick Depailler, French race car driver (b. 1944)
1980 – Strother Martin, American actor (b. 1919)
1981 – Paddy Chayefsky, American author, playwright, and screenwriter (b. 1923)
1982 – T. Thirunavukarasu, Sri Lankan lawyer and politician (b. 1933)
1989 – John Ogdon, English pianist and composer (b. 1937)
1996 – Tadeusz Reichstein, Polish-Swiss chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1897)
1996 – Lucille Teasdale-Corti, Canadian physician and surgeon (b. 1929)
1998 – Eva Bartok, Hungarian-British actress (b. 1927)
2001 – Korey Stringer, American football player (b. 1974)
2003 – Guy Thys, Belgian footballer, coach, and manager (b. 1922)
2003 – Marie Trintignant, French actress and screenwriter (b. 1962)
2004 – Philip Abelson, American physicist and author (b. 1913)
2005 – Al Aronowitz, American journalist (b. 1928)
2005 – Wim Boost, Dutch cartoonist and educator (b. 1918)
2005 – Constant Nieuwenhuys, Dutch painter and sculptor (b. 1920)
2005 – Fahd of Saudi Arabia (b. 1923)
2006 – Bob Thaves, American illustrator (b. 1924)
2006 – Iris Marion Young, American political scientist and activist (b. 1949)
2007 – Tommy Makem, Irish singer-songwriter and banjo player (b. 1932)
2008 – Gertan Klauber, Czech-English actor (b. 1932)
2008 – Harkishan Singh Surjeet, Indian lawyer and politician (b. 1916)
2009 – Corazon Aquino, Filipino politician, 11th President of the Philippines (b. 1933)
2010 – Lolita Lebrón, Puerto Rican-American activist (b. 1919)
2010 – Eric Tindill, New Zealand rugby player and cricketer (b. 1910)
2012 – Aldo Maldera, Italian footballer and agent (b. 1953)
2012 – Douglas Townsend, American composer and musicologist (b. 1921)
2012 – Barry Trapnell, English cricketer and academic (b. 1924)
2013 – John Amis, English journalist and critic (b. 1922)
2013 – Gail Kobe, American actress and producer (b. 1932)
2013 – Babe Martin, American baseball player (b. 1920)
2013 – Toby Saks, American cellist and educator (b. 1942)
2013 – Wilford White, American football player (b. 1928)
2014 – Valyantsin Byalkevich, Belarusian footballer and manager (b. 1973)
2014 – Jan Roar Leikvoll, Norwegian author (b. 1974)
2014 – Charles T. Payne, American soldier (b. 1925)
2014 – Mike Smith, English radio and television host (b. 1955)
2015 – Stephan Beckenbauer, German footballer and manager (b. 1968)
2015 – Cilla Black, English singer and actress (b. 1943)
2015 – Bernard d’Espagnat, French physicist, philosopher, and author (b. 1921)
2015 – Bob Frankford, English-Canadian physician and politician (b. 1939)
2015 – Hong Yuanshuo, Chinese footballer and manager (b. 1948)
2016 – Queen Anne of Romania (b. 1923)
Holidays and observances on August 1
Armed Forces Day (Lebanon)
Armed Forces Day (China) or Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Liberation Army (People’s Republic of China)
Azerbaijani Language and Alphabet Day (Azerbaijan)
Celebration of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 which ended the slavery in the British Empire, generally celebrated as a part of Carnival, as the Caribbean Carnival takes place at this time (British West Indies):
Earliest day on which Caribana celebration can fall, celebrated on the first Weekend of August. (Toronto)
Earliest day on which Emancipation Day can fall, celebrated on the first Monday of August. (Anguilla, the Bahamas, British Virgin Islands)
Emancipation Day (Barbados, Bermuda, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago)
Christian feast day:
Abgar V of Edessa (Syrian Church)
Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori
Æthelwold of Winchester
Bernard Võ Văn Duệ (one of Vietnamese Martyrs)
Blessed Gerhard Hirschfelder
Eusebius of Vercelli
Exuperius of Bayeux
Felix of Girona
Peter Apostle in Chains
Procession of the Cross and the beginning of Dormition Fast (Eastern Orthodoxy)
The Holy Maccabees
August 1 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Earliest day on which August Bank Holiday (Ireland) can fall, while August 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday of August.
Earliest day on which Civic Holiday can fall, while August 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday of August. (Canada)
Earliest day on which Commerce Day, or Frídagur verslunarmanna, can fall, while August 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday of August. (Iceland)
Earliest day on which Constitution Day (Cook Islands) can fall, while August 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday of August.
Earliest day on which Farmers’ Day can fall, while August 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday of August. (Zambia)
Earliest day on which International Beer Day can fall, while August 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Friday of August.
Earliest day on which Friendship Day can fall, while August 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Sunday of August. (United States)
Earliest day on which Kadooment Day can fall, while August 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday of August (Barbados)
Earliest day on which Labor Day (Samoa) can fall, while August 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday of August (Samoa)
Minden Day (United Kingdom)
National Day, celebrates the independence of Benin from France in 1960.
National Day, commemorates Switzerland becoming a single unit in 1291.
Official Birthday and Coronation Day of the King of Tonga (Tonga)
Parents’ Day (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Statehood Day (Colorado)
Swiss National Day (Switzerland)
The beginning of autumn observances in the Northern hemisphere and spring observances in the Southern hemisphere (Neopagan Wheel of the Year):
Lughnasadh in the Northern hemisphere, Imbolc in the Southern hemisphere; traditionally begins on the eve of August 1. (Gaels, Ireland, Scotland, Neopagans)
Lammas (England, Scotland, Neopagans)
Pachamama Raymi (Quechuan in Ecuador and Peru)
The first day of Carnaval del Pueblo (Burgess Park, London, England)
455 – Sack of Rome: Vandals enter Rome, and plunder the city for two weeks.
1098 – First Crusade: The first Siege of Antioch ends as Crusader forces take the city; the second siege began five days later.
1615 – The first Récollet missionaries arrive at Quebec City, from Rouen, France.
1676 – Franco-Dutch War: France ensured the supremacy of its naval fleet for the remainder of the war with its victory in the Battle of Palermo.
1692 – Bridget Bishop is the first person to be tried for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts; she was found guilty and later hanged.
1763 – Pontiac’s Rebellion: At what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas capture Fort Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison’s attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort.
1774 – Intolerable Acts: The Quartering Act is enacted, allowing a governor in colonial America to house British soldiers in uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings if suitable quarters are not provided.
1793 – French Revolution: François Hanriot, leader of the Parisian National Guard, arrests 22 Girondists selected by Jean-Paul Marat, setting the stage for the Reign of Terror.
1805 – Napoleonic Wars: A Franco-Spanish fleet recaptures Diamond Rock, an uninhabited island at the entrance to the bay leading to Fort-de-France, from the British.
1835 – P. T. Barnum and his circus start their first tour of the United States.
1848 – The Slavic congress in Prague begins.
1866 – The Fenians defeat Canadian forces at Ridgeway and Fort Erie, but the raids end soon after.
1896 – Guglielmo Marconi applies for a patent for his wireless telegraph.
1909 – Alfred Deakin becomes Prime Minister of Australia for the third time.
1910 – Charles Rolls, a co-founder of Rolls-Royce Limited, becomes the first man to make a non-stop double crossing of the English Channel by plane.
1919 – Anarchists simultaneously set off bombs in eight separate U.S. cities.
1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.
1941 – World War II: German paratroopers murder Greek civilians in the villages of Kondomari and Alikianos.
1946 – Birth of the Italian Republic: In a referendum, Italians vote to turn Italy from a monarchy into a Republic. After the referendum, King Umberto II of Italy is exiled.
1953 – The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, who is crowned Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories & Head of the Commonwealth, the first major international event to be televised.
1955 – The USSR and Yugoslavia sign the Belgrade declaration and thus normalize relations between both countries, discontinued since 1948.
1962 – During the FIFA World Cup, police had to intervene multiple times in fights between Chilean and Italian players in one of the most violent games in football history.
1964 – The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is formed.
1966 – Surveyor program: Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to soft-land on another world.
1967 – Luis Monge is executed in Colorado’s gas chamber, in the last pre-Furman execution in the United States.
1967 – Protests in West Berlin against the arrival of the Shah of Iran turn into riots, during which Benno Ohnesorg is killed by a police officer. His death results in the founding of the terrorist group Movement 2 June.
1979 – Pope John Paul II starts his first official visit to his native Poland, becoming the first Pope to visit a Communist country.
1983 – After an emergency landing because of an in-flight fire, twenty-three passengers aboard Air Canada Flight 797 are killed when a flashover occurs as the plane’s doors open. Because of this incident, numerous new safety regulations are put in place.
1990 – The Lower Ohio Valley tornado outbreak spawns 66 confirmed tornadoes in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio, killing 12.
1997 – In Denver, Timothy McVeigh is convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, in which 168 people died. He was executed four years later.
2003 – Europe launches its first voyage to another planet, Mars. The European Space Agency’s Mars Express probe launches from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.
2012 – Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the killing of demonstrators during the 2011 Egyptian revolution.
2014 – Telangana officially becomes the 29th state of India, formed from ten districts of northwestern Andhra Pradesh.
Births on June 2
1305 – Abu Sa’id Bahadur Khan, ruler of Ilkhanate (d. 1335)
1423 – Ferdinand I of Naples (d. 1494)
1489 – Charles, Duke of Vendôme (d. 1537)
1535 – Pope Leo XI (d. 1605)
1602 – Rudolf Christian, Count of East Frisia, Ruler of East Frisia (d. 1628)
1621 – Rutger von Ascheberg, Courland-born soldier in Swedish service (d. 1693)
1621 – (baptized) Isaac van Ostade, Dutch painter (d. 1649)
1638 – Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon (d. 1709)
1644 – William Salmon, English medical writer (d. 1713)
1739 – Jabez Bowen, American colonel and politician, 45th Deputy Governor of Rhode Island (d. 1815)
1740 – Marquis de Sade, French philosopher and politician (d. 1814)
1743 – Alessandro Cagliostro, Italian occultist and explorer (d. 1795)
1773 – John Randolph of Roanoke, American planter and politician, 8th United States Ambassador to Russia (d. 1833)
1774 – William Lawson, English-Australian explorer and politician (d. 1850)
1813 – Daniel Pollen, Irish-New Zealand politician, 9th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1896)
1823 – Gédéon Ouimet, Canadian lawyer and politician, 2nd Premier of Quebec (d. 1905)
1835 – Pope Pius X (d. 1914)
1838 – Duchess Alexandra Petrovna of Oldenburg (d. 1900)
1840 – Thomas Hardy, English novelist and poet (d. 1928)
1840 – Émile Munier, French artist (d. 1895)
1857 – Edward Elgar, English composer and educator (d. 1934)
1857 – Karl Adolph Gjellerup, Danish author and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1919)
1861 – Concordia Selander, Swedish actress and manager (d. 1935)
1863 – Felix Weingartner, Croatian-Austrian pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1942)
1865 – George Lohmann, English cricketer (d. 1901)
1865 – Adelaide Casely-Hayford, Sierra Leone Creole advocate and activist for cultural nationalism (d. 1960)
1869 – Jack O’Connor, American baseball player and manager (d. 1937)
1875 – Charles Stewart Mott, American businessman and politician, 50th Mayor of Flint, Michigan (d. 1973)
1878 – Wallace Hartley, English violinist and bandleader (d. 1912)
1881 – Walter Egan, American golfer (d. 1971)
1891 – Thurman Arnold, American lawyer and judge (d. 1969)
1891 – Takijirō Ōnishi, Japanese admiral and pilot (d. 1945)
1899 – Lotte Reiniger, German animator and director (d. 1981)
1899 – Edwin Way Teale, American environmentalist and photographer (d. 1980)
1904 – Frank Runacres, English painter and educator (d. 1974)
1904 – Johnny Weissmuller, Hungarian-American swimmer and actor (d. 1984)
1907 – Dorothy West, American journalist and author (d. 1998)
1907 – John Lehmann, English poet and publisher (d. 1987)
1910 – Hector Dyer, American sprinter (d. 1990)
1911 – Joe McCluskey, American runner (d. 2002)
1913 – Barbara Pym, English author (d. 1980)
1913 – Elsie Tu, English-Hong Kong educator and politician (d. 2015)
1914 – Johnny Bulla, American golfer (d. 2003)
1915 – Alexandru Nicolschi, Romanian spy (d. 1992)
1917 – Heinz Sielmann, German photographer and director (d. 2006)
1918 – Ruth Atkinson, Canadian-American illustrator (d. 1997)
1918 – Kathryn Tucker Windham, American journalist and author (d. 2011)
1919 – Nat Mayer Shapiro, American painter (d. 2005)
1920 – Frank G. Clement, American lawyer and politician, 41st Governor of Tennessee (d. 1969)
1920 – Yolande Donlan, American-English actress (d. 2014)
1920 – Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Polish-German author and critic (d. 2013)
1920 – Tex Schramm, American businessman (d. 2003)
1920 – Johnny Speight, English screenwriter and producer (d. 1998)
1921 – Betty Freeman, American photographer and philanthropist (d. 2009)
1921 – Ernie Royal, American trumpet player (d. 1983)
1921 – Sigmund Sternberg, Hungarian-English businessman and philanthropist (d. 2016)
1921 – András Szennay, Hungarian priest (d. 2012)
1922 – Juan Antonio Bardem, Spanish director and screenwriter (d. 2002)
1922 – Carmen Silvera, Canadian-English actress (d. 2002)
1923 – Lloyd Shapley, American mathematician and economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2016)
1924 – June Callwood, Canadian journalist, author, and activist (d. 2007)
1926 – Chiyonoyama Masanobu, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 41st Yokozuna (d. 1977)
1926 – Milo O’Shea, Irish-American actor (d. 2013)
1927 – W. Watts Biggers, American author, screenwriter, and animator (d. 2013)
1927 – Colin Brittan, English footballer (d. 2013)
1927 – Christopher Slade, English lawyer and judge
1928 – Erzsi Kovács, Hungarian singer (d. 2014)
1928 – Rafael A. Lecuona, Cuban-American gymnast and academic (d. 2014)
1928 – Ron Reynolds, English footballer (d. 1999)
1929 – Norton Juster, American architect, author, and academic
1929 – Ken McGregor, Australian tennis player (d. 2007)
1930 – Pete Conrad, American captain, pilot, and astronaut (d. 1999)
1933 – Jerry Lumpe, American baseball player and coach (d. 2014)
1933 – Lew “Sneaky Pete” Robinson, drag racer (d. 1971)
1934 – Johnny Carter, American singer (d. 2009)
1935 – Carol Shields, American-Canadian novelist and short story writer (d. 2003)
451 – Attila the Hun sacks the town of Metz and attacks other cities in Gaul.
529 – First draft of the Corpus Juris Civilis (a fundamental work in jurisprudence) is issued by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I.
611 – Maya king Uneh Chan of Calakmul sacks rival city-state Palenque in southern Mexico.
1141 – Empress Matilda became the first female ruler of England, adopting the title ‘Lady of the English’.
1348 – Charles University is founded in Prague.
1521 – Ferdinand Magellan arrives at Cebu.
1541 – Francis Xavier leaves Lisbon on a mission to the Portuguese East Indies.
1724 – Premiere performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St John Passion, BWV 245, at St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig.
1767 – End of Burmese–Siamese War (1765–67).
1776 – Captain John Barry and the USS Lexington captures the Edward.
1788 – American pioneers to the Northwest Territory establish Marietta, Ohio as the first permanent American settlement in the Northwest Territory.
1789 – Selim III became Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Caliph of Islam.
1798 – The Mississippi Territory is organized from disputed territory claimed by both the United States and Spain. It is expanded in 1804 and again in 1812.
1805 – Lewis and Clark Expedition: The Corps of Discovery breaks camp among the Mandan tribe and resumes its journey West along the Missouri River.
1805 – German composer Ludwig van Beethoven premiered his Third Symphony, at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.
1827 – John Walker, an English chemist, sells the first friction match that he had invented the previous year.
1829 – Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, commences translation of the Book of Mormon, with Oliver Cowdery as his scribe.
1831 – Emperor Pedro I of Brazil resigns. He goes to his native Portugal to become King Pedro IV.
1862 – American Civil War: The Union’s Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Ohio defeat the Confederate Army of Mississippi near Shiloh, Tennessee.
1868 – Thomas D’Arcy McGee, one of the Canadian Fathers of Confederation, is assassinated by a Fenian activist.
1890 – Completion of the first Lake Biwa Canal.
1906 – Mount Vesuvius erupts and devastates Naples.
1906 – The Algeciras Conference gives France and Spain control over Morocco.
1922 – The United States Secretary of the Interior leases federal petroleum reserves to private oil companies on excessively generous terms.
1927 – The first long-distance public television broadcast (from Washington, D.C., to New York City, displaying the image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover).
1933 – Prohibition in the United States is repealed for beer of no more than 3.2% alcohol by weight, eight months before the ratification of the XXI amendment. (Now celebrated as National Beer Day in the United States.)
1940 – Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.
1943 – The Holocaust in Ukraine: In Terebovlia, Germans order 1,100 Jews to undress and march through the city to the nearby village of Plebanivka, where they are shot and buried in ditches.
1943 – Ioannis Rallis becomes collaborationist Prime Minister of Greece during the Axis Occupation.
1945 – World War II: The battleship Yamato, one of the two largest ever constructed, is sunk by American aircraft during Operation Ten-Go.
1945 – World War II: Visoko is liberated by the 7th, 9th, and 17th Krajina brigades from the Tenth division of Yugoslav Partisan forces.
1948 – The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations.
1949 – The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific opened on Broadway; it would run for 1,925 performances and win ten Tony Awards.
1954 – United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his “domino theory” speech during a news conference.
1955 – Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom amid indications of failing health.
1964 – IBM announces the System/360.
1964 – A bulldozer kills Rev. Bruce W. Klunder, a civil rights activist, during a school segregation protest in Cleveland, Ohio, sparking a riot.
1965 – Representatives of the National Congress of American Indians testify before members of the US Senate against the termination of the Colville tribe in Washington DC.
1968 – Motor racing world champion Jim Clark is killed in an accident during a Formula Two race at Hockenheim.
1969 – The Internet’s symbolic birth date: Publication of RFC 1.
1971 – President Richard Nixon announces his decision to quicken the pace of Vietnamization.
1976 – Member of Parliament and suspected spy John Stonehouse resigns from the Labour Party (UK) after being arrested for faking his own death.
1977 – German Federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback and his driver are shot by two Red Army Faction members while waiting at a red light.
1978 – Development of the neutron bomb is canceled by President Jimmy Carter.
1980 – During the Iran hostage crisis, the United States severs relations with Iran.
1983 – During STS-6, astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson perform the first Space Shuttle spacewalk.
1989 – Soviet submarine Komsomolets sinks in the Barents Sea off the coast of Norway killing 42 sailors.
1990 – Iran–Contra affair: John Poindexter is found guilty of five charges for his part in the scandal (the conviction is later reversed on appeal).
1990 – A fire breaks out on the passenger ferry Scandinavian Star, killing 159 people.
1994 – Rwandan genocide: Massacres of Tutsis begin in Kigali, Rwanda.
1994 – Auburn Calloway attempts to destroy Federal Express Flight 705 in order to allow his family to benefit from his life insurance policy.
1995 – First Chechen War: Russian paramilitary troops begin a massacre of civilians in Samashki, Chechnya.
1999 – The World Trade Organization rules in favor of the United States in its long-running trade dispute with the European Union over bananas.
2001 – Mars Odyssey is launched.
2003 – U.S. troops capture Baghdad; Saddam Hussein’s regime falls two days later.
2009 – Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is sentenced to 25 years in prison for ordering killings and kidnappings by security forces.
2009 – Mass protests begin across Moldova under the belief that results from the parliamentary election are fraudulent.
2017 – A man deliberately drives a hijacked truck into a crowd of people, killing five people and injuring fifteen others.
Births on April 7
1206 – Otto II Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria (d. 1253)
1330 – John, 3rd Earl of Kent, English nobleman (d. 1352)
1470 – Edward Stafford, 2nd Earl of Wiltshire (d. 1498)
1506 – Francis Xavier, Spanish missionary and saint, co-founded the Society of Jesus (d. 1552)
1539 – Tobias Stimmer, Swiss painter and illustrator (d. 1584)
1613 – Gerrit Dou, Dutch painter (d. 1675)
1644 – François de Neufville, duc de Villeroy, French general (d. 1730)
1648 – John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, English poet and politician, Lord President of the Council (d. 1721)
1652 – Pope Clement XII (d. 1740)
1713 – Nicola Sala, Italian composer and theorist (d. 1801)
1718 – Hugh Blair, Scottish minister and author (d. 1800)
1727 – Michel Adanson, French botanist, entomologist, and mycologist (d. 1806)
1763 – Domenico Dragonetti, Italian bassist and composer (d. 1846)
1770 – William Wordsworth, English poet (d. 1850)
1772 – Charles Fourier, French philosopher and author (d. 1837)
1780 – William Ellery Channing, American preacher and theologian (d. 1842)
1803 – James Curtiss, American journalist and politician, 11th Mayor of Chicago (d. 1859)
1803 – Flora Tristan, French author and activist (d. 1844)
1811 – Hasan Tahsini, Albanian astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher (d. 1881)
1817 – Francesco Selmi, Italian chemist and patriot (d. 1881)
1848 – Randall Davidson, Scottish archbishop (d. 1930)
1859 – Walter Camp, American football player and coach (d. 1925)
1860 – Will Keith Kellogg, American businessman, founded the Kellogg Company (d. 1951)
1867 – Holger Pedersen, Danish linguist and academic (d. 1953)
1870 – Gustav Landauer, Jewish-German theorist and activist (d. 1919)
1871 – Epifanio de los Santos, Filipino jurist, historian, and scholar (d. 1927)
1873 – John McGraw, American baseball player and manager (d. 1934)
1874 – Frederick Carl Frieseke, German-American painter (d. 1939)
1876 – Fay Moulton, American sprinter, football player, coach, and lawyer (d. 1945)
1882 – Bert Ironmonger, Australian cricketer (d. 1971)
1882 – Kurt von Schleicher, German general and politician, 23rd Chancellor of Germany (d. 1934)
1883 – Gino Severini, Italian-French painter and author (d. 1966)
1884 – Clement Smoot, American golfer (d. 1963)
1886 – Ed Lafitte, American baseball player and soldier (d. 1971)
1889 – Gabriela Mistral, Chilean poet and educator, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1957)
1890 – Paul Berth, Danish footballer (d. 1969)
1890 – Marjory Stoneman Douglas, American journalist and activist (d. 1998)
1891 – Ole Kirk Christiansen, Danish businessman, founded the Lego Group (d. 1958)
1893 – Allen Dulles, American lawyer and diplomat, 5th Director of Central Intelligence (d. 1969)
1895 – John Flannagan, American soldier and sculptor (d. 1942)
1895 – Margarete Schön, German actress (d. 1985)
1896 – Frits Peutz, Dutch architect, designed the Glaspaleis (d. 1974)
1897 – Erich Löwenhardt, Polish-German lieutenant and pilot (d. 1918)
1897 – Walter Winchell, American journalist and radio host (d. 1972)
1899 – Robert Casadesus, French pianist and composer (d. 1972)
1900 – Adolf Dymsza, Polish actor (d. 1975)
1900 – Tebbs Lloyd Johnson, English race walker (d. 1984)
1902 – Eduard Eelma, Estonian footballer (d. 1941)
1903 – M. Balasundaram, Sri Lankan lawyer and politician (d. 1965)
1903 – Edwin T. Layton, American admiral (d. 1984)
1904 – Roland Wilson, Australian economist and statistician (d. 1996)
1908 – Percy Faith, Canadian composer, conductor, and bandleader (d. 1976)
1908 – Pete Zaremba, American hammer thrower (d. 1994)
1909 – Robert Charroux, French author and critic (d. 1978)
1913 – Louise Currie, American actress (d. 2013)
1913 – Charles Vanik, American soldier, judge, and politician (d. 2007)
1914 – Ralph Flanagan, American pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1995)
1915 – Stanley Adams, American actor and screenwriter (d. 1977)
1915 – Billie Holiday, American singer-songwriter and actress (d. 1959)
1915 – Henry Kuttner, American author (d. 1958)
1916 – Anthony Caruso, American actor (d. 2003)
1917 – R. G. Armstrong, American actor and playwright (d. 2012)
1918 – Bobby Doerr, American baseball player and coach (d. 2017)
1919 – Roger Lemelin, Canadian author and screenwriter (d. 1992)
1919 – Edoardo Mangiarotti, Italian fencer (d. 2012)
1920 – Ravi Shankar, Indian-American sitar player and composer (d. 2012)
1921 – Feza Gürsey, Turkish mathematician and physicist (d. 1992)
1922 – Mongo Santamaría, Cuban-American drummer (d. 2003)
1924 – Johannes Mario Simmel, Austrian-English author and screenwriter (d. 2009)
1925 – Chaturanan Mishra, Indian trade union leader and politician (d. 2011)
1925 – Jan van Roessel, Dutch footballer (d. 2011)
1927 – Babatunde Olatunji, Nigerian-American drummer, educator, and activist (d. 2003)
1927 – Leonid Shcherbakov, Russian triple jumper
1928 – James Garner, American actor, singer, and producer (d. 2014)
1928 – Alan J. Pakula, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1998)
1928 – James White, Northern Irish author and educator (d. 1999)
1929 – Bob Denard, French soldier (d. 2007)
1929 – Joe Gallo, American gangster (d. 1972)
1930 – Jane Priestman, English interior designer
1930 – Yves Rocher, French businessman, founded the Yves Rocher Company (d. 2009)
1930 – Andrew Sachs, German-English actor and screenwriter (d. 2016)
1930 – Roger Vergé, French chef and restaurateur (d. 2015)
1931 – Donald Barthelme, American short story writer and novelist (d. 1989)
1931 – Daniel Ellsberg, American activist and author
1932 – Cal Smith, American singer and guitarist (d. 2013)
1933 – Wayne Rogers, American actor, investor, and producer (d. 2015)
1933 – Sakıp Sabancı, Turkish businessman and philanthropist (d. 2004)
1934 – Ian Richardson, Scottish-English actor (d. 2007)
1935 – Bobby Bare, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1935 – Hodding Carter III, American journalist and politician, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs
1937 – Charlie Thomas, American singer
1938 – Jerry Brown, American lawyer and politician, 34th and 39th Governor of California
1938 – Spencer Dryden, American drummer (d. 2005)
1938 – Freddie Hubbard, American trumpet player and composer (d. 2008)
1938 – Iris Johansen, American author
1939 – Francis Ford Coppola, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1939 – David Frost, English journalist and game show host (d. 2013)
1939 – Gary Kellgren, American record producer, co-founded Record Plant (d. 1977)
1939 – Brett Whiteley, Australian painter (d. 1992)
1940 – Marju Lauristin, Estonian academic and politician, 1st Estonian Minister of Social Affairs
1941 – James Di Pasquale, American composer
1941 – Peter Fluck, English puppet maker and illustrator
1941 – Cornelia Frances, English-Australian actress (d. 2018)
1941 – Gorden Kaye, English actor (d. 2017)
1942 – Jeetendra, Indian actor, TV and film producer
1943 – Mick Abrahams, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1943 – Dennis Amiss, English cricketer and manager
1944 – Shel Bachrach, American insurance broker, investor, businessman and philanthropist
1944 – Warner Fusselle, American sportscaster (d. 2012)
1944 – Oshik Levi, Israeli singer and actor
1944 – Julia Phillips, American film producer and author (d. 2002)
1944 – Gerhard Schröder, German lawyer and politician, 7th Chancellor of Germany
1944 – Bill Stoneman, American baseball player and manager
1945 – Megas, Icelandic singer-songwriter
1945 – Gerry Cottle, English businessman
1945 – Marilyn Friedman, American philosopher and academic
1945 – Martyn Lewis, Welsh journalist and author
1945 – Joël Robuchon, French chef and author (d. 2018)
1945 – Werner Schroeter, German director and screenwriter (d. 2010)
1945 – Hans van Hemert, Dutch songwriter and producer
1946 – Zaid Abdul-Aziz, American basketball player
1946 – Colette Besson, French runner and educator (d. 2005)
1946 – Herménégilde Chiasson, Canadian poet, playwright, and politician, 29th Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick
1946 – Dimitrij Rupel, Slovenian politician and diplomate
1946 – Stan Winston, American special effects designer and makeup artist (d. 2008)
1947 – Patricia Bennett, American singer
1947 – Florian Schneider, German singer and drummer (d. 2020)
1947 – Michèle Torr, French singer and author
1948 – John Oates, American singer-songwriter guitarist, and producer
1949 – Mitch Daniels, American academic and politician, 49th Governor of Indiana
1950 – Brian J. Doyle, American press secretary
1951 – Bruce Gary, American drummer (d. 2006)
1951 – Janis Ian, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1952 – David Baulcombe, English geneticist and academic
1952 – Jane Frederick, American hurdler and heptathlete
1952 – Gilles Valiquette, Canadian actor, singer, and producer
1952 – Dennis Hayden, American actor
1953 – Santa Barraza, American mixed media artist
1953 – Douglas Kell, English biochemist and academic
1954 – Jackie Chan, Hong Kong martial artist, actor, stuntman, director, producer, and screenwriter
1954 – Tony Dorsett, American football player
1955 – Tim Cochran, American mathematician and academic (d. 2014)
1955 – Gregg Jarrett, American lawyer and journalist
1956 – Annika Billström, Swedish businesswoman and politician, 16th Mayor of Stockholm
1956 – Christopher Darden, American lawyer and author
1956 – Georg Werthner, Austrian decathlete
1957 – Kim Kap-soo, South Korean actor
1957 – Thelma Walker, British politician
1958 – Brian Haner, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1958 – Hindrek Kesler, Estonian architect
1960 – Buster Douglas, American boxer and actor
1960 – Sandy Powell, English costume designer
1961 – Thurl Bailey, American basketball player and actor
1961 – Pascal Olmeta, French footballer
1961 – Brigitte van der Burg, Tanzanian-Dutch geographer and politician
1962 – Jon Cruddas, English lawyer and politician
1962 – Andrew Hampsten, American cyclist
1963 – Jaime de Marichalar, Spanish businessman
1963 – Nick Herbert, English businessman and politician, Minister for Policing
1963 – Dave Johnson, American decathlete and educator
1964 – Jace Alexander, American actor and director
1964 – Russell Crowe, New Zealand-Australian actor
1964 – Steve Graves, Canadian ice hockey player
1965 – Bill Bellamy, American comedian, actor, and producer
1965 – Rozalie Hirs, Dutch composer and poet
1965 – Alison Lapper, English painter and photographer
1965 – Nenad Vučinić, Serbian-New Zealand basketball player and coach
1966 – Richard Gomez, Filipino actor and politician
845 – Paris is sacked by Viking raiders, probably under Ragnar Lodbrok, who collects a huge ransom in exchange for leaving.
1430 – The Ottoman Empire under Murad II captures Thessalonica from the Republic of Venice.
1461 – Battle of Towton: Edward of York defeats Queen Margaret to become King Edward IV of England, bringing a temporary stop to the Wars of the Roses.
1500 – Cesare Borgia is given the title of Captain-General and Gonfalonier by his father Rodrigo Borgia after returning from his conquests in the Romagna.
1549 – The city of Salvador da Bahia, the first capital of Brazil, is founded.
1632 – Treaty of Saint-Germain is signed returning Quebec to French control after the English had seized it in 1629.
1792 – King Gustav III of Sweden dies after being shot in the back at a midnight masquerade ball at Stockholm’s Royal Opera 13 days earlier. He is succeeded by Gustav IV Adolf.
1806 – Construction is authorized of the Great National Pike, better known as the Cumberland Road, becoming the first United States federal highway.
1809 – King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden abdicates after a coup d’état. At the Diet of Porvoo, Finland’s four Estates pledge allegiance to Alexander I of Russia, commencing the secession of the Grand Duchy of Finland from Sweden.
1831 – Great Bosnian uprising: Bosniaks rebel against Turkey.
1847 – Mexican–American War: United States forces led by General Winfield Scott take Veracruz after a siege.
1849 – The United Kingdom annexes the Punjab.
1857 – Sepoy Mangal Pandey of the 34th Regiment, Bengal Native Infantry mutinies against the East India Company’s rule in India and inspires the protracted Indian Rebellion of 1857, also known as the Sepoy Mutiny.
1865 – American Civil War: Federal forces under Major General Philip Sheridan move to flank Confederate forces under Robert E. Lee as the Appomattox Campaign begins.
1867 – Queen Victoria gives Royal Assent to the British North America Act which establishes Canada on July 1.
1871 – Royal Albert Hall is opened by Queen Victoria.
1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: Battle of Kambula: British forces defeat 20,000 Zulus.
1882 – The Knights of Columbus is established.
1886 – John Pemberton brews the first batch of Coca-Cola in a backyard in Atlanta.
1911 – The M1911 .45 ACP pistol becomes the official U.S. Army side arm.
1927 – Sunbeam 1000hp breaks the land speed record at Daytona Beach, Florida.
1930 – Heinrich Brüning is appointed German Reichskanzler.
1936 – Adolf Hitler receives 99% of the votes in the 1936 German parliamentary election and referendum.
1941 – The North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement goes into effect at 03:00 local time.
1941 – World War II: British Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy forces defeat those of the Italian Regia Marina off the Peloponnesian coast of Greece in the Battle of Cape Matapan.
1942 – The Bombing of Lübeck in World War II is the first major success for the RAF Bomber Command against Germany and a German city.
1945 – World War II: Last day of V-1 flying bomb attacks on England.
1945 – World War II: The German 4th Army is almost destroyed by the Soviet Red Army.
1946 – Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, one of Mexico’s leading universities, is founded.
1947 – Malagasy Uprising against French colonial rule in Madagascar.
1951 – Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage.
1957 – The New York, Ontario and Western Railway makes its final run, the first major U.S. railroad to be abandoned in its entirety.
1961 – The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington, D.C., to vote in presidential elections.
1962 – Arturo Frondizi, the president of Argentina, is overthrown in a military coup by Argentina’s armed forces, ending an 111⁄2 day constitutional crisis.
1971 – My Lai Massacre: Lieutenant William Calley is convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison.
1973 – Vietnam War: The last United States combat soldiers leave South Vietnam.
1973 – Operation Barrel Roll, a covert American bombing campaign in Laos to stop communist infiltration of South Vietnam, ends.
1974 – NASA’s Mariner 10 becomes the first space probe to fly by Mercury.
1974 – Terracotta Army was discovered in Shaanxi province, China.
1982 – The Canada Act 1982 receives the Royal Assent from Queen Elizabeth II, setting the stage for the Queen of Canada to proclaim the Constitution Act, 1982.
1984 – The Baltimore Colts load its possessions onto fifteen Mayflower moving trucks in the early morning hours and transfer its operations to Indianapolis.
1990 – The Czechoslovak parliament is unable to reach an agreement on what to call the country after the fall of Communism, sparking the so-called Hyphen War.
1993 – Catherine Callbeck becomes premier of Prince Edward Island and the first woman to be elected in a general election as premier of a Canadian province.
1999 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 mark (10,006.78) for the first time, during the height of the dot-com bubble.
1999 – A magnitude 6.8 earthquake in India strikes the Chamoli district in Uttar Pradesh, killing 103.
2002 – In reaction to the Passover massacre two days prior, Israel launches Operation Defensive Shield against Palestinian militants, its largest military operation in the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War.
2004 – Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia join NATO as full members.
2010 – Two suicide bombers hit the Moscow Metro system at the peak of the morning rush hour, killing 40.
2013 – At least 36 people are killed when a 16-floor building collapses in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
2014 – The first same-sex marriages in England and Wales are performed.
Births on March 29
1001 – Sokkate, king of the Pagan dynasty of Burma (d. 1044)
1187 – Arthur I, Duke of Brittany (d. 1203)
1373 – Marie d’Alençon, French princess (d. 1417)
1517 – Carlo Carafa, Italian cardinal (d. 1561)
1553 – Vitsentzos Kornaros, Greek poet and playwright (d. 1614)
1561 – Santorio Santorio, Italian biologist (d. 1636)
1584 – Ferdinando Fairfax, 2nd Lord Fairfax of Cameron, English general and politician (d. 1648)
1602 – John Lightfoot, English priest, scholar, and academic (d. 1675)
1620 – Edward Digges, English barrister and colonist
1629 – Alexis of Russia, Tsar of Russia (d. 1676)
1713 – John Ponsonby, Irish politician (d. 1789)
1735 – Johann Karl August Musäus, German author (d. 1787)
1747 – Johann Wilhelm Hässler, German pianist and composer (d. 1822)
1769 – Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult, French general and politician, 12th Prime Minister of France (d. 1851)
1780 – Jørgen Jørgensen, Danish adventurer (d. 1841)
1790 – John Tyler, American lawyer and politician, 10th President of the United States (d. 1862)
1799 – Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1869)
1802 – Johann Moritz Rugendas, German landscape painter of Spanish America (d. 1858)
1816 – 10th Dalai Lama (d. 1837)
1824 – Ludwig Büchner, German physiologist, physician, and philosopher (d. 1899)
1826 – Wilhelm Liebknecht, German journalist and politician (d. 1900)
1862 – Adolfo Müller-Ury, Swiss-American painter (d. 1947)
1863 – Walter James, Australian politician, 5th Premier of Western Australia (d. 1943)
1867 – Cy Young, American baseball player and manager (d. 1955)
1869 – Aleš Hrdlička, Czech-American anthropologist and scholar (d. 1943)
1869 – Sir Edwin Lutyens, British architect (d. 1944)
1870 – Pavlos Melas, French-Greek captain (d. 1904)
1871 – Tom Hayward, English cricketer (d. 1939)
1872 – Hal Colebatch, English-Australian politician, 12th Premier of Western Australia (d. 1953)
1873 – Tullio Levi-Civita, Jewish-Italian mathematician and academic (d. 1941)
1874 – Lou Henry Hoover, American wife of Herbert Hoover, 33rd First Lady of the United States (d. 1944)
1876 – Friedrich Traun, German sprinter and tennis player (d. 1908)
1884 – Ed Archibald, Canadian pole vaulter (d. 1965)
1885 – Dezső Kosztolányi, Hungarian author and poet (d. 1936)
1888 – Enea Bossi, Sr., Italian-American engineer, designed the Budd BB-1 Pioneer and Bossi-Bonomi Pedaliante (d. 1963)
1889 – Warner Baxter, American actor (d. 1951)
1889 – Howard Lindsay, American producer, playwright, librettist, director and actor (d. 1968)
1890 – Bert Bliss, English international footballer, inside forward (d. 1968)
1891 – Yvan Goll, French-German poet and playwright (d. 1950)
1891 – Alfred Neubauer, Austrian race car driver and manager (d. 1980)
1892 – József Mindszenty, Hungarian cardinal (d. 1975)
1893 – Astrid Holm, Danish actress (d. 1961)
1895 – Ernst Jünger, German philosopher and author (d. 1998)
1896 – Wilhelm Ackermann, German mathematician (d. 1962)
1899 – Lavrentiy Beria, Georgian-Russian general and politician (d. 1953)
1900 – Bill Aston, English race car driver (d. 1974)
1900 – John McEwen, Australian farmer and politician, 18th Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1980)
1902 – Marcel Aymé, French author, playwright, and screenwriter (d. 1967)
1902 – Don Miller, American football player and coach (d. 1979)
1902 – William Walton, English composer (d. 1983)
1903 – Douglas Harkness, Canadian colonel and politician, 14th Canadian Minister of National Defence (d. 1999)
1906 – James Bausch, American decathlete and football player (d. 1974)
1907 – Braguinha, Brazilian singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2006)
1908 – Arthur O’Connell, American actor (d. 1981)
1908 – Dennis O’Keefe, American actor and screenwriter (d. 1968)
1909 – Moon Mullican, American country and western singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 1967)
1912 – Hanna Reitsch, German soldier and pilot (d. 1979)
1914 – Phil Foster, American actor (d. 1985)
1914 – Chapman Pincher, Indian-English historian, journalist, and author (d. 2014)
1916 – Peter Geach, English philosopher and academic (d. 2013)
1916 – Eugene McCarthy, American poet and politician (d. 2005)
1917 – Tommy Holmes, American baseball player (d. 2008)
1918 – Pearl Bailey, American actress and singer (d. 1990)
1918 – Lê Văn Thiêm, Vietnamese mathematician and academic (d. 1991)
1918 – Sam Walton, American businessman, founded Walmart and Sam’s Club (d. 1992)
1919 – Eileen Heckart, American actress (d. 2001)
1920 – John M. Belk, American businessman and politician (d. 2007)
1920 – Clarke Fraser, American-Canadian geneticist and academic (d. 2014)
1920 – Pierre Moinot, French author (d. 2007)
1920 – Theodore Trautwein, American lawyer and judge (d. 2000)
1921 – Sam Loxton, Australian cricketer, footballer, and politician (d. 2011)
1923 – Geoff Duke, English-Manx motorcycle racer (d. 2015)
1923 – Betty Binns Fletcher, American lawyer and judge (d. 2012)
1923 – Bob Haymes, American singer-songwriter, and actor (d. 1989)
1926 – Moshe Sanbar, Hungarian-Israeli banker and economist (d. 2012)
1927 – John McLaughlin, American journalist and producer (d. 2016)
1927 – John Vane, English pharmacologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2004)
1928 – Romesh Bhandari, Pakistani-Indian politician, 13th Foreign Secretary of India (d. 2013)
1928 – Keith Botsford, Belgian-American journalist, author, and academic (d. 2018)
1928 – Vincent Gigante, American boxer and mobster (d. 2005)
1929 – Sheila Kitzinger, English activist, author, and academic (d. 2015)
1929 – Richard Lewontin, American biologist, geneticist, and academic
1929 – Lennart Meri, Estonian director and politician, 2nd President of Estonia (d. 2006)
1929 – Utpal Dutt, Indian Bengali actor, director and playwright (d. 1993)
1930 – Anerood Jugnauth, Mauritian lawyer and politician, 4th President of Mauritius
1931 – Ștefan Andrei, Romanian politician, 87th Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs (d. 2014)
1931 – Sopubek Begaliev, Kyrgyzstani economist and politician (d. 2002)
1931 – Aleksei Gubarev, Russian general, pilot, and astronaut (d. 2015)
1931 – Norman Tebbit, English journalist and politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
1933 – Jacques Brault, Canadian poet and academic
1934 – Shahryar Khan, Indian-Pakistani politician and diplomat, 20th Foreign Secretary of Pakistan
1936 – Richard Rodney Bennett, English-American composer and educator (d. 2012)
1936 – Mogens Camre, Danish politician (d. 2016)
1936 – John A. Durkin, American lawyer and politician (d. 2012)
1936 – Judith Guest, American author and screenwriter
1936 – Joseph P. Teasdale, American lawyer and politician, 48th Governor of Missouri (d. 2014)
1937 – Roberto Chabet, Filipino painter and sculptor (d. 2013)
1937 – Smarck Michel, Haitian businessman and politician, 6th Prime Minister of Haiti (d. 2012)
1937 – Gordon Milne, English footballer
1938 – Bert de Vries, Dutch politician
1939 – Roland Arnall, French-American businessman and diplomat, 63rd United States Ambassador to the Netherlands (d. 2008)
1939 – Terence Hill, Italian actor, director, and producer
12 BCE – The Roman Emperor Augustus is named Pontifex Maximus, incorporating the position into that of the emperor.
632 – The Farewell Sermon (Khutbah, Khutbatul Wada’) of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
845 – Execution of the 42 Martyrs of Amorium at Samarra.
961 – Byzantine conquest of Chandax by Nikephoros Phokas, end of the Emirate of Crete.
1204 – The Siege of Château Gaillard ends in a French victory over King John of England, who loses control of Normandy to King Philip II Augustus.
1323 – Treaty of Paris of 1323 is signed.
1454 – Thirteen Years’ War: Delegates of the Prussian Confederation pledge allegiance to King Casimir IV of Poland who agrees to commit his forces in aiding the Confederation’s struggle for independence from the Teutonic Knights.
1521 – Ferdinand Magellan arrives at Guam.
1665 – The first joint Secretary of the Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg, publishes the first issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the world’s longest-running scientific journal.
1788 – The First Fleet arrives at Norfolk Island in order to found a convict settlement.
1820 – The Missouri Compromise is signed into law by President James Monroe. The compromise allows Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, brings Maine into the Union as a free state, and makes the rest of the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase territory slavery-free.
1834 – York, Upper Canada, is incorporated as Toronto.
1836 – Texas Revolution: Battle of the Alamo: After a thirteen-day siege by an army of 3,000 Mexican troops, the 187 Texas volunteers, including frontiersman Davy Crockett and colonel Jim Bowie, defending the Alamo are killed and the fort is captured.
1857 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case.
1869 – Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society.
1882 – The Serbian kingdom is re-founded.
1899 – Bayer registers “Aspirin” as a trademark.
1902 – Real Madrid CF is founded.
1912 – Italo-Turkish War: Italian forces become the first to use airships in war, as two dirigibles drop bombs on Turkish troops encamped at Janzur, from an altitude of 6,000 feet.
1921 – Portuguese Communist Party is founded as the Portuguese Section of the Communist International.
1930 – International Unemployment Day demonstrations globally initiated by the Comintern.
1933 – Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a “bank holiday”, closing all U.S. banks and freezing all financial transactions.
1943 – Norman Rockwell published Freedom from Want in The Saturday Evening Post with a matching essay by Carlos Bulosan as part of the Four Freedoms series.
1943 – World War II: The Battle of Fardykambos, one of the first major battles between the Greek Resistance and the occupying Royal Italian Army, ends with the surrender of an entire Italian battalion, the bulk of the garrison of the town of Grevena, leading to its liberation a fortnight later.
1944 – World War II: Soviet Air Forces bomb an evacuated town of Narva in German-occupied Estonia, destroying the entire historical Swedish-era town.
1945 – World War II: Cologne is captured by American troops. On the same day, Operation Spring Awakening, the last major German offensive of the war, begins.
1946 – Ho Chi Minh signs an agreement with France which recognizes Vietnam as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union.
1951 – Cold War: The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins.
1953 – Georgy Malenkov succeeds Joseph Stalin as Premier of the Soviet Union and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
1957 – Ghana becomes the first Sub-Saharan country to gain independence from the British.
1964 – Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad officially gives boxing champion Cassius Clay the name Muhammad Ali.
1964 – Constantine II becomes King of Greece.
1965 – Premier Tom Playford of South Australia loses power after 27 years in office.
1967 – Cold War: Joseph Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defects to the United States.
1968 – Three rebels are executed by Rhodesia, the first executions since UDI, prompting international condemnation.
1970 – An explosion at the Weather Underground safe house in Greenwich Village kills three.
1975 – For the first time the Zapruder film of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is shown in motion to a national TV audience by Robert J. Groden and Dick Gregory.
1975 – Algiers Accord: Iran and Iraq announce a settlement of their border dispute.
1983 – The first United States Football League games are played.
1984 – In the United Kingdom, a walkout at Cortonwood Colliery in Brampton Bierlow signals the start of a strike that lasted almost a year and involved the majority of the country’s miners.
1987 – The British ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes in about 90 seconds, killing 193.
1988 – Three Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers are shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in Operation Flavius.
1992 – The Michelangelo computer virus begins to affect computers.
2003 – Air Algérie Flight 6289 crashes at the Aguenar – Hadj Bey Akhamok Airport in Tamanrasset, Algeria, killing 102 out of the 103 people on board.
2008 – A suicide bomber kills 68 people (including first responders) in Baghdad on the same day that a gunman kills eight students in Jerusalem.
Births on March 6
1340 – John of Gaunt (d. 1399)
1405 – John II of Castile (d. 1454)
1459 – Jakob Fugger, German merchant and banker (d. 1525)
1475 – Michelangelo, Italian painter and sculptor (d. 1564)
1483 – Francesco Guicciardini, Italian historian and politician (d. 1540)
1493 – Juan Luis Vives, Spanish scholar and humanist (d. 1540)
1495 – Luigi Alamanni, Italian poet and diplomat (d. 1556)
1536 – Santi di Tito, Italian painter (d. 1603)
1619 – Cyrano de Bergerac, French author and playwright (d. 1655)
1663 – Francis Atterbury, English bishop and poet (d. 1732)
1706 – George Pocock, English admiral (d. 1792)
1716 – Pehr Kalm, Swedish-Finnish botanist and explorer (d. 1779)
1724 – Henry Laurens, English-American merchant and politician, 5th President of the Continental Congress (d. 1792)
1761 – Antoine-François Andréossy, French general and diplomat (d. 1828)
1779 – Antoine-Henri Jomini, Swiss-French general (d. 1869)
1780 – Lucy Barnes, American writer (d. 1809)
1785 – Karol Kurpiński, Polish composer and conductor (d. 1857)
1787 – Joseph von Fraunhofer, German physicist and astronomer (d. 1826)
1806 – Elizabeth Barrett Browning, English-Italian poet and translator (d. 1861)
1812 – Aaron Lufkin Dennison, American businessman, co-founded the Waltham Watch Company (d. 1895)
1817 – Princess Clémentine of Orléans (d. 1907)
1818 – William Claflin, American businessman and politician, 27th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1905)
1823 – Charles I of Württemberg (d. 1891)
1831 – Philip Sheridan, Irish-American general (d. 1888)
1834 – George du Maurier, French-English author and illustrator (d. 1896)
1841 – Viktor Burenin, Russian author, poet, playwright, and critic (d. 1926)
1849 – Georg Luger, Austrian gun designer, designed the Luger pistol (d. 1923)
1864 – Richard Rushall, British businessman (d. 1953)
1870 – Oscar Straus, Viennese composer and conductor (d. 1954)
1871 – Afonso Costa, Portuguese lawyer and politician, 59th Prime Minister of Portugal (d. 1937)
1872 – Ben Harney, American pianist and composer (d. 1938)
1879 – Jimmy Hunter, New Zealand rugby player (d. 1962)
1882 – F. Burrall Hoffman, American architect, co-designed Villa Vizcaya (d. 1980)
1882 – Guy Kibbee, American actor and singer (d. 1956)
1884 – Molla Mallory, Norwegian-American tennis player (d. 1959)
1885 – Ring Lardner, American journalist and author (d. 1933)
1886 – Jam Handy, American swimmer and water polo player (d. 1983)
1886 – Nella Walker, American actress and vaudevillian (d. 1971)
1892 – Bert Smith, English international footballer, right half (d. 1969)
1893 – Furry Lewis, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1981)
1893 – Ella P. Stewart, pioneering Black American pharmacist (d. 1987)
1895 – Albert Tessier, Canadian priest and historian (d. 1976)
1898 – Gus Sonnenberg, American football player and wrestler (d. 1944)
1900 – Gina Cigna, French-Italian soprano and actress (d. 2001)
1900 – Lefty Grove, American baseball player (d. 1975)
1900 – Henri Jeanson, French journalist and author (d. 1970)
1903 – Empress Kōjun of Japan (d. 2000)
1904 – José Antonio Aguirre, Spanish lawyer and politician, 1st President of the Basque Country (d. 1960)
1905 – Bob Wills, American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader (d. 1975)
1906 – Lou Costello, American actor and comedian (d. 1959)
1909 – Obafemi Awolowo, Nigerian lawyer and politician (d. 1987)
1909 – Stanisław Jerzy Lec, Polish poet and author (d. 1966)
1910 – Ella Logan, Scottish-American singer and actress (d. 1969)
1912 – Mohammed Burhanuddin, Indian spiritual leader, 52nd Da’i al-Mutlaq (d. 2014)
1917 – Donald Davidson, American philosopher and academic (d. 2003)
1917 – Will Eisner, American illustrator and publisher (d. 2005)
1917 – Frankie Howerd, English comedian (d. 1992)
1918 – Howard McGhee, American trumpeter (d. 1987)
1920 – Lewis Gilbert, English director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2018)
1921 – Leo Bretholz, Austrian-American holocaust survivor and author (d. 2014)
1923 – Ed McMahon, American comedian, game show host, and announcer (d. 2009)
1923 – Wes Montgomery, American guitarist and songwriter (d. 1968)
1924 – Ottmar Walter, German footballer (d. 2013)
1924 – William H. Webster, American lawyer and jurist, 14th Director of Central Intelligence
1926 – Ann Curtis, American swimmer (d. 2012)
1926 – Alan Greenspan, American economist and politician
1926 – Ray O’Connor, Australian politician, 22nd Premier of Western Australia (d. 2013)
1926 – Andrzej Wajda, Polish director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2016)
1927 – William J. Bell, American screenwriter and producer (d. 2005)
1927 – Gordon Cooper, American engineer, pilot, and astronaut (d. 2004)
1927 – Gabriel García Márquez, Colombian journalist and author, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2014)
1929 – Tom Foley, American lawyer and politician, 57th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (d. 2013)
1929 – David Sheppard, English cricketer and bishop (d. 2005)
1930 – Lorin Maazel, French-American violinist, composer, and conductor (d. 2014)
1932 – Marc Bazin, Haitian lawyer and politician, 49th President of Haiti (d. 2010)
1932 – Bronisław Geremek, Polish historian and politician, Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs (d. 2008)
1933 – Ted Abernathy, American baseball player (d. 2004)
1933 – William Davis, German-English journalist and economist (d. 2019)
1933 – Augusto Odone, Italian economist and inventor of Lorenzo’s oil (d. 2013)
1934 – Red Simpson, American singer-songwriter (d. 2016)
1935 – Ron Delany, Irish runner and coach
1935 – Derek Kevan, English footballer (d. 2013)
1936 – Bob Akin, American race car driver and journalist (d. 2002)
1936 – Marion Barry, American lawyer and politician, 2nd Mayor of the District of Columbia (d. 2014)
1936 – Choummaly Sayasone, Laotian politician, 5th President of Laos
1937 – Ivan Boesky, American businessman
1937 – Valentina Tereshkova, Russian general, pilot, and astronaut
1938 – Keishu Tanaka, Japanese politician, 17th Japanese Minister of Justice
1939 – Kit Bond, American lawyer and politician, 47th Governor of Missouri
1939 – Adam Osborne, Thai-Indian engineer and businessman, founded the Osborne Computer Corporation (d. 2003)
1940 – Ken Danby, Canadian painter (d. 2007)
1940 – Joanna Miles, French-born American actress
1940 – R. H. Sikes, American golfer
1940 – Willie Stargell, American baseball player and coach (d. 2001)
1940 – Jeff Wooller, English accountant and banker
1941 – Peter Brötzmann, German saxophonist and clarinet player
1941 – Marilyn Strathern, Welsh anthropologist and academic
1942 – Ben Murphy, American actor
1944 – Richard Corliss, American journalist and critic (d. 2015)
1944 – Kiri Te Kanawa, New Zealand soprano and actress
1944 – Mary Wilson, American singer
1945 – Angelo Castro, Jr., Filipino actor and journalist (d. 2012)
1946 – David Gilmour, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1946 – Richard Noble, Scottish race car driver and businessman
1947 – Kiki Dee, English singer-songwriter
1947 – Dick Fosbury, American high jumper
1947 – Anna Maria Horsford, American actress
1947 – Rob Reiner, American actor, director, producer, and activist
1947 – Jean Seaton, English historian and academic
1947 – John Stossel, American journalist and author
1948 – Stephen Schwartz, American composer and producer
1949 – Shaukat Aziz, Pakistani economist and politician, 15th Prime Minister of Pakistan
1949 – Martin Buchan, Scottish footballer and manager
1950 – Arthur Roche, English archbishop
1951 – Gerrie Knetemann, Dutch cyclist (d. 2004)
1952 – Denis Napthine, Australian politician, 47th Premier of Victoria
1953 – Madhav Kumar Nepal, Nepali banker and politician, 34th Prime Minister of Nepal
1953 – Carolyn Porco, American astronomer and academic
1953 – Phil Alvin, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1954 – Jeff Greenwald, American author, photographer, and monologist
1954 – Harald Schumacher, German footballer and manager
1955 – Cyprien Ntaryamira, Burundian politician, 5th President of Burundi (d. 1994)
1955 – Alberta Watson, Canadian actress (d. 2015)
1956 – Peter Roebuck, English cricketer, journalist, and sportcaster (d. 2011)
1956 – Steve Vizard, Australian television host, actor, and producer
1960 – Sleepy Floyd, American basketball player and coach
1962 – Alison Nicholas, British golfer
1963 – D. L. Hughley, American actor, producer, and screenwriter
1964 – Linda Pearson, Scottish sport shooter
1965 – Allan Bateman, Welsh rugby player
1965 – Jim Knight, English politician
1966 – Alan Davies, English comedian, actor and screenwriter
1967 – Julio Bocca, Argentinian ballet dancer and director
1967 – Connie Britton, American actress
1967 – Glenn Greenwald, American journalist and author
1967 – Shuler Hensley, American actor and singer
1968 – Moira Kelly, American actress and director
1971 – Darrick Martin, American basketball player and coach
1972 – Shaquille O’Neal, American basketball player, actor, and rapper
1972 – Jaret Reddick, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
1973 – Michael Finley, American basketball player
1973 – Peter Lindgren, Swedish guitarist and songwriter
1973 – Greg Ostertag, American basketball player
1973 – Trent Willmon, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1974 – Guy Garvey, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1974 – Matthew Guy, Australian politician
1974 – Brad Schumacher, American swimmer
1974 – Beanie Sigel, American rapper
1975 – Aracely Arámbula, Mexican actress and singer
1975 – Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Canadian pianist and conductor
1976 – Ken Anderson, American wrestler and actor
1977 – Nantie Hayward, South African cricketer
1977 – Giorgos Karagounis, Greek international footballer, midfielder
1977 – Shabani Nonda, DR Congolese footballer
1977 – Marcus Thames, American baseball player and coach
2014 – Martin Nesbitt, American lawyer and politician (b. 1946)
2014 – Manlio Sgalambro, Italian philosopher, author, and poet (b. 1924)
2015 – Fred Craddock, American minister and academic (b. 1928)
2015 – Ram Sundar Das, Indian lawyer and politician, 18th Chief Minister of Bihar (b. 1921)
2015 – Enrique “Coco” Vicéns, Puerto Rican-American basketball player and politician (b. 1926)
2016 – Nancy Reagan, American actress, 42nd First Lady of the United States (b. 1921)
2016 – Sheila Varian, American horse trainer and breeder (b. 1937)
2017 – Robert Osborne, American actor and historian (b. 1932)
2018 – Peter Nicholls, Australian science fiction critic and encyclopedist (b. 1939)
Holidays and observances on March 6
Christian feast day:
Chrodegang
Colette
Fridolin
Kyneburga, Kyneswide and Tibba
Marcian of Tortona
William W. Mayo and Charles Frederick Menninger (Episcopal Church (USA))
Olegarius
March 6 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
European Day of the Righteous, commemorates those who have stood up against crimes against humanity and totalitarism with their own moral responsibility. (Europe)
Foundation Day (Norfolk Island), the founding of Norfolk Island in 1788.
Independence Day (Ghana), celebrates the independence of Ghana from the UK in 1957.
The Day of the Dude, celebrated by the adherents of Dudeism
705 – Empress Wu Zetian abdicates the throne, restoring the Tang dynasty.
1316 – The Battle of Picotin, between Ferdinand of Majorca and the forces of Matilda of Hainaut, ends in victory for Ferdinand.
1371 – Robert II becomes King of Scotland, beginning the Stuart dynasty.
1495 – King Charles VIII of France enters Naples to claim the city’s throne.
1632 – Ferdinando II de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, the dedicatee, receives the first printed copy of Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems .
1651 – St. Peter’s Flood: A storm surge floods the Frisian coast, drowning 15,000 people.
1744 – War of the Austrian Succession: The Battle of Toulon causes several Royal Navy captains to be court-martialed, and the Articles of War to be amended.
1797 – The last Invasion of Britain begins near Fishguard, Wales.
1819 – By the Adams–Onís Treaty, Spain sells Florida to the United States for five million U.S. dollars.
1821 – Greek War of Independence: Alexander Ypsilantis crosses the Prut river at Sculeni into the Danubian Principalities.
1847 – Mexican–American War: The Battle of Buena Vista: Five thousand American troops defeat 15,000 Mexican troops.
1848 – The French Revolution of 1848, which would lead to the establishment of the French Second Republic, begins.
1853 – Washington University in St. Louis is founded as Eliot Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.
1855 – The Pennsylvania State University is founded in State College, Pennsylvania (as the Farmers’ High School of Pennsylvania).
1856 – The United States Republican Party opens its first national convention in Pittsburgh.
1862 – Jefferson Davis is officially inaugurated for a six-year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia. He was previously inaugurated as a provisional president on February 18, 1861.
1872 – The Prohibition Party holds its first national convention in Columbus, Ohio, nominating James Black as its presidential nominee.
1878 – In Utica, New York, Frank Woolworth opens the first of many of five-and-dime Woolworth stores.
1889 – President Grover Cleveland signs a bill admitting North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington as U.S. states.
1899 – Filipino forces led by General Antonio Luna launch counterattacks for the first time against the American forces during the Philippine–American War. The Filipinos fail to regain Manila from the Americans.
1904 – The United Kingdom sells a meteorological station on the South Orkney Islands to Argentina; the islands are subsequently claimed by the United Kingdom in 1908.
1909 – The sixteen battleships of the Great White Fleet, led by USS Connecticut, return to the United States after a voyage around the world.
1915 – World War I: The Imperial German Navy institutes unrestricted submarine warfare.
1921 – After Russian forces under Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg drive the Chinese out, the Bogd Khan is reinstalled as the emperor of Mongolia.
1942 – World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as the Japanese victory becomes inevitable.
1943 – World War II: Members of the White Rose resistance, Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst are executed in Nazi Germany.
1944 – World War II: American aircraft mistakenly bomb the Dutch towns of Nijmegen, Arnhem, Enschede and Deventer, resulting in 800 dead in Nijmegen alone.
1944 – World War II: The Soviet Red Army recaptures Krivoi Rog.
1946 – The “Long Telegram”, proposing how the United States should deal with the Soviet Union, arrives from the US embassy in Moscow.
1957 – Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam survives a communist shooting assassination attempt in Buôn Ma Thuột.
1958 – Egypt and Syria join to form the United Arab Republic.
1959 – Lee Petty wins the first Daytona 500.
1972 – The Official Irish Republican Army detonates a car bomb at Aldershot barracks, killing seven and injuring nineteen others.
1973 – Cold War: Following President Richard Nixon’s visit to the People’s Republic of China, the two countries agree to establish liaison offices.
1974 – The Organisation of the Islamic Conference summit begins in Lahore, Pakistan. Thirty-seven countries attend and twenty-two heads of state and government participate. It also recognizes Bangladesh.
1974 – Samuel Byck attempts to hijack an aircraft at Baltimore/Washington International Airport with the intention of crashing it into the White House to assassinate Richard Nixon, but is killed by police.
1980 – Miracle on Ice: In Lake Placid, New York, the United States hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4–3.
1983 – The notorious Broadway flop Moose Murders opens and closes on the same night at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre.
1984 – President of Bangladesh, H M Ershad upgraded South Sylhet’s sub-division status to a district and renamed it back to Moulvibazar.
1986 – Start of the People Power Revolution in the Philippines.
1994 – Aldrich Ames and his wife are charged by the United States Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union.
1995 – The Corona reconnaissance satellite program, in existence from 1959 to 1972, is declassified.
1997 – In Roslin, Midlothian, British scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly has been successfully cloned.
2002 – Angolan political and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi is killed in a military ambush.
2005 – The 6.4 Mw Zarand earthquake shakes the Kerman Province of Iran with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), leaving 612 people dead and 1,411 injured.
2006 – At least six men stage Britain’s biggest robbery, stealing £53m (about $92.5 million or €78 million) from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent.
2011 – New Zealand’s second deadliest earthquake strikes Christchurch, killing 185 people.
2011 – Bahraini uprising: Tens of thousands of people march in protest against the deaths of seven victims killed by police and army forces during previous protests.
2012 – A train crash in Buenos Aires, Argentina, kills 51 people and injures 700 others.
2014 – President Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine is impeached by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by a vote of 328–0, fulfilling a major goal of the Euromaidan rebellion.
2015 – A ferry carrying 100 passengers capsizes in the Padma River, killing 70 people.
2018 – A man throws a grenade at the U.S embassy in Podgorica, Montenegro. He dies at the scene from a second explosion, with no one else hurt.
Births on February 22
1028 – Al-Juwayni, Persian jurist and theologian (died 1085)
1040 – Rashi, French rabbi and author (d. 1105)
1302 – Gegeen Khan, Emperor Yingzong of Yuan (d. 1323)
1403 – Charles VII of France (d. 1461)
1440 – Ladislaus the Posthumous, Hungarian king (d. 1457)
1500 – Rodolfo Pio da Carpi, Italian cardinal (d. 1564)
1514 – Tahmasp I, Iranian shah (d. 1576)
1520 – Moses Isserles, Polish rabbi (d. 1572)
1550 – Charles de Ligne, 2nd Prince of Arenberg (d. 1616)
1592 – Nicholas Ferrar, English scholar (d. 1637)
1631 – Peder Syv, Danish historian (d. 1702)
1649 – Bon Boullogne, French painter (d. 1717)
1715 – Charles-Nicolas Cochin, French artist (d. 1790)
1732 – George Washington, American general and politician, 1st President of the United States (d. 1799)
1749 – Johann Nikolaus Forkel, German musicologist and theorist (d. 1818)
1778 – Rembrandt Peale, American painter and curator (d. 1860)
1788 – Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher and author (d. 1860)
1796 – Alexis Bachelot, French priest and missionary (d. 1837)
1796 – Adolphe Quetelet, Belgian mathematician, astronomer, and sociologist (d. 1874)
1805 – Sarah Fuller Flower Adams, English poet and hymnwriter (d. 1848)
1806 – Józef Kremer, Polish historian and philosopher (d. 1875)
1817 – Carl Wilhelm Borchardt, German mathematician and academic (d. 1880)
1819 – James Russell Lowell, American poet and critic (d. 1891)
1824 – Pierre Janssen, French astronomer and mathematician (d. 1907)
1825 – Jean-Baptiste Salpointe, French-American archbishop (d. 1898)
1836 – Mahesh Chandra Nyayratna Bhattacharyya, Indian scholar and academic (d. 1906)
1840 – August Bebel, German theorist and politician (d. 1913)
1849 – Nikolay Yakovlevich Sonin, Russian mathematician and academic (d. 1915)
1857 – Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, English general, co-founded The Scout Association (d. 1941)
1857 – Heinrich Hertz, German physicist, philosopher, and academic (d. 1894)
1860 – Mary W. Bacheler, American physician and Baptist medical missionary (d. 1939)
1863 – Charles McLean Andrews, American historian, author, and academic (d. 1943)
1864 – Jules Renard, French author and playwright (d. 1910)
1876 – Zitkala-Sa, American author and activist (d. 1938)
1874 – Bill Klem, American baseball player and umpire (d. 1951)
1879 – Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted, Danish chemist and academic (d. 1947)
1880 – Eric Lemming, Swedish athlete (d. 1930)
1881 – Joseph B. Ely, American lawyer and politician, 52nd Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1956)
1881 – Albin Prepeluh, Slovenian journalist and politician (d. 1937)
1882 – Eric Gill, English sculptor and illustrator (d. 1940)
1883 – Marguerite Clark, American actress (d. 1940)
1886 – Hugo Ball, German author and poet (d. 1927)
1887 – Savielly Tartakower, Polish journalist, author, and chess player (d. 1956)
1887 – Pat Sullivan, Australian-American animator and producer (d. 1933)
1888 – Owen Brewster, American captain and politician, 54th Governor of Maine (d. 1961)
1889 – Olave Baden-Powell, English scout leader, founded the Girl Guides (d. 1977)
1889 – R. G. Collingwood, English historian and philosopher (d. 1943)
1891 – Vlas Chubar, Russian economist and politician (d. 1939)
1892 – Edna St. Vincent Millay, American poet and playwright (d. 1950)
1895 – Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, Peruvian politician (d. 1979)
1897 – Karol Świerczewski, Polish general (d. 1947)
1899 – George O’Hara, American actor and screenwriter (d. 1966)
1900 – Luis Buñuel, Spanish-Mexican director and producer (d. 1983)
1903 – Morley Callaghan, Canadian author and playwright (d. 1990)
1903 – Frank P. Ramsey, English economist, mathematician, and philosopher (d. 1930)
1906 – Constance Stokes, Australian painter (d. 1991)
1907 – Sheldon Leonard, American actor, director, and producer (d. 1997)
1907 – Robert Young, American actor (d. 1998)
1908 – Rómulo Betancourt, Venezuelan politician, 56th President of Venezuela (d. 1981)
1908 – John Mills, English soldier and actor (d. 2005)
1910 – George Hunt, English international footballer, forward (d. 1996)
1914 – Renato Dulbecco, Italian-American virologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2012)
1915 – Gus Lesnevich, American boxer (d. 1964)
1917 – Reed Crandall, American illustrator (d. 1982)
1918 – Sid Abel, Canadian-American ice hockey player, coach, and manager (d. 2000)
1918 – Don Pardo, American radio and television announcer (d. 2014)
1918 – Robert Wadlow, American man, the tallest person in recorded history (d. 1940)
1921 – Jean-Bédel Bokassa, Central African general and politician, 2nd President of the Central African Republic (d. 1996)
1921 – Giulietta Masina, Italian actress (d. 1994)
1922 – Marshall Teague, American race car driver (d. 1959)
1922 – Joe Wilder, American trumpet player, composer, and bandleader (d. 2014)
1923 – Bleddyn Williams, Welsh rugby player and sportscaster (d. 2009)
1923 – François Cavanna, French author and editor (d. 2014)
1925 – Edward Gorey, American illustrator and poet (d. 2000)
1925 – Gerald Stern, American poet and academic
1926 – Kenneth Williams, English actor and screenwriter (d. 1988)
1927 – Florencio Campomanes, Filipino political scientist and chess player (d. 2010)
1927 – Guy Mitchell, American singer (d. 1999)
1928 – Clarence 13X, American religious leader, founded the Nation of Gods and Earths (d. 1969)
1928 – Texas Johnny Brown, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2013)
1928 – Paul Dooley, American actor
1928 – Bruce Forsyth, English singer and television host (d. 2017)
1929 – James Hong, American actor and director
1929 – Rebecca Schull, American stage, film, and television actress
1930 – Marni Nixon, American soprano and actress (d. 2016)
1932 – Ted Kennedy, American soldier, lawyer, and politician (d. 2009)
1932 – Zenaida Manfugás, Cuban-born American-naturalized pianist (d. 2012)
1933 – Katharine, Duchess of Kent
1933 – Sheila Hancock, English actress and author
1933 – Ernie K-Doe, American R&B singer (d. 2001)
1933 – Bobby Smith, English international footballer, centre forward (d. 2010)
1934 – Sparky Anderson, American baseball player and manager (d. 2010)
1936 – J. Michael Bishop, American microbiologist and immunologist, Nobel Prize laureate
1937 – Tommy Aaron, American golfer
1937 – Joanna Russ, American author and activist (d. 2011)
1938 – Steve Barber, American baseball player (d. 2007)
1938 – Tony Macedo, Gibraltarian born English footballer, goalkeeper
1938 – Ishmael Reed, American poet, novelist, essayist
1940 – Judy Cornwell, English actress
1940 – Chet Walker, American basketball player
1941 – Hipólito Mejía, Dominican politician, 52nd President of the Dominican Republic
1942 – Christine Keeler, English model and dancer (d. 2017)
1943 – Terry Eagleton, English philosopher and critic
1943 – Horst Köhler, Polish-German economist and politician, 9th President of Germany
1943 – Dick Van Arsdale, American basketball player
1943 – Tom Van Arsdale, American basketball player
1943 – Otoya Yamaguchi, Japanese assassin of Inejiro Asanuma (d. 1960)
1944 – Jonathan Demme, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2017)
1944 – Mick Green, English rock & roll guitarist (d. 2010)
1944 – Robert Kardashian, American lawyer and businessman (d. 2003)
1944 – Christopher Meyer, English diplomat, British Ambassador to the United States
1944 – Tom Okker, Dutch tennis player and painter
1945 – Oliver, American pop singer (d. 2000)
1946 – Kresten Bjerre, Danish footballer and manager (d. 2014)
1947 – Pirjo Honkasalo, Finnish director, cinematographer, and screenwriter
1947 – Harvey Mason, American drummer
1947 – John Radford, English footballer and manager
1947 – Frank Van Dun, Belgian philosopher and theorist
1949 – John Duncan, Scottish footballer, forward and manager
1949 – Niki Lauda, Austrian racing driver (d. 2019)
1949 – Olga Morozova, Russian tennis player and coach
1950 – Julius Erving, American basketball player and sportscaster
1950 – Lenny Kuhr, Dutch singer-songwriter
1950 – Miou-Miou, French actress
1950 – Genesis P-Orridge, English singer-songwriter (d. 2020)
1950 – Julie Walters, English actress and author
1951 – Ellen Greene, American singer and actress
1952 – Bill Frist, American physician and politician
1952 – Joaquim Pina Moura, Portuguese Minister of Economy and Treasury and MP (d. 2020)
1953 – Nigel Planer, English actor and screenwriter
1955 – David Axelrod, American journalist and political adviser
1955 – Tim Young, Canadian ice hockey player
1957 – Willie Smits, Dutch microbiologist and engineer
1958 – Dave Spitz, American bass player and songwriter
1959 – Jiří Čunek, Czech politician
1959 – Kyle MacLachlan, American actor
1959 – Bronwyn Oliver, Australian sculptor (d. 2006)
1960 – Thomas Galbraith, 2nd Baron Strathclyde, Scottish politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
1961 – Akira Takasaki, Japanese guitarist, songwriter, and producer
1962 – Steve Irwin, Australian zoologist and television host (d. 2006)
1963 – Andrew Adonis, Baron Adonis, English journalist and politician, Secretary of State for Transport
1963 – Devon Malcolm, Jamaican-English cricketer
1963 – Vijay Singh, Fijian-American golfer
1964 – Ed Boon, American video game designer, co-created Mortal Kombat
1964 – Diane Charlemagne, English singer-songwriter (d. 2015)
1964 – Andy Gray, English footballer, midfielder and manager
1965 – Chris Dudley, American basketball player and politician
1965 – Kieren Fallon, Irish jockey
1965 – Pat LaFontaine, American ice hockey player
1966 – Rachel Dratch, American actress and comedian
1966 – Thorsten Kaye, German-English actor
1967 – Psicosis II, Mexican wrestler
1968 – Shawn Graham, Canadian politician, 31st Premier of New Brunswick
1968 – Bradley Nowell, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (d. 1996)
1968 – Jeri Ryan, American model and actress
1968 – Jayson Williams, American basketball player and sportscaster
1969 – Thomas Jane, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1969 – Brian Laudrup, Danish footballer and sportscaster
1969 – Marc Wilmots, Belgian footballer and manager
1971 – Super Caló, Mexican wrestler
1971 – Lea Salonga, Filipino actress and singer
1972 – Michael Chang, American tennis player and coach
1972 – Claudia Pechstein, German speed skater
1973 – Philippe Gaumont, French cyclist (d. 2013)
1973 – Juninho Paulista, Brazilian footballer
1973 – Scott Phillips, American drummer and producer
1974 – James Blunt, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1974 – Chris Moyles, English radio and television host
1975 – Drew Barrymore, American actress, director, producer, and screenwriter
1977 – Timo Rose, German actor, director, and producer
1977 – Hakan Yakin, Swiss footballer
1978 – Jenny Frost, English singer and dancer
1979 – Brett Emerton, Australian footballer
1979 – Lee Na-young, South Korean actress
1980 – Shamari Fears, American singer-songwriter and actress
1980 – Kang Sung-hoon, South Korean singer
1980 – Jeanette Biedermann, German singer-songwriter and actress
1983 – Shaun Tait, Australian cricketer
1984 – Tommy Bowe, Irish rugby player
1984 – Branislav Ivanović, Serbian footballer
1985 – Hameur Bouazza, Algerian international footballer, winger
1985 – Georgios Printezis, Greek basketball player
1986 – Rajon Rondo, American basketball player
1987 – Han Hyo-joo, South Korean actress and model
1987 – Sergio Romero, Argentinian footballer
1988 – Jonathan Borlée, Belgian sprinter
1988 – Efraín Juárez, Mexican footballer
1988 – Sebastian Tyrała, Polish-German footballer
1989 – Franco Vázquez, Argentinian footballer
1990 – Luca Profeta, Italian footballer
1992 – Alexander Merkel, Kazakhstani-German footballer
1999 – Harry Brook, English cricketer
Deaths on February 22
556 – Maximianus, bishop of Ravenna (b. 499)
606 – Sabinian, pope of the Catholic Church
793 – Sicga, Anglo-Saxon nobleman and regicide
845 – Wang, Chinese empress dowager
954 – Guo Wei, Chinese emperor (b. 904)
965 – Otto, duke of Burgundy (b. 944)
970 – García I, king of Pamplona
978 – Lambert, count of Chalon (b. 930)
1071 – Arnulf III, count of Flanders
1072 – Peter Damian, Italian cardinal
1079 – John of Fécamp, Italian Benedictine abbot
1111 – Roger Borsa, king of Sicily (b. 1078)
1297 – Margaret of Cortona, Italian penitent (b. 1247)
1371 – David II, king of Scotland (b. 1324)
1452 – William Douglas, 8th Earl of Douglas (b. 1425)
1500 – Gerhard VI, German nobleman (b. 1430)
1511 – Henry, duke of Cornwall (b. 1511)
1512 – Amerigo Vespucci, Italian cartographer and explorer (b. 1454)
1627 – Olivier van Noort, Dutch explorer (b. 1558)
1674 – Jean Chapelain, French poet and critic (b. 1595)
1680 – La Voisin, French occultist (b. 1640)
1690 – Charles Le Brun, French painter and theorist (b. 1619)
1731 – Frederik Ruysch, Dutch physician and anatomist (b. 1638)
1732 – Francis Atterbury, English bishop (b. 1663)
1799 – Heshen, Chinese politician (b. 1750)
1816 – Adam Ferguson, Scottish historian and philosopher (b. 1723)
1875 – Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, French painter and illustrator (b. 1796)
1875 – Charles Lyell, Scottish-English geologist and lawyer (b. 1797)
1888 – Anna Kingsford, English physician and activist (b. 1846)
1890 – John Jacob Astor III, American businessman and philanthropist (b. 1822)
1890 – Carl Bloch, Danish painter and academic (b. 1834)
1897 – Charles Blondin, French tightrope walker and acrobat (b. 1824)
1898 – Heungseon Daewongun, Korean king (b. 1820)
1903 – Hugo Wolf, Austrian composer (b. 1860)
1904 – Leslie Stephen, English historian, author, and critic (b. 1832)
1913 – Ferdinand de Saussure, Swiss linguist and author (b. 1857)
1913 – Francisco I. Madero, Mexican president and author (b. 1873)
1923 – Théophile Delcassé, French politician, French Minister of Foreign Affairs (b. 1852)
1939 – Antonio Machado, Spanish-French poet and author (b. 1875)
1942 – Stefan Zweig, Austrian journalist, author, and playwright (b. 1881)
1943 – Christoph Probst, German activist (b. 1919)
1943 – Hans Scholl, German activist (b. 1918)
1943 – Sophie Scholl, German activist (b. 1921)
1944 – Kasturba Gandhi, Indian activist (b. 1869)
1945 – Osip Brik, Russian avant garde writer and literary critic (b. 1888)
1958 – Abul Kalam Azad, Indian scholar and politician, Indian Minister of Education (b. 1888)
1960 – Paul-Émile Borduas, Canadian-French painter and critic (b. 1905)
1961 – Nick LaRocca, American trumpet player and composer (b. 1889)
1965 – Felix Frankfurter, Austrian-American lawyer and jurist (b. 1882)
1971 – Frédéric Mariotti, French actor (b. 1883)
1973 – Jean-Jacques Bertrand, Canadian lawyer and politician, 21st Premier of Quebec (b. 1916)
1973 – Elizabeth Bowen, Anglo-Irish author (b. 1899)
1973 – Katina Paxinou, Greek actress (b. 1900)
1973 – Winthrop Rockefeller, American colonel and politician, 37th Governor of Arkansas (b. 1912)
1976 – Angela Baddeley, English actress (b. 1904)
1976 – Florence Ballard, American singer (b. 1943)
1980 – Oskar Kokoschka, Austrian painter, poet and playwright (b. 1886)
1982 – Josh Malihabadi, Indian-Pakistani poet and author (b. 1898)
1983 – Adrian Boult, English conductor (b. 1889)
1983 – Romain Maes, Belgian cyclist (b. 1913)
1985 – Salvador Espriu, Spanish author, poet, and playwright (b. 1913)
AD 41 – After a night of negotiation, Claudius is accepted as Roman Emperor by the Senate.
750 – In the Battle of the Zab, the Abbasid rebels defeat the Umayyad Caliphate, leading to overthrow of the dynasty.
1348 – A strong earthquake strikes the South Alpine region of Friuli in modern Italy, causing considerable damage to buildings as far away as Rome.
1494 – Alfonso II becomes King of Naples.
1515 – Coronation of Francis I of France takes place at Reims Cathedral, where the new monarch is anointed with the oil of Clovis and girt with the sword of Charlemagne.
1533 – Henry VIII of England secretly marries his second wife Anne Boleyn.
1554 – São Paulo, Brazil, is founded by Jesuit priests.
1573 – Battle of Mikatagahara: In Japan, Takeda Shingen defeats Tokugawa Ieyasu.
1575 – Luanda, the capital of Angola, is founded by the Portuguese navigator Paulo Dias de Novais.
1704 – The Battle of Ayubale results in the destruction of most of the Spanish missions in Florida.
1755 – Moscow University is established on Tatiana Day.
1765 – Port Egmont, the first British settlement in the Falkland Islands near the southern tip of South America, is founded.
1787 – Shays’s Rebellion: The rebellion’s largest confrontation, outside the Springfield Armory, results in the killing of four rebels and the wounding of twenty.
1791 – The British Parliament passes the Constitutional Act of 1791 and splits the old Province of Quebec into Upper Canada and Lower Canada.
1792 – The London Corresponding Society is founded.
1858 – The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn is played at the marriage of Queen Victoria’s daughter, Victoria, and Friedrich of Prussia, and becomes a popular wedding processional.
1879 – The Bulgarian National Bank is founded.
1881 – Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company.
1890 – Nellie Bly completes her round-the-world journey in 72 days.
1909 – Richard Strauss’s opera Elektra receives its debut performance at the Dresden State Opera.
1915 – Alexander Graham Bell inaugurates U.S. transcontinental telephone service, speaking from New York to Thomas Watson in San Francisco.
1918 – The Ukrainian People’s Republic declares independence from Soviet Russia.
1924 – The 1924 Winter Olympics opens in Chamonix, in the French Alps, inaugurating the Winter Olympic Games.
1932 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Chinese National Revolutionary Army begins the defense of Harbin.
1937 – The Guiding Light debuts on NBC radio from Chicago. In 1952 it moves to CBS television, where it remains until September 18, 2009.
1941 – Pope Pius XII elevates the Apostolic Vicariate of the Hawaiian Islands to the dignity of a diocese. It becomes the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu.
1942 – World War II: Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom.
1945 – World War II: The Battle of the Bulge ends.
1946 – The United Mine Workers rejoins the American Federation of Labor.
1946 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 1 relating to Military Staff Committee is adopted.
1947 – Thomas Goldsmith Jr. files a patent for a “Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device”, the first ever electronic game.
1949 – The first Emmy Awards are presented; the venue is the Hollywood Athletic Club.
1960 – The National Association of Broadcasters reacts to the “payola” scandal by threatening fines for any disc jockeys who accept money for playing particular records.
1961 – In Washington, D.C., President John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential television news conference.
1961 – 101 Dalmatians premiered from Walt Disney Productions.
1964 – Blue Ribbon Sports, which would later become Nike, is founded by University of Oregon track and field athletes.
1969 – Brazilian Army captain Carlos Lamarca deserts in order to fight against the military dictatorship, taking with him ten machine guns and 63 rifles.
1971 – Charles Manson and three female “Family” members are found guilty of the 1969 Tate–LaBianca murders.
1971 – Idi Amin leads a coup deposing Milton Obote and becomes Uganda’s president.
1979 – Pope John Paul II starts his first official papal visits outside Italy to The Bahamas, Dominican Republic, and Mexico.
1980 – Mother Teresa is honored with India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.
1986 – The National Resistance Movement topples the government of Tito Okello in Uganda.
1993 – Five people are shot outside the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Two are killed and three wounded.
1994 – The spacecraft Clementine by BMDO and NASA is launched.
1995 – The Norwegian rocket incident: Russia almost launches a nuclear attack after it mistakes Black Brant XII, a Norwegian research rocket, for a US Trident missile.
1996 – Billy Bailey becomes the last person to be hanged in the U.S.A.
1998 – During a historic visit to Cuba, Pope John Paul II demands political reforms and the release of political prisoners while condemning US attempts to isolate the country.
1998 – A suicide attack by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on Sri Lanka’s Temple of the Tooth kills eight and injures 25 others.
1999 – A 6.0 magnitude earthquake hits western Colombia killing at least 1,000.
2003 – Invasion of Iraq: A group of people leave London, England, for Baghdad, Iraq, to serve as human shields, intending to prevent the U.S.-led coalition troops from bombing certain locations.
2005 – A stampede at the Mandhradevi temple in Maharashtra, India kills at least 258.
2006 – Mexican professional wrestler Juana Barraza is arrested in connection with the serial killing of at least ten elderly women.
2010 – Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 crashes into the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Na’ameh, Lebanon, killing 90.
2011 – The first wave of the Egyptian revolution begins throughout the country, marked by street demonstrations, rallies, acts of civil disobedience, riots, labour strikes, and violent clashes.
2013 – At least 50 people are killed and 120 people are injured in a prison riot in Barquisimeto, Venezuela.
2015 – A clash in Mamasapano, Maguindanao in the Philippines killing 44 members of Special Action Force (SAF), at least 18 from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and five from the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.
2019 – A mining company’s dam collapses in Brumadinho, Brazil, a south-eastern city, killing at least 7 people and leaving 200 missing.
Births on January 25
750 – Leo IV the Khazar, Byzantine emperor (d. 780)
1408 – Katharina of Hanau, German countess regent (d. 1460)
1459 – Paul Hofhaimer, Austrian organist and composer (d. 1537)
1477 – Anne of Brittany (probable;d. 1514)
1509 – Giovanni Morone, Italian cardinal (d. 1580)
1526 – Adolf, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp (d. 1586)
1615 – Govert Flinck, Dutch painter (d. 1660)
1618 – Nicolaes Visscher I, Dutch engraver and cartographer (d. 1679)
1627 – Robert Boyle, Irish-English chemist and physicist (d. 1691)
1634 – Gaspar Fagel, Dutch politician and diplomat (d. 1688)
1635 – Daniel Casper von Lohenstein, German writer, diplomat and lawyer (d. 1683)
1640 – William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire, English soldier and politician, Lord Steward of the Household (d. 1707)
1736 – Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Italian-French mathematician and astronomer (d. 1813)
1739 – Charles François Dumouriez, French general and politician, French Minister of Defence (d. 1823)
1743 – Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, German philosopher and author (d. 1819)
1750 – Johann Gottfried Vierling, German organist and composer (d. 1813)
1755 – Paolo Mascagni, Italian physician and anatomist (probable;d. 1815)
1759 – Robert Burns, Scottish poet and songwriter (d. 1796)
1783 – William Colgate, English-American businessman and philanthropist, founded Colgate-Palmolive (d. 1857)
1794 – François-Vincent Raspail, French chemist, physician, physiologist, and lawyer (d. 1878)
1796 – William MacGillivray, Scottish ornithologist and biologist (d. 1852)
1813 – J. Marion Sims, American gynecologist and physician (d. 1883)
1816 – Anna Gardner, American abolitionist and teacher (d. 1901)
1822 – Charles Reed Bishop, American businessman, philanthropist, and politician, founded the Bishop Museum (d. 1915)
1822 – William McDougall, Canadian lawyer and politician, Lieutenant Governor of the Northwest Territories (d. 1905)
1823 – José María Iglesias, Mexican politician and interim President (1876–1877) (d. 1891)
1824 – Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Indian poet and playwright (d. 1873)
1841 – John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher, English admiral (d. 1920)
1858 – Mikimoto Kōkichi, Japanese businessman (d. 1954)
1860 – Charles Curtis, American lawyer and politician, 31st Vice President of the United States (d. 1936)
1864 – Julije Kempf, Croatian historian and author (d. 1934)
1868 – Juventino Rosas, Mexican violinist and composer (d. 1894)
1874 – W. Somerset Maugham, British playwright, novelist, and short story writer (d. 1965)
1878 – Ernst Alexanderson, Swedish-American engineer (d. 1975)
1882 – Virginia Woolf, English novelist, essayist, short story writer, and critic (d. 1941)
1885 – Kitahara Hakushū, Japanese poet and author (d. 1942)
1886 – Wilhelm Furtwängler, German conductor and composer (d. 1954)
1895 – Florence Mills, American singer, dancer, and actress (d. 1927)
1899 – Sleepy John Estes, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1977)
1899 – Paul-Henri Spaak, Belgian lawyer and politician, 46th Prime Minister of Belgium (d. 1972)
1900 – István Fekete, Hungarian author (d. 1970)
1900 – Yōjirō Ishizaka, Japanese author and educator (d. 1986)
1900 – Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ukrainian geneticist and pioneer of evolutionary biology (d. 1975)
1901 – Martín de Álzaga, Argentinian race car driver and pilot (d. 1982)
1901 – Mildred Dunnock, American actress (d. 1991)
1905 – Maurice Roy, Canadian cardinal (d. 1985)
1905 – Margery Sharp, English author and educator (d. 1991)
1906 – Toni Ulmen, German race car driver and motorcycle racer (d. 1976)
1908 – Hsieh Tung-min, Taiwanese politicians and Vice President of the Republic of China (d. 2001)
1910 – Edgar V. Saks, Estonian historian, author, and politician, Estonian Minister of Education (d. 1984)
1913 – Huang Hua, Chinese translator and politician, 5th Foreign Minister of the People’s Republic of China (d. 2010)
1913 – Witold Lutosławski, Polish composer and conductor (d. 1994)
1913 – Luis Marden, American photographer and journalist (d. 2003)
1914 – William Strickland, American conductor and organist (d. 1991)
1915 – Ewan MacColl, English singer-songwriter, actor and producer (d. 1989)
1916 – Pop Ivy, American football player and coach (d. 2003)
1917 – Ilya Prigogine, Russian-Belgian chemist and physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2003)
1917 – Jânio Quadros, Brazilian lawyer and politician, 22nd President of Brazil (d. 1992)
1919 – Edwin Newman, American journalist and author (d. 2010)
1921 – Samuel T. Cohen, American physicist and academic (d. 2010)
1921 – Josef Holeček, Czechoslovakian canoeist (d. 2005)
1922 – Raymond Baxter, English television host and pilot (d. 2006)
1923 – Arvid Carlsson, Swedish pharmacologist and physician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2018)
1923 – Shirley Ardell Mason, American psychiatric patient (d. 1998)
1923 – Sally Starr, American actress and television host (d. 2013)
1923 – Jean Taittinger, French politician, French Minister of Justice (d. 2012)
1924 – Lou Groza, American football player and coach (d. 2000)
1924 – Husein Mehmedov, Bulgarian-Turkish wrestler and coach (d. 2014)
1924 – Speedy West, American guitarist and producer (d. 2003)
1925 – Gordy Soltau, American football player and sportscaster (d. 2014)
1925 – Giorgos Zampetas, Greek bouzouki player and songwriter (d. 1992)
1926 – Dick McGuire, American basketball player and coach (d. 2010)
1927 – Antônio Carlos Jobim, Brazilian singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 1994)
1928 – Jérôme Choquette, Canadian lawyer and politician (d. 2017)
1928 – Eduard Shevardnadze, Georgian general and politician, 2nd President of Georgia (d. 2014)
1928 – Cor van der Hart, Dutch footballer and manager (d. 2006)
1929 – Elizabeth Allen, American actress and singer (d. 2006)
1929 – Robert Faurisson, English-French author and academic (d. 2018)
1929 – Benny Golson, American saxophonist and composer
1930 – Tanya Savicheva, Russian child diarist (d. 1944)
1931 – Dean Jones, American actor and singer (d. 2015)
1933 – Corazon Aquino, Filipino politician, 11th President of the Philippines (d. 2009)
1935 – Conrad Burns, American soldier, journalist, and politician (d. 2016)
1935 – António Ramalho Eanes, Portuguese general and politician, 16th President of Portugal
1936 – Diana Hyland, American actress (d. 1977)
1936 – Onat Kutlar, Turkish author and poet (d. 1995)
1937 – Ange-Félix Patassé, Central African engineer and politician, President of the Central African Republic (d. 2011)
1938 – Shotaro Ishinomori, Japanese author and illustrator (d. 1998)
1938 – Etta James, American singer (d. 2012)
1938 – Leiji Matsumoto, Japanese author, illustrator, and animator
1938 – Vladimir Vysotsky, Russian singer-songwriter, actor, and poet (d. 1980)
1941 – Buddy Baker, American race car driver and sportscaster (d. 2015)
1942 – Carl Eller, American football player and sportscaster
1942 – Eusébio, Mozambican-Portuguese footballer (d. 2014)
1943 – Tobe Hooper, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2017)
1945 – Leigh Taylor-Young, American actress
1945 – Dave Walker, English singer and guitarist
1946 – Doc Bundy, American race car driver and technician
1947 – Ángel Nieto, Spanish motorcycle racer (d. 2017)
1947 – Tostão, Brazilian footballer, journalist, and physician
1948 – Ros Kelly, Australian educator and politician, 1st Australian Minister for Defence Science and Personnel
1948 – Georgy Shishkin, Russian painter and illustrator
1949 – John Cooper Clarke, English poet and critic
1949 – Paul Nurse, English geneticist and biologist, Nobel Prize laureate
1950 – Gloria Naylor, American novelist (d. 2016)
1951 – Steve Prefontaine, American runner (d. 1975)
1952 – Peter Tatchell, Australian-English journalist and activist
1952 – Timothy White, American journalist, author, and critic (d. 2002)
1954 – Ricardo Bochini, Argentinian footballer and manager
1954 – Kay Cottee, Australian sailor
1954 – Renate Dorrestein, Dutch journalist and author (d. 2018)
1956 – Andy Cox, English guitarist
1956 – Dinah Manoff, American actress
1957 – Eskil Erlandsson, Swedish technologist and politician, Swedish Minister for Rural Affairs
1957 – Andrew Harris, American politician
1957 – Jenifer Lewis, American actress and singer
1958 – Franco Pancheri, Italian footballer and manager
1961 – Vivian Balakrishnan, Singaporean ophthalmologist and politician, Singaporean Ministry of National Development
1962 – Chris Chelios, American ice hockey player and manager
1963 – Fernando Haddad, Brazilian academic and politician, 61st Mayor of São Paulo
1963 – Molly Holzschlag, American computer scientist and author
1964 – Billy Andrade, American golfer
1964 – Stephen Pate, Australian cyclist
1965 – Esa Tikkanen, Finnish ice hockey player and coach
1966 – Chet Culver, American educator and politician, 41st Governor of Iowa
1966 – Yiannos Ioannou, Cypriot footballer and manager
1967 – Nelson Asaytono, Filipino basketball player
1967 – David Ginola, French footballer, forward
1967 – Randy McKay, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1968 – Eric Orie, Dutch footballer and manager
1969 – Sergei Ovchinnikov, Russian volleyball player and coach (d. 2012)
1970 – Stephen Chbosky, American author, screenwriter, and director
1970 – Chris Mills, American basketball player
1970 – Milt Stegall, American football player and sportscaster
1971 – Luca Badoer, Italian race car driver
1971 – Philip Coppens, Belgian journalist and author (d. 2012)
1971 – Ana Ortiz, American actress
1972 – Shinji Takehara, Japanese boxer
1973 – Geoff Johns, American author, screenwriter, and producer
1974 – Robert Budreau, Canadian director, producer, and screenwriter
1974 – Emily Haines, Canadian singer-songwriter and keyboard player
2017 – Stephen P. Cohen, Canadian academic (b. 1945)
2017 – Robert Garcia, American politician (b. 1933)
2017 – John Hurt, English actor (b. 1940)
2017 – Harry Mathews, American novelist and poet (b. 1930)
2017 – Marcel Prud’homme, Canadian politician (b. 1934)
2017 – Mary Tyler Moore, American actress, dancer, and producer (b. 1936)
2018 – Neagu Djuvara, Romanian historian, essayist, philosopher, journalist, novelist and diplomat (b. 1916)
Holidays and observances on January 25
Burns Night (Scotland and Scottish community)
Christian feast day:
Dydd Santes Dwynwen (Wales)
Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul (Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran churches, which concludes the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity)
Gregory the Theologian (Eastern (Byzantine) Catholic Church)
The last day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Christian ecumenism)
January 25 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Earliest day on which the first day of Carnival of Cádiz can fall, while February 28 is the latest; celebrated two Sundays before Ash Wednesday until Ash Wednesday (Cádiz)
Earliest day on which the Liberation of Auschwitz Memorial can fall, while January 31 is the latest; observed on the last Sunday in January (Netherlands)
National Nutrition Day (Indonesia)
National Police Day (Egypt)
National Voters’ Day (India)
Revolution Day 2011 (Egypt)
Tatiana Day or Russian Students Day (Russia, Eastern Orthodox)
