Septimius Severus declared emperor of Rome (193), and First commercial cinema opens in New York City (1894). Born on this day: Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, Christiaan Huygens and Philip III. Died: Simone de Beauvoir, George Frideric Handel and L.L. Zamenhof.
31 events, 61 births and 50 deaths on this date.
Born in Leptis Magna in North Africa, Septimius Severus was the last of several rivals to claim the throne once Pertinax had died. He went on to defeat his rivals in civil wars, then campaign against Parthia, and ruled until his death.
Public domainA New York venue opened with ten Kinetoscopes, peep-show machines that let one viewer at a time watch films. It is remembered as the first place where people paid to watch moving pictures on a commercial basis.
Delegates from the American republics met in Washington and set up a permanent office to share information and promote trade and cooperation. That body, the Pan-American Union, later grew into the Organization of American States.
An eruption under an Icelandic ice cap sent a cloud of ash into the atmosphere, forcing airspace closures across northern and western Europe for about a week. Although modest for a volcano, the ash stranded millions of travellers and halted air traffic on a scale few had seen.
TommyBee · Public domain
Alfonso XIII's departure from Spain opened the way for a caretaker administration, headed by Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, to declare a republic. The regime that followed lasted until 1939, when it fell to Franco's Nationalists at the end of the Spanish Civil War.
An oxygen tank exploded on the way to the Moon, knocking out power and life support, and Jack Swigert radioed a calm warning to Houston. The crew used the lunar module as a lifeboat and got home safely, a rescue that became famous.
NASA · Public domain
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Indian jurist, economist and social reformer who led the committee that wrote India's Constitution. He also championed rights for Dalits and later converted to Buddhism, sparking a mass movement among them.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Dutch scientist who invented the pendulum clock, then the most accurate timekeeper for nearly 300 years. He also proposed the wave theory of light and discovered Saturn's moon Titan.
Bernard Vaillant · Public domain
Born in Madrid, Philip III became king of Spain and Portugal in 1598 but handed most of his power to his chief minister, the Duke of Lerma. Historians often blame his lack of focus for the slow decline of the Spanish Empire, though a long stretch of peace in Western Europe marked his reign.
Pedro Antonio Vidal · Public domain
Simone de Beauvoir was a French philosopher and novelist whose 1949 book The Second Sex became a foundational text of modern feminism. She also wrote novels and memoirs, and was once nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Moshe Milner · CC BY-SA 3.0
The German-born composer who settled in London wrote Messiah, Water Music and the oratorios that shaped English choral music. He died wealthy and respected, and Westminster Abbey held his funeral.
Attributed to Balthasar Denner · Public domain
Zamenhof was a Polish-Jewish eye doctor who created Esperanto, the constructed language he hoped would help people from different nations communicate peacefully. Millions have since tried to learn it, and a community of speakers still keeps it going over a century after his death.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
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