Lenin returns to Petrograd from exile in Switzerland (1917), and Gandhi calls a day of fasting after Jallianwala Bagh (1919). Born on this day: Charlie Chaplin, Benedict XVI and Selena. Died: Francisco Goya, Kawabata Yasunari and Rosalind Franklin.
35 events, 68 births and 56 deaths on this date.
Lenin arrived at the Finland Station in Petrograd after years abroad, stepping into a country swept up by revolution. His return helped push the Bolsheviks toward seizing power later that year.
Pavel Zhukov · Public domainThree days after British troops killed protesters at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Gandhi asked Indians across the country to pause, pray and go without food. The massacre became a turning point in Indian opposition to British rule.
Elliott & Fry · Public domain
In a nationally broadcast speech, Castro announced he was a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba would become communist. The declaration, made days after the Bay of Pigs invasion, set the island on a path that would shape its politics for decades.
Unknown (Mondadori Publishers) · Public domain
Otho, whose reign had lasted only a few months, chose death rather than continue a civil war. The loss at Bedriacum left Vitellius as the main rival for power, a sign of how fragile the throne had become in that year of several claimants.
After a siege lasting several months, Roman troops broke into the hilltop stronghold of Masada, where Jewish defenders had held out. Its fall brought the First Jewish–Roman War to an end.
Jordan played his last NBA match, closing a fifteen-season career that included six titles with the Chicago Bulls. He had come back from retirement to spend two seasons with the Washington Wizards.
Joshua Massel . Cropped by en:User:Quadzilla99 · CC BY-SA 2.0
For the full day, download Chunks today. Every date, the stories behind them, and a new day each morning. Free to start.
Charlie Chaplin was an English comic actor and filmmaker who became a global star of silent cinema through his character the Tramp. He later directed and starred in classics such as The Gold Rush and Modern Times.
Strauss-Peyton Studio · Public domain
Joseph Ratzinger was a German theologian who became head of the Catholic Church in 2005, then stepped down in 2013, the first pope to do so in roughly six centuries. He is remembered for his prolific writings defending traditional Catholic doctrine.
WDKrause · CC BY-SA 3.0
Known as the Queen of Tejano Music, Selena sang, wrote songs and ran her own fashion and business ventures. Her clothing choices earned her the nickname Tejano Madonna, and she helped push the genre into the mainstream before her death in 1995.
Unknown. · Public domain
Goya was a Spanish painter and printmaker whose work grew darker after an illness in 1793 left him deaf. Once a court painter who made portraits of the aristocracy, he is often seen as a link between older European art and modern painting.
Vicente López Portaña · Public domain
Kawabata was a Japanese novelist whose understated, lyrical fiction brought him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, the first such honour for a Japanese writer. His books still find readers far beyond Japan.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Franklin was an X-ray crystallographer whose images of DNA were crucial to understanding its double helix, though her contribution went largely unrecognised in her lifetime. She died of cancer at 37, before the 1962 Nobel Prize was awarded for the structure she helped reveal.
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology · CC BY-SA 4.0
Download on iOS
Download on Android