Spain commissions Christopher Columbus to explore the Atlantic (1492), and Organization of American States established in Bogotá (1948). Born on this day: Carl Friedrich Gauss, António Guterres and Stephen Harper. Died: Édouard Manet, Sergio Leone and Sigismund III Vasa.
27 events, 64 births and 71 deaths on this date.
Ferdinand and Isabella signed a formal agreement making Columbus an admiral and governor over any lands he found across the ocean, with a share of the profits. It set the terms for the voyage that reached the Americas later that year.
Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio · Public domainChristopher ColumbusHear the story in ChunksThe Organization of American States was set up in Bogotá as a forum for nations across North and South America to work together. The meeting in the Colombian capital marked the start of a body that still brings the region's governments together.
Nicaragua broke away from the Central American Federation, the union that had linked it with its neighbours since independence from Spain. The move was one of the steps that left the region split into separate states.
HMS Seraph set out on a plan to convince German intelligence that the Allies would invade Greece and Sardinia rather than Sicily. The deception relied on a corpse carrying fake documents, and it worked well enough to shape where German forces were placed.
While still a patent clerk in Bern, Einstein submitted his doctoral dissertation to Zurich's university, and it was accepted. He later became one of the most famous physicists of the twentieth century, known for relativity.
Dickens's new magazine opened with the opening instalment of A Tale of Two Cities, the novel that would become one of his most widely read. The serial format he had already perfected let readers follow the story in regular instalments.
Jeremiah Gurney · Public domain
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Carl Friedrich Gauss was a German polymath whose work ranged across number theory, astronomy and statistics. He is remembered above all for Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, a landmark book that shaped modern number theory.
Gottlieb Biermann / After Christian Albrecht Jensen · Public domain
Portuguese Socialist who served as prime minister from 1995 to 2002 before becoming UN High Commissioner for Refugees. He has been UN Secretary-General since 2017, the first European in that post since Kurt Waldheim.
U.S. Department of State from United States · Public domain
Stephen Harper is a Canadian politician who led the country's government from 2006 to 2015. He co-founded the Conservative Party of Canada, and remains the one leader of that party to have reached the top job.
World Economic Forum / Remy Steinegger · CC BY-SA 2.0
Manet was a French painter who turned everyday city life into subject matter for serious art. His scandalous works Olympia and Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe shocked critics, yet paved the way for Impressionism.
Nadar / Adam Cuerden · Public domain
Sergio Leone was an Italian director who pioneered the spaghetti Western, shaping it with films like A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He was known for pairing extreme close-ups with sweeping long shots.
Obbino · CC BY 2.0
Sigismund III Vasa was a Polish-Lithuanian king who also briefly ruled Sweden before being deposed. He pushed Catholicism across his realm and presided over Poland's largest territorial expansion, though his reign also marked the end of its Golden Age.
Pieter Soutman · Public domain
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