First telephone fitted at the White House (1878), and Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat (1955). Born on this day: Georgy Zhukov, Nikolay Ivanovich Lobachevsky and Sebastián Piñera. Died: David Ben-Gurion, Alexander I and Leo X.
28 events, 62 births and 50 deaths on this date.
Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th president, had a telephone connected at the White House, one of the early government offices to take up the new invention. It was the first telephone the building had ever held, putting the presidency among its first users.
Mathew Benjamin Brady · Public domainRosa Parks, the NAACP's Montgomery secretary, stayed seated when ordered to give up her place to a white passenger, and was arrested. Her arrest sparked a boycott of the city's buses by Black residents, which became a landmark of the civil rights movement.
Gene Herrick for the Associated Press; restored by Adam Cuerden · Public domain
Henry rode into the French capital beside his father-in-law, King Charles VI, months after the Treaty of Troyes named him heir to the French throne. It put the English claim on France on public display, though Henry died in 1422 without becoming its king.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Hugh Hefner and his associates launched the men's magazine in Chicago, partly on a loan from his mother. It went on to become one of the world's best-known brands, known for its centrefold photographs.
Pedro I, who had declared Brazil's independence from Portugal earlier that year, was crowned the country's first emperor. He went on to rule until 1831 and briefly held the Portuguese throne as well.
Simplício Rodrigues de Sá · Public domain
Twelve nations that had run research stations on the ice during the International Geophysical Year agreed to keep Antarctica for science and peace. The treaty bans military activity there and sets the continent aside for research, and it still governs the region today.
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Georgy Zhukov was a Soviet officer who rose from a peasant background to become one of the Red Army's top commanders in the Second World War. He oversaw key Soviet victories, including the battle for Berlin, and later served as Minister of Defence.
Grigory Vayl · Public domain
Lobachevsky was a Russian mathematician who showed that geometry does not have to follow Euclid's parallel postulate, opening the door to hyperbolic geometry. He taught at Kazan University, and his ideas were later called revolutionary by William Kingdon Clifford.
Lev Kryukov · Public domain
Sebastián Piñera, a businessman turned politician, served two separate terms as Chile's president, from 2010 to 2014 and from 2018 to 2022. He became the first conservative to win a democratic presidential election there since 1958, and he died in a helicopter crash in 2024.
Marcelo Segura Millar · CC BY 3.0 cl
Ben-Gurion was the first prime minister of Israel and one of the chief figures behind the movement for a Jewish state in Palestine. He led the country through its founding in 1948 and remained its dominant political voice for years afterwards.
Fritz Cohen · Public domain
Alexander I ruled Russia through the Napoleonic Wars, and was nicknamed the Blessed. He promised liberal reforms and a constitution, yet kept Russia's absolutist rule largely intact.
Alexander Molinari · Public domain
Giovanni de' Medici, head of the Catholic Church from 1513, rejected Martin Luther's demands for reform and spent heavily on art, including Raphael's work in the Vatican. He died in Rome on this day in 1521.
Francesco Bini · Public domain
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