Birth of George VI (1895), and Soviet Union expelled from League of Nations over Finland (1939). Born on this day: Dilma Rousseff, George VI and Tycho Brahe. Died: George Washington, Andrey Sakharov and Peter O’Toole.
29 events, 65 births and 65 deaths on this date.
Albert Frederick Arthur George, known to his family as Bertie, was born the second son of the future King George V. Few expected him to reign, yet he became king in 1936 after his brother abdicated, and led Britain through the Second World War.
Matson Photo Service · Public domainThe League of Nations expelled the Soviet Union over its invasion of Finland, a small neighbour the Red Army had attacked that winter. The move carried little practical weight, but it was a rare public rebuke of a great power.
Alabama was admitted to the Union as a slave state, carved out of the Mississippi Territory. Its entry tipped the balance between slave and free states in the Senate, a question that would shape American politics for decades.
Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team reached the geographic South Pole, the point where the planet's axis meets the ground. Today the site lies under an ice sheet about 3.2 km thick, so its marker must be moved every year.
An earthquake shook the city hard, and the dome of Hagia Sophia, the city's great cathedral, was left cracked. Constantinople was then the largest and wealthiest city in Europe, so the blow fell on a very rich and important place.
He was born into a family that had converted from Judaism to Catholicism a generation earlier. He later wrote Les Prophéties, a book of 942 poetic quatrains said to predict future events.
After César de Notre-Dame · Public domain
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Brazilian economist and politician who became the country's first female president in 2011, before being removed from office in 2016. She was also a former guerrilla who was jailed and tortured under military rule.
Vice-Presidência da República · CC BY 2.0
Born Albert, the second son who never expected the throne, he became king after his brother's abdication and led Britain through the Second World War. He overcame a severe stammer with help from speech therapist Lionel Logue.
Matson Photo Service · Public domain
Tycho Brahe was a Danish astronomer whose meticulous naked-eye observations of the stars and planets paved the way for modern astronomy. He built Uraniborg on the island of Hven, the first large observatory in Christian Europe.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Washington led the Continental Army to victory over Britain in the American Revolutionary War, then served as the first president of the United States. He died at his Mount Vernon estate in Virginia, aged sixty-seven.
Gilbert Stuart · Public domain
Sakharov helped build the Soviet hydrogen bomb, then turned into one of the country's best-known human rights campaigners. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975 and died in Moscow on this day in 1989.
Vladimir Fedorenko / Владимир Федоренко · CC BY-SA 3.0
Peter O'Toole was an English-Irish actor, best remembered for playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia. He earned eight Oscar nominations without a win, and was given an Honorary Award in 2002 for his career.
ABC TV · Public domain
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