Steven Spielberg is born in Cincinnati, Ohio (1946), and New Jersey ratifies the United States Constitution (1787). Born on this day: Joseph Stalin, Steven Spielberg and Brad Pitt. Died: Václav Havel, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Johann Gottfried von Herder.
33 events, 63 births and 69 deaths on this date.
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Spielberg went on to make Jaws, E.T. and Schindler's List, films that have earned close to $11 billion. He is one of only 22 people to have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony.
Raph_PH · CC BY 4.0New Jersey became the third state to approve the new national constitution, voting unanimously in Trenton. It was one of the first states to sign on, helping the document move toward taking effect.
The imperial anthem was premiered in St Petersburg, written by Alexei Lvov to music by Alexei Lvov's rival...
King Alfonso I of Aragon took Zaragoza from the Almoravids, who had held the city. The conquest made it the political and spiritual centre of his kingdom for centuries to come.
Kublai Khan adopted the dynastic name Great Yuan, formally launching the Yuan dynasty that would rule Mongolia and China. The move claimed the legitimacy of earlier Chinese dynasties for a Mongol ruler.
Araniko · Public domain
Kim Dae-jung, a long-time opposition figure who had survived imprisonment, exile and an attempt on his life, became the first opposition candidate to take South Korea's presidency. He went on to lead the country through the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
대한민국 국가기록원 · KOGL Type 1
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Soviet leader who took control of the Soviet Union after Lenin's death in 1924 and ruled it as a dictator until his own death in 1953. Born Ioseb Jughashvili in Gori, he rose through the Bolshevik ranks and went on to shape the country through purges, collectivisation and industrialisation.
Ivan Shagin · Public domain
Steven Spielberg is an American filmmaker who shaped the modern blockbuster with Jaws and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. He is also the most commercially successful film director in history, with films earning close to eleven billion dollars worldwide.
Raph_PH · CC BY 4.0
American actor and film producer who rose to stardom in Thelma & Louise and Fight Club, and won an Academy Award for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He also co-founded the production company Plan B Entertainment.
Toglenn · CC BY-SA 4.0
Václav Havel wrote absurdist plays that mocked communist rule, then became a leading dissident. After the 1989 Velvet Revolution he led the country as its president, first of Czechoslovakia and later of the Czech Republic.
Ondřej Sláma · CC BY-SA 3.0
French naturalist who argued early and seriously that species change over time, and whose 1809 book Philosophie zoologique set out his ideas on inherited traits. Remembered now for the theory that acquired characteristics pass to offspring, which later evidence overturned.
Charles Thévenin · Public domain
A German philosopher and poet who held that authentic national culture lived among ordinary people, and that folk songs and dances carried the spirit of a nation. He is credited with advancing hermeneutics, linguistics and anthropology.
Public domain
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