Marie and Pierre Curie discover radium (1898), and Emma Goldman is deported to Russia (1919). Born on this day: Emmanuel Macron, Mikheil Saakashvili and Heinrich Böll. Died: Giovanni Boccaccio, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Saparmurad Niyazov.
32 events, 76 births and 58 deaths on this date.
Working with ore from Jáchymov, the Curies extracted a compound of a new element that glowed in the dark and proved far more radioactive than uranium. Its glow later made it popular in self-luminous paints, though it is now known to be highly toxic.
grenadier · CC BY 3.0The American anarchist was put on a ship out of the United States and sent to Soviet Russia, a country whose revolution she had once supported. She spent the rest of her life in exile, writing about what she saw there.
Lincoln approved a resolution covering the Medal of Honor, and the same measure included a clause creating a bravery award for sailors. It was one of the Civil War era's measures honouring courage in combat.
The Senate formally named Vespasian emperor, the last of four men to hold the title in this turbulent year. With his elevation, the rapid succession of rival rulers that gave the year its name finally came to an end.
Under the leadership of cacique Pelentaru, the Mapuche rose against Spanish rule in southern Chile and won a heavy victory at Curalaba. The defeat shook Spanish control over the region and helped end their expansion south of the Bío-Bío.
Benjamin Disraeli was born in Bloomsbury, then part of Middlesex, into a family that had left Judaism, and he later became the only British prime minister born Jewish. He would go on to shape the modern Conservative Party and twice lead the government.
Cornelius Jabez Hughes · Public domain
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Emmanuel Macron is the French president who, at 39, became the youngest head of state in French history after a centrist campaign he launched himself. Before politics he worked as an investment banker and served as economy minister under François Hollande.
Nebojša Tejić · Public domain
Georgian and Ukrainian politician who led Georgia as president from 2004 to 2013 after the Rose Revolution. He later served as governor of Ukraine's Odesa Oblast, and is known for a sweeping programme of reform and tax cuts.
Виталий Носач / РБК-Украина · CC BY 4.0
German writer who became one of the leading voices of post-war German literature, later winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972. His novels often confronted the Nazi past and the moral damage left by the war.
Hoffmann, Harald · CC BY-SA 3.0 de
Boccaccio was an Italian writer whose collection of hundred tales, The Decameron, set a model for Italian prose and influenced Chaucer. He is also counted among the early humanists who helped shape Renaissance Florence.
Raffaello Sanzio Morghen / After Vincenzo Gozzini · Public domain
Fitzgerald is remembered for novels like The Great Gatsby that captured the glittering excess of the Jazz Age, a term he helped popularise. He died in 1940 with his reputation far lower than it would later become.
Nickolas Muray · Public domain
Niyazov ruled Turkmenistan as its authoritarian leader from Soviet times until his death, building a cult of personality around himself. He was known for his self-written book, the Ruhnama, which was required reading in schools and even part of driving tests.
Danny Gys · CC BY 4.0
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