Austria signs the Treaty of Pressburg after its defeat at Austerlitz (1805), and Last Soviet troops leave North Korea (1948). Born on this day: Mao Zedong, Charles Babbage and Frederick II. Died: Harry S. Truman, Gerald Ford and Manmohan Singh.
30 events, 58 births and 67 deaths on this date.
Weeks after his victory at Austerlitz, Napoleon pressed Austria into a humiliating peace. The treaty broke the Third Coalition that had been formed against France.
Jacques-Louis David · Public domainThe French RevolutionHear the story in ChunksSoviet troops had held the northern half of Korea since Japan's defeat in 1945. Their departure left the new government in Pyongyang to face the south largely on its own.
Marie and Pierre Curie reported a new element, radium, which confirmed their research on radioactivity. Radium later underpinned the first studies of treating tumours with radioactive isotopes, and it helped earn Marie her second Nobel Prize, in Chemistry.
Roosevelt signed a law fixing Thanksgiving in the United States to the fourth Thursday of November, just days after Christmas. From then on, the holiday followed a fixed rule each year, giving Americans a date they could plan around.
Leon Perskie · CC BY 2.0
Mao was born into a peasant family in Shaoshan, in Hunan province, central China. He went on to lead the Chinese Communist Party and founded the People's Republic of China in 1949, ruling until his death in 1976.
Chen Zhengqing (1917–1966) · Public domain
Louis XVI accepted a law that reorganised the Catholic Church in France, placing priests under state control and requiring them to swear loyalty to the constitution. The move deepened divisions between revolutionaries and the Church, and many clergy refused to comply.
Antoine-François Callet · Public domain
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Mao Zedong was a Chinese communist revolutionary who founded the People's Republic of China in 1949 and led it until his death in 1976. He is remembered for guiding the Communist Party to power, and for campaigns such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which caused enormous suffering.
Chen Zhengqing (1917–1966) · Public domain
Babbage designed calculating machines that were never fully built in his lifetime, most famously the Difference Engine. His Analytical Engine, a far more ambitious general-purpose design, anticipated the core ideas of modern computers.
Thomas Dewell Scott · Public domain
Frederick II was a Hohenstaufen ruler who held the Sicilian and German crowns and the imperial title, and clashed repeatedly with the papacy. Often called one of the most capable medieval rulers, he was also a patron of poetry and learning, writing verse himself.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
The 33rd US president took office in 1945 on Franklin D. Roosevelt's death, then authorised the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He also launched the Marshall Plan to rebuild war-torn Western Europe and backed the creation of NATO.
National Archives and Records Administration. Office of Presidential Libraries. Harry S. Truman Library. · Public domain
Ford became the 38th president of the United States after Richard Nixon resigned, having never been elected to either the presidency or the vice presidency. He is remembered for a short, turbulent term shaped by Watergate and a weak economy, and for pardoning Nixon.
David Hume Kennerly · Public domain
Manmohan Singh was an Indian economist who served as prime minister from 2004 to 2014 and was the first Sikh to hold the office. Earlier, as finance minister in 1991, he led reforms that opened India's economy and won him international respect.
Prime Minister's Office · GODL-India
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