Louis XIII swears the Catalan constitutions and becomes Count of Barcelona (1641), and Second edition of Justinian's Code takes effect in the Byzantine Empire (534). Born on this day: Rudyard Kipling, LeBron James and Titus. Died: Saddam Hussein, Romain Rolland and Grigori Rasputin.
27 events, 59 births and 63 deaths on this date.
During the Reapers' War, Louis XIII took an oath to the Catalan constitutions and was made Count of Barcelona. This tied the Principality of Catalonia to the French crown in a personal union.
School of Philippe de Champaigne · Public domainEmperor Justinian's revised law code, the Codex Justinianus, became binding across the Byzantine Empire, replacing the first edition of 529. It gathered imperial laws into one authoritative collection that shaped legal systems for centuries afterwards.
Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht's left-wing faction, which had broken from the Social Democrats over the war, founded the party in the chaos after the First World War. It went on to become the leading far-left force of the Weimar Republic.
Delegates meeting at Ahsan Manzil, the Dhaka palace of the Nawab Khwaja Salimullah, voted to set up a party to safeguard Muslim interests in British India. The League later campaigned for a separate Muslim state, and it led the push that produced Pakistan in 1947.
Mexico sold the United States about 29,640 square miles of southern Arizona and New Mexico for $10 million, partly to ease money troubles. The land gave the US a flatter route for a southern railway and set the modern border.
Bureau of Engraving and Printing · Public domain
Zululand, the independent Zulu kingdom lying beyond the Tugela river, was brought under the control of the Colony of Natal. The move ended its separate existence and placed its people under British rule.
For the full day, download Chunks today. Every date, the stories behind them, and a new day each morning. Free to start.
Born in British India, Kipling wrote The Jungle Book, Kim and the Just So Stories, and won the 1907 Nobel Prize in Literature, the youngest winner to date. His poems and short stories remain widely read.
Bain News Service, publisher · Public domain
Widely regarded as one of basketball's greatest players, LeBron James has scored more points than anyone in league history and won four championships. He has also written screenplays and acted on television, and has won three Olympic gold medals with the US team.
Erik Drost · CC BY 2.0
Titus was the Roman emperor who completed the Colosseum and led the siege that captured Jerusalem in AD 70. He ruled only about two years, and his generosity after the eruption of Vesuvius is still remembered.
Unknown author Unknown author · CC BY-SA 3.0
Saddam Hussein, Iraq's president from 1979 until the 2003 invasion, was executed on this day. He ran the country through a brutal regime, waging wars against Iran and Kuwait before being tried and hanged in Baghdad.
Iraqi News Agency · Public domain
French novelist and dramatist who won the 1915 Nobel Prize for Literature, and wrote a biography of Mahatma Gandhi. His long correspondence with figures such as Tagore and Freud is still widely read.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Rasputin was a Siberian-born mystic who won the trust of Tsar Nicholas II's family, mainly by easing their son's haemophilia. His growing sway over the court made him hated, and he was murdered by a group of nobles in Saint Petersburg.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Download on iOS
Download on Android