Vasco da Gama leaves Lisbon on second India expedition (1502), and Soviet Union begins mass deportation of Polish citizens to Siberia (1940). Born on this day: Bertolt Brecht, Boris Leonidovich Pasternak and Harold Macmillan. Died: Aleksandr Pushkin, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen and Montesquieu.
29 events, 63 births and 65 deaths on this date.
Vasco da Gama headed out of Lisbon again, aiming to reach India by the sea route he had opened in 1497. His first trip had found a way round the Cape of Good Hope, and this new venture aimed to build on it.
Sailko · CC BY 3.0Soviet authorities started forcibly moving Polish families from eastern Poland, which they had seized in 1939, deep into Siberia and other remote regions. Tens of thousands were loaded onto freight trains in the depths of winter, and many did not survive the journey or the harsh conditions that followed.
France and Belgium refused to let NATO approve by silence its Turkey defence timing, in case of an Iraq war. The move blocked the alliance's usual shortcut to agreement and exposed deep splits over Iraq.
Victoria chose her cousin Albert as her husband, and their marriage became the heart of her private life. Albert later shaped much of the royal household and advised her closely on public affairs until his death in 1861.
Eisenhower, who had commanded Allied forces in Europe during the Second World War, was then in his first year as president. He spoke out against the United States stepping into the conflict in Vietnam.
White House · Public domain
Al-Musta'sim, the last Abbasid caliph, handed Baghdad to Hulegu Khan's besieging army. The Mongols then sacked the city, and the death toll ran into the hundreds of thousands, ending the dynasty's rule from its great capital.
For the full day, download Chunks today. Every date, the stories behind them, and a new day each morning. Free to start.
Brecht was a German playwright and poet who wrote The Threepenny Opera and Mother Courage and Her Children, and developed epic theatre, which asks audiences to watch critically rather than lose themselves in the story.
Kolbe, Jörg · CC BY-SA 3.0 de
Russian poet, novelist and translator, best remembered for Doctor Zhivago, a novel banned in the Soviet Union that was smuggled abroad and published in Italy. He was pressured into declining the 1958 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Владимир Савостьянов / ТАСС · Public domain
Harold Macmillan was Britain's Prime Minister from 1957 to 1963, remembered for steering the country through a period of affluence and for his wry, unflappable style. Before politics he was a wounded First World War officer and a publisher in his family's firm.
Unknown photographer · Public domain
A Romantic-era poet, playwright and novelist, often seen as the founder of modern Russian literature. He wrote Eugene Onegin and Boris Godunov, and died after a duel with a French officer tied to his wife.
Orest Kiprensky · Public domain
Röntgen was a German physicist who discovered X-rays in 1895, a finding that let doctors see inside the body without surgery. He became the first Nobel Prize winner in Physics in 1901.
Erwin Hanfstaengl · Public domain
Montesquieu was a French jurist and political philosopher whose ideas on separating governmental powers shaped many later constitutions. His book The Spirit of Laws, published anonymously in 1748, influenced the American Founding Fathers.
After Jacques-Antoine Dassier · Public domain
Download on iOS
Download on Android