Vasco da Gama sets sail from Lisbon on second voyage to India (1502), and Ecuador annexes the Galápagos Islands (1832). Born on this day: Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln and Anna Pavlova. Died: Immanuel Kant, Julio Cortázar and Jean Renoir.
29 events, 74 births and 75 deaths on this date.
Da Gama left Lisbon with fifteen ships and about 800 men, aiming to build on his earlier route to India. The fleet's aim was to secure Portuguese trade in spices and to force the Indian Ocean trade into Portuguese hands.
Sailko · CC BY 3.0Ecuador formally claimed the Galápagos, a volcanic archipelago about 1,000 kilometres off its Pacific coast. The islands later became famous as the place where Charles Darwin gathered evidence for his theory of evolution.
Pedro de Valdivia laid out the settlement as Santiago del Nuevo Extremo, with a grid of streets around a central square. It is now Chile's capital and home to over a third of the country's population.
Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow signed a joint statement at Havana's airport, a meeting the two churches had not seen before. It was the first encounter between the heads of these two churches, a rare sign of contact.
Isabella, one of the Catholic Monarchs, decreed that Islam was no longer lawful anywhere in the Crown of Castile. Nearly all Muslims there were pushed into converting to Christianity, part of a wider push that also included the Alhambra Decree expelling Jews.
Juan de Flandes · Public domain
Pope Urban II, who had only recently begun preaching the First Crusade, gave formal approval to a new religious community at La Roë. Robert of Arbrissel had founded it, and its members followed a rule as canons regular.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
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Charles Darwin was an English naturalist whose proposal that all species share a common ancestor, shaped by natural selection, transformed biology. He is also remembered for his voyage on HMS Beagle and for the travel journal that made him a popular author.
Herbert Rose Barraud · Public domain
Lincoln, who grew up on the Kentucky frontier with little formal schooling, led the United States through the Civil War and helped bring an end to slavery. He was the first Republican to win the presidency, and he was assassinated in 1865.
Alexander Gardner · Public domain
Russian dancer remembered above all for The Dying Swan, a short solo she created that became her signature. She later led her own troupe on long tours, performing in places as far apart as India, Mexico and Australia.
Photography studio of the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre. St. Petersburg, Russian Empire. · Public domain
Kant was the Königsberg philosopher who argued that our minds shape the experience we have of the world, and that reason grounds morality. He died in his birthplace in 1804, aged 79.
Becker · Public domain
Argentine-born writer whose novel Hopscotch and short stories such as Blow-Up reshaped Spanish-language fiction. He lived most of his adult life in Paris, where he wrote and translated until his death in 1984.
Sara Facio · Public domain
The French director behind La Grande Illusion and The Rules of the Game, both still cited by critics as landmarks of cinema. Son of the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, he also made The River, the first colour film shot in India.
Studio Harcourt · Public domain
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