Akbar is crowned ruler of the Mughal Empire (1556), and YouTube is founded by three former PayPal employees (2005). Born on this day: Simon Pegg, Mark Rutte and C.T.R. Wilson. Died: James Cook, David Hilbert and Carlos Menem.
33 events, 60 births and 57 deaths on this date.
Akbar took the Mughal throne with the help of a regent, Bairam Khan, who guided him as the young ruler. He went on to expand the empire across much of the Indian subcontinent, and is generally regarded as its greatest emperor.
1605 artist · Public domainChad Hurley, Jawed Karim and Steve Chen, all ex-PayPal staff, launched the video-sharing site from a base in California. Google later bought it, and it now draws billions of monthly users who watch a billion hours of video each day.
Texas was linked to the national telegraph network when a line was completed between New Orleans and Marshall, a town in eastern Texas. The connection ended the state's isolation in matters of news and communication with the wider country.
Oregon joined the Union on this day, becoming the 33rd state after years as a territory following the 1846 Oregon Treaty. Its admission gave the young nation a new Pacific Northwest state stretching to the Pacific coast.
Still in office, Polk posed for a photograph in New York City, becoming the first sitting American president to be captured on camera. Photography was then a new technology, and Polk died only a few months later, in June 1849.
Scientists at Berkeley's Lawrence Radiation Laboratory created lawrencium, a man-made metal named after Ernest Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron. It sits at the end of the actinide series and behaves like lutetium, a heavier cousin in the periodic table.
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English actor, comedian and screenwriter best known for co-writing Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz with Edgar Wright. He has also played Scotty in Star Trek and Benji Dunn in the Mission: Impossible films.
Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America · CC BY-SA 2.0
Dutch politician who led the Netherlands for 14 years, the longest-serving prime minister in its history, before becoming NATO's Secretary General in 2024. He began as a business manager at Unilever before entering national politics.
European Commission (Christophe Licoppe) · CC BY 4.0
Scottish physicist whose cloud chamber let researchers see the tracks of charged particles. He won a share of the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics for it, alongside Arthur Compton.
The American Institute of Physics credits the photo [1] to AB Lagrelius & Westphal , which is the Swedish company used by the Nobel Foundation for most photos of its book series Les Prix Nobel . · Public domain
James Cook was a Royal Navy officer whose three Pacific voyages charted coastlines from New Zealand to Alaska in far more detail than before. He was killed in Hawaii in 1779, during a dispute with Native Hawaiians on the shore of Kealakekua Bay.
Nathaniel Dance-Holland · Public domain
David Hilbert was a German mathematician who worked across geometry, algebra and the foundations of mathematics. He is remembered for his list of 23 unsolved problems, presented in 1900, which shaped much of the mathematics that followed in the 20th century.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Carlos Menem was Argentina's president from 1989 to 1999, known for free-market reforms, privatisation and the Convertibility plan that tamed hyperinflation. He died in 2021 at 90, remembered as one of the country's most divisive leaders.
Víctor Bugge · CC BY 2.0
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