Hitler announces Lebensraum in Eastern Europe as foreign policy goal (1933), and Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press, dies (1468). Born on this day: Felix Mendelssohn, Alvar Aalto and Simone Weil. Died: Woodrow Wilson, Umm Kulthūm and Murad II.
30 events, 77 births and 68 deaths on this date.
Speaking to army commanders, Hitler set out the conquest of land in Eastern Europe and its ruthless Germanisation as the aims of German foreign policy. The plan shaped the war that followed and the mass killing of Slavs and Jews under Nazi rule.
Unknown author Unknown author · CC BY-SA 3.0 deThe German craftsman who built a practical movable-type press died, leaving a method that reshaped how books were made. His Gutenberg Bible, the first printed Bible, helped spread printing across Europe and fed the Renaissance and Reformation.
Public domain
South African president P. W. Botha gave up the leadership of the National Party two weeks after a stroke, though he kept the presidency for a further half year. A stroke cuts blood flow to part of the brain, killing the cells there.
Mehmed II took charge of the Ottoman realm, beginning a reign that would include the capture of Constantinople in 1453. He is remembered as the sultan who turned a Byzantine capital into an Ottoman one.
Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg signed a treaty creating a single economic union, building on their earlier customs agreement. The arrangement served as a practical trial run for the wider European Economic Community that followed.
Born as the computer graphics unit of Lucasfilm, the studio became a separate company once Steve Jobs bought it. Its Toy Story in 1995 was the first fully computer-animated feature film.
Coolcaesar · CC BY-SA 3.0
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Felix Mendelssohn was a German composer, pianist and conductor whose Midsummer Night's Dream music and Songs Without Words remain widely loved. Raised without religion, he was baptised into the Reformed church aged seven, and he later revived interest in Bach's music.
Eduard Magnus · Public domain
Finnish architect and designer who treated buildings, furniture and glassware as one total work of art. His bent plywood furniture influenced later designers such as Charles and Ray Eames.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Simone Weil was a French philosopher and social activist who spent a year working in car factories to understand the lives of the working class. Her writings on religion, spirituality and politics only drew wide attention after her death in 1943.
Public domain
The 28th US president led the country through the First World War and championed the League of Nations. Before politics he had been a Princeton university president and governor of New Jersey.
Harris & Ewing, photographer · Public domain
Egyptian singer whose powerful contralto and long, complex songs made her the defining voice of Arab music in the twentieth century. Her funeral in Cairo drew more than four million mourners, the largest gathering in Egypt's history.
Production company · Public domain
Murad II was twice Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, ruling from 1421 to 1444 and again from 1446 until his death. He expanded Ottoman power in the Balkans and held off a Christian crusade at the Battle of Varna.
1584-1588 artist · Public domain
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