Euro banknotes and coins enter circulation across the eurozone (2002), and Stalin's personal secretary Boris Bazhanov defects to Iran (1928). Born on this day: Pierre, baron de Coubertin, J.D. Salinger and Huldrych Zwingli. Died: Heinrich Hertz, Eugene Wigner and Louis XII.
34 events, 88 births and 66 deaths on this date.
Physical euro notes and coins went into everyday use in a group of original member states, replacing their former national currencies within about two months. It turned the euro from a bookkeeping unit into money people carried in their pockets.
Avij ( talk · contribs ) · Public domainBoris Bazhanov had served as Joseph Stalin's private secretary, so his escape into Iran gave the outside world a rare insider's view of the Soviet leader. Defections from so close to the top were extremely rare.
On New Year's Day 2019, NASA's New Horizons probe swept past Arrokoth, a small icy body beyond Neptune. It was the farthest object any spacecraft had ever visited, and the flyby returned close-up images of a strange, flattened pair of lobes.
The World Trade Organization began work, succeeding the GATT of 1948 as the body that writes trade rules and settles disputes between member countries. Based in Geneva, it covers goods, services and intellectual property.
Giuseppe Piazzi, at an observatory in Palermo, spotted the first object found in the asteroid belt. He named it for a Roman deity of farming and motherly love; it is now classed as a dwarf planet.
Justin Cowart · Public domain
Possibly the first airing of Amazing Grace took place at a gathering in Olney, England, where the words were sung without the melody most people know now. Hymns like this one are songs written for worship or prayer, usually addressed to God.
For the full day, download Chunks today. Every date, the stories behind them, and a new day each morning. Free to start.
A French teacher and scholar who pushed sport into French schools, he is best remembered for reviving the Olympic Games. He co-founded the International Olympic Committee and served as its second president.
Photograph from Bain News Service. · Public domain
American writer whose 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, narrated by the restless teenager Holden Caulfield, became a defining book about adolescent alienation. He later withdrew from public life and published very little.
Lotte Jacobi · Public domain
Swiss theologian who led the Reformation in Zurich, preaching through the Bible and rejecting the Mass in its traditional form. He is remembered as a founder of the Swiss Reformed Church.
Hans Asper · Public domain
Heinrich Hertz died at 36, but he had already shown that radio-like waves travel through space, confirming James Clerk Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism. The hertz, the unit of frequency, is named after him.
Robert Krewaldt, Kaiserplatz 16, Bonn · Public domain
Hungarian-American physicist who shared the 1963 Nobel Prize for showing how symmetry principles shape the atomic nucleus and elementary particles. He also helped bring group theory into quantum mechanics.
Nobel foundation · Public domain
Louis XII, King of France since 1498, died on this day. He is remembered for his Italian campaigns, which won Milan but cost him Naples, and for the marriage that brought Brittany into the French crown.
Workshop of Jean Perréal · Public domain
Download on iOS
Download on Android