Cook becomes the first known European to reach Hawaii (1778), and Israel and Egypt sign disengagement of forces agreement (1974). Born on this day: Montesquieu, Kevin Costner and Cary Grant. Died: John Tyler, Rudyard Kipling and Adolf Butenandt.
32 events, 65 births and 58 deaths on this date.
Cook's ships sighted the Hawaiian Islands, and he named them the Sandwich Islands after the Earl of Sandwich, a naval patron. The visit opened a route that later European and American traders and whalers would follow.
Nathaniel Dance-Holland · Public domainIsrael and Egypt agreed to pull their forces back from each other, bringing fighting to an end on that front of the Yom Kippur War. The pact was signed by the two governments themselves, formally closing the conflict in that theatre.
Cyclone Kyrill battered Western Europe, killing at least 44 people across 20 countries, with 14 deaths in Britain and 13 in Germany. It was the strongest UK storm in 17 years, and Germany's worst since 1999.
Francisco Pizarro laid out the city he named Ciudad de los Reyes, the seat of government for the territories he had seized for the Spanish crown. The settlement later took the name Lima and grew into the political and commercial heart of Peru.
Soviet troops entered Kraków and ended more than five years of German occupation. The city had been the seat of Nazi Germany's General Government in Poland, and it was spared from destruction.
Navvab Safavi, a Shia cleric who led the militant group Fada'iyan-e Islam, was hanged in Tehran after trying to kill Prime Minister Hossein Ala'. His execution showed how far the state would go against religious militants who used violence for political ends.
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A French political philosopher whose book The Spirit of Laws argued for dividing government into separate branches. That idea of separated powers later shaped many national constitutions, including the American one.
After Jacques-Antoine Dassier · Public domain
American actor and filmmaker, best known for directing and starring in Dances With Wolves, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. He has also starred in The Untouchables, Bull Durham and Field of Dreams.
Bill Ingalls · Public domain
Born Archibald Leach in Bristol, he rose from a poor childhood to become one of classic Hollywood's most admired leading men. He is remembered for screwball comedies such as Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday.
Grant,_Cary_(Suspicion)_01.jpg : RKO publicity photographer. derivative work: Crisco 1492 ( talk ) · Public domain
Tyler, the tenth US president, took office unexpected in 1841 when William Henry Harrison died a month after his inauguration. A Virginian and staunch defender of states' rights, he was estranged from both the Whigs and the Democrats for much of his term.
George Peter Alexander Healy · Public domain
English writer whose Jungle Book stories, Kim and poems such as If— made him one of Britain's most popular authors. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907, the first English-language writer to do so.
Bain News Service, publisher · Public domain
German biochemist whose research on sex hormones won him the 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He turned it down at first under government policy, accepting it only in 1949 after the war.
Unknown author Unknown author (Turnerschaft Philippina-Saxonia) · Public domain
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