Concorde begins scheduled passenger service from Paris and London (1976), and Albania declares itself a republic (1925). Born on this day: Paul Allen, Charles V and Plácido Domingo. Died: Vladimir Lenin, George Orwell and Louis XVI.
28 events, 61 births and 64 deaths on this date.
Air France and British Airways launched Concorde's scheduled service from Paris and London. Flights cut journey times by more than half, but sonic booms over land confined them to routes across the ocean.
Eduard Marmet · CC BY-SA 3.0The Albanian parliament proclaimed the country a republic, ending the brief period when it had been ruled as a principality under Ahmet Zogu's leadership. The change set the stage for Zogu to later declare himself king.
Reformers Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz and George Blaurock, with about a dozen followers, rebaptised each other in Manz's mother's house. The act broke a thousand years of church and state being joined, and it launched the Swiss Anabaptist movement.
Members of the far-right Iron Guard rose up after a German officer was killed in the city the day before, and turned their anger on the Jewish population. The rising and pogrom left 125 Jews dead.
NASA's Mars rover Spirit stopped responding to mission control, its flash memory mismanaged in a way that left it unable to function. Engineers on Earth repaired the fault remotely about two weeks later, bringing the robot back online.
The former princely state, once part of the Tripuri Kingdom under the Manikya dynasty, gained full statehood after years as a union territory. Its hilly, forested terrain and the single highway linking it to the rest of the country have long shaped its development.
For the full day, download Chunks today. Every date, the stories behind them, and a new day each morning. Free to start.
Paul Allen was an American computer programmer and investor who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975. He later funded brain science research, private spaceflight and sports teams, and gave away more than $2 billion to good causes.
Miles Harris · CC BY-SA 3.0
Charles V became King of France in 1364 and won back much of the land lost to England during the Hundred Years' War. He is remembered as Charles the Wise for his careful management of the kingdom and its treasury.
P.poschadel · CC BY-SA 3.0
Plácido Domingo is a Spanish singer who moved from tenor to baritone roles and became one of the best-known opera performers of his era. He is also remembered for his pop crossover hits, including a duet with John Denver, and for helping form The Three Tenors.
Fotografías - archimadrid.es · CC BY-SA 2.0
Lenin led the Bolsheviks to power in the 1917 October Revolution and became the first head of government of Soviet Russia. He died in 1924, leaving the Soviet state he had founded to be shaped by his successors.
Pavel Zhukov · Public domain
Eric Arthur Blair, who wrote under the name George Orwell, was an English novelist and essayist known for the allegorical novella Animal Farm and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Several of his coinages, such as Big Brother and doublethink, have entered everyday English.
Cassowary Colorizations · CC BY 2.0
Louis XVI was executed by guillotine in Paris after the French Revolution overthrew the monarchy he had ruled since 1774. He is remembered as the last king to reign over France before the republic was declared.
Antoine-François Callet · Public domain
Download on iOS
Download on Android