Millard Fillmore, later 13th U.S. president, is born (1800), and United States recognises Fidel Castro's new Cuban government (1959). Born on this day: Millard Fillmore, Nicolas Cage and Lewis Hamilton. Died: Nikola Tesla, Hirohito and Franz Beckenbauer.
30 events, 53 births and 65 deaths on this date.
Born into poverty in upstate New York with little formal schooling, Fillmore studied his way into law and later rose to the presidency. He took office in 1850 after Zachary Taylor died, and he was the final Whig to occupy the White House.
Mathew Benjamin Brady · Public domainWashington formally recognised the revolutionary government that had just toppled Fulgencio Batista, only days after Castro's forces entered Havana. The move set the tone for a relationship that would soon sour into hostility and a long diplomatic freeze.
Edison's lab recorded a man sneezing on a kinetoscope film that day, a small test of the new moving-picture machine. The same day, his colleague William Kennedy Dickson was granted a patent covering the film used in those early motion pictures.
Angry citizens of Constantinople rose up, killed the hated minister Nikephoritzes and hailed the general Nikephoros Botaneiates as emperor. The uprising showed how quickly the capital's mob could overturn the court's rulers.
Representatives of Ayatollah Khomeini handed Mikhail Gorbachev a letter urging him to consider Islam instead of communism. It predicted the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, a forecast that proved remarkably accurate within two years.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
The green, white and red tricolour was made official in Reggio Emilia by the Cispadane Republic, a Napoleonic sister state of revolutionary France. It grew into a leading emblem of the drive for unity in Italy, and Italians still mark the day each year as Tricolour Day.
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Millard Fillmore became the 13th president of the United States in 1850 after Zachary Taylor died. He is remembered for helping pass the Compromise of 1850, which brought a brief truce in the fight over slavery's expansion.
Mathew Benjamin Brady · Public domain
Born Nicolas Kim Coppola into the Coppola family, he is an American actor who won an Academy Award for Leaving Las Vegas. Known for his wide-ranging roles, from dramas to blockbuster action films, he has built a devoted cult following.
Georges Biard · CC BY-SA 3.0
Lewis Hamilton is a British racing driver who competes for Ferrari and is one of only two drivers to have won seven Formula One world championships. He holds the sport's records for race wins, pole positions and podium finishes.
Governo do Estado de São Paulo · CC BY 2.0
Tesla died in New York at 86. He is remembered for the alternating current system that powers much of the world, and for an induction motor whose patents helped make AC the standard for electricity supply.
Napoleon Sarony · Public domain
Hirohito reigned as Emperor of Japan for over sixty years, the longest in the country's history. After defeat in the Second World War, he renounced his divinity and accepted a new pacifist constitution.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Beckenbauer was a German footballer and coach who reinvented the centre-back role as a sweeper. He captained West Germany to the 1974 World Cup and returned as manager to win it again in 1990.
Panini Group · Public domain
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