Johnson announces a federal campaign against poverty in the United States (1964), and François Grimaldi seizes the fortress on the Rock of Monaco (1297). Born on this day: Elvis Presley, Stephen Hawking and Kim Jong-Un. Died: Galileo, Marco Polo and François Mitterrand.
30 events, 85 births and 64 deaths on this date.
Speaking to Congress, President Lyndon B. Johnson launched a broad programme to lift low-income Americans out of hardship, in what became known as the War on Poverty. The effort became a centrepiece of his Great Society agenda, which also reached into health care, schooling and civil rights.
Arnold Newman · Public domainDisguised as a monk, François Grimaldi and his men took the fortress guarding the Rock of Monaco. The capture gave his family a hold on the principality that lasted, with brief breaks, into the modern era.
Martynas Mažvydas's Catechism appeared in print in Königsberg, the first book ever printed in Lithuanian. It was a short religious primer aimed at ordinary readers, and it marked the start of written Lithuanian as a language of print.
Officials in the city introduced a law limiting public speaking, which set off months of unrest between socialist Wobblies and local business leaders. The clashes later became one of the most violent free speech fights the country had seen.
Jackson marked the nation's only debt-free moment by announcing a dinner to toast the achievement. A former army general and frontier lawyer, he was president from 1829 to 1837, and the US has never repeated the feat.
Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl · Public domain
The order placed the government of the territory in army hands, rather than leaving it to civilian officials. It was issued by William McKinley, the Republican president remembered for the Spanish–American War and the overseas lands it brought the United States.
photographer · Public domain
For the full day, download Chunks today. Every date, the stories behind them, and a new day each morning. Free to start.
Elvis Presley was an American singer and actor, known as the King of Rock and Roll. Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, he helped popularise rockabilly, blending country music with rhythm and blues.
RCA Records · Public domain
Stephen Hawking was a theoretical physicist whose work showed that black holes should slowly emit radiation, now called Hawking radiation. Despite motor neurone disease that left him almost completely paralysed, he wrote bestselling books on cosmology, including A Brief History of Time.
NASA · Public domain
Kim Jong Un leads North Korea as supreme leader, taking power in 2011 after his father's death. He is the third of his family to rule the country, and his government faces widespread accusations of human rights abuses.
Владимир Смирнов / ТАСС · CC BY 4.0
Galileo was the Italian astronomer who used an improved telescope to see Jupiter's four largest moons and the phases of Venus, and who was later kept under house arrest for defending Copernican heliocentrism. He died at his villa near Florence, still under house arrest.
Justus Sustermans · Public domain
A Venetian merchant who spent years in the service of Kublai Khan and later dictated an account of Asia that introduced many Europeans to China. He died in Venice in 1324, remembered mainly for the book of his travels.
Salviati · Public domain
Mitterrand, France's president from 1981 to 1995, was the first left-wing leader to hold the office under the Fifth Republic. He started on the Catholic nationalist right, served Vichy early on, then joined the Resistance and later moved left.
Comet Photo AG (Zürich) · CC BY-SA 4.0
Download on iOS
Download on Android