Harding signs resolution formally ending war with Germany (1921), and Miltiades begins his papacy as bishop of Rome (311). Born on this day: Hermann Hesse, Wisława Szymborska and Patrice Lumumba. Died: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ernest Hemingway and Vladimir Nabokov.
35 events, 59 births and 63 deaths on this date.
President Warren G. Harding signed the Knox–Porter Resolution, which brought the United States' state of war with Germany to a formal close more than two years after the armistice. The measure let the country deal with Germany on its own terms, separate from the Treaty of Versailles that the Senate had rejected.
Copyright by Moffett, Chicago. J241772 U.S. Copyright Office. · Public domainMiltiades, the bishop of Rome, began his papacy on this day, taking charge of the city's Christian community. He is remembered as the pope who led the Roman church through the years just after the great persecution ended.
Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan vanished over the Pacific in their twin-engine Lockheed Electra while trying to become the first woman to fly around the world. Neither was ever found, and her disappearance has kept her a lasting cultural figure.
Wide World Photos · Public domain
Born in what was then the Belgian Congo, Lumumba went on to become the country's first prime minister after independence in 1960. He was killed the following year, and is remembered across Africa as a martyr of the anti-colonial struggle.
Harry Pot for Anefo ) · CC BY 4.0
The law made it illegal to form trusts and other arrangements that restrained trade between states or with foreign nations. It became the foundation of American competition law, used for over a century to break up monopolies.
An SS unit reached Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, and began a methodical campaign of killing that would claim as many as 100,000 lives. The SS was the organisation most responsible for the Holocaust, which targeted Europe's Jews and millions of others.
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Hesse wrote novels such as Siddhartha, Steppenwolf and The Glass Bead Game, all about a person's search for meaning and self-knowledge. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946 and became hugely popular with readers in the 1960s.
Unknown author Unknown author · CC BY-SA 3.0 nl
Polish poet who wrote poems about ordinary life and history with a sharp eye, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996. After the prize, her work, including the poem "Some Like Poetry", became far better known abroad and was translated into many languages.
Mariusz Kubik · CC BY 3.0
Patrice Lumumba led the Congolese independence movement and became the country's first elected prime minister in 1960, months after Belgian rule ended. He was removed from office within months, then captured and executed in 1961 by rivals backed by Belgian mercenaries.
Harry Pot for Anefo ) · CC BY 4.0
Genevan philosopher whose works on inequality, the social contract and education shaped Enlightenment and revolutionary thought. His Confessions helped launch the modern autobiography, and he died at Ermenonville in 1778.
Maurice Quentin de La Tour · Public domain
Ernest Hemingway wrote economical prose that later writers learned from closely. He is remembered for The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea, which won the Pulitzer Prize.
Lloyd Arnold · Public domain
Russian-American novelist who wrote Lolita, and also a serious lepidopterist who studied butterflies. He switched from writing in Russian to English after moving to the United States, and his memoir Speak, Memory is widely admired.
Walter Mori (Mondadori Publishers) · Public domain
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