Richard I invested as Duke of Normandy (1189), and United States and Cuba restore full diplomatic ties (2015). Born on this day: Edmund Hillary, Sir Edmund Hillary and Gregor Mendel. Died: Bruce Lee, Guglielmo Marconi and Bernhard Riemann.
28 events, 69 births and 49 deaths on this date.
Richard, already King of England, was formally given the Duchy of Normandy, adding the French lands to his growing empire. Though he spent little of his reign in England, he is remembered as a warrior king nicknamed the Lionheart.
Matthew Paris · Public domainAfter more than fifty years of frozen relations, Washington and Havana reopened embassies in each other's capitals. The move followed a rapprochement announced in late 2014 and marked a sharp shift in Cold War-era hostility.
Residents of Bogotá, then part of New Granada, formally declared independence from Spanish rule. The act is widely seen as the start of the struggle that would end Spanish control over the region.
After years of debate over joining Canada, the Pacific colony agreed to enter Confederation, with a promise of a railway linking it to the eastern provinces. The deal turned a far-off gold-rush colony into Canada's westernmost province.
Roman troops under Titus, whose father Vespasian was emperor, broke into the Antonia stronghold beside Jerusalem's Temple. Once inside the city, they were pulled into bloody street fighting with the Zealots, a Jewish militant group.
Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, led English troops against the O'Byrne and O'Toole clans, whose army was commanded by Art Óg mac Murchadha Caomhánach, then the strongest chief in Leinster. The summary here names the commanders but not the outcome.
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New Zealand mountaineer who, with Tenzing Norgay, was among the first confirmed to reach the summit of Mount Everest. He later spent decades building schools and hospitals for the Sherpa people of Nepal.
Photographer unidentified. Retouched by TimofKingsland . · Public domain
New Zealand mountaineer who, with Tenzing Norgay, was among the first confirmed to reach the summit of Mount Everest. He later devoted decades to building schools and hospitals for the Sherpa people of Nepal.
Photographer unidentified. Retouched by TimofKingsland . · Public domain
Mendel was an Augustinian friar who bred pea plants to uncover how traits pass from parents to offspring. His work was largely ignored until around 1900, when it became the foundation of genetics.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Hong Kong and American martial artist and actor who founded Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid fighting philosophy. He became one of the first Chinese performers to win international stardom, and his five martial arts films helped popularise the genre in the 1970s.
National General Pictures · Public domain
Italian engineer whose wireless telegraph system turned radio waves into a practical way of sending messages over long distances. He shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Ferdinand Braun and is often regarded as the father of radio.
Pach Brothers · Public domain
Riemann was a German mathematician whose work on the Riemann integral, Riemann surfaces and the zeta-related hypothesis that bears his name still shapes modern mathematics. He died of tuberculosis at 39, in Italy, while travelling for his health.
Public domain
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