Columbus becomes the first European to sight Trinidad (1498), and Göring authorises Heydrich to prepare the Final Solution (1941). Born on this day: J.K. Rowling, Milton Friedman and Premchand. Died: Andrew Johnson, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Franz Liszt.
28 events, 62 births and 69 deaths on this date.
On his third Atlantic voyage, Columbus reached Trinidad, the island off Venezuela's coast that he became the first European to record. The sighting came during a journey that also took him to the mainland of South America.
Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio · Public domainChristopher ColumbusHear the story in ChunksHitler's instruction led Hermann Göring to give SS officer Reinhard Heydrich responsibility for preparing what the Nazis called the Final Solution of the Jewish question. The order widened the path toward the systematic murder of European Jews in the Holocaust.
British author whose Harry Potter books, about a young wizard, have sold over 600 million copies and spawned films and video games. She also writes crime novels under the name Robert Galbraith and co-founded the charity Lumos.
Daniel Ogren · CC BY 2.0
Mount Fuji, Japan's highest peak and a near-perfect cone visible from Tokyo on clear days, has a written record of its oldest known eruption. It last erupted between 1707 and 1708, so the volcano has been active across more than twelve centuries.
名古屋太郎, (edited by Hannes_24 ) · CC BY-SA 3.0
Christchurch, the largest city on New Zealand's South Island, was formally made a city by letters patent. The Canterbury settlement had begun only a few years earlier, so this marked its official step from colonial settlement to city.
Photographer: P. Stalder (English user page) / P. Stalder (deutsche Benutzerseite) · CC BY-SA 3.0
Locked in the pillory for seditious libel over a satirical political pamphlet, Defoe found the crowd showering him with flowers rather than the abuse a pillory was meant to bring. He is remembered today for Robinson Crusoe, which he wrote later.
Unknown Unknown , style of Sir Godfrey Kneller · Public domain
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Rowling is a British author best known for the Harry Potter series, which has sold more than 600 million copies and is among the most widely read books ever written. She also writes the Cormoran Strike crime novels under the name Robert Galbraith.
Daniel Ogren · CC BY 2.0
Milton Friedman was an American economist who won the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize for his work on consumption and monetary history. He became the leading voice of monetarism and challenged the Keynesian ideas that dominated government policy in the 1960s.
Bachrach Studios · Public domain
Premchand was an Indian writer of Hindi and Urdu fiction who wrote about caste, poverty and the lives of women and labourers. He is remembered for novels such as Godaan and for around 300 short stories.
Ankur8563 · CC BY-SA 3.0
Andrew Johnson, who became president after Abraham Lincoln's assassination, is remembered for his lenient approach to the defeated South and his impeachment in 1868. He survived the Senate trial by a single vote.
Mathew Brady, Retouched by Mmxx · Public domain
The French aviator and writer, author of The Little Prince, vanished on a reconnaissance flight over the Mediterranean. Wreckage found off Marseille in 2000 confirmed his plane had gone down, though the cause is still unknown.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Hungarian pianist and composer who dazzled 19th-century audiences and inspired a craze known as Lisztomania. He also championed fellow composers, promoting and arranging their works for the concert hall.
Franz Hanfstaengl · Public domain
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