Venus passes in front of the star Regulus (1959), and Solomon Islands gains independence from the United Kingdom (1978). Born on this day: Gustav Mahler, Ringo Starr and Marc Chagall. Died: Arthur Conan Doyle, Eduard Shevardnadze and Edward I.
31 events, 47 births and 56 deaths on this date.
Venus slid across the bright star Regulus as seen from Earth, an uncommon alignment. Astronomers used such occultations to measure the planet's diameter and probe the structure of its atmosphere.
NASA/JPL-Caltech · Public domainAfter decades as a British protectorate, the Solomon Islands became a sovereign nation on this day. The archipelago, spread across hundreds of islands in Melanesia, took charge of its own government.
Ernesto Guevara, then a young medical student, set off on a journey through South and Central America. The route, which took in eight countries, exposed him to the poverty and disease that later drew him toward revolutionary politics.
NASA's Opportunity rover, the second of two identical Mars Exploration Rovers, launched on a Delta II rocket bound for the Red Planet. Once it arrived, it went on to explore Martian rock for many years.
Breton navigator Jacques Cartier was the first European to map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and name the region Canada. This was his first recorded meeting with the region's Indigenous communities, which he later described in accounts and maps that are now lost.
Théophile Hamel / After François Nicholas Riss · CC BY-SA 4.0
Ronald Reagan put forward Sandra Day O'Connor, an Arizona appeals judge, as the first woman nominated to the United States Supreme Court. Her confirmation later that year opened the highest bench in the country to women for the first time.
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Gustav Mahler was a Bohemian-born conductor and composer who led some of Europe's great opera houses, including Vienna's Court Opera. His symphonies, long neglected, became some of the most performed works in the concert repertoire after 1945.
Leonard Berlin / E. Bieber · Public domain
Richard Starkey, known as Ringo Starr, is an English drummer who became famous with the Beatles and sometimes sang lead on their records. He later had solo hits, including the US top-ten single It Don't Come Easy.
Raph_PH · CC BY 2.0
Belarusian-born painter who blended Eastern European Jewish folklore with modernist styles, producing paintings, stained glass and stage sets. He later lived in Paris and New York, and his stained-glass windows adorn cathedrals in Reims and Metz.
Pierre Choumoff · Public domain
Doyle is remembered for creating the detective Sherlock Holmes, whose stories made him one of the best-known writers of his day. He also wrote The Lost World, a novel that launched a whole genre of adventure fiction about lost lands full of prehistoric creatures.
Walter Benington · Public domain
Shevardnadze, a Soviet and Georgian leader, was the last Soviet foreign minister and later served as Georgia's president until 2003. He is remembered for helping end the Cold War and for steering Georgia through turbulent years after independence.
Robert D. Ward · Public domain
A reforming king of England who conquered Wales and built castles there, Edward I was nicknamed Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots. He also reshaped royal administration and common law during his long reign.
Remiguis Goebel · Public domain
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