James Joyce begins relationship with Nora Barnacle (1904), and Bhutan bans all tobacco sales and use (2010). Born on this day: Tupac Shakur, Barbara McClintock and Andrea Ghez. Died: Helmut Kohl, Wernher von Braun and Imre Nagy.
30 events, 53 births and 58 deaths on this date.
Joyce met Nora Barnacle, a hotel chambermaid from Galway, and their partnership lasted the rest of his life. Sixteen June later became the day his novel Ulysses is set, now celebrated as Bloomsday.
Public domainBhutan became the first country to introduce a complete ban on tobacco, covering its sale and use across the nation. The Himalayan kingdom took the step as part of a wider push to improve public health.
Canada's former ambassador to Iran, Ken Taylor, received the Congressional Gold Medal for sheltering six Americans and getting them out of Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis. He was the first non-American to be given the honour.
The Soviet Union moved into Lithuania, a step that would later turn the country into the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. The occupation followed a secret pact with Nazi Germany that had divided Eastern Europe between the two powers.
Roald Amundsen sails from Oslo in the sloop Gjøa, aiming to become the first to traverse the Northwest Passage from east to west. The voyage took three years, and he later became the first person to reach the South Pole.
Bowie's glam rock album introduced the alter ego Ziggy Stardust and became his first major commercial breakthrough. The record helped turn him into one of the most talked-about musicians of the early 1970s.
For the full day, download Chunks today. Every date, the stories behind them, and a new day each morning. Free to start.
Born in New York to Black Panther Party members, Shakur sold over 75 million records, mixing protest songs with violent gangsta rap. He also acted in films such as Juice and Poetic Justice before his death in 1996.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Barbara McClintock was an American cytogeneticist who studied maize chromosomes and discovered jumping genes, transposons, later recognised with a Nobel Prize. Her work on how genes switch on and off was largely ignored until other scientists confirmed it decades later.
Smithsonian Institution /Science Service; Restored by Adam Cuerden · Public domain
Andrea Ghez is an American astronomer who studies the centre of the Milky Way. In 2020 she received, jointly with Reinhard Genzel, the Nobel physics prize for finding a dense, supermassive object at the galaxy's centre, most likely a black hole.
BorderlineRebel · CC BY-SA 4.0
Kohl was chancellor from 1982 to 1998 and oversaw German reunification. He served longer than any other elected German chancellor, and he backed the creation of the European Union.
Christian Lambiotte · CC BY 4.0
German-born rocket engineer who designed the V-2 for Nazi Germany, then the Saturn V that carried Apollo astronauts to the Moon after he moved to the United States. His past in the Nazi war effort remains controversial.
NASA/MSFC · Public domain
Nagy was a Hungarian communist who tried to loosen Stalinist rule, then led the 1956 uprising against Soviet-backed government. After a secret trial he was executed in 1958, and reburied with honour in 1989.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Download on iOS
Download on Android