Clinton awards Medal of Honor to Asian American veterans (2000), and Pluto's newly found moons receive official names (2006). Born on this day: Jean-Paul Sartre, Lana Del Rey and Benazir Bhutto. Died: Niccolò Machiavelli, Sukarno and Bertha, baroness von Suttner.
26 events, 75 births and 62 deaths on this date.
Most of the 22 recipients had served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in the Second World War, honoured for their acts in that conflict. It was the nation's highest military award, presented to men of Asian descent decades after their deeds.
Bob McNeely, The White House [ 1 ] · Public domainPluto's two small moons, first spotted in 2005, were given the official names Nix and Hydra. Until then they had only provisional designations, and they orbit alongside the much larger Charon.
New Hampshire's convention voted to approve the Constitution, and that ninth ratification meant the new federal government could finally take effect. The small northern state, which had led the way toward independence years earlier, thus joined the Union as its ninth member.
Marie-Joseph Angélique, an enslaved woman in Montreal, was executed after a court blamed her for the blaze that ravaged much of the town. Her case is a stark record of slavery in New France.
Kipling's poem Mandalay appeared in print while he was among Britain's most popular writers. Born in British India, Kipling drew on that world for much of his work.
Bain News Service, publisher · Public domain
Fearing for their safety amid the Revolution, the king and queen tried to slip out of Paris in disguise and reach royalist troops on the eastern frontier. Their escape failed, and the journey ended in humiliation, shaking public trust in the monarchy.
Antoine-François Callet · Public domain
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Sartre was a French philosopher and writer who became the leading voice of existentialism, the idea that people must create meaning through their own free choices. He also turned down the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature, though it was awarded to him anyway.
User:T1980 · CC BY 3.0
Lana Del Rey is an American singer-songwriter known for melancholic, cinematic songs about romance and glamour, drawing on 1950s to 1970s Americana. Her debut major-label album, Born to Die, released in 2012, built a devoted cult following and became one of the longest-charting albums by a woman on the US Billboard 200.
Mike Monaghan from Seattle, United States · CC BY 2.0
Benazir Bhutto was a Pakistani stateswoman who twice served as prime minister, first elected to lead a democratic government in a Muslim-majority country. She chaired the Pakistan People's Party until her assassination in 2007.
CC BY-SA 4.0
Florentine diplomat and writer who is remembered for The Prince, a treatise on power that was not published until five years after he died. Often called a father of modern political thought, he advised rulers that political necessity could justify ruthless acts.
Santi di Tito · Public domain
Sukarno was Indonesia's first president, who led the independence struggle against Dutch rule and declared independence in 1945. Removed from power after the 1965 upheaval, he died under house arrest in 1970.
Onbekend /Anonymous · Public domain
Austrian novelist and campaigner against war, best known for her 1889 anti-war novel Lay Down Your Arms. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1905.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
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