Truman authorises a sea blockade of Korea (1950), and Seychelles becomes independent from the United Kingdom (1976). Born on this day: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov and Giacomo Leopardi. Died: Katharine Hepburn, Carl Reiner and Thomas Henry Huxley.
27 events, 56 births and 61 deaths on this date.
Less than a week after North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel, Truman ordered a naval blockade of the peninsula. It was an early step in a war that would drag on until 1953.
National Archives and Records Administration. Office of Presidential Libraries. Harry S. Truman Library. · Public domainThe Indian Ocean archipelago of 115 islands, long shaped by French and British rule and plantation labour, became a sovereign republic on this day. It was the last step in a shift towards self-government that had been building for years.
Moscow formally took Carpathian Ruthenia, Czechoslovakia's easternmost province, bringing the region under Soviet control. It was one territorial gain the Soviet Union secured as the Second World War came to an end.
The three cosmonauts died when the capsule lost its air pressure before re-entry, after a record stay aboard the Salyut 1 space station. They remain the only people to have died above the Kármán line, the boundary of space.
A painting by Vincent van Gogh, the Dutch Post-Impressionist known for bold colour, changed hands at a London sale for $20.4 million. The price showed how far his reputation had grown after a life marked by illness and poverty.
Breton explorer Jacques Cartier later became the first European to map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and name Canada. His sighting of this island came during those early voyages to the region.
Théophile Hamel / After François Nicholas Riss · CC BY-SA 4.0
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French aviator turned writer, best known for The Little Prince. He flew airmail routes across Europe, Africa and South America before his plane vanished on a reconnaissance flight over Corsica.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
A former dentist who became Turkmenistan's second president in 2006 after the death of Saparmurat Niyazov. He ruled for sixteen years, and critics say his government was among the most repressive in the world.
Press Service of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan · CC BY 4.0
Born in the Papal States, Leopardi grew up in a remote provincial town yet absorbed Enlightenment ideas through his own reading. He became one of Italy's most admired poets and a radical, challenging thinker on human existence.
Domenico Morelli · Public domain
Hepburn was a headstrong leading lady who won a record four Best Actress Oscars and became famous for her independent screen persona. She spent 26 years making nine films with Spencer Tracy, and her career spanned six decades on stage and screen.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios ; Restored by Adam Cuerden · Public domain
Carl Reiner was a writer, comedian and director whose work spanned seven decades. He created The Dick Van Dyke Show and directed Steve Martin in several hit comedies, including The Jerk and All of Me.
Louise Palanker from Los Angeles/Santa Barbara, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0
Known as Darwin's Bulldog, he defended Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in public, most famously in the 1860 Oxford debate with Samuel Wilberforce. Largely self-taught, he became one of the leading comparative anatomists of his age and coined the word agnosticism.
Lock & Whitfield · Public domain
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