Einstein submits special relativity paper to Annalen der Physik (1905), and Tajik citizen kills two at Chișinău airport after being refused entry (2023). Born on this day: Czesław Miłosz, Michael Phelps and Mike Tyson. Died: Lord Rayleigh, Yitzḥak Shamir and Giuseppe Farina.
29 events, 55 births and 45 deaths on this date.
Einstein posted his paper introducing special relativity to the journal Annalen der Physik, a theory that changed how physicists understood space, time and motion. Its core idea, that the laws of physics look the same to everyone moving at constant speed, reshaped physics.
Ferdinand Schmutzer / Adam Cuerden · Public domainA Tajik man with suspected Islamic State links, wanted at home for murder and kidnapping, shot dead two people at Moldova's main airport after authorities refused him entry. The attack highlighted concerns about extremist movement across borders in the region.
The first train to cross Canada from coast to coast set off from Montreal, starting a journey across the new rail line. It reached Port Moody on the Pacific coast of British Columbia a few days later.
The teenage Zhu Yunwen took the Ming throne after his grandfather, the Hongwu Emperor, died. His attempts to rein in his powerful uncles soon triggered a civil war that ended with his removal.
Abraham Lincoln signed a grant handing Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Grove to California, to be kept for public use and recreation. It was an early step toward protecting wild land for people to visit, and it set a precedent for national parks.
Harding gave the top job on the Supreme Court to Taft, who had already been president himself. The appointment put a former head of state at the centre of the nation's highest court.
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Polish poet who survived wartime Warsaw, defected from communist Poland, and later won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. His book The Captive Mind, critiquing Stalinism, made him a leading émigré intellectual.
Artur Pawłowski · CC BY-SA 4.0
Michael Phelps is an American former swimmer and the most decorated Olympian in history, with 28 medals across four Games. His eight golds at Beijing 2008 broke a record that had stood since 1972.
Agência Brasil Fotografias · CC BY 2.0
Mike Tyson was a heavyweight boxer who became the youngest man to win a heavyweight title, aged 20, and later reigned as undisputed champion. He is also remembered for his fierce style, his 1990 defeat by Buster Douglas, and a later career in acting and media.
Super Festivals · CC BY 2.0
Rayleigh explained why the sky looks blue, showing how light scatters off particles far smaller than its wavelength. He also won the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering argon, a gas present in the air we breathe.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Yitzhak Shamir, a former Lehi militant who later joined Mossad, served two terms as Israel's seventh prime minister, in 1983–1984 and 1986–1992. He died in Tel Aviv, remembered for leading the country through the Madrid peace conference era.
Yolene Haik (יולנה חייק) · CC BY 4.0
Farina was the first Formula One World Drivers' Champion, winning the title in 1950 with Alfa Romeo. Before the war he had also been a Mille Miglia runner-up and a three-time Italian champion.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
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