Napoleon returns to France from exile on Elba (1815), and Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact, joining the Axis powers (1941). Born on this day: Frédéric Chopin, Justin Bieber and Yitzhak Rabin. Died: Jacobus Henricus van ’t Hoff, Gabriele D’Annunzio and Zhores Alferov.
35 events, 78 births and 73 deaths on this date.
Napoleon slipped away from his island exile on Elba and landed on the French coast with a small force. His return set off the Hundred Days, a brief attempt to regain the throne that ended at Waterloo.
Jacques-Louis David · Public domainThe French RevolutionHear the story in ChunksBulgaria aligned itself with Germany, Italy and Japan, becoming the last of the Balkan states to join the Axis. The move drew the country into the wider Second World War and set the stage for its own occupation and conflict in the region.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, a Balkan country long ruled by others, broke away from the crumbling Yugoslav federation. The declaration set off a war that lasted until 1995 and reshaped the region.
The British protectorate moved toward running its own affairs and held its first elections on this day. Independence followed in 1962, with Milton Obote becoming the country's first prime minister.
Stalin, who had led the Soviet Union since the 1920s and ruled it as a dictator through the 1930s, was struck by a stroke. He died four days later, ending a rule that had shaped the country and its people for a generation.
Ivan Shagin · Public domain
On this day Nebraska joined the United States, becoming its 37th state just two years after the Civil War ended. Its admission filled a gap on the Great Plains and gave the growing country another state west of the Missouri.
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Frédéric Chopin was a Polish composer and pianist who wrote almost entirely for the piano, stretching the instrument's limits. He preferred intimate salon performances to large concerts, and today he is remembered as one of the great Romantic composers.
Maria Wodzińska · Public domain
Canadian singer and songwriter known for reinventing his image and blending genres, with an estimated 150 million records sold. He rose to fame in the late 2000s as a teen idol before becoming one of the most commercially successful pop artists of his generation.
Lou Stejskal · CC BY 2.0
A career soldier who oversaw Israel's victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, Rabin later served as prime minister in two separate spells. He was shot dead in 1995, while still in office.
Yaakov Saar · CC BY-SA 3.0
Dutch chemist who helped found physical chemistry and shared in the first Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded in 1901. Earlier, as a young man, he proposed the tetrahedral carbon atom, which laid foundations for stereochemistry.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Italian poet, playwright and wartime hero who later ran the short-lived Regency of Carnaro in Fiume. He died at his villa on Lake Garda, remembered for his sensuous, mystical writing and his flamboyant politics.
Agence de presse Meurisse · Public domain
Zhores Alferov was a Soviet and Russian physicist whose work on semiconductor heterostructures underpinned modern lasers and LEDs. He shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics and later served in the State Duma.
Рустем Кадыров · CC BY 4.0
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