Uranus, the seventh planet from the Sun, is discovered (1781), and Student revolutionaries storm Batista's presidential palace in Havana (1957). Born on this day: George Seferis, Joseph Priestley and Innocent XII. Died: Benjamin Harrison, Alexander II and Ivo Andrić.
34 events, 58 births and 71 deaths on this date.
Astronomers identified Uranus as a cyan ice giant, the seventh planet from the Sun. Its axis is tipped so far over that each pole gets about 42 years of continuous sunlight, then 42 years of darkness.
Ardenau4 · CC0A group of student revolutionaries attacked the presidential palace in Havana, aiming to kill President Fulgencio Batista. The raid failed, but it showed how fiercely opposition to his rule had grown among young Cubans.
Facing a rapidly spreading virus, the US president used emergency powers to free up federal funds and resources for the response. The move marked a sharp shift from his earlier downplaying of the outbreak's danger.
Astronomers at the Lowell Observatory revealed Clyde Tombaugh's find, a body beyond Neptune in the Kuiper belt. It was first hailed as the ninth planet, but was later reclassified as a dwarf planet.
NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI · Public domain
The Argentine cardinal from Buenos Aires became the first pope from Latin America and the first Jesuit to lead the Catholic Church. He chose the name Francis after Francis of Assisi, and led the Church until his death in 2025.
Korea.net / Korean Culture and Information Service (Jeon Han) · CC BY-SA 2.0
Byzantium and the Republic of Genoa agreed a lasting alliance at Nymphaeum. The pact was aimed squarely at Venice, Genoa's trading rival.
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Greek poet and career diplomat whose verse drew on classical myth and the Greek landscape. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1963 and later served as Greece's ambassador to Britain.
Nobel Foundation · Public domain
English chemist and Unitarian theologian, best known for isolating oxygen in 1774 and inventing carbonated water. A mob burned his home over his backing for the American and French revolutions, and he fled to America in 1791.
Ellen Sharples · Public domain
Born Antonio Pignatelli in the Kingdom of Naples, he became pope in 1691 and is remembered for a papal bull banning nepotism. It stopped the Church from handing land or income to relatives of popes.
Antonio Zanchi · Public domain
Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd US president, serving one term from 1889 to 1893 after beating Grover Cleveland in the 1888 election despite losing the popular vote. He later became the first president to lose re-election to his own predecessor.
Pach Brothers · Public domain
Alexander II freed Russia's serfs in 1861 with his Edict of Emancipation, earning him the name Alexander the Liberator. He was assassinated in St Petersburg in 1881, and many of his reforms were later reversed.
Attributed to W. & D. Downey · Public domain
Ivo Andrić was a Yugoslav novelist and diplomat, best known for The Bridge on the Drina and his stories of Bosnia under Ottoman rule. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961.
Stevan Kragujević · CC BY-SA 3.0 rs
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