Foundation stone of Valletta laid in Malta (1566), and Bush posthumously honours Jesse Owens with Congressional Gold Medal (1990). Born on this day: Lady Gaga, Maxim Gorky and Mario Vargas Llosa. Died: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Virginia Woolf and Marc Chagall.
29 events, 77 births and 68 deaths on this date.
Grand Master Jean Parisot de Valette laid the first stone of the new city, which the Knights Hospitaller built on a rocky peninsula after the Great Siege. It was named after him, and it remains Malta's capital today.
Bengt Nyman · CC BY 3.0Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, a run that undercut Nazi claims of racial superiority. Ten years after his death in 1980, he was finally recognised with the Congressional Gold Medal, presented by President Bush.
The imperial bodyguard murdered Pertinax, then sold the throne to whoever would pay most. The winning bid came from Didius Julianus, who took power that way.
The Peruvian novelist won the Nobel Prize in Literature for charting how power operates and for portraying people who resist, rebel and sometimes fail. He was known for novels like Conversation in the Cathedral and The Time of the Hero.
Bernard Gotfryd · Public domain
Heinrich Olbers spotted Pallas, the second asteroid ever identified, between Mars and Jupiter. At the time astronomers counted it as a planet, a view that changed as more of these rocky bodies turned up.
Credit: ESO/Vernazza et al. · CC BY 4.0
Caligula formally took up the powers of the Principate, which the Senate had voted him, confirming his position as the new Roman emperor after Tiberius. The step gave his rule formal legal backing from the senators.
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Stefani Germanotta, known as Lady Gaga, is an American pop star and actress famed for her theatrical image changes and bold fashion. Her debut album The Fame and its follow-up made her a global name, and she later won an Oscar for her work on A Star Is Born.
Office of the Vice President of the United States · Public domain
Russian and Soviet novelist, playwright and journalist who spent years travelling the Russian Empire, taking odd jobs before his writing made him famous. Soviet authorities later named him founder of Socialist Realism, though relations with the regime were often strained.
Herman Mishkin · Public domain
Peruvian novelist whose books, from The Time of the Hero to Conversation in The Cathedral, examined power and resistance in Latin America. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010, and was also politically active, once backing Fidel Castro before turning against him.
Bernard Gotfryd · Public domain
Eisenhower led Allied forces in Europe during the Second World War, including the D-Day landings in Normandy, and later served two terms as US president. He died at his home in Gettysburg in 1969, aged 78.
White House · Public domain
English novelist and essayist who pioneered stream of consciousness writing in books such as Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. Her feminist essay A Room of One's Own remains widely read today.
George Charles Beresford / Adam Cuerden · Public domain
Belarusian-born painter who blended Eastern European Jewish folklore with modernism, and later made stained-glass windows for cathedrals in Reims and Metz. He died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, southern France, at 97.
Pierre Choumoff · Public domain
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