Empire State Building opens to the public in New York (1931), and German radio announces Hitler's death, falsely claiming he died fighting in Berlin (1945). Born on this day: Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of Wellington, Santiago Ramón y Cajal and Rudolf I. Died: Antonín Dvořák, Ayrton Senna and David Livingstone.
32 events, 71 births and 52 deaths on this date.
The Empire State Building opened its doors after thirteen and a half months of construction, taking the title of world's tallest building. Its Art Deco design and observation decks soon made it one of the city's most visited sights.
Sam Valadi · Public domainGermany's radio told listeners that Hitler had fallen at his Berlin command post, a claim that hid his suicide two days earlier. The same day, hundreds of Demmin residents, fleeing the advancing Red Army, died in a mass suicide.
Workers in Catania set up the first Fascio Siciliano, a peasant and labourer movement that spread across Sicily. It voiced anger over poverty, landlordism, heavy taxes and economic hardship.
A band of Norman mercenaries came ashore at Bannow Bay, opening the Norman invasion of Ireland. Their arrival began a campaign that would bring English-speaking rule to much of the island for centuries.
Under the Acts of Union, England and Scotland became a single state with one parliament and government at Westminster. It ended separate rule in the two kingdoms, which had shared a monarch since 1603, and created the state that would later become the United Kingdom.
Diocletian, who had reshaped the empire into a system of four rulers, stepped down alongside his co-emperor Maximian. Galerius and Constantius Chlorus took over as the new senior rulers, a handover that tested the arrangement he had built.
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Born in Dublin, he became the army officer who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. He later served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in the late 1820s and briefly in 1834.
Thomas Lawrence · Public domain
Santiago Ramón y Cajal was a Spanish neuroscientist who studied the brain's microscopic structure and drew it in remarkable detail. He shared the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Camillo Golgi, becoming Spain's first winner of a science Nobel.
Public domain
Rudolf I was a count of Habsburg who rose from a modest noble family to become King of the Romans in 1273, ending years of imperial disorder. He is remembered for defeating Ottokar II of Bohemia and securing Austria for his house.
Antoni Boys · Public domain
The Czech composer who wove Moravian and Bohemian folk rhythms into symphonies and chamber works, and whose New World Symphony and Cello Concerto made him famous worldwide. He died in Prague on this day in 1904, aged 62.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Brazilian driver who won three Formula One world titles with McLaren and was also a philanthropist. When he died he had started from pole position a record 65 times, and he had won 41 Grands Prix.
Instituto Ayrton Senna · CC BY 2.0
Scottish missionary and explorer who mapped much of central Africa and campaigned against the East African slave trade. He died at Chitambo's village in what is now Zambia, and his body was carried to Britain for burial in Westminster Abbey.
Thomas Annan / Adam Cuerden · Public domain
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