Joan of Arc captured by Burgundians near Compiègne (1430), and Four students shot dead at anti-Vargas protest in Brazil (1932). Born on this day: Carolus Linnaeus, John Bardeen and Pär Lagerkvist. Died: Henrik Ibsen, Heinrich Himmler and John Nash.
30 events, 67 births and 60 deaths on this date.
Joan of Arc, who had helped lift the siege of Orléans, was taken prisoner near Compiègne while leading volunteers to relieve the town. Her captors were Burgundians, French allies of the English, and she died a year later.
Clément de Fauquembergue · Public domainFour students were shot dead at a demonstration against Getúlio Vargas's dictatorship. Their deaths fuelled the Constitutionalist Revolution, an armed uprising that broke out several weeks later.
South Carolina became the eighth state to approve the new United States Constitution, which took effect once nine states had ratified it. Its vote helped bring the national framework into force and gave the young republic a firmer footing.
A wave set off by the previous day's earthquake in Chile struck Hilo, on Hawaii's main island, and killed 61 people. The disaster showed how a quake thousands of miles away could still devastate a Pacific coastline.
In Shiraz, a young merchant called Siyyid ʻAlí-Muḥammad declared himself the Báb, meaning the Gate, and began a movement now seen as the forerunner of the Baháʼí Faith. His teachings that a new messenger of God was coming would shape the faith that followed.
Islamic State militants set off two suicide bombs among people waiting to join the army in Aden, Yemen, killing at least 45. The attack was one of many the group carried out in Yemen during its years of fighting there.
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Swedish botanist who formalised binomial nomenclature, the two-part Latin naming system still used for every species. Often called the father of modern taxonomy, he was born in Råshult, Småland.
Alexander Roslin · Public domain
John Bardeen was an American physicist who helped invent the transistor and later won a second Nobel Prize for his theory of superconductivity. He remains the only person to win the Nobel Prize in Physics twice.
Nobel foundation · Public domain
Swedish poet, playwright and novelist who won the 1951 Nobel Prize in Literature. He often explored good and evil through biblical figures such as Barabbas, the man freed instead of Jesus.
Ateljé Uggla · Public domain
Norwegian playwright whose realistic dramas, including A Doll's House and Ghosts, shocked audiences and reshaped modern theatre. He died in Christiania, now Oslo, having spent much of his later life abroad.
Henrik Olrik · Public domain
Himmler led the SS from 1929 and, from 1943, oversaw all German police and security forces, including the Gestapo. He was a central figure in the Holocaust, the genocide of European Jews during the Second World War.
Friedrich Franz Bauer · CC BY-SA 3.0 de
John Nash was an American mathematician whose work on the Nash equilibrium reshaped game theory and earned him the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. His life, including years of treatment for schizophrenia and a long recovery, inspired the film A Beautiful Mind.
Peter Badge / Typos1 · CC BY-SA 3.0
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