Columbus sights Jamaica on his second voyage (1494), and The Estates-General meets in France for the first time in 175 years (1789). Born on this day: Karl Marx, Adele and Søren Kierkegaard. Died: Napoleon I, Ludwig Erhard and Leopold I.
32 events, 50 births and 57 deaths on this date.
Columbus came ashore at Discovery Bay on his second Atlantic crossing and claimed the island for the Spanish crown. It was one of the first footholds Spain took in the Caribbean beyond Hispaniola.
Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio · Public domainChristopher ColumbusHear the story in ChunksLouis XVI summoned the Estates-General at Versailles, the representative assembly that had not sat since 1614. Its deputies would soon clash over voting rules and help push the country toward revolution.
Sudan's government signed a peace agreement with the Sudan Liberation Army, a rebel group fighting in the western Darfur region. The deal aimed to end years of fighting there, though several rebel factions rejected it.
The World Health Organization lifted its highest alarm over COVID-19, saying the disease was no longer an emergency of international concern. Governments could now shift from crisis measures to long-term management of the virus.
Yann Forget · CC BY-SA 3.0
Woolf's novel To the Lighthouse came out on this day, a book built on stream of consciousness, a method she helped pioneer. It sits among the works that made her one of the most influential modernist writers of the twentieth century.
George Charles Beresford / Adam Cuerden · Public domain
Adele, the English singer-songwriter known for her mezzo-soprano voice, was born on this day. She has won sixteen Grammy Awards, and her second album, 21, outsold every other record of this century.
Marc E. · CC BY 2.0
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Karl Marx was born in Trier, in the Kingdom of Prussia. He later became the thinker most associated with Marxism, co-writing The Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels and analysing class struggle under capitalism.
John Jabez Edwin Mayall · Public domain
English singer-songwriter known for powerful ballads like "Rolling in the Deep" and "Someone like You", and for albums that broke sales records worldwide. She has won a huge haul of Grammy and Brit awards, plus an Oscar for the James Bond song "Skyfall".
Marc E. · CC BY 2.0
Søren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher and theologian, widely regarded as the first existentialist. He wrote about faith, choice and authenticity, often through pseudonymous characters and sharp irony.
La Biblioteca Real de Dinamarca · Public domain
Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican-born general who rose to become Emperor of the French, died in exile on the South Atlantic island of Saint Helena in 1821. He reshaped France's laws and administration, and his military campaigns redrew much of Europe.
Jacques-Louis David · Public domain
Erhard was the West German economist and politician who guided the postwar Wirtschaftswunder as economics minister and later served as chancellor. He championed the social market economy, a model still shaping German economic policy today.
Adrian, Doris · CC BY-SA 3.0 de
Leopold I ruled the Holy Roman Empire for 46 years and was also a composer who championed music at his court. His reign saw Habsburg forces push the Ottomans out of most of Hungary, with Prince Eugene of Savoy leading the campaigns.
Benjamin Block · Public domain
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