Xi Jinping replaces Hu Jintao as Communist Party chief (2012), and Brazil is declared a republic after Emperor Pedro II is deposed (1889). Born on this day: William Herschel, Gerhart Hauptmann and Erwin Rommel. Died: Johannes Kepler, Émile Durkheim and Henryk Sienkiewicz.
32 events, 63 births and 55 deaths on this date.
Xi Jinping took over the Communist Party's top post from Hu Jintao, becoming China's most powerful figure. He was the first leader born after the People's Republic was founded, and his wide-ranging anti-corruption drive would come to define his time in office.
Presidencia de la República del Ecuador · Public domainA military coup led by Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca ended the Brazilian monarchy and set up a republic. The overthrow brought the reign of Pedro II, Brazil's last emperor, to an abrupt close.
Crowds estimated at 250,000 to half a million gathered in the capital for a peaceful protest against the war in Vietnam. A symbolic procession, the March Against Death, aimed to highlight the human cost of the fighting.
Days after the Kristallnacht pogrom, the Nazi government excluded Jewish pupils from German state schools, cutting off another part of ordinary life for the country's Jewish families. It was one step in a steady run of laws that pushed Jews out of German society.
The Turkish Cypriot north of the island proclaimed itself an independent republic, a move the United Nations rejected as legally invalid. Turkey alone recognised it, and the state has depended on Ankara ever since.
Yasser Arafat declared an independent Palestinian state while leading the Palestine Liberation Organization, a claim to statehood he had pursued for decades. He later became president of Palestine and of the Palestinian Authority, which he led until his death in 2004.
Gideon Markowiz · CC BY 4.0
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German-born astronomer and composer who settled in Britain and is remembered for discovering Uranus in 1781, the first planet found since antiquity. He also found infrared radiation while studying starlight.
Lemuel Francis Abbott · Public domain
German playwright and novelist who championed literary naturalism, drawing audiences with plays about the lives of ordinary and struggling people. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Erwin Rommel was a German field marshal remembered as the Desert Fox, a tank commander whose North African campaign earned him a reputation for chivalry among his British opponents. He was born in 1891 and later took his own life in 1944 after being implicated in the plot against Hitler.
Winkelmann · CC BY-SA 3.0 de
Kepler worked out the laws of planetary motion, showing that planets travel in ellipses rather than perfect circles. He also wrote Somnium, often cited as an early work of science fiction.
August Köhler [1] · Public domain
Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist who helped establish sociology as an academic discipline. He is remembered for studying suicide rates across Catholic and Protestant communities, using statistics to show that social forces shaped even the most personal choices.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Polish novelist whose historical books, especially Quo Vadis, made him one of the most widely read writers of his age. He won the 1905 Nobel Prize in Literature for his epic storytelling.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
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