Napoleon begins exile on Saint Helena (1815), and Gorbachev receives the Nobel Peace Prize (1990). Born on this day: Virgil, Friedrich Nietzsche and Akbar. Died: Thomas Sankara, Hermann Göring and Norodom Sihanouk.
29 events, 82 births and 52 deaths on this date.
Napoleon, defeated and removed from power after Waterloo, was taken to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic. He spent his last six years there under British guard, far from the France he had once ruled.
Jacques-Louis David · Public domainThe French RevolutionHear the story in ChunksSoviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for easing Cold War tensions and opening up the Soviet Union. The prize recognised reforms that reshaped relations between East and West.
Leo Medvedev/Лев Леонидович Медведев · CC BY-SA 4.0
Qing troops seized Zhoushan, an island off the Chinese coast where Zhu Yihai, Prince of Lu, was based as regent of the Southern Ming. He escaped to Kinmen, keeping the loyalist cause alive a little longer.
The former queen, held since the monarchy fell, was condemned by the Revolutionary Tribunal and sentenced to death. She was executed by guillotine the following day, closing a turbulent chapter for the Bourbon monarchy.
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun · Public domain
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, newly reclaiming independence from the Soviet Union, added their signatures to the Helsinki Final Act. The move put all three into the broader European security framework as the Soviet Union collapsed.
The Witan, an assembly of English noblemen, chose Edgar the Ætheling as king after Harold fell at Hastings. He was never crowned, and within two months he gave way to William of Normandy.
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Roman poet who wrote the Eclogues, the Georgics and the Aeneid, a national epic about Aeneas's journey from Troy. For centuries after his death, Latin-speaking readers and schoolchildren treated him as the greatest of their poets, and his influence ran through Western literature.
Armando Mancini · Public domain
Friedrich Nietzsche questioned whether objective truth exists and criticised Christian morality as rooted in weakness. He is remembered for the Übermensch, the will to power and the phrase 'God is dead', written in poor health.
Friedrich Hermann Hartmann · Public domain
Akbar was the Mughal ruler who ruled much of the Indian subcontinent by force, diplomacy and marriage alliances with Rajput families. He is still widely regarded as the greatest of the Mughal emperors.
1605 artist · Public domain
Burkinabé military officer and revolutionary who led Burkina Faso from 1983 until his assassination. He is remembered for land reform, mass vaccination and literacy drives, and for renaming the country Burkina Faso.
United States Central Intelligence Agency · Public domain
Göring was Hitler's chosen successor and one of the Nazi regime's most senior figures, commanding the Luftwaffe through the war. He took his own life in his cell at Nuremberg, hours before he was due to be hanged for war crimes.
Robert Röhr · Public domain
Cambodia's king and later prime minister, known as the Pink Prince, who also directed and acted in films. His life spanned French colonial rule, a Japanese occupation, civil war and the Khmer Rouge era.
Norodom Sihanouk , gifted to Andre Kostelanetz · Public domain
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