Brahms conducts premiere of his Double Concerto (1887), and Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen fight to a draw at Kawanakajima (1561). Born on this day: Zhu Xi, Henri Bergson and Zac Efron. Died: Thomas Edison, Charles Babbage and Pius III.
32 events, 83 births and 46 deaths on this date.
Brahms took up the baton himself, with his friend Joseph Joachim on violin and Robert Hausmann on cello. He had written the piece for these two musicians, who were the soloists the work was built around.
C. Brasch , Berlin ( biography ) · Public domainTwo rival warlords clashed again at Kawanakajima, in northern Japan's Shinano Province, and neither side could claim victory. The fourth engagement of their long rivalry ended inconclusively, leaving the struggle for the region unresolved.
Perón, then a rising army officer, wed Eva Duarte, a radio and film actress who would become one of the most powerful figures in Argentine politics. Her influence over workers and the poor shaped his government for years afterwards.
The Supreme Council of Azerbaijan formally declared the republic's break from Moscow, a step that followed earlier moves and set the country on its own path after decades of Soviet rule. Its declaration came just weeks before the Soviet Union itself dissolved.
Soviet troops began driving German forces out of Czechoslovakia, ending Nazi control there. The move was part of the Red Army's wider fight against Germany on the Eastern Front.
Klaus Fuchs, a physicist working at Los Alamos, handed Soviet contacts the design of the American plutonium bomb. The material gave Moscow a head start on its own atomic weapons programme.
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Zhu Xi was a Song dynasty scholar whose commentaries on the Confucian classics shaped Chinese learning for centuries. His interpretations of the Four Books later served as the basis for imperial civil service examinations, and his Neo-Confucian ideas spread across East Asia.
向史公哲曰 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Henri Bergson was a French philosopher who argued that lived experience and intuition reveal reality more fully than abstract reason and science. He won the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature, and his popularity sparked debate in a republic that valued scientific thinking.
Henri Manuel · Public domain
American actor and singer best known as Troy Bolton in the High School Musical films, and later for dramatic roles including Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. He is still acting today.
Eva Rinaldi from Sydney Australia · CC BY-SA 2.0
Thomas Edison was a largely self-taught American inventor who, despite losing his hearing as a child, registered 1,093 US patents. His work on the phonograph and the practical electric light bulb made him one of the most famous inventors of his age.
Louis Bachrach, Bachrach Studios , restored by Michel Vuijlsteke · Public domain
Babbage designed a calculating machine called the difference engine, and a more ambitious analytical engine that anticipated the logic of modern computers. He also hosted well-attended Saturday evening gatherings in London, a social habit he brought over from France.
Thomas Dewell Scott · Public domain
He was the nephew of Pope Pius II and was chosen as a neutral figure between the rival Borgia and della Rovere camps. He announced reforms but died within a month, leaving one of the shortest pontificates in history.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
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