Obama announces full withdrawal of US troops from Iraq by year's end (2011), and Thirty killed in bus fire in western DR Congo (2019). Born on this day: Alfred Nobel, Benjamin Netanyahu and Kim Kardashian. Died: Horatio Nelson, François Truffaut and Jack Kerouac.
30 events, 74 births and 49 deaths on this date.
Speaking in Washington, President Obama said every American soldier would leave Iraq before the end of 2011, closing a conflict that had lasted almost nine years. The announcement marked the formal end of the US combat and training mission there.
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza · Public domainA bus burst into flames on a road in the west of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing thirty people on board. The crash was one of the deadliest road accidents in the country that year, a grim reminder of how poorly maintained vehicles and long journeys combine.
Luther, the priest whose challenge to indulgences and papal authority launched the Protestant Reformation, took up a post teaching theology at Wittenberg. It was there that his ideas grew into the movement that split western Christianity.
Lucas Cranach the Elder · Public domain
Thomas Edison filed for a patent on his light bulb design, a step towards replacing gas lamps with electric light in homes and streets. The filing shows how hard he had been working on a practical electric lamp through the late 1870s.
The metre was tied to the speed of light rather than a physical metal bar. Light covers 299,792,458 metres in one second, so the metre became a fixed fraction of light's journey that anyone can reproduce.
Eisenhower agreed to move the Army's space work into NASA, the civilian agency, including most of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency. The change put America's rocket and satellite programmes under one civilian roof, rather than split across the military.
White House · Public domain
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Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist and inventor best known for dynamite. His will left his fortune to fund the Nobel Prizes, which are still awarded each year.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime minister in Israel's history, holding the post across three separate spells. In 1996 he became the first Israeli leader chosen by direct popular vote, and he returned to office in 2022.
Avi Ohayon · CC BY-SA 3.0
Kim Kardashian is an American media personality and businesswoman, best known for the reality series Keeping Up with the Kardashians and for building a beauty and shapewear empire. She also launched Skims, a shaping underwear company now valued at over US$4 billion.
The White House from Washington, DC · Public domain
Nelson was the Royal Navy admiral whose bold tactics won several decisive battles against France and Spain. He died at the Battle of Trafalgar, where his fleet destroyed the combined Franco-Spanish navy and secured British naval supremacy for a century.
Lemuel Francis Abbott · Public domain
Truffaut was a leading figure of the French New Wave, known for The 400 Blows and Day for Night. He also wrote Hitchcock/Truffaut, a long interview with Alfred Hitchcock that became a classic book on film.
Jack de Nijs for Anefo · CC BY-SA 3.0 nl
Jack Kerouac, a French-Canadian American novelist and poet, is remembered for On the Road, the 1957 book that made him a figurehead of the Beat Generation. His experimental, spontaneous prose influenced a generation of 1960s musicians and writers.
Tom Palumbo from New York, NY, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0
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