Students' protest in Budapest sparks the Hungarian Uprising (1956), and Synod absolves Pope Symmachus of all charges (502). Born on this day: Pelé, “Weird Al” Yankovic and Emilia Clarke. Died: Charles Glover Barkla, Leon N. Cooper and Chulalongkorn.
30 events, 71 births and 45 deaths on this date.
Students gathered at the Hungarian Parliament to demand political and economic reform, and a protest outside Magyar Rádió turned deadly when state police opened fire. The uprising that followed was crushed by Soviet tanks, though it had begun as a broad challenge to Moscow's control of Hungary.
The American Hungarian Federation · AttributionGothic king Theoderic summoned a synod that found Pope Symmachus innocent of every accusation levelled against him. The verdict put an end to the rival claim of Laurentius, who had challenged him for the papacy as an antipope.
Apple unveiled the iPod, a portable player that could carry a large music collection in a pocket. It became the longest-running product Apple ever discontinued, with an estimated 450 million sold before the line ended in 2022.
Players could roam Liberty City, loosely modelled on New York, on foot or by car. The game became 2001's best-selling title and helped make open worlds and mature content more common in games.
Valentinian III was raised to the throne of the Western Roman Empire at just six years old, with his mother Galla Placidia and the general Flavius Aetius steering affairs behind him. His reign of three decades was dominated by civil war and invasion, and ended with his assassination in 455.
CC BY-SA 3.0
The emperor, known personally as Mutsuhito, took control of the former shogunate seat at Edo, which was renamed Tokyo as his capital. He then announced the Meiji era, a period of rapid modernisation that transformed Japan into an industrial nation.
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Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known as Pelé, was a Brazilian forward and three-time World Cup winner, the only player to achieve that feat. Nicknamed O Rei, he scored 643 goals in 659 games for Santos, the club he joined at 15.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
American musician famous for comedy songs that parody hit records, often paired with his own accordion-led polka medleys. He has sold over twelve million albums and won five Grammy Awards.
Kristine Slipson · CC BY 3.0
English actress best known for playing Daenerys Targaryen in the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones, a role that earned her four Primetime Emmy nominations. She has also starred in Terminator: Genisys, Solo: A Star Wars Story and the romantic drama Me Before You.
https://vimeo.com/condenastrussia · CC BY 3.0
Charles Glover Barkla was a British physicist who found that each chemical element gives off its own characteristic X-rays when struck. That discovery won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1917.
George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress) · Public domain
Cooper was an American physicist who, with John Bardeen and John Robert Schrieffer, won the 1972 Nobel Prize for explaining superconductivity. He had introduced Cooper pairs, the paired electrons at the heart of that theory, and later worked on how brain synapses change.
Kenneth C. Zirkel · CC BY-SA 3.0
Chulalongkorn ruled Siam as its fifth Chakri king, a long reign that modernised the country and its government. He kept Siam independent while European empires surrounded it, though he had to cede territory to Britain and France.
Bain News Service, publisher. · Public domain
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