Bolshevik-led October Revolution begins in Russia (1917), and China's UN seat passes to the People's Republic (1971). Born on this day: Pablo Picasso, Katy Perry and Évariste Galois. Died: Evangelista Torricelli, George II and Boniface V.
28 events, 66 births and 67 deaths on this date.
Lenin's Bolsheviks launched an armed uprising in Petrograd against the provisional government that had replaced the tsar earlier that year. The event triggered the Russian Civil War and was the second of two revolutions that year.
Pyotr Novitsky · Public domainThe United Nations handed China's seat to Beijing's government, ending the Republic of China's representation there. The change reflected the Communist government's growing recognition abroad, while the Taiwan-based Republic of China kept its claim to legitimacy.
Windows XP arrived with a friendlier look and far better stability than earlier Windows versions, and it went on to become one of Microsoft's most widely used operating systems. Many people kept using it for well over a decade after its launch.
Her time in Downing Street ended amid a government crisis, making her the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. She had won the Conservative leadership only that September, after serving as foreign secretary under Boris Johnson.
Prime Minister's Office · OGL 3
Heinrich Himmler, the SS chief and a central architect of the Holocaust, ordered a harsh clampdown against the Edelweiss Pirates. The loosely organised German youth network, which rejected Nazi conformity, had been sheltering deserters and people in hiding.
Friedrich Franz Bauer · CC BY-SA 3.0 de
George III succeeded his grandfather George II, beginning a reign of almost sixty years. It was long, and it was marked by the loss of the American colonies and the wars against Napoleonic France.
Allan Ramsay · Public domain
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Pablo Picasso, the Spanish painter and sculptor, co-founded Cubism and painted Guernica, a searing response to the bombing of a Basque town. He lived most of his adult life in France and worked for over seventy years.
Argentina . Revista Vea y Lea · Public domain
Katy Perry is an American singer and songwriter known as the Queen of Camp for her theatrical pop style. Her album Teenage Dream produced five US number-one singles, a record for a female artist.
Raph_PH · CC BY 2.0
Évariste Galois was a French mathematician who, while still a teenager, found the condition for when a polynomial can be solved by radicals. His ideas became the foundations of Galois theory and group theory, though he died in a duel at twenty.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Torricelli was an Italian mathematician and physicist remembered for inventing the barometer, which showed that air has weight and pressure. He also made advances in optics and in the method of indivisibles, and the unit of pressure called the torr is named after him.
Lorenzo Lippi · Public domain
George II was the last British monarch born outside Britain, and the last to lead an army into battle, at Dettingen in 1743. Though he ruled from 1727 until his death, Parliament steered most domestic policy while he spent his time largely on Hanover.
John Shackleton · Public domain
Boniface V was bishop of Rome from 619 until his death. He encouraged the conversion of Anglo-Saxon England and issued a decree making churches places of sanctuary for fugitives.
Public domain
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