Constantine defeats rival Licinius, stripping him of European lands (316), and Montenegro declares war on the Ottoman Empire (1912). Born on this day: Sigourney Weaver, Bruno Mars and Ursula von der Leyen. Died: Franklin Pierce, Willy Brandt and Clement Attlee.
30 events, 67 births and 70 deaths on this date.
Licinius, Constantine's fellow emperor and rival, was beaten in battle and forced to surrender his European lands. The defeat strengthened Constantine's hand, bringing him closer to sole rule of the empire.
Jean-Christophe BENOIST · CC BY 2.5Montenegro opened hostilities against the Ottomans, drawing the Balkan League into a war that would strip the empire of most of its European land. The fighting lasted until May 1913 and produced an independent Albania that Serbia resented.
Arvich · Public domain
The communist government moved to crush the movement that had grown out of the Gdańsk shipyard strikes. Solidarity had become a broad anti-authoritarian force, and it would later return to help end communist rule.
Zenon Mirota · CC BY-SA 3.0 pl
Chinese officials boarded the Arrow, a British-registered cargo ship, and arrested its Chinese crew, a dispute that opened a wider war. Britain and France then fought China until 1860, forcing the opium trade to be legalised.
Public domain
Around 520 bishops gathered at Chalcedon, near modern Istanbul, to settle how Christ's divine and human natures related. They rejected the view that Christ was solely divine and issued the Chalcedonian Creed, which still shapes many churches' teaching.
Vasily Surikov · Public domain
Oslo moved its main air traffic to a purpose-built airport at Gardermoen, about 35 km northeast of the city centre. It replaced Fornebu, the older airport that had handled the capital's flights until then, and which closed the same day.
hirotomo t · CC BY-SA 2.0
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Weaver is an American actress best known for playing Ellen Ripley in the Alien films, a role that made her one of cinema's defining action heroines. She has also earned Oscar nominations and Golden Globe wins across a long career in film and television.
Desmond Herzfelder · CC BY 4.0
Bruno Mars is an American singer-songwriter and producer known for his powerful tenor voice, polished live shows and hits such as Uptown Funk. Raised in Honolulu, he moved to Los Angeles in 2003 and has since sold well over 150 million records.
slgckgc · CC BY 4.0
Ursula von der Leyen is a German politician and former physician who has led the European Commission since 2019. She previously held several ministerial posts in Angela Merkel's federal cabinet, including Defence, where she became the first woman to hold that role.
European People's Party · CC BY 2.0
Pierce was the 14th US president, whose signing of the Kansas–Nebraska Act and enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act alienated anti-slavery groups and deepened the split that led to civil war. He died in New Hampshire, the state where he was born.
Mathew Benjamin Brady · Public domain
Brandt was West Germany's chancellor from 1969 to 1974, remembered for Ostpolitik, his outreach to Eastern Europe. He had fled the Nazis as a young journalist and later won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971.
Engelbert Reineke · CC BY-SA 3.0 de
Clement Attlee led Britain's Labour government from 1945 to 1951, creating the National Health Service and founding the welfare state after the Second World War. He was also the longest-serving leader in Labour's history.
Winterbergen · CC0
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