Pope John Paul II consecrates Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Ivory Coast (1990), and First beam sent around the Large Hadron Collider ring (2008). Born on this day: Arthur Holly Compton, Jack Ma and Julius III. Died: Mary Wollstonecraft, Sir George Paget Thomson and Felix Bloch.
31 events, 67 births and 56 deaths on this date.
In Yamoussoukro, the Pope dedicated a vast basilica that ranks among the biggest churches anywhere. Its construction was funded largely by the country's then president, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, and it stands as a striking monument in the Ivorian capital.
Unknown author Unknown author · CC BY 3.0 plEngineers at CERN sent a particle beam around the 27-kilometre tunnel beneath the Franco-Swiss border for the first time. It was an early test of the machine that would later help find the Higgs boson.
Julian Herzog ( Website ) · CC BY-SA 3.0
Celestine became bishop of Rome after the death of Boniface earlier that month. He later helped bring about the condemnation of the teacher Nestorius and backed a mission to Britain against Pelagian teaching.
Crescens Lajos Dedek · CC BY-SA 3.0
The treaty ended the Great Northern War, in which a coalition led by Russia broke Sweden's long dominance over northern and eastern Europe. It marked Russia's emergence as a major European power.
Nawaz Sharif came back to Pakistan in 2007, ending years abroad after being removed from power in a military takeover. His homecoming marked a dramatic return to the country's political stage.
Z A Balti · Public domain
Chris Carter's paranormal drama began on Fox, following FBI agents Mulder and Scully as they investigate unsolved cases. The show ran for nine seasons and spawned two films, becoming a defining series of 1990s television.
Marcin Wichary from San Francisco, U.S.A. · CC BY 2.0
For the full day, download Chunks today. Every date, the stories behind them, and a new day each morning. Free to start.
Compton showed that X-rays lost energy when they scattered off electrons, proof that light also behaves as particles. It won him a share of the 1927 physics Nobel, and in the Second World War he helped steer the Manhattan Project towards the atomic bomb.
Unknown (Mondadori Publishers) · Public domain
Jack Ma is a Chinese entrepreneur who co-founded Alibaba Group in 1999, the e-commerce firm that grew into a sprawling multinational. He is also a philanthropist, running the Jack Ma Foundation, and remains one of China's wealthiest people.
Foundations World Economic Forum · CC BY 2.0
Pope from 1550 to 1555, he had built a reputation as a capable diplomat before his election as a compromise choice. As pope he showed little appetite for reform, preferring personal pleasure, and his conduct toward a nephew he had adopted damaged the Church's standing.
Circle of Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta · Public domain
English writer and philosopher whose 1792 book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman argued women were not naturally inferior to men, but simply under-educated. She died after childbirth; her newborn, Mary Shelley, later wrote Frankenstein.
John Opie · Public domain
Thomson showed that electrons can behave like waves, confirmed by their diffraction through crystals. He won a joint Nobel Prize in 1937 with Clinton Davisson, and his father had won one in 1906 for studying electricity passing through gases.
Nobel foundation · Public domain
Swiss-born physicist who won the 1952 physics prize with Edward Purcell for work on nuclear magnetic measurements. He was also the first Nobel laureate at Stanford University, and helped develop nuclear magnetic resonance.
Stanford University / Courtesy Stanford News Service · CC BY 3.0
Download on iOS
Download on Android