Saint Kitts and Nevis becomes independent (1983), and Solomon Islands joins the United Nations (1978). Born on this day: William Golding, Antoninus Pius and Jeremy Irons. Died: James A. Garfield, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Ole Rømer.
28 events, 55 births and 52 deaths on this date.
The Caribbean federation of two small islands ended its status as a British colony on this day. It is the smallest sovereign state in the Western Hemisphere by both area and population, and it remains a Commonwealth realm.
David Broad · CC BY 3.0Independent since 1978, the Solomon Islands became a full member of the United Nations on this day. The Pacific island nation, a scattering of more than a thousand islands, had won independence from Britain earlier that year.
The Roman Senate proclaimed Nerva emperor, though he was suspected of having been party to Domitian's murder. It then annulled Domitian's laws and ordered his statues destroyed, marking a sharp break with the previous reign.
Rebel troops under Nathaniel Bacon torched the Virginia capital during Bacon's Rebellion, leaving the colony's main town in ruins. The settlement, the first permanent English colony in the Americas, was rebuilt, but the capital moved to Williamsburg in 1699.
Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis sighted this stony body in the main asteroid belt, and it was named after the Latin name for Marseille. Jean Chacornac found it independently the next night in France.
Astronomical Institute of the Charles University : Josef Ďurech, Vojtěch Sidorin · CC BY 4.0
Edward the Black Prince's smaller Anglo-Gascon army routed a larger French force near Poitiers, taking King John II prisoner. The defeat shook France and left its king a captive in England for years.
Loyset Liédet · Public domain
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British novelist best known for Lord of the Flies, his 1954 debut about boys stranded on an island who slowly turn on each other. He went on to win the Booker Prize in 1980 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983.
Unknown author Unknown author · CC BY-SA 3.0 nl
Antoninus Pius was the Roman emperor who ruled from 138 to 161, a reign remembered for its long stretch of peace. He left his successors a healthy treasury and expanded free access to drinking water across the Empire.
Unknown artist Unknown artist · Public domain
Jeremy Irons is an English actor known for stage roles and films such as Reversal of Fortune, for which he won an Academy Award. He is also the voice of Scar in Disney's The Lion King.
Copyright owned by Jeremy Irons [Jonathan Hession/Showtime] · CC BY-SA 3.0
Garfield, the 20th US president, was shot in July 1881 and died in September after weeks of infection, never having fully taken up the office. He is remembered as the only sitting House member ever elected president.
Unknown; part of Brady-Handy Photograph Collection. · Public domain
Tunisia's second president, who ruled as an authoritarian leader from 1987 until he was overthrown in the 2011 revolution. He fled to Saudi Arabia and died in Jeddah, having served none of the prison sentences handed down in his absence.
No mention · CC BY 2.0
Ole Rømer was a Danish astronomer who showed, in 1676, that light takes time to travel, by timing eclipses of Jupiter's moon Io. He also devised a temperature scale built on the freezing and boiling points of water.
Jacob Coning · Public domain
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