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1981–Pablo Picasso's famous painting, Guernica, is returned to Spain to hang in the Prado Museum in Madrid. The painting depicts the suffering in the city of Guernica, the capitol of Basque Spain, after a German bombardment in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso exhibited the painting in Paris, but then sent it to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, refusing to allow it to be shown in Spain until the rule of General Franco ended and democracy was restored. The painting had been in America for 40 years.



BC 210–Chinese Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, dies during one of his tours of Eastern China at the palace in Shaqiu prefecture, at age 49. He dies from Chinese alchemical elixir poisoning due to ingesting mercury pills, made by his alchemists and court physicians. Ironically, these pills were meant to make Qin Shi Huang immortal.

506–The bishops of Visigothic Gaul meet in the Council of Agde.

602–Empress Dugu Qieluo of Sui dies at age 57.

954–Louis IV of France dies of tuberculosis in Reims, France, at age 34.

1167–Empress Matilda dies in Rouen, Normandy, France, at age 65. She was the daughter of King Henry I of England, and wife of Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor.

1169–Byzantine Emperor, Alexios II Komnenos, is born in Constantinople.

1308–Emperor Go-Nijo of Japan dies at age 23.

1382–Louis I of Hungary dies in Nagyszombat, Kingdom of Hungary, at age 56.

1419–John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy is assassinated by adherents of the Dauphin, the future Charles VII of France.

1487–Pope Julius III is born Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte in Monte San Savino, Tuscany, Italy.

1509–An earthquake known as "The Lesser Judgment Day" hits Constantinople.

1547–The Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, the last full-scale military confrontation between England and Scotland, results in a victory for the forces of Edward VI.

1570–Spanish Jesuit missionaries land in present-day Virginia to establish the short-lived Ajacán Mission.

1591–Captain and explorer, Richard Grenville, dies of battle wounds off Flores in Azores Islands, at age 49. He was a soldier, an armed merchant fleet owner, privateer, and colonizer. He took part in the early English attempts to settle the New World, and also participated in the fight against the Spanish Armada.

1608–John Smith is elected council president of Jamestown, Virginia.

1638–Maria Theresa of Spain is born in El Escorial, Spain.

1665–Author Daniel Defoe's vivid historical re-creations help set English fiction upon a new path with such works as A Journal of the Plague Year.

1776–During the American Revolutionary War, Nathan Hale volunteers to spy for the Continental Army.

1797–Writer, Mary Wollstonecraft, dies of septicaemia after childbirth in Somers Town, London, England, at age 38. Her book Defense of the Rights of Women is considered the first feminist manifesto in England.

1801–Voodoo practitioner, Marie (Catherine) Laveau, is born in the French Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana. She and her mother had great influence over their multi-racial following. In 1874, as many as 12,000 spectators, both black and white, swarmed to the shores of Lake Pontchartrain to catch a glimpse of Marie Laveau II performing her legendary rites.

1813–The United States defeats the British Fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812.

1823–Simón Bolívar is named President of Peru.

1839–Isaac K. Funk is born Issac Kaufmann Funk in Clifton, Ohio. He was a Lutheran minister, editor, lexicographer, publisher, and spelling reformer. He was the co-founder of Funk & Wagnalls Company, which published The Literary Digest, The Standard Dictionary of the English Language, and Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia.

1846–Elias Howe receives a patent for his sewing machine.

1852–Native American, Alice Brown Davis, is born in Cherokee town of Park Hill, Indian Territory. She was the first female Principal Chief of the Seminole Tribe of Oklahoma, and served from 1922-1935, appointed by President Warren G. Harding. She was of Seminole (Tiger Clan) and Scots descent.

1858–George Mary Searle discovers the asteroid 55 Pandora.

1889–Charles III, Prince of Monaco, dies at Château de Marchais, Monaco. He was the founder of the famous casino in Monte Carlo, as his title in Monegasque and Italian was Carlo III.

1892–Physicist, Arthur Holly Compton, is born in Wooster, Ohio. He won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1927, for his work with C.T.R. Wilson on electromagnetic radiation, which, they confirmed, behaves both like a wave and like a particle. During World War II, he helped to initiate the Manhattan Project, which culminated in the development of the atomic bomb.

1893–Super-centenarian, Maria de Jesus, is born Maria de Jesus dos Santos in Olival, Ourém, Kingdom of Portugal. She would live to the age of 115 (and 114 days). She had five children, 11 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren, and 6-great-great-grandchildren.

1897–A sheriff's posse kills 19 unarmed striking immigrant miners in Pennsylvania.

1898–Empress Elisabeth of Austria is assassinated by Luigi Lucheni.

1898–Waldo Lonsbury Semon is born in Demopolis, Alabama. He invented vinyl, the second most used plastic in the world.

1913–The first transcontinental paved road, the Lincoln Highway, is declared open.

1914–Film director, Robert (Earl) Wise, is born in Winchester, Indiana. His films include Of Human Bondage, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, My Favorite Wife, Citizen Kane, The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Magnificient Ambersons, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Somebody Up There Likes Me, Until They Sail, I Want to Live!, West Side Story, Two for the Seasaw, The Haunting, The Sound of Music, The Sand Pebbles, The Andromeda Strain, and Audrey Rose.

1915–Actor, Edmond O'Brien, is born in New York, New York. He appeared in the films The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Killers, The Web, A Double Life, White Heat, D.O.A., The Greatest Show on Earth, The Hitch-Hiker, The Bigamist, The Barefoot Contessa, Pete Kelly's Blues, 1984, The Rack, The Girl Can’t Help It, Sing Boy Sing, The Great Imposter, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Birdman of Alcatraz, The Longest Day, Seven Days in May, and The Wild Bunch. He was married to actress, Nancy Kelly.

1918–During the Russian Civil War, the Red Army captures Kazan.

1919–Austria and the Allies sign the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, recognizing the independence of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.

1921–Creole fiddler, Calvin Carriére is born in Lawtell, Louisiana. He is often called the “King Of Zydeco Fiddle.” He would develop his fiddle style playing string band, Cajun, Creole, and traditional zydeco music. Carriére learned fiddle from his Uncle Bebe, and accordion from his father, Eraste. The three played Creole and La-la music together as The Carriere Brothers, which eventually developed into the Zydeco band, Delton Broussard and the Lawtell Playboys.

1929–Golfer, Arnold (Daniel) Palmer, is born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest players in professional golf history. Palmer won numerous events on both the PGA Tour and Champions Tour, dating back to 1955. Nicknamed "The King," he was one of golf's most popular stars and its most important trailblazer, because he was the first superstar of the sport's television age, which began in the 1950s.

1932–The New York City Subway's third competing subway system, the municipally-owned IND, is opened.

1934–Baseball player and coach, Roger Maris, is born Roger Eugene Maras in Hibbing, Minnesota. He played four seasons in the minor leagues and 12 seasons in the major leagues, playing for the Cleveland Indians, the Kansas City Athletics, the New York Yankees, and the St. Louis Cardinals.

1936–The first World Individual Motorcycle Speedway Championship is held at Wembley Stadium in London, England.

1937–Nine nations attend the Nyon Conference to address international piracy in the Mediterranean Sea.

1937–Country singer, Tommy Overstreet, is born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Often known simply as "T.O." by fans and radio disc jockeys, Overstreet had five “Top 5” hit singles in the Billboard country charts, and 11 “Top 10” singles.

1938–Ferdinand I of Bulgaria dies a broken man in exile in Coburg, Allied-occupied Germany, at age 87.

1939–During World War II, the submarine, HMS Oxley, is mistakenly sunk by the submarine, HMS Triton, near Norway, becoming the Royal Navy's first loss.

1939–Canada declares war on Nazi Germany, joining Poland, France, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia.

1939–Cynthia Lennon is born Cynthia Powell in Blackpool, Lancashire, England. She attended the Liverpool College of Art, where a meeting with John Lennon in a calligraphy class led to their relationship. She was married to Lennon from 1962-1968, and they had a son, Julian Lennon, who was born in 1963. The couple lived at Kenwood in Weybridge, outside of London, England, where she kept house and shared with her husband the roller coaster ride of Beatlemania. She published two books about her life with the famous Beatle: A Twist of Lennon (1978) and John (2005). Cynthia was married three other times, to Roberto Bassanini, John Twist, and Noel Charles.

1941–Video game designer, Gunpei Yokoi, is born in Kyoto, Japan. He created Game Boy.

1942–During World War II, the British Army carries out an amphibious landing on Madagascar to re-launch Allied offensive operations in the Madagascar Campaign.

1942–Danny Hutton, of Three Dog Night, is born Daniel Anthony Hutton in Buncrana, Donegal, Ireland.

1943–During World War II, German forces begin their occupation of Rome, Italy.

1950–Joe Perry, of Aerosmith, is born Anthony Joseph Pereira in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

1953–Swanson “TV dinners” are introduced to the American public.

1960–At the Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy, Abebe Bikila becomes the first sub-Saharan African to win a gold medal, winning the marathon in bare feet.

1961–During the Italian Grand Prix, a crash causes the death of German Formula One driver, Wolfgang von Trips, and 13 spectators who are hit by his Ferrari.

1963–Twenty black students enter public schools in Alabama at the end of a standoff between federal authorities and Alabama governor George C. Wallace.

1963–The newspaper with the world’s biggest circulation, Britain’s Daily Mirror, publishes a two-page feature article about The Beatles. Written by writer-columnist, Donald Zec, the feature is entitled “Four Frenzied Little Lord Fauntleroys Who Are Earning 5,000 Pounds a Week.” He referred to the Beatles’ haircuts as “a stone-age hair style.”

1964–Rod Stewart records his first single, Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl, with the Hoochie Koochie Men.

1967–The people of Gibraltar vote 12,138 to 44 to remain a British dependency rather than becoming part of Spain.

1969–The New Cinema Club in the Institute of Contemporary Arts screens films by John Lennon and Yoko Ono: Self Portrait, Smile, Folding, John and Yoko’s Honeymoon, Two Virgins, and Rape. Self Portrait is a film of John Lennon’s penis in various stages of erection. The film is not known to have been reviewed. As Yoko would later say, “The critics wouldn’t touch it.”

1971–Actress, Pier Angeli, dies of an accidental barbiturate overdose in Beverly Hills, California, at age 39. She appeared in the films Teresa, The Light Touch, The Story of Three Loves, The Silver Chalice, Meet Me in Las Vegas, Somebody Up There Likes Me, Merry Andrew, SOS Pacific, The Angry Silence, The Last Days of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Battle of the Bulge.

1972–The United States suffers its first loss of an international basketball game in a disputed match against the Soviet Union at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany.

1974–Guinea-Bissau gains independence from Portugal.

1976–A British Airways Hawker Siddeley Trident and an Inex-Adria DC-9 collide near Zagreb, Yugoslavia, killing 176 people.

1977–Hamida Djandoubi, convicted of torture and murder, is the last person to be executed by guillotine in France.

1980–At the conclusion of the recording of the album Double Fantasy, John Lennon agrees to a series of interviews with David Sheff for Playboy magazine. Lennon talks about every Beatle song ever written and tells Sheff: “This is going to be the reference book.”

1981–Pablo Picasso's famous painting, Guernica, is returned to Spain to hang in the Prado Museum in Madrid. The painting depicts the suffering in the city of Guernica, the capitol of Basque Spain, after a German bombardment in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso exhibited the painting in Paris, but then sent it to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, refusing to allow it to be shown in Spain until the rule of General Franco ended and democracy was restored. The painting had been in America for 40 years.

1996–Biographer, Ray Coleman, dies of kidney cancer in Shepperton, England, at age 59. Coleman was the former editor-in-chief of Melody Maker, known for his biographies of The Beatles. He also contributed to music magazines such as Disc, Black Music, and Musicians Only.

1996–Actress, Joanne Dru, dies of lymphedema in Los Angeles, California, at age 74. She appeared in the films Red River, All the King’s Men, She Wore Yellow Ribbon, Wagon Master, Thunder Bay, and 3 Ring Circus.

1999–Creole zydeco musician, Beau Jocque, dies of a heart attack in Kinder, Louisiana, at age 45.

2000–Operation Barras successfully frees six British soldiers held captive for over two weeks and contributes to the end of the Sierra Leone Civil War.

2001–Charles Ingram cheats his way into winning one million pounds on a British version of the TV game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

2001–Antônio da Costa Santos, Mayor of Campinas, Brazil, is assassinated.

2002–Switzerland, traditionally a neutral country, joins the United Nations.

2003–Anna Lindh, the Foreign Minister of Sweden, is fatally stabbed while shopping, and dies the following day.

2007–Former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, returns to Pakistan after seven years in exile, following a military coup in October 1999.

2007–Actress, Jane Wyman, dies in her sleep of natural causes at her home in Rancho Mirage, California, at age 90. She appeared in the films All the King’s Horses, My Man Godfrey, Brother Rat, My Favorite Spy, The Lost Weekend, The Yearling, Johnny Belinda, Stage Fright, The Glass Menagerie, Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, Miracle in the Rain, and Pollyanna.

2008–The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, described as the biggest scientific experiment in history, is powered up in Geneva, Switzerland.

2011–Actor, Cliff Robertson, dies of natural causes in Stony Brook, New York, at age 88. He appeared in the films Picnic, Autumn Leaves, The Girl Most Likely, The Naked and the Dead, Gidget, All in a Night's Work, The Interns, My Six Loves, PT 109, Sunday in New York, The Best Man, Charly, Three Days of the Condor, Star 80, Class, and Brainstorm.

2014–Actor, Richard Kiel, dies of a heart attack in Fresno, California, at age 74. Kiel stood 7’ 1” and played many character roles in TV shows, including Laramie, I Dream of Jeannie, Honey West, Gilligan's Island, The Monkees, Daniel Boone, Emergency!, Starsky & Hutch, Land of the Lost, The Fall Guy, and Simon & Simon.

2015–Typestyle designer, Andrian Frutiger, dies in Bremgarten bei Bern, Switzerland, at age 87. He influenced the direction of type design in the second half of the 20th century and beyond. His career spanned the hot metal, phototypesetting, and digital typesetting eras.

2016–After 35 years, the District Court for the District of Columbia releases John Hinckley Jr. from a psychiatric hospital. He is the would-be assassin of President Ronald Reagan.

2017–Russian airstrikes on several ferries attempting to cross the Euphrates near Deir ez-Zor, kill at least 34 civilians, including nine children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

2017–Hurricane Irma makes landfall in Florida as a category 4 hurricane, killing at least three people and knocking out power to over one million households.

2017–Floods, following torrential rain, kill at least six people in the port city of Livorno, Italy.

2017–Television producer, Don Ohlmeyer, dies of cancer in Indian Wells, California, at age 72. He was president of the NBC network's West Coast division. Ohlmeyer formed his own production company, Ohlmeyer Communications Company (OCC), in 1982. There he produced several made-for-television movies, network series, and specials.


PHOTOS TOP TO BOTTOM: Empress Matilda; Elias Howe's sewing machine; the Lincoln Highway; Calvin Carriére; Cynthia Lennon; Aerosmith; a scene from the film, Smile, by John Lennon and Yoko Ono; Guernica by Pablo Picasso; Charles Ingram; and Richard Kiel.

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