narrlibrus

January 2: what makes this day so special

533 – Mercurius becomes Pope John II, the first pope to adopt a new name upon elevation to the papacy.^[3]
1492 – Reconquista: The Emirate of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, surrenders.^[4]
1959 – Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and to orbit the Sun, is launched by the Soviet Union.

Births:

1920 – Isaac Asimov, Russian-American chemist, author, and academic (d. 1992)

National Science Fiction Day (USA)

January 1: what makes this day so special

1773 – The hymn that became known as “Amazing Grace“, then titled “1 Chronicles 17:16–17” is first used to accompany a sermon led by John Newton in the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire, England.^[17]
1885 – Twenty-five nations adopt Sandford Fleming‘s proposal for standard time (and also, time zones)
1892 – Ellis Island begins processing immigrants into the United States.^[34]
1957 – George Town, Penang, is made a city by a royal charter of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.^[54]
1983 – The ARPANET officially changes to using the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet.
1995 – The Draupner wave in the North Sea in Norway is detected, confirming the existence of freak waves.^[74]

Births:

1863 – Pierre de Coubertin, French historian and educator, founded the International Olympic Committee (d. 1937)^[124]

Public Domain Day (multiple countries)

November 25: what makes this day so special

1120 – The White Ship sinks in the English Channel, drowning William Adelin, son and heir of Henry I of England.
1177 – Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and Raynald of Châtillon defeat Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard.
1491 – The siege of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, ends with the Treaty of Granada.
1510 – Portuguese conquest of Goa: Portuguese naval forces under the command of Afonso de Albuquerque, and local mercenaries working for privateer Timoji, seize Goa from the Bijapur Sultanate, resulting in 451 years of Portuguese colonial rule.

Births:

1562 – Lope de Vega, Spanish playwright and poet (d. 1635)
1887 – Nikolai Vavilov, Russian botanist and geneticist (d. 1943)
1889 – Reşat Nuri Güntekin, Turkish author and playwright (d. 1956)
1920 – Ricardo Montalbán, Mexican-American actor, singer, and director (d. 2009)
1926 – Poul Anderson, American author (d. 2001)
1951 – Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Spanish author and journalist

Deaths:

1959 – Gérard Philipe, French actor (b. 1922)
1974 – U Thant, Burmese lawyer and diplomat, 3rd Secretary-General of the United Nations (b. 1909)
1990 – Merab Mamardashvili, Georgian philosopher and academic (b. 1930)
2016 – Fidel Castro, Communist leader of Cuba, and revolutionary (b. 1926)

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women
The beginning of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence, which ends on December 10.

November 24: what makes this day so special

1642 – Abel Tasman becomes the first European to discover the island Van Diemen’s Land (later renamed Tasmania).
1859 – Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species.
1877 – Anna Sewell‘s animal welfare novel Black Beauty is published.
1974 – Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discover the 40% complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, nicknamed “Lucy” (after The Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds“), in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia‘s Afar Depression.
2012 – A fire at a clothing factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, kills at least 112 people.

Births:

1632 – Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher and scholar (d. 1677)
1690 – Charles Theodore Pachelbel, German organist and composer (d. 1750)
1729 – Alexander Suvorov, Russian field marshal (d. 1800)
1826 – Carlo Collodi, Italian journalist and author (d. 1890)
1864 – Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French painter and illustrator (d. 1901)
1888 – Dale Carnegie, American author and educator (d. 1955)
1932 – Claudio Naranjo, Chilean psychiatrist
1954 – Emir Kusturica, Serbian actor, director, and screenwriter
1954 – Margaret Wetherell, English psychologist and academic
1957 – Denise Crosby, American actress and producer
1961 – Arundhati Roy, Indian writer and activist, recipient of Booker Prize

Deaths:

1991 – Freddie Mercury, Tanzanian-English singer-songwriter, lead vocalist of Queen, and producer (b. 1946)

November 23: what makes this day so special

1963 – The BBC broadcasts the first episode of An Unearthly Child (starring William Hartnell), the first story from the first series of Doctor Who, which is now the world’s longest running science fiction drama.
1980 – The 6.9 M_w Irpinia earthquake shakes southern Italy with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), killing 2,483–4,900, and injuring 7,700–8,934.
2005 – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is elected president of Liberia and becomes the first woman to lead an African country.

Deaths:

1990 – Roald Dahl, British novelist, poet, and screenwriter (b. 1916)

November 22: what makes this day so special

1718 – Off the coast of North Carolina, British pirate Edward Teach (best known as “Blackbeard“) is killed in battle with a boarding party led by Royal Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard.
1869 – In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper Cutty Sark is launched and is one of the last clippers ever built, and the only one still surviving today.
1928 – The premier performance of Ravel‘s Boléro takes place in Paris.
1963 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated and Texas Governor John Connally is seriously wounded by Lee Harvey Oswald, who also killed Dallas Police officer J. D. Tippit after fleeing the scene. U.S Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as the 36th President of the United States afterwards.
1963 – Writers Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis pass away.
1968 – The Beatles release The Beatles (known popularly as The White Album).
1975 – Juan Carlos is declared King of Spain following the death of Francisco Franco.
1995 – Toy Story is released as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery.

Births:

1962 – Victor Pelevin, Russian engineer and author
1986 – Oscar Pistorius, South African sprinter
2000 – Auli’i Cravalho, Hawaiian-American actress and singer

Deaths:

1916 – Jack London, American novelist and journalist (b. 1876)
2017 – Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Russian operatic baritone (b. 1962)

November 21: what makes this day so special

1783 – In Paris, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d’Arlandes, make the first untethered hot air balloon flight.
1877 – Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record and play sound.

Births:

1694 – Voltaire, French historian, playwright, and philosopher (d. 1778)
1898 – René Magritte, Belgian painter (d. 1967)

Deaths:

1695 – Henry Purcell, English organist and composer (b. 1659)
1844 – Ivan Krylov, Russian poet and playwright (b. 1769)

November 20: what makes this day so special

1945 – Nuremberg trials: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg.
1947 – The Princess Elizabeth marries Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, who becomes the Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey in London.
1959 – The Declaration of the Rights of the Child is adopted by the United Nations.

Births:

1924 – Benoit Mandelbrot, Polish-American mathematician and economist (d. 2010)
1925 – Maya Plisetskaya, Russian-Lithuanian ballerina, choreographer, actress, and director (d. 2015)
1928 – Aleksey Batalov, Russian actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 2017)
1928 – Genrikh Sapgir, Russian writer (d. 1999)
1934 – Paco Ibáñez, Spanish singer and musician

Deaths:

1910 – Leo Tolstoy, Russian author and playwright (b. 1828)

Transgender Day of Remembrance (LGBT community)

November 19: what makes this day so special

Births:

1711 – Mikhail Lomonosov, Russian physicist, chemist, astronomer, and geographer (d. 1765)
1833 – Wilhelm Dilthey, German psychologist, sociologist, and historian (d. 1911)
1917 – Indira Gandhi, Indian politician, 3rd Prime Minister of India (d. 1984)
1925 – Zygmunt Bauman, Polish-English sociologist, historian, and academic (d. 2017)
1942 – Calvin Klein, American fashion designer, founded Calvin Klein Inc.
1961 – Meg Ryan, American actress and producer
1962 – Jodie Foster, American actress, director, and producer

Deaths:

1975 – Francisco Franco, Spanish general and dictator, Prime Minister of Spain (b. 1892)
2012 – Boris Strugatskiy, Russian author (b. 1933)

November 18: what makes this day so special

326 – The old St. Peter’s Basilica is consecrated.
1421 – A seawall at the Zuiderzee dike in the Netherlands breaks, flooding 72 villages and killing about 10,000 people. This event will be known as St Elizabeth’s flood.
1626 – The new St Peter’s Basilica is consecrated.
1928 – Release of the animated short Steamboat Willie, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, featuring the third appearances of cartoon characters Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. This is considered by the Disney corporation to be Mickey’s birthday.
1963 – The first push-button telephone goes into service.
1978 – In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones led his Peoples Temple to a mass murder–suicide that claimed 918 lives in all, 909 of them in Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo Ryan is murdered by members of the Peoples Temple hours earlier.
1993 – In South Africa, 21 political parties approve a new constitution, expanding voting rights and ending white minority rule.

Births:

1787 – Louis Daguerre, French physicist and photographer, developed the daguerreotype (d. 1851)
1968 – Owen Wilson, American actor, producer, comedian and screenwriter

Deaths:

1247 – Robin Hood, heroic outlaw in English folklore (b. 1160)
1922 – Marcel Proust, French author and critic (b. 1871)
1952 – Paul Éluard, French poet and author (b. 1895)
1962 – Niels Bohr, Danish footballer, physicist, and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1885)