On this day in history

April 2

26 births · 19 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

Falklands War

44 years ago

Born this day

1805

Hans Christian Andersen

Died aged 70

Photo (modified): Thora Hallager · Public domain

Oldest record

1284th

Charlemagne

birth anniversary

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Famous births26

AD 742 · 1284 yrs

Charlemagne

Charlemagne ( SHAR-lə-mayn; 2 April 748 – 28 January 814) was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian Empire from 800.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 71

View profile Photo (modified): Charlemagne. Autorité émettrice de monnaie indéterminé. Atelier monétaire. Émetteur · Public domain

1647 · 379 yrs

Maria Sibylla Merian

Maria Sibylla Merian (2 April 1647 – 13 January 1717) was a German-Dutch entomologist, naturalist, and scientific illustrator.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ArtDied aged 69

View profile Photo (modified): Jacob Marrel · Public domain

1725 · 301 yrs

Giacomo Casanova

Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (Italian:; 2 April 1725 – 4 June 1798) was an Italian adventurer and writer who was born in the Republic of Venice and travelled extensively throughout Europe.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 73

View profile Photo (modified): Francesco Giuseppe Casanova · Public domain

1743 · 283 yrs

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was a Founding Father and the third president of the United States, serving from 1801 to 1809. A prolific writer and philosopher, Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 83

View profile Photo (modified): Rembrandt Peale · Public domain

1805 · 221 yrs

Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen ( AN-dər-sən; Danish:; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish writer. A prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is also best remembered for his literary fairy tales.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 70

View profile Photo (modified): Thora Hallager · Public domain

1827 · 199 yrs

William Holman Hunt

William Holman Hunt (2 April 1827 – 7 September 1910) was an English painter and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His paintings were notable for their great attention to detail, vivid colour, and elaborate symbolism.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ArtDied aged 83

View profile Photo (modified): William Holman Hunt · Public domain

1838 · 188 yrs

Léon Gambetta

Léon Gambetta (French pronunciation:; 2 April 1838 – 31 December 1882) was a French lawyer and republican politician who proclaimed the Third Republic in 1870 and played a prominent role in its early government.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 44

View profile Photo (modified): Étienne Carjat · Public domain

1840 · 186 yrs

Émile Zola

Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (also US:; French:; 2 April 1840 – 29 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 62

View profile Photo (modified): Émile Zola · Public domain

1862 · 164 yrs

Nicholas Murray Butler

Nicholas Murray Butler (April 2, 1862 – December 7, 1947) was an American philosopher, diplomat, and educator. Butler was president of Columbia University, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the late James S.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 85

View profile Photo (modified): Auguste Léon · Public domain

1891 · 135 yrs

Max Ernst

Max Ernst (German: 2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German-born painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a pioneer of the Dada movement and surrealism in Europe.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ArtWould be 135

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · CC0

1914 · 112 yrs

Alec Guinness

Sir Alec Guinness (born Alec Guinness de Cuffe; 2 April 1914 – 5 August 2000) was an English actor.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmWould be 112

View profile Photo (modified): Allan warren · CC BY-SA 3.0

1926 · 100 yrs

Jack Brabham

Sir John Arthur Brabham (2 April 1926 – 19 May 2014) was an Australian racing driver and motorsport executive, who competed in Formula One from 1955 to 1970. Brabham won three Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles, in 1959, 1960 and 1966, and 14 Grands Prix across 16 seasons.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Notable PeopleWould be 100

View profile Photo (modified): Lothar Spurzem · CC BY-SA 2.0 de

Showing 12 of 26

Famous deaths19

1305 · 721 yrs

Joan I of Navarre

Joan I (14 January 1273 – 31 March/2 April 1305) (Basque: Joana, Spanish: Juana) was ruling Queen of Navarre and Countess of Champagne from 1274 until 1305. She was also Queen of France by marriage to King Philip IV. She founded the College of Navarre in Paris in 1305.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 32

View profile Photo (modified): Anonymous Unknown author · Public domain

1502 · 524 yrs

Arthur, Prince of Wales

Arthur, Prince of Wales (19/20 September 1486 – 2 April 1502), was the eldest son of King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York, and an older brother to the future King Henry VIII. He was Duke of Cornwall from birth, and he was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester in 1489.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 15

View profile Photo (modified): Anglo-Flemish School · Public domain

1657 · 369 yrs

Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor

Ferdinand III (Ferdinand Ernest; 13 July 1608 – 2 April 1657) was Archduke of Austria, King of Hungary and Croatia from 1625, King of Bohemia from 1627 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1637 to his death.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 48

View profile Photo (modified): Frans Luycx · Public domain

1682 · 344 yrs

Ngawang Lobzang Gyatso

The 5th Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (Tibetan: ངག་དབང་བློ་བཟང་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: Ngag-dbang blo-bzang rgya-mtsho) (1617–1682) was recognized as the 5th Dalai Lama, and he became the first Dalai Lama to hold both Tibet's political and spiritual leadership roles.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ReligionDied aged 64

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1782 · 244 yrs

Pietro Metastasio

Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi (3 January 1698 – 12 April 1782), better known by his pseudonym of Pietro Metastasio (Italian pronunciation:), was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 84

View profile Photo (modified): Attributed to Martin van Meytens / Attributed to Pompeo Batoni · Public domain

1791 · 235 yrs

Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau

Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Count of Mirabeau (French:; 9 March 1749 – 2 April 1791), known simply as Mirabeau, was a French writer, orator, and statesman, and a prominent figure of the early stages of the French Revolution.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 42

View profile Photo (modified): Joseph Boze · Public domain

1872 · 154 yrs

Samuel Finley Breese Morse

Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After establishing his reputation as a portrait painter, Morse, in his middle age, contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ArtDied aged 80

View profile Photo (modified): Mathew Benjamin Brady · Public domain

1914 · 112 yrs

Paul Heyse

Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse (German:; 15 March 1830 – 2 April 1914) was a German writer and translator. A member of two important literary societies, the Tunnel über der Spree in Berlin and Die Krokodile in Munich, he wrote novels, poetry, 177 short stories, and about sixty dramas.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 84

View profile Photo (modified): Adolph von Menzel · Public domain

1922 · 104 yrs

Hermann Rorschach

Hermann Rorschach (Swiss Standard German:; 8 November 1884 – 2 April 1922) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. His education in art helped to spur the development of a set of inkblots that were used experimentally to measure various unconscious parts of the subject's personality.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Notable PeopleWould be 141

View profile Photo (modified): Anonymous Unknown author · Public domain

1928 · 98 yrs

Theodore William Richards

Theodore William Richards (January 31, 1868 – April 2, 1928) was an American physical chemist and the first American scientist to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, earning the award "in recognition of his exact determinations of the atomic weights of a large number of the chemical elements."

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 60

View profile Photo (modified): Nobel Foundation · Public domain

1930 · 96 yrs

Zewditu I of Ethiopia

Zewditu (Amharic: ዘውዲቱ, born Askala Maryam; 29 April 1876 – 2 April 1930) was Empress of Ethiopia from 1916 until her death in 1930. She officially adopted the regnal name "Zewditu" at the beginning of her reign, which was triggered by the dethroning of Lij Iyasu in 1916.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyWould be 150

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1972 · 54 yrs

Franz Halder

Franz Halder (30 June 1884 – 2 April 1972) was a German general and the chief of staff of the Army High Command (OKH) in Nazi Germany from 1938 until September 1942. During World War II, he directed the planning and implementation of Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MilitaryWould be 142

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Showing 12 of 19

Events5

1801 · 225 yrs

Battle of Copenhagen

In the Battle of Copenhagen, also known as the First Battle of Copenhagen to distinguish it from the Second Battle of Copenhagen in 1807, a British naval fleet defeated a smaller force of the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy anchored near Copenhagen on 2 April 1801.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1945 · 81 yrs

Vienna offensive

The Vienna offensive was an offensive launched by the Soviet 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts in order to capture Vienna, Austria, during World War II. The offensive lasted from 16 March to 15 April 1945. After several days of street-to-street fighting, the Soviet troops captured the city on 13 April 1945.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1974 · 52 yrs

46th Academy Awards

The 46th Academy Awards were presented on Tuesday, April 2, 1974, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California. The ceremonies were presided over by Burt Reynolds, Diana Ross, John Huston, and David Niven.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Culture

1982 · 44 yrs

Falklands War

The Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week war in the South Atlantic in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over possession of the Falkland Islands (Spanish: Islas Malvinas) and its dependencies of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

2013 · 13 yrs

Arms Trade Treaty

The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is a multilateral treaty that regulates the international trade in conventional weapons. It entered into force on 24 December 2014.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Politics

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