On this day in history

August 15

29 births · 16 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

Indian Independence

79 years ago

Born this day

1769

Napoleon

Died aged 51

Photo (modified): Jacques-Louis David · Public domain

Oldest record

1603rd

Honorius

death anniversary

View profile

Famous births29

AD 860 · 1166 yrs

Robert I of France

Robert I (c. 866 – 15 June 923) was the elected King of West Francia from 922 to 923. Before his election to the throne he was Count of Poitiers, Count of Paris and Marquis of Neustria and Orléans.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 62

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

1195 · 831 yrs

Anthony of Padua

Anthony of Padua or Anthony of Lisbon (born Fernando Martins de Bulhões; 15 August 1195 – 13 June 1231) was a Portuguese Catholic priest and member of the Order of Friars Minor.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ReligionDied aged 35

View profile Photo (modified): Didier Descouens · Public domain

1769 · 257 yrs

Napoleon

Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was Emperor of the French from 18 May 1804 until his first abdication in 1814, with a brief restoration during the Hundred Days in 1815.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MilitaryDied aged 51

View profile Photo (modified): Jacques-Louis David · Public domain

1771 · 255 yrs

Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 61

View profile Photo (modified): Henry Raeburn · Public domain

1785 · 241 yrs

Thomas De Quincey

Thomas Penson De Quincey (né Thomas Penson Quincey; 15 August 1785 – 8 December 1859) was an English writer, essayist, and literary critic, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821).

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 74

View profile Photo (modified): John Watson Gordon · Public domain

1807 · 219 yrs

Jules Grévy

François Judith Paul Grévy (15 August 1807 – 9 September 1891), known as Jules Grévy (French:), was a French lawyer and politician who served as President of France from 1879 to 1887.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LawDied aged 84

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

1815 · 211 yrs

John Bosco

John Melchior Bosco, SDB (Italian: Giovanni Melchiorre Bosco; Piedmontese: Gioann Melchior Bòsch; 16 August 1815 – 31 January 1888), popularly known as Don Bosco (IPA:), was an Italian Catholic priest, educator, and writer.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ReligionDied aged 72

View profile Photo (modified): Carlo Felice Deasti · Public domain

1872 · 154 yrs

Aurobindo Ghosh

Sri Aurobindo (born Aurobindo Ghosh; 15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950) was an Indian philosopher, yogi and nationalist who is noted for his participation in the movement for India's independence from British rule; he advocated for complete autonomy through his writings and political activity.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PhilosophyDied aged 78

View profile Photo (modified): Rudolf 1922 · Public domain

1878 · 148 yrs

Pyotr Wrangel

Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel (27 August 1878 – 25 April 1928), nicknamed the "Black Baron", was a Russian military officer who served as a commanding general in the anti-Bolshevik Volunteer Army during the Russian Civil War.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MilitaryWould be 148

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

1892 · 134 yrs

Louis de Broglie

Louis Victor Pierre Raymond, 7th Duc de Broglie (French:; 15 August 1892 – 19 March 1987) was a French theoretical physicist and aristocrat known for his contributions to quantum theory. In his 1924 Ph.D. thesis, he postulated the wave nature of electrons and suggested that all matter has wave properties.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 134

View profile Photo (modified): Agence Rol · Public domain

1896 · 130 yrs

Gerty Cori

Gerty Theresa Cori (née Radnitz; August 15, 1896 – October 26, 1957) was a Czech and American biochemist who in 1947 was the third woman to win a Nobel Prize in science, and the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for her role in the "discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 130

View profile Photo (modified): National Library of Medicine, Images from the History of Medicine, B05353 · Public domain

1904 · 122 yrs

Umberto II of Italy

Umberto II (Italian: Umberto Nicola Tommaso Giovanni Maria di Savoia; 15 September 1904 – 18 March 1983) was the last King of Italy. Umberto's reign lasted for 34 days, from 9 May 1946 until his formal deposition on 12 June 1946, although he had been the de facto head of state since 1944.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyWould be 122

View profile Photo (modified): Tanner (Capt), War Office official photographer · Public domain

Showing 12 of 29

Famous deaths16

AD 423 · 1603 yrs

Honorius

Honorius (9 September 384 – 15 August 423) was Roman emperor from 393 to 423. He was the younger son of emperor Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 38

View profile Photo (modified): Jean-Paul Laurens · Public domain

1064 · 962 yrs

Ibn Hazm

Ibn Ḥazm (Arabic: ابن حزم; November 994 – 15 August 1064) was an Andalusi Muslim polymath, historian, traditionist, jurist, philosopher, and theologian, born in the Córdoban Caliphate, present-day Spain.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScholarshipDied aged 69

View profile Photo (modified): عبد العزيز علي · Public domain

1458 · 568 yrs

Callixtus III

Pope Callixtus III (Italian: Callisto III, Valencian: Calixt III, Spanish: Calixto III; 31 December 1378 – 6 August 1458), born Alonso de Borja, but referred to in English-language accounts as Alfonso de Borgia as a member of the House of Borgia, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ReligionDied aged 79

View profile Photo (modified): Sano di Pietro · Public domain

1822 · 204 yrs

William Herschel

Frederick William Herschel ( HUR-shəl; German: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel; 15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German–British astronomer and composer. He frequently collaborated with his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline Herschel.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 83

View profile Photo (modified): Lemuel Francis Abbott · Public domain

1852 · 174 yrs

Johan Gadolin

Johan Gadolin (5 June 1760 – 15 August 1852) was a Finnish chemist, physicist and mineralogist. Gadolin discovered a "new earth" containing the first rare-earth compound yttrium, which was later determined to be a chemical element.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 92

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

1935 · 91 yrs

Paul Signac

Paul Victor Jules Signac ( seen-YAHK, French:; 11 November 1863 – 15 August 1935) was a French Neo-Impressionist painter who, with Georges Seurat, helped develop the artistic technique Pointillism. A keen sailor, he is best known for his seascapes and views of ports and rivers.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ArtDied aged 71

View profile Photo (modified): Agence de presse Meurisse · Public domain

1935 · 91 yrs

Will Rogers

William Penn Adair Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) was a Cherokee-American vaudeville performer, actor, and humorist. He was born as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, in the Indian Territory, now part of Oklahoma, and is known as "Oklahoma's Favorite Son".

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmWould be 146

View profile Photo (modified): Melbourne Spurr · Public domain

1936 · 90 yrs

Grazia Deledda

Grazia Maria Cosima Damiana Deledda (Italian:; Sardinian: Gràssia or Gràtzia Deledda; 27 September 1871 – 15 August 1936) was an Italian writer who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926 "for her idealistically inspired writings which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native island and with depth…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 64

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

1967 · 59 yrs

René Magritte

René François Ghislain Magritte (French:; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and boundaries of reality and representation.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ArtWould be 127

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author Unknown author Restored by Giovanni Cardinali · CC0

1971 · 55 yrs

Paul Lukas

Paul Lukas (born Pál Lukács; 26 May 1894 – 15 August 1971) was a Hungarian actor.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmWould be 132

View profile Photo (modified): Trailer screenshot Licencing information : https://web.archive.org/web/20080321033709/http://www.sabucat.com/?pg=copyrig · Public domain

1982 · 44 yrs

Hugo Theorell

Axel Hugo Theodor Theorell (6 July 1903 – 15 August 1982) was a Swedish scientist and Nobel Prize laureate in medicine.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 123

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

1990 · 36 yrs

Viktor Tsoi

Viktor Robertovich Tsoi (Russian: Виктор Робертович Цой, IPA:; 21 June 1962 – 15 August 1990) was a Soviet singer-songwriter, artist and actor who co-founded Kino, one of the most popular and influential bands in the history of Russian music.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MusicWould be 64

View profile Photo (modified): Igor Moukhin · Public domain

Showing 12 of 16

Events5

AD 636 · 1390 yrs

Battle of Yarmouk

The Battle of the Yarmuk (also spelled Yarmouk; Arabic: معركة اليرموك) was a major battle between the Byzantine Empire and the Rashidun Caliphate near the Yarmouk River in Byzantine Syria that marked a crucial point in the Muslim conquest of Syria.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1947 · 79 yrs

Indian Independence

India gains independence from British rule after a decades-long freedom movement.

Politics

1947 · 79 yrs

Partition of India

The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, the Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Pakistan is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

History

1969 · 57 yrs

Woodstock Festival

The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held from August 15 to 18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, 60 miles (95 km) southwest of the town of Woodstock.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Culture

2009 · 17 yrs

2009 World Championships in Athletics

The 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics (German: Leichtathletik-Weltmeisterschaften 2009) were held in Berlin, Germany from 15 to 23 August 2009. The majority of events took place in the Olympiastadion, while the marathon and racewalking events started and finished at the Brandenburg Gate.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Sports

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