On this day in history

February 19

29 births · 19 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

Third Battle of Kharkov

83 years ago

Born this day

1473

Nicolaus Copernicus

Died aged 70

Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

Oldest record

1260th

Harun al-Rashid

birth anniversary

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Famous births29

AD 766 · 1260 yrs

Harun al-Rashid

Abū Jaʿfar Hārūn ibn Muḥammad ar-Rashīd, or simply Hārūn ibn al-Mahdī (c. 763 or 766 – 24 March 809), famously known as The Hārūn al-Rashīd, was the fifth of the Abbasid caliphs, reigning from September 786 until his death in March 809. His reign is traditionally regarded to be the beginning of the Islamic Golden Age.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 43

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

1473 · 553 yrs

Nicolaus Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 70

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

1627 · 399 yrs

Shivaji

Shivaji I (Shivaji Shahaji Bhonsale, Marathi pronunciation:; c. 19 February 1630 – 3 April 1680) was an Indian ruler and a member of the Bhonsle dynasty.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 53

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

1743 · 283 yrs

Luigi Boccherini

Ridolfo Luigi Boccherini (also US:; Italian:; 19 February 1743 – 28 May 1805) was an Italian composer and cellist of the Classical era whose music retained a courtly and galante style even while he matured somewhat apart from the major classical musical centers.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MusicDied aged 62

View profile Photo (modified): Pompeo Batoni · Public domain

1833 · 193 yrs

Élie Ducommun

Élie Ducommun (19 February 1833, Geneva – 7 December 1906, Bern) was a Swiss peace activist. He was a Nobel laureate, awarded the 1902 Nobel Peace Prize, which he shared with Charles Albert Gobat.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ActivismDied aged 73

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

1859 · 167 yrs

Svante August Arrhenius

Svante August Arrhenius (19 February 1859 – 2 October 1927) was a Swedish scientist. Originally a physicist, but often referred to as a chemist, Arrhenius was one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 68

View profile Photo (modified): Photogravure Meisenbach Riffarth & Co. Leipzig. · Public domain

1865 · 161 yrs

Sven Hedin

Sven Anders Hedin, KNO1kl RVO, (19 February 1865 – 26 November 1952) was a Swedish geographer, topographer, explorer, photographer, travel writer and illustrator of his own works.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ExplorationDied aged 87

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

1876 · 150 yrs

Constantin Brâncuși

Constantin Brâncuși (Romanian:; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian sculptor, painter, and photographer. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th century and a pioneer of modernism, Brâncuși is called the patriarch of modern sculpture.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ArtWould be 150

View profile Photo (modified): Edward Steichen · Public domain

1917 · 109 yrs

Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts in a small town of the Southern United States.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 109

View profile Photo (modified): Carl Van Vechten, 1959 · CC BY-SA 4.0

1924 · 102 yrs

Lee Marvin

Lamont Warren "Lee" Marvin Jr. (February 19, 1924 – August 29, 1987) was an American actor.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmWould be 102

View profile Photo (modified): NBC Television Uploaded by We hope at en.wikipedia · Public domain

1940 · 86 yrs

Saparmyrat Nyýazow

Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov (19 February 1940 – 21 December 2006) was a Turkmen politician and dictator who led Turkmenistan from 1985 until his death in 2006. He was the first secretary of the Communist Party of Turkmenistan from 1985 until 1991 and supported the 1991 Soviet coup attempt.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 86

View profile Photo (modified): Danny Gys · CC BY 4.0

1941 · 85 yrs

David Gross

David Jonathan Gross (born February 19, 1941) is an American theoretical physicist and string theorist. He shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics with Frank Wilczek and Hugh David Politzer "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction".

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceAge 85

View profile Photo (modified): LANL · Attribution

Showing 12 of 29

Famous deaths19

1870 · 156 yrs

Multatuli

Eduard Douwes Dekker (2 March 1820 – 19 February 1887), better known by his pen name Multatuli (from Latin multa tulī, "I have suffered much"), was a Dutch writer best known for his satirical novel Max Havelaar (1860), which denounced the abuses of colonialism in the Dutch East Indies (today's Indonesia).

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 49

View profile Photo (modified): César Mitkiewicz · Public domain

1897 · 129 yrs

Karl Weierstraß

Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass (German: Weierstraß; 31 October 1815 – 19 February 1897) was a German mathematician often cited as the "father of modern analysis".

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 81

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1916 · 110 yrs

Ernst Mach

Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach ( MAHK; Austrian German:; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher who contributed to the understanding of the physics of shock waves. The ratio of the speed of a flow or object to that of sound is named the Mach number in his honor.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 78

View profile Photo (modified): Charles Scolik · Public domain

1927 · 99 yrs

Georg Brandes

Georg Morris Cohen Brandes (4 February 1842 – 19 February 1927) was a Danish critic and scholar who greatly influenced Scandinavian and European literature from the 1870s through the turn of the 20th century. He is seen as the theorist behind the "Modern Breakthrough" of Scandinavian culture.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 85

View profile Photo (modified): Ludwik Szaciński · CC BY-SA 4.0

1951 · 75 yrs

André Gide

André Paul Guillaume Gide (French:; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French author whose writing spanned a wide variety of styles and topics. He was awarded the 1947 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 81

View profile Photo (modified): Ottoline Morrell (1873-1938) · Public domain

1952 · 74 yrs

Knut Hamsun

Knut Hamsun (4 August 1859 – 19 February 1952) was a Norwegian writer who was awarded the 1920 Nobel Prize in Literature for his novel Growth of the Soil. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to consciousness, subject, perspective and environment.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 92

View profile Photo (modified): Nasjonalbiblioteket from Norway · Public domain

1980 · 46 yrs

Bon Scott

Ronald Belford "Bon" Scott (9 July 1946 – 19 February 1980) was an Australian singer who was the second lead vocalist and lyricist of the hard rock band AC/DC from 1974 until his death in 1980. In the July 2004 issue of Classic Rock, Scott was ranked number one in a list of the "100 Greatest Frontmen of All Time".

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MusicWould be 80

View profile Photo (modified): Elfast · Public domain

1988 · 38 yrs

René Char

René Émile Char (French:; 14 June 1907 – 19 February 1988) was a French poet and member of the French Resistance in World War II.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 119

View profile Photo (modified): Habitant de Céreste anonyme 1941 · Public domain

1988 · 38 yrs

André Frédéric Cournand

André Frédéric Cournand (September 24, 1895 – February 19, 1988) was a French-American physician and physiologist.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 131

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

1997 · 29 yrs

Deng Xiaoping

Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese statesman, revolutionary, and political theorist who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from 1978 to 1989.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 122

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

2000 · 26 yrs

Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Friedrich Stowasser (15 December 1928 – 19 February 2000), better known by his pseudonym Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser (Austrian German:), was an Austrian visual artist, architect and activist.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ArtWould be 97

View profile Photo (modified): Hannes Grobe · CC BY-SA 2.5

2002 · 24 yrs

Sylvia Rivera

Sylvia Rivera (July 2, 1951 – February 19, 2002) was an American gay liberation and transgender rights activist who was also a noted community worker in New York. Rivera, who identified as a drag queen for most of her life and later as a transgender person, participated in demonstrations with the Gay Liberation Front.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ActivismWould be 75

View profile Photo (modified): Roseleechs · CC BY-SA 4.0

Showing 12 of 19

Events5

1942 · 84 yrs

Internment of Japanese Americans

During World War II, about 120,000 people of Japanese descent were forcibly relocated and incarcerated in ten concentration camps in the United States, operated by the War Relocation Authority (WRA), mostly in the western interior of the country. About two-thirds were U.S. citizens.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

History

1943 · 83 yrs

Third Battle of Kharkov

The Third Battle of Kharkov was a series of battles on the Eastern Front of World War II, undertaken by Nazi Germany's Army Group South against the Soviet Red Army, around the city of Kharkov from 19 February to 15 March 1943.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1943 · 83 yrs

Battle of Kasserine Passe

The Battle of Kasserine Pass was a series of engagements which took place from 19–24 February 1943 around Kasserine Pass, a 2-mile-wide (3.2 km) gap in the Grand Dorsal chain of the Atlas Mountains in west central Tunisia. It was a part of the Tunisian campaign of World War II.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

2020 · 6 yrs

COVID-19 pandemic in Iran

The COVID-19 pandemic in Iran has resulted in 7,627,863 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 146,837 deaths. On 19 February 2020, Iran reported its first confirmed cases of infections in Qom.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Disaster

2020 · 6 yrs

2020 Hanau shootings

The Hanau shootings (German: Anschläge in Hanau) occurred on 19 February 2020, when ten people were killed and five others wounded in a domestic terrorist shooting spree by a far-right extremist targeting three bars and a kiosk in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Tragedy

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