Some notable facts about this date, for more, visit http://www.onthisday.com
Facts
1517 Martin Luther posts 95 theses on Wittenberg church - precipitates the Protestant Reformation
1541 Michelangelo Buonarroti finishes painting "The Last Judgement" in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican City
1876 Great Backerganj Cyclone of 1876 ravages British India (Modern-day Bangladesh), over 200,000 killed
1917 World War I: Battle of Beersheba in southern Palestine - "last successful cavalry charge in history" performed by the 4th Australian Light Horse
1918 Spanish flu-virus kills 21,000 in US in 1 week
2011 The world population reaches 7 billion inhabitants according to the United Nations
Deaths
1448 Johannes VIII Palaeologus, Emperor of Byzantine, dies
1881 George Washington De Long, American Arctic Explorer, dies during his disastrous expedition to the North Pole at 37
1926 Harry Houdini, [Erich Weisz], magician, dies in Detroit of gangrene and peritonitis that developed after his appendix ruptured
1963 Henry Daniell, actor (Camille, Body Snatchers), dies at 69
1984 Indira Gandhi, 4th Prime Minister of India (1966-77, 1980-84), assassinated by two of her bodyguards at 66
1989 Conrad Beck, Swiss composer, dies at 88
1993 River Phoenix, actor (Stand By Me), dies of drug overdose at 23
2002 Raf Vallone, Italian actor (b. 1916)
Born on this day
1982 The Cheeky Girls, British-Romanian singers, born in Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania, Romania
Harry Houdini
Henry Daniell
