21 Farvardin 1373 | Sunday 10 April 1994

This day in four calendars

1545 (481 years ago) The settlement of Villa Imperial de Carlos V (now the city of Potosí) in Bolivia is founded after the discovery of huge silver deposits in the area.
1724 (302 years ago) Bach leads the first performance of his cantata Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen, BWV 66, his first cantata composed for Easter in Leipzig.
1796 (230 years ago) War of the First Coalition: A surprise Austrian attack at the Battle of Voltri marks the beginning of the Italian Campaign, the decisive campaign under Napoleon Bonaparte that will end the war a year later.
1868 (158 years ago) At Arogee in Abyssinia, British and Indian forces defeat an army of Emperor Tewodros II. While 700 Ethiopians are killed and many more injured, only two British/Indian troops die.
1925 (101 years ago) The Russian city of Tsaritsyn is renamed Stalingrad to honor the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Soviet Communist Party General Secretary, who had guided the defense of Tsaritsyn during the Russian Civil War in 1920.
1941 (85 years ago) World War II: The Axis powers establish the Independent State of Croatia.
1970 (56 years ago) Paul McCartney announces that he is leaving The Beatles for personal and professional reasons.
1991 (35 years ago) A rare tropical storm develops in the South Atlantic Ocean near Angola, the first to be documented by satellites.

401 (1625 years ago) Theodosius II, Roman emperor (died 450)
1512 (514 years ago) James V, king of Scotland (died 1542)
1583 (443 years ago) Hugo Grotius, Dutch philosopher and jurist (died 1645)
1847 (179 years ago) Joseph Pulitzer, Hungarian-American journalist, publisher, and politician, founded Pulitzer, Inc. (died 1911)
1929 (97 years ago) Max von Sydow, Swedish-French actor (died 2020)
1932 (94 years ago) Omar Sharif, Egyptian actor and screenwriter (died 2015)
1952 (74 years ago) Steven Seagal, American actor, producer, and martial artist
1973 (53 years ago) Roberto Carlos, Brazilian footballer and manager

1585 (441 years ago) Gregory XIII, pope of the Catholic Church (born 1502)
1813 (213 years ago) Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Italian mathematician and astronomer (born 1736)
1919 (107 years ago) Emiliano Zapata, Mexican general (born 1879)
1931 (95 years ago) Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese-American poet, painter, and philosopher (born 1883)
1954 (72 years ago) Auguste Lumière, French director and producer (born 1862)
1955 (71 years ago) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French priest, theologian, and philosopher (born 1881)
1966 (60 years ago) Evelyn Waugh, English soldier, novelist, journalist and critic (born 1903)
2013 (13 years ago) Robert Edwards, English physiologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1925)