31 Ordibehesht 1376 | Wednesday 21 May 1997

This day in four calendars

879 (1147 years ago) Pope John VIII gives blessings to Branimir of Croatia and to the Croatian people, considered to be international recognition of the Croatian state.
1660 (366 years ago) The Battle of Long Sault concludes after five days in which French colonial militia, with their Huron and Algonquin allies, are defeated by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
1674 (352 years ago) The nobility elect John Sobieski King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania.
1792 (234 years ago) A lava dome collapses on Mount Unzen, near the city of Shimbara on the Japanese island of Kyūshū, creating a deadly tsunami that killed nearly 15,000 people.
1879 (147 years ago) War of the Pacific: Two Chilean ships blocking the harbor of Iquique (then belonging to Peru) battle two Peruvian vessels in the Battle of Iquique.
1991 (35 years ago) Mengistu Haile Mariam, president of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, flees Ethiopia, effectively bringing the Ethiopian Civil War to an end.
1998 (28 years ago) President Suharto of Indonesia resigns following the killing of students from Trisakti University earlier that week by security forces and growing mass protests in Jakarta against his ongoing corrupt rule.
2003 (23 years ago) The 6.8 Mw Boumerdès earthquake shakes northern Algeria with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). More than 2,200 people were killed and a moderate tsunami sank boats at the Balearic Islands.

1471 (555 years ago) Albrecht Dürer, German painter, engraver, and mathematician (died 1528)
1527 (499 years ago) Philip II of Spain, King of Spain, Portugal, England and Ireland (died 1598)
1688 (338 years ago) (O.S.) Alexander Pope, English poet, essayist, and translator (died 1744)
1844 (182 years ago) Henri Rousseau, French painter (died 1910)
1860 (166 years ago) Willem Einthoven, Indonesian-Dutch physician, physiologist, and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1927)
1921 (105 years ago) Andrei Sakharov, Russian physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1989)
1944 (82 years ago) Mary Robinson, Irish lawyer and politician, President of Ireland
1986 (40 years ago) Mario Mandžukić, Croatian footballer

1471 (555 years ago) Henry VI, king of England (born 1421)
1542 (484 years ago) Hernando de Soto, Spanish-American explorer (born 1496)
1639 (387 years ago) Tommaso Campanella, Italian astrologer, theologian, and poet (born 1568)
1686 (340 years ago) Otto von Guericke, German physicist and inventor of the Magdeburg Hemispheres (born 1602)
1786 (240 years ago) Carl Wilhelm Scheele, German-Swedish chemist and pharmacist (born 1742)
1935 (91 years ago) Jane Addams, American activist and author, co-founded Hull House, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1860)
1964 (62 years ago) James Franck, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1882)
1991 (35 years ago) Rajiv Gandhi, Indian politician, 6th Prime Minister of India (born 1944)