24 Mordad 1382 | Friday 15 August 2003

This day in four calendars

1942 (84 years ago) World War II: Operation Pedestal: The oil tanker SS Ohio reaches the island of Malta barely afloat carrying vital fuel supplies for the island's defenses.
1947 (79 years ago) India gains independence from British rule after nearly 190 years of British company and crown rule and joins the Commonwealth of Nations.
1984 (42 years ago) The Kurdistan Workers' Party in Turkey starts a campaign of armed attacks upon the Turkish Armed Forces with an attack on police and gendarmerie bases in Şemdinli and Eruh.
1999 (27 years ago) Beni Ounif massacre in Algeria: Some 29 people are killed at a false roadblock near the Moroccan border, leading to temporary tensions with Morocco.
2007 (19 years ago) An 8.0-magnitude earthquake off the Pacific coast devastates Ica and various regions of Peru, killing 514 and injuring 1,090.
2013 (13 years ago) At least 27 people are killed and 226 injured in an explosion in southern Beirut near a complex used by Lebanon's militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon. A previously unknown Syrian Sunni group claims responsibility in an online video.
2021 (5 years ago) Kabul falls into the hands of the Taliban as Ashraf Ghani flees Afghanistan along with local residents and foreign nationals, effectively reestablishing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
2025 (a year ago) US president Donald Trump meets with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Alaska, the first such summit since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

1769 (257 years ago) Napoleon Bonaparte, French general and emperor (died 1821)
1771 (255 years ago) Walter Scott, Scottish novelist, playwright, and poet (died 1832)
1872 (154 years ago) Sri Aurobindo, Indian guru, poet, and philosopher (died 1950)
1892 (134 years ago) Louis de Broglie, French physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1987)
1896 (130 years ago) Gerty Cori, Czech-American biochemist and physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1957)
1964 (62 years ago) Melinda French Gates, American businesswoman and philanthropist, co-founded the Gates Foundation
1972 (54 years ago) Ben Affleck, American actor and filmmaker
1990 (36 years ago) Jennifer Lawrence, American actress and producer

423 (1603 years ago) Honorius, Roman emperor (born 384)
767 (1259 years ago) Abu Hanifa, Iraqi scholar and educator (born 699)
1038 (988 years ago) Stephen I, Hungarian king (born 975)
1936 (90 years ago) Grazia Deledda, Italian novelist and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1871)
1967 (59 years ago) René Magritte, Belgian painter (born 1898)
1975 (51 years ago) Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladeshi politician, 1st President of Bangladesh (born 1920)
1990 (36 years ago) Viktor Tsoi, Russian musician and actor (born 1962)
2021 (5 years ago) Gerd Müller, German footballer (born 1945)