9 Mordad 1384

Events

• 1917 (109 years ago) World War I: The Battle of Passchendaele begins near Ypres in West Flanders, Belgium.
• 1938 (88 years ago) Bulgaria signs a non-aggression pact with Greece and other states of Balkan Antanti (Turkey, Romania, Yugoslavia).
• 1938 (88 years ago) Archaeologists discover engraved gold and silver plates from King Darius the Great in Persepolis.
• 1941 (85 years ago) The Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring orders SS General Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired Final Solution of the Jewish question."
• 1941 (85 years ago) World War II: The Battle of Smolensk concludes with Germany capturing about 300,000 Soviet Red Army prisoners.
• 1964 (62 years ago) Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes.
• 1991 (35 years ago) The United States and Soviet Union both sign the START I Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the first to reduce (with verification) both countries' stockpiles.
• 1992 (34 years ago) The nation of Georgia joins the United Nations.

Births

• 1880 (146 years ago) Premchand, Indian author and playwright (died 1936)
• 1912 (114 years ago) Milton Friedman, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2006)
• 1914 (112 years ago) Louis de Funès, French actor and screenwriter (died 1983)
• 1919 (107 years ago) Primo Levi, Italian chemist and author (died 1987)
• 1929 (97 years ago) Oriana Fallaci, Italian journalist and writer (died 2006)
• 1947 (79 years ago) Richard Griffiths, English actor (died 2013)
• 1965 (61 years ago) J. K. Rowling, English author and film producer
• 1989 (37 years ago) Victoria Azarenka, Belarusian tennis player

Deaths

• 1556 (470 years ago) Ignatius of Loyola, Spanish priest and theologian, founded the Society of Jesus (born 1491)
• 1784 (242 years ago) Denis Diderot, French philosopher and critic (born 1713)
• 1875 (151 years ago) Andrew Johnson, American general and politician, 17th President of the United States (born 1808)
• 1886 (140 years ago) Franz Liszt, Hungarian pianist, composer, and conductor (born 1811)
• 1944 (82 years ago) Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French pilot and poet (born 1900)
• 2012 (14 years ago) Gore Vidal, American novelist, screenwriter, and critic (born 1925)
• 2017 (9 years ago) Jeanne Moreau, French actress (born 1928)
• 2024 (2 years ago) Ismail Haniyeh, Palestinian politician, political leader of Hamas (born 1962/1963)

All 364 events, births and deaths of July 31