22 Ordibehesht 1385

Events

• 1191 (835 years ago) Richard I of England marries Berengaria of Navarre in Cyprus; she is crowned Queen consort of England the same day.
• 1551 (475 years ago) National University of San Marcos, the oldest university in the Americas, is founded in Lima, Peru.
• 1797 (229 years ago) War of the First Coalition: Napoleon Bonaparte conquers Venice.
• 1846 (180 years ago) The Donner Party of pioneers departs Independence, Missouri for California, on what will become a year-long journey of hardship and cannibalism.
• 1942 (84 years ago) World War II: Second Battle of Kharkov: In eastern Ukraine, Red Army forces under Marshal Semyon Timoshenko launch a major offensive from the Izium bridgehead, only to be encircled and destroyed by the troops of Army Group South two weeks later.
• 1949 (77 years ago) Cold War: The Soviet Union lifts its blockade of Berlin.
• 1965 (61 years ago) The Soviet spacecraft Luna 5 crashes on the Moon.
• 2002 (24 years ago) Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro, becoming the first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since the Cuban Revolution.

Births

• 1803 (223 years ago) Justus von Liebig, German chemist and academic (died 1873)
• 1820 (206 years ago) Florence Nightingale, Italian-English nurse, social reformer, and statistician (died 1910)
• 1895 (131 years ago) Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian-American philosopher and author (died 1986)
• 1907 (119 years ago) Katharine Hepburn, American actress (died 2003)
• 1910 (116 years ago) Dorothy Hodgkin, English biochemist, crystallographer, and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1994)
• 1937 (89 years ago) George Carlin, American comedian, actor, and author (died 2008)
• 1977 (49 years ago) Maryam Mirzakhani, Iranian mathematician (died 2017)
• 1980 (46 years ago) Rishi Sunak, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Deaths

• 1003 (1023 years ago) Sylvester II, pope of the Catholic Church (born 946)
• 1012 (1014 years ago) Sergius IV, pope of the Catholic Church (born 970)
• 1700 (326 years ago) John Dryden, English poet, playwright, and critic (born 1631)
• 1884 (142 years ago) Bedřich Smetana, Czech composer and educator (born 1824)
• 1935 (91 years ago) Józef Piłsudski, Polish field marshal and politician, 15th Prime Minister of Poland (born 1867)
• 1970 (56 years ago) Nelly Sachs, German poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1891)
• 1994 (32 years ago) Erik Erikson, German-American psychologist and psychoanalyst (born 1902)
• 2008 (18 years ago) Irena Sendler, Polish nurse and humanitarian (born 1910)

All 289 events, births and deaths of May 12