31 Farvardin 1403

Events

• 531 (1495 years ago) Battle of Callinicum: A Byzantine army under Belisarius is defeated by the Persians at Raqqa (northern Syria).
• 1810 (216 years ago) Venezuela achieves home rule: Vicente Emparán, Governor of the Captaincy General is removed by the people of Caracas and a junta is installed.
• 1925 (101 years ago) Colo-Colo, the most successful and popular soccer football team in the South American nation of Chile, was founded at the El Llano Stadium in San Miguel, Santiago, by footballer David Arellano and some of his teammates who had also left the Deportes Magallanes club.
• 1942 (84 years ago) World War II: In German-occupied Poland, the Majdan-Tatarski ghetto is established, situated between the Lublin Ghetto and a Majdanek subcamp.
• 1971 (55 years ago) Sierra Leone becomes a republic, and Siaka Stevens the president.
• 1975 (51 years ago) India's first satellite Aryabhata launched in orbit from Kapustin Yar, Russia.
• 2005 (21 years ago) Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is elected to the papacy and becomes Pope Benedict XVI.
• 2011 (15 years ago) Fidel Castro resigns as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba after holding the title since July 1961.

Births

• 1832 (194 years ago) José Echegaray, Spanish poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1916)
• 1882 (144 years ago) Getúlio Vargas, Brazilian lawyer and politician, 14th President of Brazil (died 1954)
• 1939 (87 years ago) Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran (died 2026)
• 1957 (69 years ago) Mukesh Ambani, Indian businessman, chairman of Reliance Industries
• 1968 (58 years ago) Mswati III, King (Ngwenyama) of Eswatini (Swaziland)
• 1978 (48 years ago) James Franco, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
• 1979 (47 years ago) Kate Hudson, American actress
• 1987 (39 years ago) Maria Sharapova, Russian tennis player

Deaths

• 1560 (466 years ago) Philip Melanchthon, German theologian and reformer (born 1497)
• 1689 (337 years ago) Christina, queen of Sweden (born 1626)
• 1824 (202 years ago) Lord Byron, English-Scottish poet and playwright (born 1788)
• 1881 (145 years ago) Benjamin Disraeli, English journalist and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1804)
• 1882 (144 years ago) Charles Darwin, English biologist and theorist (born 1809)
• 1906 (120 years ago) Pierre Curie, French physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1859)
• 1967 (59 years ago) Konrad Adenauer, German politician, 1st Chancellor of Germany (born 1876)
• 1998 (28 years ago) Octavio Paz, Mexican poet, philosopher, and academic Nobel Prize laureate (born 1914)

All 258 events, births and deaths of April 19