Aarushhh/wikipedia-simple-splitted huggingface dataset:
Goethe’s Faust had made him the greatest person in European literature. At the end of his life he finished a second part of Faust. It is quite hard to read, and is more of a long poem than a dramatic play. It talks of his ideas about allegory, science and philosophy.

Death
Goethe died in Weimar on March 22, 1832. He had started as a great Classical writer of the 18th century and finished as a young Romantic of the 19th century. No one else had such a big influence on art and literature of that time.

His most important works 

 Götz von Berlichingen mit der eisernen Hand, 1774
 Prometheus, 1774
 Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, 1774
 Iphigenie auf Tauris, 1779
 Torquato Tasso, 1780 - 1790
 Römische Elegien, 1788-90
 Venezianische Epigramme, 1790
 Faust. Ein Fragment, 1790
 Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, 1795/96
 Faust. Eine Tragödie, 1808
 Theory of colours, 1810
 West-östlicher Divan, 1819
 Faust II, 1833

Other websites 
 Works by Johann Wolfgang Goethe at Zeno.org (German)
1749 births
1832 deaths
18th-century German philosophers
19th-century German philosophers
German autobiographers
German poets
Writers from Frankfurt
Pythagoras of Samos was a famous Greek mathematician and philosopher ( ). He is known best for the proof of the important Pythagorean theorem, which is about right angle triangles. He started a group of mathematicians, called the Pythagoreans, who worshiped numbers and lived like monks. He had an influence on Plato.

He had a great impact on mathematics, theory of music and astronomy. His theories are still used in mathematics today. He was one of the greatest thinkers of his time.

Pythagoras was born in Samos, a little island off the western coast of Asia Minor. There is not much information about his life. It is said that he had a good childhood. Growing up with two or three brothers, he was well educated. He did not agree with the government and their schooling, so he moved to Crotone and set up a community of followers. After joining the community his students stayed silent for 5 years, and they did not have any personal possessions. Pythagoras taught them all, and they had to obey strict rules.
Some say he was the first person to use the term philosophy. Since he worked very closely with his group, the Pythagoreans, it is sometimes hard to tell his works from those of his followers.

Religion was important to the Pythagoreans. They swore their oaths by "1+2+3+4" (which equals 10.0). They also believed the soul is immortal and goes through a cycle of rebirths until it can become pure. They believed that these souls were in both animal and plant life. He also believed that any animals soul was the same except for humans because of their higher intelligence.

His beliefs 
Pythagoras' most important belief was that the physical world was mathematical and that numbers were the real reality.
that at its deepest level, reality is mathematical in nature,
that philosophy can be used for spiritual purification,
that the soul can rise to union with the divine,
that certain symbols have a mystical significance, and
that all brothers of the order should observe strict loyalty and secrecy.

Pythagorean theorem
Pythagoras is most famous for his theorem to  do with right triangles. He said that the length of the longest side of the right angled triangle called the hypotenuse (C) squared would equal the sum of the other sides squared. And so a² + b² = c² was born. There are many different proofs for this Pythagorean theorem.

References

Other websites 
 
 Pythagoras on Encyclopædia Britannica
 Pythagoras on Citizendium

580s BC births
496 BC deaths
Presocratic philosophers
Ancient mathematicians
Geometers
Socrates (470 BC – 399 BC) was one of the greatest Greek philosophers. He did not propose any specific knowledge or policy. He showed  how argument, debate, and discussion could help men to understand difficult issues. Most of the issues he dealt with were only political on the surface. Underneath⬇️, they were moral questions about how life should be lived. Such is the influence of Socrates that philosophers before him are called the Presocratic philosophers.

Enemies
Socrates made enemies, three of whom brought charges against him. Socrates was tried for his life in 399 BC, found guilty, and put to death by drinking hemlock (a herbal poison). The story of his trial and death is the subject of a tract by Plato which is called the Apologia.
Socrates and Plato
Most of what we know about Socrates comes from the works of Plato, who was his pupil. Socrates lived in the Greek city of Athens. His method of teaching was to have a dialogue with individual students. They would propose some point of view, and Socrates would question them, asking what they meant. He would pretend "I don't know anything; I'm just trying to understand what it is you are saying", or words to that effect. This is now called the Socratic method of teaching.

Reputation
Socrates is sometimes called the "father of Western philosophy". This is because in the discussions he uncovered some of the most basic questions in philosophy, questions which are still discussed today. Some of the people he taught came to be important and successful, like Plato and Alcibiades.
The life of Socrates 
Socrates never wrote anything. All of what we know about Socrates is from what other people wrote about him. Our main source of what we know about Socrates is from the writings of his student, Plato. Some of Plato's dialogues, such as the Crito and the Phaedo, are loosely based on fact. They are not written records, but artistic re-creation of Socrates in action.

Another of Socrates' students, Xenophon also wrote about Socrates. Aristophanes, a person who wrote brilliant satirical comedies, wrote about him in play called The Clouds. Socrates was an easy target for satire. He walked barefoot, and with a swagger. Sometimes he stood in a trance for hours.p8 In The Clouds Socrates is a crazy person who tries to scam people out of their money. Plato wrote that Socrates taught for free.
Biographical details 
Socrates' father was a sculptor, and his mother was a midwife who helped women give birth to children. He may have been a stonemason like his father, and Plato wrote that he served in the Athenian army as a hoplite (heavy infantry). We know he was influenced by an older philosopher, Archelaus, and that he talked with anyone who had interesting ideas in Athens, but beyond that nothing is known.

Socrates was about 50 when he married a much younger woman, Xanthippe. They had three children together. Socrates made complaints about his wife, but no one knew if he was telling the truth.

It is said that one of Socrates' friends went to ask the  oracle at Delphi if there was anyone wiser than Socrates in Athens. The oracle said that there was no wiser person. The oracle was well known for saying things that were ambiguous or unclear. It did not say that Socrates was the wisest, just that there was no person wiser.
After being puzzled by this, Socrates finally decided that his wisdom lay in knowing that he was ignorant. His attempts to show the citizens that some of their ideas were nonsense might help explain his unpopularity. In Plato's works, Socrates says he knows nothing, but can draw out other people's ideas just as his mother helped other women to give birth.

The death of Socrates

The accusations 
In 399 BC, when Socrates was an old man, three citizens—Meletus, Anytus and Lycon—brought charges against Socrates. A trial was held. In ancient Athens the procedure was quite different from the present day. There was a jury of 500 men drawn from the citizens. Both the accusers and the defendant had to make speeches in person to the jury. Guilt or innocence was by majority vote. There was no preset penalty if the verdict was 'guilty'. Both the accuser and the defendant would make speeches proposing what the penalty should be. Again, a vote was taken.p17
There were two charges against him. The general theme was that Socrates was a menace to society. The first charge was of heresy, disbelief in the Gods. It was probably meant to cause prejudice amongst the jurymen. Actually, Socrates observed all the correct procedures of the religion of his times. The charge had been used successfully against another philosopher, Anaxagoras.p17

The second charge was that he corrupted the youth with his teachings. What was meant by this? Apparently, this was not about his personal relationship with his pupils. It was about the way he was thought to influence their political views. His circle had included a number of right-wing aristocrats whose ideas were now rejected by most citizens. The brilliant Alcibiades, once a great leader of Athens, was now seen as a traitor.p17
The trial 
Crito, a friend of Socrates, illegally paid the prison guards to allow Socrates to escape.  Socrates, however, decided not to escape.  When Socrates was put on trial, he gave a long speech to defend himself against the claims made by the Athens government.

We have Plato's version of how Socrates defended himself, in the Apologia. It starts:
"I do not know what effect my accusers have had upon you, gentlemen, but for my own part I was carried away by them; their arguments were so convincing. On the other hand, scarcely a word of what they said was true".p19

The sentence 
When Socrates was asked to propose his punishment, Socrates said that the government should give him free dinners for the rest of his life for all the good that he did for society. The court held a vote between giving Socrates a fine to pay or putting him to death.  The verdict was that Socrates was to be put to death.

Death of Socr
Death of Socr

Plato on Socrates' trial and death 
There are several dialogues by Plato which deal directly with the trial of Socrates and the period up to his death. They are, in order of the events:
Apologia, or The Apology. This deals in particular with Socrates' defence at his trial. It is regarded as accurate in substance, and perhaps in detail.
Crito. This deals with the month between his trial and his death. In particular, Socrates explains to his friend Crito why he is not going to escape, or permit his friends to bribe the jailor.
Phaedo. This is a later work. It is written as if by an eye-witness of the last day of Socrates' life. In the work, Phaedo of Elias reports to a group of friends on what Socrates said on his last day. This is called a "reported dialogue" or one dialogue inside another.  The Phaedo is longer than the other two works.
The ideas of Socrates 
Socrates helped  people to see what was wrong with their ideas. Sometimes they liked this, sometimes they were not happy or grateful. He said that he, Socrates, was not wise, but that he "knew that he knew nothing." Since other people think they know something, but no one really knows anything, Socrates claimed he knew more than anyone else. He said that people who do bad things do so because they do not know any better.

People think that Socrates was a good man because he did no harm, except he asked questions about everything. However, during his life many people thought he was a bad person, because he asked those questions and because he made young people unhappy about their lives.

Someone once wrote that Socrates said that "A life that was not examined was not worth living". This means that someone must think about their own life and its purpose. Some people believe that most humans are happier if they do not think too much about their life.
Socrates also taught that many people can look at something and not truly see it. He asked questions about the meaning of life and goodness. These are still very important questions. Much of philosophy (love of wisdom) is about these things.

Legacy 
Socrates is seen by some people as a martyr, since he willingly died to support the idea that knowledge and wisdom are very important to our lives.

Socrates is known as one of the most important philosophers in history. He is often described as the father of Western philosophy. He did not start Western philosophy, but he had a big influence on it. Before Socrates, philosophy was mainly about mathematics and answering questions about our natural world. Socrates expanded on that and added questions about ethics, politics, and epistemology to philosophy.

References 

460s BC births
399 BC deaths
Ancient Greek philosophers
Executed people
Dante Alighieri (), known simply as Dante (, , ; c. 1265 – September 14, 1321), was a major Italian poet of the Late Middle Ages/Early Renaissance. His central work, the Commedia (Divine Comedy), is considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature. In Italian he is known as il Sommo Poeta (the Supreme Poet). Dante and the Divine Comedy have been a source of inspiration for artists for almost seven centuries. Dante, alongside Petrarch and Boccaccio, is known as one of "the three fountains", and is often referred to as "the Father of the Italian language". The first biography written on him was by his contemporary Giovanni Villani. The most famous section in The Divine Comedy is the first third of it, the first 34 cantos of the poem, called Inferno, which features Dante's vision of Hell.
Life 
Dante Alighieri was born in 1265, between May 14 and June 13, under the name Durante Alighieri. ca. 1450 (Uffizi Gallery). His family was important in Florence, and supported the Papacy.
The poet's mother was Bella degli Abati. She died when Dante was seven years old, and Alighiero soon married again, to Lapa di Chiarissimo Cialuffi. Lapa had two children, Dante's brother Francesco and sister Tana ( short version of Gaetana).

Dante fought in the front of the  troops in the battle of Campaldino (June 11, 1289). After the victory Dante gained an important part in public life.

When Dante was 12, in 1277, he married Gemma di Manetto Donati. Dante had already fallen in love with another girl, Beatrice Portinari that is mentioned same in "Divine Comedy", (known also as Bice). Years after Dante's marriage to Gemma he met Beatrice again. He had become interested in writing poems.

Dante had six children with Gemma: Jacopo, Pietro, Giovanni, Gabrielle Alighieri, and Antonia.

Education, youth and poetry
Not much is known about Dante's education, and it is presumed he studied at home. It is known that he studied Tuscan poetry. His interests brought him to discover the Occitan poetry of the troubadours and the Latin poetry of classical antiquity (with a particular devotion to Virgil).
At 18, Dante met Guido Cavalcanti, Lapo Gianni, Cino da Pistoia, and soon after Brunetto Latini; together they became the leaders of Dolce Stil Novo ("The Sweet New Style"). Brunetto later received a special mention in the Divine Comedy (Inferno, XV, 28), for what he had taught Dante.
According to his work, La Vita Nuova, when he was nine years old he met Beatrice Portinari, daughter of Folco Portinari, with whom he fell in love "at first sight", and apparently without even having spoken to her. He saw her frequently after age 18, often exchanging greetings in the street, but he never knew her well—he effectively set the example for the so-called "courtly love". Dante gave his imprint to the Stil Novo. Love for Beatrice (as in a different manner Petrarch would show for his Laura) would apparently be the reason for poetry and for living, together with political passions. In many of his poems, she appears such as semi-divine, watching over him constantly.

When Beatrice died in 1290, Dante tried to find consolation in Latin literature.
He then dedicated himself to philosophical studies at religious schools like the Dominican one in Santa Maria Novella. This fervent passion for philosophy would later be criticized by the character Beatrice, in the Purgatorio (Purgatory), the second book of the Divine Comedy.

Exile and death 
Boniface quickly dismissed the other delegates and asked Dante alone to remain in Rome. At the same time (November 1, 1301), Charles de Valois entered Florence with Black Guelphs, who in the next six days destroyed much of the city and killed many of their enemies. A new Black Guelph government was installed and Messer Cante dei Gabrielli di Gubbio was appointed Podestà of Florence. Dante was put in exile for two years, and ordered to pay a large hill of money.
Dante did not pay the money, in part because he believed he was not guilty, and in part because all his needs in Florence had been stolen by the Black Guelphs. He was condemned to exile for life, and if he returned to Florence without paying the money, he could be burned at the stake.

In exile he began searching the foundation for the Divine Comedy, a work in 100 cantos, divided into three books of thirty-three cantos each, with a single introductory canto.
He went to Verona as a guest of Bartolomeo I della Scala, then moved to Sarzana in Liguria. Later, he is supposed to have lived in Lucca with Madame Gentucca. Some not sure sources say that he was also in Paris between 1308 and 1310. In 1310, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg, marched 5,000 troops into Italy. Dante saw in him a new Charlemagne who would restore the office of the Holy Roman Emperor for re-take Florence from the Black Guelphs. He wrote to Henry and several Italian princes, demanding that they destroy the Black Guelphs. Mixing religion and private concerns, he invoked the worst anger of God against his city, suggesting several particular targets that coincided with his personal enemies. It was during this time that he wrote the first two books of the Divine Comedy.
When Dante died at Ravenna, the custodians of the body at Ravenna put the bones in a false wall of the monastery. Nevertheless, in 1829, a tomb was built for him in Florence in the basilica of Santa Croce. That tomb has been empty ever since, with Dante's body remaining in Ravenna, far from the land he loved so dearly. The front of his tomb in Florence reads Onorate l'altissimo poeta – which roughly translates as "Honour the extraordinary poet".

Gallery
Gallery

Other websites
 "Dante Alighieri on the Web", about the Dante's life, and (complete) work.
 The Banquet (Il Convito)
 The Divine Comedy: A Study Guide about Divine Comedy
 The Divine Comedy  
 Dante Alighieri  and his Divine Comedy in English on Read Print 
 The Online Library of Liberty: Dante's Divine Comedy Italian text with English translation, Cambridge, 1918.
 Società Dantesca Italiana (bilingual site) manuscripts of Dante's works, images and text transcripts
 Guardian Books: small "Author Page"
 LitWeb.net: Dante Alighieri Biography
 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Another biography, on his works and bibliography

1265 births
1321 deaths
Italian poets
Medieval poets
Writers from Florence
Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English modernist writer, essayist and feminist.

Childhood 
She was born into a well-known family. Her father, Leslie Stephen, was a Victorian scholar. Her mother, born in India, was a favourite model of the Preraphaelite artists. Her sister, Vanessa Bell, was a painter. She had two brothers; one of them, Thoby, died in 1906.

Her mother died when she was thirteen and four years later her half-sister Stella died. In these times Virginia started to have her psychological, or mental problems. She had bipolar disorder in the time when few people knew this illness and most thought she was strange.

After the death of her mother, Leslie Stephen was not able to keep good relations in the family. Virginia and her sister Vanessa were sexually abused by their half-brothers George and Gerald. It affected Virginia for the rest of her life.
In their childhood, all the Stephens children wrote diaries, but only Virginia kept it for her whole life (and after her death, lots of them were published). It was important for her when she was sexually abused, because there was no one with whom she could talk about it. In the diary, she could write everything.

Writing life
After her father's death, Virginia and her brothers and sister moved to Bloomsbury, London and there they became members of the famous group of artists called Bloomsbury Group. Here Virginia met writer Leonard Woolf (1880-1969), whom she was married to from 1912 until her death. Together, they moved to Richmond, where they opened a publishing office called Hogarth House Press, which later published all of Virginia's novels and essays.
She was bisexual. When she was a teenager, she fell in love with Violet Dickinson and she wrote her lots of love letters. Violet probably never loved her back. Later, Virginia had a sexual relationship with Vita Sackville-West, a writer and a poet. Their letters, which have been published, show how deeply they were in love.

Her most famous novels are Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. She completed Mrs Dalloway in 1925. It is about a day in the life of an English woman called Clarissa Dalloway. Clarissa is throwing a party and she spends the entire day preparing. The story can appear stupid, but it is not so important in the book. What's more important are the feelings, the colours, or the mood of the story.
To the Lighthouse was published in 1927 for the first time. It is about a family of Ramsays and its friends. These people are altogether spending a summer in Ramsay's house on an island. The youngest of Ramsays children, James, wants to go to the lighthouse, but they can't go there because of bad weather. In the next part of the book, James is ten years older and his father is taking him to the lighthouse, although he doesn't want to go there anymore.

Virginia Woolf is also an author of these novels: Jacob's Room (1923), Orlando (1928) and The Waves (1931). She was a feminist and she wrote a few essays about women's position in the society, for example The Room of One's Own and Three Guineas.

Death 
On 28 March 1941, Woolf drowned herself by filling her overcoat pockets with stones and walking into the River Ouse near her home. Her body was not found until 18 April.  Her husband buried her cremated remains beneath an elm tree in the garden of Monk's House, their home in Rodmell, Sussex.
Portrayals in fiction 
In 1998, American writer Michael Cunningham wrote a novel in which she appeared, called The Hours (a winner of the Pulitzer award), which is best known because of the same named movie, in which the role of Virginia was played by actress Nicole Kidman. Kidman won an Oscar for her performance.

Rather better known is Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, in which her name is used as a catch-phrase by the lead couple. This was a play, and then a film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The film won five Academy Awards.

References

Other websites
Other websites 

 
 Virginia Woolf at the British Library
 Biography of Virginia Woolf on the Yale Modernism Lab 
 
 
 
 
 Works by Virginia Woolf at University of Adelaide 
 
 
 Monk's House information at the National Trust
 The Virginia Woolf Collection at the Victoria University (Toronto) Library Special Collections 
 Virginia Woolf collection of papers, 1882–1984 (bulk 1912–1940), held by the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library

1882 births
1941 deaths
Bisexual people
British crime victims
British feminists
English LGBT people
English novelists
English playwrights
Feminist writers
LGBT feminists
LGBT novelists
People with bipolar disorder
Suicides by drowning
Suicides in the United Kingdom
Writers from London
Writers who committed suicide
Up to 1900 
 37 - Roman Emperor Caligula accepts the titles of the Principate, entitled to him by the Senate.
 193 – Roman Emperor Pertinax was assassinated by Praetorian Guards, who then sold the throne in an auction to Didius Julianus.
 364 - Roman Emperor Valentinian I appoints his brother Flavius Valens as co-Emperor.
 845 – Paris is sacked by Viking raiders, probably under Ragnar Lodbrok, who collects a huge ransom in exchange for leaving.
 1566 - The foundation stone is laid for Valletta, Malta, by Jean Parisot de Valette, Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
 1776 – Juan Bautista de Anza sails into San Francisco Bay and claims the nearby land for Spain.
 1795 – Partitions of Poland: The Duchy of Courland, a northern fief of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, ceased to exist and became part of Imperial Russia.
 1802 – Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers discovers 2 Pallas, the second asteroid known to man.
 1809 – Battle of Medellin, Colombia.
1814 - The Royal Navy defeats the United States Navy in the Battle of Valparaiso, Chile.
 1834 – The United States Senate censures President Andrew Jackson for his actions in defunding the Second Bank of the United States.
 1854 – Crimean War: United Kingdom and France declare war on Russia.
 1860 – First Taranaki War: The Battle of Waireka broke out.
 1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Glorieta Pass – In New Mexico, Union forces succeed in stopping the Confederate invasion of New Mexico territory. The battle began on March 26.
 1871 - The Paris Commune is officially created in Paris.
 1883 - Tonkin Campaign: French victory in the Battle of Gia Cuc.
 1889 - The Yngsjö murder occurs in Sweden, as Anna Mansdotter and her son are arrested for the crime.
1901  2000 
 1910 – Henri Fabre becomes the first person to fly a seaplane after taking off from a water runway near Martigues, France.
 1913 – Guatemala becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires Convention.
 1915 - British passenger steamship Falaba is sunk by a German U-boat off Wales, killing 104 people, including the first American to die as a direct result of World War I.
 1920 – Actors Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford marry.
 1930 – Constantinople and Angora change their names to Istanbul and Ankara.
 1939 – Spanish Civil War: Generalissimo Francisco Franco conquers Madrid
 1941 – World War II: Battle of Cape Matapan – In the Mediterranean Sea, British Admiral Andrew Browne Cunningham leads the Royal Navy in the destruction of three major Italian battleships and two destroyers.
 1942 – World War II: In occupied France, British naval forces raid the German-occupied port of St. Nazaire.
1946 – Cold War: The United States State Department releases the Acheson-Lilienthal Report, outlining a plan for the international control of nuclear power.
 1947 – The last episode of the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century airs on radio.
 1951 - First Indochina War: Battle of Mao Khe.
 1959 - The State Council of the People's Republic of China dissolves the Government of Tibet.
 1964 – The first British offshore pirate radio station, Radio Caroline, is established.
 1964 - Tsunamis from the previous day's Good Friday earthquake strike along western coasts of North America, killing 107 people in Alaska, 11 in California and 4 in Oregon.
 1965 - An earthquake causes a dam to break near the town of El Cobre, Chile, which is flooded, killing over 200 people.
 1969 - Greek poet Giorgos Seferis makes his famous statement on the BBC World Service against the ruling junta in Greece.
 1970 - An earthquake of magnitude 7.2 hits Gediz, Turkey, killing 1,086 people.
1978 – US Supreme Court hands down 5-3 decision in Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349, a controversial case involving involuntary sterilization and judicial immunity.
 1979 – In Pennsylvania, a pump in the reactor cooling system fails at Three Mile Island, resulting in the evaporation of some contaminated water causing a nuclear meltdown.
 1979 - The British House of Commons passes a vote of no confidence against Prime Minister James Callaghan's Labour Party government. A new election on May 3 results in Margaret Thatcher being elected Prime Minister.
 1990 – President George H. W. Bush posthumously gives Jesse Owens the Congressional Gold Medal.
 1994 – In South Africa, Zulus and African National Congress supporters battle in central Johannesburg resulting in eighteen deaths.
 1997 - A rock fall in Afghanistan kills 380 people.
 1999 - Kosovo War: Serbian paramilitary and military forces kill 146 Kosovo Albanians in the Izbica Massacre.
From 2001 
 2002 – The exhibit "The Italians: Three Centuries of Italian Art" opens at the National Gallery of Australia.
 2005 – The 2005 Sumatran earthquake rocks Indonesia, and at magnitude 8.7 is the second strongest earthquake since 1965. It kills around 1,300 people, mainly on the island of Nias.
 2006 – Strikes take place in France, in protest at the government proposition First Employment Contract. On the same day, strikes are also held across the United Kingdom.
 2014 - It is announced that former Prime Minister of Norway Jens Stoltenberg will succeed Anders Fogh Rasmussen as Secretary-General of NATO on October 1 of the same year.
 2017 - The Scottish Parliament, by a majority of 69 to 59, approves plans to hold a second referendum on Scottish independence.
 2018 - It is revealed that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un travelled to Beijing to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping for talks.
 2018 - A fire at a police station's cells in Valencia, Venezuela kills 78 people.

Births
Up to 1900 
 1472 – Fra Bartolommeo, Italian artist (d. 1517)
 1496 – Mary Tudor, Queen of France (d. 1533)
 1515 – Teresa of Avila, Spanish saint (d. 1582)
 1522 - Albert the Warlike, Prince of Bayreuth (d. 1577)
 1569 - Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma (d. 1622)
 1592 – John Amos Comenius, Bohemian philosopher and theologian (d. 1670)
 1613 – Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang of the Qing Dynasty of China (d. 1688)
 1743 - Yekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova, major figure in the Russian Enlightenment (d. 1810)
 1749 – Pierre-Simon Laplace, French mathematician, physicist and astronomer (d. 1827)
 1750 – Francisco de Miranda, Venezuelan revolutionary (d. 1816)
 1760 - Thomas Clarkson, British abolitionist (d. 1846)
 1773 - Henri Gatien Bertrand, French general (d. 1844)
 1793 - Henry Schoolcraft, American explorer and ethnologist (d. 1864)
 1811 - Saint John Nepomucene Neumann, Bohemian-born American bishop and Roman Catholic saint (d. 1860)
 1815 - Arsène Houssaye, French novelist (d. 1896)
1818 - Wade Hampton III, Governor of South Carolina (d. 1902)
 1819 - Joseph Bazalgette, English engineer (d. 1891)
 1832 - Henry D. Washburn, American politician, general and explorer (d. 1871)
 1840 - Emin Pasha, Ottoman-German naturalist and politician (d. 1892)
 1847 - Gyula Farkas, Hungarian mathematician and physicist (d. 1930)
 1851 – Bernardino Machado, President and Prime Minister of Portugal (d. 1944)
 1862 – Aristide Briand, Prime Minister of France (d. 1932)
 1868 – Maxim Gorky, Russian writer (d. 1936)
 1878 - Herbert H. Lehman, Governor of New York (d. 1963)
 1890 - Paul Whiteman, American bandleader and composer (d. 1967)
 1892 – Corneille Heymans, Belgian doctor, won the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1968)
 1894 - Ernst Lindemann, German captain (d. 1941)
 1895 - Christian Herter, Governor of Massachusetts and United States Secretary of State (d. 1966)
 1895 - Spencer W. Kimball, American Mormon leader (d. 1985)
 1897 – Sepp Herberger, German football coach (d. 1977)
1899 – August Anheuser Busch, Jr., American brewer (d. 1989)
 1899 - Harold B. Lee, American religious figure (d. 1973)
1901  1950 
 1903 – Rudolf Serkin, Austrian pianist (d. 1991)
 1910 – Ingrid of Sweden, Queen Consort of Denmark (d. 2000)
 1911 - J. L. Austin, British philosopher (d. 1960)
 1912 – Marina Raskova, Soviet pilot (d. 1943)
 1913 – Kazuo Taoka, Japanese crime boss (d. 1981)
 1913 – Toko Shinoda, Japanese artist
 1914 - Bohumil Hrabal, Czech writer (d. 1997)
 1914 – Edmund Muskie, American politician, Governor of Maine and United States Secretary of State (d. 1996)
 1917 - Claude Bertrand, Canadian neurosurgeon (d. 2014)
 1921 – Dirk Bogarde, English actor (d. 1999)
 1921 - Herschel Grynszpan, German-Jewish refugee and assassin (d. 1942)
 1922 - Neville Bonner, Australian politician (d. 1999)
 1922 – Theo Albrecht, German businessman (Aldi Nord) (d. 2010)
 1923 - Paul C. Donnelly, American scientist and engineer (d. 2014)
 1925 - Innokenty Smoktunovsky, Soviet-Russian actor (d. 1994)
 1926 - Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, 18th Duchess of Alba, Spanish noblewoman (d. 2014)
1926 - Yvon Taillandier, French artist, author and critic (d. 2018)
 1927 - Theo Colborn, American zoologist (d. 2014)
 1927 - Marianne Fredriksson, Swedish writer (d. 2007)
 1928 - Zbigniew Brzezinski, Polish-American political scientist (d. 2017)
 1928 – Alexander Grothendieck, German-French mathematician (d. 2014)
 1930 – Jerome Isaac Friedman, American physicist
 1930 - Robert Ashley, American composer
 1931 - Anatoly Lein, Soviet-Russian-born American chess player (d. 2018)
 1933 – Frank Murkowski, American politician, former Governor of Alaska
 1933 - Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, Archbishop of Guadalajara, Mexico
 1935 - Frank Judd, Baron Judd, British politician
 1935 – Michael Parkinson, British broadcaster
 1936 – Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian writer and politician
 1936 - Amancio Ortega, Spanish businessman
 1936 - Zdenek Sverak, Czech actor
 1940 - Luis Cubilla, Uruguayan footballer (d. 2013)
 1941 – Alf Clausen, American orchestra conductor
 1942 – Daniel Dennett, American philosopher
1942 – Neil Kinnock, British politician, former leader of the Labour Party
 1942 – Mike Newell, British director
 1942 - Kitanofuji Katsuaki, Japanese sumo wrestler
 1942 - Conrad Schumann, East German border guard (d. 1998)
 1942 - Jerry Sloan, American basketball player and coach
 1943 - Richard Eyre, English director, producer and screenwriter
 1944 - Rick Barry, American basketball player
 1944 - Ken Howard, American actor (d. 2016)
 1945 - Rodrigo Duterte, President of the Philippines
 1946 – Alejandro Toledo, former President of Peru
 1946 - Wubbo Ockels, Dutch physicist and astronaut (d. 2014)
 1946 - Henry Paulson, American politician
 1948 – Dianne Wiest, American actress
 1948 – John Evan, British musician (Jethro Tull)
 1949 - Josephine Chaplin, American actress
 1949 - Kevin Lloyd, British actor (d. 1998)
1951  1975 
 1952 - Tony Brise, English racing driver (d. 1975)
 1953 – Melchior Ndadaye, Burundian politician (d. 1993)
 1955 – Reba McEntire, American singer and actress
 1955 - John Alderdice, Baron Alderdice, Northern Irish politician
 1956 - Evelin Jahl, German athlete
 1956 - April Margera, American television personality
 1959 – Laura Chinchilla, former President of Costa Rica
 1960 - José Antonio Alonso, Spanish politician (d. 2017)
 1960 – José Maria Neves, Prime Minister of Cape Verde
 1961 – Orla Brady, Irish actress
 1961 - Byron Scott, American basketball player and coach
 1962 - Jure Franko, Slovenian skier
 1963 – Nina Ananiashvili, Georgian prima ballerina
 1966 - Cheryl James, American rapper and actress
 1967 - John Ziegler, American radio host
 1968 – Nasser Hussain, English cricketer
 1968 - Tim Lovejoy, English television presenter
 1969 - Ilke Wyludda, German discus thrower
 1969 - Laurie Brett, Scottish actress
 1970 - Michelle Gildernew, Northern Irish politician
1970 – Vince Vaughn, American actor
 1971 – Sayeeda Warsi, Baroness Warsi, British solicitor and politician
 1972 - Nick Frost, British actor
 1973 – Eddie Fatu, Samoan-American professional wrestler (d. 2009)
 1973 – Scott Mills, British radio presenter
 1975 - Kate Gosselin, American television personality
 1975 - Ivan Helguera, Spanish footballer
 1975 - Richard Kelly, American director and screenwriter
From 1976 
 1976 – Dave Keuning, American guitarist (The Killers)
 1976 - Stephen Gethins, Scottish politician
 1977 – Erik Rasmussen, American ice hockey player
 1979 - Crystal Cox, American athlete
 1980 - Albert Streit, German footballer
 1981 – Julia Stiles, American actress
 1982 - Luis Tejada, Panamanian footballer
 1984 – Christopher Samba, Congolese footballer
 1984 - Nikki Sanderson, British actress and model
 1985 – Stanislas Wawrinka, Swiss tennis player
 1986 – Lady Gaga, American singer
 1986 - Bowe Bergdahl, American sergeant
 1986 - Amaia Salamanca, Spanish actress
 1988 - Lacey Turner, English actress
 1989 – David Goodwillie, Scottish footballer
 1990 - Luca Marrone, Italian footballer
 1990 - Ekaterina Bobrova, Russian ice dancer
 1991 - Marie-Philip Poulin, Canadian ice hockey player
 1991 - Amy Bruckner, American actress and singer
 1991 - Hoya, South Korean singer and actor
 1992 - Sergi Gomez, Spanish footballer
 1994 - Jackson Wang, South Korean singer, dancer and model
Deaths

Up to 1900 
 193 – Pertinax, Roman Emperor (b. 126)
 1072 - Ordulf, Duke of Saxony
 1239 – Emperor Go-Toba of Japan (b. 1180)
 1241 – King Valdemar II of Denmark (b. 1170)
 1552 - Guru Angad Dev, Indian Sikh Guru (b. 1504)
 1584 - Tsar Ivan IV of Russia (Ivan the Terrible) (b. 1530)
 1687 – Constantijn Huygens, Dutch poet and composer (b. 1596)
 1794 - Marquis de Condorcet, French mathematician and philosopher (b. 1743)
 1818 - Antonio Capuzzi, Italian violinist and composer (b. 1755)
 1850 - Gerard Brandon, Governor of Mississippi (b. 1788)
 1866 - Solomon Foot, American lawyer and politician (b. 1802)
 1881 – Modest Mussorgsky, Russian composer (b. 1839)
 1884 - Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany (b. 1853)
1901  2000 
 1908 - Hermann Clemenz, Estonian chess player (b. 1846)
 1928 - Nathan Stubblefield, American inventor (b. 1860)
 1929 - Katharine Lee Bates, American poet and songwriter (b. 1859)
 1929 - Lomar Gouin, 13th Premier of Quebec (b. 1861)
 1934 - Mahmoud Mokhtar, Egyptian sculptor (b. 1891)
 1937 - Karol Szymanowksi, Polish pianist and composer (b. 1882)
 1941 – Virginia Woolf, English feminist writer (b. 1882)
 1942 – Miguel Hernandez, Spanish poet (b. 1910)
 1943 – Sergei Rachmaninoff, Russian composer and pianist (b. 1873)
 1953 – Jim Thorpe, American athlete (b. 1887)
 1958 – W. C. Handy, American blues musician and composer (b. 1873)
 1965 - Clemence Dane, British novelist and playwright (b. 1888)
 1969 – Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States (b. 1890)
 1974 - Arthur Crudup, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1905)
 1974 – Dorothy Fields, American librettist and lyricist (b. 1905)
 1975 - Ernst Fraenkel, German-American jurist (b. 1898)
1977 – Eric Shipton, British explorer and mountain climber (b. 1907)
 1979 - Emmett Kelly, American clown (b. 1898)
 1980 - Dick Haymes, Argentine-American actor and singer (b. 1918)
 1982 – William Giauque, Canadian chemist (b. 1895)
 1985 – Marc Chagall, Russian-born painter (b. 1887)
 1987 – Maria von Trapp, Austrian singer (b. 1905)
 1987 – Patrick Troughton, British actor (b. 1920)
 1994 – Eugene Ionescu, Romanian-born playwright (b. 1909)
 1996 - Shin Kanemaru, Japanese politician (b. 1914)
 2000 – Anthony Powell, British novelist (b. 1905)
From 2001 
 2004 – Peter Ustinov, British actor (b. 1921)
 2006 – Caspar Weinberger, American politician (b. 1917)
 2009 – Janet Jagan, American-born President of Guyana (b. 1920)
 2010 – Herb Ellis, American musician (b. 1921)
 2010 – June Havoc, Canadian-American actress (b. 1912)
 2011 - Wenche Foss, Norwegian actress (b. 1917)
 2012 – Alexander Arutunian, Armenian composer (b. 1920)
 2012 - Earl Scruggs, American musician (b. 1924)
 2013 - Richard Griffiths, British actor (b. 1947)
 2013 - Boris Strel, Slovenian skier (b. 1959)
 2014 - Jeremiah Denton, American politician and admiral (b. 1924)
 2014 - Edwin Kagin, American lawyer (b. 1940)
 2014 - Lorenzo Semple Jr., American screenwriter (b. 1923)
 2015 - Miroslav Ondricek, Czech cinematographer (b. 1934)
 2015 - Gene Saks, American director (b. 1921)
 2015 - Richard L. Bare, American director, producer and screenwriter (b. 1913)
 2016 - Daan Myngheer, Belgian cyclist (b. 1993)
 2016 - James Noble, American actor (b. 1922)
2017 - Infanta Alicia, Duchess of Calabria (b. 1917)
 2017 - Ahmed Kathrada, South African anti-Apartheid activist and politician (b. 1929)
 2017 - Christine Kaufmann, Austrian-German actress (b. 1945)
 2017 - William McPherson, American journalist, author and critic (b. 1933)
 2017 - Janine Sutto, French-born Canadian actress (b. 1921)
 2017 - Enn Vetemaa, Estonian writer (b. 1936)
 2018 - Peter Munk, Hungarian-born Canadian businessman (b. 1927)
 2018 - Eugène Van Roosbroeck, Belgian racing cyclist (b. 1928)
Observances 
 Serfs Emancipation Day (Tibet)
 Teachers' Day (Czech Republic of Slovakia)

Days of the year
Up to 1900 
 41 - The Roman Senate confirms Claudius as Emperor, after the murder of Caligula the previous day.
 1348 – A strong earthquake strikes northern Italy.
 1494 – Alfonso II becomes King of Naples.
 1515 - King Francis I of France is crowned.
 1533 – Henry VIII of England marries Anne Boleyn.
 1554 – São Paulo, now Brazil's largest city, is founded.
 1575 – Luanda, the present-day capital city of Angola, is founded by Portuguese settlers.
 1704 - The Battle of Ayubale results in the destruction of most of the Spanish missions in Florida.
 1755 - Moscow University is founded.
 1759 – Robert Burns is born. He is widely considered to be Scotland's national poet.
 1765 - Port Egmont, the first British settlement in the Falkland Islands, is founded.
 1791 – The British Parliament passes the Constitution Act of 1791, splitting the old province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada.
1858 - The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn is played at the marriage of Victoria, Princess Royal to Frederick of Prussia. It later becomes a popular wedding theme tune.
 1879 - The Bulgarian National Bank is founded.
 1881 - Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company.
 1890 – Nellie Bly completes her round-the-world journey in 72 days.
1901  2000 
 1915 - A coup led by Conservative officers removes the government of Victor Hugo de Azevedo Coutinho from power in Portugal. The rule of Joaquim Pimenta de Castro will last until May 14.
 1918 – Ukraine declares independence from Bolshevist Russia.
 1919 – The League of Nations is founded.
 1921 - Burgenland becomes a state of Austria.
 1924 – The first Winter Olympics begin in Chamonix, in the French Alps.
 1932 - Second Sino-Japanese War: The Chinese National Revolutionary Army begins its defence of Harbin.
 1939 - An earthquake measuring magnitude 8.3 strikes Chillan, Chile, killing 28,000.
 1942 – Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom.
 1944 - Florence Lee Tim-Oi is ordained in China, becoming the first female Anglican priest.
 1945 - World War II: The Battle of the Bulge ends.
 1949 – The first Emmy Awards are presented.
 1955 – The Soviet Union ends its state of war with Germany.
1961 - John F. Kennedy delivers his first press conference as President of the United States.
 1971 – Himachal Pradesh becomes a State of India.
 1971 – In a coup in Uganda, Idi Amin takes power, removing President Milton Obote.
 1980 - Mother Teresa is honored with the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award.
 1981 – Jiang Qing, widow of Mao Zedong, is sentenced to death, this is later changed to life imprisonment.
 1986 - The National Resistance Movement gets rid of the government of Tito Okello in Uganda, leading to Yoweri Museveni coming to power.
 1990 – The Burns Day Storm hits northwestern Europe.
 1990 - Avianca Flight 52, a Colombian airliner, crashes due to engine failure at Cove Neck, near New York City.
 1993 - Five people are shot outside CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. 2 are killed and 3 are injured.
 1994 - The Clementine space probe launches.
 1995 - Russia almost launches a nuclear attack after it mistakes Black Brant II, a Norwegian research rocket, for a US Trident missile.
1996 - Billy Bailey becomes the last person to-date to be executed by hanging in the United States.
 1998 - During a historic visit to Cuba, Pope John Paul II demands political reforms and the release of political prisoners, while condemning US attempts to isolate the country.
 1998 - A suicide attack by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on Sri Lanka's Temple of the Tooth, kills 8 people and injures 25.
 1999 – A magnitude 6 earthquake in western Colombia kills at least 1,000 people.
From 2001 
 2004 – Mikheil Saakashvili is inaugurated as President of Georgia.
 2004 - The Opportunity space rover lands on the planet Mars. 
 2004 - Hungarian footballer Miklos Feher collapses at a Primeira Liga game, and dies a few hours later.
 2005 – A stampede at the Mandher Devi temple in Mandhradevi in India kills 258 people.
 2006 - Three independent observing campaigns announce the discovery of OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, the first rocky and icy planet to be found outside the Solar System.
 2006 - Mexican professional wrestler Juana Barraza is arrested in connection with the serial killing of at least 10 elderly women.
 2009 – Royal Rumble
 2010 – Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 crashes into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after take-off from Rafik Hariri Airport in Beirut, Lebanon, killing all 90 people on board.
 2011 – 2011 Egyptian protests: Protests begin in Egypt against the rule of President Hosni Mubarak.
2013 - Exactly two years after the start of the 2011 Egyptian protests, widespread protests occur in Egypt against the Muslim Brotherhood and President Mohamed Morsi. Five people are reported killed and at least 200 injured. At least 29 people are also killed in violence on this day in 2014.
 2015 - A parliamentary election is held in Greece, and is won by the left-wing SYRIZA party, whose leader Alexis Tsipras is sworn in as Prime Minister of Greece the next day. The result is seen as a rejection of so-called austerity measures imposed after Greece got into economic trouble.
Up to 1900 
 750 – Leo IV the Khazar, Byzantine Emperor (d. 780)
 1477 – Anne of Brittany (d. 1541)
 1493 - Massimiliano Sforza, Duke of Milan (d. 1530)
 1509 - Giovanni Morone, Italian cardinal (d. 1580)
 1615 - Govert Finck, Dutch painter (d. 1660)
 1627 – Robert Boyle, Irish physicist (d. 1691)
 1634 - Gaspar Fagel, Dutch statesman (d. 1688)
 1640 - William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire, English politician (d. 1707)
 1661 - Antonio I, Prince of Monaco (d. 1731)
 1736 – Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Italian-born mathematician (d. 1813)
 1739 - Charles François Dumouriez, French general (d. 1823)
 1743 - Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, German philosopher (d. 1819)
 1755 - Paolo Mascagni, Italian physician (d. 1815)
 1759 – Robert Burns, Scottish poet (d. 1796)
 1783 - William Colgate, English-American businessman (d. 1857)
 1796 – William MacGillivray, Scottish naturalist and ornithologist (d. 1852)
 1813 - James Marion Sims, American physician (d. 1883)
1825 - George Pickett, American Confederate general (d. 1875)
 1841 - John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher, British admiral (d. 1920)
 1860 – Charles Curtis, 31st Vice President of the United States (d. 1936)
 1864 - Julie Kempf, Croatian historian and writer (d. 1934)
 1866 - Emile Vandervelde, Belgian social democrat, university professor and politician (d. 1938)
 1868 - Juventino Rosas, Mexican composer (d. 1894)
 1874 – W. Somerset Maugham, English writer (d. 1965)
 1882 – Virginia Woolf, English writer and feminist (d. 1941)
 1885 - Kitahara Hakushu, Japanese poet and children's writer (d. 1942)
 1886 - Wilhelm Furtwaengler, German conductor (d. 1954)
 1891 - William Christian Bullitt, Jr., American diplomat (d. 1967)
 1892 - Takeo Takagi, Japanese admiral (d. 1944)
 1894 – Aino Aalto, Finnish designer (d. 1949)
 1896 – Florence Mills, American cabaret singer, dancer and composer (d. 1927)
 1899 – Paul-Henri Spaak, Belgian politician (d. 1972)
1899 - Sleepy John Estes, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1977)
 1900 – Yojiro Ishizaka, Japanese writer (d. 1986)
 1900 - Istvan Fekete, Hungarian writer (d. 1970)
1901  1950 
 1904 - Sleepy John Estes, American blues musician and singer (d. 1977)
 1905 - Maurice Roy, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Quebec (d. 1985)
 1910 - Harold Watkinson, British politician (d. 1995)
 1913 – Huang Hua, Chinese politician (d. 2010)
 1913 - Witold Lutoslawski, Polish composer (d. 1994)
 1915 - Ewan MacColl, British folk singer-songwriter and playwright (d. 1989)
 1916 - Hans Coppi, German Resistance activist (d. 1942)
 1917 – Ilya Prigogine, Russian-born Belgian scientist (d. 2003)
 1917 – Janio Quadros, President of Brazil (d. 1992)
 1922 - Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Italian population geneticist
 1923 – Arvid Carlsson, Swedish scientist
 1923 - Rusty Driver, American singer (d. 2003)
 1925 - Giorgos Zampetas, Greek musician and songwriter (d. 1992)
 1927 - Antonio Carlos Jobim, Brazilian composer (d. 1994)
 1927 - Gregg Palmer, American actor (d. 2015)
 1928 – Eduard Shevardnadze, former President of Georgia (d. 2014)
 1929 - Benny Golson, American jazz musician