1904 – Louis Rigolly, a Frenchman, becomes the first man to break the 100 km / h hurdle on the ground. He drove a 15-liter Gobron-Brillie in Ostend, Belgium. This would be the first automotive record in the world of its kind. Rigolly also took part in the early Grand Prix car races.
1925 – Martin Camaj, Albanian writer, academic and albanologist, was born in Telum, Dukagjini. He founded the school in Prekal where he acted as the only teacher until 1948. Camaj took part in the resistance against the communist partisans with the captured gang. 1950 finds Martin in Belgrade where he enrolled at the university in the Yugoslav capital. He graduated after five years on July 20, 1955, passing the diploma exam in the branch of Roman philology with the main fields of Italian language and literature. In June 1951 he married first in the municipality, then in the Orthodox Church and then the Catholic Church with teacher Nina Bogdanovic. After closing his studies in Belgrade, Camaj prepared for his postgraduate training in Albanology at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Sarajevo, led by the albanologist prof. Henrik Baric – President of the Albanological Institute in Sarajevo. That same year, seeing the professor’s declining health and aggravated condition in the Federal Republic, he went to Italy (at least as early as September 20, ’56), where his wife was forced to have a kidney removed due to illness. Under the mentorship of Koliqi, on March 15, 1960, he defended with maximum marks at the University of Rome, the doctoral thesis on “Meshari” by Gjon Buzuku, which was published the same year as the publication of the magazine “Shëjzat”. In December 1960s he settled in Munich, Germany with a ten-month scholarship awarded by the German foundation DAAD, for which he entered on bail on the recommendation of ethnologist and folklorist Alois Schmaus, who at the time was leading the Slavic Seminary at Univ.
1960 – Sirimavo Bandaranaike is elected Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, becoming the first female head of government in the world. She served three governing terms, namely 1960-1965, 1970-1977, and 1994–2000. Bandaranaike’s mandate was marked by economic development at the national level. She played a major role abroad as a negotiator between non-united nations.
1969 – During the Apollo program at 2:56 a.m. UTC, astronaut Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to walk on the moon. This event was seen live not only by the NASA station, but on all radios and televisions of the world. Neil Armstrong’s famous saying about the success of this mission was, “This is a small step for man, but a big step for humanity.”
1973 – In Lillehammer, Norway, Mossad agents kill a waiter they mistakenly thought was involved in the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre. Six members of the Mossad team were captured and convicted of complicity in the murder by Norwegian justice, in a major blow to the intelligence agency’s reputation.
1978 – Born in Minnesota, Josh Hartnett. Hartnett, is an American actor and film producer. He first came to prominence in 1997 for his role as Michael Fitzgerald in the television crime drama series Cracker. Some of his films are, Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Down, Black Dahlia, Lucky Number Slevin.
1983 – The lowest temperature in the world in an inhabited place is recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica at -90 degrees Celsius. Vostok Station is internationally recognized as one of the coldest extreme climates in the world. This research station located in Antarctica, is used for various purposes by Russia.
2012 – Ali Podrimja dies at the age of 69. Podrimja was an Albanian poet. He was born in Gjakova, then part of Italy controlled by Italy. Podrimja was considered by many to be the most typical representative of modern Albanian verses in Kosovo and was undoubtedly the Kosovar poet with the widest international reputation. Ali Podrimje’s poetry, translated into many foreign languages, has been accepted and appreciated precisely because it enters convincingly into the universal treasure of values through its special color, through the spiritual world with its own formed individuality, different from the others. The difficult political circumstances during the 60’s and the family ones after that, have left indelible traces in his poems. The death of his son, Lumi, resulted in his most beautiful work to date, Lum Lumi. His poetry has made Albanian poetry as a whole respected in all Albanian lands, as well as translated into many foreign languages. The Podrimja verse is characterized by simplicity, invisible rhyme, and unexpected symbols. On July 18, 2012, Ali Podrimja disappeared after a poetry festival in France. After incessant searches by the French authorities, on July 21, 2012, the lifeless body of the writer was found. He died in unexplained circumstances.
