1916 – During World War I, the Battle of Verdun begins, the battle was the longest of World War I and was fought between French and German troops on the hills north of Verdun-sur-Meuse. It would last 10 months, and it would lose about 300,000 French and German soldiers together. In the end, this decisive battle for the western front would be won by the French.
1925 – American magazine The New Yorker publishes its first issue. The New Yorker is an American weekly magazine that features journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoon, and poetry. Launched as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is now published 47 times a year, with five of these publications covering the bi-weekly space. This magazine is considered one of the most prestigious in America.
1942 – Born in Berlin, Margareth von Trotta. Von Trotta is a German film director who has been cited as a “driving force” of the new German cinema movement. Some aspects of von Trotta’s work have been compared to the features of Ingmar Bergman from the 1960s and 1970s. Over the years she has been nominated and has won several national and international awards in the field of directing.
1948 – NASCAR is established. NASCAR, the National Auto Racing Association, is an American company that sanctions vehicle racing and is best known for its stock racing. Its three largest or National series are the NASCAR Cup Series, the Xfinity Series, and the Gander RV and Outdoors Truck Series. NASCAR sanctions over 1,500 races on over 100 races in 48 U.S. states, as well as in Canada, Mexico, and Europe.
1958 – The CND symbol, as a symbol of peace, commissioned by the Direct Action Committee in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Institute, is designed and completed by Gerald Holtom. The DAC was a pacifist organization formed “to help carry out nonviolent direct action to get its nuclear war and its weapons out of Britain and all other countries as the first step in disarmament.”
1965 – Malcolm X, killed while giving a talk at the Audubon Hall in Harlem. Malcolm X was an African-American Muslim politician and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement. He is best known for his ardent and controversial advocacy for people of color, and for his time spent as the vocal spokesman for the Nation of Islam.
1972 – US President Richard Nixon visits the People’s Republic of China to normalize Sino-American relations. US President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to the People’s Republic of China was a strategic and diplomatic breakthrough that culminated in the Nixon administration resuming harmonious relations between the United States and China after years of diplomatic isolation.
1984 – Mikhail Sholokhov dies at the age of 78. Sholokhov was a Russian novelist and winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize for Literature. He is known for writing about the life and destiny of the Don Cossacks during the Russian Revolution, the civil war, and the period of collectivization, mainly in his most recent novel celebrities, “And Quiet Flows the Don”. He will be remembered for the letter to Joseph Stalin about the persecutions that were taking place in the Don area.
