1911 – Officially developed, the first automobile race in Monte Carlo. This race is an event organized annually by the Automobile Club de Monaco which also hosts the Formula One Monaco Grand Prix and the Rallye Monte-Carlo Historique. The rally is now taking place along the French Riviera in the Principality of Monaco and southeastern France.
1920 – The Congress of Lushnja begins, in which a constitutional act for the full independence of Albania is approved and elects the high council of 4 people, which will perform the functions of the head of state and a national council with 37 people. Sulejman Delvina was elected Prime Minister. The purpose of the Congress was to study the internal and external situation of the country and the measures that had to be taken to save Albania from the risk of fragmentation. The holding of the Lushnja Congress was considered by them to be an adventurous movement, and it prepared to attack the government forces and the delegates who would be stationed in Tirana, which had been designated by the congress as the capital of Albania. Given the pressure of the Durrës government, which was doing its best not to recognize the decisions of the Lushnja Congress, many of the delegates from Tirana, Elbasan, Kavaja and Shijak, realizing that they would be attacked with weapons by Italian forces instigated by the government of Durrës, expressed the opinion to stay for some time in the city of Lushnja.
1941 – Motivated by the killing of a German officer in Bucharest, Romania, the day before, members of the Iron Guard engaged in a rebellion and pogrom killing 125 Jews. During the rebellion and pogrom, the Iron Guard besides 125 Jews died and 30 soldiers in confrontation with the rebels. After that, the Iron Guard movement was stopped and its 9,000 members jailed.
1950 – Died in London, aged 46. George Orwell. Orwell, was an English novelist and essayist, journalist and critic. His work is characterized by sobering prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and open support for democratic socialism. He is best known for his allegorical novel Animal Farm, and 1984.
1954 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was inaugurated in Groton, Connecticut by Mamie Eisenhower, First Lady of the United States. The USS Nautilus (SSN-571) was the first nuclear-powered submarine in the world and the first submarine to complete a submarine voyage to the North Pole on August 3, 1958. Its first commander was Dennis Wilkinson.
1960 – A coal mine collapses, in Holly Country, South Africa, killing 435 miners. The collapse of this mine was the worst industrial disaster in South Africa. About 900 pillars disappeared, nearly 180 meters underground, and the miners were overwhelmed by methane gas and crushed to death by heavy coal mine floods.
1968 – During the Vietnam War, one of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war, that of Khe Sanh, begins. During this six-month battle, the United States and South Vietnamese military forces killed more than 5,000 and wounded as many. Their North Vietnamese opponents, however, had about 10,000 killed and wounded in total.
1976 – The Concorde aircraft trade service begins on the London-Bahrain and Paris-Rio de Janeiro routes. Concorde is a Franco-British supersonic cruise plane, powered by turbojets operated until 2003. It had a top speed more than double the speed of sound. Two were the only supersonic aircraft in the world, Concord, and Tupolev.
2004 – Born in Oslo, Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway. Ingrid Alexandra, is the eldest child of Crown Prince Hakon and Crown Princess Mette-Mary. She is second in line to succeed her grandfather King Harald V. From a member of the House of Glücksburg, she is expected to become the second female monarch in the country after Queen Margaret of the 15th century.
