This was a date of ups and downs in regard to French history. The Palace of Versailles, King Louis XIV’s new digs had its celebratory opening in 1664. The city of New Orleans was founded in 1718. French Revolutionary leader Robespierre introduced the Cult of the Supreme Being in the National Convention as the new state religion of the French First Republic in 1794. And in 1954 France lost the battle of Dien Bien Phu and was ousted by the Viet Minh from its former colony of Indochina.
Ludvig van Beethoven premiered his Ninth Symphony in Vienna, Austria in 1824. And General Alfred Jodl signed the unconditional surrender of Germany in WWII at Reims, France in 1945. On that same day, the German U-20 submarine had sunk the RMS Lusitania in 1915, with 1,198 deaths, including 128 Americans, which would shift US opinion against Germany, leading to the US joining the war in 1917.
In 1952 the concept of the integrated circuit, the basis for all computers, was first published by Geoffrey Dummer. And Canadian Patrick Morrow became the first person to climb each of the seven summits – the highest peaks on each of the seven continents -in 1986.
Two poets and playwrights were born on this date Englishman Robert Browning (1812) and American Archibald MacLeish (1892). Two great composers were born also- German Johannes Brahms (1833) and Russian Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840). Scottish economist, historian, and philosopher David Hume was also born on this date in 1711.
This date saw the passing of Italian composer and conductor (and Mozart rival) Antonio Salieri in 1825 as well as American captain, actor, and producer Douglas Fairbanks Jr in 2000,
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