Today in Francophone History

Learn about important dates in French and francophone history: famous birthdays, holidays and celebrations, and other milestones. If the above does not match today's date or you wish to choose a specific date, please click here

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Birthdays

1496 - Mary Tudor (queen consort of Louis XII of France)

1773 - Henri Gratien (Comte Bertrand (French general)

1815 - Arsène Houssaye (French novelist)

1849 - James Darmesteter (French author and antiquarian)

1862 - Aristide Briand (French politician)

1892 - Corneille Jean François Heymans (Belgian physiologist)

1912 - Léon-Gontran Damas (Guyanese poet and one of the pères of la Négritude)

1953 - Melchior Ndadaye (first President of Burundi)


Deaths

1794 - Marquis de Condorcet (French mathematician, philosopher, and political scientist)

1910 - Edouard Judas Colonne (French violinist)

2006 - Charles Schepens (American ophthalmologist and member of the French Resistance)


Milestones/Events

1794 - French Revolutionary Wars: Allies under the prince of Coburg defeated French forces at Le Cateau-Cambrésis

1809 - Peninsular War: Battle of Medelin - France defeated Spain

1854 - Crimean War: France declared war on Russia

1871 - Paris Commune formally established

1910 - Martigues, France: Henri Fabre became the first person to fly a seaplane after taking off from a water runway

1942 - World War II: In occupied France, British naval forces raided the German-occupied port of St Nazaire

2006 - France: CPE riots - More than a million people took to the streets to protest the First Job Contract labor reform law


Errors and Omissions

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