Facts

1822:An amphibious naval battle takes place off the coast of Chios, between a squadron of the Turkish fleet and Greek ships (Miaoulis, Tsamados, Shaktouris, etc.).

1919: Kemal Atatürk lands in Samsuda and begins the second and harshest phase of the Pontic Genocide.

1962: Marilyn Monroe sensually sings “Happy Birthday” in honor of US President John F. Kennedy at his birthday party.

1973: The vice president of the Junta, Nikolaos Makarezos, is making an official visit to Beijing. He meets with Mao Zedong and delivers him a message from the dictator George Papadopoulos.

1978: Dire Straits release their first single ‘Sultans of Swing’, recorded for $120.

2012: Chelsea beat Bayern Munich 4-3 on penalties (regular match and extra time 1-1) and win the first Champions League in their history.

Births

1795: Johns Hopkins, American businessman, who funded the founding of the famous University of Baltimore that bears his name. (D. 24/12/1873)

1909: Nicholas Winton, also known as “Britain’s Schindler”, who had saved during World War II 669 children from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the majority of them of Jewish origin, from certain death in Nazi concentration and extermination camps. (Thu. 1/7/2015)

[1945: Pete Townshend, English rocker, one of the founding members of the “Who”.

Deaths

1825: Claude Henri de Saint-Simon, French early socialist theoretician, whose philosophical and political thought laid the foundations of many philosophical theories of the 19th century, especially Marxism, Positivism, and the science of Sociology. (Born 17/10/1760)

1898: William Gladstone, known to the Greeks as Gladstone, British Prime Minister and Philhellenic. In his honor, a street in the center of Athens bears his name (Gladstonos Street). (Born 29/12/1809)

1935: Thomas Edward Lawrence, English soldier, archaeologist and author, better known as “Lawrence of Arabia”. He led the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans. (Born 16/8/1888)