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

1315 - Bonne of Luxembourg (wife of John II of France)

1743 - François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture (Haitian revolutionary)

1799 - Honoré de Balzac (French novelist)

1822 - Frédéric Passy (French economist)

1830 - Hector Malot (French writer)

1838 - Jules Méline (French statesman)

1917 - Guy Favreau (French Canadian lawyer)

1952 - Roger Milla (Cameroonian soccer player)

Deaths

1722 - Sébastien Vaillant (French botanist)

1793 - Charles Bonnet (Swiss naturalist)

1834 - Gilbert du Motier (French statesman)

1873 - Sir George-Étienne Cartier (French Canadian statesman)

2000 - Jean-Pierre Rampal (French flutist)

2005 - Paul Ricoeur (French philosopher)

Holidays/Celebrations

Cameroon - National Day

Milestones/Events

1217 - First Barons' War: Second Battle of Lincoln

1813 - Battle of Bautze: Napoleon Bonaparte led troops into Saxony, Germany, against the combined armies of Russia and Prussia

1896 - The six ton chandelier of the Opéra de Paris fell, killing one person and injurying many others

1927 - Charles Lindbergh took off from Long Island, New York, on the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, touching down in Paris the next day

1980 - Québec: In a referendum, 60% of population voted against moving towards independence from Canada

1995 - Québec: In a second referendum, slight majority rejected proposal to move towards independence from Canada

Errors and Omissions

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