| (1336) Petrarch climbs Mont Ventoux on cusp of the Renaissance
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An Italian poet and scholar ascends more than 6,000 feet to the summit of France’s Mont Ventoux and experiences an epiphany that inspires him to examine the life of the soul. Petrarch will go on to write works that usher in a more modern age, and be called “the father of humanism.”. |
| (1937) Nazi Luftwaffe devastates Guernica, Spain
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| In one of the first air attacks on a civilian populace, the German Air Force bombs the Spanish town of Guernica after the Nazi’s allies, the Spanish Nationalists, requests the strike as part of their Civil War offensive. The results cause shock and horror, famously expressed in Picasso’s celebrated painting. . |
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| (1986) Explosion rocks the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
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An unexpected power surge causes a rupture in Reactor 4 at the Soviet Union’s Chernobyl nuclear plant. The resulting explosion is the world’s worst nuclear accident, sending radioactive contamination drifting over large swathes of the Ukraine, Belarus, and parts of Western Europe.. |
| (1989) History’s deadliest tornado strikes Bangladesh
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| Roughly 1,300 perish, 12,000 are injured, and 80,000 are left homeless after the Daulatpur–Saturia tornado wreaks havoc in the central Dhaka region of Bangladesh. Estimated at a mile wide, and leaving a trail 50 miles long, the storm devastates the South Asian country. . |
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