1534: Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent occupies Baghdad 1563: Council of Trent holds its last session, after 18 years. Last ecumenical council for more than 300 years. 1619: 38 colonists from Berkeley Parish, England disembark in Virginia and give thanks to God. Considered by many the first Thanksgiving in the Americas. 1791: Britain’s Observer, oldest Sunday newspaper in the world, first […]
1586: Sir Thomas Herriot introduces potatoes to England from Colombia 1854: Eureka Stockade: In what is claimed by many to be the birth of Australian democracy, more than 20 goldminers at Ballarat, Victoria, are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences 1967: 1st human heart transplant performed in South Africa by Dr Christiaan Barnard on […]
1804: General Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned Emperor of the French at the Notre Dame de Paris in a ceremony officiated by Pope Pius VII 1823: US President James Monroe declares the “Monroe Doctrine” opposing European colonialism in the Americas, arguing any European political intervention in the New World would be a hostile act against the United States 1845: US President James K. Polk announces to Congress that […]
1913: Ford Motor Company institutes world’s 1st moving assembly line for the Model T Ford 1934: Leningrad mayor Sergey Kirov is assassinated and Joseph Stalin uses it as an excuse to begin his Great Purge of 1934-38 1955: Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to move to the back of a bus and give her seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama […]
1016: Cnut the Great [Canute], King of Denmark, claims the English throne after the death of Edmund ‘Ironside’ 1487: The first German Beer Purity Law (Reinheitsgebot), is promulgated in Munich by Albert IV, Duke of Bavaria stating beer should be brewed from only three ingredients – water, malt and hops 1648: English Parliamentary army captures King Charles I 1786: Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopold […]
526: A possible date for the Antioch earthquake in present-day Syria (then the Byzantine Empire) which killed 200,000 people 1745: Bonnie Prince Charlie’s army moves into Manchester and occupies Carlisle 1877: US inventor Thomas Edison demonstrates his hand-cranked phonograph for the first time 1935: Physicist Erwin Schrödinger publishes his famous thought experiment “Schrödinger’s cat”, a paradox that illustrates the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of […]
1520: Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan begins crossing the Pacific Ocean 1814: The Times of London first printed by automatic, steam powered presses built by German inventors Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer – makes newspapers available to a mass audience 1893: Women vote in a national election for the first time, in the New Zealand general election 1919: American-born Lady Nancy Astor elected as […]
1095: Pope Urban II preaches the west to wrestle control of the Holy land the Seljuk Turks at the Council of Clermont, triggering the First Crusade 1295: English King Edward I calls what later became known as “The Model Parliament” extending the authorities of its representatives 1493: Christopher Columbus returns to La Navidad colony, finding it destroyed by the 1st native […]
43 BC: Second Triumvirate alliance of Roman leader Octavian (later Caesar Augustus), Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Mark Antony formed 1778: British explorer Captain James Cook is the first European to visit Maui in the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii) 1789: 1st national Thanksgiving in America 1791: 1st US cabinet meeting, held at George Washington’s home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander […]
1177: Battle of Montgisard: Baldwin IV of Jerusalem defeats Saladin and a larger Ayyubid force 1783: Britain evacuates New York city, its last military position in the United States 1839: Cyclone slams south eastern India with high winds and a 40 foot storm surge, destroying city of Coringa. Storm waves sweep inland, destroying 20,000 ships and killing an estimated 300,000 […]
