215 BC: A temple dedicated to Venus Erycina is built on Capitoline Hill to commemorate the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene 1014: King Brian Boru of Ireland defeats Viking forces at the Battle of Clontarf, freeing Ireland from foreign control 1597: William Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” is first performed with Queen Elizabeth I […]
1500: Pedro Álvares Cabral is the first European to discover Brazil, landing near Monte Pascoal and claiming it for Portugal 1915: First military use of poison gas occurs when Germany uses chlorine gas against the Allies along the Western Front at Ypres, France in World War I [1] 1993: Holocaust Memorial Museum dedicated in Washington, […]
1290: Round Table tournament held near Winchester, England, in imitation of King Arthur, to commemorate betrothal of daughter of Edward I, and attended by the king 1862: First pasteurization test is completed by Frenchmen Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard 1902: Marie and Pierre Curie isolate the radioactive compound radium chloride 1968: British politician Enoch Powell […]
1770: British explorer Captain James Cook first sights Australia and writes in his logbook that “what we have as yet seen of this land appears rather low, and not very hilly, the face of the Country green and Woody, but the Sea shore is all a white Sand” 1775: American Revolution begins in Lexington, Massachusetts, […]
1025: Bolesław I the Brave is crowned in Gniezno, becoming the first King of Poland St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, RomeSt. Peter’s Basilica 1506: The cornerstone of the current St. Peter’s Basilica is laid in the Vatican by Pope Julius II 1775: Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott ride from Charlestown to […]
1492: Christopher Columbus signs a contract with Spanish monarchs King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I to find the “Indies” with the stated goal of converting people to Catholicism. This promises him 10% of all riches found and the governorship of any lands encountered. 1895: Treaty of Shimonoseki is signed ending the First […]
1457 BC: Battle of Megiddo: Egyptian forces of Thutmose III defeat a large Canaanite coalition under the King of Kadesh. First battle recorded with a reliable account. 1705: Queen Anne of England knights scientist Isaac Newton at Trinity College, Cambridge 1746: Battle of Culloden: Royalist troops under the Duke of Cumberland defeat the Jacobite army […]
1755: Samuel Johnson’s “A Dictionary of the English Language” is published in London 1861: Federal army of 75,000 volunteers is mobilized by President Abraham Lincoln at the start of the American Civil War 1874: First Impressionist art exhibition opens in Paris, features Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Berthe Morisot 1877: World’s […]
1865: US President Abraham Lincoln is shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre in Washington; he dies a day later 1912: RMS Titanic, the world’s largest ocean liner, hits an iceberg at 11:40pm off Newfoundland and sinks in the early hours of April 15 1914: Dr. Harry Plotz isolates the bacteria […]
1250: The Seventh Crusade is defeated in Egypt, and Louis IX of France is captured 1598: Edict of Nantes grants political rights to French Huguenots 1860: First Pony Express rider reaches Sacramento, California 1868: Abyssinian War ends as British and Indian troops capture Magdala and Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros II commits suicide 1970: Apollo 13 announces, […]
