1868: US Senate fails to impeach President Andrew Johnson by one vote 1920: French heroine Joan of Arc is canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict XV 1943: Operation Chastise: No. 617 Squadron RAF begins the famous Dambusters Raid, bombing the Möhne and Eder dams in the Ruhr valley with bouncing bombs 1944: 1st of 180,000+ Hungarian Jews reach Auschwitz 1989: Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping meet in Beijing […]
1252: Pope Innocent IV issues the papal bull ad exstirpanda, which authorizes, but also limits, the torture of heretics in the Medieval Inquisition 1618: German astronomer Johannes Kepler discovers the third of his three planetary laws. the “harmonic law” 1841: First emigrant wagon train to make it to California leaves Independence, Missouri on a 1,730 mile journey over the Sierra Nevada […]
1787: Delegates gather in Philadelphia to draw up US Constitution 1796: English country doctor Edward Jenner administers his revolutionary cowpox-based vaccine for smallpox, in Berkeley, Gloucestershire 1804: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s expedition commissioned by Thomas Jefferson sets out from St Louis for Pacific Coast 1948: Israel declares independence from British administration Source: Onthisday.com
1787: Arthur Phillip sets sails with 11 ships of criminals to Botany Bay, Australia 1830: Republic of Ecuador is founded, with Juan Jose Flores as president 1934: Great dustbowl storm sweeps across US prairies 1940: Winston Churchill says “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” in his first speech as Prime Minister to British House of Commons […]
1789: William Wilberforce makes his first major speech on abolition in the UK House of Commons, reasoning the slave trade morally reprehensible and an issue of natural justice 1940: Nazi blitzkrieg and conquest of France begins with the crossing of the Muese River 1943: Axis forces in North Africa surrender 2002: Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel […]
330: Newly built city of Constantinople (Byzantium) dedicated, becomes the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire 1189: Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and 100,000 crusaders depart Regensburg for the Third Crusade 1751: Pennsylvania Hospital founded by Dr. Thomas Bond and Benjamin Franklin, in Philadelphia 1812: British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated by John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons, London. Ironically, descendants […]
1497: Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci leaves for his first voyage to the New World (disputed) 1775: Second Continental Congress convenes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and issues paper currency for 1st time 1801: First Barbary War: The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States of America (1st US foreign war) 1857: Indian mutiny against rule by the British East India Company […]
1386: Treaty of Windsor between Portugal and England is ratified at Windsor cementing and strengthening ties between the two kingdoms (oldest diplomatic alliance still in force). The treaty guarantees the mutual security of both nations and strengthens commercial ties. 1865: President Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation declaring armed resistance in the South is virtually at an end; this is […]
1660: English Parliament proclaims Charles II, King of England and invites him to return 1835: 1st installment of Hans Christian Andersen “Fairy Tales” published by C. A. Reitzel in Copenhagen, Denmark 1895: China cedes Taiwan to Japan under Treaty of Shimonoseki 1902: Mount Pelée on the French overseas island of Martinique erupts, wiping out the city of Saint-Pierre, killing 30,000 and leaving […]
1429: English siege of Orleans broken by Joan of Arc and the French army 1867: Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel patents dynamite in England, the first of three patents he would receive for the explosive material 1912: Columbia University approves plans for awarding the Pulitzer Prize in several categories, after established by Joseph Pulitzer 1915: RMS Lusitania sunk by German submarine off the southern coast of Ireland; […]
