1610: Galileo Galilei discovers the first three moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa and Ganymede 1714: Typewriter patented by Englishman Henry Mill (built years later) 1941: New Fourth Army Incident: Chinese Kuomintang forces under orders from Chiang Kai-shek fire on the surrounded Communist New Fourth Army at Maolin, Anhui Province, killing or capturing about 7,000 troops […]
1649: The English Rump Parliament votes to put Charles I on trial for treason and other high crimes 1838: Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail demonstrate their telegraph machine in New Jersey 1912 Geophysicist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener presents his controversial theory of continental drift in a lecture to the Geological Association at the Senckenberg Museum […]
1477: Battle of Nancy: Swiss Confederacy led by René II decisively defeats the Duchy of Burgundy, 7,000+ killed including the Duke of Burgundy Charles the Bold 1781: British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burns Richmond, Virginia 1919: German Workers’ Party forms, precursor to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi) 1930: Mao Zedong writes […]
1847: Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government 1865: New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad Street, near Wall Street, in New York City 1959: USSR’s Luna 1 (Mechta) becomes the first spacecraft to escape Earth’s gravity 1961: Longest recorded strike ends as Danish barbers’ […]
1496: Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine 1521: Martin Luther is excommunicated by Pope Leo X from the Roman Catholic Church for refusing to recant parts of his Ninety-Five Theses, which started the Protestant Reformation 1777: General George Washington’s Revolutionary Army defeats British forces at the Battle of Princeton, New Jersey 1925: Benito […]
366: The Alamanni cross the frozen Rhine River in large numbers and invade the Roman Empire 1492: Muhammad XII, the last Emir of Granada, surrenders the city to Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, ending the Reconquista and centuries of Muslim rule on the Iberian Peninsula 1570: Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible […]
45 BC: The Julian calendar takes effect for the first time by edict of Roman dictator Julius Caesar 1758: The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature establishes the starting point for standardized species names across the animal kingdom, based on the binomial nomenclature in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae by Carl Linnaeus 1863: Abraham Lincoln […]
406: “The Great Invasion” sees a vast horde of Vandals, Alans, and Suebi cross the Rhine at Mainz, beginning the invasion of Gaul 1703: Genroku earthquake off the coast of Japan near Edo (modern-day Tokyo) kills thousands and triggers a large tsunami that kills thousands more 1744: English astronomer James Bradley announces the discovery of […]
1460: Battle of Wakefield: Duke of York is killed and his forces are soundly defeated by those of King Henry VI in northern England during the Wars of the Roses 1906: All-India Muslim League is founded in Dacca in East Bengal, British India, later lays the foundations for Pakistan 1922: Creation of the USSR is […]
1835: Treaty of New Echota is signed between the US government and representatives of a minority Cherokee political faction to cede all lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States 1845: Texas is admitted as the 28th state of the Union 1903: French Equatorial Africa separates into Gabon, Chad and […]
