1599: Jacob van Neck’s fleet leaves Bantam, Java in modern day Indonesia with 1 million pounds of pepper and cloves and a further half a ship full of nutmeg, mace and cinnamon 1838: First public demonstration of telegraph messages sent using dots and dashes at Speedwell Ironworks in Morristown, New Jersey by Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail 1879: Anglo-Zulu War begins […]
49 BC: Julius Caesar defies the Roman Senate and crosses the Rubicon, uttering “alea iacta est” (the die is cast), signaling the start of civil war which would lead to his appointment as Roman dictator for life 1430: Catholic Order of the Golden Fleece founded in Bruges in celebration of the prosperous and wealthy domains of Philip the Good, Duke […]
1431: Judges’ investigations for the trial of Joan of Arc begin in Rouen, France, the seat of the English occupation government 1760: Afghans defeat Marathas in battle of Barari Ghat 1839: Daguerreotype photo process announced at French Academy of Science 1909: Ernest Shackleton as part of the British Nimrod Expedition reaches a record farthest South latitude (88°23′ south) 1941: 6,000 Jews murdered in a […]
1656: Oldest surviving commercial newspaper begins (Haarlem, Netherlands) 1790: 1st US President George Washington delivers 1st state of the union address 1835: US national debt is $0 for the first and only time in history 1912: Chiefs, representatives of people’s and church organisations, and other prominent individuals form the African National Congress and declare its aim to bring all Africans together […]
1610: Galileo Galilei discovers the first three moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa & Ganymede 1714: Typewriter patented by Englishman Henry Mill (built years later) 1941: Chinese Kuomintang forces under orders from Chiang Kai-shek open fire on the surrounded Communist New Fourth Army at Maolin, Anhui Province, killing or capturing 7,000 troops 1953: US President Harry Truman announces American development of the hydrogen bomb 1954: Georgetown-IBM […]
1649: The English Rump Parliament votes to put Charles I on trial for treason and other “high crimes” 1912: Geophysicist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener presents his controversial theory of continental drift in a lecture at the Geological Association (Geologischen Vereinigung) at the Senckenberg-Museum, Frankfurt 1941: US President Franklin Roosevelt makes his “Four Freedoms” speech (freedom of speech and worship; freedom from want and fear) […]
1477: Battle of Nancy, Burgundy vs Switzerland, 7,000 + killed including their leader Charles Duke of Burgundy 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 “A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire” 1949: US President Harry Truman labels his administration the “Fair Deal” […]
1847: Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government 1865: New York Stock Exchange opens its 1st permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad St, near Wall Street in New York City 1959: Luna 1 (Mechta) becomes 1st craft to leave Earth’s gravity 1961: Longest recorded strike ends as the Danish barbers’ assistants end a 33 year strike […]
1496: Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine 1521: Martin Luther is Excommunicated by Pope Leo X from the Roman Catholic Church for failing to recant parts of his Ninety-five Theses which started the Protestant Reformation 1777: General George Washington’s revolutionary army defeats British forces at Battle of Princeton, New Jersey 1925: Benito Mussolini dissolves the Italian parliament and proclaims himself dictator of Italy, […]
366: The Alamanni cross the frozen Rhine River in large numbers, invading the Roman Empire 1492: Muhammad XII, the last Emir of Granada, surrenders his city to Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabel I of Castile, ending both the Reconquista and centuries of Muslim rule in the Iberian peninsula 1570: Tsar Ivan the Terrible’s march to Novgorod begins 1905: American anarcho-syndicalist union known as […]
