1620: Mayflower Pilgrims come ashore at in Plymouth Bay, traditionally thought to be at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts [NS, Dec 21] 1792: France’s King Louis XVI goes on trial, accused of high treason and crimes against the state 1913: “Mona Lisa” recovered 2 years after it was stolen from the Louvre Museum 1931: Statute of Westminster gives complete legislative independence to Canada, […]
1520: Martin Luther publicly burns papal edict demanding he recant 1684: Isaac Newton’s derivation of Kepler’s laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, is read to the Royal Society by Edmond Halley 1799: Metric system first adopted in France 1901: First Nobel Peace Prizes awarded to Red Cross founder Jean Henri Dunant and peace activist […]
536: Byzantine General Belisarius enters Rome while the Ostrogothic garrison peacefully leaves the city, returning the old capital to its empire 1212: Frederick II (later also Holy Roman Emperor) crowned King of Germany in Mainz 1968: NLS (a system for which hypertext and the computer mouse were developed) is publicly demonstrated for the first time in San Francisco. […]
1863: Abraham Lincoln issues his Amnesty Proclamation and plan for Reconstruction of the South 1941: US and Britain declare war on Japan, US enters World War II 1941: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers “Day of Infamy” speech to US Congress a day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor 1965: Pope Paul VI signs 2nd Vatican council 1966: US and USSR sign treaty to prohibit nuclear […]
43 BC: Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman orator and politician is assassinated in Formiae 1909: Inventor Leo Baekeland patents the first thermo-setting plastic, Bakelite, sparking the birth of the plastics industry 1941: Imperial Japanese Navy with 353 planes attack the US fleet at Pearl Harbor Naval Base, Hawaii, killing 2,403 people 1965: Pope Paul VI & Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras I simultaneously lift mutual excommunications that led […]
1240: Mongols under Batu Khan occupy and destroy Kiev; out of 50,000 people in the city only 2,000 survive 1865: 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution is ratified, abolishing slavery 1921: Anglo-Irish Treaty signed; Ireland receives dominion status; partition creates Northern Ireland 1998: Hugo Chávez is elected President of Venezuela 2006: NASA reveals photographs taken by Mars Global Surveyor suggesting the […]
771: Charlemagne becomes the sole King of the Franks after the death of his brother Carloman 1349: 500 Jews of Nuremberg massacred during Black Death riots 1456: Earthquake strikes Naples; about 35,000 die 1848: US President James K. Polk triggers gold rush of 1849 by confirming a gold discovery in California 1933: Prohibition ends in the US when 21st Amendment to the US Constitution ratified, 18th Amendment repealed […]
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 […]
