HISTORY

1755: Samuel Johnson’s “A Dictionary of the English Language” published in London 1861: Federal army (75,000 volunteers) mobilized by US President Abraham Lincoln (US Civil War) 1874: First ‘Impressionist’ exhibition opens in Paris, features Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Berthe Morisot 1877: Boston-Somerville installs the world’s 1st telephone in Massachusetts 1912: RMS Titanic sinks at 2:27 AM off Newfoundland as the band plays on, […]

1865: US President Abraham Lincoln is shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington; he dies a day later 1912: RMS Titanic, the world’s largest ocean liner, hits an iceberg at 11.40pm off Newfoundland, sinks in the early hours of 15 April 1914: Dr. Harry Plotz isolates the bacteria that causes Typhus Fever (Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York City) 1935: Black […]

1250: The Seventh Crusade is defeated in Egypt, Louis IX of France captured 1598: Edict of Nantes grants political rights to French Huguenots 1860: 1st Pony Express reaches Sacramento, California 1868: Abyssinian War ends as British and Indian troops capture Magdala and Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros II commits suicide   Source: Onthisday.com

1204: 4th Crusade occupies and plunders Constantinople 1811: 1st US colonists on Pacific coast arrive at Cape Disappointment, Washington 1872: Jesse James’ gang robs a bank of $1,500 in Columbia, Kentucky, 1 dead 1927: Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek begins counter revolution in Shanghai 1961: Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person to orbit Earth (Vostok 1)   Source: Onthisday.com

1512: Battle of Ravenna: French forces under Gaston de Foix defeat the Holy League in a major battle of the Italian Wars 1783: Hostilities formally cease in the American Revolutionary War 1814: Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates unconditionally and he is exiled to the island of Elba in the Mediterranean 1868: The Shogunate is abolished in Japan 1955: Chartered Air India plane the […]

1407: Lama Deshin Shekpa visits the Ming Dynasty capital at Nanjing and is awarded the title Great Treasure Prince of Dharma 1516: 1st Jewish ghetto established: Venice compels Jews to live in a specific area 1815: Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies experiences a cataclysmic eruption, one of the most powerful in history, killing around 71,000 people, causes global […]

1483: Edward V (aged 12) succeeds his father Edward IV as king of England. He is never crowned, and disappears presumed murdered, after incarceration in the Tower of London with his younger brother Richard (the “Princes in the Tower”) 1731: British mariner Robert Jenkins’ ear cut off by Spanish Guarde Costa in the Caribbean, later catalyst for war between […]

1767: Ayutthaya kingdom falls to Burmese invaders 1886: William Ewart Gladstone introduces the first Irish Home Rule Bill into the British House of Commons. 1898: Battle of Atbara River, Anglo-Egyptian forces crush 6,000 Sudanese 1913: Opening of China’s 1st parliament takes place in Peking (now Beijing) 2004: Darfur conflict: The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and two […]

30: Scholars’ estimate for Jesus’ crucifixion by Roman troops in Jerusalem [or April 3] 529: First draft of Corpus Juris Civilis (fundamental work in jurisprudence) issued by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I 1948: World Health Organization formed by the United Nations 1954: US President Dwight D. Eisenhower in news conference is first to voice fear of a “domino-effect” of communism in Indo-China […]

46 BC: Julius Caesar defeats Caecilius Metellus Scipio and Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Younger) in the battle of Thapsus. 1652: Cape Colony, the 1st European settlement in South Africa, established by Dutch East India Company under Jan van Riebeeck 1917: US declares war on Germany, enters World War I 1994: Plane carrying Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira is […]