539 BC: The army of Cyrus the Great of Persia takes Babylon 1279: Nichiren, a Japanese Buddhist monk, founder of Nichiren Buddhism, inscribes the Dai-Gohonzon 1492: Christopher Columbus’s expedition makes landfall on a Caribbean island he names San Salvador (likely Watling Island, Bahamas). The explorer believes he has reached East Asia (OS 21 Oct) 1864: War of the Triple […]
1138: Earthquake in Aleppo, Syria, kills an estimated 230,000 1634: Burchardi flood – “the second Grote Mandrenke” kills about 15,000 in North Friesland, Denmark and Germany 1737: Earthquake reported to have killed 300,000 and destroyed half of Calcutta in India. Now thought to have been an exaggerated account of a hurricane which claimed 3,000 of the city’s estimated […]
680: Al-Hussein (Al-Ḥusayn ibn) and his followers killed at Karbala by army of Yazid, the Umayyad caliph, on the way to Kufa 1780: Great Hurricane of 1780 kills 20,000 to 30,000 in the Caribbean, hitting Barbados first. Atlantic’s deadliest recorded hurricane. 1954: Ho Chi Minh enters Hanoi after withdrawal of French troops 1957: A fire at the Windscale nuclear plant […]
768: Charlemagne and his brother Carloman I are crowned Kings of The Franks 1000: Leif Ericson discovers “Vinland” (possibly L’Anse aux Meadows, Canada) reputedly becoming first European to reach North America 1446: The Hangul alphabet is published in Korea 1831: Ioannis Kapodistrias, first Head of State of modern Greece, assassinated in Nafplion 1941: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt approves an atomic program that […]
1480: Great standing on the Ugra river, standoff between forces of Akhmat Khan, Khan of the Great Horde, and Ivan III Grand Prince of all Rus, Tataro-Mongols retreat, leads to disintegration of the Horde 1856: The Second Opium War or second Anglo-Chinese War: begins with the Arrow Incident on the Pearl River 1856: The Second Opium War or second Anglo-Chinese […]
1571: Battle of Lepanto: Holy League of southern European nations destroy Ottoman fleet in significant loss off Western Greece 1737: A cyclone causes 40 foot waves that are believed to have killed 300,000 in Calcutta, India 1763: George III of Great Britain issues Proclamation of 1763, closing lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlement […]
1917: Battle of Passchendaele: Canadian troops capture the village of Passchendaele in the Third Battle of Ypres, after 250,000 casualties on both sides 1939: Adolf Hitler announces plans to regulate Jewish problem 1948: Earthquake in Ashgabat kills 100,000 in the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic 1948: Paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey finds the first partial fossil skull of Proconsul africanus, an ancestor of apes and […]
1274: Around 1,000 soldiers of the Mongol army land on the Japanese island of Tsushima, the first attack of Kublai Khan’s Mongol invasion of Japan 1789: French Revolution: Women of Paris march to Versailles in the March on Versailles to confront Louis XVI about his refusal to promulgate the decrees on the abolition of feudalism, demand bread, and have the King and his court […]
1537: The 1st complete English-language Bible, the “Matthew Bible” is printed, with translations by William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale 1582: Last Julian calendar day in Spain, Portugal and pontifical states. To sync to the Gregorian calendar, 10 days are skipped and the next date is Oct 15. 1883: The Orient Express departs on its first official journey from Paris to […]
2333: BC State of Gojoseon (Modern-day Korea) founded by Dangun Wanggeom during the reign of the Chinese Emperor Yao 52 BC: Vercingetorix, leader of the Gauls, surrenders to the Romans under Julius Caesar, ending the siege and battle of Alesia 1283: Dafydd ap Gruffydd, Prince of Gwynedd, Wales, becomes the first person executed by being hanged, drawn and quartered […]
