79: Mount Vesuvius begins stirring, on feast day of Vulcan, Roman god of fire (goes on to destroy Pompeii) [approx date] [1] [2] 1305: Scottish patriot William Wallace is executed for high treason by Edward I of England at Smithfield, London 1542: Rabbi Joseph Caro completes his commentary of Tur Code 1850: 1st US National Women’s Rights Convention convenes in Worcester, Massachusetts 1942: Battle of Stalingrad: […]
1485: Battle of Bosworth Field: Henry Tudor’s forces defeat English King Richard III during last battle in the Wars of the Roses. Richard is killed, the last English monarch to die in battle. 1639: Madras (now Chennai), India, founded by the British East India Company on sliver of land bought from local Nayak rulers 1642: English Civil War begins between […]
1192: Minamoto Yoritomo becomes Seii Tai Shōgun and the de facto ruler of Japan. (Traditional Japanese date: July 12, 1192) 1703: The Edirne Event: Turkish army removes Sultan Mustafa II, lessening the power of the sultans 1772: King Gustav III of Sweden completes a coup d’etat by adopting a new Constitution and installing himself as an enlightened despot, ending 50 […]
1597: 1st Dutch East India Company ships return from the Far East 1619: 1st known African Americans in English North America (approx. 20) land at Point Comfort (Fort Monroe), Virginia. They are then sold or traded into servitude. 1741: Alaska first sighted by Danish explorer Vitus Bering at head of Russian expedition 1866: President Andrew Johnson formally declares US Civil War […]
43 BC: Octavian, later known as Augustus, compels the Roman Senate to elect him Consul 1839: Details of Louis Daguerre’s 1st practical photographic process are released in Paris 1942: World War II: Over 4,000 Canadian and British soldiers killed, wounded or captured raiding Dieppe, France 1988: Iran and Iraq begin a cease-fire in their 8-year-old war (11 PM EDT) 1991: Conservative members […]
1737: First public admittance to the Salon de Paris art exhibition at the Louvre in Paris 1838: United States Exploring Expedition headed by Charles Wilkes departs for the Pacific Ocean and Antarctica 1914: US President Woodrow Wilson issues “Proclamation of Neutrality” 1919: Anti-Cigarette League of America forms in Chicago, Illinois 1920: 22 year old representative Harry T. Burn is deciding vote in Tennessee’s and […]
1590: Governor of Roanoke Island colony, John White, returns from England to find no trace of the colonists he had left there 3 years earlier [or Aug 18, 1591] 1903: Joe Pulitzer donates $1 million to Columbia University & begins the Pulitzer Prizes in America 1945: Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta declare Indonesia (Dutch East Indies) independent from the Netherlands […]
1896: Gold first discovered in Klondike, found at Bonanza Creek in the Yukon, Canada by George Carmack 1930: I British Empire Games open in Hamilton, Canada 1945: Puyi, the last Chinese Emperor and ruler of Manchukuo is captured by Soviet troops 1946: Direct Action Day: Widespread riots erupt in Calcutta between Muslims and Hindus over whether Pakistan should be […]
1461: Empire of Trebizond surrenders to forces of Sultan Mehmet II – last Byzantine Empire remnant to fall. Emperor David exiled and later murdered. 1620: Mayflower sets sail from Southampton, England, with 102 Pilgrims 1900: The Boxer Rebellion: In China, the Empress, her family and court retainers flee while foreign troops move through Peking in an attempt to […]
338 BC: Macedonian army led by Philip II defeats combined forces of Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea, securing Macedonian hegemony in Greece and the Aegean 216 BC: Second Punic War: Battle of Cannae – Carthaginian army lead by Hannibal defeats numerically superior Roman army under command consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro […]
