1477: “The Dictes & Sayengis of the Philosophers,” the first dated printed book in England, is printed by William Caxton at his press in Westminster 1626: St. Peter’s Basilica is consecrated in Rome, replacing an earlier basilica on the same site and becoming the world’s largest Christian church 1916: British General Douglas Haig finally calls […]
1558: Elizabeth I, aged 25, ascends the English throne upon the death of her half-sister, Queen Mary I 1831: Ecuador and Venezuela separate from Gran Colombia 1855: David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls in what is now Zambia and Zimbabwe 1869: Suez Canal in Egypt opens, linking the Mediterranean and Red […]
534: Second and final revision of the Justinian Code is published, a codified set of imperial and classical laws initially begun in 528 1532: Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro captures Inca Emperor Atahualpa after a surprise ambush at Cajamarca in the Peruvian Andes 1945: Founding of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 1960: […]
1492: Christopher Columbus notes in his journal the first recorded reference to tobacco 1884: European colonization and trade in Africa are officially regulated at the international Berlin Conference, formalizing the “Scramble for Africa” among European powers 1904: King C. Gillette patents the safety razor as the Gillette razor blade 1948: Mackenzie King retires after 21 years […]
1680: Gottfried Kirch discovers the Great Comet of 1680 (Kirch’s Comet/Newton’s Comet) 1856: American Gail Borden is issued a patent for technology related to his invention of condensed milk 1896: Power plant at Niagara Falls begins operation 1920: Russia’s Bolshevik army occupies Sevastopol, ending anti-communist attempts to regain control of the Russian government 1994: First […]
1789: In a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, Benjamin Franklin writes “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes” 1933: First modern sit-down strike by Hormel meatpackers in Austin, Minnesota 1956: US Supreme Court rules racial segregation on buses in Alabama unconstitutional 1980: US spacecraft Voyager 1 sends back […]
764: Tibetan troops occupy Chang’an for 15 days, capital of the Chinese Tang Dynasty 1880: Best-selling American novel “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ” by soldier Lew Wallace is published 1927: Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, paving the way for Joseph Stalin to consolidate complete power 1942: Naval Battle of Guadalcanal […]
1620: Mayflower Compact is signed by Pilgrims at Cape Cod, establishing the first framework of government in the territory that is now the USA [N.S. Nov 21] 1675: German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz demonstrates integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of the function y = f(x) 1745: Bonnie […]
1619: René Descartes has a dream that inspires his “Meditations on First Philosophy” 1674: Dutch formally cede New Netherland (New York) to the English 1885: German engineer Gottlieb Daimler unveils the world’s first motorcycle 1918: Western Union Cable Office in North Sydney, Nova Scotia, receives a top-secret coded message from Europe stating that on November […]
1494: Piero the Unfortunate of the de’ Medici family, ruler of Florence, loses power and flees the state 1799: Napoleon Bonaparte pulls off a coup and becomes the dictator of France under the title of First Consul 1867: Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the 15th and last Tokugawa Shogun in Japan, resigns due to intense political pressure from […]
