1386: Treaty of Windsor between Portugal and England (oldest diplomatic alliance in the world still in force) 1865: President Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation declaring armed resistance in the South is virtually at an end; this is the commonly accepted end date of the American Civil War 1901: The First Australian Parliament opens in Melbourne, though the first working session will not […]
1660: English parliament declares Charles Stuart to be King Charles II of England 1835: 1st installment of Hans Christian Andersen “Fairy Tales” published by C. A. Reitzel in Copenhagen, Denmark 1895: China cedes Taiwan to Japan under Treaty of Shimonoseki 1902: Mount Pelée on the French overseas island of Martinique erupts, wiping out the city of Saint-Pierre, killing 30,000 and leaving only two […]
1429 English siege of Orleans broken by Joan of Arc and the French army 1867: Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel Patents Dynamite in England, the first of three patents he would receive for the explosive material 1912: Columbia University approves plans for awarding the Pulitzer Prize in several categories, after established by Joseph Pulitzer 1915: RMS Lusitania sunk by German submarine off the southern coast […]
1626: Dutch colonist Peter Minuit organizes the purchase of Manhattan Island from Native Americans for 60 guilders worth of goods, believed to have been Canarsee Indians of the Lenape 1840: World’s first adhesive postage stamp, the “Penny Black”, is first used in Great Britain 1889: Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) in Paris opens with the recently completed Eiffel Tower serving as […]
1260: Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire 1941: Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa 1955: West Germany is granted full sovereignty by its three occupying powers 1965: First large-scale US Army ground units arrive in South Vietnam 1980: Siege at Iranian Embassy in London ends as the SAS and police storm the building 1981: After […]
1471: Battle of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, final battle between the Houses of Lancaster and York: Prince of Wales, Edward of Westminster killed and King Edward IV restored to his throne. Re-restores political stability to England until his death in 1483. 1814: King Ferdinand VII of Spain signs the Decree of the 4th of May, returning Spain to absolutism 1904: Construction begins […]
1791: Constitution of May 3 is proclaimed by the Great Sejm (Parliament) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, becoming the 1st modern constitution in Europe 1926: Britain’s Trade Union Congress calls for the country’s first ever general strike, begins at 1 minute to midnight in support striking coal miners, lasts 9 days 1937: Margaret Mitchell wins Pulitzer Prize for “Gone With the […]
1945: More than 1,000,000 German soldiers officially surrender to the Western Allies in Italy and Austria 1945: World War II: Battle of Berlin ends as Soviet army takes Berlin and General Weidling surrenders 1949: Arthur Miller wins Pulitzer Prize for “Death of a Salesman” 1982: Falklands War: Argentine cruiser General Belgrano sunk by British submarine Conqueror, killing more than 350 men […]
1707: Acts of Union comes into force, uniting England and Scotland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain 1753: Publication of Species Plantarum by Carolus Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature 1841: First emigrant wagon train leaves Independence, Missouri, for California 1886: US general strike for 8-hour working […]
311: Roman Emperor Galerius issues Edict of Toleration, ending persercution of Christians in the Roman Empire 711: Islamic conquest of Iberia: Moorish troops led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad land at Gibraltar to begin their invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus) 1562: 1st French colonists in North America: Jean Ribault & colonists arrive in Florida 1789: George Washington is inaugurated as the […]
