1192: Minamoto Yoritomo becomes Seii Taishōgun, the first ruling shogun in the history of Japan and de facto ruler 1679: Britain’s King Charles II ratifies Habeas Corpus Act allowing prisoners’ right to a court review of the justification for their imprisonment 1790: French Revolution: The Civil Constitution of the Clergy is adopted, putting the Catholic […]
1405: Chinese fleet commander Zheng He sets sail to the Spice Islands on his first major expedition, leading 208 vessels, including 62 treasure ships with 27,800 sailors 1533: Pope Clement VII excommunicates England’s King Henry VIII 1818: English poet John Keats writes “In the Cottage Where Burns is Born,” “Lines Written in the Highlands,” and […]
1940: Battle of Britain begins as Nazi forces attack shipping convoys in the English Channel 1985: French foreign intelligence agents blow up the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbor, New Zealand, to prevent it from interfering with French nuclear tests in the South Pacific. Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira is killed. 1991: Boris Yeltsin is […]
1401: Turko-Mongol ruler Tamerlane (Timur) destroys Baghdad, killing 20,000 people 1790: King Gustav III leads Swedish naval forces to victory over the Russian Baltic fleet during the Second Battle of Svensksund, destroying or capturing one-third of the Russian ships and ending the Russo-Swedish War 1868: Louisiana and South Carolina are the last states to ratify […]
1099: First Crusade: 15,000 starving Christian soldiers march in religious procession around Jerusalem as its Muslim defenders look on 1497: Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama departs on his first voyage and becomes the first European to reach India by sea 1777: Independent Vermont introduces a new constitution prohibiting slavery 1800: Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse gives the […]
1520: Hernán Cortés and the Tlaxcalans defeat a numerically superior Aztec force in the Battle of Otumba in Mexico 1807: French Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte and Russian Tsar Alexander I meet on a raft in the middle of the Neman River and sign the first Treaty of Tilsit 1937: Japanese and Chinese troops clash at the […]
1348: Papal bull of Pope Clement VI issued during the Black Death states Jews are not to blame and encourages their protection 1775: Congress issues the “Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms”, written by Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson and lists American grievances but denies any intent to be independent 1785: […]
1687: Isaac Newton’s great work, “Principia,” is published by the Royal Society in England, outlining his laws of motion and universal gravitation 1811: Venezuelan Declaration of Independence: Seven provinces declare independence from Spain 1852: Fugitive slave Frederick Douglass delivers his ‘What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?’ speech to the Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society […]
1776: US Congress proclaims the Declaration of Independence and independence from Great Britain 1785: Geologist James Hutton publicly reads an abstract of his theory of uniformitarianism for the first time at a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1803: The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people by President Thomas Jefferson 1838: Huskar […]
324: Battle of Adrianople: Roman Emperor Constantine I defeats his co-emperor Licinius, who flees to Byzantium 1863: Battle of Gettysburg, the largest battle ever fought on the American continent, ends in a major victory for the Union during the US Civil War 1884: Dow Jones publishes its first stock index, the Dow Jones Transportation Average […]
