1597: First Dutch East India Company ships return from the Far East 1741: Alaska is first sighted by a Russian expedition led by Danish explorer Vitus Bering 1905: Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen forms the first chapter of Tongmenghui, a union of secret societies determined to bring down the Qing dynasty 1968: 250,000 Soviet and Warsaw […]
43 BC: Octavian, later known as Augustus, compels the Roman Senate to elect him consul 1839: Louis Daguerre’s daguerreotype photographic process with complete working instructions is published “free to the world” in Paris as a gift from the French government 1942: World War II: Over 4,000 Canadian and British soldiers are killed, wounded, or captured […]
1590: Governor of Roanoke Island colony John White returns from England to find no trace of the colonists he left there three years earlier 1737: First public admission 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 […]
1903: Joseph Pulitzer donates $1 million to Columbia University and begins the Pulitzer Prizes in the United States 1945: Korea is divided into North and South Korea along the 38th parallel 1945: Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta declare Indonesia (formerly the Dutch East Indies) independent from the Netherlands 1947: The Radcliffe Line is revealed, setting the […]
1513: Battle of the Spurs at Guinegate (now Enguinegatte): King Henry VIII of England and Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I defeat French forces, capturing the town and routing the French cavalry 1858: Britain’s Queen Victoria telegraphs US President James Buchanan for the first time via transatlantic telegraph cable; he replies, “It is a triumph more […]
1281: During Kublai Khan’s second Mongol invasion of Japan, his invading Chinese fleet of 3,500 vessels disappears in a typhoon near the Japanese coast 1842: US Army Colonel Worth declares the Second Seminole War over after nearly seven years; over 3,000 surviving members of the Seminole Nation are forcibly relocated from Florida to Oklahoma, with […]
1521: Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés capture Aztec Emperor Cuauhtémoc in Tenochtitlan, bringing the Aztec Empire to an end 1536: Buddhist monks from Kyoto’s Enryaku-ji Temple set fire to 21 Nichiren temples throughout Kyoto in the Tenbun Hokke Disturbance (Traditional Japanese date: July 27, 1536) 1642: Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens discovers Mars’s southern polar […]
1121: Battle of Didgori: Georgian army under King David the Builder wins a decisive victory over the renowned Seljuk commander Ilghazi 1480: Ottoman troops conquer Otranto in southern Italy after a 15-day siege, killing 12,000, enslaving 5,000, and beheading 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam 1851: American inventor Isaac Singer patents his famous […]
3114 BC: 3114-08-11 BCE is traditionally considered the start date of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations, notably the Maya 1945: Allies refuse Japan’s offer to surrender on the condition that Emperor Hirohito retains his status 1954: Formal peace treaty ends over seven years of fighting in Indochina between the […]
612 BC: Fall of Nineveh to the Babylonians and the forces of Medes, leads to the sack of one of the greatest cities in the world, the destruction of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and the death of King Sinsharishkun [date approximate] 610: Traditional date of Laylat al-Qadr / Night of Power when Muslims believe the Quran […]
