1877: US inventor Thomas Edison demonstrates his hand-cranked phonograph for the first time 1910: The first US patent for a traffic light system is issued to Chicago engineer Ernest Sirrine [1] 1935: Physicist Erwin Schrödinger publishes his famous thought experiment “Schrödinger’s cat”, a paradox that illustrates the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics […]
1520: Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan begins crossing the Pacific Ocean 1814: The Times of London is first printed by automatic, steam-powered presses built by German inventors Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer, making newspapers available to a mass audience 1893: New Zealand women vote for the first time in a national election [1] 1919: American-born […]
1095: Pope Urban II preaches to the West to wrest control of the Holy Land from the Seljuk Turks at the Council of Clermont, triggering the First Crusade 1295: English King Edward I calls what later becomes known as “The Model Parliament,” extending the authority of its representatives 1493: Christopher Columbus returns to La Navidad […]
43 BC: Second Triumvirate alliance of Roman leaders formed by Octavian (later Caesar Augustus), Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Mark Antony 1778: British explorer Captain James Cook is the first European to visit Maui in the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii) 1789: First national Thanksgiving in the US 1791: First US cabinet meeting, held at George Washington’s […]
1177: Battle of Montgisard: Baldwin IV of Jerusalem defeats Saladin and a larger Ayyubid force 1783: Britain evacuates New York City, its last military position in the United States 1839: Cyclone slams southeastern India with high winds and a 40-foot storm surge, destroying the city of Coringa. Storm waves sweep inland, destroying 20,000 ships and […]
380: Theodosius I makes his adventus, or first formal entry, into Constantinople 1639: English astronomers Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree make the first recorded observations of a transit of Venus by accurately predicting its path using Johannes Kepler’s methods [1] 1642: Dutch explorer Abel Tasman is the first European to discover Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) […]
1248: Conquest of Seville occurs by Christian troops under King Ferdinand III of Castile after the city surrenders 1644: “Areopagitica”, a pamphlet by John Milton decrying censorship, is published 1869: Clipper Cutty Sark is launched in Dumbarton, Scotland, one of the last clippers ever built and the only one still surviving 2018: US Federal Climate […]
1497: Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounds the Cape of Good Hope on the first voyage from Europe to reach India 1926: Imperial Conference ends, granting autonomy within the British Commonwealth 1935: Flying boat “China Clipper” takes off from Alameda, California, carrying 100,000 pieces of mail on the first trans-Pacific airmail flight 1963: US President […]
164 BC: Judas Maccabeus recaptures Jerusalem and rededicates the Second Temple during the Maccabean Revolt, commemorated since as the Jewish festival of Hanukkah 1906: China prohibits the opium trade 1970: General Hafez al-Assad becomes Prime Minister of Syria following a military coup known as the Corrective Revolution 1971: Battle of Garibpur: Indian troops aided by […]
284: Roman General Diocletian is proclaimed emperor by the armies of the East and West after the death of Carinus at the Battle of the Margus 762: Khan of the Uyghurs, Bögü Qaghan, conquers Luoyang, the capital of the Chinese Empire 1695: Zumbi, the last King of the Quilombo dos Palmares in early Brazil and […]
