930: World’s oldest parliament, the Icelandic Parliament is established, the Alþingi (anglicised as Althing or Althingi) 1868: Christopher Latham Sholes patents the Sholes and Glidden typewriter, the first commercially successful of its kind 1960: First contraceptive pill is made available for purchase in the United States 1972: Hurricane Agnes becomes America’s costliest natural disaster, affecting […]
1633: Galileo Galilei recants his “heretical” position that the Earth orbiting the Sun is at odds with the Bible and church teaching (Vatican apologizes in 1992 for how it handled the case) 1675: Royal Greenwich Observatory is established in England by King Charles II 1772: Somerset v Stewart court case finds slavery unsupported by English […]
1788: US Constitution comes into effect when New Hampshire is the 9th state to ratify it 1854: First Victoria Cross won during the bombardment of Bomarsund in the Åland Islands during the Crimean War 1948: Columbia Records unveils the 33-1/3 rpm LP phonograph record, invented by Peter Carl Goldmark, allowing up to 20 minutes per side […]
451: Battle of the Catalaunian Plains: Roman and Visigoth forces defeat Attila the Hun in northeast France, halting the Hun invasion of Roman Gaul [exact date disputed] 1789: French Revolution: The Third Estate of the French Estates-General swears the Tennis Court Oath at the Palace of Versailles, vowing not to disband until a new constitution […]
1306: The Earl of Pembroke’s army defeats Robert the Bruce’s Scottish army at the Battle of Methven 1829: Robert Peel introduces the Metropolitan Police Act 1829 into Parliament to establish a unified police force for London, the city’s first modern police force 1862: Slavery outlawed in US territories 1865: Union General Gordon Granger declares slaves […]
618: Coronation of the Chinese governor Li Yuan as Emperor Gaozu of Tang, the new Emperor of China, initiating three centuries of Tang Dynasty rule over China 1812: War of 1812 begins as the US declares war against Britain 1815: Battle of Waterloo; Napoleon Bonaparte and France defeated by British forces under Duke of Wellington […]
656: Ali ibn Abu Talib elected the 4th Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate 1527: Pánfilo de Narváez departs Spain to explore Florida with five ships and 600 men; by 1536, only four men are still alive 1590: depiction of Francis Drake’s landing in what he called New Albion, now northern CaliforniaFrancis Drake Lands in California […]
1779: Spain declares war on Great Britain in support of France and the USA, starting the Great Siege of Gibraltar, which lasts 3 years, 7 months, and 2 weeks 1858: Abraham Lincoln says “A house divided against itself cannot stand” accepting Illinois Republican Party’s nomination for the Senate 1904: Bloomsday, the date of the fictional […]
763 BC: Assyrians record a solar eclipse that will be used to fix the chronology of Mesopotamian history 1215: King John of England signs the Magna Carta at Runnymede near Windsor in Surrey, limiting royal authority and establishing the principle that the king and his government are not above the law 1219: According to legend, […]
1381: Richard II in England meets leaders of the Peasants’ Revolt on Blackheath. The Tower of London is stormed by rebels who enter without resistance. 1645: Battle of Naseby, Leicestershire: Parliament’s New Model Army under Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Fairfax defeats the Royalist forces of English King Charles I 1777: US Continental Congress adopts the […]
