1190: Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa drowns while crossing the Saleph River in modern-day Turkey, leading an army to Jerusalem during the Third Crusade 1786: A landslide dam on the Dadu River, caused by an earthquake ten days earlier, collapses and kills 100,000 in Sichuan province, China 1898: US Marines land in Cuba during […]
68: Roman Emperor Nero commits suicide, imploring his secretary Epaphroditos to slit his throat to evade a Senate-imposed death by flogging 721: Odo of Aquitaine defeats a Umayyad Muslim army at the Battle of Toulouse, checks Arab expansion in Western Europe 1549: Book of Common Prayer is adopted by the Church of England 1815: End […]
452: Attila the Hun invades Italy 793: Vikings in longships from modern-day Norway plunder St. Cuthbert’s monastery on Lindisfarne Island off the northeast coast of England, capturing and killing monks 1191: King Richard I of England arrives at Acre in modern-day Israel to join the Siege of Acre during the Third Crusade 1783: Laki volcano […]
1494: Treaty of Tordesillas: Spain and Portugal divide the New World along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands off the west coast of Africa 1628: English King Charles I ratifies the Petition of Right 1654: Louis XIV is crowned King of France 1753: British Museum is founded by an Act of […]
1523: Gustav Vasa is elected King of Sweden, marking the end of the Kalmar Union 1716: French transport the first African slaves to Louisiana 1916: The death of Yuan Shikai, ruler of much of China since 1912, causes central government to virtually collapse in the face of pressure from warlords, and from political reformers including […]
1873: Sultan Bargash bin Said under British pressure closes the infamous slave market of Zanzibar in modern day Tanzania 1947: US Secretary of State George Marshall outlines the “Marshall Plan” to rebuild Western Europe 1963: State of siege proclaimed in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini arrested 1967: Six-Day War begins between Israel and the neighboring Arab states […]
1760: The Great Upheaval: New England planters arrive in Nova Scotia, Canada, to claim land taken from the Acadians 1940: British complete the “Miracle of Dunkirk” by evacuating 338,226 allied troops from France via a flotilla of over 800 vessels including Royal Navy destroyers, merchant marine boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft and even lifeboats 1989: […]
1621: Dutch West India Company receives charter for the West Indies (the Americas, Caribbean and West Africa) 1929: Chile and Peru sign the Treaty of Lima, finally resolving their border dispute from the War of the Pacific (1879–83). Chile keeps Arica and Peru regains Tacna. 1943: A mob of 60 from the Los Angeles Naval […]
455: King Gaiseric and the Vandals sack Rome, looting continues for 14 days 1862: Robert E. Lee takes command of Confederate armies of North Virginia during the American Civil War 1896: Italian engineer and inventor Guglielmo Marconi applies for the first ever patent for a system of wireless telegraphy in the United Kingdom 1953: Coronation […]
4000 BC: Approximate domestication of the horse in the Eurasian steppes near Dereivka, central Ukraine (hypothesis only) 1215: Peking [Beijing], then a city of over one million, under the control of Jurchen ruler Emperor Xuanzong of Jin, is captured and looted for a month by the Mongols under Genghis Khan 1543: Flemish physician Andreas Vesalius […]
