240 BC First recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet 1856 The Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Great Britain, France and the Kingdom of Sardinia sign the Treaty of Paris ending the Crimean War 1867: The United States buys Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000 (109 million in 2018 dollars), roughly 2 cents an acre 1870: The […]
845: Paris is sacked by Viking raiders, probably under Ragnar Lodbrok, who collects a huge ransom in exchange for leaving 1549: The city of Salvador da Bahia, the first capital of Brazil, is founded 1901: Edmund Barton is elected Prime Minister in Australia’s first federal election 1912: Captain Robert Falcon Scott, storm-bound in a tent […]
364: Roman Emperor Valentinian I appoints his brother Flavius Valens co-emperor 1854: Great Britain and France declare war on Russia, expanding the Crimean War 1910: First seaplane takes off from water under its own power, piloted by Henri Fabre from the Étang de Berre lagoon in Martigues, France 1939: Spanish Civil War ends as Madrid […]
1513: Spaniard Juan Ponce de León and his expedition first sight Florida 1625: Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland ascends the English throne 1794: Naval Act of 1794 is signed by President George Washington, authorizing the building of six frigates and establishing a permanent US Navy 1914: First successful non-direct blood transfusion is […]
1027: Pope John XIX crowns Conrad II as Holy Roman Emperor, founding the Salian dynasty 1871: Municipal elections bring revolutionaries to power in Paris who form the short lived Paris Commune government 1909: Russian military forces invade northern Persia to support Mohammad Ali Shah’s coup d’état against the constitutional government in Persia and relieve the […]
31: The first Easter, according to calendar-maker Dionysius Exiguus 1436: Florence Cathedral, Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, consecrated by Pope Eugene IV, the largest dome in the world (then) by Filippo Brunelleschi with support from Cosimo de’ Medici (begun 1296) 1807: British Parliament abolishes the slave trade throughout the British Empire; penalty of £120 […]
1603: Scottish King James VI son of Mary Queen of Scots, becomes King James I of England in succession to Elizabeth I, thus joining the English and Scottish crowns 1837: Canada gives its black citizens the right to vote 1882: German scientist Robert Koch discovers and describes the tubercle bacillus which causes tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis), and […]
1490: First dated edition of Maimonides’ “Mishneh Torah” is published, a code of Jewish religious law 1775: Patrick Henry proclaims “Give me liberty or give me death” in a speech encouraging Virginia troops to join the American Revolutionary War 1919: 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party re-establishes a five-member Politburo, which becomes the center […]
1622: First American Indian (Powhatan) massacre of Europeans around Jamestown, Virginia, 347 killed 1765: First direct British tax on American colonists, the Stamp Act, is passed by the British Parliament led by Prime Minister George Grenville 1784: The Emerald Buddha is moved with great ceremony to its current place in Wat Phra Kaew, Thailand 1832: […]
1349: Black Death Massacre: Between 100 and 3,000 Jews are killed in Black Death riots in Erfurt, Germany; part of a wave of pogroms across Western Europe 1804: Napoleonic Code is adopted in France, stressing clearly written and accessible law Welsh journalist and explorer Henry Morton Stanley with Kalulu who he later adoptedHenry Morton Stanley’s […]
