1536: Anne Boleyn, second wife of English King Henry VIII, is beheaded at the Tower of London on charges of adultery, incest and treason 1643: Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Harbor form the United Colonies of New England 1649: England is declared a Commonwealth by an act of the Rump Parliament making England a republic for the next […]
1291: After 100 years of Crusader control, the last Crusader stronghold of Acre is reconquered and destroyed by the Mamluks under Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil 1804: Napoléon Bonaparte is proclaimed Emperor of France by the French Senate 1974: India becomes the sixth nation to explode an atomic bomb 1980: Eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state triggers the largest landslide in […]
1792: 24 merchants form the New York Stock Exchange at 70 Wall Street 1803: John Hawkins and Richard French patent the Reaping Machine 1861: First Color Photograph, of a tartan ribbon is shown by Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell to the Royal Institution in London 1973: US Senate Watergate Committee begins its hearings into the break-in at the Democratic National Committee […]
1868: US Senate fails to impeach President Andrew Johnson by one vote 1920: French heroine Joan of Arc is canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict XV 1943: Operation Chastise: No. 617 Squadron RAF begins the famous Dambusters Raid, bombing the Möhne and Eder dams in the Ruhr valley with bouncing bombs 1944: 1st of 180,000+ Hungarian Jews reach Auschwitz 1989: Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping meet in Beijing […]
1252: Pope Innocent IV issues the papal bull ad exstirpanda, which authorizes, but also limits, the torture of heretics in the Medieval Inquisition 1618: German astronomer Johannes Kepler discovers the third of his three planetary laws. the “harmonic law” 1841: First emigrant wagon train to make it to California leaves Independence, Missouri on a 1,730 mile journey over the Sierra Nevada […]
1787: Delegates gather in Philadelphia to draw up US Constitution 1796: English country doctor Edward Jenner administers his revolutionary cowpox-based vaccine for smallpox, in Berkeley, Gloucestershire 1804: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s expedition commissioned by Thomas Jefferson sets out from St Louis for Pacific Coast 1948: Israel declares independence from British administration Source: Onthisday.com
1787: Arthur Phillip sets sails with 11 ships of criminals to Botany Bay, Australia 1830: Republic of Ecuador is founded, with Juan Jose Flores as president 1934: Great dustbowl storm sweeps across US prairies 1940: Winston Churchill says “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” in his first speech as Prime Minister to British House of Commons […]
1789: William Wilberforce makes his first major speech on abolition in the UK House of Commons, reasoning the slave trade morally reprehensible and an issue of natural justice 1940: Nazi blitzkrieg and conquest of France begins with the crossing of the Muese River 1943: Axis forces in North Africa surrender 2002: Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel […]
330: Newly built city of Constantinople (Byzantium) dedicated, becomes the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire 1189: Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and 100,000 crusaders depart Regensburg for the Third Crusade 1751: Pennsylvania Hospital founded by Dr. Thomas Bond and Benjamin Franklin, in Philadelphia 1812: British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated by John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons, London. Ironically, descendants […]
1497: Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci leaves for his first voyage to the New World (disputed) 1775: Second Continental Congress convenes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and issues paper currency for 1st time 1801: First Barbary War: The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States of America (1st US foreign war) 1857: Indian mutiny against rule by the British East India Company […]
