1453: Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire falls to the Turks under Mehmed II; ends the Byzantine Empire 1592: Battle of Sacheon: Korean navy led by Admiral Yi Sun Shin repels a Japanese fleet – first use of Korean Turtle ship 1660: On his 30th birthday Charles II returns to London from exile in the Netherlands to claim the English […]
585 BC: Solar eclipse, as predicted by Greek philosopher Thales, while Lydians at war with the Medes leads to a truce. One of the cardinal dates from which other dates calculated. 1431: Joan of Arc is accused of relapsing into heresy by donning male clothing again, providing justification for her execution 1588: King Philip II dispatches the Spanish Armada under the […]
1679: Habeas Corpus Act passes in England, strengthening a person’s right to challenge unlawful arrest and imprisonment 1703: Saint Petersburg (Leningrad) founded by Russian Tsar Peter the Great 1873: Heinrich Schliemann discovers “Priam’s Treasure” a cache of gold and other objects in Hisarlik (Troy) in Anatolia 1940: British and Allied forces begin the evacuation of Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo) during WWII 1963: Jomo Kenyatta elected 1st […]
1896: Dow Jones index begins with an average of 12 industrial stocks (closing is 40.94) 1908: At Masjed Soleyman (مسجد سليمان) in southwest Persia, the first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made, rights acquired by the United Kingdom 1927: Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company produce the last (and 15th million) Model T Ford / Tin […]
1720: The Ship “Le Grand St Antoine” reaches Marseille, bringing Europe’s last major plague outbreak. Kills around 100,000. 1810: In the May Revolution, citizens of Buenos Aires expel the Spanish Viceroy Cisneros during Semana de Mayo 1914: British House of Commons passes the Irish Home Rule Bill 1961: JFK announces US goal of putting a man on the Moon before […]
1595: Nomenclator of Leiden University Library appears, the first printed catalog of an institutional library 1738: John Wesley is converted, launching the Methodist movement; celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day 1844: Samuel Morse taps out “What hath God wrought” in the world’s first telegraph message 1883: Brooklyn Bridge opened by President Chester A. Arthur and NY Governor Grover Cleveland […]
1618: Second Defenestration of Prague: Two Catholic Lords Regent and their secretary are thrown out of a window and amazingly are not seriously injured by the 70 foot (21m) fall. Triggers the Thirty Years’ War. 1785: Benjamin Franklin announces his invention of bifocals 1813: South American independence leader Simón Bolívar enters Mérida, leading the invasion of Venezuela, and is proclaimed El […]
334 BC The Macedonian army of Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of the Granicus 1570: 1st atlas ‘Theatrum Orbis Terrarum’ (Theatre of the World), published by Abraham Ortelius in Antwerp with 70 maps 1843: 1st wagon train with 700 – 1000 migrants, departs Independence, Missouri for Oregon 1939: Germany’s Adolf Hitler and Italy’s Benito Mussolini sign the “Pact of Steel” […]
1792: Mount Unzen on Japan’s Shimabara Peninsula, erupts creating a tsunami, killing about 15,000; Japan’s deadliest volcanic eruption 1832: 1st US Democratic National Convention held in Baltimore 1871: -July 28] French regular troops attack Commune of Paris; 17,000 die 1927: Aviator Charles Lindbergh, in the Spirit of St Louis, lands in Paris after the first solo air crossing of Atlantic […]
1498: Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrives at Calicut, India becoming the first European to reach India by sea 1609: Shakespeare’s Sonnets are first published in London, perhaps illicitly, by publisher Thomas Thorpe 1862: US President Abraham Lincoln signs into law the Homestead Act to provide cheap land for the settlement of the American West (80 million acres by 1900) 1864: Spotsylvania campaign […]
