1602: United Dutch East Indian Company (VOC) forms 1800: Alessandro Volta reports his discovery of the electric battery in a letter to Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society of London 1815: Napoleon enters Paris after escape from Elba, begins 100-day rule 1900: US Secretary of State John Hay announces that all nations to whom he sent notes calling for an ‘open […]
1279: A Mongolian victory at the naval Battle of Yamen ends the Song Dynasty in China 1644: 200 members of Peking imperial family and court commit suicide in loyalty to the Emperor 1863: Confederate cruiser SS Georgiana destroyed on her maiden voyage with a cargo of munitions, and medicines then valued over $1,000,000. Wreck discovered exactly 102 years […]
1123: 1st Latern Council (9th ecumenical council) opens in Rome, agreements of the Concordat of Worms ratified 1314: Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake by King Philip IV of France 1325: According to legend, Tenochtitlan is founded on this date on an island in what […]
432: Saint Patrick, aged about 16 is captured by Irish pirates from his home in Great Britain and taken as a slave to Ireland (traditional date) 1521: Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reaches the Philippines 1861: Italy is unified into a single kingdom under Victor Emmanuel II following the campaigns led by Giuseppe Garibaldi 1905: Albert Einstein finishes his scientific paper detailing his Quantum Theory of […]
597 BC: Babylonians capture Jerusalem, replace Jehoiachin with Zedekiah as king 1527: Battle of Khanua: Mughal Emperor Babur defeats Rajput forces led by Rana Sanga consolidating Mughal power 1660: English Long Parliament disbands 1792: King gustav iii of Sweden is shot by Count Jacob Johan Anckarström at a masked ball at the Opera; he dies on March 29 1867: First publication of an article […]
44 BC: Julius Caesar is stabbed to death by Brutus, Cassius and several other Roman senators on the Ides of March in Rome 221: Liu Bei, a Chinese warlord and member of the Han royal house, declares himself Emperor of Shu-Han, claiming legitimate succession to the Han Dynasty 1493: Christopher Columbus returns to Spain after his first voyage to the New World 1783: In […]
1590: Battle of Ivry: French King Henry IV beats Catholic League during French Wars of Religion 1794: Eli Whitney patents the cotton gin machine revolutionizing the cotton industry in the southern US states 1900: Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries rediscovers Mendel’s laws of genetics 1900: US currency goes on gold standard after Congress passes the Currency Act 1943: World War II: Kraków Ghetto […]
624: Battle of Badr: Muhammad’s Muslim forces win significant victory over Meccan army 1591: Battle at Tondibi: Moroccan army under Judar defeats Sultan Askia Ishaq II of Songhai 1781: William Herschel sees what he thinks is a “comet” but is actually the discovery of the planet Uranus 1884: Siege of Khartoum, Sudan begins by Mahdist forces, lasts 10 months 1903: Fall […]
538: Witiges, King of the Ostrogoths, ends his siege of Rome, retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city in the hands of victorious Byzantine General Belisarius 1455: First record of Johannes Gutenberg’s Bible, letter dated this day by Enea Silvio Piccolomini refers to the bible printed a year before 1642: Abel Tasman is the 1st European to sight New Zealand, viewing […]
843: Icon veneration officially re-instated in Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople 1502: Ismail I, founder of the Safavid dynasty, crowned Shah of Persia (rules till 1524) 1918: Moscow becomes capital of revolutionary Russia 1966: Military coup led by Indonesian General Suharto breaks out 1985: Mikhail Gorbachev replaces Konstantin Chernenko as Soviet leader 2011: 9.0 magnitude earthquake strikes 130 km (80 miles) east of Sendai, Japan, triggering a tsunami […]
