202 BC: Battle of Zama: Hannibal Barca and the Carthaginian army are defeated by Roman legions under Scipio Africanus, ending 2nd Punic War 1781: British forces under General Charles Cornwallis sign terms of surrender to George Washington and Comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown at 2 pm, ending the US Revolutionary War 1926: Russian Politburo throws out Leon Trotsky and his followers 1943: Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, […]
1009: The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is destroyed by the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who hacks the Church’s foundations down to bedrock 1685: French King Louis XIV revokes Edict of Nantes cancelling rights of French Protestants 1867: Alaska Purchase: US takes formal possession of Alaska from Russia, having paid $7.2 million 1931: American gangster Al Capone convicted of tax […]
1854: French and British forces bombard Sevastopol for the first time during the Crimean War 1907: Guglielmo Marconi’s company begins the first commercial transatlantic wireless service between Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada and Clifden, Ireland 1943: Burma railway completed, built by Allied POWs and Asian laborers for use of the Japanese army 1973: OPEC oil ministers use oil as an […]
1813: Battle of Leipzig, largest battle in Europe prior to WWI, Napoleon’s forces defeated by Prussia, Austria and Russia 1900: Great Britain and Germany sign the Anglo-German Treaty, agreeing to maintain territorial integrity of China and support ‘open door’ policy called for by US Secretary of State 1934: Mao Zedong and 25,000 troops begin their 6,000 mile Long March from […]
1581: Commissioned by Catherine de’ Medici, the 1st ballet “Ballet Comique de la Reine” is staged in Paris 1582: Gregorian calendar introduced in Spain, Portugal and pontifical states, after skipping 10 days after Oct 4 to sync the calendar 1815: Napoleon Bonaparte arrives on island of St Helena to begin his exile 1969: Vietnam Moratorium Day; millions nationwide protest the war 1993: Nelson […]
1066: Battle of Hastings: William, Duke of Normandy and his Norman army defeat the English forces of Harold II who is killed in the battle 1322: Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeats King Edward II of England at Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland’s independence 1774: 1st Continental Congress makes Declaration of Colonial Rights in Philadelphia 1867: 15th and last Tokugawa Shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu […]
54: Nero succeeds Claudius as Roman Emperor 1307: French King Philip IV has Grand Master Jacques de Molay and Knights Templar arrested and charged of idolatry and corruption 1884: Greenwich in London established as the universal time meridian of longitude 1924: Mecca falls without struggle to Saudi forces led by Abdulaziz Ibn Saud 1943: Italy declares war on former Axis partner Germany 1944: US 1st […]
539 BC: The army of Cyrus the Great of Persia takes Babylon 1279: Nichiren, a Japanese Buddhist monk, founder of Nichiren Buddhism, inscribes the Dai-Gohonzon 1492: Christopher Columbus’s expedition makes landfall on a Caribbean island he names San Salvador (likely Watling Island, Bahamas). The explorer believes he has reached East Asia (OS 21 Oct) 1864: War of the Triple […]
1138: Earthquake in Aleppo, Syria, kills an estimated 230,000 1634: Burchardi flood – “the second Grote Mandrenke” kills about 15,000 in North Friesland, Denmark and Germany 1737: Earthquake reported to have killed 300,000 and destroyed half of Calcutta in India. Now thought to have been an exaggerated account of a hurricane which claimed 3,000 of the city’s estimated […]
680: Al-Hussein (Al-Ḥusayn ibn) and his followers killed at Karbala by army of Yazid, the Umayyad caliph, on the way to Kufa 1780: Great Hurricane of 1780 kills 20,000 to 30,000 in the Caribbean, hitting Barbados first. Atlantic’s deadliest recorded hurricane. 1954: Ho Chi Minh enters Hanoi after withdrawal of French troops 1957: A fire at the Windscale nuclear plant […]
