1626: Dutch colonist Peter Minuit organizes the purchase of Manhattan Island from Native Americans for 60 guilders worth of goods, believed to have been Canarsee Indians of the Lenape 1840: World’s first adhesive postage stamp, the “Penny Black”, is first used in Great Britain 1889: Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) in Paris opens with the recently completed Eiffel Tower serving as […]
1260: Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire 1941: Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa 1955: West Germany is granted full sovereignty by its three occupying powers 1965: First large-scale US Army ground units arrive in South Vietnam 1980: Siege at Iranian Embassy in London ends as the SAS and police storm the building 1981: After […]
1471: Battle of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, final battle between the Houses of Lancaster and York: Prince of Wales, Edward of Westminster killed and King Edward IV restored to his throne. Re-restores political stability to England until his death in 1483. 1814: King Ferdinand VII of Spain signs the Decree of the 4th of May, returning Spain to absolutism 1904: Construction begins […]
1791: Constitution of May 3 is proclaimed by the Great Sejm (Parliament) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, becoming the 1st modern constitution in Europe 1926: Britain’s Trade Union Congress calls for the country’s first ever general strike, begins at 1 minute to midnight in support striking coal miners, lasts 9 days 1937: Margaret Mitchell wins Pulitzer Prize for “Gone With the […]
1945: More than 1,000,000 German soldiers officially surrender to the Western Allies in Italy and Austria 1945: World War II: Battle of Berlin ends as Soviet army takes Berlin and General Weidling surrenders 1949: Arthur Miller wins Pulitzer Prize for “Death of a Salesman” 1982: Falklands War: Argentine cruiser General Belgrano sunk by British submarine Conqueror, killing more than 350 men […]
1707: Acts of Union comes into force, uniting England and Scotland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain 1753: Publication of Species Plantarum by Carolus Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature 1841: First emigrant wagon train leaves Independence, Missouri, for California 1886: US general strike for 8-hour working […]
311: Roman Emperor Galerius issues Edict of Toleration, ending persercution of Christians in the Roman Empire 711: Islamic conquest of Iberia: Moorish troops led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad land at Gibraltar to begin their invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus) 1562: 1st French colonists in North America: Jean Ribault & colonists arrive in Florida 1789: George Washington is inaugurated as the […]
1862: New Orleans falls to Union forces during US Civil War 1864: Battle of Gate Pa (Pukehinahina): 1,700 British troops suffer their worst defeat of the New Zealand Wars at the hands of 230 entrenched Maori warriors in Tauranga 1916: Irish republicans abandon the post office in Dublin and surrender unconditionally, marking the end of the Easter Rising 1945: US […]
1611: Establishment of the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines, oldest existing university in Asia and largest Catholic university in the world 1770: British Captain James Cook, aboard the Endeavour, lands at Botany Bay in Australia 1789: Fletcher Christian leads a mutiny on HMS Bounty against its captain William Bligh in the South Pacific 1910: First night air flight by Claude […]
1565: 1st Spanish settlement in the Philippines forms at Cebu City 1865: Steamboat “SS Sultana” explodes in the Mississippi River, killing up to 1,800 of the 2,427 passengers in the greatest maritime disaster in United States history. Most were paroled Union POWs on their way home. 1904: The Australian Labor Party under Prime Minister Chris Watson becomes […]
