1656: Oldest surviving commercial newspaper, “Weeckelycke Courante van Europa”, now known as “Haarlems Dagblad”, and still in print, begins publication in Haarlem, Netherlands 1790: First US President George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address 1835: US national debt reaches $0 for the first and only time in history 1912: Chiefs, representatives of […]
1610: Galileo Galilei discovers the first three moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa and Ganymede 1714: Typewriter patented by Englishman Henry Mill (built years later) 1941: New Fourth Army Incident: Chinese Kuomintang forces under orders from Chiang Kai-shek fire on the surrounded Communist New Fourth Army at Maolin, Anhui Province, killing or capturing about 7,000 troops […]
1649: The English Rump Parliament votes to put Charles I on trial for treason and other high crimes 1838: Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail demonstrate their telegraph machine in New Jersey 1912 Geophysicist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener presents his controversial theory of continental drift in a lecture to the Geological Association at the Senckenberg Museum […]
1477: Battle of Nancy: Swiss Confederacy led by René II decisively defeats the Duchy of Burgundy, 7,000+ killed including the Duke of Burgundy Charles the Bold 1781: British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burns Richmond, Virginia 1919: German Workers’ Party forms, precursor to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi) 1930: Mao Zedong writes […]
1847: Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government 1865: New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad Street, near Wall Street, in New York City 1959: USSR’s Luna 1 (Mechta) becomes the first spacecraft to escape Earth’s gravity 1961: Longest recorded strike ends as Danish barbers’ […]
1496: Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine 1521: Martin Luther is excommunicated by Pope Leo X from the Roman Catholic Church for refusing to recant parts of his Ninety-Five Theses, which started the Protestant Reformation 1777: General George Washington’s Revolutionary Army defeats British forces at the Battle of Princeton, New Jersey 1925: Benito […]
366: The Alamanni cross the frozen Rhine River in large numbers and invade the Roman Empire 1492: Muhammad XII, the last Emir of Granada, surrenders the city to Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, ending the Reconquista and centuries of Muslim rule on the Iberian Peninsula 1570: Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible […]
406: “The Great Invasion” sees a vast horde of Vandals, Alans, and Suebi cross the Rhine at Mainz, beginning the invasion of Gaul 1703: Genroku earthquake off the coast of Japan near Edo (modern-day Tokyo) kills thousands and triggers a large tsunami that kills thousands more 1744: English astronomer James Bradley announces the discovery of […]
1460: Battle of Wakefield: Duke of York is killed and his forces are soundly defeated by those of King Henry VI in northern England during the Wars of the Roses 1906: All-India Muslim League is founded in Dacca in East Bengal, British India, later lays the foundations for Pakistan 1922: Creation of the USSR is […]
1835: Treaty of New Echota is signed between the US government and representatives of a minority Cherokee political faction to cede all lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States 1845: Texas is admitted as the 28th state of the Union 1903: French Equatorial Africa separates into Gabon, Chad and […]
