588 BC: Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon lays siege to Jerusalem during Zedekiah’s reign. The siege lasts until July 23, 586 BC. 1535: King Henry VIII declares himself head of the Church of England 1559: Elizabeth I is crowned Queen of England at Westminster Abbey in London 1759: British Museum opens at Montagu House in London […]
1526: Charles V and Francis I sign the Treaty of Madrid, forcing Francis to renounce his claims to Burgundy, Italy, and Flanders 1641: Dutch East India Company conquers the city of Malacca, killing about 7,000 people 1724: Spanish King Philip V abdicates the throne in favor of his 17-year-old son Louis I; he returns to […]
532: Nika riots begin in Constantinople, a revolt against Byzantine Emperor Justinian I that leaves half the city burned and thousands dead. The riots were prompted by the failed execution of chariot racing supporters and only stopped after Empress Theodora refused to flee, forcing her husband to act decisively. 1888: The National Geographic Society is […]
1528: Gustav I of Sweden is crowned King of Sweden, rules for 37 years, and becomes known as the “father of the nation” 1554: Bayinnaung is crowned King of Burma, assembles the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia 1872: Yohannes IV is crowned Emperor of Ethiopia in Axum, 1st imperial coronation in Axum […]
630: Conquest of Mecca: Prophet Muhammad sets out with an army of 10,000 to capture Mecca 1599: Jacob van Neck’s fleet leaves Bantam, Java in modern-day Indonesia with 1 million pounds of pepper and cloves and a further half a ship full of nutmeg, mace and cinnamon 1838: First public demonstration of telegraph messages sent […]
49 BC: Julius Caesar defies the Roman Senate and crosses the Rubicon, uttering “alea iacta est” (the die is cast), signaling the start of civil war and his appointment as Roman dictator for life 1430: Catholic Order of the Golden Fleece is founded in Bruges in celebration of the prosperous and wealthy domains of Philip […]
1431: Judges’ investigations for the trial of Joan of Arc begin in Rouen, France, the seat of the English occupation government 1760: Afghans defeat the Indian Maratha Empire in the Battle of Barari Ghat 1839: Louis Daguerre demonstrates his daguerreotype photographic process to the French Academy of Sciences 1909: Ernest Shackleton, as part of the […]
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 […]
