1576: Eighty Years’ War: In Flanders, the Spanish defeat the Walloons and capture Antwerp 1841: First wagon train arrives in California after a five-and-a-half-month, 1,730-mile journey over the Sierra Nevada from Missouri 1845: First nationally observed uniform election day in the United States, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November 1862: American inventor […]
644: Umar ibn al-Khattab, second Muslim caliph, is injured in an assassination attempt in Medina by Lu’lu, an enslaved Persian captive – dies 4 days later 1534: English parliament passes the Act of Supremacy making Henry VIII and all subsequent monarchs the Head of the Church of England 1620: Great Patent granted to Plymouth Colony […]
1875: Verney Cameron reaches Benguela in Angola from Africa’s east coast, the first European to cross equatorial Africa from sea to sea 1917: British government proclaims support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine in the Balfour Declaration 1930: Coronation of Ras Tafari Makonnen as Haile Selassie I, the 225th Emperor of the Ethiopian Solomonic Dynasty […]
1755: Lisbon earthquake kills more than 50,000 in Portugal 1814: Congress of Vienna opens to re-draw the European political map after the defeat of France, in the Napoleonic Wars 1894: Vaccine for diphtheria announced by Dr Émile Roux of Paris 1916: Paul Miliukov delivers in the Russian State Duma the famous “stupidity or treason” speech, […]
1517: Martin Luther sends his Ninety-five Theses to Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz, precipitating the Protestant Reformation 1541: Michelangelo Buonarroti finishes painting “The Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican City 1876: Great Backerganj Cyclone of 1876 ravages British India (modern-day Bangladesh), killing over 200,000 1918: The Spanish flu kills 21,000 people in the […]
1340: Battle of Rio Salado (or Tarifa): King Afonso IV of Portugal and King Alfonso XI of Castile defeat Sultan Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali of Morocco and Yusuf I of Granada in the last Marinid invasion of the Iberian Peninsula 1899: Battle of Ladysmith: Boers defeat the British, leading to the Siege of Ladysmith in Natal […]
539 BC: King Cyrus “the Great” of Persia marches into Babylon, freeing Jewish captives and allowing them to return home 1268: Conradin, the last legitimate male heir of the German Hohenstaufen dynasty of Kings and Holy Roman Emperors, is executed with Frederick I, Margrave of Baden by Charles I of Sicily 1665: Battle of Mbwila […]
1492: Christopher Columbus sights Cuba and claims it for Spain under the name “Juana” 1538: The first university in the New World, the Universidad Santo Tomás de Aquino, is established on Hispaniola 1746: The Peruvian cities of Lima and Callao are demolished by an earthquake, killing 18,000 1831: Michael Faraday demonstrates his dynamo invention, an electrical […]
312: Roman Emperor Constantine the Great is said to have received his famous Vision of the Cross 1795: Pinckney’s Treaty [Treaty of San Lorenzo] is signed by Spain and the US, establishing the southern boundary of the US and giving Americans the right to navigate the Mississippi River 1962: Black Saturday during the Cuban Missile […]
1850: Robert McClure sights the fabled Northwest Passage for the first time, from Banks Island towards Melville Island 1861: Pony Express (Missouri to California) ends after 19 months 1863: International conference begins in Geneva aimed at improving medical conditions on battlefields, beginning of the Red Cross 1977: Last natural case of smallpox is discovered in […]
