1720: The Ship “Le Grand St Antoine” reaches Marseille, bringing Europe’s last major plague outbreak. Kills around 100,000. 1810: In the May Revolution, citizens of Buenos Aires expel the Spanish Viceroy Cisneros during Semana de Mayo 1914: British House of Commons passes the Irish Home Rule Bill 1961: JFK announces US goal of putting a […]
1595: Nomenclator of Leiden University Library appears, the first printed catalog of an institutional library 1738: John Wesley is converted, launching the Methodist movement; celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day 1844: Samuel Morse taps out “What hath God wrought” in the world’s first telegraph message 1883: Brooklyn Bridge opened by President Chester A. Arthur […]
1618: Second Defenestration of Prague: Two Catholic Lords Regent and their secretary are thrown out of a window and amazingly are not seriously injured by the 70 foot (21m) fall. Triggers the Thirty Years’ War. 1785: Benjamin Franklin announces his invention of bifocals 1813: South American independence leader Simón Bolívar enters Mérida, leading the invasion […]
334 BC: The Macedonian army of Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of the Granicus 1570: First atlas ‘Theatrum Orbis Terrarum’ (Theatre of the World), published by Abraham Ortelius in Antwerp with 70 maps 1843: First wagon train departs Independence, Missouri for Oregon with 700-1,000 migrants 1939: Germany’s Adolf Hitler […]
1792: Mount Unzen on Japan’s Shimabara Peninsula, erupts creating a tsunami, killing about 15,000; Japan’s deadliest volcanic eruption 1832: First US Democratic National Convention, is held in Baltimore 1871: French Army attacks Paris beginning the Semaine Sanglante (Bloody Week), a weeklong battle that kills 10,000-15,000 and ends the Paris Commune 1927: Aviator Charles Lindbergh, in […]
1498: Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrives at Calicut, India becoming the first European to reach India by sea 1609: William Shakespeare’s Sonnets are first published in London, perhaps illicitly, by publisher Thomas Thorpe 1862: US President Abraham Lincoln signs into law the Homestead Act to provide cheap land for the settlement of the American […]
1536: Anne Boleyn, second wife of English King Henry VIII, is beheaded at the Tower of London on charges of adultery, incest and treason 1643: Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Harbor form the United Colonies of New England 1649: England is declared a Commonwealth by an act of the Rump Parliament making England a […]
1291: After 100 years of Crusader control, the last Crusader stronghold of Acre is reconquered and destroyed by the Mamluks under Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil 1804: Napoléon Bonaparte is proclaimed Emperor of France by the French Senate 1896: Khodynka Tragedy: A stampeding crowd on Khodynka Field, Moscow, during the festivities for coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas […]
1792: Twenty-four merchants form the New York Stock Exchange at 70 Wall Street 1803 :John Hawkins and Richard French patent the Reaping Machine 1861: The first color photograph, of a tartan ribbon is shown by Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell to the Royal Institution in London 1973: US Senate Watergate Committee begins its hearings into […]
1868: US Senate fails to impeach President Andrew Johnson by one vote 1920: French heroine Joan of Arc is canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict XV 1943: Operation Chastise: No. 617 Squadron RAF begins the famous Dambusters Raid, bombing the Möhne and Eder dams in the Ruhr valley with bouncing bombs 1944: 1st of […]
