1260: Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire 1893: Panic of 1893 causes a large crash on the NY Stock Exchange 1941: Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie returns triumphantly to Addis Ababa 1955: West Germany is granted full sovereignty by its three occupying powers 1965: First large-scale US Army ground units […]
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 returns to his throne, restoring political stability to England until his death in 1483 1493: Spanish Pope Alexander VI divides America between Spain and Portugal 1814: King Ferdinand VII of […]
1791: Constitution of May 3 is proclaimed by the Great Sejm (Parliament) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, becoming the 1st modern constitution in Europe 1808: Day depicted by Spanish painter Francisco Goya in his “The Third of May”, painted 1814 1926: Britain’s Trade Union Congress calls for the country’s first ever general strike, begins at 1 […]
1945: Battle of Berlin ends as the Soviet army storms the capital, forcing German commander of the city general Helmuth Weidling to surrender 1945: More than 1,000,000 German soldiers officially surrender to the Western Allies in Italy and Austria 1949: Arthur Miller wins a Pulitzer Prize for his play “Death of a Salesman” 1982: Falklands […]
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 Carl Linnaeus – the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature 1840: “Penny Black”, the world’s first adhesive postage stamp issued by Great […]
311: Roman Emperor Galerius issues Edict of Toleration, ending persecution 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: Jean Ribault and colonists arrive in Florida, the first French colonists in North America 1789: […]
1864: Battle of Gate Pā (Pukehinahina): 1,700 British troops suffer their worst defeat of the New Zealand Wars at the hands of 230 entrenched Māori warriors in Tauranga 1872: Jesse James’ gang robs a bank of $1,500 in Columbia, Kentucky, killing bank employee Robert A.C. Martin during the crime 1916: Irish republicans abandon the post […]
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 HMS Endeavour, first lands in Australia at Botany Bay 1789: Fletcher Christian leads a mutiny on HMS Bounty against its […]
1565: First Spanish settlement in the Philippines founded 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 […]
1478: Pazzi conspirators attack Lorenzo de’ Medici and kill Giuliano de’ Medici in Florence 1920: Harlow Shapley and Heber D. Curtis hold the “Great Debate” on the nature of nebulae, galaxies and size of the universe at US National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. 1945: Marshal Philippe Pétain, leader of France’s Vichy collaborationist regime during […]
