44 BC: Julius Caesar is stabbed to death by Brutus, Cassius and several other Roman senators on the Ides of March in Rome 221: Liu Bei, a Chinese warlord and member of the Han royal house, declares himself Emperor of Shu-Han, claiming legitimate succession to the Han Dynasty 1493: Christopher Columbus returns to Spain after […]
1590: Battle of Ivry: French King Henry IV defeats the Catholic League during the French Wars of Religion 1794: Eli Whitney patents the cotton gin machine revolutionizing the cotton industry in the southern US states [1] 1900: Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries rediscovers Gregor Mendel’s laws of heredity and genetics 1900: US currency goes on […]
624: Battle of Badr: Muhammad’s Muslim forces win significant victory over Meccan army 1781: William Herschel sees what he thinks is a “comet” but is actually the discovery of the planet Uranus 1877: American Chester Greenwood patents earmuffs after inventing them at age 15 1884: Siege of Khartoum, Sudan begins by Mahdist forces, lasts 10 […]
538: Witiges, King of the Ostrogoths, ends his siege of Rome, retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city in the hands of victorious Byzantine General Belisarius 1455: First record of Johannes Gutenberg’s Bible, letter dated this day by Enea Silvio Piccolomini refers to the bible printed a year before 1918: Fearing foreign invasion Vladimir Lenin shifts […]
843: Icon veneration officially re-instated in Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople 1502: Ismail I, founder of the Safavid dynasty, crowned Shah of Persia (rules till 1524) 1966: Military coup led by Indonesian General Suharto breaks out 1985: Mikhail Gorbachev replaces Konstantin Chernenko as Soviet leader 2011: 9.0 magnitude earthquake strikes 130 km (80 miles) east […]
241 BC: First Punic War: Battle of the Aegates Islands – The Romans sink the Carthaginian fleet bringing the First Punic War to an end 1783: USS Alliance under Captain Barry fights and wins the last naval battle of the US Revolutionary War off Cape Canaveral 1861: West African political leader El Hadj Umar Tall […]
141: BC Liu Che, posthumously known as Emperor Wu of Han, assumes the throne of the Han Dynasty in China and rules for 54 years 1522: Martin Luther begins preaching his “Invocavit Sermons” in the German city of Wittenberg, reminding citizens to trust God’s word rather than violence and thus helping bring to a close […]
1531: King Henry VIII is recognized as the supreme head of the Church in England by the Convocation of Canterbury 1817: The New York Stock Exchange is founded 1867: British North America Act is passed in the House of Commons, serves as Canada’s constitution for more than 100 years 1917: Russian “February Revolution” begins in […]
1479: Treaty of Alcaçovas: Portugal gives the Canary Islands to Castile in exchange for claims in West Africa 1836: Battle of the Alamo: After 13 days of fighting 1,500-3,000 Mexican soldiers overwhelm the Texan defenders, killing 182-257 Texans including William Travis, Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett 1857: Dred Scott Decision: US Supreme Court rules Africans cannot […]
363: Roman Emperor Julian moves from Antioch with an army of 90,000 to attack the Sassanid Empire, in a campaign that brings about his own death 1046: Persian scholar Naser Khosrow begins the 7 year Middle Eastern journey which he will later describe in his book Safarnama 1496: English King Henry VII grants John Cabot […]
