68: Roman Emperor Nero commits suicide, imploring his secretary Epaphroditus to slit his throat to evade a Senate-imposed death by flogging 721: Odo of Aquitaine defeats a Umayyad Muslim army at the Battle of Toulouse, halting Arab expansion in Western Europe 1549: Book of Common Prayer is adopted by the Church of England 1815: Congress […]
452: Attila the Hun invades Italy 793: Vikings in longships from modern-day Norway plunder St. Cuthbert’s monastery on Lindisfarne Island off the northeast coast of England, capturing and killing monks 1191: King Richard I of England arrives at Acre in modern-day Israel to join the Siege of Acre during the Third Crusade 1783: Laki volcano […]
1494: Treaty of Tordesillas: Spain and Portugal divide the New World along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands off the west coast of Africa 1628: English King Charles I ratifies the Petition of Right 1654: Louis XIV is crowned King of France 1753: British Museum is founded by an Act of […]
1873: Sultan Barghash bin Said, under British pressure, closes the infamous slave market of Zanzibar in present-day Tanzania 1947: US Secretary of State George C. Marshall outlines the “Marshall Plan” to rebuild Western Europe 1963: A state of siege is declared in Iran, and Ayatollah Khomeini is arrested 1967: Six-Day War begins between Israel and […]
1760: The Great Upheaval: New England planters arrive in Nova Scotia, Canada, to claim land taken from the Acadians 1940: British complete the “Miracle of Dunkirk” by evacuating 338,226 Allied troops from France via a flotilla of over 800: vessels, including Royal Navy destroyers, merchant marine boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft, and even lifeboats 1989: […]
1621: Dutch West India Company receives charter for the West Indies (the Americas, Caribbean and West Africa) 1929: Chile and Peru sign the Treaty of Lima, finally resolving their border dispute from the War of the Pacific (1879–83). Chile keeps Arica and Peru regains Tacna. 1943: A mob of 60 from the Los Angeles Naval […]
455: King Gaiseric and the Vandals sack Rome, looting continues for 14 days 1862: Robert E. Lee takes command of Confederate armies of North Virginia during the American Civil War 1896: Italian engineer and inventor Guglielmo Marconi applies for the first ever patent for a system of wireless telegraphy in the United Kingdom 1953: Coronation […]
4000 BC: Approximate domestication of the horse in the Eurasian steppes near Dereivka, central Ukraine (hypothesis only) 1215: Peking, then a city of over one million under the control of the Jurchen ruler Emperor Xuanzong of Jin, falls to the Mongols under Genghis Khan and is looted for a month 1543: Flemish physician Andreas Vesalius […]
1279 BC: Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great becomes Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt’s 19th Dynasty 1578: Martin Frobisher sails from Harwich, England, to Frobisher Bay, Canada. Eventually mines fools gold, famously used to pave the streets of London. 1902: Treaty of Vereeniging is signed, ending the Second Boer War and making Transvaal and […]
1431: Hundred Years’ War: 19-year-old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal in Rouen, France 1539: Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto’s expedition of 10 ships and 700 men lands in Florida 1848: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo between the United States and Mexico comes into force, giving California, Nevada, Utah, and […]
