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 [1] 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 […]
1565: First Spanish settlement in the Philippines is founded in 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 are paroled Union POWs on their way home. 1904: The Australian Labor Party under Prime Minister […]
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 the size of the universe at the US National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. 1945: Marshal Philippe Pétain, leader of France’s Vichy collaborationist […]
1660: English Convention Parliament meets and votes to restore Charles II 1792: Guillotine first used in France, executes highwayman Nicolas Pelletier 1846: Thornton Affair: Open conflict begins over the disputed border of Texas, triggering the Mexican–American War 1915: First landings at Gaba Tepe and Cape Helles on the Gallipoli Peninsula by ANZAC forces during World […]
1184 BC: The Greeks enter Troy using the Trojan Horse (traditional date) 1877: Russo-Turkish War: Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire 1898: Spanish–American War: Spain declares war after rejecting US ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba 1916: Easter Rising of Irish republicans against British occupation begins in Dublin 1967: American General William Westmoreland says in […]
215 BC: A temple dedicated to Venus Erycina is built on Capitoline Hill to commemorate the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene 1014: King Brian Boru of Ireland defeats Viking forces at the Battle of Clontarf, freeing Ireland from foreign control 1597: William Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” is first performed with Queen Elizabeth I […]
1500: Pedro Álvares Cabral is the first European to discover Brazil, landing near Monte Pascoal and claiming it for Portugal 1915: First military use of poison gas occurs when Germany uses chlorine gas against the Allies along the Western Front at Ypres, France in World War I [1] 1993: Holocaust Memorial Museum dedicated in Washington, […]
1290: Round Table tournament held near Winchester, England, in imitation of King Arthur, to commemorate betrothal of daughter of Edward I, and attended by the king 1862: First pasteurization test is completed by Frenchmen Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard 1902: Marie and Pierre Curie isolate the radioactive compound radium chloride 1968: British politician Enoch Powell […]
1770: British explorer Captain James Cook first sights Australia and writes in his logbook that “what we have as yet seen of this land appears rather low, and not very hilly, the face of the Country green and Woody, but the Sea shore is all a white Sand” 1775: American Revolution begins in Lexington, Massachusetts, […]
1025: Bolesław I the Brave is crowned in Gniezno, becoming the first King of Poland St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, RomeSt. Peter’s Basilica 1506: The cornerstone of the current St. Peter’s Basilica is laid in the Vatican by Pope Julius II 1775: Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott ride from Charlestown to […]
