1787: Arthur Phillip sets sails with 11 ships of criminals to Botany Bay, Australia 1830: Republic of Ecuador is founded, with Juan Jose Flores as president 1934: Great dustbowl storm sweeps across US prairies 1940: Winston Churchill says “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” in his first speech as Prime Minister to British House of Commons […]
1789: William Wilberforce makes his first major speech on abolition in the UK House of Commons, reasoning the slave trade morally reprehensible and an issue of natural justice 1940: Nazi blitzkrieg and conquest of France begins with the crossing of the Muese River 1943: Axis forces in North Africa surrender 2002: Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel […]
330: Newly built city of Constantinople (Byzantium) dedicated, becomes the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire 1189: Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and 100,000 crusaders depart Regensburg for the Third Crusade 1751: Pennsylvania Hospital founded by Dr. Thomas Bond and Benjamin Franklin, in Philadelphia 1812: British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated by John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons, London. Ironically, descendants […]
1497: Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci leaves for his first voyage to the New World (disputed) 1775: Second Continental Congress convenes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and issues paper currency for 1st time 1801: First Barbary War: The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States of America (1st US foreign war) 1857: Indian mutiny against rule by the British East India Company […]
1386: Treaty of Windsor between Portugal and England is ratified at Windsor cementing and strengthening ties between the two kingdoms (oldest diplomatic alliance still in force). The treaty guarantees the mutual security of both nations and strengthens commercial ties. 1865: President Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation declaring armed resistance in the South is virtually at an end; this is […]
1660: English Parliament proclaims Charles II, King of England and invites him to return 1835: 1st installment of Hans Christian Andersen “Fairy Tales” published by C. A. Reitzel in Copenhagen, Denmark 1895: China cedes Taiwan to Japan under Treaty of Shimonoseki 1902: Mount Pelée on the French overseas island of Martinique erupts, wiping out the city of Saint-Pierre, killing 30,000 and leaving […]
1429: English siege of Orleans broken by Joan of Arc and the French army 1867: Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel patents dynamite in England, the first of three patents he would receive for the explosive material 1912: Columbia University approves plans for awarding the Pulitzer Prize in several categories, after established by Joseph Pulitzer 1915: RMS Lusitania sunk by German submarine off the southern coast of Ireland; […]
1527: Spanish and German Imperial troops sack Rome, ending the Renaissance. Charles III is killed in the assault removing any restraint for the victorious soldiers. 1626: Dutch colonist Peter Minuit organizes the purchase of Manhattan Island from Native Americans for 60 guilders worth of goods, believed to have been Canarsee Indians of the Lenape 1889: Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) in […]
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 to Addis Ababa 1955: West Germany is granted full sovereignty by its three occupying powers 1965: First large-scale US Army ground units arrive in South Vietnam 1980: Siege at Iranian Embassy in […]
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 1814: King Ferdinand VII of Spain signs the Decree of the 4th of May, returning Spain to absolutism 1904: Construction begins by the […]
