1497: Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci leaves for his first voyage to the New World (disputed) 1775: Second Continental Congress convenes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, issuing paper currency for the first time 1801: First Barbary War: The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States of America (first US foreign war) 1857: Indian Mutiny against […]
1386: Treaty of Windsor between Portugal and England is ratified at Windsor, cementing and strengthening ties between the two kingdoms. The treaty guarantees the mutual security of both nations and strengthens commercial ties. It is the oldest diplomatic alliance still in force. 1865: President Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation declaring that armed resistance in the […]
1660: English Parliament proclaims Charles II King of England and invites him to return 1835: First installment of Hans Christian Andersen’s “Fairy Tales” is published by C. A. Reitzel in Copenhagen, Denmark 1895: China cedes Taiwan to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki 1902: Mount Pelée on the French overseas island of Martinique erupts, wiping […]
1429: English siege of Orleans broken by Joan of Arc and the French army 1906: Advertisement for Nobel’s Dynamite in the German newspaper “Deutsch-Südwestafrikanische Zeitung”Nobel’s Dynamite 1867: Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel patents dynamite in England, the first of three patents he receives for the explosive material 1912: Columbia University approves plans to award the Pulitzer […]
1527: Spanish and German Imperial troops sack Rome, ending the Renaissance. Charles III, Duke of Bourbon 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 be the Canarsee Indians of […]
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 sees Prince of Wales, Edward of Westminster, killed and King Edward IV return to his throne, restoring political stability to England until his death in 1483 1493: Spanish Pope Alexander VI decrees in the papal bull “Inter caetera” that all lands […]
1791: Constitution of May 3 is proclaimed by the Great Sejm (Parliament) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the first modern constitution in Europe 1808: Day depicted by Spanish painter Francisco Goya in his “The Third of May,” which he paints in 1814 1926: Britain’s Trade Union Congress calls for the country’s first-ever general strike, begins at […]
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: Argentine […]
1707: Acts of Union come into force, uniting England and Scotland to form the 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 is issued by the United […]
