356: Emperor Constantius II shuts all heathen temples 1600: Peruvian stratovolcano Huaynaputina explodes in the most violent eruption in South American recorded history 1878: Thomas Edison is granted a patent for his gramophone (phonograph) 1942: About 150 Japanese warplanes attack the Australian city of Darwin 1945: US 5th Fleet launches invasion of Iwo Jima against the Japanese with 30,000 US Marines Source: Onthisday.com
1519: Hernán Cortés leaves Cuba for the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico with 11 ships and 500 men 1678: John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” is published in Holborn, London, by Nathaniel Ponder 1861: King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia becomes first King of Italy 1885: Mark Twain publishes the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” in the US 1917: 1st major strike of the Russian “February Revolution” starts […]
1568: Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II agrees to pay tribute to the Ottoman Empire for peace 1865: Columbia in South Carolina burns down during the American Civil War 1876: Sardines first canned by Julius Wolff in Eastport, Maine 1972: British Parliament votes to join the European Common Market 2017: Discovery of a new mostly underwater continent Zealandia in the South Pacific announced in […]
1659: 1st known cheque written (£400), now on display at Westminster Abbey 1840: American Charles Wilkes discovers Shackleton Ice Shelf, Antarctica 1923: Howard Carter opens the inner burial chamber of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb and finds the sarcophagus 1959: Fidel Castro becomes the 16th Prime Minister of Cuba after overthrowing Fulgencio Batista 2005: The Kyoto Protocol comes into force following its ratification by Russia committing industrialized nations to […]
399 BC: Philosopher Socrates is sentenced to death by the city of Athens for corrupting the minds of the youth of the city and for impiety 590: Khosrau II, the last great Sasanian king is crowned King of Persia 1763: Austria, Prussia & Saxony sign the Treaty of Hubertusburg, marking the end of the French and Indian War and of […]
1014: Pope Benedict VIII crowns Henry II Holy Roman Emperor 1076: Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV (for the 1st time) 1797: Battle of Cape St. Vincent: British fleet under Admiral Sir John Jervis defeats larger Spanish fleet under Admiral Don José de Córdoba y Ramos near Cape St. Vincent, Portugal. Captain Horatio Nelson distinguishes himself. 1876: Alexander G. Bell […]
1258: Baghdad, then a city of 1 million, falls to the Mongols as the Abbasid Caliphate is destroyed, tens of thousands slaughtered, ending the Islamic Golden Age 1601: 1st British East India Company voyage departs from London, lead by John Lancaster 1689: Parliament of England adopts the Bill of Rights which establishes the rights of parliament and places limits on […]
1700: The Great Northern War begins in Northern Europe between Denmark–Norway, Saxony and Russia and the Swedish Empire. 1912: The last Qing Emperor of China, Puyi (age 6) abdicates after losing the support of the Chinese people and thus the “mandate of heaven” 1947: French fashion designer Christian Dior presents his first influential collection, named the “New Look” 1999: US President Bill […]
1858: First vision of the Virgin Mary to 14-year-old Bernadette of Lourdes, France 1929: Vatican City, the world’s smallest country, is made an enclave of Rome 1975: Margaret Thatcher defeats Edward Heath for leadership of the British Conservative 1990: Nelson Mandela released after 27 years imprisonment in South Africa 2011: Egyptian Revolution culminates in the resignation of Hosni Mubarak and the transfer of power to the […]
60: St Paul thought to have been shipwrecked at Malta 1720: Edmond Halley appointed as the second Astronomer Royal at the Greenwich Observatory 1763: Treaty of Paris ends French-Indian War, surrendering Canada to Britain 1824: Simón Bolívar named dictator by the Congress of Peru 1879: Henry Morton Stanley departs for the Congo 1906: British battleship HMS Dreadnought launches after only 100 days, renders all […]
