1016: Cnut the Great [Canute], King of Denmark, claims the English throne after the death of Edmund ‘Ironside’ 1487: The first German Beer Purity Law (Reinheitsgebot), is promulgated in Munich by Albert IV, Duke of Bavaria stating beer should be brewed from only three ingredients – water, malt and hops 1648: English Parliamentary army captures King Charles I 1786: Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopold […]
526: A possible date for the Antioch earthquake in present-day Syria (then the Byzantine Empire) which killed 200,000 people 1745: Bonnie Prince Charlie’s army moves into Manchester and occupies Carlisle 1877: US inventor Thomas Edison demonstrates his hand-cranked phonograph for the first time 1935: Physicist Erwin Schrödinger publishes his famous thought experiment “Schrödinger’s cat”, a paradox that illustrates the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of […]
1520: Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan begins crossing the Pacific Ocean 1814: The Times of London first printed by automatic, steam powered presses built by German inventors Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer – makes newspapers available to a mass audience 1893: Women vote in a national election for the first time, in the New Zealand general election 1919: American-born Lady Nancy Astor elected as […]
1095: Pope Urban II preaches the west to wrestle control of the Holy land from the Seljuk Turks at the Council of Clermont, triggering the First Crusade 1295: English King Edward I calls what later became known as “The Model Parliament” extending the authorities of its representatives 1493: Christopher Columbus returns to La Navidad colony, finding it destroyed by the 1st […]
43 BC: Second Triumvirate alliance of Roman leader Octavian (later Caesar Augustus), Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Mark Antony formed 1778: British explorer Captain James Cook is the first European to visit Maui in the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii) 1789: 1st national Thanksgiving in America 1791: 1st US cabinet meeting, held at George Washington’s home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary […]
1177: Battle of Montgisard: Baldwin IV of Jerusalem defeats Saladin and a larger Ayyubid force 1783: Britain evacuates New York city, its last military position in the United States 1839: Cyclone slams south eastern India with high winds and a 40 foot storm surge, destroying city of Coringa. Storm waves sweep inland, destroying 20,000 ships and killing an estimated 300,000 […]
380: Theodosius I makes his adventus, or first formal entry, into Constantinople 1639: 1st observation of Transit of Venus by Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree – helped establish size of the Solar System 1642: Dutch explorer Abel Tasman discovers Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) 1859: English naturalist Charles Darwin publishes “On the Origin of Species” radically changing the view of evolution and laying the foundation for […]
1248: Conquest of Seville by Christian troops under King Ferdinand III of Castile after the city capitulates 1644: “Areopagitica”, a pamphlet by John Milton decrying censorship, is published 1869: The clipper Cutty Sark is launched In Dumbarton, Scotland, one of the last clippers ever built and the only one still surviving 2018: US Federal Climate report finds climate change will reduce economy by 10% […]
1497: Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounds Cape of Good Hope on way to first voyage from Europe to reach India 1926: Imperial Conference ends, giving autonomy inside British Commonwealth 1935: Flying boat “China Clipper” takes off from Alameda, California, carrying 100,000 pieces of mail on 1st trans-Pacific airmail flight 1963: US President John F. Kennedy assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald while riding in an open-topped […]
164 BC: During Maccabbean revolt Judas Maccabaeus recaptures Jersusalem and rededicates the Second Temple, commemorated since as Jewish festival Hanukkah 1818: Russia’s Tsar Alexander I petitions for a Jewish state in Palestin 1906: China prohibits the opium trade 1970: General Hafez al-Assad becomes Prime Minister of Syria following a military coup 1971: Battle of Garibpur: Indian troops aided by the Mukti […]
