644: Uthman ibn Affan, a companion of Muhammad, is appointed the third caliph of Islam (644-656) 1287: During St. Lucia’s Flood in northwest Netherlands, the Zuiderzee seawall collapses with the loss of over 50,000 lives, the fifth largest recorded flood in history 1542: Princess Mary Stuart succeeds her father James V and becomes Queen Mary […]
1577: Francis Drake sets sail from England on an epic three-year circumnavigation of the world aboard the “Pelican,” later renamed the “Golden Hind” 1636: The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians. Recognized today as the founding of the United States National Guard. 1642: Dutch explorer Abel […]
627: Battle of Nineveh: Byzantine Emperor Heraclius defeats Sassanid forces during the Byzantine-Sassanid War 1925: Constituent Assembly of Iran votes 257 to 3 to amend the constitution, officially overthrowing the Qajar dynasty and bestowing the crown upon Reza Shah Pahlavi 1946: United Nations accepts six Manhattan blocks as a gift from John D. Rockefeller Jr. […]
1282: Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last native and independent Prince of Wales, is killed at the Battle of Orewin Bridge near Cilmeri, close to Builth Wells in mid Wales, by forces of Edward I of England. Gruffydd reigned from 1259 and is known as Llywelyn the Last. 1620: Mayflower Pilgrims come ashore in Plymouth Bay, […]
1520: Martin Luther publicly burns Pope Leo X’s papal bull ‘Exsurge Domine’ which demanded that Luther recant his writings 1684: Isaac Newton’s derivation of Kepler’s laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper “De motu corporum in gyrum” (On the motion of bodies in an orbit), is read to the Royal Society by […]
536: Byzantine General Belisarius enters Rome while the Ostrogothic garrison peacefully leaves the city, returning the old capital to its empire 1212: Frederick II (later also Holy Roman Emperor) crowned King of Germany in Mainz 1968: Douglas Engelbart demonstrates in “The Mother of All Demos” the computer system NLS (oN-Line System) to a live audience […]
1863: Abraham Lincoln issues his Amnesty Proclamation and plan for the Reconstruction of the South 1941: US and Britain declare war on Japan, US enters World War II 1941: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his famous “Day of Infamy” speech to a joint session of Congress a day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor […]
43 BC: Roman orator and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero is assassinated in Formiae by soldiers under the command of Mark Antony 1909: Inventor Leo Baekeland patents the first thermosetting plastic, Bakelite, sparking the birth of the plastics industry 1941: The Imperial Japanese Navy, with 353 planes, attacks the US fleet at Pearl Harbor Naval Base, […]
1240: Mongols led by Batu Khan occupy and destroy Kyiv after an eight-day siege; out of 50,000 people in the city, only 2,000 survive 1865: 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution is ratified, abolishing slavery except as a punishment for crime where the party has been duly convicted 1877: Thomas Edison enters the offices […]
771: Charlemagne becomes the sole King of the Franks after the death of his brother Carloman 1349: 500 Jews of the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg are massacred during Black Death riots, part of a wave of pogroms across Western Europe 1456: Earthquake strikes Naples, killing an estimated 35,000 people 1848: US President James K. […]
