656: Ali ibn Abu Talib elected the 4th Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate 1527: Pánfilo de Narváez departs Spain to explore Florida with five ships and 600 men; by 1536, only four men are still alive 1590: depiction of Francis Drake’s landing in what he called New Albion, now northern CaliforniaFrancis Drake Lands in California […]
1779: Spain declares war on Great Britain in support of France and the USA, starting the Great Siege of Gibraltar, which lasts 3 years, 7 months, and 2 weeks 1858: Abraham Lincoln says “A house divided against itself cannot stand” accepting Illinois Republican Party’s nomination for the Senate 1904: Bloomsday, the date of the fictional […]
763 BC: Assyrians record a solar eclipse that will be used to fix the chronology of Mesopotamian history 1215: King John of England signs the Magna Carta at Runnymede near Windsor in Surrey, limiting royal authority and establishing the principle that the king and his government are not above the law 1219: According to legend, […]
1381: Richard II in England meets leaders of the Peasants’ Revolt on Blackheath. The Tower of London is stormed by rebels who enter without resistance. 1645: Battle of Naseby, Leicestershire: Parliament’s New Model Army under Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Fairfax defeats the Royalist forces of English King Charles I 1777: US Continental Congress adopts the […]
1373: Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of Perpetual Alliance (world’s oldest still in existence) is signed in London between King Edward III of England and King Ferdinand I of Portugal 1866: US House of Representatives passes the 14th Amendment (Civil Rights) 1878: Congress of Berlin begins, determines the territories of the states in the Balkan peninsula following the […]
1770: Patent for the ‘Spinning Jenny’, the first multiple spinning machine that revolutionizes cotton spinning, is granted to English weaver James Hargreaves [1] 1830: Beginning of French colonization of Algeria: 34,000 French soldiers land 27 kilometers west of Algiers at Sidi Ferruch 1864: Battle of Trevilian Station, the bloodiest and largest all-cavalry battle of the […]
1184 BC: Trojan War: Troy is sacked and burned, according to calculations by Eratosthenes 631: Emperor Taizong of Tang of China, sends envoys to the Xueyantuo bearing gold and silk for the release of Chinese prisoners captured during transition from Sui to Tang from northern frontier; succeeds in freeing 80,000 1776: Continental Congress creates committee […]
1190: Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa drowns while crossing the Saleph River in modern-day Turkey, leading an army to Jerusalem during the Third Crusade 1786: A landslide dam on the Dadu River, caused by an earthquake ten days earlier, collapses and kills 100,000 in Sichuan province, China 1898: US Marines land in Cuba during […]
68: Roman Emperor Nero commits suicide, imploring his secretary Epaphroditos to slit his throat to evade a Senate-imposed death by flogging 721: Odo of Aquitaine defeats a Umayyad Muslim army at the Battle of Toulouse, checks Arab expansion in Western Europe 1549: Book of Common Prayer is adopted by the Church of England 1815: End […]
452: Attila the Hun invades Italy 793: Vikings in longships from modern-day Norway plunder St. Cuthbert’s monastery on Lindisfarne Island off the northeast coast of England, capturing and killing monks 1191: King Richard I of England arrives at Acre in modern-day Israel to join the Siege of Acre during the Third Crusade 1783: Laki volcano […]
