1789: In a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, Benjamin Franklin writes “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes” 1933: First modern sit-down strike by Hormel meatpackers in Austin, Minnesota 1956: US Supreme Court rules racial segregation on buses in Alabama unconstitutional 1980: US spacecraft Voyager 1 sends back […]
764: Tibetan troops occupy Chang’an for 15 days, capital of the Chinese Tang Dynasty 1880: Best-selling American novel “Ben-Hur: A Tale of The Christ” by soldier Lew Wallace is published 1927: Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, paving the way for Joseph Stalin to consolidate complete power 1942: The Naval Battle of […]
1620: Mayflower Compact is signed by Pilgrims at Cape Cod, establishing the first framework of government in the territory that is now the USA [N.S. Nov 21] 1675: German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz demonstrates integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of the function y = f(x) 1745: Bonnie […]
1619: René Descartes has a dream that inspires his “Meditations on First Philosophy” 1674: Dutch formally cede New Netherland (New York) to the English 1885: German engineer Gottlieb Daimler unveils the world’s first motorcycle 1918: Western Union Cable Office in North Sydney, Nova Scotia, receives a top-secret coded message from Europe stating that on November […]
1494: Piero the Unfortunate of the de’ Medici family, ruler of Florence, loses power and flees the state 1799: Napoleon Bonaparte pulls off a coup and becomes the dictator of France under the title of First Consul 1980: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein declares a holy war against Iran 1989: East Berlin opens its borders at […]
392: Roman Emperor Theodosius declares Christianity the state religion 1519: First meeting of Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II and Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortés in Tenochtitlan, Mexico 1701: William Penn presents the Charter of Privileges, guaranteeing religious freedom for the colony of Pennsylvania 1734: Vincent La Chapelle, master cook to various nobility and royalty, forms a Freemasons […]
1492: Ensisheim Meteorite strikes a wheat field near the village of Ensisheim in Alsace, France. Oldest meteorite with a known date of impact. 1872: Cargo ship Mary Celeste sails from Staten Island for Genoa, mysteriously found abandoned four weeks later 1917: October Revolution in Russia; Lenin and the Bolsheviks seize power, capture the Winter Palace […]
1813: Congress of Chilpancingo declares Mexico independent from Spain 1860: Republican Abraham Lincoln of Illinois is elected the 16th President of the United States of America 1913: Mahatma Gandhi is arrested for leading Indian miners’ march in South Africa 1917: Bolshevik Revolution begins with the bombardment of the Winter Palace in Petrograd during the Russian […]
1492: Christopher Columbus learns how to grow and harvest maize (corn) from Cuba’s indigenous population 1556: Second Battle of Panipat: Hindu Emperor of North India Hem Chandra Vikramaditya is defeated by forces of Mughal Emperor Akbar, who captures and later beheads Hem Chandra 1605: Catholic conspirator Guy Fawkes attempts to blow up King James I […]
1576: Eighty Years’ War: In Flanders, the Spanish defeat the Walloons and capture Antwerp 1841: First wagon train arrives in California after a five-and-a-half-month, 1,730-mile journey over the Sierra Nevada from Missouri 1845: First nationally observed uniform election day in the United States, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November 1862: American inventor […]
