215 BC: A temple dedicated to Venus Erycina is built on Capitoline Hill to commemorate the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene 1014: King Brian Boru of Ireland defeats Viking forces at the Battle of Clontarf, freeing Ireland from foreign control 1597: William Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” is first performed, with Queen Elizabeth I […]
1500: Pedro Álvares Cabral is the first European to discover Brazil, landing near Monte Pascoal, claims it for Portugal 1915: First military use of poison gas occurs when Germany uses chlorine gas against the Allies at Ypres in World War I [1] 1993: Holocaust Memorial Museum dedicated in Washington, D.C. 1994: 7,000 Tutsi slaughtered by […]
753 BC: Romulus and Remus found Rome (traditional date) 1526: First Battle of Panipat: Central Asian conqueror Babur defeats Sultan Ibrahim Lodi, establishing the Mughal Empire in India 1792: Brazilian revolutionary Tiradentes, is hanged, drawn and quartered in Rio de Janeiro 1863: Bahá’u’lláh, founder of the Bahá’í Faith, enters the garden of Rivden near Baghdad. […]
1290: Round Table tournament held near Winchester, England, in imitation of King Arthur, to commemorate betrothal of daughter of Edward I, and attended by the king 1862: First pasteurization test is completed by Frenchmen Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard 1902: Marie and Pierre Curie isolate the radioactive compound radium chloride 1968: British politician Enoch Powell […]
1770: British explorer Captain James Cook first sights Australia. Writes in his log book that “what we have as yet seen of this land appears rather low, and not very hilly, the face of the Country green and Woody, but the Sea shore is all a white Sand.” 1775: American Revolution begins in Lexington, Massachusetts, […]
1025: Bolesław I the Brave is crowned in Gniezno, becoming the first King of Poland 1506: The cornerstone of the current St. Peter’s Basilica is laid in the Vatican by Pope Julius II 1775: Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott ride from Charlestown to Lexington warning “the regulars are coming!” 1783: American Revolution: George […]
1492: Christopher Columbus signs a contract with the Spanish monarchs to find the “Indies” with the stated goal of converting people to Catholicism. This promises him 10% of all riches found, and the governorship of any lands encountered. 1895: Treaty of Shimonoseki is signed ending the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) 1961: 1,400 Cuban exiles land […]
1457 BC: Battle of Megiddo: Egyptian forces of Thutmose III defeat a large Canaanite coalition under King of Kadesh. First battle recorded with a reliable account. 1705: Queen Anne of England knights scientist Isaac Newton at Trinity College, Cambridge 1746: Jacobite Rising 1745: Battle of Culloden, the last battle on British soil: Royalist troops under […]
1755: Samuel Johnson’s “A Dictionary of the English Language” is published in London 1861: Federal army of 75,000 volunteers is mobilized by President Abraham Lincoln at the start of the American Civil War 1874: First ‘Impressionist’ exhibition opens in Paris, features Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Berthe Morisot 1877: World’s […]
1865: US President Abraham Lincoln is shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington; he dies a day later 1912: RMS Titanic, the world’s largest ocean liner, hits an iceberg at 11.40pm off Newfoundland, sinks in the early hours of April 15 1914: Dr. Harry Plotz isolates the bacteria that […]
