History

On This Day…

532 - Nika riots begin in Constantinople, revolt against Emperor Justinian I, prompted by chariot racing. 1785 - John Walter publishes 1st issue of "The Times" of London. 1898 -…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1528 - Gustav I of Sweden crowned King of Sweden, rules for 37 years and becomes known as the "father of the nation". 1554 - Bayinnaung crowned King of Burma, goes on to assemble the…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1599- Jacob van Neck's fleet leaves Bantam, Java in modern day Indonesia with 1 million pounds of pepper and cloves and a further half a ship full of nutmeg, mace and…

Read More Here

49 - BC Julius Caesar defies the Roman Senate and crosses the Rubicon, uttering "alea iacta est" (the die is cast), signaling the start of civil war which would lead to his appointment as Roman dictator for life.…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1431 - Judges' investigations for the trial of Joan of Arc begin in Rouen, France, the seat of the English occupation government. 1760 - Afghans defeat Marathas in battle of Barari Ghat. 1839 - Daguerreotype photo process announced at French Academy…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1656 - Oldest surviving commercial newspaper begins (Haarlem, Netherlands). 1790 - 1st US President George Washington delivers 1st state of the union address. 1835 - US national debt is $0 for the first and only time in history.…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1610 - During this month in 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo made the earthshaking discoveries that four moons revolve around Jupiter and that the telescope reveals many more stars than are visible to the naked eye. 1714 - Typewriter patented…

Read More Here

On This Day…

Celebrated annually this day, Epiphany is a major feast that commemorates, for Western Christians, the coming of the Magi and, for Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jesus' birth, baptism by John, and first miracle. 1649 - The English Rump Parliament votes…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1847 - Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government. 1865 - New York Stock Exchange opens its 1st permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad St, near…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1496 - Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine. 1521 - Martin Luther is Excommunicated by Pope Leo X from the Roman Catholic Church for failing to recant parts…

Read More Here

On This Day…

366 - The Alamanni cross the frozen Rhine River in large numbers, invading the Roman Empire. 1492 - Muhammad XII, the last Emir of Granada, surrenders his city to Ferdinand…

Read More Here

On This Day…

45 - BC The Julian calendar takes effect for the first time. 630 - Prophet Muhammad sets out with his army towards Mecca, capturing it bloodlessly. 1758 - The International…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1600 - The East India Company, formed for the exploitation of trade with East and Southeast Asia and India, was incorporated by English royal charter. 1744 - English astronomer James…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1460 - Wars of the Roses: Battle of Wakefield (Northern England), Duke of York killed and his forces soundly defeated by forces for King Henry VI. 1703 - Tokyo hit by…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1835 - Treaty of New Echota is signed between the US government and representatives of a minority Cherokee political faction to cede all lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1065 - Westminster Abbey in London consecrated. 1612 - First observation of Neptune - Galileo observes and records a "fixed star" without realising it is a planet. 1767 - King Taksin crowned King of Thailand and establishes Thonburi as his…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1512-  Spanish Crown issues the Laws of Burgos, governing the conduct of settlers with regards to native Indians in the New World. 1657 - "Flushing Remonstrance" petition signed in the Dutch colony of New…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1492 - 1st Spanish settlement La Navidad in the New World is founded by Christopher Columbus (modern Môle-Saint-Nicolas in Haiti). 1792 - Trial of French King Louis XVI, court hears the kings defense brought by Raymond Desèze. 1825 - Decembrist uprising in Russia…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1 - 1st Christmas, according to calendar-maker Dionysus Exiguus. 800 - Pope Leo III crowns Charles the Great (Charlemagne), Roman Emperor. 1066 - William the Conqueror is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey, completing the Norman conquest…

Read More Here

On This Day…

563 - The Byzantine church Hagia Sophia in Constantinople is dedicated for the second time after being destroyed by earthquakes. 1565 - Compromise of the Nobles in Habsburg Netherlands closes against inquisition. 1814 - Treaty…

Read More Here

On This Day

962 - Byzantine-Arab Wars: Under the future Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Byzantine troops stormed city of Aleppo, recovering the tattered tunic of John the Baptist. 1688 - King James II, the last Roman Catholic British…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1216 - The Dominican order was sanctioned by Pope Honorius III. 1481 - The member states of the Swiss Confederation concluded the Diet of Stans, an agreement whereby civil war…

Read More Here

31 years since Pan Am Boeing 747 explosion over Lockerbie

About 7:00 PM on December 21 in 1988, Pan Am flight 103, a Boeing 747 en route to New York City from London, exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. The plane had…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1845 - The Battle of Firoz Shah began between British and Sikh forces during the First Sikh War. 1898 - French Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discover radium. 1913 - …

Read More Here

On This Day…

1522 - Suleiman the Magnificent accepts surrender of the surviving Knights of Rhodes, who are allowed to evacuate. They eventually settle in Malta and become known as the Knights of…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1776 - Thomas Paine publishes his 1st "American Crisis" essay beginning"These are the times that try men's souls" (date disputed). 1777 - During the American Revolution, General George Washington led 11,000…

Read More Here

On This Day…

218 - BC Second Punic War: Battle of the Trebia - Hannibal's Carthaginian army heavily defeat Roman forces on Italian soil. 1271 - Kublai Khan renames his empire "Yuan" (元 yuán), marking…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1398 - Timur (Tamerlane) captures and sacks Delhi, defeating Sultan Nasir-u Din Mehmud's armies by setting camels loaded with hay alight and charging them at the Sultans armoured elephants. 1526 - Pope Clemens…

Read More Here

AI deployed to complete Beethoven’s unfinished tenth symphony

In the run-up to Ludwig van Beethoven's 250th birthday, a team of musicologists and programmers is using artificial intelligence to complete the composer's unfinished tenth symphony. The piece was started…

Read More Here

On This Day…

533 - Byzantine general Belisarius defeats the Vandals, under King Gelimer, at the Battle of Ticameron. 1256 - Hulagu Khan captures and destroys Hashshashin stronghold at Alamut, in present-day Iran, part of the Mongol offensive on Islamic southwest Asia.…

Read More Here

On This Day…

644  - Uthman ibn Affan, companion of Muhammad, appointed 3rd Caliph of Islam. 1287 - During St. Lucia's Flood in Northwest Netherlands the Zuiderzee seawall collapses with loss of over 50,000 lives. Fifth largest recorded flood…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1577 - Sir Francis Drake sets sail from England on a circumnavigation of the world. 1642 - Dutch navigator Abel Tasman sighted South Island, New Zealand, and later, mistaking the strait north of the island for a bay,…

Read More Here

On This Day…

627 - Battle at Nineveh: Byzantine Emperor Heraclius beats Sassanid forces during Byzantine-Sassanid War. 1901 - Guglielmo Marconi sends the first transatlantic radio signal, from Poldhu in Cornwall to Newfoundland, Canada. 1925 - Last Qajar Shah of Iran deposed; Rezā Shāh Pahlavi…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1792 -France's King Louis XVI goes on trial, accused of high treason and crimes against the state. 1911 - Egyptian novelist and screenplay writer Naguib Mahfouz, the first Arabic writer to be awarded the Nobel…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1520 - Martin Luther publicly burns papal edict demanding he recant. 1684 - Isaac Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, is read to the Royal Society…

Read More Here

On This Day…

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…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1863 - Abraham Lincoln issues his Amnesty Proclamation and plan for Reconstruction of the South 1941 - US & Britain declare war on Japan, US enters WW II. 1941 -…

Read More Here

On This Day…

43 BC - Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman orator and politician is assassinated in Formiae. 1909 - Inventor Leo Baekeland patents the first thermosetting plastic, Bakelite, sparking the birth of the plastics industry. 1917 - The United…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1240 - Mongols under Batu Khan occupy and destroy Kiev; out of 50,000 people in the city only 2,000 survive. 1534 - Sebastián de Belalcázar, under the authority of Francisco Pizarro, occupied the Indian city of Quito…

Read More Here

On This Day…

771 - Charlemagne becomes the sole King of the Franks after the death of his brother Carloman. 1349 - 500 Jews of Nuremberg massacred during Black Death riots. 1456 - Earthquake strikes Naples; about 35,000 die. 1484 - Innocent…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1093 - St. Anselm of Canterbury was consecrated as archbishop. 1154 - Adrian IV was elected pope, becoming the only Englishman to occupy the papal throne. 1533 - On this day in 1533, the three-year-old who…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1586 - Sir Thomas Herriot introduces potatoes to England from Colombia. 1818 - Illinois was admitted as the 21st state of the United States of America. 1854 - Eureka Stockade: In what is claimed by…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1804 - Napoleon Bonaparte has crowned Emperor of France in Paris. 1823 - President James Monroe declares his "Monroe Doctrine", a US foreign policy regarding Latin America. 1845 - Manifest Destiny: US President James K. Polk…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1016 - Cnut the Great [Canute], King of Denmark, claims the English throne after the death of Edmund 'Ironside'. 1648 - English Parliamentary army captures King Charles I. 1731 -…

Read More Here

On This Day…

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 &…

Read More Here

On This Day…

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…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1095 - Pope Urban II preaches 1st Crusade 1295 - English King Edward I calls what later became known as "The Model Parliament" extending the authorities of its representatives. 1493…

Read More Here

On This Day…

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…

Read More Here

On This Day…

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…

Read More Here

On This Day…

380 - Theodosius I makes his adventus, or first formal entry, into Constantinople. 1639 - 1st observation of the transit of Venus by Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree - helped establish size of the…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1248 - Conquest of Seville by Christian troops under King Ferdinand III of Castile after the city capitulates. 1407 - Louis I, duc d'Orléans, was assassinated by agents of John the Fearless, duke…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1497 - Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounds Cape of Good Hope on way to the first voyage from Europe to reach India. 1718 - The pirate Blackbeard was killed off…

Read More Here

On This Day….

164 BC - During Maccabbean revolt Judas Maccabaeus recaptures Jersusalem and rededicates the Second Temple, commemorated since as Jewish festival Hanukkah. 1620 - Mayflower Compact signed by Pilgrims at Cape Cod, [O.S. Nov 11].…

Read More Here

On This Day…

284 - Roman soldier Diocletian proclaimed Emperor by the army. 762 - Bögü, Khan of the Uyghurs, conquers Lo-Yang, capital of the Chinese Empire. 1695 - Zumbi last leaders of Quilombo dos Palmares in…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1530 - The Recess document resulting from the Diet of Augsburg signed by Charles V and catholic princes. 1620 - The Mayflower reaches Cape Cod and explores the coast. 1794…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1477 - First English dated printed book "Dictes & Sayengis of the Phylosophers" by William Caxton. 1626 - St. Peter's Basilica is consecrated, replacing earlier basilica, the world's largest Christian basilica. 1903 - Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla,…

Read More Here

On This Day…

1558 - Elizabeth I aged 25 ascends the English throne upon the death of her half-sister Queen "Bloody" Mary. 1800 - Congress holds its 1st session in Washington D.C. in…

Read More Here