Category: Today In History

1704 – During the Mughal-Sikh Wars, an outnumbered Sikh Khalsa defeats a Mughal army. 1790 – The U.S. Congress moves from New York City to Philadelphia. 1884 – The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., is completed. 1897 – London becomes the world’s first city to host licensed taxicabs. 1904 – Theodore Roosevelt articulated his “Corollary”...

63 BC – Cicero gives the fourth and final of the Catiline Orations. 1496 – King Manuel I of Portugal issues a decree ordering the expulsion of “heretics” from the country. 1775 – At Fort Ticonderoga, Henry Knox begins his historic transport of artillery to Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1831 – Former U.S. President John Quincy Adams...

771 – Austrasian king Carloman I dies, leaving his brother Charlemagneking of the now complete Frankish Kingdom. 1619 – Thirty-eight colonists arrive at Berkeley Hundred, Virginia. The group’s charter proclaims that the day “be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.” 1783 – At Fraunces Tavern in New York...

977 – Emperor Otto II lifts the siege at Paris and withdraws. His rearguard is defeated while crossing the Aisne River by Frankish forces under King Lothair III. 1707 – The second Siege of Pensacola comes to end with the failure of the British to capture Pensacola, Florida. 1782 –  In Paris, representatives from the...

1520 – An expedition under the command of Ferdinand Magellan passes through the Strait of Magellan. 1582 – In Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway pay a £40 bond for their marriage licence. 1785 – The first Treaty of Hopewell is signed, by which the United States acknowledges Cherokee lands in what is now East...

1161 – A Song dynasty fleet fights a naval engagement with Jin dynasty ships on the Yangtze river during the Jin-Song Wars. 1778 – In the Hawaiian Islands, Captain James Cook becomes the first European to visit Maui. 1789 – A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as proclaimed by President George...