Category: Today In History

1460 – University of Basel forms 1655 – Battle at Postage Farina, Tunis: English fleet beats Barbary pirates 1814 – Napoleon abdicates for the first time in favour of his son. 1850 – City of Los Angeles incorporated 1866 – Alexander II of Russia narrowly escapes an assassination attempt in the city of Kiev. 1887...

1764 – Austrian arch duke Jozef crowned himself Roman Catholic king 1776 – Washington receives honorary Ll.D. degree from Harvard College 1856 – Gunpowder in church explodes killing 4,000 in Rhodos 1868 – An Hawaiian surfs on highest wave ever, he rides a 50′ tidal wave 1910 – Highest mountain in North America, Alaska’s Mt...

AD 37 – Roman emperor Caligula accepts the titles of the Principate, entitled to him by the Senate. 193 – Roman Emperor Pertinax is assassinated by Praetorian Guards, who then sell the throne in an auction to Didius Julianus. 1776 – Juan Bautista de Anza finds the site for the Presidio of San Francisco. 1814...

196 BC – Ptolemy V ascends to the throne of Egypt 1513 – Spaniard Juan Ponce de Leon discovers Florida 1625 – Charles I, King Of England, Scotland and Ireland, ascends English throne 1668 – English king Charles II gives Bombay to East India Company 1790 – The modern shoestring (string and shoe holes) invented...

708 – Constantine begins his reign as Catholic Pope 1584 – Sir Walter Raleigh renews Humphrey Gilbert’s patent to explore North America 1609 – Henry Hudson embarks on an exploration for Dutch East India Company 1655 – Christiaan Huygens discovers Titan (Saturn’s largest moon) 1807 – First railway passenger service began in England 1811 –...

1540 – Waltham Abbey is surrendered to King Henry VIII of England; the last religious community to be closed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. 1775 – American Revolutionary War: Patrick Henry delivers his speech – “Give me liberty, or give me death!” – at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia. 1801 – Tsar Paul...