Category: Today In History

238 – Gordian I and his son Gordian II are proclaimed Roman emperors. 1622 – Jamestown massacre: Algonquians kill 347 English settlers around Jamestown, Virginia, a third of the colony’s population, during the Second Anglo-Powhatan War. 1630 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony outlaws the possession of cards, dice, and gaming tables. 1638 – Anne Hutchinson...

1697 – Czar Peter the Great begins tour through West-Europe 1788 – Fire destroys 856 buildings in New Orleans,  Louisiana 1826 – Beethoven’s Quartet #13 in B flat major (Op 130) premiered in Vienna 1857 – Earthquake hits Tokyo; about 107,000 die 1871 – Journalist Henry M Stanley begins his famous expedition to Africa 1907...

141 – 6th recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet 1760 – Great Fire of Boston destroys 349 buildings 1815 – Napoleon enters Paris after escape from Elba, begins 100-day rule 1852 – Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” published 1861 – An earthquake completely destroys Mendoza, Argentina 1890 – German Emperor Wilhelm II fires Republic...

1279 – A Mongolian victory in the Battle of Yamen ends the Song Dynasty in China. 1524 – Giovanni da Verrazzano sailing for King Francis of France sights land around area of Carolinas. While his place of birth in a small village south of Florence or in Lyon France is debatable, what is not is...

1489 – The Queen of Cyprus, Catherine Cornaro, sells her kingdom to Venice. 1558 – Ferdinand I appointed Holy Roman Emperor 1743 – First American town meeting (Boston’s Faneuil Hall) 1757 – On board HMS Monarch (his own flagship), British Admiral John Byng is executed by firing squad for neglecting his duty “Pour encourager les...

607 – 12th recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet 1519 – Cortez lands in Mexico 1639 – Cambridge College renamed Harvard for clergyman John Harvard 1677 – Massachusetts gains title to Maine for $6,000 1759 – 27th recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet 1781 – Sir William Herschel sees “comet”  which turned out to be...