HistoryPod

The restored library initially contained several thousand volumes, including manuscripts and printed books acquired by Bodley and other ...

The oldest meteorite with a known date of impact crashed into a wheat field outside the Alsatian town of ...

Despite the absence of regulation and structured plays, the match turned out to be fiercely competitive. While the scoring was different from modern football, Rutgers won ...

William initially moved towards Exeter and, as William’s advance continued towards London, James struggled to organise an effective response. He was eventually allowed to leave for France in December after which William and Mary were formally offered the throne as joint ...

The students seized 66 hostages, 14 of whom were released before the end of the crisis. The other 52 hostages were held for 444 ...

The Parliament of England passed the First Act of Supremacy which made Henry VIII the head of the Church of ...

Zionists regarded the Balfour Declaration as an important recognition of their national aspirations, while many Palestinian Arabs argued that it threatened their political and national ...

The public saw the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for the first time when Pope Julius II celebrated All Saints Day ...

The Lincoln Highway connected New York City on the East Coast to San Francisco on the West Coast, traversing 13 states along the ...

“Humbug Billy”, bought his stock from the confectioner Joseph Neal who made peppermint lozenges using powdered gypsum in place of some of the relatively expensive sugar, but he mistakenly added arsenic ...

His promotion to brigadier general on 27 October 1954 came six years after President Truman ordered the desegregation of the US military, and made him the first African American general in the US Air ...

The gunfight at the O.K. Corral took place between the Earp brothers and a gang of outlaws in Tombstone, ...

Due to miscommunication and a lack of clear orders Lord Cardigan led the Light Brigade, a cavalry unit consisting of approximately 670 horsemen, in a frontal assault against a fortified Russian artillery position at the end of the ...

Taylor had a specially constructed barrel built of oak, reinforced with iron bands, and fitted with internal padding. She survived the plunge with just some bruising and a small cut to her ...

The writer Thomas Carlyle is credited with giving the conflict its name in his 1858 biography of the Prussian King Friedrich ...

The Granville–Paris Express train ran across the station platform in Paris, crashed through a 60cm wall, and fell 10 metres to the street below after it overran the buffer stop at the Gare Montparnasse ...

The breakthrough came when the team used carbonised cotton thread as a filament. A lamp that was initially illuminated on 21st October stayed lit for more than thirteen hours, providing evidence that a practical incandescent lamp was ...

Maria Theresa inherited the Austrian throne, prompting the War of the Austrian ...

After seventeen years, the Second Punic War was finally brought to an end with the decisive victory of the Roman general and consul Scipio Africanus over Hannibal at the Battle of ...

Instruments on board Venera 4 measured temperature, pressure, and the composition of the surrounding gases, with the results transmitted by radio to receiving stations on ...

Once the beer began to pour into the street, it quickly began to fill the cellars of nearby houses in which families lived, killing eight ...

The light cruiser HMS Southampton and the destroyer Mohawk were damaged, while sixteen Royal Navy sailors died and 44 were ...

Napoleon was exiled to the island of St Helena, situated roughly halfway between Africa and South America, where he lived for six years before his ...

A U-2 spy plane captured images of the construction of a missile site on Cuba, triggering the Cuban Missile ...

As she was accompanied through the Members’ Lobby, Travers Symons broke away from her escort and burst into the chamber where MPs were debating a bill regarding issues related to ...

Cyrus the Great’s Persian forces defeated the Babylonians at the Battle of Opis before entering Babylon on 12 October, bringing the Neo-Babylonian Empire to an end. He subsequently incorporated Mesopotamia into the Persian Empire while preserving Babylon’s importance as a major ...

The Pope granted the Latin title Fidei defensor to Henry after he published a book in which he defended Catholic doctrine against the criticisms levelled at it by Martin Luther in his Ninety-five Theses during the early stages of the Protestant ...

At around 6am on 10 October the hurricane made landfall at Barbados in the Lesser Antilles, where it unleashed its full fury as it moved through the ...

Charles opened the fifth session of the Cavalier Parliament in the Great Hall at Christ Church College in Oxford, having left London to escape the Great ...

The Great Stand on the Ugra River marked the start of the decline of the Great ...

Keen to consolidate the newly-united Germany, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck turned to diplomacy in an attempt to ensure the status quo in ...

The Jazz Singer demonstrated to a large audience that recorded dialogue could be incorporated successfully into a commercial feature film. It used the Vitaphone system that played large phonograph discs in synchronisation with the film ...

Two cultural icons made their first appearance when Dr No, the first of the James Bond series of films, hit cinema screens on the same day as the Beatles released their debut single ‘Love Me ...

By the 16th Century a sizable drift had developed between the Julian calendar, the lunar calendar, and the real moon which the new calendar sought to ...

The bomb was successfully detonated at 8 a.m., making Britain the third country to successfully develop and detonate a nuclear weapon, after the United States and Soviet ...

United States President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed on his left-hand ...

The Chinese Communists in the People’s Liberation Army had been fighting the second stage of a long and costly civil war against the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek, known as the Kuomintang, since shortly after the end of the Second World ...

The Flintstones attracted strong ratings, demonstrating that an animated series could compete with live-action programmes in an evening schedule and establishing Hanna-Barbera as a major television animation ...

President George Washington wrote to Congress, stating that the military was something on which the “honor, safety and well being of our Country so evidently and essentially ...

Fleming found that a petri dish containing staphylococci bacteria had been contaminated with an unidentified fungus. The bacteria around the fungus had been destroyed, whereas bacteria that were further away ...

The railway was developed by to improve the transport of coal from inland collieries to Darlington and the port at ...

The first United States presidential debate took place between John F. Kennedy and Richard ...

The Battle of Stamford Bridge saw both sides suffer heavy casualties but, with Harald Hardrada slain in battle, the English emerged ...

The vehicle, designated RM1, was conceived by London Transport to replace its extensive trolleybus network with motor buses and was developed in conjunction with the Associated Equipment Company (AEC), with Park Royal involved in the construction of the ...

Teletext was the dominant medium for accessing breaking news until the arrival of the World Wide ...

Hale volunteered to gather intelligence on British troop movements and strategies but was captured, swiftly subjected to a trial by British authorities, found guilty of spying, and condemned to death as an illegal ...

The Convention unanimously decreed that ‘royalty is abolished in France’ and subsequently ordered that official documents should be dated from ‘the first year of the French Republic’, establishing the Republican ...

The Ragamuffin War began when Brazilian rebels in the southern province of Rio Grande do Sul captured Porto ...

The German forces reached the outskirts of the French capital on 15 September and General Helmuth von Moltke, the commander of the Prussian army, gave the order to begin surrounding the ...

Lake, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and several geyser basins where they encountered numerous geothermal features, including the geyser that they named Old Faithful due to its regular ...

The talks concluded with the signing of two separate agreements – ‘A Framework for Peace in the Middle East’ and ‘A Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and ...

Claimed by its fans to be the greatest comedy film of all time, Life of Brian has courted controversy since its release due to its satirical portrayal of religion that is interpreted by some as ...

At the end of the visit Khrushchev and Eisenhower agreed to continue discussions, signalling a temporary improvement in relations that became known as the ‘Spirit of Camp ...

On the 14th September 1814, the poem that was to provide the lyrics for the United States’ national anthem was written by 35 year-old Francis Scott ...

Michelangelo’s David is considered to be one of the greatest examples of Renaissance ...

The walls of the Lascaux cave contained numerous representations of animals, including horses, bulls, bison and deer that were painted approximately 15,000 years ago, during the Upper Palaeolithic ...

Janet Parker first became ill on 11 August, but nine days passed before she was admitted to hospital and her infection was identified as ...

The Austrian delegation to Paris was led by the Social Democrat minister Karl Renner who had little choice but to agree to the redrawing of national borders that saw the emergence of several independent nations and the reduction of Austrian ...

Around 10,000 Scots are thought to have died including twelve earls, fifteen lords and numerous other nobles and clan chiefs, removing much of Scotland’s political and military leadership in a single ...

The Siege of Leningrad, one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history, ...

The Nazi German Luftwaffe launched the first of 57 consecutive days and nights of bombing raids on London in what became known as the ...

On the morning of 6 September, the French Sixth Army attacked the German First Army near the River Ourcq while the French Fifth Army and British Expeditionary Force advanced into the gap between the German First and Second Armies. On 9 September, German Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke ordered a withdrawal, marking the transition from mobile warfare to the long period of trench warfare that ...

Peter the Great's decision to ban beards was unpopular, not only because it was a significant challenge to tradition but also because shaving a beard was interpreted by some Orthodox Christians as being ...

Romulus’ overthrow facilitated Odoacer’s rise and the transition to the Ostrogothic ...

The victory halted the Mongol advance into the Levant and Egypt, preserving the Mamluks as the dominant power in the eastern Mediterranean and establishing a frontier between the Mongol-controlled lands to the ...

The Adi Granth, the original holy scripture of Sikhism now known as Guru Granth Sahib, was first installed at the Harmandir Sahib Golden ...

Britain and Russia signed the Anglo-Russian Entente, which led to the formation of the Triple ...

Approximately 700 Red Stick warriors led by William Weatherford attacked the fort. Around 250 people were killed, while at least 100 others were taken ...

The First Opium War formally ended when Britain and China signed the Treaty of Nanking, the first of the ‘unequal ...

Black teenager Emmett Till was murdered for allegedly flirting with and offending a white woman in ...

By 1916, the Allied governments had promised Romania control of Transylvania and other territories if the Central Powers were defeated. Encouraged by the Brusilov Offensive, which had inflicted heavy losses on Austria-Hungary, Romanian leaders concluded that the moment was favourable for ...

The National Constituent Assembly of France adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the ...

Captain Matthew Webb became the first person to successfully swim across the English ...

Although it had limited strategic value in military terms, the Burning of Washington demonstrated the vulnerability of the young American republic during the War of 1812 and temporarily damaged public confidence in the government’s ability to defend the ...

King Michael I of Romania led a coup d'état that removed the Nazi-aligned government of Ion ...

Slaves in the French colony of Saint-Domingue on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola began the Haitian ...

Daghlian was working alone when he accidentally dropped a block of tungsten onto the plutonium core, which increased the reflection of neutrons and pushed the system into a supercritical ...

Leon Trotsky was fatally wounded with an ice axe by Spanish communist Ramón ...

The Cold War border between Austria and Hungary was opened for a short period of time for the Pan-European ...

“The Hardest Day” saw the Luftwaffe lose more than 60 aircraft, while the RAF lost around 30 fighters together with experienced pilots whose replacement was increasingly ...

Parliament passed the Marriage Act that legalised civil marriages and introduced their formal ...

Queen Victoria sent the first telegram using the newly-installed transatlantic telegraph cable to US President James ...

Officially promoted as “An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music,” Woodstock remains one of the defining moments in the history of modern popular ...

The Atlantic Charter was issued by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston ...

The first complete performance of Wagner’s Ring cycle took place in the Bavarian town of ...

After separation from the carrier aircraft the pilots completed a controlled descent and precise landing at Edwards Air Force Base, confirming earlier aerodynamic predictions and providing engineers with valuable information for the construction and operation of the orbital shuttle ...

It took the best of part of seven months for the delegates of the new German National Assembly to agree on the terms of the new Weimar constitution, which Ebert signed into law whilst on holiday in ...

The Louvre museum in Paris opened to the public in the former palace of the French royal ...

Produced in cooperation with the Ad Council, the first Smokey Bear poster, released on 9 August 1944, showed the bear pouring a bucket of water onto a campfire beneath the message, “Smokey says – Care will prevent 9 out of 10 forest fires.” The illustration was created by artist Albert Staehle, whose friendly but authoritative depiction proved immediately ...

Traffic was stopped on the B507 road in London so The Beatles could pose for their iconic Abbey Road album ...

Alice Huyler Ramsey became the first woman to drive an automobile across a continent when she completed a 59-day road trip from New York to San ...

The Voting Rights Act outlawed literacy tests and authorised federal officials to oversee voter registration in jurisdictions with a history of discrimination, resulting in a substantial increase in voter registration and political participation among African Americans in the years that ...

Scottish independence leader Sir William Wallace was captured by English forces at Robroyston near ...

On 4 August 221 Lady Zhen, the wife of Cao Pi of Wei of the Three Kingdoms, ...

As Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey had attempted to prevent the crisis but these efforts proved unsuccessful and, during the evening of 3 August, he reportedly remarked, “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our ...

Hannibal’s army inflicted a devastating defeat on the numerically superior Roman army at the Battle of ...

George, Elector of Hanover, became King George I of Great ...

The astronauts visited geological features near the Apollo 15 landing site in the Hadley-Apennine region, collected samples, and deployed scientific experiments, while television images transmitted from the rover allowed audiences on Earth to observe the ...

La Marseillaise was composed by a French army officer and was originally called the ‘War Song for the Army of the Rhine’ with the aim of rallying soldiers fighting in Strasbourg during the French Revolutionary ...