Sunday, June 29, 2025
Today: 1534: Jacques Cartier is the first European to reach Prince Edward Island. 1613: The Globe Theatre in London, where many of Shakespeare’s plays debuted, burns down during a performance of “Henry VIII.” 1767: The British Parliament passes the Townshend Acts, imposing duties on goods imported into the American colonies. 1927: The first trans-Pacific airplane […]
Saturday, June 28, 2025
Today: 1461: Edward IV is crowned King of England, becoming the first Yorkist monarch. 1836: James Madison, the fourth President of the United States, dies at his Virginia estate, Montpelier. 1846: Adolphe Sax patents the saxophone in Paris. 1894: Labor Day is made an official federal holiday in the United States. 1904: Helen Keller graduates […]
Friday, June 27, 2025
Today: 1497: Cornish rebels Michael An Gof and Thomas Flamank are executed at Tyburn, London, England. 1743: English King George II defeats the French at Dettingen, Bavaria. 1829: James Smithson, founding donor of the Smithsonian Institution, dies in Genoa, Italy, leaving his estate to the United States to found an institution for the increase and […]
Thursday, June 26, 2025
Today: 1541: Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of the Incas, was assassinated in Lima by Spanish rivals. 1844: U.S. President John Tyler married his second wife, Julia Gardiner, becoming the first president to marry while in office. 1906: The first Grand Prix motor race was held in Le Mans, France. 1917: The first 14,000 U.S. infantry […]
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
Today: 1788: Virginia becomes the 10th state to ratify the United States Constitution. 1864: Union troops begin tunneling toward Confederate lines at Petersburg, Virginia, in an effort to break the stalemate during the Civil War. 1876: The Battle of the Little Bighorn, also known as Custer’s Last Stand, occurs in southeastern Montana Territory, resulting in […]
Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Today: 1314: The Battle of Bannockburn concludes with a decisive victory by Scottish forces led by Robert the Bruce over the English army. 1497: John Cabot, an Italian explorer sailing for England, makes the first recorded European sighting of North America since the Vikings, likely landing on the coast of present-day Canada. 1509: Henry VIII […]
Monday, June 23, 2025
Today: 930: The Alþingi, the Icelandic Parliament and the world’s oldest parliament, is established. 1757: Robert Clive defeats the army led by Suraja Dowla at Plassey, gaining control of Bengal. 1868: Christopher Latham Sholes and others are granted a patent for the “Type-Writer,” an early version of the typewriter. 1894: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) […]
Sunday, June 22, 2025
Today: 1611: English explorer Henry Hudson, his teenage son, and seven supporters were set adrift in a small boat in Hudson Bay by mutineers from his crew. They were never seen again. 1633: The Catholic Church forced Galileo Galilei to recant his heliocentric worldview, which stated that the Earth orbits the Sun. He spent the […]
Saturday, June 21, 2025
Today: 1675: Christopher Wren began work on rebuilding St. Paul’s Cathedral in London after the Great Fire. 1788: The United States Constitution officially went into effect as New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify it. 1834: Cyrus McCormick was granted a patent for his mechanical reaper, an invention that revolutionized farming. 1893: The first […]
Friday, June 20, 2025
Today: 1756: A British garrison is imprisoned in the “Black Hole of Calcutta” in India, resulting in many deaths. 1782: The U.S. Congress officially adopts the Great Seal of the United States. 1789: In Versailles, France, the deputies of the Third Estate take the Tennis Court Oath, vowing not to disperse until a written constitution […]