Saturday, July 5, 2025
Today: 1687: Isaac Newton publishes “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica,” laying out his laws of motion and universal gravitation. 1775: The Second Continental Congress adopts the Olive Branch Petition, an attempt to avoid a full-scale war with Great Britain. 1811: Venezuela declares its independence from Spain, beginning its war for independence. 1852: Frederick Douglass delivers his […]
Friday, July 4, 2025
Today: 1776: The United States Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress. 1802: The United States Military Academy opens at West Point, New York. 1817: Construction on the Erie Canal begins in Rome, New York. 1826: Former Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both signers of the Declaration of Independence, die on […]
Thursday, July 3, 2025
Today: 1608: Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec City, the first permanent European settlement in Canada. 1775: George Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1863: The Battle of Gettysburg ended with a Union victory, a turning point in the American Civil War. 1890: Idaho was admitted as the 43rd U.S. state. 1938: […]
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
Today: 1644: The Battle of Marston Moor took place during the English Civil War, a significant victory for the Parliamentarian forces. 1698: Thomas Savery patented the first steam engine. 1776: The Continental Congress voted for independence from Great Britain. 1788: The U.S. Congress announced that the United States Constitution had been ratified by the required […]
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
Today: 1535: Sir Thomas More, English statesman and author, went on trial for treason for refusing to accept King Henry VIII as the head of the Church of England. 1690: In the Battle of the Boyne, King William III of England defeated former King James II, who was attempting to take back the throne of […]
Monday, June 30, 2025
Today: 1520: “La Noche Triste” (The Night of Sadness) occurred, during which Spanish forces led by Hernán Cortés were expelled from Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City) by the rebelling Aztecs. 1860: A famous debate on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection took place at the Oxford University Museum in England. 1905: Albert Einstein published […]
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 […]