May 2 in History 1194 – King Richard I of England gives Portsmouth its first Royal Charter 1230 – William de Braose is hanged by Prince Llywelyn the Great. 1335 – Otto the Merry, Duke of Austria, becomes Duke of Carinthia. 1536 – Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, is arrested and imprisoned on charges of adultery, incest, treason and witchcraft. 1559 – John…
April 22 in History 238 – Year of the Six Emperors: The Roman Senate outlaws emperor Maximinus Thrax for his bloodthirsty proscriptions in Rome and nominates two of its members, Pupienus and Balbinus, to the throne. 1500 – Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral lands in Brazil. 1519 – Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés establishes a settlement at Veracruz, Mexico. 1529 –…
March 5 in History 363 – Roman Emperor Julian moves from Antioch with an army of 90,000 to attack the Sasanian Empire, in a campaign which would bring about his own death. 1046 – Nasir Khusraw begins the seven-year Middle Eastern journey which he will later describe in his book Safarnama. 1279 – The Livonian…
February 3 in History 1112 – Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, and Douce I, Countess of Provence, marry, uniting the fortunes of those two states. 1451 – Sultan Mehmed II inherits the throne of the Ottoman Empire. 1488 – Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal lands in Mossel Bay after rounding the Cape of Good…
January 14 in History 1236 – King Henry III of England marries Eleanor of Provence. 1301 – Andrew III of Hungary dies, ending the Árpád dynasty in Hungary. 1343 – Arnošt of Pardubice becomes the last bishop of Prague and, subsequently, the first Archbishop of Prague. 1539 – Spain annexes Cuba. 1639 – The “Fundamental Orders”, the…
January 7 in History 1325 – Alfonso IV becomes King of Portugal. 1558 – French troops, led by Francis, Duke of Guise, take Calais, the last continental possession of England. 1608 – Fire destroys Jamestown, Virginia. 1610 – Galileo Galilei makes his first observation of the four Galilean moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa, although he is not able…