May 23 in History 1430 – Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians while leading an army to raise the Siege of Compiègne. 1498 – Girolamo Savonarola is burned at the stake in Florence, Italy. 1533 – The marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon is declared null and void. 1568 – Dutch rebels…
May 17 in History 1395 – Battle of Rovine: The Wallachians defeat an invading Ottoman army. 1536 – George Boleyn, 2nd Viscount Rochford and four other men are executed for treason. 1536 – Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn’s marriage is annulled. 1590 – Anne of Denmark is crowned Queen of Scotland. 1642 – Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve (1612–1676)…
May 16 in History 946 – Emperor Suzaku abdicates the throne in favor of his brother Murakami who becomes the 62nd emperor of Japan. 1204 – Having been elected on May 9, Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders is crowned as the first Emperor of the Latin Empire. 1426 – Gov. Thado of Mohnyin becomes king of Ava. 1527 –…
May 12 in History 254 – Pope Stephen I succeeds Pope Lucius I, becoming the 23rd pope of the Catholic Church. 907 – Zhu Wen forces Emperor Ai into abdicating, ending the Tang dynasty after nearly three hundred years of rule. 1191 – Richard I of England marries Berengaria of Navarre in Cyprus; she is crowned Queen consort of England the same day. 1328 – Antipope…
May 3 in History 752 – Mayan king Bird Jaguar IV of Yaxchilan in modern-day Chiapas, Mexico assumes the throne. 1294 – John II becomes Duke of Brabant, Lothier and Limburg. 1481 – The largest of three earthquakes strikes the island of Rhodes and causes an estimated 30,000 casualties. 1491 – Kongo monarch Nkuwu…
April 15 in History 769 – The Lateran Council condemned the Council of Hieria and anathematized its iconoclastic rulings. 1071 – Bari, the last Byzantine possession in southern Italy, is surrendered to Robert Guiscard. 1395 – Timur defeats Tokhtamysh of the Golden Horde at the Battle of the Terek River. The Golden Horde capital city, Sarai, is razed to the ground and Timur…
April 13 in History 1111 – Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. 1204 – Constantinople falls to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade, temporarily ending the Byzantine Empire. 1612 – Miyamoto Musashi defeats Sasaki Kojirō at Funajima island. 1613 – Samuel Argall, having captured Native…
April 12 in History 240 – Shapur I becomes co-emperor of the Sasanian Empire with his father Ardashir I. 467 – Anthemius is elevated to Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. 627 – King Edwin of Northumbria is converted to Christianity by Paulinus, bishop of York. 1012 – Duke Oldřich of Bohemia deposes and blinds his brother Jaromír who flees…
April 10 in History 428 – Nestorius becomes the Patriarch of Constantinople. 837 – Halley’s Comet makes its closest approach to Earth at a distance equal to 0.0342 AU (5.1 million kilometres/3.2 million miles). 1407 – Deshin Shekpa, 5th Karmapa Lama visits the Ming dynasty capital at Nanjing. He is awarded the title “Great Treasure Prince of…
April 7 in History 451 – Attila the Hun sacks the town of Metz and attacks other cities in Gaul. 529 – First draft of the Corpus Juris Civilis (a fundamental work in jurisprudence) is issued by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I. 611 – Maya king Uneh Chan of Calakmul sacks rival city-state Palenque in southern Mexico. 1141 – Empress Matilda became…