May 25 in History 567 BC – Servius Tullius, the king of Rome, celebrates a triumph for his victory over the Etruscans. 240 BC – First recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet. 1085 – Alfonso VI of Castile takes Toledo,…
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 22 in History 192 – Dong Zhuo is assassinated by his adopted son Lü Bu. 760 – Fourteenth recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet. 853 – A Byzantine fleet sacks and destroys undefended Damietta in Egypt. 1176 – The Hashshashin (Assassins) attempt to assassinate Saladin near Aleppo. 1200 – King John of England and King Philip II of France sign…
May 21 in History 293 – Roman Emperors Diocletian and Maximian appoint Galerius as Caesar to Diocletian, beginning the period of four rulers known as the Tetrarchy. 878 – Syracuse, Sicily, is captured by the Muslim Aghlabids after a nine-month siege. 879 – Pope John VIII gives blessings to Branimir of Croatia and to the Croatian people, considered to be international recognition…
May 14 in History 1097 – The Siege of Nicaea begins during the First Crusade. 1264 – Battle of Lewes: Henry III of England is captured and forced to sign the Mise of Lewes, making Simon de Montfort the effective ruler of England. 1509 – Battle of Agnadello: In…
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 10 in History 28 BC – A sunspot is observed by Han dynasty astronomers during the reign of Emperor Cheng of Han, one of the earliest dated sunspot observations in China. 1291 – Scottish nobles recognize the authority of Edward I of England pending…
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 25 in History 404 BC – Admiral Lysander and King Pausanias of Sparta blockade Athens and bring the Peloponnesian War to a successful conclusion. 775 – The Battle of Bagrevand puts an end to an Armenian rebellion against the Abbasid Caliphate. Muslim control over Transcaucasia is solidified and its Islamization begins, while several major…
April 11 in History 491 – Flavius Anastasius becomes Byzantine emperor, with the name of Anastasius I. 1241 – Batu Khan defeats Béla IV of Hungary at the Battle of Mohi. 1512 – War of the League of Cambrai: French forces led by Gaston de Foix win the Battle of Ravenna.…