April 20 in History 1303 – The Sapienza University of Rome is instituted by a bull of Pope Boniface VIII. 1453 – Three Genoese galleys and a Byzantine blockade runner fight their way through an Ottoman blockading fleet a few weeks before the fall of Constantinople. 1534 – Jacques Cartier begins his first voyage…
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 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.…
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 6 in History 46 BC – Julius Caesar defeats Caecilius Metellus Scipio and Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Younger) at the Battle of Thapsus. 402 – Stilicho defeats the Visigoths under Alaric in the Battle of Pollentia. 1250 – Seventh Crusade: Ayyubids of Egypt capture King Louis IX of France in the Battle of Fariskur. 1320 – The Scots reaffirm their independence by…
April 5 in History 823 – Lothair I is crowned King of Italy by Pope Paschal I. 919 – The second Fatimid invasion of Egypt begins, when the Fatimid heir-apparent, al-Qa’im bi-Amr Allah, sets out from Raqqada at the head of his army. 1081 – Alexios I Komnenos is crowned Byzantine emperor at Constantinople, bringing the Komnenian dynasty to full power.…
March 30 in History 598 – Balkan Campaign: The Avars lift the siege at the Byzantine stronghold of Tomis. Their leader Bayan I retreats north of the Danube River after the Avaro-Slavic hordes are decimated by the plague. 1282 – The people of Sicily rebel against the Angevin king Charles I, in what becomes known as the Sicilian Vespers. 1296 – Edward I sacks Berwick-upon-Tweed, during armed…
March 29 in History 845 – Paris is sacked by Viking raiders, probably under Ragnar Lodbrok, who collects a huge ransom in exchange for leaving. 1430 – The Ottoman Empire under Murad II captures Thessalonica from the Republic of Venice. 1461 – Battle of Towton: Edward of York defeats Queen Margaret to become King Edward IV of England, bringing a temporary…
March 27 in History 1309 – Pope Clement V imposes excommunication and interdiction on Venice, and a general prohibition of all commercial intercourse with Venice, which had seized on Ferrara, a papal fiefdom. 1329 – Pope John XXII issues his In Agro Dominico condemning some writings of Meister Eckhart as heretical. 1513 – Spanish explorer Juan Ponce…
March 14 in History 1590 – Battle of Ivry: Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots defeat the forces of the Catholic League under Charles, Duke of Mayenne, during the French Wars of Religion. 1647 – Thirty Years’ War: Bavaria, Cologne, France and Sweden sign the Truce of Ulm. 1663 – According to his own account, Otto von…