The defeat which the British experienced during a raid that began on this day is considered the toughest in the history of their navy. On that day, namely, Dutch admiral Michiel de Ruyter (the most famous Dutch admiral in history) attacked the Englis...
On this day in 1922, Aage Bohr, Nobel Prize winner and son of another famous Nobel laureate Niels Bohr, was born. They both received the Nobel Prize in the same scientific field – Physics. It is interesting that in the history of Nobel Prizes, such a...
On this day in 1790, during the French Revolution, French noble titles were abolished. Of course, it was a significant event, as the nobility in France played a major role in the pre-revolutionary period. By abolishing noble titles, French nobles los...
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were a married couple convicted of atomic espionage during the Cold War. It was a time when communists were persecuted in the United States, when almost everyone who was in the least bit suspicious to the American authorit...
On this day the first comic about the cat Garfield was published simultaneously in 41 newspapers across the United States. The creator and author of the comic strip is the celebrated Jim Davis who named the cat after his grandfather James A. Garfield...
On this day the famous Anastasia, a member of the Russian imperial family and the daughter of the last Russian tsar, was born. She was the youngest of four daughters of Tsar Nicholas II and was murdered along with other members of her family after t...
On this day the powerful German ruler Frederick Barbarossa was crowned emperor in Rome. In fact, the tradition of German rulers bearing the title of Roman Emperors and being crowned by popes in Rome had been started already two centuries before him....
On this day in 1908, the first Japanese immigrants arrived in Brazil in greater numbers. It is interesting that today Brazil has the largest population of Japanese descent than any other country outside of Japan. In total, their number in Brazil is e...
On this day one of the most famous battles in the entire world history took place. Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated once and for all on the battlefield near the Belgian town of Waterloo (just a few kilometers south of Brussels). Napoleon was opposed b...
On this day in 1983, the first American woman was launched into space. Her name was Sally Ride and she was than 32 years old. It is interesting that she remained the youngest American person ever launched into space. Taking into account all the world...
On this day in 1696, the Polish King John III Sobieski, known as the savior of Vienna from the Ottoman siege, died. Namely, in 1683, John III Sobieski, coming to the aid of the besieged Vienna, crushed the Ottoman forces led by Grand Vizier Kara Must...
On this day, in the hotel-office complex Watergate in Washington, the police arrested five burglars in the offices of the Democratic Party headquarters. The burglars were unusual by the fact that wiretapping equipment, $2.300 in bills with sequentia...
On this day in 1985, the first Arab and Muslim was sent into space. It was Prince Sultan bin Salman Al Saud, a member of the Saudi royal dynasty. It is interesting that he was the first person of royal blood sent into space. To be precise, Prince Sul...
On this day in 1967, China tested its first thermonuclear bomb, being the fourth country, after only the USA, the USSR, and the UK. As is well-known, a thermonuclear (hydrogen) bomb is much more powerful than ordinary nuclear bomb. Specifically, it i...
On this day Hitler’s private secretary Martin Bormann was born. He was certainly one of the most powerful men in the Third Reich, rivaling even Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring. Bormann was close to Hitler at all times, and not in...
On this day the first woman in history, Valentina Tereshkova of Russian nationality, was launched into space. The Soviets selected her among more than 400 candidates, for which the imposed requirements were that they are younger than 30 years of age,...
On this day in the year 1779 the Great Siege of Gibraltar, a strategic promontory on the southern coast of the Iberian Peninsula, began. This invasion took place during the American War of Independence, after France and Spain decided to support the A...
On this day Cossack leader Stenka Razin was executed. Razin led a very unusual life, during which he led a number of gangs that plundered even across distant Persia (Iran). Razin belonged to the so-called Don Cossacks, used as a specific military for...
On this day in 2012, the first Chinese woman, Liu Yang, was launched into space. She was a part of the Shenzhou 9 crew, the fourth Chinese manned spacecraft flight. It is particularly interesting that the mission was launched on 49th anniversary of t...
This day IBM celebrates as the day of its inception. Back in 1911, the famous American entrepreneur Charles Ranlett Flint created a new company by successfully merging several previous computer companies that had been manufacturing tabulators, employ...
On this day in 1978, the reigning King Hussein of Jordan married former United States citizen Lisa Najeeb Halaby. She thus became the Queen of Jordan and took the new name – Noor Al-Hussein (Nur Al-Hussein) – which means “Light of Hussein”. The weddi...
On this day in 1667, the first thoroughly documented blood transfusion was performed. It was administered by the French physician Jean-Baptiste Denys, the famed physician of King Louis XIV (the Sun King). The transfusion which Denys performed was no...
On this day, according to legend, the oldest national flag in the world that is still in use was created. It is the Danish flag with a white cross on a red field. The Danes call it “Dannebrog”, which means “Danish cloth”. On this day in 1219 the Dane...
On this day in 1888, the famous Emperor Wilhelm II from the Hohenzollern dynasty assumed the German imperial throne. The whole series of events was quite unusual because his father and predecessor reigned for only 99 days before he died. So his grand...
On this day in 1775, George Washington became the supreme commander of the U.S. Army. He had previously served as a colonel in the army of Virginia (one of the 13 colonies that wished to fight for independence from Great Britain). George Washington w...
On this day in 2002, an asteroid came very close to the Earth, which was a quite dangerous situation. The asteroid, which weighed 540,000 tons, missed the Earth by only 120,000 kilometers. Previously, another asteroid, the 10-meter 1994 XM1, had come...
On this day, German troops occupied Paris. It was a great triumph for the Wehrmacht (the German Army), but also for Adolf Hitler personally because his occupied a metropolis for the first time. Army Group B (German: Heeresgruppe B), under the suprem...
On this day two pilots took off from Canada towards Ireland on the first continuous flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The British aviators in question were John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, and they were piloting a World War I-era Vickers Vimy bo...
The U.S. Army was established on this day in 1775. Namely, the American Continental Congress (the predecessor of today's Congress) established the army in order to fight against the British. The Army also included the existing volunteers units, and a...
The earliest preserved written document in which the city of Munich is mentioned was dated on this day in 1158. Specifically, at that time the powerful Duke of Bavaria and Saxony, Henry the Lion, built a bridge over the river Isar next to a place whe...
