On this day a document was written about the wedding of famous William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway. The whole story was not at all idyllic and holds many mysteries. Firstly, Shakespeare was only 18 years old and the bride was 26. Secondly, she was...
On this day, then men that would lead the First Crusade to the Holy Land were appointed. This happened at the famous Council of Clermont, in the heart of France, where the call to the First Crusade was proclaimed. Pope Urban II appointed as leaders t...
So far, only seven people in history have become honorary citizens of the United States. The first was Sir Winston Churchill. Beside him, only Mother Theresa was named one during her life, while the other five received this status after death. Those...
On this day there was a crash in which 257 people were killed when the DC-10 type plane operated by Air New Zealand crashed into Mount Erebus in Antarctica. It was a flight intended for Antarctica sightseeing. The flight was advertised as a unique ex...
The inventor of basketball, Canadian James Naismith, died on this day. He developed basketball while teaching physical education at the YMCA Training School in Springfield in the United States. In this school there existed a problem of how to provide...
The man whose name we unconsciously mention almost every day when we talk about the temperature in degrees Celsius, was born on this day in 1701, in the Swedish city of Uppsala. That city is of double importance for Sweden. Namely, the oldest and mos...
This day marked the start of an unfortunate series of events which would ultimately weaken the Roman Empire. Namely, the reigning Emperor Marcus Aurelius gave his son Commodus the title of Imperator. The fact that Commodus became the official success...
On this day occurred one of the worst bombings in aviation history. Specifically, a bomb was placed that blew up the plane with 107 passengers and crew members while flying at a speed of 794 kilometers per hour, at an altitude of around 4,000 meters....
Jimi Hendrix, according to many the best guitarist of all time, was born on this day. He was born during World War II, in Seattle. Interestingly, his father was partly of Indian origin – namely, one of his great-grandmothers was a Cherokee Indian. An...
The inventor of dynamite Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament on this day, It stipulated that, after his death, 94% of his total wealth is to be used for the annual award ceremony in five areas of human activity (physics, chemistry, medici...
Tina Turner was born on this day in 1939. She was born in the American South, in Tennessee, named Anna Mae Bullock. She is of African-American, European, and Native American descent (Navajo and Cherokee Indians). Her father was a Baptist deacon. Anna...
Katherine Drexel, who later became a saint known for her generosity, was born on this day. She devoted her life to caring for American Indians and African Americans. St. Catherine was born in the U.S. city of Philadelphia, and was in fact is the seco...
On this day American helicopter pilot James P. Fleming made a heroic act for which he later received the highest U.S. military decoration – the Medal of Honor. The recipients of that award have numerous benefits; for example they usually receive salu...
Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt in the Valley of the Kings was opened on this day. The first to enter inside were archaeologist Howard Carter, who discovered it, and his financier Lord Carnarvon. That same day there was a strange incident at Carter’s hou...
Marshal Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult – bearer of the high title of Duke of Dalmatia (French: Duc de Dalmatie) died on this day in 1851. This title was given to him by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, after the French gained control of Dalmatia, which was ta...
On this day the funeral of assassinated U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy took place. A memorial service was held at the Catholic St. Matthew’s Cathedral, in Washington, D. C. (Kennedy was the only Catholic president of the U.S.). The funeral wa...
Charles-Michel de l’Epee, also called the “Father of the Deaf”, was born of this day. He earned his nickname thanks to his efforts in the area of communication with the hearing-impaired. He was born into a wealthy family in the French city of Versail...
On this day in 1177, one of the most famous battles between the Crusaders and the Muslims took place in the Holy Land. Namely, that was the time when the Kingdom of Jerusalem existed in Palestine. It was a state in which the Crusaders ruled, and was...
Today the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is celebrated in commemoration of the Mirabal sisters, who were violently murdered on that day by the order of Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo. During life, the fou...
The inventor of the automobile, Karl Benz, was born on this day. His dream was to create a “horseless carriage”, and bicycles were his hobby. In the year 1885 he made the first car in history by putting a gasoline engine on a tricycle that had wheels...
On this day in 1864 the famous French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born. He was small in stature, but a giant in his artistic talent. His origin is interesting. Namely, he was the firstborn son of French Count Alphonse de Toulouse-Lautrec, s...
On this day, one of Hitler’s most important field marshals – Erich von Manstein – was born. It is interesting that he, despite having a sky-high position in the Wehrmacht, was never a member of the Nazi party. Manstein was one of the people who contr...
One of the most celebrated military leaders in Russian history – Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov – was born on this day. It seems that he belongs among the rare commanders who never lost a single battle during their career. Indeed, the fact that Suvoro...
Freddie Mercury was born under the name Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar (today Tanzania), from parents who were Indian Parsis (people in India originating from Iran, of Zoroastrian faith). He was born in Zanzibar because his father was a clerk for the Br...
Lee Harvey Oswald was a suspect for the murder of President John F. Kennedy. On this day, just two days after the Kennedy assassination, Oswald was killed when the police officers led him out of the basement of the police building, taking him to the...
The famous John Boyd Dunlop, to whom we owe the popularization of the use of pneumatic tires on all road vehicles, was born on this day. The Dunlop tire brand is still respected throughout the world. Dunlop was a Scot, and it is interesting that he s...
On this day in 1910 the only guillotine execution in the history Sweden was conducted. The person guillotined was Johan Alfred Ander, a Swedish citizen convicted of robbery of an exchange agency, during which a murder was also committed. At the begin...
On this day in 2006 former KGB and FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko died in London. The cause of death was poisoning by lethal radioactive polonium-210. It is assumed that he was deliberately poisoned with this isotope in order to eliminate him. Litvin...
Jacques Mayol, a French citizen born in Shanghai, China, is the first man in recorded history who managed to dive to a depth of over 100 meters without breathing equipment, more precisely 101 meters. It was on this day that he made this historic ve...
The famous Wild West outlaw was born on this day in 1859. His real name was William Henry McCarty and he was probably of Irish origin. According to legend, he killed 21 men. Towards the end of his life he was negotiating with the governor of New Mexi...
