Gregory XIII conducted a reform of the calendar through his bull Inter gravissimas, issued on 24 February 1582. The bull prescribed that the date 4 October was to be followed by 15 October, i.e. that 10 days were to be simply skipped. The scientists...
This day in 1965 marked the first time in history that a pope set foot on U.S. soil. Namely, on that day, Pope Paul VI made a pastoral journey to the USA. Pope Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini) was actually the first pope to travel outside Europe d...
This day in 1881 marked the birth of Walther von Brauchitsch, one of the highest-ranking military commanders in Hitler's Third Reich. Von Brauchitsch reached the rank of field marshal in the Wehrmacht, and was the commander-in-chief of the German Arm...
On this day, the UK made its first nuclear weapons test in its history. In this way it became the third nuclear power in the world, since the only other countries to possess such weapons were the USA and the USSR. The British decided to test their ne...
A series of events took place on this day, which led to young Napoleon achieving the status of a French national hero. Namely, Napoleon managed to defend the French revolutionary government from attacks by Royalists, who threatened to completely eras...
Nazi physician Ernst-Günther Schenck, known for having spent the last days of World War II in Hitler's command bunker in Berlin, was born on this day in 1904. His accounts of the events that transpired there are of great importance for understanding...
On this day in 1955, Juscelino Kubitschek won the Brazilian presidential elections. He remains one of the most important presidents in Brazilian history to this day. During his mandate, the capital of Brazil was moved from Rio de Janeiro to the newly...
On this day in 1908, the first edition of the well-known communist newspaper, Pravda, was published in Vienna. The leading figure in these efforts was Leon Trotsky, who was at the time residing in Vienna. That city was at the time one of the most imp...
On October 2, 1930, Henry Ford laid the cornerstone of an automobile factory in the German city of Cologne. Although the American company Ford already had smaller plants in Germany for assembling cars imported from America, the decision was made to b...
Interestingly, John Francis Fitzgerald was once elected mayor of Boston, as the first Catholic of Irish descent to hold that office. On October 2, 1950, John Francis Fitzgerald, the grandfather of the famous American President John Fitzgerald Kennedy...
The killer planned his action in advance, leaving suicide letters to his wife and children. Before the police managed to get into the school, I killed myself. On October 2, 2006, 32-year-old Charles Carl Roberts IV. came to an Amish school in a hamle...
On October 2, 1847, Paul von Hindenburg, German field marshal and president, was born. His full name was Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, and he was born in the Prussian city of Posen (today's Poznań in Poland). At the tim...
This day in 1782 marked the death of General Charles Lee, George Washington's rival for the position of commander-in-chief of the Continental Army during the War of Independence. Lee was born in England in the same year as Washington (1732). During h...
The widely-known German company Siemens was established on this day in 1847. Its founders were Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske, and it was seated in Berlin, which was then the capital of the Prussian Kingdom (Germany was still divided into...
On this day in 1936, General Francisco Franco was publicly declared Generalissimo and Head of State (Jefe del Estado). This took place in Burgos, the historic capital of Castille. After becoming the Head of State, Franco took over the powers of the “...
The major Nazi war criminals were sentenced on this day at the Nuremberg Trials. It is interesting that only 24 high-ranking Nazis were brought before the court. Three of them were cleared of all charges: Hitler's Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen, Min...
On this day in 1949, Mao Zedong declared the founding of the current Chinese state. It was named the People's Republic of China, and still bears the same name. This was solemnly declared in Peking, at the well-known Tiananmen Square. The ceremony was...
On this day in 1588, two Catholic priests died a martyr's death in England. It was a time of such religious intolerance in England that it was forbidden to express one's Catholicism, and one could even be put to death for practicing the Catholic fait...
This day in 1791 marked the last session of the Constituent Assembly during the French Revolution. The Assembly was first formed in 1789, at the very beginning of the Revolution (at the same time as the attack on Bastille). The Constituent Assembly w...
One of the strangest aircrafts ever built – the Super Guppy outsize cargo freight airplane – made its first flight on this day in 1965. It was primarily built for NASA, and one of the aircrafts is still in use by that agency (it carries components fo...
German fighter pilot Hans-Joachim Marseille died on this day in 1942. He achieved fame by shooting down over 150 Allied aircraft, allegedly including an unbelievable eight kills in only 10 minutes. Marseille was very young – when Hitler came to power...
CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, was founded on this day in 1954. Originally, the acronym CERN was a French term for “Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire”, which means the “European Council for Nuclear Research”. However...
On this day, the 12-year-old girl Mary Kellerman died. Soon, other sudden deaths occurred, and all those people (in the Chicago area) had taken the Tylenol capsule. Investigators connected all murders with Tylenol, and an urgent warning was issued. P...
On this day in 1911, Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire. That was the beginning of the Italo-Turkish War (it lasted from 1911 to 1912). That war was surprisingly historically influential, although it was fought in an ostensibly marginal area. S...
On this day in 1804, Michael Hillegas died. He was the first Treasurer of the United States. Michael was born the U.S. city of Philadelphia in 1729, when this area was a part of the British colonial empire. His father was an immigrant from Germany, a...
On this day in 1850, the Catholic hierarchy in England was restored after a few-hundred-year period. In fact, there had been no Catholic bishops since the death of the last bishop appointed by the Catholic Queen Mary I (Mary Tudor) in the 16th centur...
The founder of The Boeing Company was born Wilhelm Böing, and his parents were of German-American origin. His father was a wealthy mining engineer and businessman, and he himself began his career as a timber merchant. He bought extensive timberlands...
The ferry MS Estonia sank in the Baltic Sea on this day. The ship was sailing from Tallinn, Estonia to Stockholm, Sweden. There were 989 people on board – 803 passengers and 186 crew. Most of the passengers were Scandinavian tourists. The ship first...
On this day, English forces led by William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy landed in England. Normandy was conquered by vikings in the 9th century, but they later acknowledged the French king as their ruler. Indeed, it was from the Normans that Norma...
On this day a manned aircraft exceeded Mach 3, i.e. the three times higher speed than the speed of sound, for the first time. Unfortunately, that flight ended tragically, and pilot Milburn "Mel" Apt died. He piloted the American aircraft (the Bell X...
