Interesting Facts

8th August 1503 – King James IV of Scotland married Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh, Scotland. 1585 – John Davis entered the Cumberland Sound in search of the Northwest Passage. 1709 – The first documented balloon flight in Europe was demonstrated by Bartolomeu de Gusmão, in Lisbon. It did not end well, but he was the first. 1786 – Mont Blanc on the French – Italian border was climbed for the first time by Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard. 1793 – The insurrection of Lyon occured during the French Revolution. 1794 – Joseph Whidbey led an expedition to search for the Northwest Passage near Juneau, Alaska. 1876 – Thomas Edison received a patent for his mimeograph. 1908 – Wilbur Wright made his first flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France. It was the Wright Brothers' first public flight. 1929 – The German airship Graf Zeppelin began a round-the-world flight. 1942 – The Quit India Movement was laun...

July 28th 1540 – Thomas Cromwell was executed at the order of Henry VIII of England on charges of treason. Henry married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, on the same day. 1794 – French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just were executed by guillotine in Paris, France. 1821 – José de San Martín declared the independence of Peru from Spain. 1868 – The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was certified, establishing African American citizenship and guaranteeing due process of law. 1914 – World War I: Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia after Serbia rejected the conditions of an ultimatum sent by Austria on July 23 following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. 1943 – World War II: Operation Gomorrah – The Royal Air Force bombed Hamburg, Germany causing a firestorm that killed 42,000 German civilians. 1945 – A U.S. Army B-25 bomber crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing 14 and injuring 26. 194...

1st June 193 – Roman Emperor Didius Julianus was murdered. 1495 – Friar John Cor recorded the first known batch of scotch whisky. 1533 – Anne Boleyn was crowned Queen of England. 1794 – The battle of the Glorious First of June was fought, the first naval engagement between Britain and France during the French Revolutionary Wars. 1869 – Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric voting machine. 1910 – Robert Falcon Scott's South Pole expedition left England. 1922 – The Royal Ulster Constabulary was founded. 1935 – The first driving tests were introduced in the United Kingdom. 1941 – The Farhud, a pogrom against Iraqi Jews, took place in Baghdad. 1942 – The Warsaw paper Liberty Brigade published the first news of the concentration camps. 1967 – The groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album by The Beatles was released. 1970 - British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was egged. 1974 – The Heimlich maneuver for rescuing choking victims w...

23rd June 1314 – The Battle of Bannockburn began. 1532 – Henry VIII and François I signed a secret treaty against Emperor Charles V. 1713 – The French residents of Acadia were given one year to declare allegiance to Britain or leave Nova Scotia, Canada. 1757 – 3,000 British troops under Robert Clive defeated a 50,000 strong Indian army under Siraj Ud Daulah at Plassey. 1758 – British forces defeated French troops at Krefeld in Germany. 1794 – Empress Catherine II of Russia granted Jews permission to settle in Kiev. 1845 - The Congress of the Republic of Texas agreed to annexation by the United States. 1860 - The U.S. Secret Service was created. 1868 – Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for Type-Writer. 1894 – The International Olympic Committee was founded at the Sorbonne, Paris, at the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin. 1942 – The first selections for the gas chamber at Auschwitz took place on a train load of people from Paris. 1955 - The Queen ...