Interesting Facts

9th August 1173 – Construction of the campanile of the Cathedral of Pisa (now known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa) began. It took two centuries to complete. 1483 – The Sistine Chapel opened in Rome with the celebration of a mass. 1842 – The Webster–Ashburton Treaty was signed, establishing the United States–Canada border east of the Rocky Mountains. 1892 – Thomas Edison received a patent for a two-way telegraph. 1902 – Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 1922 – Philip Larkin, English poet and author was born. 1936 – The Summer Olympic Games aka Games of the XI Olympiad were held in Berlin. Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal at the games becoming the first American to win four medals in one Olympiad. 1942 – Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi was arrested in Bombay by British forces, launching the Quit India Movement. 1945 – World War II: Nagasaki, Japan was devastated when an atomic bomb, Fat...

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...

23rd July 1942 – The Treblinka extermination camp was opened. 1961 – The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) was founded in Nicaragua. 1967 – Riots broke out in Detroit, Michigan, one of the worst riots in United States history, by the end 43 people were killed, 342 injured and 1,400 buildings burnt to the ground. 1974- The military government in Greece collapses and the former prime minister Constantine Karamanlis was invited to return. 1982 – The International Whaling Commission voted to end commercial whaling by 1985-86. 1983 – The Sri Lankan Civil War began with the killing of 13 Sri Lanka Army soldiers by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. In the subsequent government-organised pogrom of Black July, about 1,000 Tamils were slaughtered, some 400,000 Tamils fled to neighbouring Tamil Nadu, India and many found refuge in Europe and Canada. 1984 – Vanessa Williams became the first Miss America to resign when she surrendered her crown after nude photos of her ...

1298 – King Edward I of England and his longbowmen defeated William Wallace and his Scottish schiltrons outside the town of Falkirk. 1456 – John Hunyadi, Regent of Kingdom of Hungary defeats Mehmet II of Ottoman Empire in Belgrade. 1894 – The first ever motorized racing event was held in France between the cities of Paris and Rouen. The race was won by Jules de Dion. 1916 – In San Francisco, California, a bomb exploded on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade killing 10 and injuring 40. The true identity of the bomber (or bombers) remains unknown. 1933 – Wiley Post became the first person to fly solo around the world, traveling 15,596 miles in 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes. 1934 – "Public Enemy No. 1" John Dillinger was mortally wounded by FBI agents, outside Chicago's Biograph Theatre. 1942 – The systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto began. 1944 – The Polish Committee of National Liberation published its manifesto, starting the...

18th June 1429 – French forces under the leadership of Joan of Arc defeated the main English army under Sir John Fastolf at the Battle of Patay. This turned the tide of the Hundred Years' War. 1767 – Samuel Wallis, an English sea captain, sighted Tahiti and is considered the first European to reach the island. 1812 - The United States declared war on on the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 1815 – The Battle of Waterloo led to Napoleon Bonaparte abdicating the throne of France for the second and final time. 1858 – Charles Darwin received a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that included nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin's own. This prompted Darwin to publish his theory. 1873 – Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 US presidential election. (The 19th Amendment (Amendment XIX) to the United States Constitution, which prohibits each of the states and the federal government from denying any citizen the right t...

29th May 1660 – Charles II was restored to the throne of Great Britain. (It was his birthday too.) 1913 – Igor Stravinsky's ballet score; The Rite of Spring premiered in Paris, France, provoking a riot. 1914 – Ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland sank in the Gulf of St. Lawrence; 1,024 people died. 1919 – Einstein's theory of general relativity was tested (and later confirmed) by Arthur Eddington's observation of a total solar eclipse in Principe and by Andrew Crommelin in Sobral, Ceará, Brazil. 1942 – Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra recorded Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", the best-selling Christmas single in history. 1953 – Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on Tenzing Norgay's (adopted) 39th birthday. 1968 - Manchester Utd Football Club won the European Cup becoming the first English club to do so. 1972 – 26 people were killed...

28th May 1503 – James IV of Scotland and Margaret Tudor were married according to a Papal Bull by Pope Alexander VI. A Treaty of Everlasting Peace between Scotland and England signed on that occasion resulted in a peace that lasted ten years. 1533 – The Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer declares the marriage of King Henry VIII of England to Anne Boleyn valid. 1859 – Big Ben was drawn on a carriage pulled by 16 horses from Whitechapel Bell Foundry to the Palace of Westminster. 1934 – The Glyndebourne festival in England was inaugurated. 1937 – Neville Chamberlain became British Prime Minister. 1942 – In retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Nazis in Czechoslovakia killed over 1800 people. 1952 – Women in Greece were given the right to vote. 1959: Two monkeys, Abe and Baker, became the first living creatures to survive a space mission. (Able died from the effects of anesthesia given for removal of implanted electrodes.) 1964 – The Palestine Libe...

15th April 1452 – Leonardo da Vinci was born. 1755 – Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language was published in London. 1802 – William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy saw a "long belt" of daffodils, inspiring "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud". 1892 – The General Electric Company was formed. 1912 – The RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic, after hitting an iceberg two and a half hours earlier, killing over 1,500 people. 1923 – Insulin became generally available for use by people with diabetes. 1941 – 200 Luftwaffe bombers attacked Belfast, Northern Ireland, killing over 1,000 people. 1942 – The George Cross was awarded to "to the island fortress of Malta – its people and defenders" by King George VI. 1945 - British troops liberated the German concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. 1984 – Tommy Cooper died. 1989 - 96 Liverpool fans died in a crush at the Leppings Lane end of Hillsborough Football Stadium at the FA Cup...

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 ...