29 APRIL: WHAT HAPPENED ON THIS DAY?

  1091 – Battle of Levounion: The Pechenegs are defeated by Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. 1386 – Battle of the Vikhra River: The Principality of Smolensk is defeated by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and becomes its vassal. 1429 – Joan of Arc arrives to relieve the Siege of Orléans. 1483 – Gran Canaria, the main island of the Canary Islands, is conquered by the Kingdom of Castile. 1521 – Swedish War of Liberation: Swedish troops […]

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28 APRIL: WHAT HAPPENED ON THIS DAY?

224 – The Battle of Hormozdgan is fought. Ardashir I defeats and kills Artabanus V effectively ending the Parthian Empire. 357 – Emperor Constantius II enters Rome for the first time to celebrate his victory over Magnus Magnentius. 1192 – Assassination of Conrad of Montferrat (Conrad I), King of Jerusalem, in Tyre, two days after his title to the throne is confirmed by election. The killing is carried out by Hashshashin. 1253 – Nichiren, a Japanese Buddhist monk, propounds Namu […]

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27 APRIL: WHAT HAPPENED ON THIS DAY?

  33 BC – Lucius Marcius Philippus, step-brother to the future emperor Augustus, celebrates a triumph for his victories while serving as governor in one of the provinces of Hispania. 395 – Emperor Arcadius marries Aelia Eudoxia, daughter of the Frankish general Flavius Bauto. She becomes one of the more powerful Roman empresses of Late Antiquity. 629 – Shahrbaraz is crowned as king of the Sasanian Empire. 711 – Islamic conquest of Hispania: Moorish troops led by Tariq […]

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26 APRIL: WHAT HAPPENED ON THIS DAY?

1336 – Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) ascends Mont Ventoux. 1478 – The Pazzi family attack Lorenzo de’ Medici and kill his brother Giuliano during High Mass in Florence Cathedral. 1564 – Playwright William Shakespeare is baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England (date of actual birth is unknown). 1607 – English colonists make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia. 1721 – A massive earthquake devastates the Iranian city of Tabriz. 1777 – Sybil Ludington, aged 16, rode 40 miles (64 km) to alert American colonial forces […]

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25 APRIL: WHAT HAPPENED ON THIS DAY?

404 BC – Admiral Lysander and King Pausanias of Sparta blockade Athens and bring the Peloponnesian War to a successful conclusion. 775 – The Battle of Bagrevand puts an end to an Armenian rebellion against the Abbasid Caliphate. Muslim control over Transcaucasia is solidified and its Islamization begins, while several major Armenian nakharar families lose power and their remnants flee to the Byzantine Empire. 799 – After mistreatment and disfigurement by the citizens of Rome, pope Leo […]

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24 APRIL: WHAT HAPPENED ON THIS DAY?

1479 BC – Thutmose III ascends to the throne of Egypt, although power effectively shifts to Hatshepsut (according to the Low Chronology of the 18th dynasty). 1183 BC – Traditional reckoning of the Fall of Troy marking the end of the legendary Trojan War, given by chief librarian of the Library of Alexandria Erastothenes, among others.[1] 1547 – Battle of Mühlberg. Duke of Alba, commanding Spanish-Imperial forces of Charles I […]

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23 APRIL: WHAT HAPPENED ON THIS DAY?

215 BC – A temple is built on the Capitoline Hill dedicated to Venus Erycina to commemorate the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene. 599 – Maya king Uneh Chan of Calakmul attacks rival city-state Palenque in southern Mexico, defeating queen Yohl Ik’nal and sacking the city. 711 – Dagobert III succeeds his father King Childebert III as King of the Franks. 1014 – Battle of Clontarf: High King of Ireland Brian Boru defeats Viking invaders, but is killed in battle. 1016 – Edmund Ironside succeeds his father Æthelred the Unready as […]

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22 APRIL: WHAT HAPPENED ON THIS DAY?

238 – Year of the Six Emperors: The Roman Senate outlaws emperor Maximinus Thrax for his bloodthirsty proscriptions in Rome and nominates two of its members, Pupienus and Balbinus, to the throne. 1500 – Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral lands in Brazil. 1519 – Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés establishes a settlement at Veracruz, Mexico. 1529 – Treaty of Zaragoza divides the eastern hemisphere between Spain and Portugal along a line 297.5 leagues (1,250 kilometres (780 mi)) east of the Moluccas.[1] […]

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21 APRIL: WHAT HAPPENED ON THIS DAY?

753 BC – Romulus founds Rome (traditional date). 43 BC – Battle of Mutina: Mark Antony is again defeated in battle by Aulus Hirtius, who is killed. Antony fails to capture Mutina and Decimus Brutus is murdered shortly after. 900 – The Laguna Copperplate Inscription (the earliest known written document found in what is now the Philippines): the Commander-in-Chief of the Kingdom of Tondo, as represented by the Honourable Jayadewa, Lord Minister of Pailah, pardons […]

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20 APRIL: WHAT HAPPENED ON THIS DAY?

1303 – The Sapienza University of Rome is instituted by a bull of Pope Boniface VIII.[1] 1453 – Three Genoese galleys and a Byzantine blockade runner fight their way through an Ottoman blockading fleet a few weeks before the fall of Constantinople. 1534 – Jacques Cartier begins his first voyage to what is today the east coast of Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador.[2] 1535 – The sun dog phenomenon is observed over Stockholm,[3] as later depicted […]

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