Category: Today In History

1066 – Eighteenth recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet. Halley’s Comet is the only naked-eye comet that may appear twice in a human’s lifetime. It last appeared in the inner Solar System and is expected to return in the year 2061. 1490 – Earliest dated edition of Maimonides “Mishneh Torah” is published 1836 – Coin…

1279 – A Mongolian victory in the Battle of Yamen ends the Song Dynasty in China 1524 – Giovanni da Verrazzano sailing for King Francis of France sights land around area of Carolinas. In the upcoming days and weeks he sailed north stopping in New York Harbor, which he described as a lake and mentioned…

597 BC – Babylonians capture Jerusalem, replace Jehoiachin with Zedekiah as king. 1621 – Native American chief visits colony of Plymouth Mass 1830 – New York Stock Exchange slowest day ever (31 shares traded) 1850 – Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” published 1861 – Arizona Territory votes to leave the Union (US Civil War) 1881 –…

On 20 April 1861, when Virginia authorities took over the Norfolk Navy Yard after its evacuation by Federal forces, they found, among other valuable items, the hulk of the steam frigate USS Merrimack. Though burned to the waterline and sunk, the big ship’s lower hull and machinery were salvageable. During the remainder of 1861 and…

51 – Nero, later to become Roman Emperor, is given the title princeps iuventutis (head of the youth). 1152 – Frederick I Barbarossa elected Holy Roman Emperor 1215 – King John of England makes an oath to the Pope as a crusader to gain the support of Innocent III. 1628 – England’s King Charles I…

1634 – First tavern in Boston opens (Samuel Cole) 1791 – First US internal revenue act (taxing distilled spirits & carriages) 1803 – First impeachment trial of a federal judge, John Pickering, begins. 1843 – Congress appropriates $30,000 “to test the practicability of establishing a system of electro-magnetic telegraphs” 1853 – Transcontinental railroad survey is…