323 BC Alexander the Great (died), Macedonian king (born 356 BC) 1552    Alexander Barclay (died), English poet (born 1476) 1692   Bridget Bishop (died), English-American woman executed for witchcraft (born 1632) 1692   Salem witch trials: Bridget Bishop is hanged at Gallows Hill near Salem, Massachusetts, for “Certaine Detestable Arts called Witchcraft & Sorceries“. 1713    Princess Caroline… Continue reading →

53       The Roman Emperor Nero marries Claudia Octavia. 68       The Roman Emperor Nero (born 37) commits suicide, after quoting Homer’s Iliad, thus ending the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and starting the civil year known as the Year of the Four Emperors. 1534   Jacques Cartier is the first European to discover the Saint Lawrence River. 1650   The Harvard… Continue reading →

68       The Roman Senate proclaims Galba as emperor. 632     Muhammad (died), Saudi Arabian prophet (born 570) 793     Vikings raid the abbey at Lindisfarne in Northumbria, commonly accepted as the beginning of the Scandinavian invasion of England. 1042   Edward the Confessor becomes King of England, one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England. 1154    William of… Continue reading →

1099   The First Crusade: The Siege of Jerusalem began. 1329   Robert the Bruce (died), Scottish husband of Isabella of Mar (born 1274) 1394   Anne of Bohemia (died) (born 1367) 1494   Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas which divided the New World between the two countries. 1654   Louis XIV was crowned King of France…. Continue reading →

1508    Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, is defeated in Friuli by Venetian troops 1586    Francis Drake’s forces raid St. Augustine in Spanish Florida. 1599    Diego Velázquez (born), Spanish painter (died 1660) 1683    The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, opens as the world’s first university museum. 1752    A devastating fire destroys one-third of Moscow, including 18,000… Continue reading →