1716     Gottfried Leibniz (died), German philosopher and mathematician (born 1646) 1740     Johann van Beethoven (born), German singer and educator (died 1792) 1770     James Bruce discovers what he believes to be the source of the Nile 1797     Charles Lyell (born), Scottish geologist and lawyer (died 1875) 1831     Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (died), German philosopher (born 1770)… Continue reading →

1780     Ranjit Singh (born), Indian founder of the Sikh Empire (died 1839) 1841     James Braid first sees a demonstration of animal magnetism, which leads to his study of the subject he eventually calls hypnotism. 1850     Robert Louis Stevenson (born), Scottish author and poet (died 1894) 1887     Bloody Sunday clashes in central London. 1901     The 1901… Continue reading →

1439     Plymouth, England, becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament. 1555     The English Parliament re-establishes Catholicism. 1815     Elizabeth Cady Stanton (born), American activist (died 1902) 1892     William “Pudge” Heffelfinger becomes the first professional American football player on record, participating in his first paid game for theAllegheny Athletic Association. 1912     The frozen bodies of… Continue reading →

1668     Johann Albert Fabricius (born), German scholar and author (died 1736) 1675     Gottfried Leibniz demonstrates integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = ƒ(x). 1821     Fyodor Dostoyevsky (born), Russian author (died 1881) 1831     In Jerusalem, Virginia, Nat Turner is hanged after inciting a violent slave uprising. 1831    … Continue reading →

1483    Martin Luther (born), German monk and priest, leader of the Protestant Reformation (died 1546) 1619     René Descartes has the dreams that inspire his Meditations on First Philosophy. 1775    The United States Marine Corps is founded at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia by Samuel Nicholas. 1801     Samuel Gridley Howe (born), American physician and activist (died 1876)… Continue reading →