On This Day: A Compendium

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1603 Scottish King James VI son of Mary Queen of Scots, becomes King James I of England in succession to Elizabeth I, thus joining the English and Scottish crowns

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1837 Canada gives its black citizens the right to vote

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1882 German scientist Robert Koch discovers and describes the tubercle bacillus which causes tuberculosis ( Mycobacterium tuberculosis)

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1976 Argentine President Isabel Martínez de Perón is deposed in a military coup

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31 1st Easter, according to calendar-maker Dionysius Exiguus

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1436 Florentine cathedral Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore with dome by Filippo Brunelleschi consecrated by Pope Eugene IV (begun 1296)

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1807 British Parliament abolishes slave trade throughout the British Empire; penalty of £120 per slave introduced for ship captains

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1895 Italian troops invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia)1960 1st guided missile launched from nuclear powered sub (Halibut)

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46 BC Julius Caesar defeats Caecilius Metellus Scipio and Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Younger) in the battle of Thapsus.

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1652 Cape Colony, the 1st European settlement in South Africa, established by Dutch East India Company under Jan van Riebeeck.

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1917 US declares war on Germany, enters World War I.

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1994 Rwandan Genocide begins with the assassination of Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira with their plane being shot down by surface-to-air missiles, abruptly ending peace negotiations. Those responsible have never been identified.

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30 Scholars' estimate for Jesus' crucifixion by Roman troops in Jerusalem [or April 3]

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529 First draft of Corpus Juris Civilis (fundamental work in jurisprudence) issued by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I

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1948 World Health Organization formed by the United Nations

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1954 US President Dwight D. Eisenhower in news conference is first to voice fear of a "domino-effect" of communism in Indo-China

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1969 The Internet's symbolic birth date: publication of RFC 1

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1999 The World Trade Organisation rules in favor of the United States in its long-running trade dispute with the European Union over bananas

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1093 The new Winchester Cathedral is dedicated by bishop Walkelin

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1139 Roger II of Sicily is excommunicated.

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1149 Pope Eugene III takes refuge in the castle of Ptolemy II of Tusculum

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1341 Petrarch crowned a poet on the Capitoline Hill in Rome

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1378 Bartolomeo Prignano elected as Pope Urban VI

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1195 Alexius III Angelus drives out brother Isaak II as Byzantine emperor

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1530 Holy Roman Emperor convenes Imperial Diet in German city of Augsburg to address Protestant tensions

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1730 Congregation Shearith Israel opens the 1st North American synagogue in New York City on Mill Street in Lower Manhattan

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1759 British troops chase French out of Masulipatam India

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1766 1st fire escape patented, wicker basket on a pulley & chain

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1767 Ayutthaya kingdom falls to Burmese invaders

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1886 William Ewart Gladstone introduces the first Irish Home Rule Bill into the British House of Commons.

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1898 Battle of Atbara River, Anglo-Egyptian forces crush 6,000 Sudanese

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1913 Opening of China's 1st parliament takes place in Peking (now Beijing)

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2004 Darfur conflict: The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups

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858 Benedict III ends his reign as Catholic Pope

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1387 Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" characters begin their pilgrimage to Canterbury (according to scholars)

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1397 Geoffrey Chaucer tells the "Canterbury Tales" for the first time at the court of English King Richard II

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1492 Christopher Columbus signs a contract with the Spanish monarchs to find the "Indies" with the stated goal of converting people to Catholicism. This promises him 10% of all riches found, and the governorship of any lands encountered.

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1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki is signed ending the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95)

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1961 1,400 Cuban exiles land in Bay of Pigs in a doomed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro

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1982 Proclamation of the Constitution Act by Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau

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1529: At the second Diet of Speyer, a group of rulers and independent cities protest the reinstatement of the Edict of Worms. This begins the Protestant reformatiion.

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1587: At Cadiz harbour, Francis Drake sinks the Spanish fleet.

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1770: Captian James Cook sights the Eastern coast of Australia, meanwhile Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI in a proxy wedding.

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1775: The American Revolutionary war begins with an AMercian victory in Concord

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1782: John Adams secures recognition from the Dutch Republic for the United States, his house in The Hague becomes the first Embassy.

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1810: Venezuela acheives home rule, Vicente Emparan is removed and a junta installed.

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1839: The treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom, garunteeing its neutrality.

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1892: Charles Duryea claims to have driven the first automobile in the United States.

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1936: The first day of the Great Uprisising in Palestine occurs.

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1943: German troops enter the Warsaw Ghetto to round up the remaining Jewish population, this starts the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

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1948: Burma joins the UN.

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1951: General Douglas MacArthur retires from the military.

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1960: Students in South Korea hold a pro-demoncracy protest, eventually Syngman Rhee is forced to resign.

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1962: The bay of pigs invasion ends in succses for the defenders.

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1971: Charles Manson is sentenced to death for the Sharon Tate murders, the First sapce Station (Salyut 1) is launched and Sierra Leone becomes a republic.

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1987L The Simpson's premiers as a short cartoon on the Tracy Ulmann show

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1993: South Dakota governor George Micjleson is killed when a state-owned aircraft crashes in Iowa. Meanwhile the 51 day siege ends in Waco, Texas when a fire breaks out

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1995: The Okalhoma city bombing takes place when the Alfred P Murrah building is bombed, killing 168.

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1999: The German Bundestag returns to Berlin, first time they met their since 1933.

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2005: Pope Benedict XVI becomes Pope.

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2011: Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist party of Cuba's central committee.

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2013: Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is killed in a shootout with police.

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1564: Playwright William Shakespeare is baptised in Stratford-upon-Avon.

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1607: English colonists make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia.

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1803: Tousands of meteor fragments fall from the sky in France, this convinces European scientists that meteors exists.

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1865: John Wilkes Booth is shot dead by Union Troopers, meanwhile General Johnston surrenders his army in North Carolina to William Sherman

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1925: Paul Von Hindeburg defeats Wilhem Marx in the 2nd round to become the first directly elected head of state in the Weimar Republic.

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1933: The Gestapo is established.

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1937: In the Spanish civil war Guernica in the Basque Region is bombed by the Luftwaffe.

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1944: Heinrich Kreipe, leader of the Axis occupation of Greece, is captured by Allied commandos. Meanwhile Georgios Papandreou becomes the head of the Greek Government in exile.

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1945: The Battle of Bauzten occurs, the last succsesful German tank offensive of the war.

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1946: Father Divine, aged 70, marries Edna Rose-Ritchings, aged 21, Divine was a relgious leader who cliamed to be God. Meanwhile the Naperville train disaster kills 47

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1954: The Geneva confrence, an effort to restore peace in Indochina and Korea, begin.

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1960: The President of South Korea resigns after 12 years of dictotorial rule.

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1962: NASAs ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the moon.

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1963: The United Kingdom of Libya becomes the Kingdom of Libya, females are given the vote.

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1964: Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form Tanzania

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1966: Tashkent is destroyed by an earthquake, meanwhile a new government is formed in the Republic of Congo. Led by Ambroise Noumazalaye

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1982: 57 are killed by former police officer Woo Bum-kon in a shooting spree in South Korea

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1986: The Chernoybl Nuclear power plant in Pripyat, Soviet Union (Now Ukraine) explodes (Reactor number 4) due to an unexpcted power surge during a test. 350,000 were evacuated.

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1994: China Airlines Flight 140 crashes at Nagoya airpirt, killing 264.

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2002: Robert Steinhauser kills 16 in Erfurt, Germany, before shooting himself.

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2005: Syria ends its military occupation of Lebanon.