| 1618 | | 23 May:
The Thirty Years War, a series of wars fought by European nations for various reasons, is initiated when the Holy Roman Emperor attempts to force Catholicism on most of Europe, and ends with the Peace of Westphalia.OSU CT |
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| 1648 | | 24 Oct:
The Thirty Years War ends with the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia.LoC Avalon |
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| 1683 | |
| 1776 | | 28 Oct:
British and Hessian troops under Howe meet Americans under Washington in the Battle of White Plains.MtVernon BB |
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| | 16 Nov:
British and Hession forces capture Fort Washington on the northern end of Manhattan.History.com BB |
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| 1816 | |
The previous year, Mt. Tambora erupted producing so much ash and gas the sunlight was blocked from warming the earth causing the "Year Without Summer".USGS |
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| 1869 | | 11 Jan:
The synthesis of alizarin, the standard for red dyes and pigments, is announced as it is also being prepared in front of the audience.GoogleBooks |
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| | 26 Feb:
Physician Friedrich Miescher reports that he isolated DNA from white blood cells, naming it nuclein.SciDir RalfDahm |
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| 1882 | | 24 Mar:
Robert Koch, a German physician and scientist, announces his discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes tuberculosis (TB).CDC PBS |
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| 1884 | | 13 Oct:
The Greenwich meridian is officially adopted globally as the prime meridian, the imaginary north-south line where the longitude is 0 degrees.W I R E D MAA |
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| | 1 Nov:
Greenwich Mean Time is adopted universally when the International Meridian Conference meets in Washington, DC.GMT OFA |
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| 1885 | | 30 Aug:
Gottlieb Daimler patents the first gas-engined motorcycle.W I R E D IH |
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| 1895 | | 8 Nov:
William Roentgen (Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen) discovers X-rays.NobelPrize APS |
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| 1900 | | 2 Jul:
Count Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, with five passengers, flies the world's first untethered rigid airship, the LZ-1 near Lake Constance in Germany.Airships CoF |
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| 1905 | | 27 Sep:
Albert Einstein publishes the Theory of Relativity and makes famous the equation, E = mc2.Dummies EarthSky |
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| 1906 | | 3 Nov:
The distress signal S.O.S. becomes the worldwide standard at the 2nd International Radiotelegraphic Convention.SIMag GA&C |
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| 1914 | |
| |
| | 5 Oct:
The first recorded armed aerial victory of World War I occurs when a French reconnaissance aircraft shoots down a German reconnaissance aircraft.A&S WSJ |
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| 1915 | |
| | 7 May:
The RMS Lusitania is sunk by a German U-boat.1stWW LoC |
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| 1916 | | 15 Sep:
Tanks are introduced into battle for the first time.SA MotAGI |
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| 1917 | |
| | 15 Oct:
Mata Hari is executed for spying. PBS |
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| 1918 | | Feb:
The Spanish Flu pandemic kills at least 3% of the World's population.VLib npr |
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| | 21 Apr:
Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, is shot down and killed in the skies over the Somme River in France.PBS CoF |
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| | 27 Aug:
U. S. Army forces trade shots with Mexican troops and their German advisors in the only battle of World War I fought on American soil.BYU Tucson |
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| |
| | 29 Sep:
Allied forces break through the Hindenburg Line.NCDCR AWM |
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| | 8 Oct:
Acting Corporal Alvin C. York kills 28 Germans and takes 132 of them as prisoners in the Battle of the Argonne.GWPDA SgtYork |
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| |
| | 27 Dec:
Greater Poland Uprising - Poles begin their push for independence from Prussian control in the city of Poznań, which quickly spreads.PolandIn PC |
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| 1919 | |
| 1928 | |
| 1929 | | 8 Aug:
The Graf Zeppelin begins its round-the-world flight.WingNet TDiA |
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| 1934 | | 2 Aug:
Adolf Hitler becomes Führer.USHMM JVL |
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| 1937 | | 26 Apr:
Nazis test their new air force, destroying the Basque town of Guernica in northern Spain, inspiring the Picasso anti-war painting.Zinn PBS |
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| 1939 | |
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| 1940 | |
| | 10 Jul:
The Battle of Britain begins.FWR |
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| 1941 | | 12 May:
The first fully functional, programmable computer is unveiled.W I R E D CHM |
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| |
| | 12 Dec:
Adolf Hitler personally orders the mass extermination of European Jews during a meeting of Nazi German regional governors in the chancellery.AH.dk SIMag |
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| 1943 | | 19 Apr:
Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto begin uprising against the Nazis.USHMM JVL |
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| 1944 | | 20 Jul:
Hitler survives an assassination attempt.UoC JVL |
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| | 12 Nov:
Avro Lancasters of the British Royal Air Force sink the German battleship Tirpitz off Håkøya Island near Tromsø, Norway.KBismarck BCM |
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| | 16 Dec:
The Battle of the Bulge, a surprise offensive by the German Army pushes Allied forces back through Belgium and Luxembourg.USArmy PBS |
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| 1945 | | 1 May:
Adolf Hitler commits suicide.JVL tPCfM |
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| | 7 May:
Germany unconditionally surrenders, effectively ending World War II in Western Europe. Soviet surrender terms were signed the next day.DoD USHMM |
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| 1949 | | 4 Apr:
NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is founded.USNA Avalon |
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| 1954 | | 29 Sep:
The CERN Convention is entered into force.CERN SA |
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| 1989 | |
| 1990 | |
| | 19 Nov:
Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy after it was discovered they did none of the singing on their award winning album.GIZMODO AP |
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| 2001 | |
| 2005 | | 14 Jan:
The Huygens probe successfully lands on Saturn's largest moon Titan - the only landing to take place in the outer Solar System and the furthest from Earth.esa NASA |
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| | 18 Jan:
The world's largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, is unveiled in France.Airbus AW |
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