View Historical Events by Day:
Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama rounds the Cape of Good Hope on November 22, 1497, during his first journey to India and continues his exploration at the Mozambique coast, a vital trading hub in the Indian Ocean on March 2, 1498. Seeking to establish trade he interacted with local Muslim merchants some of whom were hostile and he was forced to flee.
The Treaty of Union is signed, merging the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, creating a single political entity and a united Kingdom called Great Britain.
The treaty established a unified Parliament, a common currency and a single legal framework for the newly formed Great Britain, though Scotland retained its own separate legal system. More
The notorious English pirate Blackbeard, whose name is believed to have been Edward Teach is killed off the coast of North Carolina by the Royal Navy, under the command of Lieutenant Robert Maynard. Teach had become the most feared pirate in the Americas practically overnight. More
The start of the 1733 slave insurrection on St. John in the Danish West Indies (now part of the U.S. Virgin Islands).
The Flying boat "China Clipper" lifts off the waters of San Francisco Bay, California, carrying 58 mailbags, weighing 1,837 lbs. containing 110,865 specially stamped letters on the first trans-Pacific airmail flight. More
President John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States is assassinated in Dallas, Texas. He was the fourth American president to be assassinated, following Abraham Lincoln in 1865 , James A. Garfield in 1881 and William McKinley in 1901. More
The first B-2 is displayed to the public as it was rolled out of its hangar at Air Force Plant 42, Palmdale, California. Its first flight was July 17, 1989. More
The Turkish Grand National Assembly approves significant legal reforms making both spouses equal partners in family life and decision-making, thus making women equal to men before the law. The reforms repealed old codes that granted men supremacy in marriage and made the husband the head of the household. The new law went into effect in 2002.
