Middle Ages
Rila Monastery: Bulgaria's Medieval Spiritual Centre
The monastery became Bulgaria's most important religious and cultural centre and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.
All Articles
Every Chronicle article on world history, newest first: battles, empires, disasters, discoveries and revolutions.
Early Modern
Streltsy Uprising of 1698: Revolt Against Peter the Great
Government troops dispersed the rebels; Peter ordered over 1,000 executions, confined Sophia as a nun and began disbanding the Streltsy.
Early Modern
Castle of Good Hope (1666): South Africa's Oldest Building
The Dutch East India Company built a stone pentagonal fortress that served as the seat of government at the Cape for well over a century.
Early Modern
Salem Witch Trials (1692): Accusations, Trials and Executions
Nineteen people were hanged and one pressed to death before the governor halted the trials; the colony later admitted the injustice, reversed convictions and paid compensation.
Early Modern
Dutch East India Company (1602): The VOC and the Spice Islands
The States General merged rival Dutch trading companies into one chartered company with a monopoly on Asian trade, which dominated the spice trade for much of the seventeenth century.
Early Modern
Humayun's Tomb, Delhi: The First Great Mughal Garden Tomb
The tomb set the model for monumental Mughal garden tombs, culminating in the Taj Mahal, and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993.
Early Modern
John Graunt's Bills of Mortality (1662): Birth of Demography
Graunt's Natural and Political Observations turned parish death records into numerical evidence, founding demography and early epidemiology.
Early Modern
Council of Trent (1545–1563): The Catholic Counter-Reformation
The council restated Catholic doctrine against Protestant teaching and launched reforms of the clergy, but the split in Western Christianity became permanent.
Early Modern
Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519-1521): Cortés
Tenochtitlan fell on 13 August 1521, the Mexica state was destroyed and central Mexico became the Spanish colony of New Spain.
Contemporary
Montreal Protocol (1987): The Treaty That Saved the Ozone Layer
Governments agreed to cut and later eliminate ozone-depleting chemicals; the treaty became the first to be ratified by every UN member state and the ozone layer is now slowly recovering.
Contemporary
Chernobyl Disaster (1986): The World's Worst Nuclear Accident
Reactor No. 4 exploded and burned, spreading radioactive contamination across Europe; hundreds of thousands of people were resettled and a large exclusion zone remains.
Contemporary
Selma to Montgomery Marches (1965): Bloody Sunday and the Vote
After police violence on Bloody Sunday shocked the nation, a protected march reached Montgomery and built decisive support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.