Middle Ages
Anglo-Norman Invasion of Ireland (1169): Strongbow Arrives
Anglo-Norman lords seized much of eastern Ireland, and Henry II's arrival in 1171 established the English crown's claim to lordship over Ireland.
All Articles
Every Chronicle article on world history, newest first: battles, empires, disasters, discoveries and revolutions.
Middle Ages
Battle of Tertry (687): Pippin of Herstal Takes Power in Francia
Austrasian victory; Pippin of Herstal became the dominant figure in the whole Frankish kingdom while Merovingian kings kept their thrones.
Middle Ages
Simeon I the Great: The Golden Age of the First Bulgarian Empire
Simeon made Bulgaria the leading power of the Balkans and a centre of Slavonic culture, and claimed the title of emperor.
Early Modern
Sicily Earthquake of 1693: Val di Noto and Its Baroque Rebuilding
Dozens of towns were destroyed and roughly 54,000–60,000 people died; the region was rebuilt in a distinctive late Baroque style.
Early Modern
Royal African Company: England's Monopoly Slave-Trading Company
The company built England's slave-trading network in West Africa and shipped more enslaved Africans than any other single English institution, but lost its monopoly in 1698 and was dissolved in 1752.
Early Modern
William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania (1681)
Penn received a vast proprietary colony, which he organised as a refuge for Quakers with broad religious freedom and a planned capital at Philadelphia.
Early Modern
Battle of Sekigahara (1600): The Battle That Decided Japan
Decisive victory for Tokugawa Ieyasu's Eastern Army, which made Ieyasu the master of Japan and led to the founding of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603.
Early Modern
Battle of Djerba (1560): Piyale Pasha Routs a Spanish Fleet
Decisive Ottoman victory; roughly half the Christian fleet was lost, the Djerba garrison was captured, and Ottoman naval power in the Mediterranean reached its peak.
Early Modern
Founding of the Royal Society (1660): Science in London
A society for experimental learning was founded and chartered by Charles II in 1662, becoming the world's oldest continuously existing national academy of sciences.
Early Modern
Fall of Thomas Cromwell (1540): Henry VIII's Minister Executed
Cromwell was condemned without trial by an Act of Attainder for treason and heresy and beheaded on Tower Hill; the king married Catherine Howard the same day.
Early Modern
Balboa Sights the Pacific Ocean (1513): Crossing Panama
Balboa claimed the 'South Sea' for Castile, opening Spanish expansion along the Pacific coast; he was executed in 1519.
Contemporary
Armero Tragedy (1985): Nevado del Ruiz Eruption in Colombia
Volcanic mudflows killed about 23,000 people, more than 20,000 of them in Armero, making it the deadliest volcanic disaster since 1902 and a lesson in the failure of hazard warnings.