Early Modern
Siege of Derry (1689): The Apprentice Boys and the Walled City
The Protestant garrison held out until relief ships broke the boom across the River Foyle; the Jacobite army withdrew.
All Articles
Every Chronicle article on world history, newest first: battles, empires, disasters, discoveries and revolutions.
Early Modern
Founding of the Cape Colony (1652): Jan van Riebeeck at the Cape
The Dutch East India Company founded a permanent station at the Cape that grew into a slave-holding settler colony, dispossessed the Khoikhoi and laid the foundations of Cape Town.
Early Modern
King Philip's War (1675–1676): Metacom's War in New England
The colonies defeated the Native coalition; Metacom was killed in August 1676, and the Native peoples of southern New England lost much of their population, land and independence.
Early Modern
Battle of Myeongnyang (1597): Yi Sun-sin's 13 Ships Against 133
Korean victory; the Japanese fleet withdrew after losing around thirty ships, and its advance along the west coast of Korea was halted.
Early Modern
Peace of Amasya (1555): Ottomans and Safavids Divide the Region
The first formal Ottoman-Safavid peace recognised Ottoman rule over Iraq and divided Armenia and Georgia, keeping the frontier quiet until 1578.
Early Modern
London Coffeehouses (1652): The Penny Universities
Coffeehouses spread across London as cheap meeting places for news, debate and business, surviving a royal attempt to suppress them in 1675–1676.
Early Modern
Execution of Anne Boleyn (1536): Fall of Henry VIII's Queen
Anne was convicted of adultery, incest and treason on charges most historians consider false, and beheaded; Henry married Jane Seymour eleven days later.
Early Modern
Capture of Malacca (1511): Portugal Seizes the Spice Strait
Portugal took Malacca and held it until 1641; the sultan's court fled and later founded the Johor Sultanate.
Contemporary
Bhopal Gas Tragedy (1984): The World's Worst Industrial Disaster
About 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate gas spread over the city; thousands died within days and estimates of total deaths range from about 3,800 to more than 15,000, with hundreds of thousands injured.
Contemporary
Solidarity Movement (1980–1989): Poland's Free Trade Union
Solidarity forced the communist government into the first free union in the Soviet bloc and, after years underground, won the semi-free elections of June 1989.
Contemporary
Bristol Bus Boycott (1963): Challenging the Colour Bar in Britain
The Bristol Omnibus Company ended its colour bar on 28 August 1963, and the campaign helped build support for Britain's first Race Relations Act in 1965.
Contemporary
Alexei Leonov and the First Spacewalk (1965) on Voskhod 2
Leonov became the first person to leave a spacecraft in orbit, and the crew survived a series of dangerous failures to land safely in the Urals.