Middle Ages
First Bulgarian Empire (681): Asparukh Founds a Balkan State
Byzantium agreed to pay annual tribute to the Bulgars, recognising a new state between the Danube and the Balkan Mountains.
All Articles
Every Chronicle article on world history, newest first: battles, empires, disasters, discoveries and revolutions.
Early Modern
Great Plague of London (1665-1666): The Last Major Plague
An estimated 75,000 to 100,000 or more Londoners died; it was the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in England.
Early Modern
Dirk Hartog Plate (1616): Oldest European Relic in Australia
Hartog made the first recorded European landing on the west coast of Australia and left an inscribed plate, now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Early Modern
Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630): Winthrop and the Puritans
The Winthrop Fleet founded Boston and began the Great Migration that made Massachusetts the leading English colony in New England.
Early Modern
Matteo Ricci in China (1582-1610): The Jesuit Who Reached Beijing
Ricci established a lasting Jesuit presence in Beijing, introduced European mathematics and geography to Chinese scholars and shaped a missionary strategy of cultural accommodation.
Early Modern
Franco-Ottoman Alliance (1536): Francis I and Suleiman
France and the Ottoman Empire cooperated against Charles V, and the capitulations became the basis of French trade and influence in the Levant for centuries.
Early Modern
Francis Bacon's Novum Organum (1620): The Scientific Method
Bacon's programme of systematic observation and experiment became a guiding ideal for the Royal Society and the experimental science of the later seventeenth century.
Early Modern
Fall of Cardinal Wolsey (1529): Henry VIII's Minister Disgraced
Wolsey was charged with praemunire, surrendered the Great Seal and was replaced by Thomas More; arrested for treason in 1530, he died before trial.
Early Modern
Juan de la Cosa Map (1500): The Oldest Map Showing America
The earliest surviving map to depict the New World, combining Spanish, Portuguese and English discoveries up to 1500.
Contemporary
Banqiao Dam Failure (1975): China's Typhoon Nina Dam Catastrophe
Dozens of dams collapsed; estimates of deaths range from about 26,000 in early official figures to more than 200,000 including later famine and disease.
Contemporary
Carnation Revolution (1974): Portugal's Bloodless Coup
The Estado Novo dictatorship fell, Portugal's African colonies became independent within two years and a democratic constitution was adopted in 1976.
Contemporary
Greensboro Sit-ins (1960): Four Students at a Woolworth's Counter
The Greensboro Woolworth's desegregated its lunch counter on 25 July 1960, and the sit-in movement spread across the South and led to the founding of SNCC.