Uranus being in the sign of Taurus over the next 8 years, means we can expect to have changes concerning the planet, financial systems, and our values. This is because Taurus is an earth sign and is ruled by Venus which is related to our affections, values, and money.
As Taurus is a fixed sign that is not a fan of change and dislikes upheaval, having Uranus in this sign may be a bit like pulling teeth at times. Uranus wants to bring new energy, insights, and discoveries to light, Taurus wants to maintain the status quo and use inertia to fight it.
Uranus will ingress (move) into Taurus on the 15th of May 2018, after being in Aries for the past 8 years. This will be the first time that Uranus has been in Taurus since early 1942.
During its retrograde phase, Uranus will backtrack into Aries briefly from the 6th of November 2018 and it will be the 6th of March 2019 before it will ingress into Taurus again.
Uranus will then be in Taurus until the 7th of July 2025 when it will ingress into Gemini. It will retrograde back into Taurus from the 8th of November 2025 and it will be the 26th of April 2026 when it will ingress back into Gemini and leaves Taurus for another 76 years or so.
Mythology of Uranus
Uranus is known for being unpredictable, exciting and shocking. It is about pulling the rug out from under you to make you change and adapt. It is also about innovation, originality and moving forward. It helps if you can work with the energy of Uranus, as those that don’t tend to find that change is thrust upon them otherwise.
In Greek mythology, Ouranos (Uranus) was the sky and his partner was Mother Earth, Gaia. They had many children together, but Ouranos was so jealous of his children that he forced some of them back into the earth, which caused Gaia much pain. As such, Gaia urged her older sons to rebel against their father, and one of their sons, Cronus (Saturn) castrated Ouranos when he came to lie with Gaia.
As Taurus is an earth sign, the mythology of mother earth (Gaia) being in pain because of the actions of Uranus (Ouranos) is rather interesting. Hopefully, Saturn (Cronus) will be able to bring some relief to her, via lessons we have learned and practices we put in place to remedy the situation or to stop such things from getting worse.
This Taurus Ingress
With Uranus entering Taurus, those with natal planets at 0° or 1° of Taurus, Scorpio, Leo, and Aquarius may be feeling a little edgy, waiting for something, anything, to happen. Those with natal planets at 29° of Aries, Libra, Cancer or Capricorn may also be feeling some anxiety or build-up of energies at this time too.
As Uranus moves through Taurus and backtracks briefly into Aries, those that have natal planets or chart points at the degree that Uranus is in, or oppositions or squares to it, may feel these energies more strongly than those that don’t.
Earth Changes
As Taurus is an earth sign, many astrologers are forecasting that we will have great changes regarding the planet. Some are expecting extreme weather and natural disasters that may precipitate the need for serious action to be taken to save the planet.
Others predict new discoveries, innovations, and policies that will lead to a more sustainable and kinder approach to our planet and the animals we share it with. As the mother of two adult vegans, I know I have seen a sharp uprise lately in corporations catering to the vegan diet and more acceptance of it as a lifestyle choice.
Over the past month or so, we have also seen the shifting of the earth in Hawaii, with dramatic footage of lava flowing into cities and destroying houses, cars, and other personal property.
As mankind has conquered distance and made ways to get from A to B faster and faster, there have also been many severe accidents involving mass transport systems during Uranus in Taurus periods.
People were also on the move; whether to escape persecution, to enjoy the freedom of religious expression, were driven out by famine, displaced through war, or to expand or find their fortune.
Money
Taurus is also related to money and finances. Some feel that the financial markets will be extremely erratic, while others figure that with Uranus in sensual Taurus, perhaps it will be quite fun.
Other astrologers predict that there may be major innovations concerning fashion and beauty as well as what makes us feel secure on a personal level.
Back in 1929, the Wall Street Crash was the start of The Great Depression. While this occurred during a Uranus in Aries transit, its effects were felt well into the following Uranus in Taurus transit. In fact, many would say that it was the second world war that really helped drag the world out of the great depression.
As the Global Financial Crisis of 2007/8 was during a Uranus in Pisces transit, it will be interesting to see if we have weathered the fall out from that already, or if we will still be feeling the reverberations for a while yet.
In a previous Uranus in Taurus period, there was the panic of 1857 said to be the first worldwide economic crisis. During the 1770s, another Uranus in Taurus period, there was the crisis of 1772, in which problems in England, extended to Europe and then the 13 colonies in America.
While the economy and the stock market does naturally work on a boom and bust cycle, the great depression of 1929 and the 1930s was quite severe in its totality. Some are predicting the emergence of worldwide currency, during this Uranus in Taurus period, and many others suggesting the rise of bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies.
While looking to confirm that in 1438 China did try to restrict the amount of silver in circulation in their economy, I found quite a few articles about current-day China becoming more restrictive when it comes to cryptocurrencies. As China is the largest holder of U.S. debt outside of the United States, they hold a considerable amount of power when it comes to the world economy.
Values and Morals
Personally, I am curious about values and morals and how they will evolve and adapt during this transit of Uranus in conservative Taurus. Just as the stock market has a natural boom and bust cycle, public values and morals regarding sexuality tend to have their own cycle of repression and permissiveness.
The prudishness of the Victorian Era followed by the freer Edwardian era, and then the roaring 20’s. Just as the Puritan era in England was followed by the licentiousness during the time of Charles II.
While Jupiter in Scorpio has been largely credited (some see other pertinent factors) with exposing Hollywood abuses of power, maybe the flow-on effect of this will be shown during the time of Uranus in Taurus.
The rise of the #metoo hashtag and discussions about affirmative consent are topics that are unlikely to just fade away. While it seems impossible to imagine a world in which sexuality is repressed and the empowerment of women takes a backward step, my mother brought up the current tv series, The Handmaid’s Tale and wondered if we were heading towards a similar dystopian future.
Maybe we are not heading towards repression, but about finding a better balance and of consent being very much a part of the equation.
Given the mythology of Uranus being castrated by Saturn, I find it interesting that we are hearing more about incels, who claim to be involuntarily celibate, while on the other hand, we have more discussion and inclusion about gender fluidity and transgenderism.
I was surprised that prohibition in the United States wasn’t brought in under Uranus in Taurus. It was proposed during a Uranus in Aquarius era and brought into effect just as Uranus was see-sawing between Aquarius and Pisces.
However, some of the seeds for prohibition and various dry states were implemented during the previous Uranus in Taurus period. I find it interesting that Alcoholics Anonymous was founded during Uranus in Taurus. I also notice that in Australia, where I live, there has just recently begun a discussion about how much alcohol women, particularly mothers, are drinking, and if it is too much.
In previous Uranus in Taurus periods, we have seen a lot of debate and regulation about slavery, the rights of peasants, women and a representative government. The invention of the printing press and more accessible books made ideas and concepts more available to people and newspapers kept them better informed.
Uranus was in Taurus when the Boston Tea Party was ignited because Americans wanted no taxation without representation, just as it was when the Eureka Stockade rebellion was initiated because Australian gold miners also resented what they saw as taxation without representation.
Saturn and Uranus aspects
Given the mythology of Uranus and Saturn, what I find interesting is that when Uranus first ingress into Taurus, that Saturn will be in Capricorn, the sign that it rules and therefore quite powerful (although Saturn will be retrograde until September 7th, 2018).
Retrograde Saturn will form a trine (a beneficial aspect) to Uranus from the 1st of August 2018. The two planets will maintain this aspect until the 23rd of September 2018.
During this period, Saturn will turn from being retrograde to direct motion. At the time that Saturn does turn direct, it will be at 2° Capricorn, and Uranus will be at 2° Taurus. This appears to be the only major aspect between the two planets while Saturn is dignified in Capricorn.
On the 21st of March 2020, Saturn will move into Aquarius, which is ruled by Uranus but was traditionally ruled by Saturn. Before Saturn in the sign of Aquarius can aspect Uranus, it backtracks into Capricorn again.
Saturn moves back into Aquarius on the 16th of December 2020 and the first major aspect between Saturn and Uranus will be the 6th of February 2021 and it will be a square (challenging) with Saturn at 6° Aquarius and Uranus at 6° Taurus. This aspect will be in play until the 2nd of March 2021.
Saturn will square Uranus again from the 1st of June 2021 when it comes within a one-degree orb of Uranus at 12° Taurus. Saturn will be in retrograde motion at this time, but maintain the aspect until the 26th of June 2021.
On the 15th of December 2021, Saturn will square Uranus once more, when Uranus is at 11° Taurus. Saturn will be in direct motion while Uranus will be retrograde. This aspect will be in effect until the 1st of January 2022.
On the 15th of September 2022, retrograde Saturn will be in orb of squaring retrograde Uranus again at 18° and then 17° of Taurus. This will last up until the 23rd of October 2022, when Saturn stations before going direct again.
When Saturn is in the sign of Pisces, it takes a long while for Saturn to catch up to sextile (a beneficial aspect) Uranus. On the 23rd of March 2025, Saturn will be in aspect to Uranus again after 29 months. Both Saturn and Uranus will be in direct motion at this time and will be within orb of the sextile until the 20th of April 2025.
Saturn moves into the sign of Aries, a sign where it is said to be in detriment, and not very powerful, on the 24th of May, 2025. When Saturn and Uranus do make an aspect at this time, Uranus has actually moved on into Gemini.
As Saturn retrogrades back into Pisces and Uranus retrogrades back into Taurus, they sextile (helpful) each other from the 9th of January 2026 to the 29th of January 2026. That will be the last aspect between Saturn and Uranus while Uranus is in Taurus.
Previous Uranus in Taurus Periods in History
Over the next few pages, I have outlined previous Uranus in Taurus periods and historical events that occurred during that time. I am hugely indebted to Astrodienst for their Ephemeris of Planetary Cycles and Sign Ingresses for the data below.
Jump to previous eras
1934 to 1942 | 1850 to 1859 | 1767 to 1775
1683 to 1691 | 1599 to 1607 | 1515 to 1524
1934 to 1942
Uranus ingressed into Taurus on the 6th of June 1934. It retrograded back into Aries, on the 10th of October 1934 and then re-entered Taurus again on the 28th of March 1935.
It ingressed into Gemini on the 7th of August 1941 but retrograded back into Taurus on the 5th of October 1941. It then ingressed back into Gemini on the 15th of May 1942; leaving Taurus for another 76 years.
1934 Events
April – The Jones-Connally Act, part of the New Deal, is passed in the U.S. Congress to help struggling farmers with the fall out of great drought of 1933/34. (Uranus was in Aries)
May 23 – Death of Bonnie and Clyde. (While Uranus was at 29° Aries).
June 6 – The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 is enacted forming the basis of the regulation of the financial market within the U.S. and establishes the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
July 4 – Washington’s face completed and dedicated at Mount Rushmore
July 15 – The American film industry starts to strictly enforce the Motion Picture Production Code.
July 22 – Death of John Dillinger
August 2 – Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany.
August – Alcatraz Island, also known as “The Rock”, opens as a federal prison.
September 19 – Lindenberg baby kidnapper Richard Hauptmann is tracked down via marked bills given in the ransom money. The kidnapping was known as “The Crime of the Century” at the time.
September 21 – Muroto typhoon in Honshu, Japan kills over 3 000 people and injured over 13 000, it was the deadliest typhoon in Japanese history at the time.
September 22 – Gresford Colliery gas explosion in Wrexham in Wales kills 266 miners and rescuers. It is one of Britain’s worst coal mining disasters.
October 22 – Death of Pretty Boy Floyd. (Retrograde Uranus at 29° Aries)
November 27 – Death of Baby Face Nelson. (Retrograde Uranus at 28° Aries)
December 19 – The Japanese government announces they will no longer be honoring their agreements in the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930. (Retrograde Uranus in Aries at this time)
Severe dust storms create a Dust Bowl of American states of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas. Tens of thousands leave their farms, in search of better odds in other states, only to find that the great depression has meant that life is not much easier in the cities.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” ushers in many reforms and building programs.
The Great Depression is in full effect at this time and sees the rise of extreme politicians worldwide.
1935 Events
January 11 – Amelia Earhart flies solo from Hawaii to California. (Uranus was in Aries at this time)
February 6 – Parker Brothers starts selling Monopoly board games.
February 15 – The discovery and development of Prontosil, the first broadly effective antibiotic, is published in a series of articles in Germany’s (Uranus in Aries at this time)
February 26 – The first demonstration of the use of radar to detect aircraft at Daventry in England.
February 26 – Germany defies Versailles Treaty to establish the Luftwaffe
February 28 – Viking ship grave discovered in Denmark. (Uranus in Aries at this time)
April 14 – Known as “Black Sunday“, one of the worst dust storms in U.S. history and part of the Dust Bowl problem, this did immense damage to topsoil in farms in the areas.
April 15 – The Roerich Pact, a Pan-American treaty on the protection of cultural artifacts, is signed in Washington D.C.
April 20 – Your Hit Parade, a top 15 list of popular songs commences on the radio.
May 31 – Quetta earthquake, the deadliest earthquake to hit South Asia at the time kills between 30 000 to 60 000 people.
June 1 – Compulsory driving tests introduced in the United Kingdom.
June 10 – Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Ohio.
July 16 – The world’s first parking meters are installed in Oklahoma City.
July – Penguin Books releases paperback books, making books more accessible to the masses.
August 14 – President Roosevelt signs the US Social Security Act providing unemployment compensation and pensions for the elderly.
September 2 – Labor Day hurricane, the strongest hurricane ever to strike the U.S. as a Category 5 storm with 185 mph winds, killing 423.
September 3 – New land speed record set by Sir Malcolm Campbell with a speed of 301.337 mph (484.620 km/h) at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.
September 13 – New airspeed record set by Howard Hughes, with airspeed record of 352 mph (566 km/h)
September 30 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates Hoover Dam.
September 30 – The Silver Jubilee commences service in London, setting a new train speed in Britain.
October 3 – Italy invades Ethiopia, starting the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.
November 8 – Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) is created, and is a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the U.S. and Canada.
November 22 – The first airmail cargo across the Pacific Ocean takes off from California.
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt invokes the 1935 Neutrality Act after Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, preventing all arms and ammunition shipments to Italy and Ethiopia. He also declared a “moral embargo” against the belligerents, covering trade not falling under the Neutrality Act.
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Revenue Act of 1935, also known as the wealth tax.
1936 Events
January 4 – Billboard publishes the first pop music chart.
February – John Keynes’s book “The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money” is released.
March 17/18 – Pittsburgh Flood of 1936, the worst flooding in the city’s history.
April 5/6 – Tupelo-Gainesville tornado outbreak, where at least 12 tornadoes hit the South Eastern U.S. and killed approximately 450 people. The outbreak is the second deadliest in the U.S.
27 May – RMS Queen Mary sets out on her maiden voyage.
June – 1936 North American heatwaves which caused over 5 000 deaths and the destruction of many crops held the record for the highest temperatures for many cities and states until 2012. The previous winter had been noted as one of the coldest on record.
July 13/14 – Peak of July 1936 heatwave: The U.S. states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana all set new state records for high temperature
July 18 – Spanish Civil War begins.
August 30 – The face of Thomas Jefferson is dedicated at Mount Rushmore
September 7 – The Tasmanian Tiger assumed extinct with the death of the last known one.
October 25 – The Rome-Berlin axis is formed
October – Stalin’s ‘Great Purge‘ starts and will last for two years.
November 2 – The Canadian Broadcasting Company begins radio in Canada
November 23 – Cover date of Life magazine after being purchased by Henry Luce.
November 30 – The Crystal Palace is destroyed by fire.
December 1 – Hitler announces that all boys aged 10 to 18 in Germany must join the Hitler Youth
December 11 – King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom abdicates the throne.
December 12 – Xi’an Incident
Over 5 million die in the West China famine.
Polaroid sunglasses made available as a commercial product.
Sunscreen is made available as a commercial product.
1937 Events
January 19 – Howard Hughes breaks his own transcontinental flight record that he had set in the previous year.
Late January/Early February – Ohio River Flood leaves 385 dead and 1 million homeless.
February 16 – Wallace H. Carothers receives a patent for nylon.
February 21 – The “Waterman Aerobile” flying car has its first flight but fails to prove popular.
March 18 – New London School Explosion kills 295, the deadliest school disaster in U.S. history.
April 12 – Ground-tests for the world’s first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, in England.
May 6 – The Hindenburg burst into flames in New Jersey, killing 36.
May 27 – San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge officially opens, the longest and tallest suspension bridge in the world at the time.
May 28 – Volkswagen is founded to make a “people’s car” in Germany.
June 30 – Emergency 999 Telephone service is started in the UK
July 2 – Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan disappear over the central Pacific Ocean.
July 2 – A guard first takes his place at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Washington, D.C.; a continuous guard has been maintained there ever since.
July 5 – The highest recorded temperature in Canada, at Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan, is 45 °C (113 °F).
July 7 – Sino-Japanese War, Japanese forces invade China (often seen as the beginning of World War II in Asia)
August 2 – The Marihuana Tax Act that will lead to the criminalization of cannabis is introduced to U.S. Congress.
September 2 – The Great Hong Kong Typhoon, one of the worst in the city’s history, kills 11 000 people.
September 17 – Face of Abraham Lincoln is dedicated at Mount Rushmore.
September 27 – The last Bali Tiger possibly dies.
December 12– Mae West makes a risqué guest appearance on a radio, which eventually results in her being banned from radio.
December 13 – Japanese forces capture the city of Nanking in China and massacre of an estimated 300,000 Chinese people in a three-month period
December 22 – The Lincoln Tunnel opens to traffic in New York City.
First Blood Bank Opens in Chicago
A polio scare in Chicago causes schools to delay opening by 3 weeks.
1938 Events
January 3 – The March of Dimes is established as a foundation to combat infant polio.
January 25 – A aurora borealis, described as a “curtain of fire” and “huge blood-red beam of light” is seen across Europe and it visible from as far south as Gibraltar.
January 27 – The Niagara Bridge at Niagara Falls, New York collapses due to an ice jam.
February 6 – Black Sunday at Bondi Beach, Australia where 300 swimmers are dragged out to sea in 3 freak waves. 80 lifesavers save all but 5 of the swimmers.
March 3 – The Santa Ana River in California spills over its banks during a rainy winter, killing 58 people in Orange County and causing trouble as far inland as Palm Springs
March 3 – Oil is discovered in Saudi Arabia.
March 12 – Anschluss: German troops occupy Austria; annexation is declared the following day.
March 18 – Mexico nationalizes all foreign-owned oil properties within its borders.
March 30 – Benito Mussolini is granted equal power over the Italian military to that of King Victor Emmanuel III
May 21 – Matsuo Toi kills 30 people in a village in Japan, in the Tsuyama massacre, the world’s worst spree killing by an individual until 1982.
June 5 to 7 – Yellow River flood, created by the government in central China breaching embankments in an attempt to halt the rapid advance of Japanese forces. The floods kill at least 400,000, destroys thousands of square kilometers of farmland and shifts the mouth of the Yellow River hundreds of kilometers to the south.
June 11 – Fire destroys 214 buildings in Ludza, Latvia.
June 15 – László Bíró patents the ballpoint pen in Britain.
June 23 – The Civil Aeronautics Act is signed into law, forming the Civil Aeronautics Authority as an independent agency in the U.S.
June 23 – Marineland opens in Florida and is billed as the world’s first oceanarium.
June 24 – A large meteorite explodes about 12 miles (19 km) above the earth in Pennsylvania.
July 3 – The steam locomotive Mallard sets the world speed record for steam by reaching 125.88 mph on the London and North Eastern Railway.
July 6 – The Evian Conference on Refugees is convened in France. No country in Europe is prepared to accept Jews fleeing persecution and the United States will only take 27,370.
July 14 – Howard Hughes sets a new record by completing a 91-hour airplane flight around the world.
July 24 – First ascent of the Eiger north face in the Burmese Alps.
August 18 – The Thousand Islands Bridge, connecting the U.S. with Canada, is dedicated.
September 21 – The Great New England hurricane strikes Long Island and southern New England, killing over 600.
October 5 – Nuremberg Laws are enacted in Germany, invalidating Jews’ passports.
October 10 – The Blue Water Bridge opens, connecting Michigan and Ontario.
October 18 – The German government expels 12,000 Polish Jews living in Germany.
October 24 – The minimum wage is established in the United States.
October 30 – Orson Welles‘ radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds is broadcast, causing mass panic in parts of the U.S.
October 31 – The New York Stock Exchange unveils a 15-point program geared toward upgrade protection for the investing public to inspire confidence in investors.
November 9 – Kristallnacht: In Germany, the “night of broken glass” begins as Nazis loot and burn Jewish businesses. Over 7 500 Jewish businesses destroyed, 267 synagogues burned, 91 Jews killed and at least 25,000 Jewish men arrested.
November 16 – LSD is first synthesized by Albert Hofmann from ergotamine in Basel.
November 30 – Benito Mussolini demands that France cede Tunisia, Nice, Corsica, and French Somaliland to Italy precipitating a crisis that will last until March 1939.
December – President Roosevelt agrees to loan $25 million to the Chinese government, angering the Japanese government.
December 15 – The Netherlands closes its border to refugees.
December 17 – Otto Hahn discovers the nuclear fission of uranium, marking the beginning of the Atomic Age.
December 27 – A massive avalanche kills 87 in Kurobe, Japan.
Adolf Hitler is Time magazine’s “Man of the Year“, as the most influential person of the year.
The Schomburgk’s deer is presumed to have become extinct by this date.
1939 Events
January 5 – Amelia Earhart is officially declared dead after her disappearance.
January 6 – Naturwissenschaften publishes evidence that nuclear fission has been achieved by Otto Hahn.
January 13 – Black Friday: 71 people die across Victoria in one of Australia’s worst-ever bushfires.
January 24 – 1939 Chillán earthquake: An earthquake in Chile kills 30,000 and razes about 50,000 sq mi (130,000 km2).
February 18 – The Golden Gate International Exposition opens in San Francisco.
February 27 – Sit-down strikes are outlawed by the Supreme Court of the United States.
March 1 – An Imperial Japanese Army ammunition dump explosion on the outskirts of Osaka kills 94.
March 3 – In Bombay, Mahatma Gandhi begins a fast protesting against British rule in India.
March 23 – The Slovak–Hungarian War begins.
April 1 – The Spanish Civil War comes to an end.
April 4 – The Slovak–Hungarian War ends.
April 25 – The Federal Security Agency (FSA) is founded in the United States, along with the Civilian Conservation Corps and Public Health Service.
April 30 – The 1939 New York World’s Fair opens.
May 17 – The British government issues the White Paper of 1939, sharply restricting Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine.
May 20 – Pan American Airways begins transatlantic mail service with the inaugural flight of its Boeing 314 flying boat Yankee Clipper.
June 4 – The St. Louis, a ship carrying a cargo of 907 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida after already having been turned away from Cuba.
June 24 – The government of Siam changes its name to Thailand, which means ‘Free Land.
July 2 – The 1st World Science Fiction Convention opens in New York City.
July 2 – Theodore Roosevelt’s head is dedicated at Mount Rushmore.
July 6 – The last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany are closed by the Nazis.
July 27 – The first recorded snowfall in Auckland, New Zealand since records began in 1853.
August 2 – The Einstein–Szilárd letter is signed, advising President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt of the potential use of uranium to construct an atomic bomb.
August 23 – Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed between Germany and the Soviet Union.
August 25 – An Irish Republican Army bomb explodes in the center of Coventry, England, killing 5 people.
August 27 – A Heinkel He 178, the first turbojet-powered aircraft, flies for the first time.
September 1 – Beginning of World War II. Germany invades Poland.
September 1 – WWII: Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland declare their neutrality.
September 2 – WWII: Spain and the Irish Free State declare their neutrality.
September 3 – WWII: The United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, Australia, and India (by its Viceroy) declare war on Nazi Germany.
September 3 – Canada gives notice that they will be declaring war.
September 4 – WWII: Nepal declares war on Germany.
September 5 – WWII: The United States declares its neutrality in the war.
September 6 – WWII: South Africa declares war on Germany.
September 10 – WWII: Canada declares war on Germany.
September 29 – Gerald J. Cox, speaking at an American Water Works Association meeting, becomes the first person to publicly propose the fluoridation of public water supplies in the United States.
October 8 – The Holocaust: Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto, the first Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe, is proclaimed in German-occupied Poland.
October 21 – First meeting of the U.S. Advisory Committee on Uranium, authorized by President Roosevelt to oversee neutron experiments, a precursor of the Manhattan Project.
October 24 – Nylon stockings go on sale for the first time anywhere in Wilmington, Delaware.
November 4 – WWII: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the United States Customs Service to implement the Neutrality Act of 1939, allowing cash-and-carry purchases of weapons to non-belligerent nations.
November 8 – CBS television station W2XAB resumes test transmission with an all-electronic system broadcast from the top of the Chrysler Building in New York City.
November 15 – President Roosevelt lay the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial.
November 16 – Al Capone is released from Alcatraz, due to deteriorating health caused by syphilis.
November 17 – WWII: To punish protests against the Nazi occupation of the Czech homeland, the Nazis storm the University of Prague and murder nine Czech graduate students, send over 1,200 to concentration camps, and close all Czech universities, an event which will be commemorated as International Students’ Day.
December 2 – LaGuardia Airport opens for business in New York City.
December 26 – Miners strike in Borinage, Belgium.
December 27 – The Erzincan earthquake shakes eastern Turkey, causing $20 million in damage, and leaving 32,700–32,968 dead.
A logging crew sets off a second forest fire in the Tillamook Burn of Oregon, which destroys 190,000 acres (770 km2)
General Motors introduces the Hydra-Matic drive, the first mass-produced, fully automatic transmission, as an option in 1940 model year Oldsmobile automobiles.
Enzo Ferrari founds Auto Avio Construzioni, the company that became Ferrari in 1947.
1940 Events
January 8 -WWII: Food rationing begins in Great Britain.
January 26 – Brisbane, Australia swelters through its hottest day ever, 43.2 degrees Celsius (109.76 Fahrenheit).
January 29 – Three gasoline-powered trains carrying factory workers crash and explode while approaching Ajikawaguchi Station, Osaka, Japan, killing at least 181 people and injuring at least 92.
February 22 – In Tibet, 4-year-old Tenzin Gyatso is proclaimed the tulku (rebirth) of the thirteenth Dalai Lama.
February 29 – Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African-American to win an Academy Award.
March 3 – In Luleå, Sweden, a time bomb destroys the office of Swedish communist newspaper Norrskensflamman.
March 5 – Katyn massacre: Members of the Soviet Politburo sign an order, for the execution of 25,700 Polish intelligentsia, including 14,700 Polish POWs.
April 7 – Booker T. Washington becomes the first African-American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.
April 7 – An Annular Solar Eclipse is seen for the first time in North America since 1930 and the sun was blocked completely out for 6 to 7 minutes by the moon with a narrow circle of brilliance around its rim.
April 23 – The Rhythm Club fire at a dance hall in Natchez, Mississippi, kills 198.
May 6 – The International Olympic Committee formally cancels the 1940 Summer Olympics
May 14 – Recruitment begins in Britain for a home defense force: the Local Defence Volunteers, later known as the Home Guard
May 15 -The very first McDonald’s restaurant opens in San Bernardino, California
May 15 – Women’s stockings made of nylon are first placed on sale across the United States. Almost five million pairs are bought on this day.
May 20 – The Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the German concentration camps, opens in occupied Poland.
May 22 – WWII: The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939, giving the government full control over all persons and property.
May 26 – WWII: The Dunkirk evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force starts.
June 9 – WWII: The British Commandos are created.
June 10 – WWII: Italy declares war on France and the United Kingdom.
June 10 – WWII: Canada declares war on Italy
June 16 – The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is held for the first time in Sturgis, South Dakota.
June 18 – WWII: Appeal of 18 June: General Charles de Gaulle, de facto leader of the Free French Forces, makes his first broadcast rallying French Resistance, calling on all French people to continue the fight against Nazi Germany.
June 26 – Soviet calendar: The Soviet Union reverts to a seven-day week for all purposes.
July 1 – The first Tacoma Narrows Bridge opens for business.
July 10 – WWII: The Battle of Britain begins.
August 18 – HRH Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, is installed as Governor of the Bahamas.
August 21 – Leon Trotsky dies after being attacked with an ice ax.
September 2 – WWII: An agreement between America and Great Britain is announced to the effect that 50 U.S. destroyers will be transferred to Great Britain, in return for 99-year leases on British bases.
September 7 – WWII: The Blitz – Germany begins to rain bombs on London (the first of 57 consecutive nights).
September 12 – In Lascaux, France, 17,000-year-old cave paintings are discovered dating back to the Stone Age.
September 12 – The Hercules Munitions Plant in Succasunna-Kenvil, New Jersey explodes, killing 55 people.
September 16 – WWII: The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 is signed into law by Franklin D. Roosevelt, creating the first peacetime draft in U.S. history.
September 27 – WWII: Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact.
October 1 – The first section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the United States’ first long-distance controlled-access highway, is opened.
October 14 – The Balham tube station disaster in London, occurs during an air raid.
November 7 – In Tacoma, Washington, the 600-foot (180 m) long center span of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapses.
November 10 – 1940 Vrancea earthquake: An earthquake in Romania kills 1,000.
November 11 – Armistice Day Blizzard: An unexpected blizzard kills 144 in the Midwestern United States.
November 20 – WWII: Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia join the Axis powers.
December 14 – Plutonium is first synthesized in the laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.
December 17 – President Roosevelt, first sets forth the outline of his plan to send aid to Great Britain that will become known as Lend-Lease.
December 29 – WWII: “Second Great Fire of London” – Luftwaffe carries out a massive incendiary bombing raid, starting 1,500 fires. Many famous buildings are either damaged or destroyed.
1941 Events
January 6 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt presents his Four Freedoms as fundamental global human rights
.January 13 – All persons born in Puerto Rico since this day are declared U.S. citizens by birth, through U.S. federal law.
January 20 – Franklin D. Roosevelt is sworn in for a third term as President of the United States.
January to August – 10,072 men, women and children with mental and physical disabilities are asphyxiated with carbon monoxide in the first phase of mass killings under the Action T4 program here.
February 4 – WWII: The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops.
February 5 – The Air Training Corps is formed in the United Kingdom.
February 12 – Albert Alexander, a patient in Oxford, becomes the first person treated with penicillin intravenously
February 23 – Glenn T. Seaborg isolates and discovers plutonium
March 1 – WWII: Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact, joining the Axis powers.
March 17 – In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is officially opened.
March 22 – Washington state’s Grand Coulee Dam begins to generate electricity.
March 25 – WWII: The Kingdom of Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers in Vienna.
March 30 – All German, Italian and Danish ships anchored in United States waters are taken into “protective custody“.
March 30 – A German Lorenz cipher machine operator sends a 4,000-character message twice, allowing British mathematician Bill Tutte to decipher the machine’s coding mechanism.
April 13 – Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact signed.
April – The Valley of Geysers is discovered on the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia by Tatyana Ustinova.
May 1 – The first Defense Bonds and Defense Savings Stamps go on sale in the United States, to help fund the greatly increased production of military equipment.
May 10 – Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland, claiming to be on a peace mission.
May 12 – Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world’s first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin.
June 5 – A Serbian ammunition depot explodes at Smederevo on the outskirts of Belgrade, Serbia, killing 2,500, and injuring over 4,500.
June 14 – All German and Italian assets in the United States are frozen.
June 16 – All German and Italian consulates in the United States are ordered closed and their staffs to leave the country by July 10.
July 1 – Commercial television authorized by the Federal Communications Commission in the United States.
July 2 – WWII: Empire of Japan calls up 1 million men for military service.
July 3 – WWII: Joseph Stalin, in his first address since the German invasion, calls upon the Soviet people to carry out “scorched earth” policy of resistance to the bitter end.
July 25 – Introduction of postal codes in Germany.
July 26 -In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indochina, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the seizure of all Japanese assets in the United States.
July 31 – WWII: The Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring orders Reinhard Heydrich to “submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired Final Solution of the Jewish question.
August 9 – Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet on board ship at Naval Station Argentia, Newfoundland. (Uranus in Gemini).
October 11 to 12 – Fire destroys a Firestone Tire and Rubber Company plant in Fall River, Massachusetts, consuming 15,850 tons of rubber and causing a setback to the United States war effort.
October 31 – Last day of carving on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.
November 5 – WWII: The United States holds peace talks with Japan.
December 7 – WWII: Attack on Pearl Harbor: Japan launches a surprise attack on the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
December 7 – The Japanese declaration of war on the United States and the British Empire is published in Japanese evening newspapers.
December 7 – Canada declares war on Japan.
December 8 – WWII: The Battle of Hong Kong begins, less than eight hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when Japanese forces invade Hong Kong.
December 8 – The United Kingdom officially declares war on the Empire of Japan.
December 8 – WWII: The Japanese occupation of the Philippines begins ten hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
December 8 – WWII: President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his “Infamy Speech” to a Joint session of the United States Congress at 12:30 p.m. Within an hour, Congress agrees to the President’s request for a United States declaration of war upon Japan and he signs it at 4:10 p.m.
December 8 – WWII: Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, the Free French, Yugoslavia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras also officially declare war on Japan, and the Republic of China declares war on the Axis powers.
December 8 – WWII: The German advance on Moscow (Operation Typhoon) is suspended for the winter.
December 10 – The Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea officially declares war on Japan.
December 11 – Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. The U.S. responds in kind.
December 12 – Hungary and Romania declare war on the United States.
December 12 – British India declares war on the Empire of Japan.
December 13 – Sweden’s low-temperature record of −53 °C is set in a village within the Vilhelmina Municipality.
December 14 – WWII: The Independent State of Croatia declares war on the United States and the United Kingdom.
December 21 – Thailand and Japan sign a military alliance.
December 22 – WWII: Arcadia Conference opens in Washington, D.C., the first meeting on military strategy between the heads of government of the United Kingdom and the United States.
December 26 – WWII: Winston Churchill becomes the first British Prime Minister to address a joint session of the United States Congress.
1942 Events
January 1 – The Declaration by United Nations is signed by China, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and 22 other nations, in which they agree “not to make any separate peace with the Axis powers”.
January 13 – Heinkel test pilot Helmut Schenk becomes the first person to escape from a stricken aircraft with an ejection seat.
January 13 – Henry Ford patents a plastic automobile, which is 30% lighter than a regular car.
January 20 – The Holocaust: Nazis at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin decide that the “Final Solution to the Jewish problem” is relocation, and later extermination.
January 25 – WWII: Thailand declares war on the United States and the United Kingdom.
January 26 – WWII: The first American forces arrive in Europe, landing in Northern Ireland.
February 19 – Japanese warplanes bomb Darwin, Australia.
February 25 – Battle of Los Angeles: Over 1,400 AA shells are fired at an unidentified, slow-moving object in the skies over Los Angeles. The appearance of the object triggers an immediate wartime blackout over most of Southern California, with thousands of air raid wardens being deployed throughout the city. In total there are 6 deaths. Despite the several-hour barrage, no planes are downed.
February 26 – The worst coal dust explosion to date, in Honkeiko, China, claims 1,549 lives.
March 16 – WWII: New Zealand and Australia declare war on Thailand.
March 18 – Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, signs Executive Order 9102, creating the War Relocation Authority (WRA), which becomes responsible for the internment of Americans of Japanese and, to a lesser extent, German and Italian descent, many of them legal citizens.
March 31 – WWII: Battle of Christmas Island – Japanese troops occupy Christmas Island without resistance following a mutiny by British Indian Army troops against their British officers.
April 9 – The Bataan Peninsula falls and the Bataan Death March begins.
April 25 – Princess Elizabeth registers for war service in the U.K.
April 26 – WWII: The Reichstag meets for the last time, dissolving itself and proclaiming Adolf Hitler the “Supreme Judge of the German People”, granting him the power of life and death over every German citizen
May – Operation Pluto: The plan to construct oil pipelines under the English Channel between England and France is tested in the River Medway.
May 15 – WWII: In the United States, a bill creating the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) is signed into law.
1850 to 1859
Uranus ingressed into Taurus on the 8th of July 1850. It retrograded back into Aries on the 3rd of September 1850. It ingressed back into Taurus on the 15th of April 1851.
Uranus ingressed into Gemini on the 2nd of June 1858. It retrograded back into Taurus on the 1st of January 1859. It ingressed back into Gemini on the 14th of March 1859.
1850 Events
May 25 – The London Zoo receives a hippopotamus from Egypt, the first time one has been seen in Europe since the Roman Times. (Uranus late degrees of Aries)
July 14 – The 1st public demonstration of ice made by refrigeration by Florida physician John Gorrie.
July 17 – Harvard Observatory takes the 1st photograph of a star (Vega).
September 4 – The Eusébio de Queirós Law is passed in Brazile, to abolish the international slave trade.
September 9 – California is admitted as the 31st U.S. state.
September 9 – The New Mexico Territory is organized by the order of the United States Congress.
September 13 – Piz Bernina, the highest summit of the eastern Alps, is first ascended.
September 18 – The Fugitive Slave Law is passed by the United States Congress.
September 20 – The slave trade abolished in the District of Columbia, but slavery is still allowed to continue.
September 28 – The U.S. Navy abolishes flogging as a punishment.
October 1 – The University of Sydney (the oldest in Australia) is founded.
October 19 – The Phi Kappa Sigma international fraternity is founded, at the University of Pennsylvania.
December 16 – The first settlers bound for Christchurch, arrive from England at the port of Lyttelton, New Zealand, aboard the Charlotte Jane and Randolph.
Allan Pinkerton forms the North-Western Police Agency, later the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, in the United States.
Harriet Tubman becomes an official conductor of the Underground Railroad in the United States.
The temperance organization, International Organisation of Good Templars, is established in New York, as the order of the Knights of Jericho.
One of the original segments of The Historic Pacific Highway in Washington in Clark and Cowlitz counties is established.
The dry-goods store of Lehman Brothers, the predecessor of the bank, is so renamed.
1851 Events
January 11 – The Taiping Rebellion begins and is one of the biggest conflicts of the 19th century with war dead of at least 20 million and millions more displaced.
January 15 – Christian Female College, modern-day Columbia College, receives its charter.
February 6 – Black Thursday, Bushfires sweep across the state of Victoria, Australia, burning about a quarter of its area.
February 15 – In Boston, Massachusetts, members of the anti-slavery Boston Vigilance Committee rescue fugitive slave Shadrach Minkins from a courtroom, following his arrest.
March 27 – The Yosemite Valley is seen for the first time by Europeans.
March 30 – A population census is taken in the United Kingdom.
May 1 – The Great Exhibition opens at the Crystal Palace, Hyde Park, London.
May 3 – A major fire in Francisco destroys 1500-2000 buildings.
May 6 – Linus Yale patents the Yale lock.
May 15 – The first Australian gold rush is proclaimed.
May 15 – Alpha Delta Pi Sorority, the first secret society for women, is founded at Wesleyan College.
Mid-May to mid-July – Great Flood of 1851 sweeps across the Midwestern United States. The town of Des Moines is virtually washed away, and many rainfall records hold for 160 years.
21st May – Slavery is abolished in Colombia, South America.
May 29 – Sojourner Truth addresses 1st Black Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio
June 2 – 1st US alcohol prohibition law enacted in Maine.
July 13 – John F Loudon discovers tin on East Indian Island of Billiton.
July 28 – Total solar eclipse captured on a daguerreotype photograph.
July 29 – Annibale de Gasparis, in Italy discovers asteroid 15 Eunomia.
August 1 – Virginia closes its Reform Constitutional Convention, deciding that all white men have the right to vote.
August 12 – Issac Singer was granted a patent for his sewing machine.
August 22 – The yacht America wins first America’s Cup race, off the coast of England.
September 18 – The New York Times is founded.
October – The Reuters news service is founded.
16th November – The English astronomer John Russell Hind discovers the asteroid 22 Kalliope.
October 24 – Ariel and Umbriel, moons of Uranus, are discovered by William Lassell.
November 13 – The first protected submarine telegraph cable is laid, across the English Channel.
December 2 – The French coup of 1851 begins.
December 9 – The first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal.
December 29 – The first American YMCA opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
December 24 – Fire devastates US Library of Congress in Washington, destroys 35,000 volumes
December 31 – The 1851 Chilean Revolution ends with the rebels being defeated.
1852 Events
January 15 – Nine men representing various Jewish charitable organizations come together, to form what will become Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
February 14 – The Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, London, admits its first patient
February 16 – The Studebaker Brothers Wagon Company, the precursor of the automobile manufacturer, is established in South Bend, Indiana.
February 25 – HMS Birkenhead sinks near Cape Town, British Cape Colony, killing 450.
March 2 – The first American experimental steam fire engine is tested.
March 17 – Annibale De Gasparis discovers the asteroid Psyche.
March 20 – Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is published in book form.
July 5 – Frederick Douglass delivers his famous speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”.
September 19 – Annibale De Gasparis discovers the asteroid Massalia.
September 24 – French engineer Henri Giffard makes the first airship trip, from Paris to Trappes.
November 11 – The new Palace of Westminster opens in London.
November 21/22 – The New French Empire is confirmed by plebiscite.
November 23 – Heavy rains cause Lake Merced, California, to drop 30 feet because a fissure had been formed.
November 23 – The first roadside pillar boxes in the British Isles are brought into public use.
December 29 – Emma Snodgrass arrested in Boston for wearing pants
Smith & Wesson is founded.
The semaphore line in France is superseded by the telegraph
The Devil’s Island penal colony opens, in the colony of French Guiana.
1853 Events
March – The clothing company Levi Strauss & Co. is founded in the United States.
16th April – The first passenger rail opens in India, from Bori Bunder, Bombay to Thane.
May – The world’s first public aquarium opens, at the London Zoo.
May – An outbreak of yellow fever kills 7,790 in New Orleans.
August 23 – The first true International Meteorological Organization is established in Brussels, Belgium.
October 4/–5 – The Crimean War begins.
October 6 – The 4th National Women’s Rights Convention opens in Cleveland Ohio
October 4 – In the U.S., Donald McKay launches the Great Republic, the world’s biggest sailing ship
30th December – Gadsden Purchase: The United States buys land from Mexico to facilitate Rail transport or railroad building in the Southwestern United States.
1854 Events
January 5 – The Steamship San Francisco wrecked off US eastern seaboard, 300 die
January 21 – The iron clipper RMS Tayleur runs aground off the east coast of Ireland, on her maiden voyage out of Liverpool, bound for Australia, with the loss of at least 350.
January 31 – Dutch KNMI established (Royal Meteorological Institute)
February 28 – The Republican Party (United States) is founded in Ripon, Wisconsin.
March 1 – SS City of Glasgow leaves Liverpool harbor and it and its 480 passengers and crew are never seen again.
March 3 – Australia’s first telegraph line, linking Melbourne and Williamstown, opens.
March 20 – The Boston Public Library opens to the public.
March 24 – In Venezuela, slavery is abolished.
March 31 – Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the U.S. Navy signs the Convention of Kanagawa with the Japanese government, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.
April 16 – The United States packet ship Powhattan is wrecked off the New Jersey shore, with more than 200 victims
May 30 – The Kansas–Nebraska Act becomes law (replacing the Missouri Compromise of 1820).
31st May – The civil death procedure is abolished in France.
June 10 – The first class of the United States Naval Academy graduates at Annapolis, Maryland.
August 27 – English lawyer Alfred Wills and party set out for the first ascent of the Wetterhorn in Switzerland, regarded as the start of the “golden age of alpinism“.
August 29 – Self-governing windmill patented (Daniel Halladay)
August 31 to September 8– An epidemic of cholera in London kills 10,000.
September 27 – The American paddle steamer SS Arctic sinks after a collision with the much smaller French ship SS Vesta, with approximately 320 deaths.
October 6 – The great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead in England is ignited by a spectacular explosion.
October 25 – The infamous Charge of Light Brigade during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War; over 100 killed.
November 13 – “New Era” sinks off New Jersey coast with the loss of 300
November 17 – In Egypt, the Suez Canal Company is formed
November – Florence Nightingale and her team of 38 trained volunteer nurses, arrive to care for British Army troops invalided from the Crimean War.
November – The Mute riot breaks out in Sweden.
December 3 – The Eureka Stockade Miners’ Rebellion breaks out in Ballarat, Victoria (Australia).
Ignacy Łukasiewicz drills the world’s first oil well in Poland, in Bóbrka near Krosno County.
The French fashion label Louis Vuitton is founded.
1855 Events
January 9 – The Clipper “Guiding Star” disappears in Atlantic, 480 dead.
January 23 – The Wairarapa earthquake claims between five and nine lives, in New Zealand.
January 26 – The Point No Point Treaty is signed in the Washington Territory.
January 27 – The Panama Railway becomes the first railroad to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
February 10 – US citizenship laws amended; all children of US parents born abroad granted US citizenship.
May 15 – The Great Gold Robbery is made, from a train between London Bridge and Folkestone in England.
June 15 – Stamp duty is removed from British newspapers, creating mass media in the United Kingdom.
July 1 – The Quinault Treaty is signed and the Quinault and Quileute tribes cede their land to the United States.
July 2 – The Kansas territorial legislature convenes in Pawnee, and begins passing proslavery laws.
July 16 – The Australian Colonies are granted self-governing status by the United Kingdom.
August 1 – Monte Rosa, the second-highest summit in the Alps, is first ascended.
October 17 – Henry Bessemer files his patent in the United Kingdom, for the Bessemer process of steelmaking.
November 17 – Scottish missionary explorer David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls, in modern-day Zambia–Zimbabwe.
November 21 – Large-scale Bleeding Kansas violence begins, with events leading to the ‘Wakarusa War‘ between antislavery and proslavery forces.
Colt’s Manufacturing Company is incorporated.
The cocaine alkaloid is first isolated by German chemist Friedrich Gaedcke.
1856 Events
January 8 – John Veatch discovers large quantities of Borax deposits in California.
January 26 – First Battle of Seattle: Marines from the USS Decatur suppress an indigenous uprising, in response to Governor Stevens’ declaration of a “war of extermination” on Native communities.
January 29 – Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross.
February 20 – The steam packet-ship John Rutledge, en route from Liverpool to New York, hits an iceberg and sinks with the loss of 120 passengers and 19 crew; and only one survivor.
February – The Tintic War breaks out in Utah.
March 5 – Fire destroys the Covent Garden Theatre in London.
March 31 – The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Crimean War.
March – Mauveine, the first synthetic organic dye, is discovered by William Henry Perkin while attempting to synthesize quinine. This eventually leads to the birth of the chemical industry.
April 3 – Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes badly damaged by a gunpowder explosion, kills 4,000 on the island of Rhodes
April 16 – The Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law abolishes privateering and regulates the relationship between neutral and belligerent and shipping on the high seas.
April 21 – Building workers agitate for the eight-hour day in Melbourne, Australia.
May 14 – The San Francisco Committee of Vigilance is founded in the United States. It lynches two gangsters, arrests most Democratic Party officials, and disbands itself on August 18.
May 21 – Sacking of Lawrence: Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by pro-slavery forces.
May 22 – Violence in the US Senate, South Carolina rep Brooks uses a cane on Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner.
May 24 – Pottawatomie massacre: A group of followers of radical abolitionist John Brown kill 5 homesteaders in Franklin County, Kansas
June 2 – Battle of Black Jack: Antislavery forces, led by John Brown, defeat proslavery forces in Bleeding Kansas.
June 9 – 500 Mormon handcart pioneers leave Iowa City and head west for Salt Lake City, Utah, carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled hand carts.
July 17 – The Great Train Wreck occurs in Pennsylvania, USA and kills at least 59.
August 6 – The Great Bell is cast in the Great Clock of Westminster (Big Ben)
August 10 – The Last Island hurricane destroys Last Island, Louisiana, leaving 400 dead. The whole island is broken up into several smaller islands by the storm
October 8 – The Second Opium War between several western powers and China begins, with the Arrow Incident on the Pearl River.
December 1 – Under the County and Borough Police Act, in any county or area of England and Wales where a police force has not already been established, the Justices of the Peace must from this date take steps to create one according to nationally defined standards.
December 2 – the National Portrait Gallery, London is established.
Gregor Mendel starts his research on genetics.
Kate Warne, the first female private detective, begins to work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency.
Pre-human remains are found in the Neandertal valley in Germany
1857 Events
January 9 – The Fort Tejon earthquake shakes central and southern California.
February 21 – Congress outlaws foreign currency as legal tender in the U.S.
March 2/3 – The largest slave auction in United States history is held, dubbed The Weeping Time. Over a 2-day period, 436 men, women, children, and infants, all of whom are kept in stalls meant for horses at a racetrack in Savannah, Georgia, for weeks beforehand are sold.
March 6 – Dred Scott v. Sandford: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that Blacks are not citizens and slaves cannot sue for freedom, driving the country further towards the American Civil War (the ruling is not overturned until the 14th Amendment is adopted, in 1868).
March 12 – Elizabeth Blackwell opens a hospital, the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children.
March 23 – Elisha Otis’ first elevator is installed (at 488 Broadway, New York City)
May 5 to October 17– The Art Treasures of Great Britain exhibition is held in Manchester, one of the largest such displays of all time
May 10 – Indian Rebellion of 1857: The 3rd Light Cavalry of the British East India Company’s army rebels against its British officers, thus beginning the rebellion.
June 22 – The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is officially opened by Queen Victoria.
July 18 – The Utah Expedition leaves Fort Leavenworth, effectively beginning the Utah War.
July 18 – Prison hulks are used for the last time in the United Kingdom.
August 20 – The Dunbar wrecks near the entrance to Sydney Harbour, Australia, with the loss of 121 lives.
August 28 – The Matrimonial Causes Act makes divorce without parliamentary approval legal in the United Kingdom.
September 11 – The Mountain Meadows massacre occurs in Utah.
September 12 – The SS Central America sinks off the coast of North Carolina; with the loss of 425 lives.
September 23 – Russian warship Leffort disappears in a storm in the Gulf of Finland; 826 die
September – The Panic of 1857 begins: Speculation in U.S. railroad shares, and the collapse on August 24 of the New York City branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company, following widespread embezzlement, trigger a financial crisis which will extend to Europe.
October 13 – Panic of 1857: New York banks close, and do not reopen until December 12.
December 16 – The Basilicata earthquake shakes the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies killing about 10,000 people.
December 20 – Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria issues a decree, which leads to the demolition of the city walls of Vienna, allowing the construction of the Ringstraße.
December – The Reform War in Mexico begins.
Kuala Lumpur, the future capital of Malaysia, is founded as a tin mining settlement.
La Tène culture artifacts are discovered in Switzerland, by Hansli Kopp.
American politician William Daniel proposes the Local Option for Prohibition.
1858 Events
January 1 – Canada begins using the decimal currency system.
January 25 – The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn becomes a popular wedding recessional after it is played on this day at the marriage of Queen Victoria’s daughter.
February 11 – Peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes, 14, has a vision at the grotto of Massabielle, the first in a series of 18 events that will come to be regarded as Marian apparitions.
March 30 – Hymen Lipman patents a pencil with an attached eraser in the United States.
April 19 – The United States signs a treaty with the Yankton Sioux Tribe.
May to July – Mahtra War: Peasants in Estonia, Russian Empire revolt against ongoing serfdom, which was officially abolished in 1816.
May 19 – The Marais des Cygnes massacre is perpetrated by pro-slavery forces, in Bleeding Kansas.
June 2 – Comet Donati, the first comet to be photographed, is discovered by Giovanni Battista Donati, and remains visible for several months afterward. (Uranus at 0° Gemini)
The Miners Association is established in Cornwall, England, UK.
Feudalism and serfdom in Bulgaria are abolished in the Ottoman Empire (practically in 1880).
1859 Events
January 23 – Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii begins an eruption that lasts 300 days.
February 28 – Arkansas legislature requires free blacks to choose exile or slavery.
February 16 – The French Government passes a law to set the A-note above middle C to a frequency of 435 Hz, in an attempt to standardize the pitch.
February 27 – United States Congressman Daniel Sickles shoots Philip Barton Key, for having an affair with his wife. This is the first time this defense is successfully used in the United States.
March 9 – The army of the Kingdom of Sardinia mobilizes against Austria, beginning the crisis which will lead to the Austro-Sardinian War.
March 21 – The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania issues the charter establishing the Zoological Society of Philadelphia, the first organization of its kind in the United States, and founder of the nation’s first zoo
March 26 – A French amateur astronomer, Edmond Modeste Lescarbault, claims to have noticed a planet closer to the Sun than Mercury (later named Vulcan).
April 13 – The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is founded by Peter Cooper, a New York industrialist, inventor, and philanthropist.
1767 to 1775
Uranus ingressed into Taurus on the 3rd of May 1767. It retrograded back into Aries on the 29th of November 1767. It ingressed back into Taurus on the 15th of February 1768.
Uranus ingressed into Gemini on the 19th of June 1774. It retrograded back into Taurus on the 1st of December 1774. It ingressed back into Gemini on the 8th of April 1775.
1767 Events
July 3 – Pitcairn Island in the Pacific Ocean is sighted from HMS Swallow, the first definite European sighting.
1768 Events
January 9 – Philip Astley stages the first modern circus, with acrobats on galloping horses, in London
March 1– King Louis XV of France decrees that all cities and towns in the kingdom will be required to post house numbering on all residential buildings.
April 4 – The Cotopaxi volcano erupts in what is now Ecuador, covering the towns of Hambato and Tacunga with ash, but not causing any fatalities.
October 15 – In the aftermath of a powerful hurricane in Cuba that kills hundreds of people, the Spanish King Carlos III begins a precedent of ordering the colonial government to fund disaster relief, a task previously left to the Catholic Church.
December 6 – 1st edition of “Encyclopedia Brittanica” published in Scotland
The Steller’s sea cow, discovered on Bering Island in 1741, is driven to extinction
1769 Events
January 5— Scottish inventor James Watt receives his first patent for an early version of his revolutionary Watt steam engine.
June 3 – A transit of Venus is followed five hours later by a total solar eclipse, the shortest such interval in historical times.
July 3 – Richard Arkwright patents a spinning frame in England, able to weave fabric mechanically.
August 18 – The city of Brescia, Italy is devastated when the Church of San Nazaro is struck by lightning. The resulting fire ignites 200,000 lb (90,000 kg) of gunpowder being stored there, causing a massive explosion, which destroys 1/6 of the city and kills 3 000 people.
September – Massive droughts in Bengal lead to the Bengal famine of 1770, in which ten million people, a third of the population, will die, the worst natural disaster in human history (in terms of lives lost).
October 7– James Cook lands in New Zealand.
October 23 – Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot demonstrates a steam-powered artillery tractor in France.
1770 Events
April 29 – Captain James Cook drops anchor on HMS Endeavour in a wide bay, about 16 km (10 mi) south of the present city of Sydney, Australia.
May 20 – A stampede, at a celebration of the newly wedded Marie Antoinette and Louis-Auguste in Paris, kills more than a hundred people.
June 3 – The Port-au-Prince earthquake affects the French colony of Saint-Domingue with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), killing 250 or more.
July 1 – Lexell’s Comet (D/1770 L1) passes the Earth at a distance of 2184129 km, the closest approach by a comet in recorded history.
August 22 – Captain James Cook determines that New Holland (Australia) is not contiguous with New Guinea, and claims the whole of its eastern coast for Great Britain, later naming it all New South Wales.
1771 Events
March 15 – The first meeting of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers in London, the world’s oldest engineering society.
April 4 – Over the next year, more than 52 000 people living in Moscow die of the Bubonic Plague.
September 15 to 17 – The Moscow plague riot results from bubonic plague containment measures that are unpopular with the populace.
October 17 – The opera Ascanio in Alba by Wolfgang Mozart, age 15, premieres in Milan.
November 16 – The River Tyne, England, floods, destroying many bridges and killing several people.
December 3 — Escaped salve James Sommersett is found imprisoned on the ship Ann and Mary, leading to the Sommersett’s Case, and the eventual end of slavery in Great Britain.
Limoges porcelain manufacture is established in France.
1772 Events
January 1 – The first traveler’s cheques go on sale in London, can be used in 90 European cities
February 12 – Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec discovers the uninhabited Kerguelen Islands, in the Southern Indian Ocean.
March 8 – Biela’s Comet is first discovered by French astronomer Jacques Leibax Montaigne.
June 10 – The Credit crisis of 1772 is triggered and the resultant panic causes other banks, particularly in Scotland, to fail. This also extends to Amsterdam and the Thirteen Colonies of British North America and threatens the East India Company with bankruptcy.
June 22 – The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, delivers the decision in the Somersett’s Case: that leads to the end of slavery in England.
August 12 – The volcano Mount Papandayan in West Java erupts and partially collapses, the debris avalanche killing several thousand.
December 14 – Russian government offices reopen at Moscow and Saint Petersburg after being closed for 15 months because of an epidemic of bubonic plague.
Scottish scientist Daniel Rutherford isolates nitrogen gas from the air.
1773 Events
January 1 – The hymn that will later become known as “Amazing Grace“, is first used to accompany a sermon led by John Newton in the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire, England.
January 17 – Captain James Cook in HMS Resolution (1771) becomes the first European explorer to cross the Antarctic Circle.
July 29 – The Santa Marta earthquake strikes Guatemala; numerous aftershocks last until December. The city of Antigua Guatemala is virtually destroyed, leading to the decision to move the country’s capital to La Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción.
October 13 – French astronomer Charles Messier discovers the Whirlpool Galaxy.
December 16 – Boston Tea Party: A group of American colonists, dressed as Mohawk Indians, steal aboard ships of the East India Company and dump their cargo of tea into Boston Harbor, in protest against British tax policies
1774 Events
March 31 – The British Parliament passes the Boston Port Act, closing the port of Boston, Massachusetts as punishment for the Boston Tea Party.
June 2 – A new Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to provide better housing for British soldiers upon demand, is passed.
1775 Events
January 17 – Nine old women are burnt as witches, thought to be the cause of bad harvests in Kalisk, Poland.
February 9 – The Parliament of Great Britain declares the Province of Massachusetts Bay to be in rebellion.
March 19 – In Italy, 4 people are buried by avalanche for 37 days, 3 survive.
March 23 – Patrick Henry proclaims “Give me liberty or give me death” in a speech in favor of Virginian troops joining the US Revolutionary war.
1683 to 1691
Uranus ingressed into Taurus on the 21st of May 1683. It retrograded back into Aries on the 28th of October 1683. It ingressed back into Taurus on the 11th of March 1684.
Uranus ingressed into Gemini on the 10th of July 1690. It retrograded back into Taurus on the 4th of November 1690. It ingressed back into Gemini on the 28th of April 1691.
1683 Events
June 12 – The Rye House Plot to assassinate Charles II of England is discovered
June 23 – William Penn signs a friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania; the only treaty “not sworn to, nor broken”
September 17 – Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek is the first to report the existence of bacteria.
September 24 – King Louis XIV expels all Jews from French possessions in America.
October 6 – Germantown, Philadelphia is founded as the first permanent German settlement in North America.
December – The River Thames freezes, allowing a frost fair to be held.
Wild boars are hunted to extinction in Britain
1684 Events
January – Edmond Halley, Christopher Wren, and Robert Hooke have a conversation, in which Hooke later claimed not only to have derived the inverse-square law but also all the laws of planetary motion.
March – The severe frost in Britain which has been in effect since the previous December, ends. There was a great loss of beast and of wildlife, especially birds during this time, and there are similar reports from across Northern Europe.
1685 Events
March – Louis XIV of France passes the Code Noir, allowing the full use of slaves in the French colonies.
September – The first organized street lighting is introduced in London, England, with oil lamps to be lit outside every tenth house, on moonless winter nights.
October 22 – Louis XIV issues the Edict of Fontainebleau, which revokes the Edict of Nantes and declares Protestantism illegal, thereby depriving Huguenots of civil rights. Their Temple de Charenton-le-Pont is immediately demolished.
1686 Events
August 18 – Giovanni Cassini reports seeing a satellite orbiting Venus.
The Swedish Church Law 1686 confirms and describes the rights of the Lutheran Church and confirms Sweden as a Lutheran state: all non-Lutherans are banned from immigration unless they convert to Lutheranism; the Romani people are to be incorporated into the Lutheran Church; the poor care law is regulated; and all parishes are forced by law to teach the children within them to read and write, in order to learn the scripture, which closely eradicates illiteracy in Sweden.
1687 Events
July 2 – King James II disbands English parliament.
July 5 – Isaac Newton‘s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, known as the Principia, is published by the Royal Society of London, significantly accelerating the scientific revolution by providing new and practical intellectual tools, and becomes the foundation of modern physics.
September 23 to 29 – The Acropolis in Athens attacked by the Venetian army trying to eject Turks, damaging the Parthenon while doing so.
1688 Events
March 1 – A great fire devastates Bungay, England.
April 18 – The Germantown Quaker Protest Against Slavery is drafted by four Germantown Quakers.
June 10 – The birth of James Francis Edward Stuart (later known as the Old Pretender).
October 1 – Prince William III of Orange accepts the invitation of a group of influential political figures n England to take up the British crown.
November 15 – Prince William III’s army lands at Torbay, England and the ‘Glorious Revolution‘ begins.
November 23 – A group of 1,500 Old Believers sets themselves on fire, to evade capture by troops of the Tsar laying siege to their monastery on Lake Onega.
December 11 – Having led his army to Salisbury and been deserted by his troops, James I attempts to flee to France.
December 18 – William of Orange enters London.
December 19 – King James II’s wife & son flee to France.
Edward Lloyd opens a London coffee-house that soon becomes a popular meeting place for shipowners, merchants, insurance brokers and underwriters. In time the business association they form will outgrow the coffee-house premises, and become Lloyd’s of London.
1689 Events
February 13 – William III and Mary II are proclaimed co-rulers of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
May 24 – The Bill of Rights establishes a constitutional monarchy in England, but with Roman Catholics barred from the throne. Parliament also passes the Act of Toleration, protecting Protestants but with Roman Catholicsintentionally excluded.
November 22 – Peter the Great decrees the construction of the Great Siberian Road to China.
December 22 – A Heavy earthquake strikes Innsbruck.
1690 Events
February 3 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony issues the first paper money in North America.
November 17 – Barclays is founded in London, England.
December 29 – An earthquake hits Ancona, in the Papal States of Italy
December – The planet Uranus is first sighted and recorded, by John Flamsteed, who mistakenly catalogs it as the star 34 Tauri.
1691 Events
February 17 – Thomas Neale granted English patent for American postal service
April 9 – A fire at the Palace of Whitehall in London destroys its Stone Gallery.
1599 to 1607
Uranus ingresses into Taurus on the 12th of June 1599. It retrogrades back into Aries on the 2nd of October 1599. It ingressed back into Taurus on the 31st of March 1600.
Uranus ingressed into Gemini on the 9th of August 1606. It retrogrades back into Taurus on the 2nd of October 1606. It ingressed back into Gemini on the 15th of May 1607.
1599 Events
April – The Italian city of Pompeii is rediscovered more than 1,500 years after its burial following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79. (Uranus in late degrees of Aries)
September 21 – The first reported performance at the Globe Theatre in London, a presentation of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
July 23 – Caravaggio‘s 1st public commission for paintings.
Possibly when the first Capuchin friar is entombed in the Catacombe dei Cappuccini in Itay.
1600 Events
January 1 – Scotland adopts January 1 as New Year’s Day instead of March 25th.
January – Sebald de Weert makes the first definite sighting of the Falkland Islands.
February 19 – Huaynaputina volcano in Peru undergoes a catastrophic eruption, the worst to be recorded in South America.
September 15 – Battle of Sekigahara, and the rise of the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan
December 31 – The East India Company is granted a Royal Charter for trade with Asia.
Sumo wrestling becomes a professional sport in Japan
Fabritio Caroso‘s dance manual Nobiltà de dame is published
1601 Events
August 27 – Olivier van Noort completes first Dutch exploration of New World
The Russian famine of 1601–03 which kills about two million people is caused by a bad harvest after a rainy summer.
Jesuit Matteo Ricci becomes the first European to enter the Forbidden City in Beijing, China.
1602 Events
March 20 – United Dutch East Indian Company is established.
The Russian famine of 1601 to 1603, is ongoing and will kill approximately one-third of the population.
Copies are printed of the geographical map of East Asia created by Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit stationed in China, with Chinese-written labeling and map symbols.
1603 Events
March 24 – Queen Elizabeth I dies and is succeeded by James VI of Scotland, uniting the crowns of Scotland and England.
March – French explorer Samuel de Champlain sails to Canada.
March – The Fulda witch trials begin and will be responsible for the deaths of about 250 people.
July 17 or 19 – Sir Walter Raleigh is arrested for treason.
August 17 – The Accademia dei Lincei, the oldest scientific academy in the world, is founded in Rome by Federico Cesi.
October – The Sangley Rebellion, which results in the death of 20,000 Sangley Chinese takes place in Manila.
French Huguenot, Pierre de Gua is granted royal permission to settle in North America, founding the colony of Acadia.
Johann Bayer publishes the star atlas Uranometria, the first to cover the entire celestial sphere.
1604 Events
January 14 – Work begins on the Authorized King James Version of the Bible and a revision of the Book of Common Prayer.
September 1 – Sri Guru Granth Sahib, the religious text of Sikhism, is installed at Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar.
Before 1 October – Completion of the Wollaton Wagonway, the world’s oldest wagonway with provenance.
October 9 – Kepler’s Supernova (SN 1604) is first observed from the northern parts of the Italian Peninsula.
Table Alphabeticall, the first known English dictionary to be organized alphabetically is published.
1605 Events
January 16 – The first part of Don Quixote is published in Madrid and becomes a global bestseller almost immediately.
March 11 – A proclamation declares all people of Ireland to be the direct subjects of the British Crown and not of any local lord or chief.
October– First publication of Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien by Johann Carolus in Strasbourg is what is generally regarded as the world’s first newspaper.
November 5 – Gunpowder Plot: A plot to blow up the English Houses of Parliament is foiled and Guy Fawkes is arrested for trying to kill King James I of England and the members who are scheduled to sit together in Parliament the next day.
1606 Events
January 29 – Pedro Fernandes de Queirós discovers the Pitcairn Islands.
February 26 – Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon makes the first confirmed sighting of Australia by a European.
April 10 – Charter of 1606: The First Charter of Virginia is adopted, in which King James I of England grants rights to the Virginia Company to settle parts of the east coast of North America.
May – Pedro Fernandes de Queirós discovers the islands of Vanuatu; believing them to be Australia, he names them La Austrialia del Espiritu Santo.
October – Luís Vaz de Torres is the first European to sail through the Torres Strait.
A storm buries the village of St Ismail near modern-day Kidwelly, Wales.
May 17 – The false Demetri, pretender to the Russian throne is assassinated in the Kremlin, followed by the murder of 2 00 foreigners in Russia.
December 20 – The Virginia Company settlers leave London to establish Jamestown, Virginia.
1607 Events
January 13 – The Bank of Genoa fails, after the announcement of national bankruptcy in Spain.
January 30 – A massive wave sweeps along the Bristol Channel, possibly a tsunami, killing 2,000 people.
April 26 – English colonists make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia, later moving up the James River.
May 14 – Jamestown, Virginia, is established as the first permanent English settlement in North America, beginning the American frontier.
1515 to 1524
Uranus ingressed into Taurus on the 11th of July 1515. Uranus retrograded back into Aries on the 12th of August 1515. Uranus ingressed back into Taurus on the 9th of April 1516.
Uranus ingressed into Gemini on the 23rd of May 1523. It retrograded back into Taurus on the 23rd of December 1523. It ingressed back into Gemini on the 3rd of March 1524.
1515 Events
June – A major landslide and flood occur near Bellinzona, Switzerland.
July 2 – Manchester Grammar School is endowed and is the first free grammar school in England.
August 25 – Conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founds Havana, Cuba
1516 Events
January – Juan Díaz de Solís discovers the Río de la Plata (later known as Argentina).
March 1 – Desiderius Erasmus publishes a new Greek translation of the New Testament.
April 23 – The Reinheitsgebot is instituted in Bavaria, regulating the purity of beer permissible for sale.
The Venetian Ghetto is instituted, the first ghetto anywhere in the world
Leonardo da Vinci accepts Francis I’s invitation to France.
The Master of the Posts is established by Henry VIII of England (an early version of the Royal Mail).
The fall of the Nantan meteorite is possibly observed near the city of Nantan, (China).
1517 Events
October 31 –Martin Luther publishes his 95 Theses (posting them on the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church).
A third outbreak of the sweating sickness hits Oxford and Cambridge in England.
1518 Events
May 26 – A transit of Venus occurs where Venus passes between the Sun and earth and can be seen as a small black dot moving across the sun.
July – A case of dancing mania breaks out in Strasbourg, in which many people die from constant dancing.
August 18 – Charles V grants his Flemish courtier Lorenzo de Gorrevod permission to import 4000 African slaves into New Spain. From this point onwards thousands of slaves are sent to the New World each year.
1519 Events
March 4 – Hernán Cortés and his conquistadores land in Mexico.
20th September – Ferdinand Magellan sets sail on his expedition to circumnavigate the globe.
November 8 – Cortés enters Tenochtitlan and the court of Aztec ruler Moctezuma II.
The Spanish find Barbados.
A widespread epidemic kills off much of the indigenous populations of the Greater Antilles into Central America, and perhaps as far as Peru in South America.
1520 Events
June 7 –The meeting of King Henry VIII of England and King Francis I of France at the Field of Cloth of Gold.
June 15 – Pope Leo X issues a papal bull threatening Martin Luther with ex-communication if he does not recant his position on indulgences and other Catholic doctrines.
October 21 – Ferdinand Magellan discovers what will be later known as the Strait of Magellan.
November 8 to 10 – Stockholm Bloodbath: 82 noblemen and clergymen are beheaded for their involvement in the Swedish resistance against the Danish invasion.
November 28 – Three ships under the command of Ferdinand Magellan reach the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.
1521 Events
January 3 – Martin Luther excommunicated by Pope Leo X.
February 2 – The Nydala Abbey Bloodbath takes place in Sweden.
March 6 – Ferdinand Magellan discovers Guam.
October 11 – Pope Leo X titles King Henry VIII of England “Defender of the Faith“.
October 25 – Emperor Charles V bans wooden buildings in Amsterdam
1522 Events
August – The Knights’ Revolt erupts in Germany
September 6 – The Vittoria, one of the Magellan’s surviving ships returns to Spain, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the world.
September 21 – Martin Luther’s translation of the New Testament into Early New High German sells thousands in the first few weeks.
1523 Events
January 20 – Christian II is forced to abdicate as King of Denmark and Norway.
1432 to 1440
Uranus ingressed into Taurus on the 26th of April 1432. It retrograded back into Aries on the 14th of November 1432. It was the 10th of February 1433 when it once again ingressed into Taurus.
Uranus ingressed into Gemini on the 10th of June 1439. It retrograded back into Taurus on the 24th of November 1439. It was the 29th of March 1440 when it ingressed back into Gemini.
1432 Events
December 8 – Lithuanian Civil War (1432–1438)
The Université de Caen is founded.
1433 Events
Much of the English town of Alnwick (in Northumbria) is burnt by a Scottish raiding party.
China disbands their naval fleet, making it easier for other Western naval powers to gain dominance over the seas
1434 Events
April 14 – The foundation stone of Nantes Cathedral in Nantes, France, is laid.
October 19 – The University of Catania is founded in Italy.
Explorer Gil Eanes rounds Cape Bojador in Western Sahara, which is a major breakthrough for European explorers and traders
The Thames River freezes over.
1435 Events
January 13 – The Pope issues a papal bull forbidding the enslavement of the Guanche natives in the Canary Islands by the Spanish.
China returns to its isolationist policy.
1436 Events
June 25 – The Incorporated Guild of Smiths is founded at Newcastle upon Tyne.
August 30 – The Dome at Florence Cathedral is dedicated
In China, payments in silver are accepted in lieu of grain.
Afonso Gonçalves Baldaia becomes the first to explore the western coast of Africa, past the Tropic of Cancer.
Johannes Gutenberg begins work on the printing press.
1437 Events
February 20/21 – James I of Scotland is fatally stabbed at Perth in a failed coup.
1438 Events
July 7 – Charles VII of France issues the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, giving the French church control over the appointment of bishops, and depriving the Pope of French ecclesiastical revenues.
In China, silver mines are closed and all private silver mining is banned, under punishment of death, in an effort to stop the glut of silver on the market.
All Souls College, University of Oxford is founded.
The Council of Basel suspends Pope Eugene IV.
1439 Events
July 16 – Kissing is banned in England (to stop the Black Death from spreading)
November 12 – In England, Plymouth becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament.
Johannes Gutenberg develops printing with movable type at Mainz at about this date.
The Great Ordinance is adopted by the French Estates-General, granting the king the exclusive right to raise troops, and establishes the taxation measure known as the taille, in support of a standing army.
1440 Events
Eton College is founded by Henry VI of England.
1348 to 1356
Uranus ingressed into Taurus on the 16th of May 1348. It later retrograded back into Aries on the 17th of October 1348. It was the 7th of March 1349 when it ingressed back into Taurus.
Uranus ingressed into Gemini on the 1st of July 1355. It then retrograded back into Taurus on the 30th of October 1355. It was the 18th of April 1356 when it ingressed back into Gemini again.
1348 Events
January 25 – An earthquake in Friuli kills 5 000 and as it coincides with the Black Death in Italy, it fuels apocalyptic fears. (Uranus at 29° Aries)
June – Bubonic plague enters England via two ships
July 6 – The Pope issues a Papal Bull protecting Jews from aggression from the population looking to blame someone or something for the Bubonic Plague.
The Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black Death epidemic spreads to central and western Europe.
The Black Death breaks out in Cairo.
1349 Events
January 9 – The Jewish population of Basel, Switzerland, approximately 700, is rounded up and incinerated by residents that believe them to be the cause of the ongoing Black Death.
January 22 – An earthquake in L’Aquila, in Italy leaves 2 000 dead and causes extensive damage.
January 30 – The Jews living in Freilsburg, Germany are massacred.
February 13 – Jews are expelled from Burgsordf, Switzerland.
February 14 – In Strasbourg, approximately 2 000 Jews are burned to death by residents who believe that they are the cause of the Black Death.
February 19 – In the German village of Saulgau, the entire Jewish community is wiped out during the Black Death massacres.
February 22 – Jews are expelled from Zurich in Switzerland
March 21 – In Erfurt, Germany, the Jewish community is murdered or expelled, believed by the residents to be the cause of the Black Death (up to 3 000 killed).
March 22 – Blaming them for the Black Death, the townspeople of Fulda, Germany massacre the Jews in their town.
March 27 – An earthquake strikes at Meaux Abbey in England.
April 30 – The Jewish community in Radolszell, Germany is massacred.
May 28 – 60 Jews are murdered in Breslau, Silesia.
August 24 – In Mainz, 6 000 Jews are killed as they are thought to be to blame for the Black Death.
September 29 – The townspeople of Krems, Austria accuse Jews of poisoning wells.
September 9 – An earthquake in Rome causes the collapse of the southern exterior of the Colosseum.
October 5 – Paris theologian Jean de Fayt warns against the Flagellants at Avignon.
October 20 – Pope Clement VI publishes a papal bull that condemns the Flagellants.
November 1 – The Duke of Brabant orders the execution of all Jews in Brussels, accusing them of poisoning the wells.
November 29 – The Jews of Augsburg, Germany are massacred.
December 5 – 500 Jews of Nuremberg are massacred during Black Death persecutions.
1350 Events
The Black Death reaches Scotland.
The national law of Magnus Erikssons landslag is introduced in Sweden.
1351 Events
January 14 – The Treason Act of 1351, defining treason in English law is instituted by Edward III of England. It is one of the earliest statues still in force under English law.
To deal with the shortage of labor caused by the Black Death, the Statute of Laborers is enacted by the Parliament of England.
1352 Events
Corpus Christi College is founded as a College of the University of Cambridge.
1353 Events
March 3 – Bern signs an agreement with the Swiss Confederation.
1354 Events
October 8 – The self-proclaimed Tribune of Rome, Cola di Rienzo, is killed by an angry mob.
1355 Events
February 10 – The St. Scholastica’s Day riot in Oxford, England breaks out. It leaves 63 scholars and approximately 30 locals dead in two days.
1356 Events
October 18 – An earthquake in Basel, Switzerland, the most significant historic seismological event north of the Alps, destroys Basel. (Uranus retrograde in Gemini)
1264 to 1272
Uranus ingressed into Taurus on the 6th of June 1264. It retrograded back into Aries on the 22nd of September 1264. It ingressed back into Taurus on the 25th of March 1265.
Uranus ingressed into Gemini on the 28th of July 1271. It retrograded back into Taurus on the 30th of September 1271. It ingressed into Gemini again on the 5th of May 1272.
1264 Events
April – Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford leads a massacre of the Jews at Canterbury.
Before May – The Second Barons’ War, a civil war in England, begins.
October 3 – The comet which was said to predict the death of Pope Urban IV is last seen.
9 October – The Kingdom of Castile conquers the city of Jerez that was under Muslim occupation since 711.
King Boleslaus V of Poland passes legal protection for his Jewish subjects, including protection from the kidnapping and forcible baptism of Jewish children.
1265 Events
January 20 – The first elected English parliament, (called Montfort’s Parliament), conducts its first meeting in the Palace of Westminster, later to be known as the Houses of Parliament.
Fire destroys parts of Old Cairo.
1266 Events
Niccolo and Maffeo Polo, father and uncle of Marco Polo, reach Kublai Khan‘s capital Khanbaliq in China, setting the stage for Marco’s famous expedition 5 years later.
Kublai Khan sends the Polos back with a message, requesting that the Pope dispatch western scholars to teach in the Mongol Empire; this is largely ignored.
In France, the gold écu and silver grosh coins are minted for the first time
1267 Events
February 9 – The Synod of Breslau orders the Jews of Silesia to wear special caps
May 10 – The leadership in Vienna forces Jews to wear a cone-shaped headdress, in addition to the yellow badges Jews are already forced to wear.
In England, the Statute of Marlborough is passed, the oldest English law still (partially) in force.
1268 Events
In an effort to reduce the influences of powerful families, new election procedures are established for the election of the Doge of Venice.
The papal election after the death of Pope Clement IV fails to elect a new pope for almost 3 years, leading to the creation of strict rules governing the electoral process.
The first recorded instance of the carnival in Venice is made.
An earthquake in Cilicia kills an estimated 60,000 people.
1269 Events
June 19 – King Louis IX of France orders all Jews found in public, without an identifying yellow badge, to be fined ten livres of silver.
Pélerin de Maricourt first describes magnetic poles, and remarks on the nonexistence of isolated magnetic poles.
1270 Events
Before August – The Eighth Crusade is launched by King Louis IX of France.
October 30 – The Eighth Crusade and the siege of Tunis are ended by agreement between Charles I of Sicily (brother to King Louis IX of France, who had died months earlier) and the sultan of Tunis.
The cathedral on the Rock of Cashel in Ireland is completed.
1271 Events
Marco Polo departs with his father and uncle, on his famous journey to China.
Caerphilly Castle, the largest in Wales, is completed.
1272 Events
In astronomy, the Alfonsine tables are completed.
1180 to 1189
Uranus ingressed into Taurus on the 15th of July 1180. It retrograded back into Aries on the 12th of August 1180. On the 12th of April 1181, it had once again ingressed into Taurus.
Uranus ingressed into Gemini on the 21st of May 1188. It retrograded back into Taurus on the 3rd of January 1189. On the 25th of February 1189, it had ingressed back into Gemini again.
1180 Events
April 13 – Frederick Barbarossa issues the Gelnhausen Charter which is considered the most important event in German constitutional history. The new nobility was based on services to the crown rather than hereditary power.
Artois is annexed by France.
A devastating whirlwind damages Kyoto in Japan.
1181 Events
August 4 to 6 – Chinese and Japanese astronomers observe a supernova, one of only 8 able to be viewed with the naked eye in recorded history. It is visible for around 185 days.
The Yowa era, marked by a two-year famine, begins in Japan.
King Philip Augustus of France, annuls all loans made by Jews to Christians and takes 20 percent for himself. A year later, he confiscates all Jewish property and expels the Jews from Paris.
1182 Events
Genghis Khan is captured and temporarily enslaved.
The Jews are expelled from Paris by Philip II of France.
1183 Events
Saladin becomes the sultan after he conquers Syria.
1184 Events
The streets of Paris in France are paved, by order of Philip Augustus.
A great fire at Glastonbury Abbey in England destroys several buildings.
In England, the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller are ordered to assist in the collection of taxes, by royal decree.
1185 Events
April 24 – Antoku Taira, emperor of Japan (1180-85), is drowned by his grandmother, after the defeat and overthrow of his reign.
August 15 – The cave city of Vardzia is consecrated by Queen Tamar of Georgia
The first evidence is uncovered, that King Henry II of England is storing part of his treasure in the safes of the Temple in London, under the guard of the Knights Templar.
1186 Events
The first nunnery in Iceland is inaugurated, the Kirkjubæjar Abbey.
1187 Events
October 2 – Saladin captures Jerusalem.
October 29 – The Third Crusade starts.
1188 Events
Newgate Prison is built in London.
Richard Lionheart allies with Philip II of France against his father, Henry II of England.
The “Saladin tithe” is levied in England.
The Cutting of the elm occurs at Gisors, in Normandy.
1189 Events
September 3 – Richard I is crowned as King of England and he sets about selling castles, lordships, privileges, and towns to fund his crusade against Saladin.
The following sites proved indispensable when finding out what happened in the years listed above
Wikipedia, On This Day, Hisdates, and Snappy Goat for pictures.
Don’t forget to get your free natal chart.
Join the Scullywag Astrology Facebook Group or like the Facebook Page to learn more about astrology.
