Blue jeans patented, 1873
On 20th May 1873 two immigrants were granted the patent for that quintessential American garment: the blue jeans. Levi Strauss was born in Buttenheim, Bavaria in 1829 from where he…
Charles Lindbergh arrived in Paris, 1927
At 10:22pm on 21st May 1927, Charles Lindbergh landed at Le Bourget Aerodrome, Paris completing the first ever non-stop solo transatlantic flight. Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field, New York…
Nuclear submarine sank, 1968
On 29th July 1960, the United States Navy commissioned their latest nuclear-powered submarine, the 3500-ton Skipjack class USS Scorpion (SSN-589). Scorpion (the sixth US Navy ship to carry that name)…
First session of Finnish Parliament, 1907
In 1809, following occupation by Russian forces during their war against Sweden, the four estates of Finland (clergy, aristocracy, burghers and peasants) pledged loyalty to the Russian Tsar Alexander I,…
U.S. consulate in Quebec City bombed, 1968
In 1963 a radical group of French-speaking Canadians broke away from Rassemblement pour l’Indépendance Nationale, an organisation that sought independence for the Canadian province of Quebec by democratic means. These…
Richard Cromwell resigned as Lord Protector, 1659
Following the death of his father Oliver on 3rd October 1658, Richard Cromwell became Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. There was no mechanism for succession…
Discovery of first commercial oil field in the Middle East, 1908
In 1901, the British financier William Knox D’Arcy secured the rights to “search for, obtain, exploit, develop, render suitable for trade, carry away and sell natural gas, petroleum, asphalt and…
Foundation of Saint Petersburg, 1703
For the first twenty years of the eighteenth century Russia and Sweden fought a war for supremacy over the Baltic Sea. On 1st May 1703, the forces of the Russian…
Golden Gate Bridge opened, 1937
In 1916, the editor of The San Francisco Call & Post, James Wilkins, started a campaign to revive the idea of a bridge to span the Golden Gate – the…
Riot at premiere of Stravinsky`s Rite of Spring, 1913
In 1910 the painter Nicholas Roerich told the composer Igor Stravinsky [pictured] of a vision he had of a pagan ritual during which a young girl dances herself to death.…