History Trivia

April 6, 46 BC – Julius Caesar defeated Caecilius Metellus Scipio and Marcus Porcius Cato in the battle of Thapsus. 402 Stilicho stymied the Visigoths under Alaric in the Battle of Pollentia. 774 Charles the Great affirmed Pippins promise of Quiercy, protecting the States of the Church. 1199 England's King Richard I, the Lion-Hearted, died from an infection following the removal of an arrow from his shoulder. 1320 The Scots reaffirmed their independence by signing the Declaration of Arbroath. 1453 Mehmed II began his siege of Constantinople (Istanbul), which fell on May 29. 1483 Raphael was born.

History Trivia

April 5, 456 St. Patrick returned to Ireland as a missionary bishop. 1242 Russian troops repelled an invasion by Teutonic knights. 1291 a Muslim army attacked Acre in the tiny Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, beginning the end of the history of the Crusader states in the East. 1603 New English king James I left Edinburgh for London.

History Trivia

April 4,186 Caracalla, Emperor of Rome, (211-217) was born. 527 Justinian I was created co-emperor. 1081 Alexius Comnenus crowned emperor. Alexius seized the throne from Nicephorus III. During his reign, he would succeed in reviving the Eastern Roman Empire after half a century of ineffective rule. 1460 University of Basle in Switzerland founded. 1541 Ignatius of Loyola became the first superior-general of the Jesuit Order. 1581 Francis Drake was knighted for completing a circumnavigation of the world. 1588 Christian IV succeeded Frederik II as king of Denmark.

History Trivia

April 3, 1043 Edward the Confessor was crowned King of England. Edward had Norman sympathies and had supposedly named William the Conqueror his successor, before choosing Harold Godwinson on his death-bed. 1367 John of Gaunt and Edward the Black Prince won the Battle of Najara, in Spain. 1559 Philip II of Spain and Henry II of France signed the peace of Cateau-Cambresis, ending a long series of wars between the Hapsburg and Valois dynasties.

History Trivia

April 2, 68 the Emperor Galba was declared Imperator by his legion. 742 Charlemagne, King of the Franks from 768-814, first Holy Roman Emperor, from 800-814, was born. 999 Sylvester II was elected pope. He was the first French pope, and was said to have played a major role in popularizing Arabic numerals in the West. 1234 Edmund Rich became Archbishop of Canterbury. Raised to the Archbishopric by Pope Gregory IX, Edmund was an outspoken figure who clashed with King Henry III of England and preached for the Sixth Crusade. 1285 Honorius IV elected pope. Honorius was old and crippled when elected but in his brief two years as pope he worked toward reuniting the Western and Eastern churches and supported the mendicant orders.

History Trivia

April 1,374 Comet 1P/374 E1 (Halley) approached within 0.0884 AUs of Earth. 527 Byzantine Emperor Justin I named his nephew Justinian I as co-ruler and successor to the throne. 705 Greek pope John VII was chosen to succeed John VI. 1204 Eleanor of Aquitaine died. 1293 Robert Winchelsey left England for Rome, to be consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury. 1318 Berwick-upon-Tweed was captured by the Scottish from the English. 1340 Niels Ebbesen killed Gerhard III of Holstein in his bedroom, ending the 1332-1340 interregnum(period of discontinuity)in Denmark. 1578 William Harvey of England discovered blood circulation.

History Trivia

March 31, 307 after divorcing his wife Minervina, Constantine married Fausta, the daughter of the retired Roman Emperor Maximian. 1084 Henry VI of Germany, after deposing Pope Gregory VII, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Gregory's successor, Pope Clement III. 1146 Bernard of Clairvaux preached his famous sermon in a field at Vézelay, urging the necessity of a Second Crusade. 1657 Parliament offered Oliver Cromwell the title of king in the Humble Petition and Advice, but he rejected the title.