History
852 verified facts in this category, showing 501–600.
- On August 24, 1814, British forces burned the U.S. Capitol during the War of 1812, destroying the Library of Congress's original collection of 3,000 volumes.
- The Austrian National Library holds manuscripts from the library of Matthias I Corvinus, whose collection was dispersed after the Turks captured his capital, Buda, in 1526.
- British troops bombarded the Capitol and caused a fire in 1814, destroying many books in the Library of Congress.
- During the 1960s, the FBI covertly targeted civil-rights leaders, women's movements and anti-war protestors in the name of domestic security.
- On July 21, 2025, the National Archives released more than 230,000 pages of records related to the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
- The President's Intelligence Checklist (PICL), created after the Bay of Pigs invasion, was first delivered on 17 June 1961 and remained President John F. Kennedy's primary written intelligence source for the rest of his administration.
- In the 1980s, the U.S. Congress passed a law shutting down American support to the Contras in Nicaragua.
- Soviet penetration of the Middle East is said to have begun with a 1955 arms deal between Czechoslovakia and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
- The CIA's amphibious, paramilitary invasion of Cuba in April 1961 (the Bay of Pigs) was defeated by Fidel Castro's forces within two days.
- Across six public releases, approximately 3,000 translated VENONA messages were made public.
- President George W. Bush said of the 2007 NIE's public release, 'The NIE had a big impact—and not a good one.'
- President George W. Bush described the 2007 NIE's language about Iran's nuclear program as 'eye-popping.'
- The U.S. Space Force is the first new U.S. military service created since the U.S. Air Force was established in 1947.
- In a 2015 case upholding the constitutionality of Arizona's independent redistricting commission, a Supreme Court majority consisting of the four liberal justices and Justice Anthony Kennedy rejected the independent state legislature theory.
- In Rucho v. Common Cause (2019), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal courts have no authority to review partisan-gerrymandering cases, while Chief Justice John Roberts said state statutes and state constitutions could provide standards for state courts.
- At age 75, Mike Gravel and his wife Whitney used public transportation in 2006 to announce his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2008 election.
- The Supreme Court's online oral argument audio files begin only with October Term 2010.
- The Supreme Court began audio recording oral arguments in 1955.
- Jebel Sahaba is considered the oldest cemetery discovered so far in the Nile Valley.
- Archaeologists uncovered tens of thousands of broken animal bones at Göbekli Tepe, including gazelles and aurochs.
- Mass human migrations into the Americas occurred around 13,400 years ago, roughly 1,000 years before the onset of the Younger Dryas.
- Since 1998, archaeozoologist Joris Peters of Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich has examined more than 100,000 bone fragments from Göbekli Tepe, of which gazelle bones account for more than 60 percent of the total.
- The Capsian industry was a Mesolithic cultural complex dating from 8000 to 2700 BCE, prominent in the inland regions of North Africa.
- Some megaliths at Göbekli Tepe are carved with elaborate images of foxes, scorpions, lions, and other animals.
- Apollo 7 splashed down on October 22, 1968, about 200 nautical miles south-southwest of Bermuda and roughly 1 to 2 miles from its target point.
- About 30 hours after launch, Apollo 7 rendezvoused with its spent Saturn IB second stage, coming within 70 feet of the tumbling rocket.
- By October 1964, Grumman's lunar module design had grown to 33,000 pounds, up from the original 22,000-pound, two-stage design.
- Ferdinand Magellan named the Pacific Ocean in 1520 after sailing through a calm patch of water, deriving the name from 'pacify' or 'peaceful.'
- Poppy Northcutt was hired in 1965 through NASA contractor TRW after graduating early from the University of Texas with a degree in mathematics.
- Harrison H. Schmitt introduced Eric M. Jones to the other 11 Apollo astronauts who had walked on the Moon, leading them to participate in recorded mission-review sessions.
- New electronic forms of reconnaissance emerged as a sub-type of aerial reconnaissance during World War II.
- During WWII, aerial reconnaissance advanced mainly through new tactics, procedures, and technology, rather than through specialized aircraft types.
- The expansion of aerial reconnaissance during WWII was driven mostly by trial and error rather than by planned development.
- Early aerial photographic reconnaissance in World War I relied on an aircrew member, usually the observer, to operate heavy, awkward hand-held cameras.
- In antiquity, the term 'aspis' referred to any one of several venomous snake species found in the Nile region.
- The ancient city of Phacusa was located on the site of what is today the city of Faqous.
- The Arabia Nome was a province in Ancient Egypt.
- The Annals of Thutmose III provide the largest and most detailed account of military exploits of any ancient Egyptian king.
- The Annals of Thutmose III are inscribed on the inside walls of the chamber housing the 'holy of holies' at the Karnak Temple of Amun.
- ORP Czapla was raised (salvaged) by the Germans after being sunk.
- The Axis powers were originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis.
- A majority of the 60 to 75 million people who died in World War II were civilians.
- The French word 'paléontologie' was introduced in 1822.
- The French word 'paléontologie' was introduced in 1822.
- In the rhetorical stage of mathematical notation, calculations were described purely using words rather than symbols.
- The history of mathematical notation is commonly divided into three stages: rhetorical, syncopated, and symbolic.
- Of the $290 million in civil sanctions imposed on Salomon Inc. in 1992, up to $100 million could be used to satisfy civil damage claims.
- The 1992 settlement against Salomon Brothers also encompassed charges that were or could have been brought by the U.S. Department of Justice.
- On May 20, 1992, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced the filing and simultaneous settlement of charges against Salomon Inc. and its subsidiary Salomon Brothers Inc. for securities law violations tied to trading in the U.S. government securities market.
- The FDA began establishing food Standards of Identity in 1939 to promote honesty and fair dealing and to standardize the characteristics, ingredients, and production processes of specific foods.
- The CORONA documents and imagery were declassified by a special working group involving officers from the National Reconnaissance Office, Central Imagery Office, CIA Directorate of Science and Technology, and National Photographic Interpretation Center.
- The Current Intelligence Bulletin began production on 28 February 1951 and was retitled the Central Intelligence Bulletin in 1958.
- CORONA: America's First Satellite Program was the fourth volume in the CIA Cold War Records Series, launched in 1992 by Director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates.
- Oxygen tank No. 2 on Apollo 13 exploded nine minutes after the crew finished a 49-minute television broadcast, at about 55 hours and 55 minutes into the mission, causing oxygen tank No. 1 to fail as well while the spacecraft was roughly 200,000 miles from Earth.
- The Current Intelligence Bulletin began production on 28 February 1951 and was renamed the Central Intelligence Bulletin in 1958.
- In 2001, CDC received its first funding from Congress for stroke and established the Paul Coverdell National Acute Stroke Registry.
- In 1998, CDC received its first funding from Congress for states to develop comprehensive heart disease and stroke prevention programs.
- With German unity in 1990, the Basic Law became the definitive constitution of Germany.
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was infected with smallpox at some point in his life.
- Afshana, where Avicenna was born, is located in an area that is part of present-day Uzbekistan.
- The dog weighed approximately 19 kilograms and was of medium build.
- The 1956 Cortina d'Ampezzo Winter Olympics were the first Winter Games to be broadcast on television.
- As of 2018, 40 further editions of Gray's Anatomy had been produced since the first edition.
- In 1867 Joseph Lister published his antiseptic method; in 1870 he reported that deaths after amputation on his wards fell from about 45% to 15%, figures that were disputed for years.
- The Cosmonaut Training Centre changed its name to Zvyozdny Gorodok (Star City) in 1968.
- The Soviet Cosmonaut Training Centre had the code name Military Unit 26266 and was also known by the initials TsPK (Tsentr Podgotovki Kosmonavtov).
- Yuri Gagarin's spaceflight preceded Alan Shepard's spaceflight by about three weeks.
- Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge died at 8:10 p.m. on September 17, 1908, from injuries sustained in a Wright Military Flyer crash at Fort Myer, Virginia.
- Uruk has yielded some of the earliest known writing, dating to about 3300–3200 B.C.; early Egyptian inscriptions are of similar age.
- The city of Ashur was besieged and destroyed by the Medes in 614 B.C.
- King Hammurabi posted a legal code containing 282 laws around 1750 B.C.
- ISIS blew up a bridge in Fallujah during its 2016 retreat.
- The Air Commerce Act of 1926 declared the navigable airspace of the United States to be free for use.
- The Maya developed the Long Count Calendar.
- On October 14, 1962, CIA U-2 overflights of Cuba photographed and confirmed the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles capable of reaching the United States.
- President Eisenhower approved the development of the U-2 spy plane on November 25, 1954.
- In 1986, Italy introduced a law making helmet use mandatory for motorcyclists of all ages and for moped riders up to 18 years old.
- In 2017, Senate Republicans extended the nuclear option to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court justice nominations.
- In 2013, Senate Democrats used the nuclear option to allow most executive branch and judicial nominees to be approved by a simple majority.
- In 1975, the US Senate voted to lower the cloture threshold to three-fifths of senators serving overall, establishing the current 60-vote requirement.
- In 1917, the US Senate voted to create a cloture process by which a two-thirds supermajority of senators present and voting could cut off a filibuster.
- The Senate filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 lasted 60 days and ended when the Senate invoked cloture by a vote of 71 to 29.
- In 1975, the number of votes needed for cloture was reduced to three-fifths of the Senate, or 60 votes.
- The 1917 version of Rule 22 required an affirmative vote of two-thirds of senators present and voting to end debate.
- Rule 22, the Senate's cloture rule, was adopted in 1917.
- Jon Henricks set the 100-metre freestyle world record of 55.4 seconds at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
- Communist forces during the Tet Offensive attacked dozens of cities, towns, and military bases in South Vietnam, including the U.S. embassy in Saigon.
- On January 30, 1968, during the Tet holiday cease-fire in South Vietnam, an estimated 80,000 troops from the North Vietnamese Army and the National Liberation Front launched attacks throughout South Vietnam.
- On May 22, 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser closed the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping, blockading the southern Israeli port city of Elat.
- During an air battle with Syria in April 1967, the Israeli Air Force shot down six Syrian MiG fighter jets.
- In November 1966, an Israeli strike on Al-Samu' village in the Jordanian-controlled West Bank killed 18 people and wounded 54.
- Archaeological evidence indicates that ritual human sacrifice was practiced in many cultures, including ancient Egypt, ancient China, certain Indian sects, Aztec society, and Mayan communities.
- The Judiciary Act of 1789 divided the United States into 13 judicial districts organized into three circuits: the Eastern, Middle, and Southern.
- INAH archaeologist Alberto Vázquez said there were no records at the time linking the Campo Viejo discoveries to other ancient sites.
- Archaeologists found fragments of burnt maize, buried vessels and a broken greenstone bead at the Coatepec site.
- The Clovis culture was one of the earliest archaeological cultures to extend throughout North America.
- According to the conventional theory, a migration corridor into North America became passable after the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets receded.
- Archaeological studies date human colonization of North America by the Clovis culture to more than 13,000 years ago.
- Salomon Brothers' August 1991 admission of improprieties in government securities trading led shortly afterward to the resignation of the firm's senior management.
- In a BBC interview, ex-general Brar denied that the UK government colluded in the 1984 storming of the Golden Temple.