AncientPages.com – On December 8, 1542, Mary Queen of Scots was born. She represents one of history’s true enigmas. Historians know plenty about what she did and where she went during her short life. However, they do not know much about

AncientPages.com – On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy conducted a surprise military strike against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The attack was planned as a preventive action to keep the US Pacific Fleet from

AncientPages.com – On December 6, 1214, King Alexander II was crowned at Scone. Scone is a village or suburb of Perth and Kinross in central Scotland. The medieval Scone was located west of the New Scone village and was the

AncientPages.com – On December 5, 771, Charlemagne became the King of the Franks after the death of his brother Carloman. Charlemagne, son of King Pepin the Short, succeeded his father in 768 and was initially co-ruler with his brother Carloman.

AncientPages.com – On December 4, 1154, the only pope to have been born in England and the first pope from the Anglosphere, who served from 1154 to 1159. His birth name was Nicholas Breakspear. He was an English priest of

AncientPages.com – On December 3, 1872, a translation from Babylonian cuneiform tablets of the Chaldean account of the deluge was read by George Smith (1840 – 1876), an English archaeologist and Assyriologist, before the Society of Biblical Archaeology in London. This

AncientPages.com –  On December 2, 1594, Gerardus Mercator, the best-known mapmaker of all time, died. He was born on March 5, 1512, in Rupelmonde, Flanders (now Belgium). After earning a master’s degree in philosophy and theology from the University of

AncientPages.com – On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks disobeyed an order to give up her seat in the black section of the bus to a white passenger. She was arrested and then challenged the arrest, her case leading to a

AncientPages.com – One of the most famous murders of the Middle Ages took place on December 29, 1170, when four knights of King Henry II of England silently entered Canterbury Church to kill the Archbishop, Thomas Becket (c.1120 – 1170). Santa Maria della

AncientPages.com – On November 30, 1853, the Battle of Sinop (Sinope) took place at Sinop, a sea port in northern Anatolia, when a squadron of Imperial Russian warships struck and defeated Ottoman ships anchored in the harbor. Battle of Sinope. Image credit: Wikipedia.

AncientPages.com – On November 29, 1929, U.S. Admiral Richard E. Byrd led the first expedition to fly over the South Pole. In the fall of 1928, Byrd and a group of explorers traveled to the Bay of Whales and established a

AncientPages.com – On Nov. 28, 1520, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reached the Pacific Ocean after passing through the South American strait. The strait was later named The Strait of Magellan. Magellan came with three ships from the Atlantic Ocean and became

AncientPages.com – On November 26, 1476, Vlad III Dracula (1431-1476), ruler of Wallachia, returned from a decade-long exile to take the throne for the last time. The man was named Vlad by his father, Vlad II, and he also received

AncientPages.com – On November 27, 1701, Anders Celsius, a Swedish astronomer, physicist, and mathematician (1701-1744), was born. He invented the centigrade (Celsius) temperature scale commonly used in Europe and founded the Uppsala Astronomical Observatory in 1740, the oldest astronomical observatory in Sweden.

AncientPages.com – On November 25, 885, the Vikings laid siege to Paris. The Siege of Paris of 885-86 was part of a Viking in the Kingdom of the West Franks. It was a turning point in the history of France; the

AncientPages.com – On November 24, 1996, Sorley MacLean, one of the most distinguished poets, died. Sorley MacLean, (in Gaelic: Somhairle Macgill-Eain) will be remembered as one of the greatest of all Gaelic poets. He is seen by many as the father