AncientPages.com – On April 20, 1535, an atmospheric optical phenomenon known as the “Sun Dog” was observed over Stockholm. The painting that depicts the event was named “Weather Sun”) (in Swedish: Vädersol)  and is considered the oldest depiction of Stockholm in color, the oldest Swedish landscape

AncientPages.com – On April 19, 1770, Captain James Cook spotted and claimed the East Coast of Australia. Cook was born in north-east England in 1728, and in his late teens, he worked on ships along the English coast and the

AncientPages.com – On the evening of April 18, 1775, Dr. Joseph Warren instructed Paul Revere, a Boston silversmith, to ride to Lexington, Massachusetts to warn Sam Adams and John Hancock that the British troops were coming to arrest them. Paul Revere

AncientPages.com – On April 16, 1457, BC (other sources propose May 9), the Battle of Megiddo took place during a rebellion against Pharaoh Thutmose III. On one side, there was a large Canaanite coalition under the King of Kadesh, and on

AncientPages.com – The Battle of Rain (also called the Battle of the River Lech or Battle of Lech) was fought on April 15, 1632, during the Thirty Years’ War. The forces involved in this encounter were 40,000 Swedish-Saxon troops under King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden and 25,000 Catholic League troops under Count

AncientPages.com – On April 12, 238 AD, Gordian II lost the Battle of Carthage against the forces of Numidia, an ancient Berber kingdom in what is now Algeria and a minor part of Tunisia in North Africa. The Numidians were

AncientPages.com – On April 11, 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France and one of the most outstanding military leaders in history, abdicated the throne and was banished to the Mediterranean island of Elba. Napoleon on Elba, an early 19th-century painting

AncientPages.com – On April 8, 1820, the Greek farmer Yorgos Kentrotas stumbled upon a damaged statue in a buried niche within the ancient ruins of Milos, Greece. Venus de Milo on display at the Louvre. Image credit: Shonagon – CC0 1.0

AncientPages.com – On April 6, 1320, the Declaration of Arbroath was drafted and sent to Pope John XXII as a letter. The document, written in Latin, declares Scotland’s independence and the right to defend herself if attacked. Declaration of Arbroath, 1320. Image

AncientPages.com – On April 5, 1242,  the famous “Battle on the Ice” was fought on Lake Peipus between the Teutonic and Livonian Knights and the army of the Russian city of Novgorod, led by Prince Alexander Nevsky. Nevsky was admired

AncientPages.com – On April 4, 1581, Francis Drake was knighted after completing his world circumnavigation. Queen Elizabeth herself knighted him. He is documented as the second person in history to successfully circumnavigate the world. Drake receives knighthood from Queen Elizabeth. Bronze

AncientPages.com – On March 31, 1814, Tsar Alexander I of Russia, at the head of the Coalition Army, triumphantly marched into Paris, forcing Napoleon to abdicate a few days later. The Coalition armies, including Russian, Prussian, and Austrian, entered France

AncientPages.com – On 30 March 240 BC, the first recorded passage of Halley’s Comet was observed by Chinese astronomers in the Chinese chronicle ‘Records of the Grand Historian’ (or ‘Shiji’), which describes a comet that appeared in the east and

AncientPages.com – On December 7, 1941 at 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time, a Japanese dive bomber bearing the red symbol of the Rising Sun of Japan on its wings appears out of the clouds above the island of Oahu. A large group

AncientPages.com – The Battle of the Rhyndacus was fought on 15 October 1211 between the forces of two of the main successor states of the Byzantine Empire, the Latin Empire and the Byzantine Greek Empire of Nicaea, established following the