AncientPages.com – On March 19, 1697, Tsar Peter the Great left Moscow to travel to Western Europe. He was the first Tsar to leave his country in peacetime and ‘opened a window into Europe.’ Russia would never be the same on his return,

AncientPages.com – On March 18 (or 19), 1314, Jacques de Molay, the last grandmaster of the Knights Templars, an order of knighthood founded during the Crusades, was burned at stake. Jacques de Molay, born in 1243, failed to exercise effective leadership when the suppression

AncientPages.com – On March 17, 1880, Captain Lawrence “Titus” Oates, an English cavalry officer with the 6th Dragoons and later an Antarctic explorer, was born in London. He died during the Terra Nova Expedition on the same day in 1912. Antarctic explorers: standing, (L-R)

AncientPages.com – On March 16, 1485, Anne Neville, the daughter of Richard Neville, 16th  Earl of Warwick, and Anne Beauchamp, died mysteriously at the age of twenty-eight. Did tuberculosis cause her death, or was she poisoned? Anne Neville spent most of

AncientPages.com – On March 15, 44 BC., Roman Dictator Julius Caesar was assassinated, not in the Senate but in a meeting room adjacent to the Theatre of Pompey. The conspirators – Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Junius Brutus, and several

AncientPages.com – On March 14, 1757, John Byng, an admiral of the Royal Navy, was executed by firing squad for neglect of duty. Byng was born on October 29, 1704, in Southill, Bedfordshire, and was the son of a prominent

AncientPages.com – On March 12, 1896, the first radiogram was sent by Russian physicist Alexander Stepanovich Popov. It traveled over 200 yards from one building of the St. Petersburg University to another and read “Heinrich Hertz” in Morse code. Morse telegraphy became the

AncientPages.com – On March 11, 1864, the Great Sheffield Flood occurred. The immediate cause was a crack in the dam, the cause of which was never determined. This tragic accident was forgotten. We have to remember Sheffield’s sad day –

AncientPages.com – On March 10, 241 BC, the Carthaginian relieving fleet was defeated near the Aegates Islands off western Sicily, and the event is known as the Battle of the Egadi Islands. It was the final battle of the First Punic War

AncientPages.com – Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence on March 9, 1451. He was an Italian explorer, financier, navigator, and cartographer. He played a prominent role in exploring the New World, demonstrating that it was not Asia but an unknown new

AncientPages.com – On March 8, 1576, Diego García de Palacio explored the city of Copan. Palacio was a Spanish explorer sent to investigate new lands. Diego García de Palacio was one of the first anthropologists because, unlike the conquistadors, he actually

AncientPages.com – On March 7, 321 AD., Emperor Constantine (ruled 306 – 337 AD) passed his famous national Sunday law. It was ‘dies Solis’—the day of the sun, “Sunday”—as the Roman day of rest. Modern bronze statue of Constantine I

AncientPages.com – Ferdinand Magellan landed in Guam on March 6, 1521, during his fateful trip worldwide. It was the first contact Europeans made with the islands and an important stop during the expedition in Spain in 1519. Victoria, the sole

AncientPages.com – On March 5, 1616, the Catholic Church banned Nicolaus Copernicus’s book “On the revolutions of the heavenly spheres” (De revolutionibus orbium coelestium). Copernicus’s conversation with God. Painting by Jan Matejko. Credit: Public Domain In the book, first published in

AncientPages.com – On March 4, 1852, the prominent Russian writer, playwright, poet, critic, and publicist of the 19th century, Nikolay Gogol, died. The story of Nikolay Gogol’s death has always been shrouded in mystery. Monument of young Gogol on Andreevsky