The winter of 627 opened with an army that should not have existed. After years of catastrophic defeats, territorial losses stretching from Egypt to Syria, and a Persian occupation that once reached the very gates of Constantinople, the Byzantine Empire was expected—by friends and…
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The Root and Branch Petition, presented to the Long Parliament on December 11, 1640, stands as one of the most provocative and destabilizing petitions of the English Reformation era. Signed by an estimated 15,000 Londoners—an extraordinary number for the period—it demanded nothing less than…
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The message was clear on December 10, 1541, stay away from the queen. The day marked one of the grim pieces of Tudor justice when Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham were executed for improper relations with Catherine Howard, the young queen and fifth wife…
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On the morning of December 9, 1531, a widowed Chichimeca-Nahua convert named Juan Diego set out across the northern outskirts of Mexico City toward the Franciscan mission at Tlatelolco to attend Mass. A relatively recent convert to Christianity, Juan Diego had been baptized only…
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On December 7, 1941, the United States was thrust into global war when aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a sudden and meticulously coordinated attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The assault began early on a quiet Sunday morning,…
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A Woman Takes the English Public Stage: Margaret Hughes or Anne Marshall as Desdemona in Othello On December 8, 1660, the English public stage witnessed a groundbreaking moment when a woman performed professionally for the first time, breaking with centuries of tradition. Historians continue…
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On December 7, 1930, viewers in the Boston area witnessed a milestone that would later become central to American broadcasting: the combination of live entertainment and commercial sponsorship on experimental television station W1XAV. Operated by the Shortwave and Television Laboratory in Boston, W1XAV was…
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On December 6, 1933, United States District Judge John M. Woolsey issued a landmark ruling in United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, declaring that James Joyce’s modernist novel Ulysses was not obscene under federal law and could therefore be legally imported and sold…
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London in the 1760s was a city in the midst of profound commercial and cultural transformation. The Seven Years’ War had recently concluded, redirecting wealth and attention back toward domestic pursuits; aristocratic collections, gentlemanly libraries, and cabinets of curiosity were flourishing; and the city’s…
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In the winter of 1861, as the Union cracked under the pressure of secession and the first year of civil war drew to a close, the Confederate States of America undertook a ritual of nationhood it hoped would signal permanence. On December 4, 1861,…
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