On January 5, 1895, Alfred Dreyfus, a French army office, was stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island, a penal colony off the coast of French Guiana. The Dreyfus Affair was a political scandal that divided France from the…
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In January 4, 1853, Solomon Northup finally breathed the sweet air of freedom again. Northup was an African-American man born in July 1808 in Minerva, New York. Born a free man in a time when slavery was still legal in the United States, Northup…
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On January 3, 1521, Pope Leo X issued the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem, a move that reshaped Christianity in Europe and excommunicated Martin Luther from the Catholic Church. Born in 1483 in Eisleben, Germany, Luther’s journey toward excommunication began in earnest in 1517 when…
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The Battle of Ap Bac, fought on January 2, 1963, marked the first major combat test of the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) against the Viet Cong (VC) insurgency during the Vietnam War. The battle occurred in the Mekong Delta region of South Vietnam, near…
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On January 1, 45 BC, Julius Caesar changed the way the West marked their calendars, making January 1 the first day of the new year. Prior to the Julian reform, the Roman calendar was a complex lunar calendar that often fell out of phase…
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On December 31, 1600, Queen Elizabeth granted a Royal Charter that changed the world. The East India Company was established by a group of English merchants who aimed to monopolize English trade with all countries east of the Cape of Good Hope and west…
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The Gadsden Purchase, also known as the Treaty of La Mesilla, was a significant event in the mid-19th century that involved the acquisition of a portion of present-day Arizona and New Mexico by the United States from Mexico. The purchase was named after James…
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Thomas Becket’s ascent to the pinnacle of English ecclesiastical power and subsequent assassination is a tale that profoundly shaped the historical landscape of church-state relations across Europe, but especially in Great Britain. Initially serving as a trusted confidant and Chancellor to King Henry II,…
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The United States Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973 may be one of the most important pieces of environmental legislation ever passed by the United States Congress. Recognizing the ecological importance, economic value, and intrinsic worth of wildlife and plants, the ESA was signed…
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On December 27, 1983, in a profound act of forgiveness and reconciliation, Pope John Paul II visited Mehmet Ali Ağca, the man who had attempted to assassinate him, in Rome’s Rebibbia prison. The meeting was a personal gesture of pardon and a powerful public…
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