{"name":"History-Tours.com historic events atlas","description":"Historic events with their dates, period, themes, place and a short original summary. Most event pages on the site also list the independent guides who take visitors there.","source":"History-Tours.com","homepage":"https://history-tours.com/open-data","license":{"id":"CC-BY-4.0","name":"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"attribution":"\"Historic events atlas\" by History-Tours.com (https://history-tours.com/open-data), licensed under CC BY 4.0.","notes":"Negative years are BC: -44 is 44 BC. Photos are not included; each has its own licence, credited on the event page.","generatedAt":"2026-10-08T06:50:52.874Z","count":337,"events":[{"slug":"hominin-fossils-of-the-cradle-of-humankind","name":"Hominin fossils of the Cradle of Humankind","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/hominin-fossils-of-the-cradle-of-humankind","dates":{"label":"Fossils c. 3.7–1 million years old; key finds 1947–2013","startYear":-3670000,"endYear":-1000000},"period":{"slug":"prehistory","name":"Prehistory"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Sterkfontein","country":"South Africa","countryCode":"ZA"},"destination":{"slug":"johannesburg","name":"Johannesburg & Soweto","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/johannesburg"},"summary":"Limestone caves north-west of Johannesburg have produced a large share of the world's early hominin fossils, including the 'Mrs Ples' skull found in 1947, the near-complete 'Little Foot' skeleton and the Homo naledi remains discovered in the Rising Star cave in 2013. Together they are central evidence that humanity's ancestors evolved in Africa."},{"slug":"olduvai-gorge-and-early-human-evolution","name":"Olduvai Gorge and the evidence of early human evolution","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/olduvai-gorge-and-early-human-evolution","dates":{"label":"Finds c. 2–1 million years old; key discoveries 1959–1964","startYear":-2000000,"endYear":-1000000},"period":{"slug":"prehistory","name":"Prehistory"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Olduvai Gorge, Ngorongoro Conservation Area","country":"Tanzania","countryCode":"TZ"},"destination":null,"summary":"Layers exposed by a ravine in northern Tanzania hold some of the oldest stone tools and hominin fossils known. Working here from 1931, Mary and Louis Leakey found the Paranthropus skull nicknamed Zinj in 1959 and the first Homo habilis fossils soon after. Their finds, with the footprints Mary Leakey's team uncovered at nearby Laetoli, placed Africa at the centre of the human story."},{"slug":"dmanisi-early-humans","name":"Dmanisi: early humans outside Africa","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/dmanisi-early-humans","dates":{"label":"c. 1.8 million years ago","startYear":-1800000,"endYear":-1800000},"period":{"slug":"prehistory","name":"Prehistory"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Dmanisi, Kvemo Kartli","country":"Georgia","countryCode":"GE"},"destination":null,"summary":"Under a ruined medieval town in southern Georgia, excavations since 1991 have found skulls and bones of early humans dated to about 1.8 million years ago, with their stone tools and the animals they lived among. The five Dmanisi skulls are among the oldest securely dated human fossils outside Africa, and they reopened debate on when and how our ancestors first left it."},{"slug":"java-man-and-sangiran","name":"Java Man and the early humans of Sangiran","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/java-man-and-sangiran","dates":{"label":"Fossils c. 1.5 million–700,000 years old; first found 1891","startYear":-1500000,"endYear":-700000},"period":{"slug":"prehistory","name":"Prehistory"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Sangiran, Central Java","country":"Indonesia","countryCode":"ID"},"destination":null,"summary":"In 1891 the Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois found a skullcap on Java that he believed linked apes and humans. It became the type fossil of Homo erectus, the first human species known to have spread beyond Africa. From the 1930s the eroded hills of Sangiran, north of Solo, produced dozens more fossils, making it one of the richest early-human sites in the world."},{"slug":"atapuerca-earliest-europeans","name":"Atapuerca and the earliest Europeans","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/atapuerca-earliest-europeans","dates":{"label":"c. 1.4 million–400,000 years ago","startYear":-1400000,"endYear":-400000},"period":{"slug":"prehistory","name":"Prehistory"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos","country":"Spain","countryCode":"ES"},"destination":{"slug":"madrid","name":"Madrid","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/madrid"},"summary":"Caves exposed by an old railway cutting in the Sierra de Atapuerca, near Burgos, hold the oldest human fossils yet found in western Europe, more than a million years old. The Gran Dolina cave gave its name to a new species, Homo antecessor, and the Sima de los Huesos pit held the bones of at least 28 early ancestors of the Neanderthals."},{"slug":"peking-man-at-zhoukoudian","name":"Peking Man at Zhoukoudian","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/peking-man-at-zhoukoudian","dates":{"label":"c. 770,000–230,000 years ago; excavated 1921–1937","startYear":-770000,"endYear":-230000},"period":{"slug":"prehistory","name":"Prehistory"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Zhoukoudian","country":"China","countryCode":"CN"},"destination":{"slug":"beijing","name":"Beijing","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/beijing"},"summary":"Excavations at Dragon Bone Hill in Zhoukoudian from 1921 found the remains of more than 40 Homo erectus individuals, with stone tools and possible traces of fire. The original fossils disappeared in 1941 while being moved for safekeeping during the war and have never been found. Casts, the excavated caves and later Upper Cave finds are shown at the site."},{"slug":"aboriginal-rock-art-of-kakadu","name":"Aboriginal occupation and rock art of Kakadu","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/aboriginal-rock-art-of-kakadu","dates":{"label":"At least 65,000 years ago; paintings over 20,000 years to the 1960s","startYear":-65000,"endYear":1964},"period":{"slug":"prehistory","name":"Prehistory"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"Kakadu National Park","country":"Australia","countryCode":"AU"},"destination":{"slug":"darwin-kakadu","name":"Darwin & Kakadu","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/darwin-kakadu"},"summary":"Bininj/Mungguy people have lived in the Kakadu region for at least 65,000 years, according to excavations at the nearby Madjedbebe rock shelter. Shelters at Ubirr and Burrungkuy (Nourlangie) carry paintings made over some 20,000 years, from ancient figures to X-ray style fish and the first European ships. The national park is run jointly with its traditional owners."},{"slug":"lascaux-cave-art","name":"Lascaux and the painted caves of the Vézère","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/lascaux-cave-art","dates":{"label":"c. 17,000 years ago","startYear":-15000,"endYear":-15000},"period":{"slug":"prehistory","name":"Prehistory"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"art-history","name":"Art History"}],"place":{"name":"Montignac, Dordogne","country":"France","countryCode":"FR"},"destination":{"slug":"dordogne","name":"Dordogne and the Vézère Valley","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/dordogne"},"summary":"Ice Age artists covered the walls of a cave above the Vézère valley with hundreds of horses, aurochs, deer and abstract signs, using mineral pigments and the rock's own contours. Found by teenagers in 1940 and closed to protect it in 1963, Lascaux is now seen through an exact replica, while nearby original caves still show their art to small groups."},{"slug":"gobekli-tepe","name":"Göbekli Tepe and the first monumental enclosures","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/gobekli-tepe","dates":{"label":"c. 9600–8200 BC","startYear":-9600,"endYear":-8200},"period":{"slug":"prehistory","name":"Prehistory"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Göbekli Tepe, Şanlıurfa","country":"Turkey","countryCode":"TR"},"destination":null,"summary":"Hunter-gatherers on a limestone ridge near Şanlıurfa raised rings of carved T-shaped pillars, decorated with foxes, boars, snakes and vultures, before farming had taken hold in the region. The site overturned the idea that settled agriculture had to come before monumental building, and nearby Karahan Tepe shows it belonged to a wider regional culture."},{"slug":"jericho-and-the-first-walled-town","name":"Jericho and the first walled town","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/jericho-and-the-first-walled-town","dates":{"label":"c. 9500–8000 BC","startYear":-9500,"endYear":-8000},"period":{"slug":"prehistory","name":"Prehistory"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"Tell es-Sultan, Jericho","country":"Palestine","countryCode":"PS"},"destination":{"slug":"jerusalem","name":"Jerusalem","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/jerusalem"},"summary":"Beside a spring in the Jordan Valley, people who had begun to farm built one of the world's earliest permanent towns. Around 8000 BC they raised a stone wall and a solid stone tower more than eight metres high, among the oldest monumental structures known. The mound of Tell es-Sultan, excavated by Kathleen Kenyon in the 1950s, was inscribed by UNESCO in 2023."},{"slug":"malta-megalithic-temples","name":"Malta's megalithic temples and the Hypogeum","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/malta-megalithic-temples","dates":{"label":"c. 3600–2500 BC","startYear":-3600,"endYear":-2500},"period":{"slug":"prehistory","name":"Prehistory"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Malta and Gozo","country":"Malta","countryCode":"MT"},"destination":{"slug":"malta","name":"Malta","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/malta"},"summary":"Malta's early farmers raised limestone temples with curved, lobed chambers and carved altars, among the oldest free-standing stone buildings known. They also cut the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum, a three-level underground burial complex that held the remains of thousands of people. The temple culture ended around 2500 BC, and the reasons are still debated."},{"slug":"uruk-and-the-invention-of-writing","name":"Uruk and the invention of writing","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/uruk-and-the-invention-of-writing","dates":{"label":"c. 3400–3100 BC","startYear":-3400,"endYear":-3100},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"literary-history","name":"Literary History"}],"place":{"name":"Uruk (Warka)","country":"Iraq","countryCode":"IQ"},"destination":null,"summary":"Uruk grew into perhaps the world's first true city, with tens of thousands of people by around 3100 BC. Temple administrators there developed the earliest known writing, pressing signs into clay tablets to record goods and labour; it developed into cuneiform. Gilgamesh, hero of the first great epic, was remembered as Uruk's king. Its eroded ruins rise from the desert near the Euphrates."},{"slug":"newgrange","name":"Newgrange and the Boyne Valley tombs","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/newgrange","dates":{"label":"c. 3200 BC","startYear":-3200,"endYear":-3200},"period":{"slug":"prehistory","name":"Prehistory"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Brú na Bóinne, County Meath","country":"Ireland","countryCode":"IE"},"destination":{"slug":"dublin","name":"Dublin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/dublin"},"summary":"Neolithic farmers in the Boyne Valley built a great passage tomb faced with white quartz, its entrance stone carved with spirals and its roof-box placed so the midwinter sunrise lights the inner chamber. With Knowth and Dowth nearby, Brú na Bóinne holds a large share of western Europe's megalithic art and is older than the pyramids at Giza."},{"slug":"neolithic-orkney","name":"Skara Brae and the Neolithic heart of Orkney","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/neolithic-orkney","dates":{"label":"c. 3180–2500 BC","startYear":-3180,"endYear":-2500},"period":{"slug":"prehistory","name":"Prehistory"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"West Mainland, Orkney","country":"United Kingdom","countryCode":"GB"},"destination":{"slug":"orkney","name":"Orkney","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/orkney"},"summary":"On Orkney's west coast a farming community built a cluster of stone houses with dressers, box beds and hearths, linked by covered passages, which a storm uncovered in 1850. A few miles inland, the Ring of Brodgar, the Stones of Stenness, the Maeshowe tomb and the Ness of Brodgar excavations show the islands were a ceremonial centre for Neolithic Britain."},{"slug":"stonehenge","name":"Stonehenge","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/stonehenge","dates":{"label":"c. 3000–1500 BC","startYear":-3000,"endYear":-1500},"period":{"slug":"prehistory","name":"Prehistory"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire","country":"United Kingdom","countryCode":"GB"},"destination":{"slug":"london","name":"London","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/london"},"summary":"Farmers on Salisbury Plain dug a circular ditch around 3000 BC, then raised giant sarsens and bluestones brought from the Preseli Hills in Wales, aligning the monument on the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset. Surrounded by burial mounds, avenues and the larger stone circle at Avebury, it sits at the centre of a ritual landscape archaeologists are still mapping."},{"slug":"troy","name":"Troy, the city behind the Iliad","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/troy","dates":{"label":"c. 3000–1180 BC","startYear":-3000,"endYear":-1180},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"literary-history","name":"Literary History"}],"place":{"name":"Hisarlık, Çanakkale","country":"Turkey","countryCode":"TR"},"destination":{"slug":"gallipoli","name":"Gallipoli","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/gallipoli"},"summary":"At Hisarlık, near the mouth of the Dardanelles, the remains of at least nine cities lie on top of one another. The Late Bronze Age town, destroyed around 1180 BC, is widely linked to the war told in Homer's Iliad. Heinrich Schliemann's trench of the 1870s cut through several layers, and the site helped turn legend into a subject for scientific archaeology."},{"slug":"building-of-the-pyramids-of-giza-and-saqqara","name":"Building of the pyramids of Saqqara and Giza","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/building-of-the-pyramids-of-giza-and-saqqara","dates":{"label":"c. 2670–2500 BC","startYear":-2670,"endYear":-2500},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"}],"place":{"name":"Giza plateau","country":"Egypt","countryCode":"EG"},"destination":{"slug":"cairo-giza","name":"Cairo & Giza","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/cairo-giza"},"summary":"In about two centuries Egypt's Old Kingdom rulers moved from Djoser's stepped tomb at Saqqara, through the experimental pyramids at Dahshur, to Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza. The work needed a state that could organise thousands of labourers, food and stone, and the monuments remain the clearest record of how one of the first nation-states used its power."},{"slug":"royal-cemetery-and-ziggurat-of-ur","name":"Royal Cemetery and Ziggurat of Ur","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/royal-cemetery-and-ziggurat-of-ur","dates":{"label":"c. 2600–2050 BC","startYear":-2600,"endYear":-2050},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"}],"place":{"name":"Ur","country":"Iraq","countryCode":"IQ"},"destination":null,"summary":"Leonard Woolley's excavations at Ur in the 1920s and 30s uncovered the Royal Cemetery, where rulers such as Queen Puabi were buried with gold, lyres and dozens of attendants. King Ur-Nammu built the city's great ziggurat around 2100 BC, and its restored lower stages still stand. Biblical tradition links Ur with Abraham."},{"slug":"palace-of-knossos","name":"Knossos and Minoan Crete","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/palace-of-knossos","dates":{"label":"c. 1900–1350 BC","startYear":-1900,"endYear":-1350},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Knossos, Heraklion","country":"Greece","countryCode":"GR"},"destination":{"slug":"crete","name":"Crete","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/crete"},"summary":"Knossos was the largest centre of the Minoan civilisation, one of Europe's earliest urban and literate societies, with a multi-storey palace of courtyards, storerooms, light wells and painted walls. Its maze of rooms fed the Greek myth of the Minotaur. Arthur Evans excavated it from 1900 and partly rebuilt it in concrete, a restoration still argued over."},{"slug":"thebes-capital-of-new-kingdom-egypt","name":"Thebes, religious capital of New Kingdom Egypt","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/thebes-capital-of-new-kingdom-egypt","dates":{"label":"c. 1550–1070 BC","startYear":-1550,"endYear":-1070},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"}],"place":{"name":"Luxor (ancient Thebes)","country":"Egypt","countryCode":"EG"},"destination":{"slug":"luxor","name":"Luxor","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/luxor"},"summary":"During the New Kingdom, pharaohs ruling an empire from Nubia to Syria poured its wealth into Thebes. They enlarged the temple of Amun at Karnak, built Luxor Temple and cut their tombs into the Valley of the Kings across the Nile. The west bank also holds Hatshepsut's terraced temple and Deir el-Medina, the village of the tomb builders."},{"slug":"ancient-olympic-games","name":"The ancient Olympic Games at Olympia","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/ancient-olympic-games","dates":{"label":"776 BC–AD 393","startYear":-776,"endYear":393},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Olympia, Elis","country":"Greece","countryCode":"GR"},"destination":{"slug":"peloponnese","name":"Olympia and the Peloponnese","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/peloponnese"},"summary":"From the traditional date of 776 BC, Greeks from rival cities met every four years at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia for athletic contests held under a sacred truce. The site keeps the stadium, training grounds and the workshop where Pheidias made the great statue of Zeus. The games ended under Christian emperors, and their memory inspired the modern Olympics, revived in 1896."},{"slug":"cyrus-the-great-founds-the-persian-empire","name":"Cyrus the Great founds the Persian Empire","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/cyrus-the-great-founds-the-persian-empire","dates":{"label":"c. 550–530 BC","startYear":-550,"endYear":-530},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"}],"place":{"name":"Pasargadae","country":"Iran","countryCode":"IR"},"destination":null,"summary":"Cyrus II overthrew the Medes around 550 BC, then conquered Lydia and Babylon, creating the largest empire the world had yet seen. He allowed deported peoples, including the Judeans held in Babylon, to return home, a policy echoed on the Cyrus Cylinder. His capital at Pasargadae holds his plain stone tomb, which Alexander the Great ordered to be restored."},{"slug":"persepolis-ceremonial-capital-of-the-persian-empire","name":"Persepolis, ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/persepolis-ceremonial-capital-of-the-persian-empire","dates":{"label":"c. 518–330 BC","startYear":-518,"endYear":-330},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Persepolis","country":"Iran","countryCode":"IR"},"destination":null,"summary":"Darius I began Persepolis around 518 BC as the ceremonial seat of the Achaemenid Empire, which stretched from Egypt and Anatolia to the Indus. Reliefs on its staircases show delegations from across the empire bringing gifts to the king. Alexander the Great's army looted and burned the palaces in 330 BC, ending the dynasty's rule."},{"slug":"athenian-democracy","name":"Athenian democracy and the Acropolis","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/athenian-democracy","dates":{"label":"508–322 BC","startYear":-508,"endYear":-322},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"}],"place":{"name":"Athens","country":"Greece","countryCode":"GR"},"destination":{"slug":"athens","name":"Athens","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/athens"},"summary":"After Cleisthenes' reforms of 508 BC, the adult male citizens of Athens met on the Pnyx hill to debate and vote on laws and war, and filled juries and many offices by lot. In the same century the city built the Parthenon on the Acropolis. The system excluded women, slaves and foreigners, yet it remains the reference point for later democracies."},{"slug":"enlightenment-of-the-buddha","name":"Enlightenment of the Buddha","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/enlightenment-of-the-buddha","dates":{"label":"c. 5th century BC","startYear":-500,"endYear":-450},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Bodh Gaya","country":"India","countryCode":"IN"},"destination":null,"summary":"Siddhartha Gautama, a prince who had become a wandering ascetic, meditated under a pipal tree at Bodh Gaya and, according to Buddhist tradition, attained enlightenment, becoming the Buddha. The emperor Ashoka marked the place with a shrine in the 3rd century BC. The Mahabodhi Temple and a descendant of the original tree now draw pilgrims from across Asia."},{"slug":"battle-of-marathon","name":"Battle of Marathon","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-marathon","dates":{"label":"September 490 BC","startYear":-490,"endYear":-490},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"}],"place":{"name":"Marathon","country":"Greece","countryCode":"GR"},"destination":{"slug":"athens","name":"Athens","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/athens"},"summary":"A Persian force sent by Darius I landed on the coastal plain of Marathon, north-east of Athens. The Athenian army, helped by a contingent from Plataea, charged across the plain and drove the invaders back to their ships. The victory showed that the Persian Empire could be beaten, and the story of a runner carrying the news to Athens inspired the modern marathon race."},{"slug":"battles-of-thermopylae-and-salamis","name":"Battles of Thermopylae and Salamis","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battles-of-thermopylae-and-salamis","dates":{"label":"August–September 480 BC","startYear":-480,"endYear":-480},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"}],"place":{"name":"Thermopylae and the Salamis strait","country":"Greece","countryCode":"GR"},"destination":{"slug":"athens","name":"Athens","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/athens"},"summary":"When Xerxes invaded Greece, a small allied force under the Spartan king Leonidas held the narrow pass of Thermopylae for three days before it was outflanked and wiped out. Athens was abandoned and burned, but weeks later the Greek fleet, led by Themistocles, lured the larger Persian navy into the strait of Salamis and broke it. Victory at Plataea the next year ended the invasion."},{"slug":"trial-of-socrates-and-the-athenian-philosophers","name":"Trial of Socrates and the schools of Plato and Aristotle","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/trial-of-socrates-and-the-athenian-philosophers","dates":{"label":"399–322 BC","startYear":-399,"endYear":-322},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"literary-history","name":"Literary History"}],"place":{"name":"Athens","country":"Greece","countryCode":"GR"},"destination":{"slug":"athens","name":"Athens","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/athens"},"summary":"In 399 BC a jury of 501 Athenian citizens found the philosopher Socrates guilty of impiety and corrupting the young, and he was put to death with hemlock. His pupil Plato wrote down his way of questioning and founded the Academy outside the city walls, and Plato's pupil Aristotle later taught at the Lyceum. Their schools set the questions of Western philosophy and science for two thousand years."},{"slug":"macedon-and-alexander","name":"Royal Macedon and the rise of Alexander the Great","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/macedon-and-alexander","dates":{"label":"359–323 BC","startYear":-359,"endYear":-323},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Vergina (Aigai), Central Macedonia","country":"Greece","countryCode":"GR"},"destination":{"slug":"thessaloniki","name":"Thessaloniki","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/thessaloniki"},"summary":"Philip II made Macedon the leading power in Greece before he was assassinated in the theatre at Aigai in 336 BC. His son Alexander, born at Pella, conquered the Persian Empire and reached India, spreading Greek language and culture across the Near East. Philip's tomb at Vergina, found unlooted in 1977, held gold, armour and wall paintings."},{"slug":"founding-of-alexandria-and-its-library","name":"Founding of Alexandria and its Library","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/founding-of-alexandria-and-its-library","dates":{"label":"331 BC (city); c. 285 BC (Library)","startYear":-331,"endYear":-285},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Alexandria","country":"Egypt","countryCode":"EG"},"destination":{"slug":"cairo-giza","name":"Cairo & Giza","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/cairo-giza"},"summary":"Alexander the Great founded Alexandria on Egypt's Mediterranean coast in 331 BC. Under the Ptolemies it became the leading Greek city of the eastern Mediterranean, with the Pharos lighthouse and the Library and Museum, where scholars such as Euclid and Eratosthenes worked. Little stands above ground, but forts, catacombs and temple remains still trace the ancient city."},{"slug":"petra-caravan-capital-of-the-nabataeans","name":"Petra, caravan capital of the Nabataeans","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/petra-caravan-capital-of-the-nabataeans","dates":{"label":"c. 300 BC – AD 106","startYear":-300,"endYear":106},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Petra","country":"Jordan","countryCode":"JO"},"destination":{"slug":"petra","name":"Petra","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/petra"},"summary":"The Nabataeans, Arab traders who controlled incense routes between Arabia and the Mediterranean, carved their capital's tombs and temples into the sandstone of a hidden valley and managed scarce water with dams and channels. Rome annexed the kingdom in AD 106. After earthquakes the city declined, and it was little known in Europe until Johann Ludwig Burckhardt reached it in 1812."},{"slug":"punic-wars-and-the-destruction-of-carthage","name":"Punic Wars and the destruction of Carthage","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/punic-wars-and-the-destruction-of-carthage","dates":{"label":"264–146 BC","startYear":-264,"endYear":-146},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"}],"place":{"name":"Carthage","country":"Tunisia","countryCode":"TN"},"destination":null,"summary":"Carthage, founded by Phoenician settlers, fought three wars with Rome for control of the western Mediterranean, including Hannibal's invasion of Italy. In 146 BC Roman forces took the city after a three-year siege and destroyed it. Rome later rebuilt Carthage as the capital of its province of Africa, and both Punic and Roman layers survive around the hill of Byrsa."},{"slug":"ashokas-edicts","name":"Ashoka's edicts and the Delhi pillars","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/ashokas-edicts","dates":{"label":"c. 260–232 BC","startYear":-260,"endYear":-232},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"}],"place":{"name":"Delhi","country":"India","countryCode":"IN"},"destination":{"slug":"delhi-agra","name":"Delhi & Agra","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/delhi-agra"},"summary":"After his bloody conquest of Kalinga, the Mauryan emperor Ashoka turned to Buddhism and had his principles of restraint and tolerance carved on rocks and pillars across his empire. They are the earliest datable texts from India. One pillar, moved to Delhi by Sultan Firoz Shah Tughlaq in the 14th century, helped James Prinsep decipher the Brahmi script in the 1830s."},{"slug":"qumran-and-the-dead-sea-scrolls","name":"Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/qumran-and-the-dead-sea-scrolls","dates":{"label":"3rd century BC–1st century AD; found 1946–1956","startYear":-250,"endYear":68},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"jewish-heritage","name":"Jewish Heritage"}],"place":{"name":"Qumran, Dead Sea","country":"Palestine","countryCode":"PS"},"destination":{"slug":"jerusalem","name":"Jerusalem","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/jerusalem"},"summary":"Between 1946 and 1956 Bedouin shepherds and archaeologists recovered thousands of manuscript fragments from caves above the Dead Sea. Written between the 3rd century BC and the 1st century AD, they include the oldest surviving copies of books of the Hebrew Bible. Many scholars link them to a Jewish community at nearby Qumran, which the Romans destroyed around AD 68."},{"slug":"qin-unification-and-the-terracotta-army","name":"Qin Shi Huang unifies China and the Terracotta Army","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/qin-unification-and-the-terracotta-army","dates":{"label":"221–210 BC","startYear":-221,"endYear":-210},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Lintong, Xi'an","country":"China","countryCode":"CN"},"destination":{"slug":"xian","name":"Xi'an","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/xian"},"summary":"In 221 BC the king of Qin conquered the last rival states and declared himself First Emperor, standardising writing, coins, weights and axle widths across China. Thousands of life-size clay soldiers were buried to guard his tomb. Farmers digging a well found them in 1974, and excavation continues in the pits east of Xi'an."},{"slug":"changan-and-the-silk-road","name":"Chang'an and the Silk Road","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/changan-and-the-silk-road","dates":{"label":"138 BC – AD 907","startYear":-138,"endYear":907},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"Xi'an (Chang'an)","country":"China","countryCode":"CN"},"destination":{"slug":"xian","name":"Xi'an","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/xian"},"summary":"In 138 BC the Han court sent the envoy Zhang Qian west from Chang'an, opening contacts that grew into the overland Silk Road. Under the Tang dynasty Chang'an was among the largest cities in the world, home to Sogdian merchants, Buddhist monks and a Christian church. The monk Xuanzang brought Indian scriptures back here in 645 and translated them at the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda."},{"slug":"teotihuacan","name":"Teotihuacan, city of the gods","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/teotihuacan","dates":{"label":"c. 100 BC – AD 550","startYear":-100,"endYear":550},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Teotihuacan","country":"Mexico","countryCode":"MX"},"destination":{"slug":"mexico-city","name":"Mexico City","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/mexico-city"},"summary":"Teotihuacan grew into one of the largest cities in the world by about AD 400, with perhaps 100,000 people living on a planned grid around the Avenue of the Dead. Its influence reached as far as the Maya region. After its centre burned in the 6th century it was abandoned, and the Aztecs later named it the place where the gods were born."},{"slug":"assassination-of-julius-caesar","name":"Assassination of Julius Caesar","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/assassination-of-julius-caesar","dates":{"label":"15 March 44 BC","startYear":-44,"endYear":-44},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"}],"place":{"name":"Rome","country":"Italy","countryCode":"IT"},"destination":{"slug":"rome","name":"Rome","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/rome"},"summary":"On the Ides of March, senators led by Brutus and Cassius stabbed Julius Caesar to death in the Curia of Pompey, a meeting hall beside Pompey's theatre. They meant to save the Roman Republic, but the killing set off civil wars that ended with Caesar's adopted heir Octavian ruling alone as Augustus, the first Roman emperor."},{"slug":"ministry-and-crucifixion-of-jesus","name":"Ministry and crucifixion of Jesus","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/ministry-and-crucifixion-of-jesus","dates":{"label":"c. AD 30–33","startYear":30,"endYear":33},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Old City of Jerusalem","country":"Israel","countryCode":"IL"},"destination":{"slug":"jerusalem","name":"Jerusalem","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/jerusalem"},"summary":"Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish preacher from Galilee, was executed by crucifixion in Jerusalem under the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate. His followers proclaimed his resurrection, and the faith they spread became Christianity. Since the 4th century the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has marked the traditional places of his crucifixion and tomb, and several denominations share it today."},{"slug":"destruction-of-the-second-temple","name":"Roman siege of Jerusalem and destruction of the Second Temple","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/destruction-of-the-second-temple","dates":{"label":"AD 70","startYear":70,"endYear":70},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"jewish-heritage","name":"Jewish Heritage"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Temple Mount, Jerusalem","country":"Israel","countryCode":"IL"},"destination":{"slug":"jerusalem","name":"Jerusalem","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/jerusalem"},"summary":"During the Jewish revolt against Rome, the future emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem, and in AD 70 his troops burned the Temple that Herod had rebuilt. Jewish worship shifted from sacrifice to synagogue and study, and the loss is still mourned on Tisha B'Av. The Western Wall, part of the retaining wall of the Temple platform, became Judaism's holiest place of prayer."},{"slug":"siege-of-masada","name":"Siege of Masada","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/siege-of-masada","dates":{"label":"AD 73–74","startYear":73,"endYear":74},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"jewish-heritage","name":"Jewish Heritage"}],"place":{"name":"Masada, Judaean Desert","country":"Israel","countryCode":"IL"},"destination":{"slug":"jerusalem","name":"Jerusalem","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/jerusalem"},"summary":"Herod the Great built palaces on this desert mesa above the Dead Sea. After Rome crushed the Jewish revolt and destroyed Jerusalem, rebels led by Eleazar ben Ya'ir held out here until the Tenth Legion built a huge ramp to the summit. The historian Josephus wrote that the 960 defenders chose death over capture. Roman camps and the ramp survive."},{"slug":"eruption-of-vesuvius-pompeii","name":"Eruption of Vesuvius and the burial of Pompeii","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/eruption-of-vesuvius-pompeii","dates":{"label":"AD 79","startYear":79,"endYear":79},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"Pompeii, Campania","country":"Italy","countryCode":"IT"},"destination":{"slug":"naples-pompeii","name":"Naples & Pompeii","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/naples-pompeii"},"summary":"Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, burying Pompeii under ash and pumice and Herculaneum under deep volcanic flows. Excavations since 1748 have uncovered streets, shops, election slogans, kitchens and the hollows left by victims' bodies. The towns give an unusually detailed picture of everyday Roman life, and new digs still reveal rooms and frescoes."},{"slug":"inauguration-of-the-colosseum","name":"Inauguration of the Colosseum","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/inauguration-of-the-colosseum","dates":{"label":"AD 80","startYear":80,"endYear":80},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"Rome","country":"Italy","countryCode":"IT"},"destination":{"slug":"rome","name":"Rome","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/rome"},"summary":"The emperor Vespasian began a vast stone amphitheatre on the drained lake of Nero's palace, paid for partly with spoils from the Jewish War, and his son Titus opened it in AD 80 with a hundred days of games. Holding perhaps 50,000 spectators, it staged gladiator fights, animal hunts and executions as free public shows for more than four centuries."},{"slug":"kingdom-of-aksum","name":"Kingdom of Aksum and its conversion to Christianity","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/kingdom-of-aksum","dates":{"label":"c. AD 100–940; conversion c. 330s","startYear":100,"endYear":940},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"}],"place":{"name":"Aksum","country":"Ethiopia","countryCode":"ET"},"destination":null,"summary":"From its highland capital, the Aksumite kingdom traded ivory and gold between Rome, Arabia and India, minted its own coins and raised carved granite stelae over royal tombs. King Ezana adopted Christianity around the 330s, making Aksum one of the first Christian states. Ethiopian tradition holds that the Ark of the Covenant is kept in a chapel in the town."},{"slug":"hadrians-wall","name":"Hadrian's Wall","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/hadrians-wall","dates":{"label":"AD 122–c. 410","startYear":122,"endYear":410},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"}],"place":{"name":"Northumberland and Cumbria","country":"United Kingdom","countryCode":"GB"},"destination":{"slug":"edinburgh","name":"Edinburgh","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/edinburgh"},"summary":"On Emperor Hadrian's orders, Roman soldiers built a 73-mile wall across northern Britain from the Tyne to the Solway, with forts, milecastles and turrets. Garrisoned by units from across the empire, it marked the north-west frontier for nearly three centuries. Writing tablets found at Vindolanda record a birthday party invitation, supply lists and a parcel of socks."},{"slug":"tikal-and-the-classic-maya","name":"Tikal and the Classic Maya","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/tikal-and-the-classic-maya","dates":{"label":"c. AD 200–900","startYear":200,"endYear":900},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Tikal","country":"Guatemala","countryCode":"GT"},"destination":null,"summary":"Tikal was one of the most powerful Classic Maya city-states, with tens of thousands of people at its height. Its rulers raised temple-pyramids above the rainforest and recorded their reigns in hieroglyphic inscriptions, including a takeover linked to Teotihuacan in 378. Rivalry with Calakmul shaped Maya politics until Tikal and other southern cities were abandoned in the 9th and 10th centuries."},{"slug":"armenia-adopts-christianity","name":"Armenia adopts Christianity","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/armenia-adopts-christianity","dates":{"label":"c. 301","startYear":301,"endYear":301},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Vagharshapat (Etchmiadzin)","country":"Armenia","countryCode":"AM"},"destination":null,"summary":"According to Armenian tradition, Gregory the Illuminator, after years held in a pit at Khor Virap, converted King Tiridates III, and Armenia became the first state to adopt Christianity as its official religion, around 301. The cathedral at Etchmiadzin, seat of the Armenian Apostolic Church, stands where the first church was built."},{"slug":"battle-of-the-milvian-bridge","name":"Constantine's victory at the Milvian Bridge","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-the-milvian-bridge","dates":{"label":"28 October 312","startYear":312,"endYear":313},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Rome","country":"Italy","countryCode":"IT"},"destination":{"slug":"rome","name":"Rome","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/rome"},"summary":"Constantine defeated his rival Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge over the Tiber and took control of Rome. Christian writers said he had fought under a sign of Christ revealed to him before the battle. In 313 he and his co-emperor Licinius granted Christians freedom of worship, and Constantine went on to build great churches, setting Christianity on the road to becoming the empire's faith."},{"slug":"founding-of-constantinople","name":"Founding of Constantinople","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/founding-of-constantinople","dates":{"label":"11 May 330","startYear":330,"endYear":330},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Istanbul","country":"Turkey","countryCode":"TR"},"destination":{"slug":"istanbul","name":"Istanbul","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/istanbul"},"summary":"Constantine the Great refounded the Greek city of Byzantium as a new imperial capital on the Bosphorus and dedicated it in 330. Constantinople became the seat of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire for more than a thousand years, a Christian capital that preserved Roman law and Greek learning. Justinian's Hagia Sophia followed in 537."},{"slug":"ravenna-and-the-fall-of-the-western-roman-empire","name":"Ravenna and the fall of the Western Roman Empire","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/ravenna-and-the-fall-of-the-western-roman-empire","dates":{"label":"402–540","startYear":402,"endYear":540},"period":{"slug":"ancient","name":"Ancient World"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"art-history","name":"Art History"}],"place":{"name":"Ravenna","country":"Italy","countryCode":"IT"},"destination":{"slug":"florence","name":"Florence","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/florence"},"summary":"In 402 the western emperors moved their court to Ravenna, protected by marshes. There in 476 the Germanic general Odoacer deposed the boy emperor Romulus Augustulus, the date usually taken as the end of Roman rule in the West. The Ostrogothic king Theodoric then ruled Italy from the city, until Justinian's armies took it back for Constantinople in 540, leaving mosaics from every stage."},{"slug":"nalanda-buddhist-university","name":"Nalanda, the great Buddhist university","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/nalanda-buddhist-university","dates":{"label":"c. 427 – c. 1200","startYear":427,"endYear":1200},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"},{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"}],"place":{"name":"Nalanda","country":"India","countryCode":"IN"},"destination":null,"summary":"For about 800 years Nalanda was the leading centre of Buddhist learning in Asia, teaching philosophy, logic, grammar and medicine to students from as far as China, Korea and Tibet. The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang studied there in the 7th century and described its libraries. It declined and was sacked around 1200. Excavated brick monasteries and temples cover a large site."},{"slug":"chichen-itza","name":"Chichén Itzá and the northern Maya","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/chichen-itza","dates":{"label":"c. 600–1200","startYear":600,"endYear":1200},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Chichén Itzá, Yucatán","country":"Mexico","countryCode":"MX"},"destination":null,"summary":"Chichén Itzá became the leading city of the northern Yucatán between about 600 and 1200, mixing Maya traditions with styles shared with central Mexico, such as the cult of the feathered serpent Kukulcán. Its stepped pyramid is built so that equinox shadows ripple down the north stairway like a serpent. Pilgrims threw jade, gold and sometimes people into its Sacred Cenote, a natural sinkhole."},{"slug":"founding-of-kairouan-and-its-great-mosque","name":"Founding of Kairouan and its Great Mosque","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/founding-of-kairouan-and-its-great-mosque","dates":{"label":"670; mosque rebuilt 836","startYear":670,"endYear":836},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Kairouan","country":"Tunisia","countryCode":"TN"},"destination":null,"summary":"The Arab general Uqba ibn Nafi founded Kairouan in 670 as a base for the Muslim conquest of North Africa. Its Great Mosque, rebuilt in its present form in the 9th century under the Aghlabid emirs, became a model for mosques across the Maghreb, and the city a centre of Islamic law and learning. Many Tunisians regard it as Islam's fourth holy city."},{"slug":"building-of-the-dome-of-the-rock","name":"Building of the Dome of the Rock","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/building-of-the-dome-of-the-rock","dates":{"label":"691–692","startYear":691,"endYear":692},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Haram al-Sharif / Temple Mount","country":"Israel","countryCode":"IL"},"destination":{"slug":"jerusalem","name":"Jerusalem","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/jerusalem"},"summary":"The Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik built the Dome of the Rock over the rock at the centre of the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif and linked with Muhammad's Night Journey. It is the oldest surviving major Islamic monument, and with the nearby al-Aqsa Mosque it makes Jerusalem Islam's third holiest city. Its gilded dome dominates the Old City."},{"slug":"nara-and-the-great-buddha-of-todai-ji","name":"Nara and the Great Buddha of Tōdai-ji","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/nara-and-the-great-buddha-of-todai-ji","dates":{"label":"710–752","startYear":710,"endYear":752},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Nara","country":"Japan","countryCode":"JP"},"destination":{"slug":"kyoto","name":"Kyoto","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/kyoto"},"summary":"In 710 Japan's court settled at Heijō-kyō, a grid-planned capital modelled on Tang China's Chang'an. Emperor Shōmu, seeking divine protection during epidemics and revolts, ordered a colossal bronze Buddha, consecrated at Tōdai-ji in 752 with guests from as far as India. Nara's temples and the imperial storehouse show how Buddhism and Chinese-style government took root in Japan."},{"slug":"borobudur","name":"Building of Borobudur","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/borobudur","dates":{"label":"c. 780–830","startYear":780,"endYear":830},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Borobudur, Magelang","country":"Indonesia","countryCode":"ID"},"destination":null,"summary":"Under the Sailendra kings of Central Java, builders stacked nine stone terraces into a vast Buddhist monument, lined with 2,672 relief panels and originally 504 Buddha statues. Pilgrims climbed it as a path towards enlightenment. Abandoned after Java turned to Islam, it was brought to European attention in 1814 and restored with UNESCO's help between 1975 and 1982."},{"slug":"umayyad-cordoba","name":"Umayyad Córdoba and the Great Mosque","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/umayyad-cordoba","dates":{"label":"785–1031","startYear":785,"endYear":1031},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"jewish-heritage","name":"Jewish Heritage"}],"place":{"name":"Córdoba, Andalusia","country":"Spain","countryCode":"ES"},"destination":{"slug":"seville-andalusia","name":"Seville and Andalusia","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/seville-andalusia"},"summary":"An Umayyad prince who escaped the massacre of his family in Damascus made Córdoba the capital of al-Andalus, and in 785 his dynasty began the Great Mosque, later enlarged with rows of red-and-white arches. Declared a caliphate in 929, Córdoba became a centre of learning that went on to produce Averroes and Maimonides. After 1236 a cathedral was built inside the mosque."},{"slug":"lindisfarne-viking-raid","name":"Viking raid on Lindisfarne","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/lindisfarne-viking-raid","dates":{"label":"8 June 793","startYear":793,"endYear":793},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Holy Island, Northumberland","country":"United Kingdom","countryCode":"GB"},"destination":{"slug":"edinburgh","name":"Edinburgh","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/edinburgh"},"summary":"Norse raiders sacked the monastery on Holy Island off the Northumbrian coast, killing monks and seizing treasure, a shock that the scholar Alcuin lamented in letters across Christendom. The attack is the conventional start of the Viking Age in Britain. Lindisfarne had been a centre of early English Christianity where the Lindisfarne Gospels were made."},{"slug":"coronation-of-charlemagne","name":"Coronation of Charlemagne","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/coronation-of-charlemagne","dates":{"label":"25 December 800","startYear":800,"endYear":800},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"St Peter's, Rome","country":"Vatican City","countryCode":"VA"},"destination":{"slug":"rome","name":"Rome","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/rome"},"summary":"At Christmas mass in Old St Peter's, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne emperor of the Romans, reviving the imperial title in the West for the first time since 476. The ceremony tied the papacy to a western emperor and prepared the way for the Holy Roman Empire. Charlemagne was buried in his palace chapel at Aachen."},{"slug":"angkor-capital-of-the-khmer-empire","name":"Angkor, capital of the Khmer Empire","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/angkor-capital-of-the-khmer-empire","dates":{"label":"c. 802–1431 (Angkor Wat c. 1113–1150)","startYear":802,"endYear":1431},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"}],"place":{"name":"Angkor","country":"Cambodia","countryCode":"KH"},"destination":{"slug":"siem-reap-angkor","name":"Siem Reap & Angkor","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/siem-reap-angkor"},"summary":"From the 9th to the 15th century Khmer kings ruled much of mainland Southeast Asia from Angkor, a sprawling city supported by huge reservoirs and canals. Suryavarman II built Angkor Wat as a Hindu temple and funerary monument; Jayavarman VII later built the Buddhist Bayon at Angkor Thom. The royal court moved south after a Siamese attack around 1431."},{"slug":"chaco-canyon","name":"Chaco Canyon, centre of the Ancestral Puebloan world","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/chaco-canyon","dates":{"label":"c. 850–1150","startYear":850,"endYear":1150},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Chaco Culture National Historical Park","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"santa-fe-los-alamos","name":"Santa Fe & Los Alamos","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/santa-fe-los-alamos"},"summary":"Ancestral Puebloans built multi-storey great houses in Chaco Canyon, the largest with around 600 rooms, some aligned to solar and lunar cycles and linked to outlying communities by straight roads. Chaco was a ceremonial and trading centre that drew turquoise, macaw feathers and cacao from Mexico. It declined after a long drought in the 12th century."},{"slug":"mount-athos","name":"Mount Athos monastic republic","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/mount-athos","dates":{"label":"Founded 963","startYear":963,"endYear":963},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Mount Athos, Chalkidiki","country":"Greece","countryCode":"GR"},"destination":{"slug":"thessaloniki","name":"Thessaloniki","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/thessaloniki"},"summary":"Athanasius founded the Great Lavra on the Athos peninsula in 963, and twenty monasteries eventually formed a self-governing Orthodox community that has lasted more than a thousand years. Athos keeps Byzantine liturgy, icons, manuscripts and buildings in daily use. Under a rule centuries old, women may not enter, and male visitors need a permit issued in limited numbers."},{"slug":"fatimid-cairo-and-al-azhar","name":"Founding of Fatimid Cairo and al-Azhar","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/fatimid-cairo-and-al-azhar","dates":{"label":"969–972","startYear":969,"endYear":972},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Historic Cairo","country":"Egypt","countryCode":"EG"},"destination":{"slug":"cairo-giza","name":"Cairo & Giza","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/cairo-giza"},"summary":"In 969 the Fatimid general Jawhar conquered Egypt and laid out a walled royal city, al-Qahira, north of the old capital at Fustat. Its great mosque, al-Azhar, opened in 972 and soon became a centre of teaching that still runs today. The stone gates added by the vizier Badr al-Jamali in the 1080s and 1090s still mark the medieval city's edges."},{"slug":"baptism-of-kyivan-rus","name":"Baptism of Kyivan Rus","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/baptism-of-kyivan-rus","dates":{"label":"988","startYear":988,"endYear":988},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Kyiv","country":"Ukraine","countryCode":"UA"},"destination":null,"summary":"Grand Prince Volodymyr of Kyiv adopted Christianity from Byzantium and had the people of his capital baptised in the Dnipro around 988. Orthodox Christianity, Byzantine art and Church Slavonic writing became foundations of the cultures of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. His son Yaroslav built St Sophia's Cathedral, and monks soon founded the cave monastery of the Pechersk Lavra."},{"slug":"battle-of-hastings","name":"Battle of Hastings","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-hastings","dates":{"label":"14 October 1066","startYear":1066,"endYear":1066},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"}],"place":{"name":"Battle, East Sussex","country":"United Kingdom","countryCode":"GB"},"destination":{"slug":"london","name":"London","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/london"},"summary":"Duke William of Normandy defeated King Harold II on a ridge north of Hastings after a day-long fight in which Harold was killed. William was crowned at Westminster that Christmas. The conquest replaced England's ruling class, brought Norman French into the language and covered the country with castles. William founded Battle Abbey on the battlefield."},{"slug":"crusader-capture-of-jerusalem","name":"First Crusade and the capture of Jerusalem","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/crusader-capture-of-jerusalem","dates":{"label":"7 June–15 July 1099","startYear":1099,"endYear":1099},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Jerusalem Old City","country":"Israel","countryCode":"IL"},"destination":{"slug":"jerusalem","name":"Jerusalem","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/jerusalem"},"summary":"Answering Pope Urban II's call of 1095, armies from western Europe besieged Fatimid-held Jerusalem for five weeks and stormed it on 15 July 1099, killing much of its Muslim and Jewish population. They founded a Latin kingdom, rebuilt the Holy Sepulchre and built churches such as St Anne's. Saladin retook the city in 1187, but the crusades continued for two centuries."},{"slug":"great-zimbabwe","name":"Great Zimbabwe, capital of a southern African state","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/great-zimbabwe","dates":{"label":"c. 1100–1450","startYear":1100,"endYear":1450},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"}],"place":{"name":"Great Zimbabwe, near Masvingo","country":"Zimbabwe","countryCode":"ZW"},"destination":null,"summary":"Ancestors of today's Shona people built Great Zimbabwe's dry-stone walls without mortar, and at its height it may have housed over 10,000 people. Its rulers controlled gold and ivory trade to the Swahili coast, as Chinese porcelain and Persian glass found there show. Colonial writers denied its African origin; independent Zimbabwe took its name from the site."},{"slug":"rock-hewn-churches-of-lalibela","name":"Carving of the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/rock-hewn-churches-of-lalibela","dates":{"label":"late 12th – early 13th century","startYear":1181,"endYear":1221},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Lalibela","country":"Ethiopia","countryCode":"ET"},"destination":null,"summary":"Under King Gebre Mesqel Lalibela of the Zagwe dynasty, eleven churches were carved downward into volcanic rock and linked by trenches and tunnels. Tradition says the king intended a New Jerusalem. The churches are still in daily use by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and thousands of white-robed pilgrims gather there for Genna, the Ethiopian Christmas."},{"slug":"rapa-nui-settlement-and-the-moai","name":"Rapa Nui settlement and the moai","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/rapa-nui-settlement-and-the-moai","dates":{"label":"c. 1200–1600","startYear":1200,"endYear":1600},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Rapa Nui (Easter Island)","country":"Chile","countryCode":"CL"},"destination":null,"summary":"Polynesian voyagers reached Rapa Nui, one of the most remote inhabited islands on earth, around AD 1200. Over the following centuries its people carved nearly 1,000 moai, statues of ancestors, from volcanic tuff at Rano Raraku and moved them to stone platforms around the coast. European contact from 1722, Peruvian slave raids in the 1860s and disease later devastated the population."},{"slug":"sack-of-constantinople-1204","name":"Sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/sack-of-constantinople-1204","dates":{"label":"April 1204","startYear":1204,"endYear":1204},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Istanbul","country":"Turkey","countryCode":"TR"},"destination":{"slug":"istanbul","name":"Istanbul","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/istanbul"},"summary":"Crusaders bound for Egypt, deep in debt to Venice, were drawn into a Byzantine succession quarrel and stormed Constantinople instead. For three days they looted the Christian city, its churches and its relics, then set up a Latin empire that lasted until 1261. The sack left Byzantium permanently weaker and deepened the split between the Catholic and Orthodox churches."},{"slug":"magna-carta","name":"Magna Carta at Runnymede","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/magna-carta","dates":{"label":"15 June 1215","startYear":1215,"endYear":1215},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"}],"place":{"name":"Runnymede, Surrey","country":"United Kingdom","countryCode":"GB"},"destination":{"slug":"london","name":"London","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/london"},"summary":"Rebel barons forced King John to agree a charter of liberties in the water meadows at Runnymede beside the Thames. Most clauses dealt with feudal grievances, and the pope annulled it within weeks, but reissued versions entered English law. Its promise that no free man be punished except by lawful judgement later inspired constitutions in America and beyond."},{"slug":"ming-great-wall","name":"The Great Wall of China","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/ming-great-wall","dates":{"label":"7th century BC – 1644; main Ming rebuilding 1368–1644","startYear":1368,"endYear":1644},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Mutianyu","country":"China","countryCode":"CN"},"destination":{"slug":"beijing","name":"Beijing","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/beijing"},"summary":"Chinese states built walls against the peoples of the northern steppe from the 7th century BC, but the brick and stone sections near Beijing date mainly from the Ming dynasty, which strengthened them after Mongol raids in the 16th century. Watchtowers, garrisons and signal beacons followed the mountain ridges. The wall became a world symbol of China."},{"slug":"jan-hus-bohemian-reformation","name":"Jan Hus and the Bohemian Reformation","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/jan-hus-bohemian-reformation","dates":{"label":"1402–1415","startYear":1402,"endYear":1415},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Prague","country":"Czech Republic","countryCode":"CZ"},"destination":{"slug":"prague","name":"Prague","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/prague"},"summary":"Jan Hus preached church reform in Czech at Prague's Bethlehem Chapel, attacking the sale of indulgences and the wealth of the clergy. Summoned to the Council of Constance under a promise of safe conduct, he was burned as a heretic in 1415. His death set off the Hussite wars, and his ideas anticipated the Protestant Reformation by a century."},{"slug":"zheng-he-treasure-voyages","name":"Zheng He's treasure voyages","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/zheng-he-treasure-voyages","dates":{"label":"1405–1433","startYear":1405,"endYear":1433},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Nanjing","country":"China","countryCode":"CN"},"destination":null,"summary":"On the Yongle Emperor's orders, shipyards on the Yangtze at Nanjing built a fleet of giant junks for the Muslim-born court eunuch Zheng He. Between 1405 and 1433 his seven expeditions, each with tens of thousands of men, sailed to Southeast Asia, India, the Persian Gulf and East Africa. The court then ended the voyages, and China turned away from long-distance naval power."},{"slug":"ming-capital-moves-to-beijing-and-the-forbidden-city","name":"The Ming capital moves to Beijing and the Forbidden City is built","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/ming-capital-moves-to-beijing-and-the-forbidden-city","dates":{"label":"1406–1420","startYear":1406,"endYear":1420},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Beijing","country":"China","countryCode":"CN"},"destination":{"slug":"beijing","name":"Beijing","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/beijing"},"summary":"The Yongle Emperor, who had seized the throne in Nanjing, moved the Ming capital north to his old power base at Beijing. Over fourteen years workers built a walled palace of nearly a thousand buildings, with the Temple of Heaven to the south. Twenty-four Ming and Qing emperors ruled from it until the last, Puyi, was expelled in 1924."},{"slug":"battle-of-grunwald","name":"Battle of Grunwald","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-grunwald","dates":{"label":"15 July 1410","startYear":1410,"endYear":1410},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Grunwald, Warmia-Masuria","country":"Poland","countryCode":"PL"},"destination":{"slug":"gdansk","name":"Gdańsk","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/gdansk"},"summary":"The armies of Poland and Lithuania under King Władysław II Jagiełło and Grand Duke Vytautas destroyed the army of the Teutonic Knights in the fields near Grunwald, killing the order's Grand Master. The crusading order never regained its power, and in 1457 its great brick castle at Malbork passed to the Polish king. Grunwald became a national symbol in Poland and Lithuania."},{"slug":"battle-of-agincourt","name":"Battle of Agincourt","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-agincourt","dates":{"label":"25 October 1415","startYear":1415,"endYear":1415},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"}],"place":{"name":"Azincourt","country":"France","countryCode":"FR"},"destination":{"slug":"somme","name":"The Somme","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/somme"},"summary":"Henry V of England, marching a sick and hungry army towards Calais, found his way blocked by a much larger French force near the village of Azincourt. On a narrow, muddy field between two woods, English archers and dismounted men-at-arms cut down the advancing French nobility. The victory opened the way to Henry's conquest of Normandy, and Shakespeare turned it into legend."},{"slug":"brunelleschi-dome-renaissance","name":"Brunelleschi's dome and the Florentine Renaissance","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/brunelleschi-dome-renaissance","dates":{"label":"1420–1436","startYear":1420,"endYear":1436},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"art-history","name":"Art History"}],"place":{"name":"Florence","country":"Italy","countryCode":"IT"},"destination":{"slug":"florence","name":"Florence","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/florence"},"summary":"Filippo Brunelleschi won the contest to vault Florence Cathedral and built a masonry dome of record size without full wooden centring, using a double shell and herringbone brickwork. In the same years Florentine artists and patrons, the Medici among them, revived classical forms and developed linear perspective, setting the pattern for Renaissance art across Europe."},{"slug":"venice-plague-islands-and-quarantine","name":"Venice's plague islands and the birth of quarantine","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/venice-plague-islands-and-quarantine","dates":{"label":"1423–1630","startYear":1423,"endYear":1630},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Venetian lagoon","country":"Italy","countryCode":"IT"},"destination":{"slug":"venice","name":"Venice","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/venice"},"summary":"As plague kept returning, Venice turned a lagoon island into one of the first permanent plague hospitals in 1423 and opened a second, the Lazzaretto Nuovo, in 1468 for ships, crews and cargo suspected of infection. Goods and travellers were held for forty days, the quaranta giorni behind the word quarantine. Vows made during later epidemics gave the city two great churches, the Redentore and the Salute."},{"slug":"trial-and-burning-of-joan-of-arc","name":"Trial and burning of Joan of Arc","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/trial-and-burning-of-joan-of-arc","dates":{"label":"January–May 1431","startYear":1431,"endYear":1431},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Rouen","country":"France","countryCode":"FR"},"destination":{"slug":"normandy","name":"Normandy","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/normandy"},"summary":"Joan of Arc, the peasant girl who had led French troops to relieve Orléans and seen Charles VII crowned, was captured in 1430 and handed to the English. In Rouen a church court loyal to them tried her for heresy, and on 30 May 1431 she was burned in the Old Market square, aged about 19. A retrial cleared her in 1456, and she was made a saint in 1920."},{"slug":"king-sejong-creates-hangul","name":"King Sejong creates Hangul","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/king-sejong-creates-hangul","dates":{"label":"1443–1446","startYear":1443,"endYear":1446},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"literary-history","name":"Literary History"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"},{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Seoul","country":"South Korea","countryCode":"KR"},"destination":{"slug":"seoul","name":"Seoul","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/seoul"},"summary":"Koreans had written only in Chinese characters, which few outside the elite could master. King Sejong of Joseon devised a phonetic alphabet whose letters mirror the shape of the mouth when speaking, and published it in 1446 as Hunminjeongeum, 'the correct sounds for instructing the people'. Long resisted by scholars, Hangul is now the basis of near-universal literacy in Korea."},{"slug":"gutenberg-printing-press","name":"Gutenberg's printing press","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/gutenberg-printing-press","dates":{"label":"c. 1450–1455","startYear":1450,"endYear":1455},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"},{"slug":"literary-history","name":"Literary History"}],"place":{"name":"Mainz","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":null,"summary":"In Mainz, Johannes Gutenberg combined movable metal type, an oil-based ink and a screw press, and around 1455 finished printing his Latin Bible. Presses spread to more than 200 European towns by 1500, making books cheaper and faster to produce. Printing carried the Reformation, the scientific revolution and mass literacy, and changed how ideas travelled."},{"slug":"machu-picchu-and-the-inca-empire","name":"Machu Picchu and the height of the Inca Empire","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/machu-picchu-and-the-inca-empire","dates":{"label":"c. 1450–1532","startYear":1450,"endYear":1532},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"}],"place":{"name":"Machu Picchu","country":"Peru","countryCode":"PE"},"destination":{"slug":"cusco-machu-picchu","name":"Cusco & Machu Picchu","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/cusco-machu-picchu"},"summary":"Under the emperor Pachacuti and his successors, the Incas expanded from Cusco into the largest empire in the Americas, linked by some 40,000 km of roads. Machu Picchu was built around 1450 as a royal estate on a ridge above the Urubamba. The Spanish never found it; it was abandoned and brought to world attention by Hiram Bingham in 1911."},{"slug":"fall-of-constantinople","name":"Fall of Constantinople","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/fall-of-constantinople","dates":{"label":"29 May 1453","startYear":1453,"endYear":1453},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Istanbul","country":"Turkey","countryCode":"TR"},"destination":{"slug":"istanbul","name":"Istanbul","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/istanbul"},"summary":"After a 53-day siege in which giant cannon battered the Theodosian Walls, the Ottoman army of Sultan Mehmed II stormed Constantinople, and the last Byzantine emperor died in the fighting. Mehmed made the city his capital and turned Hagia Sophia into a mosque. The fall ended the Roman Empire in the east and sent Greek scholars and manuscripts west to Italy."},{"slug":"transatlantic-slave-trade-on-the-gold-coast","name":"The transatlantic slave trade on the Gold Coast","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/transatlantic-slave-trade-on-the-gold-coast","dates":{"label":"1482–1807","startYear":1482,"endYear":1807},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"}],"place":{"name":"Cape Coast","country":"Ghana","countryCode":"GH"},"destination":{"slug":"accra-cape-coast","name":"Accra & Cape Coast","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/accra-cape-coast"},"summary":"The Portuguese built São Jorge da Mina at Elmina in 1482, and over three centuries European companies added dozens of forts along the Gold Coast. Captives were held in their dungeons before being shipped across the Atlantic, part of a trade that carried about 12.5 million Africans to the Americas. Cape Coast and Elmina castles are now memorials visited by descendants from around the world."},{"slug":"bartolomeu-dias-rounds-the-cape","name":"Bartolomeu Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/bartolomeu-dias-rounds-the-cape","dates":{"label":"1488","startYear":1488,"endYear":1488},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Cape Point","country":"South Africa","countryCode":"ZA"},"destination":{"slug":"cape-town","name":"Cape Town","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/cape-town"},"summary":"The Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias sailed past Africa's southern tip in 1488, proving that the Atlantic connected to the Indian Ocean, and raised stone pillars along the coast. A decade later Vasco da Gama used the route to reach India, opening a European sea trade with Asia and beginning centuries of European involvement on Africa's coasts."},{"slug":"columbus-first-voyage-and-la-navidad","name":"Columbus's first voyage and La Navidad","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/columbus-first-voyage-and-la-navidad","dates":{"label":"12 October 1492 – January 1493","startYear":1492,"endYear":1493},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Bord de Mer de Limonade, near Cap-Haïtien","country":"Haiti","countryCode":"HT"},"destination":null,"summary":"Christopher Columbus reached the Bahamas in October 1492, then sailed along Cuba and Hispaniola. When his flagship Santa María ran aground on Christmas Eve near present-day Cap-Haïtien, he left 39 men in a fort, La Navidad, in the Taíno chiefdom of Guacanagarí. The garrison was dead when he returned. His voyages began lasting contact between Europe and the Americas."},{"slug":"columbus-sails-from-palos","name":"Columbus sails from Palos","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/columbus-sails-from-palos","dates":{"label":"3 August 1492","startYear":1492,"endYear":1493},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Palos de la Frontera, Huelva","country":"Spain","countryCode":"ES"},"destination":{"slug":"seville-andalusia","name":"Seville and Andalusia","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/seville-andalusia"},"summary":"Backed by Ferdinand and Isabella, Christopher Columbus sailed from the river port of Palos with three ships and about 90 men, many of them local sailors, and reached the Caribbean in October. His return in March 1493 began lasting contact between Europe and the Americas, followed by conquest, colonisation, the exchange of crops and diseases, and the Atlantic slave trade."},{"slug":"fall-of-granada-alhambra-decree","name":"Fall of Granada and the Alhambra Decree","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/fall-of-granada-alhambra-decree","dates":{"label":"2 January and 31 March 1492","startYear":1492,"endYear":1492},"period":{"slug":"medieval","name":"Medieval"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"jewish-heritage","name":"Jewish Heritage"}],"place":{"name":"Granada, Andalusia","country":"Spain","countryCode":"ES"},"destination":{"slug":"seville-andalusia","name":"Seville and Andalusia","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/seville-andalusia"},"summary":"Muhammad XII, known as Boabdil, surrendered Granada, the last Muslim kingdom in Iberia, to Ferdinand and Isabella, ending nearly eight centuries of Islamic rule in Spain. Three months later, in the Alhambra, the monarchs signed a decree ordering Spain's Jews to convert or leave. Tens of thousands left, forming Sephardic communities around the Mediterranean and beyond."},{"slug":"treaty-of-tordesillas","name":"Treaty of Tordesillas","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/treaty-of-tordesillas","dates":{"label":"7 June 1494","startYear":1494,"endYear":1494},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"}],"place":{"name":"Tordesillas","country":"Spain","countryCode":"ES"},"destination":{"slug":"madrid","name":"Madrid","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/madrid"},"summary":"Two years after Columbus's first voyage, envoys of Castile and Portugal met in the Castilian town of Tordesillas and agreed a line from pole to pole, 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands. Newly found lands west of it would go to Castile and those to the east to Portugal. The deal ignored everyone who already lived there, and it is why Brazil speaks Portuguese."},{"slug":"vasco-da-gama-sea-route-to-india","name":"Vasco da Gama's sea route to India","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/vasco-da-gama-sea-route-to-india","dates":{"label":"1497–1499","startYear":1497,"endYear":1499},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Belém, Lisbon","country":"Portugal","countryCode":"PT"},"destination":{"slug":"lisbon","name":"Lisbon","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/lisbon"},"summary":"Vasco da Gama's fleet left Restelo beach in Lisbon in July 1497, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached Calicut in India in May 1498. The voyage opened a direct sea route between Europe and Asia, launched Portugal's trading empire in spices and enslaved people, and helped pay for the Jerónimos Monastery, where da Gama is buried."},{"slug":"michelangelos-david","name":"Michelangelo's David and the Florentine Republic","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/michelangelos-david","dates":{"label":"1501–1504","startYear":1501,"endYear":1504},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"art-history","name":"Art History"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Florence","country":"Italy","countryCode":"IT"},"destination":{"slug":"florence","name":"Florence","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/florence"},"summary":"With the Medici driven out, Florence's republic gave the young Michelangelo a giant marble block that earlier sculptors had abandoned. He carved David, the youth who felled Goliath, and in 1504 the city placed him at the door of the Palazzo Vecchio, its seat of government, as an emblem of a small republic facing stronger enemies. The statue moved indoors to the Accademia in 1873."},{"slug":"michelangelo-paints-the-sistine-chapel-ceiling","name":"Michelangelo paints the Sistine Chapel ceiling","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/michelangelo-paints-the-sistine-chapel-ceiling","dates":{"label":"1508–1512","startYear":1508,"endYear":1512},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"art-history","name":"Art History"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Vatican City","country":"Vatican City","countryCode":"VA"},"destination":{"slug":"rome","name":"Rome","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/rome"},"summary":"Pope Julius II hired Michelangelo, who thought of himself as a sculptor, to fresco the vault of the papal chapel. Working from scaffolding for four years, he painted more than 300 figures, from the Creation of Adam to the Flood, and returned in 1536 to paint the Last Judgement on the altar wall. Cardinals still gather beneath it in conclave to elect each new pope."},{"slug":"copernicus-heliocentrism","name":"Copernicus and the Sun-centred universe","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/copernicus-heliocentrism","dates":{"label":"1510–1543","startYear":1510,"endYear":1543},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Frombork, Warmia","country":"Poland","countryCode":"PL"},"destination":{"slug":"gdansk","name":"Gdańsk","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/gdansk"},"summary":"Nicolaus Copernicus, a canon of Frombork Cathedral on the Vistula Lagoon, worked out a model placing the Sun, not the Earth, at the centre of the planetary system. His book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres appeared in 1543, the year he died. It began the scientific revolution in astronomy. His remains were identified under the cathedral floor in 2008."},{"slug":"venetian-ghetto","name":"The Venetian Ghetto","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/venetian-ghetto","dates":{"label":"29 March 1516","startYear":1516,"endYear":1797},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"jewish-heritage","name":"Jewish Heritage"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Cannaregio, Venice","country":"Italy","countryCode":"IT"},"destination":{"slug":"venice","name":"Venice","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/venice"},"summary":"The Venetian Senate ordered the city's Jews to live on an island in Cannaregio around a former copper foundry, the getto, locked at night and guarded at their own expense. The word spread to segregated quarters across Europe. Crowded into tall buildings, Ashkenazi, Italian and Sephardic communities built synagogues that still stand. Napoleon's troops removed the gates in 1797."},{"slug":"luthers-ninety-five-theses","name":"Luther's Ninety-five Theses","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/luthers-ninety-five-theses","dates":{"label":"31 October 1517","startYear":1517,"endYear":1517},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Lutherstadt Wittenberg","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"Martin Luther, a monk and university teacher in Wittenberg, circulated ninety-five theses against the sale of indulgences, by tradition nailing them to the door of the Castle Church. Printed copies spread across Germany within weeks. His break with Rome began the Protestant Reformation, which divided Western Christianity and reshaped politics, education and language in Europe."},{"slug":"fall-of-tenochtitlan","name":"Fall of Tenochtitlan","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/fall-of-tenochtitlan","dates":{"label":"1519 – 13 August 1521","startYear":1519,"endYear":1521},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Mexico City","country":"Mexico","countryCode":"MX"},"destination":{"slug":"mexico-city","name":"Mexico City","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/mexico-city"},"summary":"Hernán Cortés and a few hundred Spaniards, allied with tens of thousands of Tlaxcalans and other enemies of the Aztecs, besieged Tenochtitlan for about three months in 1521; smallpox had already killed many of its people. The city fell in August and Mexico City was built on its ruins, beginning three centuries of Spanish rule. The Aztec great temple was uncovered from 1978."},{"slug":"magellan-elcano-circumnavigation","name":"First voyage around the world: Magellan and Elcano","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/magellan-elcano-circumnavigation","dates":{"label":"1519–1522","startYear":1519,"endYear":1522},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Seville","country":"Spain","countryCode":"ES"},"destination":{"slug":"seville-andalusia","name":"Seville and Andalusia","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/seville-andalusia"},"summary":"Five ships under Ferdinand Magellan left Seville in August 1519 to reach the Spice Islands by sailing west. They found a strait at the tip of South America and crossed the Pacific, but Magellan was killed in the Philippines in 1521. Under Juan Sebastián Elcano a single ship, the Victoria, returned to Seville in September 1522 with 18 survivors, having sailed around the globe."},{"slug":"apparitions-of-our-lady-of-guadalupe","name":"Apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe at Tepeyac","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/apparitions-of-our-lady-of-guadalupe","dates":{"label":"December 1531","startYear":1531,"endYear":1531},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Tepeyac, Mexico City","country":"Mexico","countryCode":"MX"},"destination":{"slug":"mexico-city","name":"Mexico City","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/mexico-city"},"summary":"Catholic tradition holds that in December 1531 the Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego, a Nahua convert, on the hill of Tepeyac north of Mexico City, and that her image was found printed on his cloak. The account was first published in the 1640s. The image became a unifying symbol of Mexican Catholicism, carried on rebel banners in 1810, and Juan Diego was canonised in 2002."},{"slug":"spanish-conquest-and-siege-of-cusco","name":"Spanish conquest of the Incas and the siege of Cusco","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/spanish-conquest-and-siege-of-cusco","dates":{"label":"1532–1537","startYear":1532,"endYear":1537},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Cusco","country":"Peru","countryCode":"PE"},"destination":{"slug":"cusco-machu-picchu","name":"Cusco & Machu Picchu","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/cusco-machu-picchu"},"summary":"Francisco Pizarro captured the Inca ruler Atahualpa at Cajamarca in 1532 and executed him the next year. In 1536 Manco Inca, installed by the Spanish as a puppet ruler, rebelled and besieged them in Cusco for ten months, with fierce fighting at Sacsayhuamán. Unable to retake the city, he withdrew to Vilcabamba, where an Inca state held out until 1572."},{"slug":"calvins-geneva","name":"Calvin's Geneva","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/calvins-geneva","dates":{"label":"1536–1564","startYear":1536,"endYear":1564},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Geneva","country":"Switzerland","countryCode":"CH"},"destination":{"slug":"geneva","name":"Geneva","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/geneva"},"summary":"John Calvin, a French refugee, made Geneva a model Protestant city, preaching at St Pierre Cathedral, writing the Institutes of the Christian Religion and founding an academy in 1559 to train ministers. Exiles from France, England and Scotland, among them John Knox, carried his ideas home, and Reformed churches from Scotland to the Netherlands and New England grew from Geneva."},{"slug":"potosi-silver-and-the-first-global-economy","name":"Potosí silver and the first global economy","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/potosi-silver-and-the-first-global-economy","dates":{"label":"1545 – late 18th century","startYear":1545,"endYear":1800},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"industrial","name":"Industrial Heritage"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"Potosí","country":"Bolivia","countryCode":"BO"},"destination":null,"summary":"After silver was found in the Cerro Rico in 1545, Potosí grew into one of the largest cities in the world. Indigenous men forced to work under the mita draft, and enslaved Africans at the royal mint, produced silver that financed Spain's empire and flowed through Manila to China. Miners' cooperatives still work the mountain today, in harsh conditions."},{"slug":"great-siege-of-malta","name":"Great Siege of Malta","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/great-siege-of-malta","dates":{"label":"18 May–11 September 1565","startYear":1565,"endYear":1565},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Grand Harbour, Malta","country":"Malta","countryCode":"MT"},"destination":{"slug":"malta","name":"Malta","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/malta"},"summary":"A large Ottoman fleet and army besieged the Knights of St John and the Maltese for almost four months. Fort St Elmo fell after a month of bombardment, but Birgu and Senglea held until a Spanish relief force landed. The Knights then built Valletta as a fortified capital, and its bastions, auberges and co-cathedral survive with little change."},{"slug":"manila-and-the-galleon-trade","name":"Spanish Manila and the galleon trade","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/manila-and-the-galleon-trade","dates":{"label":"1565–1815 (Manila founded 1571)","startYear":1565,"endYear":1815},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Intramuros, Manila","country":"Philippines","countryCode":"PH"},"destination":{"slug":"manila","name":"Manila","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/manila"},"summary":"Miguel López de Legazpi made Manila the capital of the Spanish Philippines in 1571. From 1565 to 1815 galleons sailed between Manila and Acapulco, exchanging American silver for Chinese silk and porcelain, the first regular trade route linking Asia and the Americas. Manila's walled city of Intramuros was built to protect the trade."},{"slug":"dutch-revolt-and-william-of-orange","name":"Dutch Revolt and the murder of William of Orange","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/dutch-revolt-and-william-of-orange","dates":{"label":"1568–1648","startYear":1568,"endYear":1648},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Delft","country":"Netherlands","countryCode":"NL"},"destination":{"slug":"amsterdam","name":"Amsterdam","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/amsterdam"},"summary":"Protestant and noble resistance to Philip II of Spain grew into an eighty-year war of independence, led at first by William of Orange. The northern provinces united in 1579 and renounced the king in 1581. In 1584 a Catholic assassin shot William on the stairs of his Delft residence, but the Dutch Republic survived, won recognition in 1648 and became a leading trading power."},{"slug":"st-bartholomews-day-massacre","name":"St Bartholomew's Day massacre","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/st-bartholomews-day-massacre","dates":{"label":"24 August 1572","startYear":1572,"endYear":1572},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Paris","country":"France","countryCode":"FR"},"destination":{"slug":"paris","name":"Paris","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/paris"},"summary":"Days after the Protestant Henri of Navarre married the king's sister in Paris, a match meant to seal peace, the royal council ordered the killing of the Protestant leader Admiral Coligny. Paris crowds then turned on the Huguenots gathered for the wedding, and the killing spread to other towns for weeks, leaving thousands dead. Henri survived, became Henri IV, and granted toleration in 1598."},{"slug":"founding-of-the-golden-temple","name":"Founding of Amritsar and the Golden Temple","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/founding-of-the-golden-temple","dates":{"label":"1577–1604","startYear":1577,"endYear":1604},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Amritsar","country":"India","countryCode":"IN"},"destination":{"slug":"amritsar","name":"Amritsar","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/amritsar"},"summary":"The fourth Sikh Guru, Ram Das, founded Amritsar around its sacred pool in 1577, and his son Guru Arjan built the Harmandir Sahib in the centre, installing the first edition of the Sikh scripture there in 1604. Rebuilt after Afghan attacks and later covered in gilded copper under Maharaja Ranjit Singh, it is Sikhism's holiest shrine and feeds tens of thousands of visitors free each day."},{"slug":"goree-island-and-the-atlantic-slave-trade","name":"Gorée Island and the Atlantic slave trade","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/goree-island-and-the-atlantic-slave-trade","dates":{"label":"1588–1848","startYear":1588,"endYear":1848},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"Gorée Island","country":"Senegal","countryCode":"SN"},"destination":null,"summary":"Small Gorée Island off Dakar passed between Dutch, British and French hands as a trading post for gum, gold and enslaved people until France abolished slavery in 1848. Historians debate how many captives left from the island itself, but its House of Slaves and 'Door of No Return' became a world symbol of the slave trade, visited by Nelson Mandela, popes and US presidents."},{"slug":"portobelo-and-the-spanish-treasure-fleets","name":"Portobelo and the Spanish treasure fleets","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/portobelo-and-the-spanish-treasure-fleets","dates":{"label":"1597–1739","startYear":1597,"endYear":1739},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Portobelo, Colón","country":"Panama","countryCode":"PA"},"destination":null,"summary":"Silver from Peru and Potosí was shipped north to Panama, carried across the isthmus by mule train and loaded at Portobelo onto galleons bound for Spain, during trade fairs that could last for weeks. Spain ringed the bay with stone forts, yet Henry Morgan sacked the town in 1668 and a British fleet under Edward Vernon took it in 1739, after which the great fairs came to an end."},{"slug":"battle-of-sekigahara","name":"Battle of Sekigahara","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-sekigahara","dates":{"label":"21 October 1600","startYear":1600,"endYear":1600},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Sekigahara, Gifu","country":"Japan","countryCode":"JP"},"destination":{"slug":"kyoto","name":"Kyoto","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/kyoto"},"summary":"Two years after the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi died, Japan's lords split between his former regent Tokugawa Ieyasu and a coalition loyal to Hideyoshi's young heir. They met in a narrow valley on the road from Kyoto to eastern Japan. When several western commanders changed sides at midday, Ieyasu won in a few hours. He became shogun in 1603, and his family ruled Japan until 1868."},{"slug":"cartagena-slave-port-and-san-basilio-de-palenque","name":"Cartagena's slave port and San Basilio de Palenque","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/cartagena-slave-port-and-san-basilio-de-palenque","dates":{"label":"c. 1600; freedom recognised 1713","startYear":1600,"endYear":1713},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"San Basilio de Palenque","country":"Colombia","countryCode":"CO"},"destination":{"slug":"cartagena","name":"Cartagena","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/cartagena"},"summary":"Cartagena de Indias was one of the main ports where Spain landed enslaved Africans for its American colonies. People who escaped formed fortified settlements in the hills, called palenques; in 1713 the Crown recognised San Basilio's freedom, often described as the first free town in the Americas. Its people still speak Palenquero, a Spanish-based creole with Bantu roots."},{"slug":"dutch-east-india-company","name":"The Dutch East India Company","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/dutch-east-india-company","dates":{"label":"1602–1799","startYear":1602,"endYear":1799},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"}],"place":{"name":"Amsterdam","country":"Netherlands","countryCode":"NL"},"destination":{"slug":"amsterdam","name":"Amsterdam","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/amsterdam"},"summary":"The Dutch East India Company, or VOC, was chartered in 1602 with powers to trade, wage war and found colonies across Asia, and its shares were traded on the new Amsterdam exchange. Its spice monopoly built the wealth of the Dutch Golden Age, at the cost of violent conquest in the Indonesian archipelago and the use of enslaved labour."},{"slug":"founding-of-jamestown","name":"Founding of Jamestown","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/founding-of-jamestown","dates":{"label":"14 May 1607","startYear":1607,"endYear":1607},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"}],"place":{"name":"Jamestown","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"williamsburg-yorktown","name":"Williamsburg, Jamestown & Yorktown","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/williamsburg-yorktown"},"summary":"The Virginia Company's settlers built a fort on the James River in the lands of the Powhatan paramount chiefdom. Most died in the first years from disease, starvation and conflict, but tobacco exports from 1614 secured the colony. Jamestown became the first permanent English settlement in North America and hosted its first representative assembly in 1619."},{"slug":"champlain-founds-quebec","name":"Champlain founds Quebec","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/champlain-founds-quebec","dates":{"label":"3 July 1608","startYear":1608,"endYear":1608},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Place Royale, Quebec City","country":"Canada","countryCode":"CA"},"destination":{"slug":"quebec-city","name":"Quebec City","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/quebec-city"},"summary":"Samuel de Champlain built a fortified trading post, the Habitation, at the narrows of the St. Lawrence in July 1608; most of his men died of scurvy and dysentery that first winter. Allied with the Wendat, Innu and Algonquin through the fur trade, the post became the capital of New France. Old Quebec, which still keeps its ramparts, grew up around the site."},{"slug":"galileo-telescope","name":"Galileo turns a telescope on the sky","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/galileo-telescope","dates":{"label":"1609–1610","startYear":1609,"endYear":1610},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Padua","country":"Italy","countryCode":"IT"},"destination":{"slug":"venice","name":"Venice","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/venice"},"summary":"While teaching mathematics at the University of Padua, Galileo Galilei built improved telescopes and saw mountains on the Moon, countless stars in the Milky Way and four moons circling Jupiter. He published the findings in The Starry Messenger in 1610. The observations supported Copernicus and led, two decades later, to his trial by the Inquisition in Rome."},{"slug":"defenestration-of-prague-and-white-mountain","name":"Defenestration of Prague and the Battle of White Mountain","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/defenestration-of-prague-and-white-mountain","dates":{"label":"23 May 1618–8 November 1620","startYear":1618,"endYear":1620},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Prague","country":"Czech Republic","countryCode":"CZ"},"destination":{"slug":"prague","name":"Prague","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/prague"},"summary":"Protestant nobles angered by Habsburg curbs on religious freedom threw two royal governors and their secretary from a window of Prague Castle in 1618; all three survived. Their revolt opened the Thirty Years' War. In 1620 the Bohemian army was routed at White Mountain, 27 leaders of the revolt were executed on Old Town Square, and Bohemia was forcibly made Catholic again."},{"slug":"first-enslaved-africans-at-point-comfort","name":"First enslaved Africans arrive in English North America","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/first-enslaved-africans-at-point-comfort","dates":{"label":"late August 1619","startYear":1619,"endYear":1619},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"}],"place":{"name":"Point Comfort, Hampton","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"williamsburg-yorktown","name":"Williamsburg, Jamestown & Yorktown","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/williamsburg-yorktown"},"summary":"An English privateer, the White Lion, landed 'twenty and odd' Africans at Point Comfort in Virginia, exchanging them for food. They had been seized from a Portuguese slave ship carrying captives from Angola. Their arrival is taken as the beginning of African American history in the English colonies. Fort Monroe, later built on the site, became a refuge for people escaping slavery in 1861."},{"slug":"mayflower-and-the-founding-of-plymouth-colony","name":"Mayflower and the founding of Plymouth Colony","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/mayflower-and-the-founding-of-plymouth-colony","dates":{"label":"1620–1621","startYear":1620,"endYear":1621},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"}],"place":{"name":"Plymouth, Massachusetts","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"boston","name":"Boston","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/boston"},"summary":"The Mayflower brought 102 passengers, many of them English Separatists seeking freedom of worship, to Cape Cod in November 1620; they signed the Mayflower Compact before landing and settled at Plymouth in December. About half died that first winter. The survivors relied on the Wampanoag, whose leader Massasoit made an alliance with them in 1621, a peace that collapsed into King Philip's War in 1675."},{"slug":"dutch-atlantic-slave-trade-and-abolition","name":"The Dutch Atlantic slave trade and its abolition","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/dutch-atlantic-slave-trade-and-abolition","dates":{"label":"1621–1863","startYear":1621,"endYear":1863},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"}],"place":{"name":"Amsterdam","country":"Netherlands","countryCode":"NL"},"destination":{"slug":"amsterdam","name":"Amsterdam","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/amsterdam"},"summary":"From its founding in 1621 the Dutch West India Company, run from Amsterdam, traded in enslaved Africans, and Dutch ships carried more than half a million people to Brazil, Suriname and the Caribbean. Slavery in Suriname and the Dutch Caribbean ended on 1 July 1863, though freed people in Suriname were made to work ten more years. The date is marked as Keti Koti."},{"slug":"building-of-the-taj-mahal","name":"Building of the Taj Mahal","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/building-of-the-taj-mahal","dates":{"label":"1632–1653","startYear":1632,"endYear":1653},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Agra","country":"India","countryCode":"IN"},"destination":{"slug":"delhi-agra","name":"Delhi & Agra","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/delhi-agra"},"summary":"The Mughal emperor Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal as a tomb for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died in childbirth in 1631. Thousands of craftsmen worked on the white marble mausoleum, its inlaid stonework and its gardens beside the Yamuna. Deposed by his son Aurangzeb in 1658, Shah Jahan spent his last years confined in Agra Fort, within sight of it."},{"slug":"dejima-japans-window-on-the-west","name":"Dejima, Japan's window on the West","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/dejima-japans-window-on-the-west","dates":{"label":"1641–1858","startYear":1641,"endYear":1858},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Dejima, Nagasaki","country":"Japan","countryCode":"JP"},"destination":{"slug":"nagasaki","name":"Nagasaki","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/nagasaki"},"summary":"The shogunate built a small fan-shaped artificial island in Nagasaki harbour in 1634–1636 to confine Portuguese traders. After expelling them, it moved the Dutch East India Company there in 1641. For more than two centuries it was the only place Europeans could trade in Japan, and the route by which Western medicine, anatomy and astronomy, known as 'Dutch learning', reached Japanese scholars."},{"slug":"dutch-east-india-company-settles-the-cape","name":"Dutch East India Company settles the Cape","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/dutch-east-india-company-settles-the-cape","dates":{"label":"6 April 1652","startYear":1652,"endYear":1679},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"Cape Town","country":"South Africa","countryCode":"ZA"},"destination":{"slug":"cape-town","name":"Cape Town","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/cape-town"},"summary":"Jan van Riebeeck landed in Table Bay in 1652 to set up a supply station for Dutch East India Company ships. The outpost grew into a settler colony that took Khoikhoi grazing land and depended on enslaved people brought from Asia and other parts of Africa. The stone Castle of Good Hope, completed in 1679, is South Africa's oldest surviving colonial building."},{"slug":"pueblo-revolt","name":"Pueblo Revolt","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/pueblo-revolt","dates":{"label":"10 August 1680","startYear":1680,"endYear":1680},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Santa Fe","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"santa-fe-los-alamos","name":"Santa Fe & Los Alamos","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/santa-fe-los-alamos"},"summary":"Led by Popé of Ohkay Owingeh, Pueblo peoples across New Mexico rose together against Spanish rule and the suppression of their religion, killing over 400 colonists and Franciscan friars. They besieged Santa Fe and drove the Spanish south to El Paso. Spain did not return until 1692, and the revolt helped preserve Pueblo languages and ceremonies."},{"slug":"siege-of-vienna-1683","name":"Siege of Vienna and the Battle of Kahlenberg","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/siege-of-vienna-1683","dates":{"label":"14 July–12 September 1683","startYear":1683,"endYear":1683},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Vienna","country":"Austria","countryCode":"AT"},"destination":{"slug":"vienna","name":"Vienna","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/vienna"},"summary":"An Ottoman army under Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa besieged the Habsburg capital for two months until a relief army led by King Jan III Sobieski of Poland swept down from the Kahlenberg heights and broke the siege. The defeat began the Ottoman retreat from central Europe and the Habsburg advance into Hungary and the Balkans."},{"slug":"liverpool-and-the-slave-trade","name":"Liverpool and the transatlantic slave trade","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/liverpool-and-the-slave-trade","dates":{"label":"1699–1807","startYear":1699,"endYear":1807},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"}],"place":{"name":"Liverpool","country":"United Kingdom","countryCode":"GB"},"destination":{"slug":"manchester","name":"Manchester and Liverpool","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/manchester"},"summary":"Liverpool ships made around 5,000 slaving voyages, carrying more than a million Africans across the Atlantic, and by the late 18th century the port led the European trade in enslaved people. Its profits built docks, banks and merchants' houses. After Parliament abolished the British slave trade in 1807, the city's merchants turned to cotton grown by enslaved people in America."},{"slug":"gadsdens-wharf-and-the-slave-trade-into-charleston","name":"Gadsden's Wharf and the slave trade into Charleston","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/gadsdens-wharf-and-the-slave-trade-into-charleston","dates":{"label":"c. 1700–1808","startYear":1700,"endYear":1808},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"genealogy","name":"Ancestry & Genealogy"}],"place":{"name":"Gadsden's Wharf, Charleston","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"charleston","name":"Charleston","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/charleston"},"summary":"Charleston was the main port of entry for enslaved Africans in North America; perhaps 40% of all those brought to what became the United States arrived through it, many to labour on rice and indigo plantations. In the final rush before the federal ban of 1808, many thousands landed at Gadsden's Wharf. Sales between owners continued in the city until the Civil War."},{"slug":"siege-of-barcelona-1714","name":"Siege and fall of Barcelona","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/siege-of-barcelona-1714","dates":{"label":"July 1713–11 September 1714","startYear":1713,"endYear":1714},"period":{"slug":"early-modern","name":"Renaissance & Early Modern"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Barcelona","country":"Spain","countryCode":"ES"},"destination":{"slug":"barcelona","name":"Barcelona","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/barcelona"},"summary":"In the War of the Spanish Succession Barcelona backed the Habsburg claimant, and when its allies made peace the city fought on alone. Bourbon French and Spanish troops besieged it for fourteen months and stormed it on 11 September 1714. Philip V then abolished Catalonia's own institutions and built a fortress, the Ciutadella, over a demolished district. 11 September is now Catalonia's national day."},{"slug":"scottish-enlightenment-in-edinburgh","name":"The Scottish Enlightenment in Edinburgh","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/scottish-enlightenment-in-edinburgh","dates":{"label":"c. 1740–1800","startYear":1740,"endYear":1800},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"},{"slug":"literary-history","name":"Literary History"}],"place":{"name":"Edinburgh","country":"United Kingdom","countryCode":"GB"},"destination":{"slug":"edinburgh","name":"Edinburgh","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/edinburgh"},"summary":"In the clubs, taverns and university of 18th-century Edinburgh, thinkers such as David Hume, Adam Smith, Joseph Black and James Hutton reshaped philosophy, economics, chemistry and geology. Smith's Wealth of Nations founded modern economics, and Hutton's reading of the rocks on Salisbury Crags pointed to the immense age of the Earth. The first Encyclopaedia Britannica was published in the city."},{"slug":"frederick-the-great-and-sanssouci","name":"Frederick the Great and Sanssouci","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/frederick-the-great-and-sanssouci","dates":{"label":"1745–1786","startYear":1745,"endYear":1786},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Potsdam","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"Frederick II of Prussia built Sanssouci as a summer retreat in 1745–47 and spent much of his reign there, hosting Voltaire and writing on philosophy and music. His wars seized Silesia and survived the Seven Years' War, turning Prussia into a European great power. He asked to be buried on the vineyard terrace, a wish carried out only in 1991."},{"slug":"lisbon-earthquake-1755","name":"Lisbon earthquake","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/lisbon-earthquake-1755","dates":{"label":"1 November 1755","startYear":1755,"endYear":1755},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Lisbon","country":"Portugal","countryCode":"PT"},"destination":{"slug":"lisbon","name":"Lisbon","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/lisbon"},"summary":"On All Saints' morning a powerful earthquake, a tsunami and days of fire destroyed much of Lisbon and killed tens of thousands. The Marquis of Pombal rebuilt the Baixa on a grid with timber frames designed to resist shaking, and his questionnaire to parishes is seen as an early step in seismology. The disaster also shook European thinkers' faith in a kindly providence."},{"slug":"battle-of-the-plains-of-abraham","name":"Battle of the Plains of Abraham","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-the-plains-of-abraham","dates":{"label":"13 September 1759","startYear":1759,"endYear":1759},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Plains of Abraham, Quebec City","country":"Canada","countryCode":"CA"},"destination":{"slug":"quebec-city","name":"Quebec City","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/quebec-city"},"summary":"After a three-month siege of Quebec, British troops under James Wolfe climbed the cliffs at the Anse au Foulon by night and formed up on the plateau west of the walls. The battle lasted about an hour; Wolfe and the French commander Montcalm were both mortally wounded. Quebec surrendered days later, Montreal fell in 1760 and France ceded Canada to Britain in 1763."},{"slug":"james-cook-lands-at-kamay-botany-bay","name":"James Cook lands at Kamay (Botany Bay)","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/james-cook-lands-at-kamay-botany-bay","dates":{"label":"29 April 1770","startYear":1770,"endYear":1770},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Kurnell, Botany Bay","country":"Australia","countryCode":"AU"},"destination":{"slug":"sydney","name":"Sydney","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/sydney"},"summary":"On his first Pacific voyage, James Cook's ship Endeavour anchored at Kamay, which he named Botany Bay, and a landing party exchanged shots with Gweagal men on the shore. Cook then charted the east coast and claimed it for Britain. The encounter is marked both as the start of British Australia and, by many Aboriginal people, as the beginning of invasion."},{"slug":"factory-system-cotton-mills","name":"The factory system and the cotton mills","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/factory-system-cotton-mills","dates":{"label":"1771–1850","startYear":1771,"endYear":1850},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"industrial","name":"Industrial Heritage"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"Manchester and the Derwent Valley","country":"United Kingdom","countryCode":"GB"},"destination":{"slug":"manchester","name":"Manchester and Liverpool","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/manchester"},"summary":"Richard Arkwright's water-powered mill at Cromford in 1771 put spinning machines, shift work and child workers under one roof. Steam-powered mills soon filled Manchester's Ancoats district, and the city, linked to Liverpool by the first inter-city railway in 1830, became a byword for industrial capitalism. Its slums shaped Friedrich Engels's account of the English working class."},{"slug":"boston-tea-party","name":"Boston Tea Party","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/boston-tea-party","dates":{"label":"16 December 1773","startYear":1773,"endYear":1773},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"}],"place":{"name":"Boston waterfront","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"boston","name":"Boston","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/boston"},"summary":"After a mass meeting at the Old South Meeting House, colonists, some disguised as Mohawks, boarded three ships at Griffin's Wharf and dumped 342 chests of East India Company tea into Boston Harbor in protest at taxes set by a Parliament in which they had no vote. Britain answered with the Coercive Acts, closing the port, which pushed the colonies towards armed revolt."},{"slug":"battles-of-lexington-and-concord","name":"Battles of Lexington and Concord","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battles-of-lexington-and-concord","dates":{"label":"19 April 1775","startYear":1775,"endYear":1775},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Lexington and Concord","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"boston","name":"Boston","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/boston"},"summary":"British regulars marched from Boston to seize militia weapons stored at Concord. Shots were exchanged with militia on Lexington Green at dawn, and at Concord's North Bridge the colonists fired back in force. Harried by militia along the road back to Boston, the British lost about 270 men killed, wounded or missing. The day began the American War of Independence."},{"slug":"declaration-of-independence","name":"Declaration of Independence","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/declaration-of-independence","dates":{"label":"4 July 1776","startYear":1776,"endYear":1776},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Independence Hall, Philadelphia","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"philadelphia","name":"Philadelphia","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/philadelphia"},"summary":"Delegates of the Second Continental Congress, meeting in the Pennsylvania State House, voted for independence from Britain on 2 July 1776 and adopted Thomas Jefferson's Declaration two days later. Its claim that all men are created equal, with rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, was taken up by later movements worldwide, including abolitionists who pointed to its contradiction with slavery."},{"slug":"rebellion-of-tupac-amaru-ii","name":"Rebellion of Túpac Amaru II","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/rebellion-of-tupac-amaru-ii","dates":{"label":"1780–1783","startYear":1780,"endYear":1783},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"}],"place":{"name":"Cusco and the Canas highlands","country":"Peru","countryCode":"PE"},"destination":{"slug":"cusco-machu-picchu","name":"Cusco & Machu Picchu","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/cusco-machu-picchu"},"summary":"José Gabriel Condorcanqui, a muleteer and local chief descended from the last Inca ruler, seized and hanged the Spanish corregidor of Tinta in November 1780 and took the name Túpac Amaru II. His revolt against forced labour and colonial taxes spread across the southern Andes. Captured in 1781, he was executed with his wife Micaela Bastidas in Cusco's main square; relatives fought on until 1783."},{"slug":"siege-of-yorktown","name":"Siege of Yorktown","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/siege-of-yorktown","dates":{"label":"28 September – 19 October 1781","startYear":1781,"endYear":1781},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Yorktown","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"williamsburg-yorktown","name":"Williamsburg, Jamestown & Yorktown","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/williamsburg-yorktown"},"summary":"American troops under George Washington, with a French army and fleet, trapped Lord Cornwallis's British army at Yorktown. A French naval victory off the Chesapeake had cut off relief, and as the siege lines closed in Cornwallis surrendered about 8,000 men. Britain opened peace talks and recognised American independence in 1783."},{"slug":"constitutional-convention","name":"Constitutional Convention","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/constitutional-convention","dates":{"label":"25 May – 17 September 1787","startYear":1787,"endYear":1787},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Independence Hall, Philadelphia","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"philadelphia","name":"Philadelphia","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/philadelphia"},"summary":"Fifty-five delegates met behind closed doors in the Pennsylvania State House to repair the weak Articles of Confederation and instead wrote a new frame of government, with George Washington presiding and James Madison as its leading drafter. The Constitution they signed created a federal republic with separated powers. Ratified in 1788, it is the oldest written national constitution still in force and a model for many others."},{"slug":"arrival-of-the-first-fleet","name":"Arrival of the First Fleet","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/arrival-of-the-first-fleet","dates":{"label":"26 January 1788","startYear":1788,"endYear":1788},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"}],"place":{"name":"Sydney Cove","country":"Australia","countryCode":"AU"},"destination":{"slug":"sydney","name":"Sydney","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/sydney"},"summary":"Eleven ships carrying about 1,400 people, more than half of them convicts, sailed into Sydney Cove under Arthur Phillip and founded the penal colony of New South Wales. About 160,000 convicts were transported to Australia by 1868. The colony took Eora land and was followed by a smallpox epidemic; 26 January is Australia Day, and marked by many as Invasion Day."},{"slug":"storming-of-the-bastille","name":"Storming of the Bastille","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/storming-of-the-bastille","dates":{"label":"14 July 1789","startYear":1789,"endYear":1789},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Paris","country":"France","countryCode":"FR"},"destination":{"slug":"paris","name":"Paris","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/paris"},"summary":"Crowds looking for gunpowder stormed the Bastille, a royal fortress and prison in eastern Paris, killed its governor and freed its seven prisoners. The fall of this symbol of royal power pushed Louis XVI to accept the National Assembly and spread revolt across France. The fortress was demolished within months, and 14 July became France's national day."},{"slug":"constitution-of-3-may-1791","name":"Constitution of 3 May 1791","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/constitution-of-3-may-1791","dates":{"label":"3 May 1791","startYear":1791,"endYear":1791},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"}],"place":{"name":"Warsaw","country":"Poland","countryCode":"PL"},"destination":{"slug":"warsaw","name":"Warsaw","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/warsaw"},"summary":"Meeting in the Royal Castle in Warsaw, the parliament of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth adopted Europe's first modern written national constitution, abolishing the single-member veto and strengthening the state. Russia and Polish magnates opposed to reform went to war against it, and the partitions of 1793 and 1795 erased the Commonwealth from the map until 1918. The day remains a Polish national holiday."},{"slug":"haitian-revolution","name":"Haitian Revolution","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/haitian-revolution","dates":{"label":"22 August 1791 – 1 January 1804","startYear":1791,"endYear":1804},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"}],"place":{"name":"Cap-Haïtien","country":"Haiti","countryCode":"HT"},"destination":null,"summary":"Enslaved people in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, the world's richest sugar colony, rose in revolt in August 1791 after a gathering at Bois Caïman. Led by Toussaint Louverture and then Jean-Jacques Dessalines, they ended slavery, defeated French, Spanish and British forces, and declared Haiti independent in 1804, the first state founded by formerly enslaved people."},{"slug":"battle-of-nuuanu-and-the-unification-of-hawaii","name":"Battle of Nuʻuanu and the unification of Hawaiʻi","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-nuuanu-and-the-unification-of-hawaii","dates":{"label":"May 1795","startYear":1795,"endYear":1795},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"}],"place":{"name":"Nuʻuanu Valley, Oʻahu","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"pearl-harbor","name":"Honolulu & Pearl Harbor","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/pearl-harbor"},"summary":"Kamehameha of Hawaiʻi Island landed a great fleet of war canoes at Waikīkī in 1795 and drove the army of Oʻahu's ruler Kalanikūpule up the Nuʻuanu Valley, where many defenders were forced over the cliffs of the Pali. The victory gave Kamehameha every main island except Kauaʻi, which accepted his rule peacefully in 1810, founding a kingdom that lasted until 1893."},{"slug":"louisiana-purchase","name":"Louisiana Purchase transfer","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/louisiana-purchase","dates":{"label":"20 December 1803","startYear":1803,"endYear":1803},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Jackson Square, New Orleans","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"new-orleans","name":"New Orleans","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/new-orleans"},"summary":"The United States bought France's claim to Louisiana, about 2.1 million square kilometres west of the Mississippi, for $15 million. The formal transfer was signed in the Cabildo in New Orleans, and the US flag was raised over the Place d'Armes. The deal doubled the country's size and opened the way to westward expansion and the dispossession of Native nations."},{"slug":"coronation-of-napoleon","name":"Coronation of Napoleon","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/coronation-of-napoleon","dates":{"label":"2 December 1804","startYear":1804,"endYear":1804},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Paris","country":"France","countryCode":"FR"},"destination":{"slug":"paris","name":"Paris","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/paris"},"summary":"Fifteen years after the Revolution began, the general who had seized power in 1799 crowned himself Emperor of the French in Notre-Dame, with Pope Pius VII looking on, and then crowned his wife Joséphine. The ceremony founded a new dynasty, and Napoleon's wars and law code went on to remake much of Europe until his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815."},{"slug":"battle-of-austerlitz","name":"Battle of Austerlitz","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-austerlitz","dates":{"label":"2 December 1805","startYear":1805,"endYear":1805},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Slavkov u Brna (Austerlitz)","country":"Czech Republic","countryCode":"CZ"},"destination":{"slug":"vienna","name":"Vienna","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/vienna"},"summary":"On the Pratzen Heights east of Brno, Napoleon defeated the larger armies of Russia and Austria, whose two emperors were with their troops. An armistice was signed at Slavkov castle four days later, and the Peace of Pressburg forced Austria out of the war. Within a year the thousand-year-old Holy Roman Empire had been dissolved."},{"slug":"portuguese-court-moves-to-rio","name":"The Portuguese court moves to Rio de Janeiro","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/portuguese-court-moves-to-rio","dates":{"label":"1808–1821","startYear":1808,"endYear":1821},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Rio de Janeiro","country":"Brazil","countryCode":"BR"},"destination":{"slug":"rio-de-janeiro","name":"Rio de Janeiro","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/rio-de-janeiro"},"summary":"Fleeing Napoleon's invasion of Portugal, Prince Regent João and thousands of courtiers sailed to Brazil under British escort and made Rio de Janeiro the capital of the Portuguese Empire. They opened Brazil's ports, founded a royal library and botanic garden, and raised Brazil to a kingdom. When João returned to Lisbon in 1821, his son Pedro stayed and declared Brazil independent in 1822."},{"slug":"may-revolution","name":"May Revolution","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/may-revolution","dates":{"label":"18–25 May 1810","startYear":1810,"endYear":1810},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Buenos Aires","country":"Argentina","countryCode":"AR"},"destination":{"slug":"buenos-aires","name":"Buenos Aires","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/buenos-aires"},"summary":"With Spain's king held captive by Napoleon, the leading residents of Buenos Aires removed the Spanish viceroy and set up a local government, the Primera Junta, on 25 May 1810, while a crowd gathered outside the Cabildo. The week began the Argentine War of Independence, formally declared at Tucumán in 1816. Plaza de Mayo takes its name from it."},{"slug":"valongo-wharf-and-the-slave-trade-to-brazil","name":"Valongo Wharf and the slave trade to Brazil","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/valongo-wharf-and-the-slave-trade-to-brazil","dates":{"label":"1811–1831","startYear":1811,"endYear":1831},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"}],"place":{"name":"Rio de Janeiro port zone","country":"Brazil","countryCode":"BR"},"destination":{"slug":"rio-de-janeiro","name":"Rio de Janeiro","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/rio-de-janeiro"},"summary":"Brazil received about 4.9 million enslaved Africans, more than any other country. Between 1811 and the first ban on the trade in 1831, hundreds of thousands landed at Valongo Wharf in Rio de Janeiro and were sold in nearby warehouses. Buried under later landfill, the stone wharf was uncovered in 2011 during port redevelopment."},{"slug":"congress-of-vienna","name":"Congress of Vienna","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/congress-of-vienna","dates":{"label":"September 1814–9 June 1815","startYear":1814,"endYear":1815},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"}],"place":{"name":"Vienna","country":"Austria","countryCode":"AT"},"destination":{"slug":"vienna","name":"Vienna","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/vienna"},"summary":"After Napoleon's defeat, monarchs and diplomats gathered at the Habsburg court to redraw the map of Europe. Steered by Austria's Metternich, the talks restored many dynasties, created a German Confederation and set a balance of power among the great states, while balls filled the Hofburg. The settlement kept Europe free of a continent-wide war for a century."},{"slug":"battle-of-waterloo","name":"Battle of Waterloo","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-waterloo","dates":{"label":"18 June 1815","startYear":1815,"endYear":1815},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Waterloo, Walloon Brabant","country":"Belgium","countryCode":"BE"},"destination":{"slug":"brussels-waterloo","name":"Brussels and Waterloo","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/brussels-waterloo"},"summary":"South of Brussels, Wellington's allied army held a ridge against Napoleon's attacks through the afternoon until Blücher's Prussians arrived on the French flank and the Imperial Guard was driven back. Napoleon abdicated days later and was exiled to St Helena. The battle ended more than two decades of war and opened a long period of great-power settlement in Europe."},{"slug":"raffles-founds-modern-singapore","name":"Founding of modern Singapore","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/raffles-founds-modern-singapore","dates":{"label":"28 January–6 February 1819","startYear":1819,"endYear":1819},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"}],"place":{"name":"Singapore River","country":"Singapore","countryCode":"SG"},"destination":{"slug":"singapore","name":"Singapore","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/singapore"},"summary":"Stamford Raffles of the British East India Company landed on the Singapore River in January 1819 and, on 6 February, signed a treaty with a Johor prince and the local Temenggong allowing a trading post. Run as a free port, the settlement drew Chinese, Malay, Indian and Arab traders and grew into the hub of British Southeast Asia. Earlier, a 14th-century Malay port stood here."},{"slug":"independence-of-brazil","name":"Independence of Brazil","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/independence-of-brazil","dates":{"label":"9 January – 1 December 1822","startYear":1822,"endYear":1822},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Rio de Janeiro","country":"Brazil","countryCode":"BR"},"destination":{"slug":"rio-de-janeiro","name":"Rio de Janeiro","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/rio-de-janeiro"},"summary":"Ordered home by the Portuguese parliament, the prince regent Pedro announced at the palace in Rio in January 1822 that he would stay. On 7 September, beside the Ipiranga brook near São Paulo, he declared Brazil independent, and in December he was crowned emperor in Rio. Unlike its Spanish-speaking neighbours, Brazil became a monarchy, held together as one country and kept slavery until 1888."},{"slug":"black-war-in-van-diemens-land","name":"The Black War in Van Diemen's Land","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/black-war-in-van-diemens-land","dates":{"label":"c. 1824–1832","startYear":1824,"endYear":1832},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"}],"place":{"name":"Tasmania","country":"Australia","countryCode":"AU"},"destination":{"slug":"hobart-port-arthur","name":"Hobart & Port Arthur","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/hobart-port-arthur"},"summary":"As settlers spread over Tasmania's grasslands, conflict with Aboriginal Tasmanians grew into a war of raids and killings. Martial law was declared in 1828, and in 1830 the government's 'Black Line' tried to drive the remaining clans out of the settled districts. Most survivors were moved to Wybalenna on Flinders Island, where many died. Their descendants still campaign for land and recognition."},{"slug":"battle-of-navarino","name":"Battle of Navarino and Greek independence","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-navarino","dates":{"label":"20 October 1827","startYear":1827,"endYear":1830},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Pylos, Messenia","country":"Greece","countryCode":"GR"},"destination":{"slug":"peloponnese","name":"Olympia and the Peloponnese","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/peloponnese"},"summary":"In the bay of Pylos, a combined British, French and Russian fleet destroyed the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet that was crushing the Greek revolt begun in 1821. It was the last major battle fought entirely by sailing ships. The defeat forced the Ottomans to accept Greek self-rule, and an independent Greek kingdom was recognised in 1830."},{"slug":"port-arthur-penal-settlement","name":"Port Arthur penal settlement","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/port-arthur-penal-settlement","dates":{"label":"1830–1877","startYear":1830,"endYear":1877},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Port Arthur","country":"Australia","countryCode":"AU"},"destination":{"slug":"hobart-port-arthur","name":"Hobart & Port Arthur","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/hobart-port-arthur"},"summary":"Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsula held convicts who reoffended in the Australian colonies, under a regime that moved from flogging to the 'separate system' of silence and isolation. Nearby Point Puer was a prison for boys. After closure, bushfires gutted the buildings. The site is also remembered for the 1996 mass shooting that led Australia to tighten its gun laws."},{"slug":"treaty-of-waitangi","name":"Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/treaty-of-waitangi","dates":{"label":"6 February 1840","startYear":1840,"endYear":1840},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Waitangi","country":"New Zealand","countryCode":"NZ"},"destination":null,"summary":"More than 40 Māori rangatira (chiefs) signed a treaty with the British Crown at Waitangi on 6 February 1840, and over 500 had signed copies around the country by September. The English and Māori texts differ on sovereignty and authority, and disputes over the treaty have shaped New Zealand ever since. Waitangi Day is the national day."},{"slug":"darwin-origin-of-species","name":"Darwin writes On the Origin of Species","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/darwin-origin-of-species","dates":{"label":"1842–1859","startYear":1842,"endYear":1859},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Downe, London Borough of Bromley","country":"United Kingdom","countryCode":"GB"},"destination":{"slug":"london","name":"London","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/london"},"summary":"Charles Darwin spent forty years at Down House in Kent, experimenting on plants, pigeons and earthworms and walking his Sandwalk path each day to think. Spurred by Alfred Russel Wallace's similar theory, he published On the Origin of Species in 1859, arguing that species evolve by natural selection. The idea transformed biology and challenged religious accounts of creation."},{"slug":"flagstaff-war-and-ruapekapeka","name":"The Flagstaff War and Ruapekapeka","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/flagstaff-war-and-ruapekapeka","dates":{"label":"1845–1846","startYear":1845,"endYear":1846},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Bay of Islands","country":"New Zealand","countryCode":"NZ"},"destination":null,"summary":"The Ngāpuhi chief Hōne Heke cut down the British flagstaff above Kororāreka four times in protest at colonial rule, and in March 1845 the town was sacked. The war that followed ended at Ruapekapeka, a pā (fortified village) with trenches and bunkers that British artillery bombarded in January 1846. It was the first of the New Zealand Wars."},{"slug":"great-irish-famine","name":"The Great Famine and mass emigration","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/great-irish-famine","dates":{"label":"1845–1852","startYear":1845,"endYear":1852},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"genealogy","name":"Ancestry & Genealogy"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Dublin and rural Ireland","country":"Ireland","countryCode":"IE"},"destination":{"slug":"dublin","name":"Dublin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/dublin"},"summary":"Potato blight destroyed the main food of Ireland's rural poor for several years running, while food exports continued and relief was limited. About a million people died and more than a million emigrated, many through Dublin and Cobh to Liverpool, North America and Australia. Ireland's population kept falling for decades, and the diaspora it created now numbers tens of millions."},{"slug":"mexican-american-war-and-the-fall-of-mexico-city","name":"Mexican–American War and the fall of Mexico City","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/mexican-american-war-and-the-fall-of-mexico-city","dates":{"label":"1846–1848","startYear":1846,"endYear":1848},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Chapultepec, Mexico City","country":"Mexico","countryCode":"MX"},"destination":{"slug":"mexico-city","name":"Mexico City","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/mexico-city"},"summary":"After the United States annexed Texas, a border dispute became war in 1846. Winfield Scott's army marched inland from Veracruz and in September 1847 stormed Chapultepec Castle, where six cadets remembered as the Niños Héroes died, before taking the capital. In the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico ceded about half its territory, including California and most of the American Southwest."},{"slug":"caste-war-of-yucatan","name":"Caste War of Yucatán","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/caste-war-of-yucatan","dates":{"label":"1847–1901","startYear":1847,"endYear":1901},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Tihosuco, Quintana Roo","country":"Mexico","countryCode":"MX"},"destination":null,"summary":"In 1847 Maya peasants in eastern Yucatán rose against the Hispanic elite who had taken their land and taxed them heavily, and for a time drove them back almost to Mérida. Rebels then withdrew to the eastern forests and founded an independent state around Chan Santa Cruz, guided by a 'Talking Cross'. Mexican troops took the town only in 1901, after more than half a century."},{"slug":"berlin-march-revolution-1848","name":"March Revolution in Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/berlin-march-revolution-1848","dates":{"label":"18–19 March 1848","startYear":1848,"endYear":1848},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Berlin","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"Inspired by the February revolution in Paris, Berliners demanding a constitution and a free press fought the Prussian army from barricades on 18 March 1848. Hundreds died before King Frederick William IV withdrew his troops and bowed before the coffins of the dead. Prussia gained an elected assembly, but by the end of the year the king had dissolved it and the old order returned."},{"slug":"arrival-of-perrys-black-ships","name":"Arrival of Perry's Black Ships","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/arrival-of-perrys-black-ships","dates":{"label":"July 1853–March 1854","startYear":1853,"endYear":1854},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Uraga Channel, Tokyo Bay","country":"Japan","countryCode":"JP"},"destination":{"slug":"tokyo","name":"Tokyo","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/tokyo"},"summary":"In July 1853 Commodore Matthew Perry steamed into Edo Bay with four US warships and came ashore at Kurihama to deliver a letter demanding that Japan open to trade. He returned with a larger squadron, and in March 1854 the shogunate signed the Convention of Kanagawa at Yokohama. Unequal treaties with other powers followed, setting off the crisis that ended shogun rule."},{"slug":"indian-rebellion-of-1857","name":"Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the siege of Delhi","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/indian-rebellion-of-1857","dates":{"label":"May 1857 – 1858","startYear":1857,"endYear":1858},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Delhi","country":"India","countryCode":"IN"},"destination":{"slug":"delhi-agra","name":"Delhi & Agra","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/delhi-agra"},"summary":"Indian soldiers of the East India Company's army mutinied at Meerut and marched to Delhi, proclaiming the aged Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar their leader. Revolt spread across northern India until British forces stormed Delhi after a long siege and recaptured Lucknow and Kanpur. Britain abolished Company rule and governed India directly from 1858."},{"slug":"john-browns-raid-on-harpers-ferry","name":"John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/john-browns-raid-on-harpers-ferry","dates":{"label":"16–18 October 1859","startYear":1859,"endYear":1859},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Harpers Ferry, West Virginia","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"washington-dc","name":"Washington, D.C.","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/washington-dc"},"summary":"The abolitionist John Brown and 21 followers, five of them Black, seized the federal armoury at Harpers Ferry hoping to arm enslaved people for a rising across the South. Militia and US Marines under Robert E. Lee trapped them in the armoury's engine house. Brown was tried and hanged for treason; Northerners mourned him as a martyr while Southerners saw a threat, hastening the Civil War."},{"slug":"opening-of-the-suez-canal","name":"Opening of the Suez Canal","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/opening-of-the-suez-canal","dates":{"label":"1859–1869 (opened 17 November 1869)","startYear":1859,"endYear":1869},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"industrial","name":"Industrial Heritage"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Ismailia","country":"Egypt","countryCode":"EG"},"destination":{"slug":"cairo-giza","name":"Cairo & Giza","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/cairo-giza"},"summary":"Built by Ferdinand de Lesseps' company with forced and later paid Egyptian labour, the canal linked the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and cut thousands of kilometres from the sea route between Europe and Asia. Egypt's debts from the project brought British occupation in 1882, and Nasser's nationalisation of the canal in 1956 set off the Suez Crisis."},{"slug":"burning-of-the-old-summer-palace","name":"Burning of the Old Summer Palace","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/burning-of-the-old-summer-palace","dates":{"label":"6–19 October 1860","startYear":1860,"endYear":1860},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"}],"place":{"name":"Yuanmingyuan, Haidian, Beijing","country":"China","countryCode":"CN"},"destination":{"slug":"beijing","name":"Beijing","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/beijing"},"summary":"At the end of the Second Opium War, British and French troops looted the Qing emperors' vast garden palace of Yuanmingyuan outside Beijing. On Lord Elgin's orders, British soldiers then set it ablaze in reprisal for the torture and killing of captured envoys. Its broken stone pavilions in European style are preserved as a reminder of China's humiliation by foreign powers."},{"slug":"bombardment-of-fort-sumter","name":"Bombardment of Fort Sumter","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/bombardment-of-fort-sumter","dates":{"label":"12–13 April 1861","startYear":1861,"endYear":1861},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Charleston Harbor","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"charleston","name":"Charleston","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/charleston"},"summary":"After South Carolina seceded to protect slavery, Confederate batteries around Charleston Harbor bombarded the US Army garrison at Fort Sumter for 34 hours until it surrendered. No one was killed in the bombardment itself, but Lincoln called for volunteers and four more states seceded. The American Civil War had begun."},{"slug":"battle-of-antietam","name":"Battle of Antietam","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-antietam","dates":{"label":"17 September 1862","startYear":1862,"endYear":1862},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Sharpsburg, Maryland","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"gettysburg","name":"Gettysburg","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/gettysburg"},"summary":"Robert E. Lee's first invasion of the North was halted along Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland, where about 23,000 men were killed, wounded or missing in a single day, the bloodiest in American history. McClellan's Union army forced Lee back into Virginia. Lincoln used the result to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation five days later, which helped keep Britain and France out of the war."},{"slug":"battle-of-gettysburg","name":"Battle of Gettysburg and the Gettysburg Address","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-gettysburg","dates":{"label":"1–3 July 1863 (Address 19 November 1863)","startYear":1863,"endYear":1863},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Gettysburg","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"gettysburg","name":"Gettysburg","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/gettysburg"},"summary":"Robert E. Lee's invasion of the North ended in three days of fighting around Gettysburg, culminating in the failed Confederate assault known as Pickett's Charge. More than 50,000 soldiers were killed, wounded, captured or missing. In November Abraham Lincoln dedicated the soldiers' cemetery with a two-minute address that recast the war as a struggle for 'a new birth of freedom'."},{"slug":"emancipation-proclamation","name":"Emancipation Proclamation","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/emancipation-proclamation","dates":{"label":"1 January 1863","startYear":1863,"endYear":1863},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Washington, D.C.","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"washington-dc","name":"Washington, D.C.","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/washington-dc"},"summary":"Abraham Lincoln drafted the Emancipation Proclamation in the summer of 1862, partly while staying at his family's cottage at the Soldiers' Home in Washington. It declared enslaved people in Confederate-held areas free and opened the Union army to Black men, about 180,000 of whom served. It made the Civil War a war against slavery, which the 13th Amendment abolished in 1865."},{"slug":"founding-of-the-red-cross","name":"Founding of the Red Cross and the first Geneva Convention","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/founding-of-the-red-cross","dates":{"label":"1863–1864","startYear":1863,"endYear":1864},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Geneva","country":"Switzerland","countryCode":"CH"},"destination":{"slug":"geneva","name":"Geneva","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/geneva"},"summary":"Shocked by the wounded left untended after the Battle of Solferino in 1859, the Geneva businessman Henry Dunant proposed volunteer relief societies protected in wartime. A Geneva committee founded what became the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1863, and in 1864 twelve states signed the first Geneva Convention on the care of wounded soldiers, the start of international humanitarian law."},{"slug":"assassination-of-abraham-lincoln","name":"Assassination of Abraham Lincoln","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/assassination-of-abraham-lincoln","dates":{"label":"14–15 April 1865","startYear":1865,"endYear":1865},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Ford's Theatre, Washington","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"washington-dc","name":"Washington, D.C.","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/washington-dc"},"summary":"Five days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox, the actor John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln during a play at Ford's Theatre. Lincoln died the next morning in a boarding house across the street. A wider plot also wounded Secretary of State William Seward. Booth was killed twelve days later and four conspirators were hanged. The killing shaped the course of Reconstruction."},{"slug":"juneteenth-in-galveston","name":"Juneteenth: emancipation reaches Texas","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/juneteenth-in-galveston","dates":{"label":"19 June 1865","startYear":1865,"endYear":1865},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Galveston, Texas","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":null,"summary":"Two months after Lee's surrender, Union general Gordon Granger landed at Galveston with federal troops and issued General Order No. 3, announcing that all enslaved people in Texas, about 250,000 of them, were free. Freed people celebrated the date each year with prayer, picnics and parades; the custom spread across the country, and Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021."},{"slug":"surrender-at-appomattox","name":"Surrender at Appomattox Court House","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/surrender-at-appomattox","dates":{"label":"9 April 1865","startYear":1865,"endYear":1865},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Appomattox Court House, Virginia","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"williamsburg-yorktown","name":"Williamsburg, Jamestown & Yorktown","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/williamsburg-yorktown"},"summary":"Cut off while retreating west from Richmond, Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant in the parlour of Wilmer McLean's house. Grant's terms let the men go home on parole, keeping their horses. Other Confederate forces gave up over the following weeks, and the surrender is remembered as the end of the Civil War and of the Confederacy."},{"slug":"meiji-restoration","name":"Meiji Restoration","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/meiji-restoration","dates":{"label":"1867–1868","startYear":1867,"endYear":1868},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Kyoto","country":"Japan","countryCode":"JP"},"destination":{"slug":"kyoto","name":"Kyoto","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/kyoto"},"summary":"In October 1867 the last Tokugawa shogun, Yoshinobu, announced at Nijo Castle in Kyoto that he was returning governing power to the emperor. In January 1868 a coalition of southern domains defeated shogunate forces at Toba-Fushimi, south of the city, and the young Emperor Meiji later moved to Tokyo. The new government abolished the samurai class and industrialised Japan within a generation."},{"slug":"capture-of-rome-1870","name":"Capture of Rome and the end of the Papal States","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/capture-of-rome-1870","dates":{"label":"20 September 1870","startYear":1870,"endYear":1871},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Rome","country":"Italy","countryCode":"IT"},"destination":{"slug":"rome","name":"Rome","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/rome"},"summary":"When the French garrison protecting the Pope left to fight Prussia, Italian troops shelled the Aurelian Walls and entered Rome through a breach beside Porta Pia. A vote joined the city to the Kingdom of Italy, which made it the capital in 1871. Pope Pius IX refused to accept the loss, and popes called themselves prisoners in the Vatican until 1929."},{"slug":"paris-commune","name":"Paris Commune","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/paris-commune","dates":{"label":"18 March–28 May 1871","startYear":1871,"endYear":1871},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"Paris","country":"France","countryCode":"FR"},"destination":{"slug":"paris","name":"Paris","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/paris"},"summary":"After France's defeat by Prussia, the national government sent troops to take the National Guard's cannons from Montmartre. Crowds stopped them, and Paris elected a revolutionary council, the Commune, which separated church and state and ran the city for ten weeks. Government troops retook it in the 'Bloody Week' of May, killing thousands; the last defenders were shot against a wall in Père Lachaise cemetery."},{"slug":"closure-of-the-zanzibar-slave-market","name":"Closure of the Zanzibar slave market","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/closure-of-the-zanzibar-slave-market","dates":{"label":"5 June 1873","startYear":1873,"endYear":1873},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Stone Town, Zanzibar","country":"Tanzania","countryCode":"TZ"},"destination":null,"summary":"Under its Omani sultans, Zanzibar became the hub of the East African slave trade, selling captives from the mainland to clove plantations and Arabian markets. British pressure forced Sultan Barghash to close the market in 1873, and an Anglican cathedral was built on the site, its altar placed where the whipping post stood. Slavery itself lost legal status only in 1897 and lingered until 1909."},{"slug":"battle-of-isandlwana-and-rorkes-drift","name":"Battles of Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-isandlwana-and-rorkes-drift","dates":{"label":"22–23 January 1879","startYear":1879,"endYear":1879},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Isandlwana","country":"South Africa","countryCode":"ZA"},"destination":{"slug":"kwazulu-natal-battlefields","name":"KwaZulu-Natal Battlefields","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/kwazulu-natal-battlefields"},"summary":"Early in Britain's invasion of the Zulu kingdom, a Zulu army of about 20,000 overran a British camp at Isandlwana, killing more than 1,300 soldiers and African auxiliaries. Hours later about 150 men held the mission station at Rorke's Drift against repeated attacks. Britain went on to end Zulu independence within months, but Isandlwana remains one of the heaviest defeats of a colonial army."},{"slug":"building-of-the-panama-canal","name":"Building of the Panama Canal","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/building-of-the-panama-canal","dates":{"label":"1881–1914","startYear":1881,"endYear":1914},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"industrial","name":"Industrial Heritage"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Panama Canal, Isthmus of Panama","country":"Panama","countryCode":"PA"},"destination":null,"summary":"A French company led by Ferdinand de Lesseps began digging across the isthmus in 1881 but failed in 1889, after disease had killed many thousands of workers. The United States backed Panama's break from Colombia, took over in 1904, fought yellow fever and malaria, and built a lock canal that opened in August 1914, shortening voyages between the oceans by weeks. Panama took full control in 1999."},{"slug":"berlin-conference-scramble-for-africa","name":"Berlin Conference and the Scramble for Africa","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/berlin-conference-scramble-for-africa","dates":{"label":"15 November 1884–26 February 1885","startYear":1884,"endYear":1885},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Berlin, Wilhelmstraße","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"Bismarck gathered delegates of fourteen states, Germany included, at his official residence on Wilhelmstraße to settle rival claims in Africa; no African was invited. The final act set rules for claiming coastal territory, recognised King Leopold II's Congo Free State and opened the Congo basin to free trade. It became the symbol of the European partition of Africa, which left only Ethiopia and Liberia independent by 1914."},{"slug":"witwatersrand-gold-rush","name":"Witwatersrand gold rush and the founding of Johannesburg","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/witwatersrand-gold-rush","dates":{"label":"1886","startYear":1886,"endYear":1886},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"industrial","name":"Industrial Heritage"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Langlaagte, Johannesburg","country":"South Africa","countryCode":"ZA"},"destination":{"slug":"johannesburg","name":"Johannesburg & Soweto","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/johannesburg"},"summary":"In 1886 the prospector George Harrison found the main gold reef on the farm Langlaagte, and the Boer government opened the fields. A mining camp became Johannesburg, built on the largest gold deposits ever found and on the labour of migrant African miners housed in compounds. Clashes between the Boer republic and British mining interests led to the Anglo-Boer War of 1899."},{"slug":"golden-law-abolition-of-slavery-in-brazil","name":"Golden Law: abolition of slavery in Brazil","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/golden-law-abolition-of-slavery-in-brazil","dates":{"label":"13 May 1888","startYear":1888,"endYear":1888},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"Rio de Janeiro","country":"Brazil","countryCode":"BR"},"destination":{"slug":"rio-de-janeiro","name":"Rio de Janeiro","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/rio-de-janeiro"},"summary":"Princess Isabel, acting for her father Emperor Pedro II, signed the Lei Áurea at the Paço Imperial, freeing the roughly 700,000 people still enslaved. Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, after decades of resistance by enslaved people and a mass abolitionist campaign. The freed received no land or compensation, and the monarchy fell to a republican coup the next year."},{"slug":"mass-immigration-through-ellis-island","name":"Mass immigration through Ellis Island","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/mass-immigration-through-ellis-island","dates":{"label":"1892–1954","startYear":1892,"endYear":1954},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"genealogy","name":"Ancestry & Genealogy"}],"place":{"name":"Ellis Island","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"new-york-city","name":"New York City","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/new-york-city"},"summary":"Between 1892 and 1954 about 12 million immigrants were inspected at the federal station on Ellis Island, most of them arriving in steerage from southern and eastern Europe in the decades before the First World War. Doctors chalked letters on those suspected of illness, but only about 2% were refused entry. Tens of millions of Americans descend from people who passed through."},{"slug":"plessy-v-ferguson","name":"Plessy v. Ferguson","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/plessy-v-ferguson","dates":{"label":"7 June 1892 – 18 May 1896","startYear":1892,"endYear":1896},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Press Street (Homer Plessy Way) and Royal Street, New Orleans","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"new-orleans","name":"New Orleans","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/new-orleans"},"summary":"In a planned challenge organised by New Orleans' Comité des Citoyens, Homer Plessy, a shoemaker of mixed ancestry, sat in a whites-only railway car and was arrested at Press and Royal streets. In 1896 the Supreme Court upheld the state's segregation law, making 'separate but equal' the legal basis of Jim Crow until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Louisiana pardoned Plessy in 2022."},{"slug":"overthrow-of-the-hawaiian-kingdom","name":"Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/overthrow-of-the-hawaiian-kingdom","dates":{"label":"17 January 1893","startYear":1893,"endYear":1893},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Honolulu","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"pearl-harbor","name":"Honolulu & Pearl Harbor","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/pearl-harbor"},"summary":"A committee of mostly American businessmen, backed by US Marines landed from the USS Boston, deposed Queen Liliʻuokalani after she sought a new constitution restoring royal power. She yielded under protest to avoid bloodshed. The United States annexed Hawaii in 1898, and in 1993 Congress formally apologised. ʻIolani Palace, where the queen was later confined, is the only royal palace on US soil."},{"slug":"battle-of-adwa","name":"Battle of Adwa","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-adwa","dates":{"label":"1 March 1896","startYear":1896,"endYear":1896},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Adwa","country":"Ethiopia","countryCode":"ET"},"destination":null,"summary":"Emperor Menelik II's army, with Empress Taytu commanding her own troops, defeated an Italian invasion force in the mountains around Adwa, killing or capturing thousands. Italy recognised Ethiopia's independence by treaty later that year. Adwa made Ethiopia a symbol of African resistance during the Scramble for Africa, and the anniversary is a national holiday."},{"slug":"execution-of-jose-rizal","name":"Execution of José Rizal","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/execution-of-jose-rizal","dates":{"label":"30 December 1896","startYear":1896,"endYear":1896},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"literary-history","name":"Literary History"}],"place":{"name":"Manila","country":"Philippines","countryCode":"PH"},"destination":{"slug":"manila","name":"Manila","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/manila"},"summary":"José Rizal, a doctor and novelist whose books exposed abuses under Spanish rule, was shot by firing squad at Bagumbayan field in Manila after a military trial linked him to the revolution that had broken out that August. His death strengthened the independence movement. He spent his last days in a cell at Fort Santiago, where brass footprints trace his walk to execution."},{"slug":"curies-discover-radium","name":"Marie and Pierre Curie discover radium","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/curies-discover-radium","dates":{"label":"1898","startYear":1898,"endYear":1911},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Paris","country":"France","countryCode":"FR"},"destination":{"slug":"paris","name":"Paris","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/paris"},"summary":"Working in a draughty shed at a Paris school of physics and chemistry, Marie and Pierre Curie identified two new radioactive elements in 1898, polonium and radium. Their research opened the way to atomic physics and to radiation treatment for cancer. Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, in 1903, and the first person to win two, adding chemistry in 1911."},{"slug":"philippine-declaration-of-independence","name":"Philippine Declaration of Independence","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/philippine-declaration-of-independence","dates":{"label":"12 June 1898","startYear":1898,"endYear":1898},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Kawit, Cavite","country":"Philippines","countryCode":"PH"},"destination":{"slug":"manila","name":"Manila","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/manila"},"summary":"As the Spanish-American War broke Spain's hold on the islands, General Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed Philippine independence from a window of his house in Kawit, Cavite, where the national flag was first unfurled and the anthem first played. A revolutionary congress at Malolos produced a republic in January 1899, but the United States, which bought the islands from Spain, crushed it in a three-year war."},{"slug":"sinking-of-the-uss-maine","name":"Sinking of the USS Maine","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/sinking-of-the-uss-maine","dates":{"label":"15 February 1898","startYear":1898,"endYear":1898},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Havana harbour","country":"Cuba","countryCode":"CU"},"destination":{"slug":"havana","name":"Havana","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/havana"},"summary":"The US battleship Maine, sent to Havana during Cuba's war of independence from Spain, exploded at anchor in the harbour, killing more than 260 of her crew. American newspapers blamed Spain, though later studies point to a fire in a coal bunker. War followed in April; Spain lost Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, and the United States became an overseas colonial power."},{"slug":"siege-of-ladysmith-and-spion-kop","name":"Siege of Ladysmith and the Battle of Spion Kop","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/siege-of-ladysmith-and-spion-kop","dates":{"label":"November 1899 – February 1900","startYear":1899,"endYear":1900},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Ladysmith","country":"South Africa","countryCode":"ZA"},"destination":{"slug":"kwazulu-natal-battlefields","name":"KwaZulu-Natal Battlefields","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/kwazulu-natal-battlefields"},"summary":"Early in the South African War, Boer commandos besieged the British garrison at Ladysmith for 118 days. Relief attempts failed at Colenso and on the summit of Spion Kop in January 1900, where hundreds died in shallow trenches; Gandhi served nearby as a stretcher-bearer. The war's later camps for Boer and Black African civilians left a lasting legacy of bitterness."},{"slug":"federation-of-australia","name":"Federation of Australia","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/federation-of-australia","dates":{"label":"1 January 1901","startYear":1901,"endYear":1901},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Centennial Park, Sydney","country":"Australia","countryCode":"AU"},"destination":{"slug":"sydney","name":"Sydney","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/sydney"},"summary":"After a decade of conventions and referendums, six self-governing British colonies united as the Commonwealth of Australia. On New Year's Day 1901 a crowd of tens of thousands watched the first governor-general and federal ministers sworn in at a temporary pavilion in Sydney's Centennial Park. The new nation's first laws included the White Australia policy, which lasted into the 1970s."},{"slug":"pankhurst-founds-the-suffragettes","name":"Emmeline Pankhurst founds the suffragettes","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/pankhurst-founds-the-suffragettes","dates":{"label":"10 October 1903","startYear":1903,"endYear":1918},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester","country":"United Kingdom","countryCode":"GB"},"destination":{"slug":"manchester","name":"Manchester and Liverpool","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/manchester"},"summary":"In the parlour of her Manchester home, Emmeline Pankhurst and a group of women founded the Women's Social and Political Union under the motto 'Deeds, not words'. Its members, nicknamed suffragettes, used marches, window-smashing, arson and hunger strikes to demand the vote. Women over 30 won the vote in 1918, and women gained it on equal terms with men in 1928."},{"slug":"wright-brothers-first-flight","name":"Wright brothers' first powered flight","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/wright-brothers-first-flight","dates":{"label":"17 December 1903","startYear":1903,"endYear":1903},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"},{"slug":"industrial","name":"Industrial Heritage"}],"place":{"name":"Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"williamsburg-yorktown","name":"Williamsburg, Jamestown & Yorktown","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/williamsburg-yorktown"},"summary":"On a cold, windy morning at Kill Devil Hills on North Carolina's Outer Banks, Orville Wright flew the brothers' Wright Flyer for 12 seconds and about 37 metres, the first controlled, sustained flight of a powered aircraft. Wilbur made the fourth and longest flight that day, 260 metres in 59 seconds. Within forty years aircraft had transformed travel, trade and war."},{"slug":"gandhi-and-satyagraha-in-johannesburg","name":"Gandhi and the birth of satyagraha in Johannesburg","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/gandhi-and-satyagraha-in-johannesburg","dates":{"label":"1906–1914","startYear":1906,"endYear":1914},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Johannesburg","country":"South Africa","countryCode":"ZA"},"destination":{"slug":"johannesburg","name":"Johannesburg & Soweto","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/johannesburg"},"summary":"In September 1906 Indians in Johannesburg, led by the young lawyer Mohandas Gandhi, pledged at a mass meeting to defy a Transvaal law forcing them to register and give fingerprints. Gandhi called their method satyagraha, 'truth force': deliberate, non-violent law-breaking and acceptance of prison. He was jailed in the Old Fort, and the campaign won concessions in 1914 before he returned to India."},{"slug":"building-of-the-titanic","name":"Building of the Titanic","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/building-of-the-titanic","dates":{"label":"1909–1912","startYear":1909,"endYear":1912},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"industrial","name":"Industrial Heritage"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"}],"place":{"name":"Belfast","country":"United Kingdom","countryCode":"GB"},"destination":{"slug":"belfast","name":"Belfast","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/belfast"},"summary":"In the Harland & Wolff shipyard on Belfast's Queen's Island, thousands of workers built the liners Olympic and Titanic side by side, then the largest ships afloat. Titanic was launched in May 1911 and left Belfast in April 1912; days later she struck an iceberg and sank with the loss of about 1,500 lives. The disaster led to the first international rules on safety at sea."},{"slug":"mexican-revolution","name":"Mexican Revolution","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/mexican-revolution","dates":{"label":"1910–1920","startYear":1910,"endYear":1920},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Mexico City","country":"Mexico","countryCode":"MX"},"destination":{"slug":"mexico-city","name":"Mexico City","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/mexico-city"},"summary":"Francisco Madero's call to rise against the long rule of Porfirio Díaz in November 1910 opened a decade of civil war in which leaders such as Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa fought for land, power and reform. Around a million people died. The 1917 constitution promised land reform and workers' rights, and the revolution's story was later painted across public walls by muralists such as Diego Rivera."},{"slug":"xinhai-revolution-and-the-republic-of-china","name":"Xinhai Revolution and the founding of the Republic of China","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/xinhai-revolution-and-the-republic-of-china","dates":{"label":"October 1911 – 1 January 1912","startYear":1911,"endYear":1912},"period":{"slug":"18th-19th-century","name":"18th & 19th Century"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Nanjing","country":"China","countryCode":"CN"},"destination":null,"summary":"An army uprising at Wuchang in October 1911 spread across southern China, and on 1 January 1912 Sun Yat-sen was inaugurated in Nanjing as provisional president of the Republic of China. The last Qing emperor abdicated weeks later, ending more than 2,000 years of imperial rule. Sun's mausoleum on Purple Mountain overlooks the city."},{"slug":"assassination-of-franz-ferdinand","name":"Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/assassination-of-franz-ferdinand","dates":{"label":"28 June 1914","startYear":1914,"endYear":1914},"period":{"slug":"ww1","name":"First World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Sarajevo","country":"Bosnia and Herzegovina","countryCode":"BA"},"destination":{"slug":"sarajevo","name":"Sarajevo","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/sarajevo"},"summary":"Gavrilo Princip, a young Bosnian Serb nationalist, shot the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife Sophie on a street corner beside the Latin Bridge in Sarajevo, after their driver took a wrong turn. Austria-Hungary's ultimatum to Serbia and the alliances behind it turned the killing into the First World War within six weeks."},{"slug":"ypres-salient-passchendaele","name":"The Ypres Salient and Passchendaele","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/ypres-salient-passchendaele","dates":{"label":"1914–1918","startYear":1914,"endYear":1918},"period":{"slug":"ww1","name":"First World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Ypres (Ieper), West Flanders","country":"Belgium","countryCode":"BE"},"destination":{"slug":"ypres-flanders","name":"Ypres & Flanders Fields","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/ypres-flanders"},"summary":"Around the Flemish town of Ypres, British Empire, French and Belgian troops held a bulge in the line against German attacks for four years. Here the German army made the first large-scale chlorine gas attack in April 1915, and in 1917 the Third Battle of Ypres ended in the mud of Passchendaele. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died in the salient."},{"slug":"armenian-genocide","name":"Armenian Genocide","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/armenian-genocide","dates":{"label":"1915–1923","startYear":1915,"endYear":1923},"period":{"slug":"ww1","name":"First World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Tsitsernakaberd, Yerevan","country":"Armenia","countryCode":"AM"},"destination":null,"summary":"Beginning with the arrest of Armenian community leaders in Constantinople on 24 April 1915, the Ottoman government deported Armenians from Anatolia towards the Syrian desert, and massacres, starvation and death marches killed most of those deported, by most estimates around a million people. Turkey still rejects the term genocide. Armenians remember the victims each 24 April at Tsitsernakaberd in Yerevan."},{"slug":"gallipoli-campaign","name":"Gallipoli campaign","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/gallipoli-campaign","dates":{"label":"25 April 1915–9 January 1916","startYear":1915,"endYear":1916},"period":{"slug":"ww1","name":"First World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"}],"place":{"name":"Gallipoli peninsula, Çanakkale","country":"Turkey","countryCode":"TR"},"destination":{"slug":"gallipoli","name":"Gallipoli","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/gallipoli"},"summary":"After a naval attack on the Dardanelles failed in March, Allied troops landed on the Gallipoli peninsula to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war. Eight months of trench fighting killed more than 100,000 men on both sides before the Allies withdrew. The campaign became a founding story for Australia, New Zealand and modern Turkey, whose future leader Mustafa Kemal commanded there."},{"slug":"battle-of-the-somme","name":"Battle of the Somme","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-the-somme","dates":{"label":"1 July–18 November 1916","startYear":1916,"endYear":1916},"period":{"slug":"ww1","name":"First World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Somme, Picardy","country":"France","countryCode":"FR"},"destination":{"slug":"somme","name":"The Somme","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/somme"},"summary":"British and French armies attacked German lines on both sides of the Somme river. On the first day alone the British Army suffered more than 57,000 casualties, the heaviest one-day loss in its history. Four and a half months of fighting gained a few miles at a cost of over a million casualties on all sides, and the battle shapes how Britain and its former empire remember the war."},{"slug":"battle-of-verdun","name":"Battle of Verdun","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-verdun","dates":{"label":"21 February–18 December 1916","startYear":1916,"endYear":1916},"period":{"slug":"ww1","name":"First World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Verdun, Meuse","country":"France","countryCode":"FR"},"destination":{"slug":"verdun","name":"Verdun","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/verdun"},"summary":"The German army attacked the fortress city of Verdun to wear down the French army. For ten months both sides fed troops into a few square miles of hills, woods and forts, and about 300,000 men died. France's defence of Verdun, supplied along the Voie Sacrée road, made it the central French memory of the war and later a symbol of Franco-German reconciliation."},{"slug":"easter-rising","name":"Easter Rising","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/easter-rising","dates":{"label":"24–29 April 1916","startYear":1916,"endYear":1916},"period":{"slug":"ww1","name":"First World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Dublin","country":"Ireland","countryCode":"IE"},"destination":{"slug":"dublin","name":"Dublin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/dublin"},"summary":"Irish republicans seized the General Post Office and other buildings in Dublin and proclaimed an Irish Republic while Britain was at war. The British army crushed the rising in six days, shelling the city centre. The execution of its leaders, fourteen of them in Kilmainham Gaol, turned public opinion and led to the War of Independence and an Irish state in 1922."},{"slug":"arab-revolt-capture-of-aqaba","name":"Arab Revolt and the capture of Aqaba","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/arab-revolt-capture-of-aqaba","dates":{"label":"6 July 1917","startYear":1917,"endYear":1917},"period":{"slug":"ww1","name":"First World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Aqaba","country":"Jordan","countryCode":"JO"},"destination":{"slug":"petra","name":"Petra","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/petra"},"summary":"During the Arab Revolt against Ottoman rule, tribal fighters under Auda abu Tayi and Sharif Nasir, with the British officer T. E. Lawrence, crossed the desert and took the port of Aqaba from the landward side. The victory let the revolt move north towards Damascus with British supply by sea. Wadi Rum, where Lawrence travelled, is still associated with the campaign."},{"slug":"charge-at-beersheba","name":"Charge of the Light Horse at Beersheba","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/charge-at-beersheba","dates":{"label":"31 October 1917","startYear":1917,"endYear":1917},"period":{"slug":"ww1","name":"First World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Beersheba","country":"Israel","countryCode":"IL"},"destination":{"slug":"jerusalem","name":"Jerusalem","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/jerusalem"},"summary":"At dusk on 31 October 1917 Australian Light Horse regiments charged the Ottoman trenches at Beersheba and captured the town and its wells. The success broke the Gaza–Beersheba line and opened the way for the British advance on Jerusalem, which fell in December. The charge is a celebrated episode in Australian and New Zealand military memory."},{"slug":"october-revolution","name":"October Revolution","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/october-revolution","dates":{"label":"7–8 November 1917 (25–26 October old style)","startYear":1917,"endYear":1917},"period":{"slug":"ww1","name":"First World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"St Petersburg (then Petrograd)","country":"Russia","countryCode":"RU"},"destination":null,"summary":"In Petrograd, Bolshevik Red Guards organised by Lenin and Trotsky seized bridges, the telegraph and finally the Winter Palace, arresting the Provisional Government, after a blank shot from the cruiser Aurora signalled the assault. The revolution brought the Bolsheviks to power, led to civil war and created the Soviet Union, a state that shaped world politics until 1991."},{"slug":"armistice-of-compiegne-1918","name":"Armistice of 11 November 1918","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/armistice-of-compiegne-1918","dates":{"label":"11 November 1918","startYear":1918,"endYear":1918},"period":{"slug":"ww1","name":"First World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Compiègne","country":"France","countryCode":"FR"},"destination":{"slug":"paris","name":"Paris","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/paris"},"summary":"In a railway carriage parked in the forest near Compiègne, the Allied commander Marshal Foch received German envoys, and early on 11 November they signed an armistice that stopped the fighting on the Western Front at 11 a.m. In June 1940 Hitler made defeated France sign its own armistice in the same carriage, which was then taken to Germany and destroyed."},{"slug":"german-revolution-and-spartacist-uprising","name":"German Revolution and the Spartacist uprising","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/german-revolution-and-spartacist-uprising","dates":{"label":"9 November 1918–15 January 1919","startYear":1918,"endYear":1919},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Berlin","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"With the war lost, sailors' mutinies spread to Berlin, and on 9 November 1918 the Kaiser's abdication was announced. Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed a German republic from the Reichstag, and hours later Karl Liebknecht declared a socialist one from the royal palace. In January 1919 a communist-led rising was crushed by Freikorps troops, who murdered Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg."},{"slug":"harlem-renaissance","name":"Harlem Renaissance","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/harlem-renaissance","dates":{"label":"c. 1918–1937","startYear":1918,"endYear":1937},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"literary-history","name":"Literary History"},{"slug":"art-history","name":"Art History"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"}],"place":{"name":"Harlem, Manhattan","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"new-york-city","name":"New York City","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/new-york-city"},"summary":"Drawn by the Great Migration from the South and by arrivals from the Caribbean, Black writers, musicians, artists and thinkers made Harlem the capital of African American culture in the 1920s and 1930s. Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Duke Ellington and Alain Locke, editor of The New Negro, gave voice to a confident new identity that shaped jazz, literature and the civil rights movement."},{"slug":"jallianwala-bagh-massacre","name":"Jallianwala Bagh massacre","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/jallianwala-bagh-massacre","dates":{"label":"13 April 1919","startYear":1919,"endYear":1919},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Amritsar","country":"India","countryCode":"IN"},"destination":{"slug":"amritsar","name":"Amritsar","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/amritsar"},"summary":"Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer led troops into the walled garden of Jallianwala Bagh, where thousands had gathered on the Baisakhi festival despite a ban on meetings, and ordered them to fire without warning. Officially 379 people were killed; Indian estimates were far higher. The massacre turned many moderate Indians, including Gandhi and Tagore, against British rule."},{"slug":"march-first-movement","name":"March First Movement","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/march-first-movement","dates":{"label":"1 March 1919","startYear":1919,"endYear":1919},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Seoul","country":"South Korea","countryCode":"KR"},"destination":{"slug":"seoul","name":"Seoul","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/seoul"},"summary":"On 1 March 1919, nine years into Japanese colonial rule, 33 religious leaders signed a Korean declaration of independence in Seoul while students read it aloud to crowds in Pagoda Park. Peaceful demonstrations spread across the country for months. Japanese police and troops crushed them, killing hundreds and by some counts thousands, and filled prisons such as Seodaemun with protesters."},{"slug":"treaty-of-versailles","name":"Treaty of Versailles","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/treaty-of-versailles","dates":{"label":"28 June 1919","startYear":1919,"endYear":1919},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Versailles","country":"France","countryCode":"FR"},"destination":{"slug":"paris","name":"Paris","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/paris"},"summary":"Five years to the day after the Sarajevo assassination, German delegates signed the peace treaty in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, the room where the German Empire had been proclaimed in 1871. It took German territory and colonies, limited its army and demanded reparations. Resentment of the treaty fed Nazi propaganda, and the League of Nations it set up failed to keep the peace."},{"slug":"weimar-republic-and-bauhaus","name":"The Weimar Republic and the Bauhaus","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/weimar-republic-and-bauhaus","dates":{"label":"1919–1933","startYear":1919,"endYear":1933},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"art-history","name":"Art History"}],"place":{"name":"Weimar, Thuringia","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"leipzig","name":"Leipzig","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/leipzig"},"summary":"In 1919 Germany's national assembly met in the Weimar theatre, away from revolutionary Berlin, and wrote the constitution of the country's first parliamentary democracy. That spring Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus school in Weimar; it moved to Dessau in 1925 and shaped modern design worldwide. Both ended under Nazi rule, and the Bauhaus closed under pressure in 1933."},{"slug":"league-of-nations-in-geneva","name":"League of Nations in Geneva","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/league-of-nations-in-geneva","dates":{"label":"1920–1946","startYear":1920,"endYear":1946},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Geneva","country":"Switzerland","countryCode":"CH"},"destination":{"slug":"geneva","name":"Geneva","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/geneva"},"summary":"Created by the peace treaties of 1919 to settle disputes before they turned into wars, the League of Nations made Geneva its seat and held its first assembly there in November 1920. It issued identity papers for stateless refugees and ran health work, but failed to stop Japan's invasion of Manchuria or Italy's of Ethiopia. Its Palais des Nations passed to the United Nations."},{"slug":"discovery-of-tutankhamuns-tomb","name":"Discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/discovery-of-tutankhamuns-tomb","dates":{"label":"4 November 1922","startYear":1922,"endYear":1922},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"royal","name":"Royalty & Monarchy"}],"place":{"name":"Valley of the Kings, Luxor","country":"Egypt","countryCode":"EG"},"destination":{"slug":"luxor","name":"Luxor","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/luxor"},"summary":"Howard Carter's team, funded by Lord Carnarvon, found the steps to Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings in November 1922. It was the first royal tomb in the valley found largely intact, and its contents set off a worldwide fascination with ancient Egypt. The young king's mummy still lies in the tomb; the treasures are now in Cairo."},{"slug":"fleming-discovers-penicillin","name":"Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/fleming-discovers-penicillin","dates":{"label":"September 1928","startYear":1928,"endYear":1928},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Paddington, London","country":"United Kingdom","countryCode":"GB"},"destination":{"slug":"london","name":"London","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/london"},"summary":"Back from holiday in his laboratory at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, Alexander Fleming noticed that a mould contaminating a culture plate had killed the bacteria around it. He named the active substance penicillin. Howard Florey and Ernst Chain's team in Oxford made it into a usable drug during the Second World War, and antibiotics have since saved millions of lives."},{"slug":"wall-street-crash-of-1929","name":"Wall Street Crash","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/wall-street-crash-of-1929","dates":{"label":"24–29 October 1929","startYear":1929,"endYear":1929},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Wall Street, Lower Manhattan","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"new-york-city","name":"New York City","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/new-york-city"},"summary":"After a decade of speculation, much of it with borrowed money, share prices on the New York Stock Exchange collapsed over a few days in late October 1929, with record selling on Black Thursday and Black Tuesday. Banks failed, credit dried up and the slump spread through world trade into the Great Depression, which brought mass unemployment and fed extremist politics in Europe."},{"slug":"dachau-concentration-camp","name":"Dachau concentration camp","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/dachau-concentration-camp","dates":{"label":"22 March 1933–29 April 1945","startYear":1933,"endYear":1945},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"holocaust-remembrance","name":"Holocaust & Remembrance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Dachau","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"munich","name":"Munich","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/munich"},"summary":"Opened weeks after Hitler took power, Dachau was the first regular Nazi concentration camp and the model for those that followed, and SS guards trained there before serving elsewhere. More than 200,000 prisoners from across Europe passed through it and its subcamps. The memorial has documented over 32,000 deaths, with thousands more unrecorded. US troops liberated the camp on 29 April 1945."},{"slug":"reichstag-fire-and-nazi-seizure-of-power","name":"Reichstag fire and the Nazi seizure of power","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/reichstag-fire-and-nazi-seizure-of-power","dates":{"label":"30 January–10 May 1933","startYear":1933,"endYear":1933},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"literary-history","name":"Literary History"}],"place":{"name":"Berlin","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"Four weeks after Hitler became chancellor, the Reichstag burned on 27 February 1933. Next day an emergency decree suspended civil liberties, and thousands of opponents were arrested. In March the Enabling Act let Hitler govern without parliament, and on 10 May students burned books by Jewish and dissenting authors on today's Bebelplatz. By summer Germany was a one-party state."},{"slug":"barcelona-in-the-spanish-civil-war","name":"Barcelona in the Spanish Civil War","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/barcelona-in-the-spanish-civil-war","dates":{"label":"July 1936–January 1939","startYear":1936,"endYear":1939},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"underground","name":"Underground & Bunkers"}],"place":{"name":"Barcelona","country":"Spain","countryCode":"ES"},"destination":{"slug":"barcelona","name":"Barcelona","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/barcelona"},"summary":"When army officers rose against the Republic in July 1936, workers' militias and loyal police defeated them in Barcelona's streets, and anarchist unions took over factories and transport. George Orwell fought for the revolution and described its infighting in May 1937. Italian bombers raided the city again and again, residents dug more than a thousand shelters, and Franco's troops entered in January 1939."},{"slug":"berlin-olympics-1936","name":"1936 Berlin Olympics","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/berlin-olympics-1936","dates":{"label":"1–16 August 1936","startYear":1936,"endYear":1936},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"Berlin-Westend","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"The Nazi regime used the Summer Games to present a peaceful, modern Germany, briefly taking down anti-Jewish signs and filming the event for propaganda. Its new stadium held about 100,000 spectators. There the American sprinter Jesse Owens won four gold medals, a feat long remembered as a rebuke to Nazi racial ideas. Three years later Germany was at war."},{"slug":"sachsenhausen-concentration-camp","name":"Sachsenhausen concentration camp","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/sachsenhausen-concentration-camp","dates":{"label":"1936–1945","startYear":1936,"endYear":1945},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"holocaust-remembrance","name":"Holocaust & Remembrance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Oranienburg","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"Built by prisoners in 1936 north of Berlin, Sachsenhausen was laid out as a model camp, and from 1938 the SS office that ran the whole camp system sat beside it. More than 200,000 people were held there, from political opponents and Jews to Soviet prisoners of war, and tens of thousands died. After liberation the Soviets used it as a special camp until 1950."},{"slug":"siege-of-madrid","name":"Siege of Madrid in the Spanish Civil War","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/siege-of-madrid","dates":{"label":"November 1936–March 1939","startYear":1936,"endYear":1939},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Madrid","country":"Spain","countryCode":"ES"},"destination":{"slug":"madrid","name":"Madrid","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/madrid"},"summary":"After the military coup of July 1936 split Spain, Franco's forces reached the edge of Madrid in November and attacked through the University City and the Casa de Campo. Militias and the International Brigades helped hold the Republican capital, which endured bombing and shelling for more than two years until it surrendered in March 1939, days before the war ended."},{"slug":"xian-incident","name":"Xi'an Incident","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/xian-incident","dates":{"label":"12–25 December 1936","startYear":1936,"endYear":1936},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Lintong, Xi'an","country":"China","countryCode":"CN"},"destination":{"slug":"xian","name":"Xi'an","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/xian"},"summary":"Two Nationalist generals, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng, detained their leader Chiang Kai-shek at the Huaqing hot springs outside Xi'an to force him to stop fighting the Communists and resist Japan. Chiang was released after two weeks, and a second Nationalist–Communist united front followed in 1937. The truce helped the Communist Party survive and grow."},{"slug":"marco-polo-bridge-incident","name":"Marco Polo Bridge Incident","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/marco-polo-bridge-incident","dates":{"label":"7 July 1937","startYear":1937,"endYear":1937},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Wanping, Fengtai, Beijing","country":"China","countryCode":"CN"},"destination":{"slug":"beijing","name":"Beijing","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/beijing"},"summary":"On the night of 7 July 1937 Japanese troops on exercises near the Lugou (Marco Polo) Bridge, south-west of Beijing, exchanged fire with Chinese soldiers in the walled town of Wanping. Neither side backed down, and within weeks the clash had become full-scale war between China and Japan, which merged into the Second World War and cost millions of Chinese lives."},{"slug":"nanjing-massacre","name":"Nanjing Massacre","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/nanjing-massacre","dates":{"label":"December 1937 – January 1938","startYear":1937,"endYear":1938},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"}],"place":{"name":"Nanjing","country":"China","countryCode":"CN"},"destination":null,"summary":"After capturing China's Nationalist capital in December 1937, Japanese troops killed large numbers of disarmed soldiers and civilians over about six weeks, with Chinese estimates of 300,000 dead, and raped tens of thousands of women. A Safety Zone run by foreign residents, including the German businessman John Rabe, sheltered many. The killings remain a source of tension between China and Japan."},{"slug":"discovery-of-nuclear-fission","name":"Discovery of nuclear fission","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/discovery-of-nuclear-fission","dates":{"label":"December 1938","startYear":1938,"endYear":1939},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Berlin-Dahlem","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"In their Dahlem laboratory in December 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann found that bombarding uranium with neutrons produced barium. Lise Meitner, Hahn's colleague for three decades until she fled Nazi Germany that summer, worked out with Otto Frisch that the nucleus had split, releasing great energy. Within seven years the discovery had produced nuclear reactors and the atomic bomb."},{"slug":"kristallnacht-november-pogrom","name":"Kristallnacht, the November Pogrom","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/kristallnacht-november-pogrom","dates":{"label":"9–10 November 1938","startYear":1938,"endYear":1938},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"holocaust-remembrance","name":"Holocaust & Remembrance"},{"slug":"jewish-heritage","name":"Jewish Heritage"}],"place":{"name":"Berlin","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"Across Germany and Austria on the night of 9 November 1938, Nazi stormtroopers and their supporters burned synagogues, wrecked Jewish shops and homes and attacked Jews. Some 30,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps, including Sachsenhausen, and the community was made to pay a collective fine. In Berlin, local police saved the New Synagogue from the flames."},{"slug":"munich-agreement","name":"Munich Agreement","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/munich-agreement","dates":{"label":"29–30 September 1938","startYear":1938,"endYear":1938},"period":{"slug":"interwar","name":"Interwar"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Munich","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"munich","name":"Munich","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/munich"},"summary":"In Hitler's new Führerbau on Munich's Königsplatz, the leaders of Germany, Britain, France and Italy agreed that Czechoslovakia must hand the Sudetenland to Germany; Czechoslovakia itself was not invited. Chamberlain returned home claiming 'peace for our time', but Germany occupied the rest of the Czech lands in March 1939, and 'Munich' became shorthand for appeasement."},{"slug":"codebreaking-at-bletchley-park","name":"Codebreaking at Bletchley Park","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/codebreaking-at-bletchley-park","dates":{"label":"1939–1945","startYear":1939,"endYear":1945},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"espionage","name":"Espionage & Intelligence"},{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Bletchley, Buckinghamshire","country":"United Kingdom","countryCode":"GB"},"destination":{"slug":"london","name":"London","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/london"},"summary":"At a country house north-west of London, thousands of codebreakers, most of them women, broke German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. Alan Turing's bombe machines and Colossus, an early programmable electronic computer, sped up the work. Intelligence code-named Ultra helped win the Battle of the Atlantic and plan D-Day, and the work stayed secret until the 1970s."},{"slug":"westerplatte-invasion-of-poland","name":"Westerplatte and the invasion of Poland","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/westerplatte-invasion-of-poland","dates":{"label":"1 September 1939","startYear":1939,"endYear":1939},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Gdańsk","country":"Poland","countryCode":"PL"},"destination":{"slug":"gdansk","name":"Gdańsk","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/gdansk"},"summary":"At dawn the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish military depot at Westerplatte, at the mouth of Gdańsk harbour, as German armies crossed Poland's borders. About 200 Polish soldiers held out for a week, and postal workers fought for the Polish Post Office in the city. Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later."},{"slug":"auschwitz-birkenau","name":"Auschwitz-Birkenau","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/auschwitz-birkenau","dates":{"label":"1940–27 January 1945","startYear":1940,"endYear":1945},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"holocaust-remembrance","name":"Holocaust & Remembrance"},{"slug":"jewish-heritage","name":"Jewish Heritage"}],"place":{"name":"Oświęcim","country":"Poland","countryCode":"PL"},"destination":{"slug":"krakow","name":"Krakow & Auschwitz","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/krakow"},"summary":"Nazi Germany set up Auschwitz in occupied Poland as a concentration camp for Polish prisoners, then added the Birkenau killing centre with gas chambers. About 1.1 million people were murdered there, around a million of them Jews, along with Poles, Roma and Soviet prisoners of war. Soviet troops liberated the camp on 27 January, now International Holocaust Remembrance Day."},{"slug":"dunkirk-evacuation","name":"Dunkirk evacuation","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/dunkirk-evacuation","dates":{"label":"26 May–4 June 1940","startYear":1940,"endYear":1940},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"}],"place":{"name":"Dunkirk","country":"France","countryCode":"FR"},"destination":{"slug":"ypres-flanders","name":"Ypres & Flanders Fields","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/ypres-flanders"},"summary":"Cut off by the German advance through France, British and French troops fell back on the port of Dunkirk. In nine days warships and hundreds of civilian 'little ships' carried more than 338,000 men to England from the harbour and beaches, under air attack, while French rearguards held the perimeter. The army lost its equipment, but the rescue let Britain fight on."},{"slug":"attack-on-pearl-harbor","name":"Attack on Pearl Harbor","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/attack-on-pearl-harbor","dates":{"label":"7 December 1941","startYear":1941,"endYear":1941},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"}],"place":{"name":"Pearl Harbor, Oahu","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"pearl-harbor","name":"Honolulu & Pearl Harbor","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/pearl-harbor"},"summary":"Japanese carrier aircraft attacked the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on a Sunday morning, sinking or damaging 19 ships and killing more than 2,400 Americans, 1,177 of them on the battleship Arizona. The United States declared war on Japan the next day, and Germany declared war on the United States days later, turning separate wars into a global one."},{"slug":"babyn-yar-massacre","name":"Babyn Yar massacre","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/babyn-yar-massacre","dates":{"label":"29–30 September 1941","startYear":1941,"endYear":1943},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"holocaust-remembrance","name":"Holocaust & Remembrance"},{"slug":"jewish-heritage","name":"Jewish Heritage"}],"place":{"name":"Kyiv","country":"Ukraine","countryCode":"UA"},"destination":null,"summary":"Days after capturing Kyiv, German SS and police units, with local auxiliaries, shot 33,771 Jews at the Babyn Yar ravine in two days. Over the next two years tens of thousands more, including Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and Ukrainian nationalists, were murdered there. Soviet authorities long suppressed the Jewish identity of the victims; memorials now mark the site."},{"slug":"battle-of-crete","name":"Battle of Crete","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-crete","dates":{"label":"20 May–1 June 1941","startYear":1941,"endYear":1941},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Chania, Crete","country":"Greece","countryCode":"GR"},"destination":{"slug":"crete","name":"Crete","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/crete"},"summary":"German paratroopers and glider troops launched the first mainly airborne invasion in history against British, Commonwealth and Greek forces on Crete, taking Maleme airfield at heavy cost. Cretan civilians fought beside the defenders. The island fell in twelve days, but German losses were so high that Hitler never again ordered a large airborne assault. Occupation and resistance lasted until 1945."},{"slug":"deportation-of-berlins-jews","name":"Deportation of Berlin's Jews","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/deportation-of-berlins-jews","dates":{"label":"18 October 1941–1945","startYear":1941,"endYear":1945},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"holocaust-remembrance","name":"Holocaust & Remembrance"},{"slug":"jewish-heritage","name":"Jewish Heritage"}],"place":{"name":"Berlin","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"From 18 October 1941, trains left Grunewald goods station and other Berlin yards for the ghettos and death camps of the east. More than 50,000 of the city's Jews were deported, and most were murdered. In 1943, women gathered for days on Rosenstraße to demand the release of their Jewish husbands, and the men were freed: a rare public protest."},{"slug":"operation-barbarossa-brest-fortress","name":"Operation Barbarossa and the defence of Brest Fortress","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/operation-barbarossa-brest-fortress","dates":{"label":"22 June 1941","startYear":1941,"endYear":1941},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Brest","country":"Belarus","countryCode":"BY"},"destination":null,"summary":"Germany and its allies invaded the Soviet Union at dawn along a front from the Baltic to the Black Sea. At Brest on the Bug river, the frontier fortress was surrounded within hours, but Soviet soldiers and their families held parts of it for weeks. The Eastern Front that opened that day became the largest theatre of the war and cost tens of millions of lives."},{"slug":"paneriai-massacres","name":"Paneriai massacres","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/paneriai-massacres","dates":{"label":"July 1941–August 1944","startYear":1941,"endYear":1944},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"holocaust-remembrance","name":"Holocaust & Remembrance"},{"slug":"jewish-heritage","name":"Jewish Heritage"}],"place":{"name":"Paneriai, Vilnius","country":"Lithuania","countryCode":"LT"},"destination":{"slug":"vilnius","name":"Vilnius","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/vilnius"},"summary":"In a forest of pits dug for Soviet fuel tanks outside Vilnius, German units and Lithuanian collaborators shot around 100,000 people, about 70,000 of them Jews from Vilnius and nearby towns, along with Poles and Soviet prisoners. Vilnius had been a world centre of Jewish learning. In 1943–44 prisoners were forced to dig up and burn the bodies to hide the crime."},{"slug":"siege-of-leningrad","name":"Siege of Leningrad","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/siege-of-leningrad","dates":{"label":"8 September 1941–27 January 1944","startYear":1941,"endYear":1944},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"St Petersburg (then Leningrad)","country":"Russia","countryCode":"RU"},"destination":null,"summary":"German and Finnish forces cut Leningrad off by land for almost 900 days. Bombing, shelling and the famine of the first winter killed some 800,000 civilians or more, many buried in mass graves at Piskaryovskoye. Supplies came across frozen Lake Ladoga on the 'Road of Life'. The city's survival became a central Soviet story of the war."},{"slug":"anne-frank-in-hiding","name":"Anne Frank in hiding","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/anne-frank-in-hiding","dates":{"label":"July 1942–August 1944","startYear":1942,"endYear":1945},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"holocaust-remembrance","name":"Holocaust & Remembrance"},{"slug":"jewish-heritage","name":"Jewish Heritage"},{"slug":"literary-history","name":"Literary History"}],"place":{"name":"Amsterdam","country":"Netherlands","countryCode":"NL"},"destination":{"slug":"amsterdam","name":"Amsterdam","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/amsterdam"},"summary":"Anne Frank, her family and four other Jews hid for two years in a secret annex behind a bookcase at Prinsengracht 263, helped by her father's employees. They were betrayed and arrested in August 1944, and Anne died in Bergen-Belsen in early 1945. Her diary, published by her father, has been translated into more than 70 languages."},{"slug":"battle-of-stalingrad","name":"Battle of Stalingrad","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-stalingrad","dates":{"label":"23 August 1942–2 February 1943","startYear":1942,"endYear":1943},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Volgograd (then Stalingrad)","country":"Russia","countryCode":"RU"},"destination":null,"summary":"The German Sixth Army fought its way into Stalingrad on the Volga, and the city was destroyed in months of street fighting. In November a Soviet counter-offensive encircled the attackers, and Field Marshal Paulus surrendered in February 1943 with about 91,000 men. The battle cost well over a million military and civilian casualties and turned the war in the east."},{"slug":"bombing-of-darwin","name":"Bombing of Darwin","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/bombing-of-darwin","dates":{"label":"19 February 1942","startYear":1942,"endYear":1942},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Darwin","country":"Australia","countryCode":"AU"},"destination":{"slug":"darwin-kakadu","name":"Darwin & Kakadu","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/darwin-kakadu"},"summary":"Four days after Singapore fell, Japanese aircraft from the carriers that had attacked Pearl Harbor struck Darwin in two raids, sinking ships in the harbour and killing at least 235 people. It was the largest single attack ever made on Australia, and raids on the north continued until late 1943. Oil storage tunnels and coastal gun emplacements survive around the city."},{"slug":"fall-of-bataan-and-corregidor","name":"Fall of Bataan and Corregidor","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/fall-of-bataan-and-corregidor","dates":{"label":"January – May 1942","startYear":1942,"endYear":1942},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Corregidor and Bataan","country":"Philippines","countryCode":"PH"},"destination":{"slug":"manila","name":"Manila","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/manila"},"summary":"US and Filipino forces held the Bataan peninsula for three months against the Japanese before surrendering in April 1942. About 75,000 prisoners were forced to march to Camp O'Donnell, and thousands died on the way. Corregidor, the island fortress guarding Manila Bay, fell in May. Its ruined barracks and gun batteries are preserved as a memorial."},{"slug":"fall-of-singapore","name":"Fall of Singapore","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/fall-of-singapore","dates":{"label":"8–15 February 1942","startYear":1942,"endYear":1942},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Singapore","country":"Singapore","countryCode":"SG"},"destination":{"slug":"singapore","name":"Singapore","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/singapore"},"summary":"After driving British forces down the Malay Peninsula, Japanese troops crossed the Johor Strait on 8 February 1942. A week later General Arthur Percival surrendered the island at the Ford factory in Bukit Timah, and some 80,000 British, Indian and Australian soldiers became prisoners. Japanese forces then massacred thousands of Chinese civilians in the Sook Ching purge."},{"slug":"kokoda-track-campaign","name":"Kokoda Track campaign","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/kokoda-track-campaign","dates":{"label":"July – November 1942","startYear":1942,"endYear":1942},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Kokoda Track","country":"Papua New Guinea","countryCode":"PG"},"destination":null,"summary":"Japanese forces landed on New Guinea's north coast and pushed south over the Owen Stanley Range along the Kokoda Track towards Port Moresby. Outnumbered Australian militia and regular battalions, supported by Papuan carriers, fought a withdrawal through mud and jungle before the Japanese turned back within sight of the town. For Australians it is a defining wartime memory."},{"slug":"second-battle-of-el-alamein","name":"Second Battle of El Alamein","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/second-battle-of-el-alamein","dates":{"label":"23 October – 11 November 1942","startYear":1942,"endYear":1942},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"El Alamein","country":"Egypt","countryCode":"EG"},"destination":{"slug":"cairo-giza","name":"Cairo & Giza","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/cairo-giza"},"summary":"Montgomery's Eighth Army broke through Rommel's German and Italian forces at El Alamein, on the coast west of Alexandria, after nearly two weeks of fighting through minefields. The defeat ended the Axis threat to Egypt and the Suez Canal and began the Axis retreat from North Africa. Commonwealth, German and Italian cemeteries and memorials now line the coast road."},{"slug":"wannsee-conference","name":"Wannsee Conference","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/wannsee-conference","dates":{"label":"20 January 1942","startYear":1942,"endYear":1942},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"holocaust-remembrance","name":"Holocaust & Remembrance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Berlin-Wannsee","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"Reinhard Heydrich chaired a meeting of fifteen senior Nazi officials and civil servants at a lakeside villa in Wannsee to coordinate the 'Final Solution', the deportation and murder of Europe's Jews. The minutes, of which one copy survived, counted eleven million Jews to be included. Mass killing had already begun, but the meeting drew the state ministries into the plan."},{"slug":"destruction-of-jewish-thessaloniki","name":"Destruction of Jewish Thessaloniki","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/destruction-of-jewish-thessaloniki","dates":{"label":"March–August 1943","startYear":1943,"endYear":1943},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"holocaust-remembrance","name":"Holocaust & Remembrance"},{"slug":"jewish-heritage","name":"Jewish Heritage"}],"place":{"name":"Thessaloniki","country":"Greece","countryCode":"GR"},"destination":{"slug":"thessaloniki","name":"Thessaloniki","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/thessaloniki"},"summary":"Thessaloniki had been a mainly Sephardic Jewish city since exiles from Spain arrived after 1492, and Jews long formed its largest community. Under German occupation, about 45,000 were deported by train from the Baron Hirsch quarter to Auschwitz in 1943, and almost all were killed. The old Jewish cemetery had already been destroyed and its gravestones used for building."},{"slug":"manhattan-project-los-alamos-and-trinity","name":"The Manhattan Project at Los Alamos and the Trinity test","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/manhattan-project-los-alamos-and-trinity","dates":{"label":"1943 – 16 July 1945","startYear":1943,"endYear":1945},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Los Alamos","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"santa-fe-los-alamos","name":"Santa Fe & Los Alamos","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/santa-fe-los-alamos"},"summary":"In 1943 the US Army set up a secret laboratory on a mesa at Los Alamos, where J. Robert Oppenheimer's scientists designed the first atomic bombs; recruits first reported to an office in Santa Fe. On 16 July 1945 the plutonium device was tested at Trinity in the southern New Mexico desert. Weeks later the weapons were used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki."},{"slug":"warsaw-ghetto-uprising","name":"Warsaw Ghetto Uprising","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/warsaw-ghetto-uprising","dates":{"label":"19 April–16 May 1943","startYear":1943,"endYear":1943},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"holocaust-remembrance","name":"Holocaust & Remembrance"},{"slug":"jewish-heritage","name":"Jewish Heritage"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Warsaw","country":"Poland","countryCode":"PL"},"destination":{"slug":"warsaw","name":"Warsaw","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/warsaw"},"summary":"The Germans sealed some 400,000 Jews into the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940 and in summer 1942 deported about 265,000 from the Umschlagplatz to be gassed at Treblinka. When they came to deport the rest, Jewish fighters resisted for almost a month with pistols and petrol bombs. The SS burned the ghetto block by block and blew up the Great Synagogue."},{"slug":"20-july-plot","name":"20 July plot against Hitler","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/20-july-plot","dates":{"label":"20 July 1944","startYear":1944,"endYear":1944},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Berlin","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg left a briefcase bomb in Hitler's East Prussian headquarters, then flew to Berlin to lead a coup from the army offices on Bendlerstraße. Hitler survived with minor injuries and the coup collapsed that night; Stauffenberg and three others were shot in the courtyard. Some 200 conspirators were later executed, many at Plötzensee prison."},{"slug":"battle-of-monte-cassino","name":"Battle of Monte Cassino","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-monte-cassino","dates":{"label":"January–May 1944","startYear":1944,"endYear":1944},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Cassino","country":"Italy","countryCode":"IT"},"destination":{"slug":"naples-pompeii","name":"Naples & Pompeii","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/naples-pompeii"},"summary":"The German Gustav Line barred the road to Rome beneath the hilltop abbey of Monte Cassino, founded by St Benedict around 529. In four battles, American, British, Indian, New Zealand, French colonial and Polish troops attacked, and Allied bombers destroyed the abbey in February. Polish soldiers raised their flag over the ruins on 18 May, and Rome fell on 4 June. The abbey has been rebuilt."},{"slug":"battle-of-the-bulge","name":"Battle of the Bulge","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-the-bulge","dates":{"label":"16 December 1944–25 January 1945","startYear":1944,"endYear":1945},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Bastogne, Luxembourg province","country":"Belgium","countryCode":"BE"},"destination":{"slug":"brussels-waterloo","name":"Brussels and Waterloo","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/brussels-waterloo"},"summary":"Hitler's last major offensive in the west struck thinly held American lines in the snowbound Ardennes, aiming for the port of Antwerp. The surrounded US 101st Airborne and other units held the road junction of Bastogne until Patton's Third Army broke through. It was the costliest battle of the war for the US Army, and Germany's reserves never recovered."},{"slug":"d-day-landings","name":"D-Day landings","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/d-day-landings","dates":{"label":"6 June 1944","startYear":1944,"endYear":1944},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"maritime","name":"Maritime History"}],"place":{"name":"Normandy coast","country":"France","countryCode":"FR"},"destination":{"slug":"normandy","name":"Normandy","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/normandy"},"summary":"Allied armies landed about 156,000 troops on five beaches in Normandy, supported by airborne drops behind the coast and an invasion fleet of nearly 7,000 vessels. Losses were heaviest at Omaha Beach. The landings opened a western front against Germany that, together with the Soviet advance in the east, led to the liberation of Western Europe within a year."},{"slug":"holocaust-in-hungary-and-the-budapest-ghetto","name":"Holocaust in Hungary and the Budapest ghetto","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/holocaust-in-hungary-and-the-budapest-ghetto","dates":{"label":"March 1944–January 1945","startYear":1944,"endYear":1945},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"holocaust-remembrance","name":"Holocaust & Remembrance"},{"slug":"jewish-heritage","name":"Jewish Heritage"}],"place":{"name":"Budapest","country":"Hungary","countryCode":"HU"},"destination":{"slug":"budapest","name":"Budapest","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/budapest"},"summary":"Hungary's Jews, the largest community still left in Europe, were spared deportation until Germany occupied the country in March 1944. Within eight weeks Hungarian gendarmes helped deport some 437,000 people, most to Auschwitz. In Budapest the Arrow Cross regime walled Jews into a ghetto and shot thousands into the Danube, while diplomats such as Raoul Wallenberg and Carl Lutz issued protective papers."},{"slug":"liberation-of-paris","name":"Liberation of Paris","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/liberation-of-paris","dates":{"label":"19–25 August 1944","startYear":1944,"endYear":1944},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Paris","country":"France","countryCode":"FR"},"destination":{"slug":"paris","name":"Paris","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/paris"},"summary":"As Allied armies approached, Paris police and Resistance fighters rose against the German garrison on 19 August and fought from barricades for six days. General Leclerc's French armoured division entered the city on 24 August, the German commander surrendered the next day, and Charles de Gaulle spoke at the Hôtel de Ville. Paris escaped the destruction Hitler had demanded."},{"slug":"oradour-sur-glane-massacre","name":"Oradour-sur-Glane massacre","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/oradour-sur-glane-massacre","dates":{"label":"10 June 1944","startYear":1944,"endYear":1944},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"Oradour-sur-Glane, Haute-Vienne","country":"France","countryCode":"FR"},"destination":{"slug":"dordogne","name":"Dordogne and the Vézère Valley","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/dordogne"},"summary":"Four days after D-Day, a company of the Waffen-SS Das Reich division surrounded the village of Oradour-sur-Glane, shot the men in barns and set fire to the church where the women and children had been locked. 643 people were killed. After the war General de Gaulle ordered the ruins kept untouched as a memorial, and a new village was built nearby."},{"slug":"warsaw-uprising","name":"Warsaw Uprising","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/warsaw-uprising","dates":{"label":"1 August–2 October 1944","startYear":1944,"endYear":1944},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Warsaw","country":"Poland","countryCode":"PL"},"destination":{"slug":"warsaw","name":"Warsaw","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/warsaw"},"summary":"As the Red Army neared, the Polish Home Army rose against the German occupiers to free Warsaw before the Soviets arrived. Soviet forces halted across the Vistula, and the insurgents fought largely alone for 63 days. Some 16,000 fighters and 150,000 to 200,000 civilians died, many in mass executions. The Germans then expelled the survivors and razed most of the city."},{"slug":"atomic-bombing-of-hiroshima","name":"Atomic bombing of Hiroshima","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/atomic-bombing-of-hiroshima","dates":{"label":"6 August 1945","startYear":1945,"endYear":1945},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Hiroshima","country":"Japan","countryCode":"JP"},"destination":{"slug":"hiroshima","name":"Hiroshima","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/hiroshima"},"summary":"A US B-29 dropped a uranium bomb on Hiroshima at 8:15 in the morning, destroying most of the city and killing about 140,000 people by the end of 1945, many from burns and radiation sickness. It was the first use of a nuclear weapon in war. The ruined Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, now the Atomic Bomb Dome, stands as a memorial for peace."},{"slug":"atomic-bombing-of-nagasaki","name":"Atomic bombing of Nagasaki","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/atomic-bombing-of-nagasaki","dates":{"label":"9 August 1945","startYear":1945,"endYear":1945},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Nagasaki","country":"Japan","countryCode":"JP"},"destination":{"slug":"nagasaki","name":"Nagasaki","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/nagasaki"},"summary":"Three days after Hiroshima, a US bomber dropped a plutonium bomb over Nagasaki's Urakami valley, killing about 70,000 people by the end of 1945. The blast destroyed Urakami Cathedral, the heart of Japan's oldest Catholic community. Japan announced its surrender six days later. Nagasaki remains the last city attacked with a nuclear weapon."},{"slug":"battle-of-berlin-and-german-surrender","name":"Battle of Berlin and the German surrender","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-berlin-and-german-surrender","dates":{"label":"16 April–8 May 1945","startYear":1945,"endYear":1945},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Berlin","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"The Red Army broke through at the Seelow Heights on 16 April 1945 and encircled Berlin. As street fighting reached the government quarter, Hitler killed himself in his bunker on 30 April, and the city's garrison surrendered on 2 May. Late on 8 May, German commanders signed the unconditional surrender in Karlshorst, ending the war in Europe."},{"slug":"bombing-of-dresden","name":"Bombing of Dresden","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/bombing-of-dresden","dates":{"label":"13–15 February 1945","startYear":1945,"endYear":1945},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"}],"place":{"name":"Dresden","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"Over two days British and American bombers dropped about 3,900 tonnes of bombs on Dresden, and the firestorm destroyed the baroque city centre. Up to 25,000 people were killed. The raid's purpose and toll have been argued over ever since, and inflated figures served Nazi and later far-right propaganda. The Frauenkirche, left as a ruin for decades, was rebuilt by 2005."},{"slug":"firebombing-of-tokyo","name":"Firebombing of Tokyo","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/firebombing-of-tokyo","dates":{"label":"9–10 March 1945","startYear":1945,"endYear":1945},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"Sumida and Kōtō, Tokyo","country":"Japan","countryCode":"JP"},"destination":{"slug":"tokyo","name":"Tokyo","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/tokyo"},"summary":"On the night of 9–10 March 1945, 279 American B-29 bombers flew low over Tokyo and dropped incendiaries on the crowded wooden districts east of the Sumida River. The firestorm killed more than 90,000 people, most of them civilians, and left about a million homeless. It remains the deadliest single air raid in history, more destructive than either atomic bomb."},{"slug":"nuremberg-trials","name":"Nuremberg trials","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/nuremberg-trials","dates":{"label":"20 November 1945–1 October 1946","startYear":1945,"endYear":1946},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"holocaust-remembrance","name":"Holocaust & Remembrance"}],"place":{"name":"Nuremberg","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"munich","name":"Munich","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/munich"},"summary":"In Courtroom 600 of Nuremberg's Palace of Justice, an International Military Tribunal set up by the four Allied powers tried 22 leading Nazis for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Twelve were sentenced to death. The trials established that individuals can be held responsible for crimes of state and laid foundations for international criminal law."},{"slug":"potsdam-conference","name":"Potsdam Conference","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/potsdam-conference","dates":{"label":"17 July–2 August 1945","startYear":1945,"endYear":1945},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Potsdam","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"Truman, Stalin and Churchill, replaced midway by Clement Attlee after Britain's election, met at Cecilienhof palace to decide the future of defeated Germany. They agreed on occupation, disarmament and denazification, placed German lands east of the Oder and Neisse under Polish administration and approved the removal of millions of Germans from eastern Europe. A declaration demanding Japan's surrender was issued from Potsdam."},{"slug":"vietnamese-declaration-of-independence","name":"Ho Chi Minh declares Vietnam's independence","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/vietnamese-declaration-of-independence","dates":{"label":"2 September 1945","startYear":1945,"endYear":1945},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Ba Đình Square, Hanoi","country":"Vietnam","countryCode":"VN"},"destination":{"slug":"hanoi","name":"Hanoi","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/hanoi"},"summary":"With Japan defeated and the Nguyễn emperor Bảo Đại having abdicated, Ho Chi Minh read a declaration of independence to a vast crowd in Ba Đình Square in Hanoi, opening with lines from the American Declaration of 1776. France refused to accept the new Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and three decades of war followed before the country was reunified."},{"slug":"yalta-conference","name":"Yalta Conference","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/yalta-conference","dates":{"label":"4–11 February 1945","startYear":1945,"endYear":1945},"period":{"slug":"ww2","name":"Second World War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Livadia, Crimea","country":"Ukraine","countryCode":"UA"},"destination":null,"summary":"Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met at the Livadia Palace near Yalta to plan Germany's defeat and the post-war order. They agreed on occupation zones, Soviet entry into the war against Japan and a conference to found the United Nations, and promised free elections in Poland. Soviet control of Eastern Europe made 'Yalta' a byword for the continent's division."},{"slug":"1948-war-israeli-independence-and-the-nakba","name":"1948 war: Israel's independence and the Palestinian Nakba","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/1948-war-israeli-independence-and-the-nakba","dates":{"label":"14 May 1948; war 1947–1949","startYear":1947,"endYear":1949},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"Tel Aviv and Jerusalem","country":"Israel","countryCode":"IL"},"destination":{"slug":"jerusalem","name":"Jerusalem","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/jerusalem"},"summary":"David Ben-Gurion declared the State of Israel in Tel Aviv on 14 May 1948, as fighting between Jewish and Arab forces turned into war with neighbouring states. By 1949 Israel held more land than the UN partition plan had proposed, and about 700,000 Palestinians had fled or been expelled, which Palestinians call the Nakba. The consequences shape the region today."},{"slug":"indian-independence","name":"Indian independence","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/indian-independence","dates":{"label":"15 August 1947","startYear":1947,"endYear":1947},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"New Delhi","country":"India","countryCode":"IN"},"destination":{"slug":"delhi-agra","name":"Delhi & Agra","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/delhi-agra"},"summary":"At midnight on 14–15 August 1947 Jawaharlal Nehru told the Constituent Assembly that India was keeping its 'tryst with destiny', and the next day the national flag was raised in Delhi. Independence ended nearly two centuries of British rule after decades of mass campaigning led by Gandhi and others, but came with the partition of the subcontinent. Prime ministers still speak from the Red Fort every 15 August."},{"slug":"partition-of-india","name":"Partition of India","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/partition-of-india","dates":{"label":"August 1947","startYear":1947,"endYear":1947},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Amritsar and the Punjab border","country":"India","countryCode":"IN"},"destination":{"slug":"amritsar","name":"Amritsar","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/amritsar"},"summary":"British India was divided into India and Pakistan at independence, with Punjab and Bengal split along lines drawn in a few weeks by Cyril Radcliffe. About 15 million people crossed the new borders, and between several hundred thousand and two million were killed in communal violence. Amritsar, 30 km from the new frontier, saw some of the worst of it."},{"slug":"arrival-of-the-windrush","name":"Arrival of the Empire Windrush","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/arrival-of-the-windrush","dates":{"label":"21–22 June 1948","startYear":1948,"endYear":1948},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Tilbury, Essex","country":"United Kingdom","countryCode":"GB"},"destination":{"slug":"london","name":"London","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/london"},"summary":"The former troopship Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury carrying about a thousand passengers, among them hundreds from Jamaica and other Caribbean colonies answering Britain's post-war need for workers. The ship became a symbol of Commonwealth migration that reshaped British society. In 2018 it emerged that many of this generation had been wrongly denied their rights, a scandal still being resolved."},{"slug":"assassination-of-mahatma-gandhi","name":"Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/assassination-of-mahatma-gandhi","dates":{"label":"30 January 1948","startYear":1948,"endYear":1948},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"}],"place":{"name":"Birla House, New Delhi","country":"India","countryCode":"IN"},"destination":{"slug":"delhi-agra","name":"Delhi & Agra","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/delhi-agra"},"summary":"Five months after independence, as Gandhi walked to his evening prayer meeting in the garden of Birla House in New Delhi, the Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse shot him three times. Gandhi had been fasting against the violence between Hindus and Muslims that followed partition. He was cremated the next day at Raj Ghat on the Yamuna, where his memorial now stands."},{"slug":"berlin-blockade-and-airlift","name":"Berlin Blockade and Airlift","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/berlin-blockade-and-airlift","dates":{"label":"24 June 1948–12 May 1949","startYear":1948,"endYear":1949},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Berlin-Tempelhof","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"When the Western powers brought in a new currency, the Soviet Union cut every land route into West Berlin. American and British aircraft, helped by other allies, flew in food and coal on some 278,000 flights, landing every few minutes at Tempelhof, Gatow and the new Tegel airfield. Moscow lifted the blockade after eleven months, and Germany split into two states that year."},{"slug":"proclamation-of-the-peoples-republic-of-china","name":"Proclamation of the People's Republic of China","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/proclamation-of-the-peoples-republic-of-china","dates":{"label":"1 October 1949","startYear":1949,"endYear":1949},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Tiananmen, Beijing","country":"China","countryCode":"CN"},"destination":{"slug":"beijing","name":"Beijing","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/beijing"},"summary":"After defeating the Nationalists in the civil war, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic from the rostrum of Tiananmen Gate. The Nationalist government withdrew to Taiwan. The new state remade the lives of a fifth of humanity through land reform, collectivisation and later mass campaigns. Mao's portrait still hangs on the gate and his body lies in a mausoleum on the square."},{"slug":"korean-war-and-the-panmunjom-armistice","name":"Korean War and the Panmunjom armistice","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/korean-war-and-the-panmunjom-armistice","dates":{"label":"1950–1953 (armistice 27 July 1953)","startYear":1950,"endYear":1953},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Panmunjom","country":"South Korea","countryCode":"KR"},"destination":{"slug":"seoul","name":"Seoul","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/seoul"},"summary":"North Korea invaded the South in June 1950. A UN force under US command landed at Incheon that September, China intervened in the winter, and the front settled near the 38th parallel. The armistice signed at Panmunjom in 1953 ended the fighting without a peace treaty, leaving the Demilitarised Zone as one of the world's most heavily fortified borders."},{"slug":"stasi-and-the-storming-of-its-headquarters","name":"The Stasi and the storming of its headquarters","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/stasi-and-the-storming-of-its-headquarters","dates":{"label":"1950–15 January 1990","startYear":1950,"endYear":1990},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"espionage","name":"Espionage & Intelligence"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"}],"place":{"name":"Berlin-Lichtenberg","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"East Germany's Ministry for State Security watched its own people through some 91,000 staff and over 170,000 informers by 1989, and held political prisoners at its Hohenschönhausen remand prison. On 15 January 1990 citizens stormed its Normannenstraße headquarters to stop files being destroyed. The files were later opened to the public, and millions have asked to read what the Stasi held on them."},{"slug":"cuban-revolution","name":"Cuban Revolution","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/cuban-revolution","dates":{"label":"1953 – 1 January 1959","startYear":1953,"endYear":1959},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Havana","country":"Cuba","countryCode":"CU"},"destination":{"slug":"havana","name":"Havana","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/havana"},"summary":"Fidel Castro's attack on the Moncada barracks in 1953 failed, but after landing from the yacht Granma in 1956 his guerrillas fought from the Sierra Maestra until the dictator Fulgencio Batista fled on New Year's Day 1959. The new government aligned with the Soviet Union and became a model for left-wing movements in Latin America and Africa."},{"slug":"east-german-uprising-1953","name":"East German uprising of 17 June 1953","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/east-german-uprising-1953","dates":{"label":"16–17 June 1953","startYear":1953,"endYear":1953},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"East Berlin","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"Building workers on East Berlin's Stalinallee downed tools on 16 June 1953 over higher work quotas. Next day strikes and protests spread to hundreds of towns, with calls for free elections. Soviet tanks and East German police put the rising down, and dozens of people were killed. It was the first mass revolt in the Soviet bloc, and West Germany made 17 June its national day."},{"slug":"battle-of-dien-bien-phu","name":"Battle of Dien Bien Phu","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/battle-of-dien-bien-phu","dates":{"label":"13 March – 7 May 1954","startYear":1954,"endYear":1954},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Dien Bien Phu","country":"Vietnam","countryCode":"VN"},"destination":{"slug":"hanoi","name":"Hanoi","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/hanoi"},"summary":"Viet Minh forces under Vo Nguyen Giap hauled artillery onto the hills around a French base in a remote valley and besieged it for 56 days. The garrison surrendered on 7 May, the day before talks on Indochina began at the Geneva Conference. France withdrew from Indochina and Vietnam was divided at the 17th parallel."},{"slug":"montgomery-bus-boycott","name":"Montgomery bus boycott","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/montgomery-bus-boycott","dates":{"label":"5 December 1955 – 20 December 1956","startYear":1955,"endYear":1956},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"}],"place":{"name":"Montgomery","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"montgomery-selma","name":"Montgomery & Selma","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/montgomery-selma"},"summary":"After Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, Montgomery's Black residents stayed off the city buses for 381 days, organising car pools and walking to work. The protest made a young pastor, Martin Luther King Jr., its leader, and ended after the Supreme Court upheld a ruling that bus segregation was unconstitutional."},{"slug":"hungarian-revolution-1956","name":"Hungarian Revolution of 1956","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/hungarian-revolution-1956","dates":{"label":"23 October–10 November 1956","startYear":1956,"endYear":1956},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Budapest","country":"Hungary","countryCode":"HU"},"destination":{"slug":"budapest","name":"Budapest","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/budapest"},"summary":"A student march in Budapest became a national uprising: crowds toppled Stalin's statue and fought the secret police and Soviet tanks, and Prime Minister Imre Nagy announced that Hungary would leave the Warsaw Pact. On 4 November Soviet forces returned in strength and crushed the revolt. About 2,500 Hungarians were killed, some 200,000 fled abroad, and Nagy was hanged in 1958."},{"slug":"ghana-independence","name":"Ghana's independence","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/ghana-independence","dates":{"label":"6 March 1957","startYear":1957,"endYear":1957},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Accra","country":"Ghana","countryCode":"GH"},"destination":{"slug":"accra-cape-coast","name":"Accra & Cape Coast","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/accra-cape-coast"},"summary":"At midnight on 6 March 1957 Kwame Nkrumah declared the Gold Coast independent as Ghana, the first colony south of the Sahara to break from European rule. Speaking at Accra's Old Polo Grounds, he said Ghana's independence meant nothing unless it was linked to the liberation of all Africa. Most of the continent followed within the next decade."},{"slug":"treaty-of-rome-1957","name":"Treaty of Rome and the European Economic Community","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/treaty-of-rome-1957","dates":{"label":"25 March 1957","startYear":1957,"endYear":1958},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Rome","country":"Italy","countryCode":"IT"},"destination":{"slug":"rome","name":"Rome","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/rome"},"summary":"Leaders of Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands signed two treaties in a frescoed hall of the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitoline Hill, creating the European Economic Community and Euratom. The common market launched in 1958, built on postwar reconciliation between France and Germany, grew through later treaties into today's European Union."},{"slug":"rescue-of-abu-simbel-and-the-nubian-monuments","name":"Rescue of Abu Simbel and the Nubian monuments","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/rescue-of-abu-simbel-and-the-nubian-monuments","dates":{"label":"1960–1980","startYear":1960,"endYear":1980},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"archaeology","name":"Archaeology"},{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Abu Simbel","country":"Egypt","countryCode":"EG"},"destination":{"slug":"aswan","name":"Aswan & Abu Simbel","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/aswan"},"summary":"When Egypt built the Aswan High Dam, the rising Lake Nasser threatened the temples of Nubia. A UNESCO campaign backed by dozens of countries cut Ramesses II's temples at Abu Simbel into blocks and rebuilt them on higher ground, and moved Philae's temple to a nearby island. The effort led directly to the World Heritage Convention of 1972."},{"slug":"sharpeville-massacre","name":"Sharpeville massacre","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/sharpeville-massacre","dates":{"label":"21 March 1960","startYear":1960,"endYear":1960},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Sharpeville","country":"South Africa","countryCode":"ZA"},"destination":{"slug":"johannesburg","name":"Johannesburg & Soweto","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/johannesburg"},"summary":"Police opened fire on a crowd protesting against the pass laws outside Sharpeville police station, killing 69 people, many shot in the back. The government banned the ANC and PAC soon afterwards, pushing both towards armed struggle. The date is now South Africa's Human Rights Day and the UN's International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination."},{"slug":"bay-of-pigs-invasion","name":"Bay of Pigs invasion","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/bay-of-pigs-invasion","dates":{"label":"17–20 April 1961","startYear":1961,"endYear":1961},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"espionage","name":"Espionage & Intelligence"}],"place":{"name":"Playa Girón","country":"Cuba","countryCode":"CU"},"destination":{"slug":"havana","name":"Havana","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/havana"},"summary":"About 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles landed at Playa Girón and Playa Larga on the Bay of Pigs, expecting a popular uprising against Castro. Cuban forces defeated them within three days and captured most of them. The failure embarrassed the Kennedy administration and pushed Cuba closer to the Soviet Union, setting the stage for the missile crisis."},{"slug":"building-of-the-berlin-wall","name":"Building of the Berlin Wall","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/building-of-the-berlin-wall","dates":{"label":"13 August 1961","startYear":1961,"endYear":1961},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Berlin","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"After millions of East Germans had fled west, many of them through Berlin, the regime sealed the sector border overnight on 13 August 1961, first with barbed wire and then concrete. Families were cut apart, and people died trying to cross. In October, American and Soviet tanks faced each other at Checkpoint Charlie for about sixteen hours in a dispute over Allied access."},{"slug":"cuban-missile-crisis","name":"Cuban Missile Crisis","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/cuban-missile-crisis","dates":{"label":"16–28 October 1962","startYear":1962,"endYear":1962},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"espionage","name":"Espionage & Intelligence"}],"place":{"name":"Havana and Pinar del Río","country":"Cuba","countryCode":"CU"},"destination":{"slug":"havana","name":"Havana","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/havana"},"summary":"US spy planes photographed Soviet nuclear missile sites under construction in western Cuba. President Kennedy ordered a naval quarantine, and for thirteen days the world faced the risk of nuclear war, until Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles in return for a US pledge not to invade Cuba and a secret deal on US missiles in Turkey. A Washington–Moscow hotline followed."},{"slug":"birmingham-campaign-and-16th-street-baptist-church-bombing","name":"Birmingham campaign and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/birmingham-campaign-and-16th-street-baptist-church-bombing","dates":{"label":"April – September 1963","startYear":1963,"endYear":1963},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Birmingham Civil Rights District, Alabama","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"montgomery-selma","name":"Montgomery & Selma","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/montgomery-selma"},"summary":"In spring 1963 Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth and the SCLC led protests against segregation in Birmingham; King wrote his 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' after his arrest. When schoolchildren marched in May, Bull Connor turned police dogs and fire hoses on them in front of news cameras. In September a Klan bomb at the 16th Street Baptist Church killed four girls. Both drove the Civil Rights Act of 1964."},{"slug":"march-on-washington","name":"March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/march-on-washington","dates":{"label":"28 August 1963","startYear":1963,"endYear":1963},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"National Mall","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"washington-dc","name":"Washington, D.C.","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/washington-dc"},"summary":"About 250,000 people marched for jobs and freedom to the Lincoln Memorial, where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his 'I Have a Dream' speech. Organised by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, it was one of the largest political rallies in US history to that date and built support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965."},{"slug":"imprisonment-and-release-of-nelson-mandela","name":"Nelson Mandela's imprisonment and release","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/imprisonment-and-release-of-nelson-mandela","dates":{"label":"1964–1990 (released 11 February 1990)","startYear":1964,"endYear":1990},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Robben Island","country":"South Africa","countryCode":"ZA"},"destination":{"slug":"cape-town","name":"Cape Town","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/cape-town"},"summary":"Sentenced to life at the Rivonia Trial, Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison on Robben Island, breaking stone in a lime quarry with other political prisoners. He walked free from Victor Verster prison near Paarl on 11 February 1990 and spoke from Cape Town City Hall that evening, a moment watched worldwide as apartheid began to end."},{"slug":"selma-to-montgomery-marches","name":"Selma to Montgomery marches","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/selma-to-montgomery-marches","dates":{"label":"7–25 March 1965","startYear":1965,"endYear":1965},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Selma","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"montgomery-selma","name":"Montgomery & Selma","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/montgomery-selma"},"summary":"On 7 March 1965 state troopers beat voting-rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, a day remembered as Bloody Sunday. Two weeks later, under federal protection, thousands walked 87 km to the state capitol in Montgomery. The marches drove passage of the Voting Rights Act that August, which ended most legal barriers to Black voting in the South."},{"slug":"district-six-forced-removals","name":"District Six and the forced removals","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/district-six-forced-removals","dates":{"label":"1966–1982","startYear":1966,"endYear":1982},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"District Six, Cape Town","country":"South Africa","countryCode":"ZA"},"destination":{"slug":"cape-town","name":"Cape Town","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/cape-town"},"summary":"In February 1966 the apartheid government declared District Six, a mixed inner-city neighbourhood below Table Mountain, a whites-only area under the Group Areas Act. Over the following years more than 60,000 residents were moved to townships on the Cape Flats and their homes bulldozed, leaving only churches and mosques. Much of the land still lies empty while former residents press their claims."},{"slug":"first-human-heart-transplant","name":"First human heart transplant","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/first-human-heart-transplant","dates":{"label":"3 December 1967","startYear":1967,"endYear":1967},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town","country":"South Africa","countryCode":"ZA"},"destination":{"slug":"cape-town","name":"Cape Town","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/cape-town"},"summary":"At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, a team led by the surgeon Christiaan Barnard transplanted the heart of a young road-accident victim, Denise Darvall, into Louis Washkansky, a 53-year-old grocer. Washkansky lived for 18 days before dying of pneumonia, but the operation made world headlines and, with better drugs against rejection, heart transplants became routine."},{"slug":"prague-spring","name":"Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact invasion","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/prague-spring","dates":{"label":"January 1968–January 1969","startYear":1968,"endYear":1969},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Prague","country":"Czech Republic","countryCode":"CZ"},"destination":{"slug":"prague","name":"Prague","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/prague"},"summary":"Alexander Dubček's reform communists eased censorship and promised 'socialism with a human face'. On the night of 20–21 August about 250,000 Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia and ended the experiment. In January 1969 the student Jan Palach set himself on fire on Wenceslas Square in protest. Two decades of 'normalisation' followed."},{"slug":"the-troubles","name":"The Troubles in Northern Ireland","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/the-troubles","dates":{"label":"1968–1998","startYear":1968,"endYear":1998},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Belfast","country":"United Kingdom","countryCode":"GB"},"destination":{"slug":"belfast","name":"Belfast","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/belfast"},"summary":"Civil rights marches against discrimination towards Catholics in housing, jobs and voting met violent responses, and three decades of conflict followed between republican and loyalist paramilitaries and the British state. About 3,500 people were killed. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 brought power-sharing, but peace walls still divide some Belfast neighbourhoods."},{"slug":"tlatelolco-massacre","name":"Tlatelolco massacre","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/tlatelolco-massacre","dates":{"label":"2 October 1968","startYear":1968,"endYear":1968},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Plaza de las Tres Culturas, Tlatelolco","country":"Mexico","countryCode":"MX"},"destination":{"slug":"mexico-city","name":"Mexico City","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/mexico-city"},"summary":"Ten days before Mexico City hosted the Olympic Games, soldiers opened fire on a rally of students and supporters in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, ending months of protest against the one-party government. The state long admitted only a few dozen deaths; estimates run into the hundreds. Documents released since 2000 and survivors' testimony have exposed the army's role, and 2 October is a national day of memory."},{"slug":"apollo-11-moon-landing","name":"Apollo 11 and the first Moon landing","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/apollo-11-moon-landing","dates":{"label":"16–24 July 1969","startYear":1969,"endYear":1969},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Mission Control, Johnson Space Center, Houston","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":null,"summary":"Launched from Florida on a Saturn V rocket, Apollo 11 landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon on 20 July 1969 while Michael Collins orbited above. Flight controllers in Houston guided the descent and were the first to hear 'The Eagle has landed.' Watched live by hundreds of millions, the mission settled the race to the Moon that Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union had driven."},{"slug":"stonewall-uprising","name":"Stonewall uprising","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/stonewall-uprising","dates":{"label":"28 June – 3 July 1969","startYear":1969,"endYear":1969},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Greenwich Village","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"new-york-city","name":"New York City","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/new-york-city"},"summary":"When police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, patrons and neighbours fought back, and protests continued for several nights. The uprising energised the gay liberation movement, and the first Pride marches were held on its anniversary in 1970. In 2016 the site became the first US national monument to LGBTQ history."},{"slug":"aboriginal-tent-embassy","name":"Aboriginal Tent Embassy","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/aboriginal-tent-embassy","dates":{"label":"26 January 1972 – present","startYear":1972,"endYear":1972},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Canberra","country":"Australia","countryCode":"AU"},"destination":{"slug":"sydney","name":"Sydney","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/sydney"},"summary":"Four Aboriginal activists planted a beach umbrella on the lawn opposite Parliament House in Canberra on Australia Day 1972, calling it an embassy because Aboriginal people were treated as foreigners in their own land. The protest for land rights grew into a camp that police removed and that kept returning. It still stands and is heritage-listed."},{"slug":"munich-olympics-massacre","name":"Munich Olympics massacre","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/munich-olympics-massacre","dates":{"label":"5–6 September 1972","startYear":1972,"endYear":1972},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Munich","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"munich","name":"Munich","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/munich"},"summary":"Palestinian gunmen of the Black September group broke into the Israeli team's quarters in the Olympic Village and took athletes and coaches hostage. A failed German rescue attempt at Fürstenfeldbruck airbase ended with all eleven Israelis and a West German policeman dead. The Games resumed after a memorial service, and West Germany set up its GSG 9 counter-terrorism unit."},{"slug":"watergate-scandal","name":"Watergate scandal","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/watergate-scandal","dates":{"label":"17 June 1972 – 9 August 1974","startYear":1972,"endYear":1974},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"espionage","name":"Espionage & Intelligence"}],"place":{"name":"Watergate complex, Washington","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"washington-dc","name":"Washington, D.C.","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/washington-dc"},"summary":"Five men linked to President Nixon's re-election committee were arrested breaking into the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate complex. Reporting by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post, Senate hearings and secretly recorded White House tapes revealed a cover-up directed from the Oval Office. Facing impeachment, Nixon resigned in August 1974, the only US president to have done so."},{"slug":"athens-polytechnic-uprising","name":"Athens Polytechnic uprising","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/athens-polytechnic-uprising","dates":{"label":"14–17 November 1973","startYear":1973,"endYear":1973},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Athens","country":"Greece","countryCode":"GR"},"destination":{"slug":"athens","name":"Athens","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/athens"},"summary":"Students occupied the National Technical University of Athens to protest against the military junta that had ruled Greece since 1967, broadcasting calls for freedom from a makeshift radio station. Before dawn on 17 November a tank smashed through the main gate, and at least 24 people were killed in the crackdown. The junta fell eight months later, and 17 November is marked every year."},{"slug":"carnation-revolution","name":"Carnation Revolution","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/carnation-revolution","dates":{"label":"25 April 1974","startYear":1974,"endYear":1975},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"colonial","name":"Colonial & Imperial History"}],"place":{"name":"Lisbon","country":"Portugal","countryCode":"PT"},"destination":{"slug":"lisbon","name":"Lisbon","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/lisbon"},"summary":"Junior army officers, worn down by colonial wars in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau, overthrew Portugal's Estado Novo dictatorship in an almost bloodless coup signalled by songs on the radio. Crowds put carnations in the soldiers' rifles. Portugal held free elections within a year, and its African colonies became independent in 1974 and 1975."},{"slug":"fall-of-saigon","name":"Fall of Saigon","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/fall-of-saigon","dates":{"label":"30 April 1975","startYear":1975,"endYear":1975},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Ho Chi Minh City","country":"Vietnam","countryCode":"VN"},"destination":{"slug":"ho-chi-minh-city","name":"Ho Chi Minh City","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/ho-chi-minh-city"},"summary":"North Vietnamese tanks broke through the gates of the Independence Palace in Saigon on 30 April 1975, ending the Vietnam War. In the days before, US helicopters evacuated thousands of Americans and Vietnamese from the city. Vietnam was formally reunified in 1976, and Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City."},{"slug":"khmer-rouge-regime-and-cambodian-genocide","name":"Khmer Rouge regime and the Cambodian genocide","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/khmer-rouge-regime-and-cambodian-genocide","dates":{"label":"17 April 1975 – 7 January 1979","startYear":1975,"endYear":1979},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Phnom Penh","country":"Cambodia","countryCode":"KH"},"destination":{"slug":"phnom-penh","name":"Phnom Penh","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/phnom-penh"},"summary":"The Khmer Rouge emptied Phnom Penh within days of taking power and drove the population into rural labour camps. Through execution, starvation and overwork, around 1.7 million people died in under four years. Tuol Sleng school became prison S-21, where around 15,000 people were held before being killed, most of them at Choeung Ek. Survivors still give testimony."},{"slug":"dirty-war-and-the-mothers-of-plaza-de-mayo","name":"The Dirty War and the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/dirty-war-and-the-mothers-of-plaza-de-mayo","dates":{"label":"1976–1983","startYear":1976,"endYear":1983},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Buenos Aires","country":"Argentina","countryCode":"AR"},"destination":{"slug":"buenos-aires","name":"Buenos Aires","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/buenos-aires"},"summary":"Argentina's military dictatorship kidnapped, tortured and killed people it labelled subversives; human rights groups estimate 30,000 were 'disappeared'. From 1977 the mothers of the missing walked in circles each Thursday in Plaza de Mayo wearing white headscarves, and they still march. The navy's ESMA school, the largest secret detention centre, is now a memorial and World Heritage Site."},{"slug":"soweto-uprising","name":"Soweto uprising","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/soweto-uprising","dates":{"label":"16 June 1976","startYear":1976,"endYear":1976},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Orlando West, Soweto","country":"South Africa","countryCode":"ZA"},"destination":{"slug":"johannesburg","name":"Johannesburg & Soweto","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/johannesburg"},"summary":"Thousands of Soweto school students marched against a rule forcing Afrikaans as a language of instruction. Police fired on them, and the photograph of 12-year-old Hector Pieterson being carried from the scene went round the world. Unrest spread across the country, a new generation joined the liberation movements, and 16 June is now Youth Day."},{"slug":"john-paul-ii-first-pilgrimage-to-poland","name":"John Paul II's first pilgrimage to Poland","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/john-paul-ii-first-pilgrimage-to-poland","dates":{"label":"2–10 June 1979","startYear":1979,"endYear":1979},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Kraków","country":"Poland","countryCode":"PL"},"destination":{"slug":"krakow","name":"Krakow & Auschwitz","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/krakow"},"summary":"Eight months after Kraków's archbishop Karol Wojtyła became the first Polish pope, he returned to Communist Poland. Huge crowds gathered for his open-air masses, above all in Warsaw's Victory Square, where he prayed for the Spirit to renew 'the face of this land', and on Kraków's Błonia meadow. The visit showed Poles their own strength, and Solidarity was born the following year."},{"slug":"gwangju-uprising","name":"Gwangju Uprising","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/gwangju-uprising","dates":{"label":"18–27 May 1980","startYear":1980,"endYear":1980},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Gwangju","country":"South Korea","countryCode":"KR"},"destination":{"slug":"seoul","name":"Seoul","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/seoul"},"summary":"When General Chun Doo-hwan extended martial law in May 1980, students in Gwangju protested and paratroopers beat and shot them. Citizens armed themselves and drove the army out of the city, which governed itself for several days until troops retook it on 27 May. Hundreds were killed. Long suppressed, its memory fuelled the protests that brought democracy to South Korea in 1987."},{"slug":"solidarity-gdansk-shipyard","name":"Solidarity and the Gdańsk Shipyard strike","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/solidarity-gdansk-shipyard","dates":{"label":"14–31 August 1980","startYear":1980,"endYear":1989},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"industrial","name":"Industrial Heritage"}],"place":{"name":"Gdańsk","country":"Poland","countryCode":"PL"},"destination":{"slug":"gdansk","name":"Gdańsk","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/gdansk"},"summary":"Workers at the Lenin Shipyard struck over the sacking of crane operator Anna Walentynowicz, led by the electrician Lech Wałęsa. The August Agreements won the first independent trade union in the Soviet bloc, Solidarity, which soon had about ten million members. Martial law suppressed it in 1981, but in 1989 Solidarity won Poland's partly free elections."},{"slug":"1981-spanish-coup-attempt","name":"23-F: the 1981 coup attempt in Spain's parliament","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/1981-spanish-coup-attempt","dates":{"label":"23–24 February 1981","startYear":1981,"endYear":1981},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Madrid","country":"Spain","countryCode":"ES"},"destination":{"slug":"madrid","name":"Madrid","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/madrid"},"summary":"Six years after Franco's death, Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero and about 200 armed Civil Guards burst into the Congress of Deputies during a vote and held its members hostage overnight, while tanks rolled into Valencia. After midnight King Juan Carlos appeared on television in uniform to back the constitution, and the coup collapsed. Bullet holes are still visible in the chamber's ceiling."},{"slug":"demolition-of-old-bucharest-and-the-house-of-the-people","name":"Demolition of old Bucharest and the House of the People","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/demolition-of-old-bucharest-and-the-house-of-the-people","dates":{"label":"1984–1989","startYear":1984,"endYear":1989},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"architecture","name":"Architecture & Urban History"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Bucharest","country":"Romania","countryCode":"RO"},"destination":null,"summary":"Using the 1977 earthquake as a pretext, Nicolae Ceaușescu had large parts of Bucharest's historic centre torn down in the 1980s, including old churches, the Văcărești monastery and thousands of homes, to make way for a monumental Civic Centre. Its core, the House of the People, is the world's largest civilian administrative building. Unfinished when he fell, it now houses Romania's parliament."},{"slug":"chernobyl-disaster","name":"Chernobyl nuclear disaster","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/chernobyl-disaster","dates":{"label":"26 April 1986","startYear":1986,"endYear":1986},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"},{"slug":"industrial","name":"Industrial Heritage"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Chornobyl Exclusion Zone","country":"Ukraine","countryCode":"UA"},"destination":null,"summary":"During a safety test, reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl power plant exploded and burned for days, spreading radioactive fallout across Ukraine, Belarus and much of Europe. Soviet authorities evacuated the town of Pripyat only after 36 hours. The disaster contaminated wide areas, damaged trust in the Soviet system and reshaped nuclear safety worldwide. A 30-kilometre exclusion zone remains."},{"slug":"baltic-way","name":"The Baltic Way","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/baltic-way","dates":{"label":"23 August 1989","startYear":1989,"endYear":1989},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Vilnius","country":"Lithuania","countryCode":"LT"},"destination":{"slug":"vilnius","name":"Vilnius","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/vilnius"},"summary":"On the 50th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which had handed the Baltic states to Stalin, around two million people joined hands in a human chain of about 675 kilometres from Vilnius through Riga to Tallinn. The peaceful protest drew world attention to the Soviet occupation. In March 1990 Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare independence."},{"slug":"fall-of-the-berlin-wall","name":"Fall of the Berlin Wall","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/fall-of-the-berlin-wall","dates":{"label":"9 November 1989","startYear":1989,"endYear":1989},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Berlin","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"berlin","name":"Berlin","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/berlin"},"summary":"East Germany built the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop its citizens fleeing west, and at least 140 people died at it. On 9 November 1989 a confused announcement of new travel rules sent crowds to the checkpoints, and at Bornholmer Straße the guards opened the gates. Germany reunified within a year, and the Cold War division of Europe came to an end."},{"slug":"leipzig-monday-demonstrations","name":"Leipzig Monday demonstrations","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/leipzig-monday-demonstrations","dates":{"label":"September–November 1989","startYear":1989,"endYear":1989},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"religious","name":"Religious & Pilgrimage"}],"place":{"name":"Leipzig","country":"Germany","countryCode":"DE"},"destination":{"slug":"leipzig","name":"Leipzig","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/leipzig"},"summary":"Peace prayers at Leipzig's St Nicholas Church spilled into weekly marches around the city's ring road. On 9 October 1989 about 70,000 people marched chanting 'We are the people' despite fears of a crackdown, and the security forces did not shoot. The protests spread across East Germany and forced the regime to open the Berlin Wall a month later."},{"slug":"pan-european-picnic","name":"Pan-European Picnic","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/pan-european-picnic","dates":{"label":"19 August 1989","startYear":1989,"endYear":1989},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Sopronpuszta, near Sopron","country":"Hungary","countryCode":"HU"},"destination":{"slug":"vienna","name":"Vienna","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/vienna"},"summary":"Hungarian opposition groups and the Pan-European Union held a peace picnic on the Austrian border near Sopron, with permission to open a border gate for three hours. Several hundred East German holidaymakers who had heard of it ran through to Austria, and the Hungarian guards chose not to stop them. Three weeks later Hungary opened its western border, and in November the Berlin Wall fell."},{"slug":"romanian-revolution","name":"Romanian Revolution","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/romanian-revolution","dates":{"label":"16–25 December 1989","startYear":1989,"endYear":1989},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Bucharest","country":"Romania","countryCode":"RO"},"destination":null,"summary":"Protests in Timișoara to protect the pastor László Tőkés grew into a revolt against Nicolae Ceaușescu. On 21 December his staged rally in Bucharest dissolved into jeers, and next day he fled the Central Committee roof by helicopter as the army changed sides. He and his wife were captured, tried and shot on 25 December. About 1,100 people died."},{"slug":"tiananmen-square-protests-1989","name":"Tiananmen Square protests and massacre","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/tiananmen-square-protests-1989","dates":{"label":"April – 4 June 1989","startYear":1989,"endYear":1989},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"}],"place":{"name":"Tiananmen Square, Beijing","country":"China","countryCode":"CN"},"destination":{"slug":"beijing","name":"Beijing","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/beijing"},"summary":"Students and workers occupied Tiananmen Square for seven weeks, calling for political reform and an end to corruption. On the night of 3–4 June the army cleared the square and surrounding streets with live fire, killing hundreds and possibly thousands. The image of a man blocking a column of tanks was seen worldwide, but the events cannot be openly discussed in China."},{"slug":"velvet-revolution","name":"Velvet Revolution","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/velvet-revolution","dates":{"label":"17 November–29 December 1989","startYear":1989,"endYear":1989},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Prague","country":"Czech Republic","countryCode":"CZ"},"destination":{"slug":"prague","name":"Prague","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/prague"},"summary":"Riot police beat students marching from Albertov into central Prague on 17 November 1989. Outrage brought hundreds of thousands into Wenceslas Square and onto Letná plain night after night, led by Václav Havel's Civic Forum and backed by a general strike. Within weeks the Communist Party gave up its monopoly of power, and on 29 December Havel was elected president."},{"slug":"world-wide-web-at-cern","name":"Invention of the World Wide Web at CERN","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/world-wide-web-at-cern","dates":{"label":"1989–1993","startYear":1989,"endYear":1993},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"science-medicine","name":"Science & Medicine"}],"place":{"name":"Meyrin, near Geneva","country":"Switzerland","countryCode":"CH"},"destination":{"slug":"geneva","name":"Geneva","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/geneva"},"summary":"At CERN, the particle physics laboratory on the Franco-Swiss border, Tim Berners-Lee proposed a hypertext system for sharing documents between scientists in March 1989. With Robert Cailliau he built the first web browser and server, and the first website went online in 1991. CERN released the software royalty-free in 1993, allowing the web to spread worldwide."},{"slug":"belovezha-accords","name":"Belovezha Accords and the end of the Soviet Union","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/belovezha-accords","dates":{"label":"8–26 December 1991","startYear":1991,"endYear":1991},"period":{"slug":"cold-war","name":"Cold War"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Viskuli, Belovezhskaya Pushcha","country":"Belarus","countryCode":"BY"},"destination":null,"summary":"At a government hunting lodge at Viskuli in the Białowieża Forest, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed an agreement declaring that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and creating the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gorbachev resigned on 25 December, and the Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin. Fifteen independent states took the USSR's place."},{"slug":"siege-of-sarajevo","name":"Siege of Sarajevo","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/siege-of-sarajevo","dates":{"label":"5 April 1992–29 February 1996","startYear":1992,"endYear":1996},"period":{"slug":"modern","name":"Modern History"},"themes":[{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"}],"place":{"name":"Sarajevo","country":"Bosnia and Herzegovina","countryCode":"BA"},"destination":{"slug":"sarajevo","name":"Sarajevo","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/sarajevo"},"summary":"During the Bosnian War, Bosnian Serb forces surrounded Sarajevo and shelled and sniped at the city from the hills for almost four years, the longest siege of a capital city in modern warfare. More than 11,000 people were killed. Residents survived on aid flown into the airport and supplies carried through a tunnel dug beneath it."},{"slug":"genocide-against-the-tutsi-in-rwanda","name":"Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/genocide-against-the-tutsi-in-rwanda","dates":{"label":"7 April – July 1994","startYear":1994,"endYear":1994},"period":{"slug":"modern","name":"Modern History"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Kigali","country":"Rwanda","countryCode":"RW"},"destination":null,"summary":"Over about 100 days, extremist Hutu militias, soldiers and ordinary civilians killed an estimated 500,000 to more than 800,000 people, most of them Tutsi, along with Hutu who opposed them. Many were murdered in churches where they had sought shelter. The failure of the UN and world powers to intervene reshaped debates on genocide prevention. Memorials at Kigali and Nyamata preserve the evidence."},{"slug":"south-africas-first-democratic-election","name":"South Africa's first democratic election and Mandela's inauguration","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/south-africas-first-democratic-election","dates":{"label":"27 April and 10 May 1994","startYear":1994,"endYear":1994},"period":{"slug":"modern","name":"Modern History"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"}],"place":{"name":"Pretoria","country":"South Africa","countryCode":"ZA"},"destination":{"slug":"johannesburg","name":"Johannesburg & Soweto","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/johannesburg"},"summary":"On 27 April 1994 South Africans of all races voted together for the first time, in queues that stretched for kilometres. The ANC won, and on 10 May Nelson Mandela was sworn in as president at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. A new constitution followed, guarded by a Constitutional Court built inside a former prison in Johannesburg."},{"slug":"srebrenica-genocide","name":"Srebrenica genocide","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/srebrenica-genocide","dates":{"label":"11–22 July 1995","startYear":1995,"endYear":1995},"period":{"slug":"modern","name":"Modern History"},"themes":[{"slug":"civil-rights","name":"Civil Rights & Human Rights"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Potočari, Srebrenica","country":"Bosnia and Herzegovina","countryCode":"BA"},"destination":{"slug":"sarajevo","name":"Sarajevo","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/sarajevo"},"summary":"After Bosnian Serb forces under Ratko Mladić overran the UN 'safe area' of Srebrenica, guarded by a small Dutch battalion, they separated Bosniak men and boys from the women and children and killed more than 8,000 of them over several days. International courts ruled it genocide. Victims identified by DNA are still buried at the Potočari memorial each 11 July."},{"slug":"september-11-attacks","name":"September 11 attacks","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/september-11-attacks","dates":{"label":"11 September 2001","startYear":2001,"endYear":2001},"period":{"slug":"modern","name":"Modern History"},"themes":[{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"},{"slug":"military","name":"Military & Battlefields"}],"place":{"name":"Lower Manhattan","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"new-york-city","name":"New York City","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/new-york-city"},"summary":"Al-Qaeda hijackers flew two airliners into the World Trade Center towers in New York and a third into the Pentagon; a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back. Nearly 3,000 people were killed. The attacks led to US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and to a new era of security measures. Two memorial pools now fill the towers' footprints."},{"slug":"hurricane-katrina-and-the-new-orleans-levee-failures","name":"Hurricane Katrina and the New Orleans levee failures","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/hurricane-katrina-and-the-new-orleans-levee-failures","dates":{"label":"29 August 2005","startYear":2005,"endYear":2005},"period":{"slug":"modern","name":"Modern History"},"themes":[{"slug":"social-history","name":"Social History"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans","country":"United States","countryCode":"US"},"destination":{"slug":"new-orleans","name":"New Orleans","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/new-orleans"},"summary":"Katrina's storm surge broke through the levees and floodwalls protecting New Orleans in dozens of places, leaving about 80% of the city under water. More than 1,300 people died across the Gulf Coast, most of them in Louisiana, and hundreds of thousands were displaced. The slow federal response, and the toll on poor and Black neighbourhoods such as the Lower Ninth Ward, became a national reckoning."},{"slug":"tahrir-square-and-the-2011-egyptian-revolution","name":"Tahrir Square and the 2011 Egyptian revolution","url":"https://history-tours.com/events/tahrir-square-and-the-2011-egyptian-revolution","dates":{"label":"25 January–11 February 2011","startYear":2011,"endYear":2011},"period":{"slug":"modern","name":"Modern History"},"themes":[{"slug":"revolutions","name":"Revolutions & Resistance"},{"slug":"political","name":"Political History"}],"place":{"name":"Tahrir Square, Cairo","country":"Egypt","countryCode":"EG"},"destination":{"slug":"cairo-giza","name":"Cairo & Giza","url":"https://history-tours.com/destinations/cairo-giza"},"summary":"Inspired by Tunisia's uprising, Egyptians began protesting against police brutality and the 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak on 25 January 2011. Hundreds of thousands occupied Tahrir Square for eighteen days, and protesters linked arms to guard the Egyptian Museum from looters. Mubarak resigned on 11 February. At least 846 people were killed, and military rule returned within three years."}]}