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Feb 10, 1299
Ottoman Dynasty
The Ottoman Dynasty ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1299 to 1922. The dynasty began with Osman I, but it was not recognized until 1383 when Murad I declared himself sultan. The dynasty might have been known as Söğüt before 1383, but it was later renamed Osmanlı in honor of Osman I. -
Feb 10, 1375
Songhay Empire
The Songhai Empire, also known as the Songhay Empire, was a Songhai state located in western Africa. From the mid-15th to the late 16th century, Songhai was one of the largest Islamic empires in history. -
Feb 10, 1394
Prince Henry the Navigator
A Portuguese explorer, soldier, and prince.He sponsored expeditions of discovery in the Atlantic Ocean, down the western coast of Africa. He never actually sailed on any of the voyages of discovery he sponsored. Instead, Prince Henry established a school for the study of the arts of navigation, mapmaking, and shipbuilding. This would allow sailors to better guide their ships and to come up with new ship designs. -
Feb 10, 1451
Reign of Mehmed the Conqueror
He was one of the most illustrious of the long line of Ottoman sultans. His name is the Turkish form of Muhammad, but he is often known by his epithet "the Conqueror" because of his capture of Constantinople from the Byzantines in 1453. Not content with their victory alone, Mehmed wanted to complete his mission by establishing the rule of Islam over all the lands once held by the Roman Empire, especially Italy. -
Feb 10, 1452
Beginning of Portuguese Slave Trade
Portugal's capital city, became the country's main slave port. The Portuguese slave trade started then not as a trans-Atlantic trade but as an old world trade, supplying slaves to Lisbon and hence onwards to Spain and Italy. In 1539 12,000 slaves were sold in the city's markets. This differed from other European countries' experience of the trade which developed much more in their colonies. -
Feb 10, 1464
Reign of Sunni Ali
Founded the Songhay empire of West Africa. Songhay was a small kingdom in the western Sudan. But during his twenty-eight year reign, it grew into the largest, most powerful empire in West Africa. -
Feb 10, 1488
Dias' Voyage into Indian Ocean
Bartolomeu Dias a nobleman of the Portuguese royal household, was a Portuguese explorer. He sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa in 1488. Being the first European known to have successfully sailed arounf the south tip of Africa. -
Feb 10, 1492
Columbus' First Voyage
Having convinced the King and Queen of Spain to finance his voyage, Christopher Columbus departed mainland Spain on August 3, 1492. He quickly made port in the Canary Islands for a final restocking and left there on September 6. He was in command of three ships: the Pinta, the Niña, and the Santa María. Although Columbus was in overall command, the Pinta was captained by Martín Alonso Pinzón and the Niña by Vicente Yañez Pinzón. -
Feb 10, 1494
Treaty of Tordesillas
The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed at Tordesillas on 7 June 1494 and authenticated at Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between Portugal and Spain along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands. This line of demarcation was about halfway between the Cape Verde Islands and the islands entered by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage -
Feb 10, 1501
Safavid Dynasty
The Safavid dynasty was one of the most significant ruling dynasties of Persia and is often considered the beginning of modern Persian history. They ruled one of the greatest Persian empires after the Muslim conquest of Persia and established the Twelver school of Shi'a Islam as the official religion of their empire, marking one of the most important turning points in Muslim history. -
Feb 10, 1509
John Calvin
A prominent French-born Protestant theologian that believed in Martin Luthers beliefs, and went even furthur declaring that "God forbade ... the making of any images representing him. -
Feb 10, 1517
Martin Luther
German preist who was critical of the Roman Catholic Church. He publicly invited debate about various abuses within the Roman Catholic Church by issuing a document, known as the Ninet}'-five Theses, allegedly nailing it to the door of a church in Wittenberg. -
Feb 10, 1519
Spanish Conquest of Mexico
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was one of the most significant events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The campaign began in February 1519, and was declared victorious on August 13, 1521, when a coalition army of Spanish forces and native warriors led by Hernán Cortés captured the capital of the Aztec Empire. Moctezuma was convinced that Cortés was a god, as the Spanish brought horses and guns which the Aztecs had never seen before. this resulted in the conquering of Aztecs -
Feb 10, 1520
Reign of Suleyman the Magnificent
Suleyman was the tenth Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1520 until his death. He was considered one of the Empire's greatest rulers, and was known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent, as his reign engineered the Golden Age of Constantinople. He was also known by his fellow Turks as Kanuni or the Law Giver. -
Feb 10, 1526
Mughal Dynasty
The Mughal era is a historic period of the Mughal Empire in South Asia that was ruled by members of the Barlas Mongol Timurid Dynasty. It ruled from the early 16th century to the early 18th century when the Mughal emperors' power dwindled. It ended with the establishment of the British Raj in 1858. -
Feb 10, 1545
Council of Trent
The Council of Trent was an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. It is considered to be one of the Church's most important councils. It convened in Trento, Italy, then the capital of the Prince-Bishopric of Trent of the Holy Roman Empire, between December 13, 1545, and December 4, 1563 in twenty-five sessions for three periods. -
Feb 10, 1550
Foundation of Society of Jesus
Members of the Society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic order of religious men founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola, noted for its educational, missionary, and charitable works, once regarded by many as the principal agent of the Counter-Reformation, and later a leading force in modernizing the church. The Jesuits have always been a controversial group, regarded by some as a society to be feared and condemned and by others as the most laudable and esteemed religious order in the Roman Catholic Church. -
Feb 10, 1556
Reign of Akbar
Akbar was an ambitious and noble commander who built the largest army ever in the history of the Mughal empire. By the end of the 16th century, a Mughal army in the field resembled a city on the move. Not all of Akbar's military expeditions were of an expansionist nature. Akbar also was compelled to quell formidable uprisings among his own subjects, especially the Uzbeks and the Afghans. -
Feb 10, 1564
Galileo Galilei
Developed an improved telescope; discovered sunspots' mountains on the moon' and Jupiter's moons; performed experimental work on the velocity of falling objects. -
Feb 10, 1572
Reign of Emperor Wanli
Wanli Emperor was emperor of China between 1572 and 1620. Born Zhu Yijun, he was the Longqing Emperor's son. His rule of 48 years would be the longest in the Ming dynasty and it witnessed the steady decline of the dynasty. Wanli also saw the arrival of the first Jesuit missionary in Beijing, Matteo Ricci. -
Spanish Armada
The Spanish Armada, also called the Invincible Armada, and more correctly La Armada Grande, was a fleet intended to invade England and to put an end to the long series of English aggressions against the colonies and possessions of the Spanish Crown; it was however all but destroyed by a week's fighting and a disastrous cruise; this led to the gradual decadence of the maritime power of Spain; Catholics on the whole supported the Armada, but with some notable exceptions. -
Tokugawa Shogunate
The Tokugawa Shogunate was a feudal military dictatorship in Japan that lasted for almost three hundred years, from 1603 to 1868. The period in Japanese history in which the Tokugawa Shogunate held power is called the Edo period, after the capital of Japan during the Shogunate. The Tokugawa Shogunate marks the period in Japanese history when the caste system was most rigid, leading eventually to social unrest, culminating in an overthrow of the Shogunate and the installation of Emperor Meiji. -
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) was a series of wars principally fought in Central Europe, involving most of the countries of Europe. It was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, and one of the longest continuous wars in modern history. -
John Locke
An English philosopher that offered principles for constructing a constitutional government, a contract between rulers and ruled that was created by human ingenuity rather than divinely prescribed. -
Qing Dynasty
Under the Qing Dynasty the territory of the empire grew to treble its size under the preceding Ming dynasty, the population grew from some 150 million to 450 million, many of the non-Chinese minorities within the empire were Sinicized, and an integrated national economy was established. -
Peace of Westphalia
The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October 1648 in Osnabrück and Münster. These treaties ended the Thirty Years' War in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch Republic, with Spain formally recognizing the independence of the Dutch Republic. -
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War was a war that took place between 1754 and 1763 with the main conflict being in the seven-year period 1756–1763. It involved most of the great powers of the time and affected Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines. -
End of the British Slave Trade
The earliest records of British anti-slavery activity are from around 1783 when the Quaker movement petitioned Parliament to end the slave trade. There was a similar petition in 1785 from citizens of the town of Bridgwater in Somerset but these were largely ignored. It took 46 years, between 1787 and 1833, for Britain to outlaw the slave trade and abolish slavery throughout her colonial possessions. For many people the struggle was over. For others, however, 1833 signalled a new beginning. -
Establishment of 1st Colony in Australia
The first colony in Australia was established by the British on 26 January 1788, with the arival of the First Fleet to Australia, establishing the first British colony in the land. -
Haitian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution has often been described as the largest and most successful slave rebellion in the Western Hemisphere. Slaves initiated the rebellion in 1791 and by 1803 they had succeeded in ending not just slavery but French control over the colony. The Haitian Revolution, however, was much more complex, consisting of several revolutions going on simultaneously. These revolutions were influenced by the French revolution of 1789.