1485Richard III dies at Bosworth and the Tudors take the throne
For thirty years the English crown had passed back and forth between the rival houses of Lancaster and York in the Wars of the Roses. In 1483 Richard, Duke of Gloucester, took the throne as Richard III after setting aside his young nephews, the sons of Edward IV, who were never seen again. Many nobles turned against him, and in August 1485 Henry Tudor, the leading Lancastrian claimant, landed in Wales from exile in France and marched into England with a small army.
On 22 August 1485 the two armies met near Market Bosworth in Leicestershire. Richard had the larger force, but the powerful Stanley brothers held back, and when Richard led a charge at Henry, Sir William Stanley’s men attacked him from the side. Richard was unhorsed and killed, the last English king to die in battle. Henry was crowned as Henry VII, founding the Tudor dynasty, and Richard’s remains, buried in Leicester, were found under a car park in 2012.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Britannica: Battle of Bosworth Field ↗
1864Twelve states sign the first Geneva Convention
After seeing thousands of wounded soldiers left without care at the Battle of Solferino in 1859, the Geneva businessman Henry Dunant called for neutral relief societies and for an international agreement to protect the wounded in war. A small Geneva committee took up the idea, and in August 1864 the Swiss government invited states to a diplomatic conference in the city.
On 22 August 1864 the delegates of twelve states, among them France, Prussia, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Switzerland, signed the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field. It was only ten articles long, but it laid down that wounded soldiers must be cared for whatever their side, that doctors, nurses and field hospitals were neutral, and that they would be marked by a red cross on a white background. It was the first of the treaties that make up modern international humanitarian law.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: ICRC: Geneva Convention, 22 August 1864 ↗
1910Japan forces a treaty of annexation on Korea
After defeating China in 1895 and Russia in 1905, Japan was the dominant power in Korea. In 1905 it made the country a protectorate and took control of its foreign affairs, and in 1907 it forced Emperor Gojong to abdicate in favour of his son Sunjong and disbanded the Korean army. Japanese officials ran more and more of the government, while armed Korean resistance was crushed.
On 22 August 1910 the Japanese resident-general, Terauchi Masatake, and the Korean prime minister, Yi Wan-yong, signed a treaty by which the emperor of Korea handed over all rights of sovereignty to the emperor of Japan. It was made public on 29 August, and the 500-year-old Joseon dynasty came to an end. Korea was ruled as a Japanese colony until 1945; Koreans have always regarded the treaty as forced on them, and in 1965 Japan and South Korea agreed that it was ‘already null and void’.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: US Office of the Historian: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1910, annexation of Korea ↗
1894Gandhi helps found the Natal Indian Congress
Mohandas Gandhi arrived in Durban in 1893 as a young lawyer hired by an Indian trading firm. In South Africa he met daily discrimination, and was thrown off a train for refusing to leave a first-class compartment. In 1894, as he was about to sail home, he read that the Natal parliament planned to take the vote away from Indians, and the Indian merchants of Durban persuaded him to stay and lead the opposition.
On 22 August 1894 the Natal Indian Congress was formally founded, with the merchant Abdulla Haji Adam as president and Gandhi as secretary. It was the first lasting political organisation of Indians in South Africa. It sent petitions, wrote to the press in Britain and India and held meetings, and it became the training ground for the methods of non-violent protest Gandhi later used in India. The Congress worked alongside the African National Congress in the struggle against apartheid.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: South African History Online: Natal Indian Congress ↗
1770James Cook claims eastern Australia for Britain
In 1770, on his first voyage of exploration, James Cook sailed HMS Endeavour north along the whole eastern coast of Australia, charting it for the first time. Near the end of the journey the ship had to pick its way through the reefs at the northern tip of Cape York, in the waters of the Kaurareg people, who know the island Cook landed on as Bedanug.
On 22 August 1770 Cook went ashore on a small island he called Possession Island, raised the British colours and, in the name of King George III, claimed the whole east coast for Britain under the name New South Wales. The ceremony ended with three volleys of musket fire, answered from the ship. No one asked the land’s owners, and the claim was the legal basis for the British colony founded at Sydney Cove in 1788.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: National Museum of Australia: Cook’s journal, August 1770 ↗
