1492Columbus sails from Palos on his first voyage west
For years the Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus had tried to persuade the rulers of Portugal and then Spain to back a voyage west across the Atlantic, which he believed would bring him quickly to Japan, China and the riches of the Indies. In April 1492, soon after the fall of Granada, Ferdinand and Isabella finally agreed. He was given three ships at Palos, a small port on the Río Tinto in south-western Spain: the Santa María, his flagship, and two lighter caravels, the Pinta and the Niña, commanded by the local seafaring brothers Martín Alonso and Vicente Yáñez Pinzón.
At dawn on 3 August 1492 the little fleet, with about 90 men aboard, left Palos and headed first for the Canary Islands to pick up the easterly trade winds. After a long stop for repairs it sailed west into the unknown in September, and on 12 October the crews sighted an island in the Bahamas. Columbus never accepted that he had not reached Asia, but his voyage began lasting contact between Europe and the Americas, with vast consequences for the peoples on both sides of the ocean.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Britannica: Christopher Columbus, the first voyage ↗
1914Germany declares war on France
Germany’s plans for a war on two fronts rested on one idea: defeat France quickly in the west, then turn east against Russia, whose huge army would be slow to mobilise. When Russia began to mobilise in support of Serbia at the end of July 1914, Germany declared war on it on 1 August. France, Russia’s ally, ordered its own general mobilisation the same day, while Germany demanded to know whether France would stay neutral and was told only that France would act in its own interests.
On the evening of 3 August 1914 the German ambassador, Wilhelm von Schoen, called on the French prime minister, René Viviani, in Paris and handed him Germany’s declaration of war, which accused French aircraft of bombing German territory, claims that were untrue. German armies were already poised to sweep through neutral Belgium, whose government had refused them passage that day. The invasion began the next morning, and it brought Britain into the war on 4 August.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Imperial War Museums: How the world went to war in 1914 ↗
1960Niger becomes independent from France
Niger, a vast, mostly desert country on the southern edge of the Sahara, was conquered by France in the decades around 1900 and ruled as part of French West Africa. After the Second World War its people gained a limited say in their own affairs, and two rival parties emerged: Hamani Diori’s Nigerien Progressive Party, which favoured a gradual path and close ties with France, and Djibo Bakary’s Sawaba, which wanted a clean break. In the referendum of 1958 Niger voted to stay within a French Community, and Diori’s side came out on top.
Across Africa, though, the tide was running towards full independence, and in 1960 France let its West African colonies go one after another. Niger became independent on 3 August 1960, with Diori as its first president. He ruled for 14 years as head of a one-party state, but he could not relieve a terrible Sahel drought and famine, and in April 1974 he was overthrown by the army under Seyni Kountché. Niger still marks 3 August as its independence day.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Britannica: Hamani Diori ↗
1795The Treaty of Greenville opens the Ohio country to settlers
After American independence, settlers pushed across the Ohio River into lands held by the Shawnee, Miami, Delaware, Wyandot and other nations, who formed a confederation to resist them. Led by the Miami war chief Little Turtle and the Shawnee Blue Jacket, the confederation destroyed two American armies in 1790 and 1791. In 1794 a new, better-trained army under General Anthony Wayne defeated them at Fallen Timbers, near present-day Toledo, and their British allies refused to help.
The following summer leaders of twelve nations met Wayne at Fort Greenville, in western Ohio, and on 3 August 1795 they signed a treaty of peace. In return for goods and yearly payments, they gave up most of what is now Ohio and smaller tracts further west, including the sites of future cities such as Chicago and Fort Wayne. The treaty line opened the region to rapid settlement. The Shawnee leader Tecumseh refused to accept it and later tried to build a new alliance to stop the loss of Native land.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Britannica: Treaty of Greenville ↗
