1223The Mongols crush the princes of Rus’ on the Kalka River
After destroying the Khwarazmian Empire in Central Asia, Genghis Khan allowed two of his finest generals, Jebe and Subutai, to lead a great reconnaissance raid to the west. Their horsemen rode through the Caucasus and out on to the steppes north of the Black Sea, where they beat the nomadic Cumans. The surviving Cuman chiefs fled to their neighbours, the princes of Kievan Rus’, and begged for help.
Several princes, among them Mstislav of Kiev and Mstislav of Galich, joined forces and marched east. The Mongols drew them on with a long retreat, then turned to fight beside the Kalka River, near the Sea of Azov, on 31 May 1223. When the Cumans broke and fled, they threw the Rus’ ranks into confusion, and the Mongol cavalry cut the allied army to pieces. The raiders then rode home, and did not return for about fifteen years.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Britannica: Battle of the Kalka River ↗
1916Britain and Germany fight the great sea battle of Jutland
For most of the First World War the two largest battle fleets in the world, Britain’s Grand Fleet and Germany’s High Seas Fleet, had watched each other across the North Sea. In late May 1916 the German commander, Admiral Reinhard Scheer, planned to lure part of the British fleet into a trap. British codebreakers picked up the signals, and Admiral John Jellicoe put to sea with his whole fleet before the Germans had even sailed.
The fleets met off the coast of Jutland, in Denmark, on the afternoon of 31 May, and the fighting went on into the night. Around 250 ships and 100,000 men took part. Britain lost 14 ships and about 6,000 sailors, Germany 11 ships and about 2,500 men, and both sides claimed victory. But the German fleet slipped home and seldom ventured out again, leaving Britain in command of the North Sea.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Imperial War Museums: Battle of Jutland ↗
1902Peace is signed at Vereeniging, ending the Boer War
By 1902 the war between the British Empire and the two Boer republics, the South African Republic (Transvaal) and the Orange Free State, had dragged on for more than two and a half years. Boer commandos fought on in the countryside, while British forces burned farms and held civilians in camps. In May, Boer delegates gathered at Vereeniging, on the Vaal River, to decide whether to accept British terms.
They voted to make peace, and late on 31 May 1902 the treaty was signed in the dining room of Melrose House in Pretoria. The two republics lost their independence and came under British rule, but the Boers received an amnesty, a promise of self-government and £3 million to rebuild their farms. The question of votes for Black South Africans was put off, a decision with long consequences. Eight years later to the day, the Union of South Africa was born.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: South African History Online: Peace Treaty of Vereeniging, 31 May 1902 ↗
1859Westminster’s Great Clock starts keeping time
When the Palace of Westminster was rebuilt after the fire of 1834, its new clock tower was meant to hold the finest public clock in the world. The Astronomer Royal, George Airy, demanded that it be accurate to within a second, a standard many clockmakers thought impossible for so large a mechanism. The amateur horologist Edmund Beckett Denison produced the design, and the firm of Edward Dent built it.
The clock was installed in the tower in April 1859 and began keeping time on 31 May. The great hour bell, nicknamed Big Ben, first rang out that July, but cracked within a few months and stayed silent for about four years. The clock itself proved remarkably reliable, and its chimes became one of the best-known sounds in the world. In 2012 the tower was renamed the Elizabeth Tower.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: UK Parliament: A brief history of Big Ben and Elizabeth Tower ↗
1970An earthquake and avalanche devastate Peru’s Ancash region
At about twenty past three on the afternoon of 31 May 1970, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck beneath the Pacific, some 25 kilometres off the Peruvian fishing port of Chimbote. The violent shaking brought down thousands of homes built of adobe mud brick in the coastal towns and in the mountain valleys of the Ancash region, including much of the city of Huaraz.
High above the valley, the quake broke loose a vast mass of rock and ice from the north peak of Huascarán, Peru’s highest mountain. It swept down at hundreds of kilometres an hour and buried the town of Yungay and part of Ranrahirca. In all, around 50,000 people died and some 20,000 more were never found, making it the worst natural disaster in Peru’s history. Old Yungay is now a memorial site, and a new town was built nearby.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Britannica: Ancash earthquake of 1970 ↗
