This Day In European History
1st August
Events527: Justinian succeeds as Byzantine Emperor; his wife Theodora is also crowned.
1291: Schwyz, Uri and Lower Unterwalden form 'The Everlasting League', the core of modern Switzerland.
1774: Oxygen is 'discovered' by Britain's Sir Joseph Priestly.
1793: The world's first metric unit, the kilogram, is introduced in France.
1798: The Battle of the Nile: Nelson's British navy defeats the French, cutting Napoleon's army in Egypt off from France.
1807: An expeditionary force from Britain, led by a commander called Arthur Wellesley, lands in the Iberian Peninsular to fight Napoleon. 1914: Germany declares war on Russia at the start of World War One.
1944: The Warsaw Rising begins.
1944: The date of Anne Frank's last diary entry.
Births
10 BCE: Roman Emperor Claudius.
1520: King Sigismund II of Poland.
1545: Andrew Melville, Scottish religious reformer.
1630: Thomas Clifford, English statesman.
1714: Richard Wilson, English painter.
1744: Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck, French biologist.
1769: Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte of France.
Deaths
527: Emperor Justin I of Byzantium.
984: St. Aethelwold, Bishop of Winchester.
1040: King Duncan I of Scotland.
1708: Edward Tyson, English physician.
1714: Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland.
