This Day In European History
22nd January
Events1662: Battle of Nagyszollos; Ottoman forces defeat and kill Prince Kemeny of Transylvania, giving them control of the country.
1689: A meeting of English politicians agrees to offer William of Orange and Mary Stuart the English throne.
1720: The South Sea Bubble begins.
1879: The Battle of Rorke's Drift.
1905: The Russian Revolution of 1905 begins.
1972: Denmark, the Irish Republic and the UK enter the EEC.
1980: Russian physicist Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov, a key figure in the Soviet Union's H-Bomb project, is arrested for criticising the state.
Births
1440: Ivan the Great, Grand Prince of Moscow.
1561: Francis Bacon, English Statesman and philosopher.
1592: Pierre Gassendi, French scientist.
1729: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German dramatist.
1775: Andre Marie Ampere, French scientist and pioneer of electromagnetism.
1788: George Byron, the British Poet 'Lord Byron'.
1849: August Strindberg, Swedish writer.
Deaths
1552: Edward Seymour, former Lord Protector of England, executed.
1662: Prince Janos Kemeny of Transylvania.
1719: William Paterson, Scottish economist and founder of the Bank of England.
1799: Horace Benedict de Saussure, Swiss physicist.
1901: Queen Victoria of Britain dies after the longest reign in the nation's history: 64 years.
