Some Dates to Remember If Dates Are Important

14 Death of Augustus Caesar founder of the Roman Empire

1066 Battle of Hastings and beginning of Norman Conquest of England

1215 King John agrees to Magna Carta. Ghengis Khan captures Beijing. Kublai Khan born

1227 Death of Genghis Khan founder of Mongol Empire

1455 Gutenberg Bible is first book printed using movable type

1492 Jews and Arabs expelled from Spain. Columbus uses their money to buy three ships

1601 Possible first performance of “Shakespeare’s” Hamlet

1636 Founding of Harvard, America’s oldest college

1750 Death of JS Bach and unofficial end of the Baroque Period

1776 Declaration of Independence a year after the battles of Lexington and Concord

1789 French Revolution and fall of the Bastille

1791 Death of Mozart. Haydn gets doctoral degree from Oxford

1827 Death of Beethoven. Death of William Blake

1847 The Free Academy established by Townsend Harris. Later becomes CCNY.

1849 Death of Chopin. Birth of Crazy Horse and Emma Lazarus

1859 Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde signals eventual end of tonality, Philadelphia zoo is first in US

1861 South Carolina attacks Fort Sumter and American Civil War begins

1883 Death of Wagner. First vaudeville opens in Boston

1909 Diaghilev brings the Ballets Russes to Paris. Indianapolis Speedway opens

1913 Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) premieres in Paris with a scandal

1914 Beginning of World War I. ASCAP founded. First Mother’s Day

1918 End of World War I. Spanish Influenza infects 500 million people

1929 Stock Market Crash and beginning of the Great Depression.

1939 New York World’s Fair. Beginning of World War II. Germany invades Poland.

1941 December 5. Jablonsky is born and two days later the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor

1945 End of World War II. Red Army liberates Auschwitz. Death of FDR. Atomic bomb

1969 Man lands on the moon. The Beatle’s last album Abbey Road

2001 World Trade Center demolished. W’s Iraq invasion destabilizes Middle East in 2003

2016 The Electoral College chooses a Russian spy as president, Brexit, Obama visits Cuba