An anti-Jewish pogrom known as the “Lisbon Massacre” came to an end on April 21, 1506. The killings started as the result of a “New Christian,” who was forcibly converted from Judaism as a result of King Manuel I’s 1497 Edict of Forced Conversion, questioning a purported miracle at the Church of Saint Dominic. At [...]

American actress Mae West was sentenced to 10 days in jail on April 19, 1927 for her participation in a play she wrote and starred in entitled “Sex.” The play depicts the tribulations and adventures of a prostitute named Margy. The New York Police Department raided a performance, and West was charged with obscenity and [...]

Phillip III of Spain began the expulsion of the country’s “Morisco” (Muslims who converted to Christianity and their descendants) population on April 9, 1609, based on the Crown’s fears that the Morisco population retained Muslim beliefs. Hundreds of thousands of Moriscos would be expelled from the country from 1609-1614. The expulsions took place just over [...]

The Mexican army executed more than 400 Texian prisoners of war on March 27, 1836, during the Texas Revolution, in an event that would become known as the Goliad Massacre. A decree passed in December 1835 allowed Mexican soldiers under General Antonio López de Santa Anna to shoot any foreigners in rebellion. Texian Colonel James [...]

Roman dictator Julius Caesar was assassinated at the Roman Forum by a number of his own senators led by Marcus Brutus on March 15, 44 BC over concerns that he was becoming too powerful. The assassination wound up being a political failure as the Roman citizenry ended up becoming incensed at the conspirators and a [...]

Indian independence advocate Mahatma Gandhi and 78 others began a 3.5-week-long march to the Arabian Sea on March 12, 1930 to defy monopolistic colonial laws prohibiting the collection of salt by Indians. The demonstration exemplified Gandhi’s strategy of Satyagraha. The march ended with thousands joining in in other cities, Gandhi being briefly jailed and then [...]

The war crimes court known as the International Criminal Court (ICC) swore in its first batch of judges on March 11, 2003. The meeting took place eight months after the ratification of the court’s Rome Statute. Then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said of the occasion: It has taken mankind many years to reach this moment. By [...]

The International Criminal Court issued its first arrest warrant for a sitting head of state when it sought Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir on March 4, 2009 for allegedly directing attacks against civilians and being an indirect participant in murder, rape, and torture during the conflict in Darfur. Al-Bashir was removed from power in 2019. The [...]

Ukraine’s Euromaidan Revolution won victory when pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovich was removed from office by the Verkhovna Rada on February 22, 2014. Ukraine’s Parliament made the decision to remove the former president after protesters took over multiple presidential buildings. Yanukovich fled to Russia, and Russia would annex the Crimean Peninsula weeks later. Learn more about [...]

The US House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams as President of the United States on February 9, 1825 after no candidate won a majority of electors in the 1824 presidential election. Adams prevailed by a 13-7-4 vote even though future President Andrew Jackson won more electors than him the previous November. The Twelfth Amendment [...]