The following factoids were collected from the SDMB by Google and summarized by me in a fit of insomnia, enjoy. source.
- 4241 BC: Solar calendar first adopted in Egypt
- 4004 BC: God created the world during one calendar week in October
- 3500 BC: Earliest known individual - Shub-Ad, Queen of Sumer
- 3200 BC: Chickens domesticated in India
- 3100 BC: Beginning of Egyptology
- 2070 BC: Oldest known Chinese dynasty, Emperor Shun
- 2024 BC: First use of nuclear weapons in Mesopotamia
- 1500 BC: Eruption of Mt. St. Elias
- 1250 BC: Founding of modern Nantucket
- 1054 BC: First recorded viewing of the Crab Nebula by Chinese
- 1000 BC: Invention of the bagpipe
- 1000 BC: Vikings discover America
- 753 BC: Romulus founds Rome
- 750 BC: Greeks colonize Italy
- 700 BC: Torah written
- 600 BC: Jerusalem conquered by the Babylonians
- 587 BC: Judah is destroyed
- 585 BC: Battle of Halys
- 500 BC: Herodotus coins the word delta
- 430 BC: The plague hits Athens
- 370 BC: Death of the philosopher Democritus
- 333 BC: Alexander the Great’s soliders kill 100k Persian soldiers
- 218 BC: Hannibal leaves Cartagena with 90000 infantry, 12000 cavalry and 37 elephants
- 100 BC: Religious sect writes the dead sea scrolls
- 50 BC: Garamante brought to Europe by Caesar to fight Germanic peoples
- 6 BC: Jesus is born
- 5 BC: Star indicates the birth of jesus
- 1 AD: Jesus founds the original Christian cult
- 6 AD: Annexation of Judea
- 26 AD: Pilate succeeds Valerius Gratus
- 70 AD: Romans sack Jerusalem
- 90 AD: Composition of Gospel of John
- 96 AD: First mention of Jesus in secular history
- 113 AD: Carving of Trajan’s Column
- 130 AD: The Syntaxis of Ptolemy written
- 150 AD: Greeks invent zero
- 169 AD: Quintus Pompeius Sosius Priscus
- 180 AD: Irenoeus, bishop of Gaul in about 180 AD, was a student of Polycarp, who was a disciple of John, confirms the authorship of Matthew, Mark, and John.
- 300 AD: Wide acceptance of Zoroastrianism
- 303 AD: Saint George dies
- 325 AD: Council of Nicea
- 337 AD: Emperor Constantine abolishes crucifixion
- 350 AD: Roman battle in Northern Germany
- 500 AD: Last celebration of Saturnalia by Rome
- 500 AD: Some crazy monk or religious leader decided thats how it’s going to be
- 500 AD: St. Brendan the Navigator and some other Irish monks visit Newfoundland
- 533 AD: Fifth Ecumenical Council held in Constantinople
- 553 AD: Council of Nicaea removes notion of reincarnation from Christian church
- 610 AD: Islam begins when Prophet Muhammed recieved his vision
- 622 AD: Foundation of Islam
- 700 AD: The words pagan and heathen are coined by Christians of Rome
- 712 AD: First historical Japanese work, the Kojiki
- 740 AD: The Khazars converted from Paganism to Judaism
- 1000 AD: End of the World
- 1000 AD: Intellectual and artistic renaissance in Europe
- 1000 AD: Christianization of Iceland
- 1050 AD: Indian Katha Sarit sagara says that King Brahmadarta sent poison maidens as dancing girls to his enemy’s camp
- 1054 AD: Schism between Eastern and Western Christianity
- 1054 AD: Crab Nebula explodes
- 1056 AD: Pope excommunicates the Patriarch of Constantinople who in turn excommunicates the Pope
- 1066 AD: Battle of Hastings
- 1073 AD: Hildebrand becomes Pope Gregory VII
- 1085 AD: Toledo, Spain becomes Christian cultural center
- 1086 AD: There are 5,642 water mills in Europe
- 1100 AD: Temples of Uppsala destroyed
- 1144 AD: Origins of Jewish Blood Libel in Norwich, England
- 1170 AD: Welsh explorer Madoc arrives in Mobile Bay, Alabama
- 1215 AD: King John signs Magna Carta
- 1234 AD: Death of Marco Polo
- 1241 AD: Death of the son of Gengis Khan
- 1242 AD: Mongols retreat to positions near the Ural, never to return to Europe west of the Carpathians.
- 1282 AD: Edward III takes the throne by killing the last Welsh Prince of Wales
- 1290 AD: First Easter
- 1300 AD: End of Medieval Warm Period
- 1398 AD: Prince Henry Sinclair voyages to the New World
- 1400 AD: Trade with the Far East makes pepper and nutmeg readily available in Europe
- 1420 AD: Sam Gamgee marries Rose Cotton in the spring
- 1450 AD: The Treatise of Fishing with an Angle was written by the nun Dame Juliana Berners
- 1474 AD: Ben Caxton establishes the printing press in London, standardizing the London dialect
- 1485 AD: Columbus founds America
- 1492 AD: Spanish Jews expelled from Israel
- 1493 AD: Columbus prays in the sanctuary of Guadalupe before his expedition
- 1494 AD: Charles VIII invades Italy
- 1496 AD: Scriptores Reis Rustica (Writings about Country Life) printed in Bologna
- 1498 AD: Columbus explores South America on his third voyage
- 1555 AD: Pope Paul IV orders all Jews to live in ghettoes
- 1607 AD: Jamestown colony founded
- 1685 AD: King James II convinces Parliament to vote him revenue to support a standing army for life
- 1688 AD: During a lull in the near-constant fighting with the French, William, Stadtholder of Holland, in concert with his principal advisor, William Bentinck, put together in less than three months, a flotilla of over 350 vessels, put it to sea (twice) and managed to successfully land an army at Torbay in Devon before marching to London and deposing James II.
- 1707 AD: Upon the union of England and Scotland, Anne’s title changed to Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and all of the subsequent monarchs have held variations on that title
- 1776 AD: The United States is created
- 1787 AD: Constitution is debated in the Constitutional Convention
- 1796 AD: Congress establishes the basis of our rectangular system of surveys
- 1812 AD: Governor Elbridge Gerry decided to rearrange the contours of the Congressional districts in Massachusetts to boost his Democratic party’s fortunes
- 1826 AD: Adams and Jefferson die
- 1833 AD: Ferdinand VII, King of Spain died, leaving only two daughters, the elder of whom ascended the throne as Isabella II
- 1847 AD: The first two stamps are simultaneously issued
- 1862 AD: Battle of Antietam, bloodiest day in American History
- 1863 AD: Battle of Gettysburg
- 1878 AD: Bulgaria becomes independent
- 1883 AD: Island of Krakatoa disappears as a result of the eruption of the volcano with the same name
- 1900 AD: Russian scientist Constantin Perskyi coins the word television in a paper delivered to Paris
- 1903 AD: Wright brothers take flight
- 1914 AD: Boston Braves win the World Series
- 1915 AD: Woodrow Wilson screens “Birth of a Nation”
- 1917 AD: Freighter carrying a huge load of explosives for the war in Europe collided with another ship in Halifax harbor in Canada, catching fire
- 1926 AD: The premiere of Turandot at La Scala, Milan
- 1933 AD: National Industrial Recovery Act
- 1934 AD: FBI kills John Dillinger
- 1938 AD: Hitler proclaims Anschluss
- 1939 AD: Pius XII elected pope
- 1941 AD: Germany declares war on USA
- 1942 AD: Japanese submarine I-17 shelled the Ellwood Oil Field near Santa Barbara, CA
- 1943 AD: USAAF attacked the Ploesti oilfields in a daylight low- level attack
- 1945 AD: The US was already killing Japanese civilians ferociously; the Tokyo raid killed about as many as the Hiroshimo bomb
- 1963 AD: Three shots fired on JFK. The 1st one missed. The 2nd one entered his upper back region and exited the front of his neck. And the 3rd shot was a fatal blow to the head.
- 1964 AD: Ranger 7 probe crashes into the moon
- 1968 AD: Following the Tet offensive, Walter Cronkite, the man much of the country viewed as the most trusted man in America, pronouced the war in Vietnam “unwinnable”.
- 1970 AD: Under most UNIX versions the epoch is 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970
- 1972 AD: Watergate
- 1986 AD: On the set of the film Million Dollar Mystery, after completing the main stunt, the emergency medical staff was dismissed from the set, and while filming a routine high speed run by the camera, with a fellow stuntman, Dar rode his stunt motorcycle past the braking point of a turn, and straight off a cliff, to his death.
- 1995 AD: Yitzhak Rabin assassinated
- 1996 AD: The Palestinian National Council (PNC) convened in Gaza and adopted a resolution concerning the Covenant by a vote of 504 to 54 with 14 abstentions.
- 1999 AD: Scores of eye injuries in Europe resulting from people viewing the solar eclipse
- 2000 AD: Janet Reno says “I have inquired for most of my adult life about studies that might show that the death penalty is a deterrent, and I have not seen any research that would substantiate that point.”
- 2000 AD: USS Cole attack
- 2000 AD: Far right Vlaams Blok party in Belgium becomes the biggest political force in Antwerp
- 2000 AD: Candidate Bush is on Letterman
- 2000 AD: Opec pledges not to use oil as a political weapon
- 2001 AD: Arizona Diamondbacks win the World Series
- 2001 AD: The red states would recognize the Republican Bush Administration and the blue states recognize the Democrat Gore.
- 2001 AD: Timothy McVeigh scheduled for execution
- 2001 AD: 9/11
- 2002 AD: Resignations of President Bush, Vice President Dole, Speaker Hastert, and every Democrat holding public office for receiving oral sex on the job
- 2002 AD: Israel captures Marwan Barghouti, the West Bank leader of Arafat’s Fatah
- 2002 AD: In Erfurt, eastern Germany, a former student opened fire at a high school in revenge for being expelled
- 2002 AD: About 28 pilot whales were being euthanized Tuesday evening after stranding themselves for the third time in two days
- 2003 AD: US invades Iraq
- 2004 AD: US has 130000 troops in Iraq
- 2004 AD: They turned on frequency fence, and all freemasons, and devil worshippers worldwide were soul scalped. They started dropping nanotech braincells, mucus, and chemicals in chemtrails, instead of just morgellong fibers, which don’t affect the majority. They used frequency fence signals to control the mind, and the weather.
- 2004 AD: Mount St. Helens erupts
- 2008 AD: Lehman Brothers falls
- 2009 AD: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbitor launched