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Pope Urban II orders the First Crusades

On 27 November 1095, Pope Urban II makes perhaps the most influential speech of the Middle Ages, giving rise to the Crusades by calling all Christians in Europe to war against Muslims in order to reclaim the Holy Land

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President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act

As the strength of the civil rights movement grew, John F. Kennedy made passage of a new civil rights bill one of the platforms of his successful 1960 presidential campaign. As Kennedy's vice president, Johnson served as chairman of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunities. After Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, Johnson vowed to carry out his proposals for civil rights reform. The Civil Rights Act fought through tough opposition in the House and a lengthy, heated debate in the Senate before being approved in July 1964.

For the signing of the historic legislation, Johnson invited hundreds of guests to a televised ceremony in the White House's East Room. After using more than 75 pens to sign the bill, he gave them away as mementoes of the historic occasion, according to tradition. One of the first pens went to King, leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (S.C.L.C.), who called it one of his most cherished possessions. Johnson gave two more to Senators Hubert Humphrey and Everett McKinley Dirksen, the Democratic and Republican managers of the bill in the Senate.

The most sweeping civil rights legislation passed by Congress since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era, the Civil Rights Act prohibited racial discrimination in employment and education and outlawed racial segregation in public places such as schools, buses, parks and swimming pools. In addition, the bill laid important groundwork for a number of other pieces of legislation – including the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which set strict rules for protecting the right of African Americans to vote – that have since been used to enforce equal rights for women as well as all minorities.

Civil Rights Movement

On this day in 1964, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the historic Civil Rights Act in a nationally televised ceremony at the White House. In the landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The 10 years that followed saw great strides for the African-American civil rights movement, as non-violent demonstrations won thousands of supporters to the cause.

Memorable landmarks in the struggle included the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 – sparked by the refusal of Alabama resident Rosa Parks to give up her seat on a city bus to a white woman – and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous 1963 "I have a dream" speech at a rally of hundreds of thousands in Washington, D.C.

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Grover Cleveland watches President William McKinley delivering his inaugural address

President McKinley dies of his wounds eight days after he is shot

President William McKinley dies after being shot by a deranged anarchist with one bullet passing through his kidneys and becoming lodged in his back.

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Live Aid rocks Wembley

On this day in 1985, at Wembley Stadium in London, Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially open Live Aid, a worldwide rock concert organised to raise money for the relief of famine-stricken Africans. Continued at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia and at other arenas around the world, the 16-hour "superconcert" was globally linked by satellite to more than a billion viewers in 110 nations. In a triumph of technology and good will, the event raised more than $125 million in famine relief for Africa.

Live Aid was the brainchild of Bob Geldof, the singer of an Irish rock group called the Boomtown Rats. In 1984, Geldof travelled to Ethiopia after hearing news reports of a horrific famine that had killed hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians and threatened to kill millions more. After returning to London, he called Britain's and Ireland's top pop artists together to record a single to benefit Ethiopian famine relief. "Do They Know It's Christmas?" was written by Geldof and Ultravox singer Midge Ure and performed by "Band Aid," an ensemble that featured Culture Club, Duran Duran, Phil Collins, U2, Wham!, and others. It was the best-selling single in Britain to that date and raised more than $10 million. "Do They Know It's Christmas?" was also a No. 1 hit in the United States and inspired US pop artists to come together and perform "We Are the World," a song written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie. "USA for Africa," as the U.S. ensemble was known, featured Jackson, Ritchie, Geldof, Harry Belafonte, Bob Dylan, Cyndi Lauper, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, and many others.

The First Glastonbury

The single went to the top of the charts and eventually raised $44 million. With the crisis continuing in Ethiopia, and the neighbouring Sudan also stricken with famine, Geldof proposed Live Aid, an ambitious global charity concert aimed at raising more funds and increasing awareness of the plight of many Africans. Organised in just 10 weeks, Live Aid was staged on Saturday, 13 July 1985. More than 75 acts performed, including Elton John, Madonna, Santana, Run-DMC, Sade, Sting, Bryan Adams, the Beach Boys, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Queen, Duran Duran, U2, the Who, Tom Petty, Neil Young, and Eric Clapton. The majority of these artists performed at either Wembley Stadium in London, where a crowd of 70,000 turned out, or at Philadelphia's JFK Stadium, where 100,000 watched. Thirteen satellites beamed a live television broadcast of the event to more than one billion viewers in 110 countries.

More than 40 of these nations held telethons for African famine relief during the broadcast. A memorable moment of the concert was Phil Collins' performance in Philadelphia after flying by Concorde from London, where he had performed at Wembley earlier in the day. He later played drums in a reunion of the surviving members of Led Zeppelin. Beatle Paul McCartney and the Who's Pete Townsend held Bob Geldof aloft on their shoulders during the London finale, which featured a collective performance of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" Six hours later, the U.S. concert ended with "We Are the World." Live Aid eventually raised $127 million in famine relief for African nations, and the publicity it generated encouraged Western nations to make available enough surplus grain to end the immediate hunger crisis in Africa.

Geldof was later knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his efforts. In early July 2005, Geldof staged a series of "Live 8" concerts in 11 countries around the world to help raise awareness of global poverty. Organisers, led by Geldof, purposely scheduled the concert days before the annual G8 summit in an effort to increase political pressure on G8 nations to address issues facing the extremely poor around the world. Live 8 claims that an estimated 3 billion people watched 1,000 musicians perform in 11 shows, which were broadcast on 182 television networks and by 2,000 radio stations. Unlike Live Aid, Live 8 was intentionally not billed as a fundraiser – Geldof's slogan was, "We don't want your money, we want your voice." Perhaps in part because of the spotlight brought on such issues by Live 8, the G8 subsequently voted to cancel the debt of 18 of the world's poorest nations, make AIDS drugs more accessible, and double levels of annual aid to Africa, to $50 billion by 2010.

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Load of Ship

What was it about a tragic story of a big boat and forbidden love that hit a nerve and became the biggest grossing movie of all time (which it did on this day)? Was it the water? The uniforms? The frenetic Irish dancing? Or a combination of any two of them? We may never know, but it was the film that made the most money until Avatar stole its damp and salty crown. But as the same bloke made both, he’s probably not too bovved.

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A sticker of Nessie, the Loch Ness monster on the window pane

Loch Ness monster is sighted

Although accounts of an aquatic beast living in Scotland's Loch Ness date back 1,500 years, the modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster is born when a sighting makes local news on 2 May 1933.

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Longest ever baseball game

Playing the Long Game

It makes your butt hurt just to think about it. It was on this day in 1981 that the longest ever professional baseball game took place between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings. A whopping 33 innings were played with the game lasting a hefty eight hours and 25 minutes. Even though baseball has a rule that stipulates playing extra innings if the game is tied, there is a curfew that ensures the play stops after a certain amount of time.

But for some reason, the umpire’s rule book did not contain this information, so the game carried on and on.It was like some sort of curse. Every time one team went into the lead and looked like winning, the opposition would accidentally knock in a run, causing a massive amount of resentment on both sides. At around 4am the president of the league heard about the game and ordered it to stop. By this time only 19 spectators remained and all the players were delirious from exhaustion. The game resumed two months later and took a mere 18 minutes to complete with Pawtucket finally winning.

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Lusitania is torpedoed

On the afternoon of 7 May 1915, the British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine

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Intricate butterfly jewel on the shoulder of a traditional Venice Carnival outfit

Madame Butterfly premieres

Giacomo Puccini dedicated his life to opera and one of his most famous shows was Madame Butterfly, the penultimate opera that he penned.

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Mae West Jailed for 10 Days

Way Out West

It was on this day in 1927 that the legend of Mae West was solidified. Even though the Jazz Age was known for its friskiness, it may have been pushing things slightly for West to appear in (and write) a play simply called ‘Sex’. So it came as no surprise that this jaunty tale of prostitution was raided by the New York City vice squad and the entire cast was arrested. On April 19th, Mae was jailed for 10 days (she was released after 8 for good behaviour) and fined $5000.

She claimed she dined with the governor of the prison every night and was allowed to wear her silk underwear while incarcerated.Of course, after her release, everyone was fascinated by Mae. Her next play, The Drag, dealt with gay culture and cross-dressing. But again, it was soon closed down by the authorities. But by this time, she had been noticed by Hollywood. She soon moved to Hollywood and adapted her outrageous persona for the cinema, becoming a movie legend.

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Arrival in the Philippines of Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese navigator At the shore on Homonhon Island on 16 March 1521 Portrait from Philippine 1 Peso Banknotes,

Magellan reaches the Pacific Ocean via the Atlantic Ocean

After sailing through the dangerous straits below South America that now bear his name, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan enters the Pacific Ocean

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Magna Carta receives royal seal

Following a revolt by the English nobility against his rule, King John put his royal seal on the Magna Carta, or "Great Charter" on this day in 1215. The document, essentially a peace treaty between John and his barons, guaranteed that the king would respect feudal rights and privileges, uphold the freedom of the church, and maintain the nation's laws. Although more a reactionary than a progressive document in its day, the Magna Carta was seen as a cornerstone in the development of democratic England by later generations. John was enthroned as King of England following the death of his brother, King Richard the Lion-Heart, in 1199. King John's reign was characterised by failure. He lost the duchy of Normandy to King Philip August of France and taxed the English nobility heavily to pay for his foreign misadventures. He quarrelled with Pope Innocent III and sold church offices to rebuild the depleted royal coffers.

Following the defeat of a campaign to regain Normandy in 1214, Stephen Langton, the archbishop of Canterbury, called on the disgruntled barons to demand a charter of liberties from the king. In 1215, the barons rose up in rebellion against the king's abuse of feudal law and custom. John, faced with a superior force, had no choice but to give in to their demands. Earlier kings of England had granted concessions to their feudal barons, but these charters were vaguely worded and issued voluntarily. The document drawn up for John in June 1215, however, forced the king to make specific guarantees of the rights and privileges of his barons and the freedom of the church. On 15 June 1215, John met the barons at Runnymede on the Thames and set his seal to the Articles of the Barons, which after minor revision was formally issued as the Magna Carta.

The charter consisted of a preamble and 63 clauses and dealt mainly with feudal concerns that had little impact outside thirteenth century England. However, the document was remarkable in that it implied there were laws that the king was bound to observe, thus precluding any future claim to absolutism by the English monarch. Of greatest interest to later generations was clause 39, which stated that "no free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or disseised [dispossessed] or outlawed or exiled or in any way victimised...except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land." This clause has been celebrated as an early guarantee of trial by jury and of habeas corpus, and inspired England's Petition of Right (1628) and the Habeas Corpus Act (1679). In immediate terms, the Magna Carta was a failure – civil war broke out the same year, and John ignored his obligations under the charter.

Upon his death in 1216, however, the Magna Carta was reissued with some changes by his son, King Henry III, and then reissued again in 1217. That year, the rebellious barons were defeated by the king's forces. In 1225, Henry III voluntarily reissued the Magna Carta a third time, and it formally entered English statute law. The Magna Carta has been subject to a great deal of historical exaggeration; it did not establish Parliament, as some have claimed, nor more than vaguely allude to the liberal democratic ideals of later centuries. However, as a symbol of the sovereignty of the rule of law, it was of fundamental importance to the constitutional development of England. Four original copies of the Magna Carta of 1215 exist today: one in Lincoln Cathedral, one in Salisbury Cathedral, and two in the British Museum.

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