Mixed eras

An Athenian jury of 501 citizens votes to execute the philosopher Socrates by hemlock.

The jury margin is surprisingly narrow — 280 to 221 — and Socrates might have gone free had he proposed a more flattering alternative penalty.

The Trial of Socrates was held to determine the philosopher's guilt of two charges against the city of Athens: asebeia (impiety) and corruption of the youth. The accusers cited two impious acts: "failing to acknowledge the gods of the city" and "introducing new deities".

Julius Caesar leads his Thirteenth Legion across the Rubicon river into Italy, breaking Roman law.

The river itself is so small and unremarkable that historians still debate exactly which stream it was.

The phrase "crossing the Rubicon" is an idiom meaning "passing the point of no return". Its meaning comes from the crossing of the Rubicon river by Julius Caesar in January 49 BC at the head of the 13th Legion. Caesar was not allowed to command an army within Italy proper, and by crossing the river with his forces was defying law and risking death. The crossing precipitated a civil war, which eventually led to Caesar becoming dictator for life.

Mount Vesuvius erupts and buries the Roman city of Pompeii under meters of ash and pumice.

The eruption catches the city mid-meal — carbonised loaves of bread are still found in bakery ovens.

In 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius, a stratovolcano located in the modern-day region of Campania, Italy, erupted, causing one of the deadliest eruptions in history. Vesuvius violently ejected a cloud of super-heated tephra and gases to a height of 33 km (21 mi), ejecting molten rock, pulverized pumice and hot ash at 1.5 million tons per second, ultimately releasing 100,000 times the thermal energy of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The event gives its name to the Vesuvian type of volcanic eruption, characterised by columns of hot gases and ash reaching the stratosphere, although the event also included pyroclastic flows associated with Peléan eruptions.

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Pope Leo III crowns Frankish king Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans on Christmas Day.

Charlemagne later tells his biographer Einhard that he would never have entered the church that day had he known the Pope intended to crown him.

Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian Empire from 800. He united most of Western and Central Europe and was the first recognised emperor to rule from the west after the fall of the Western Roman Empire approximately three centuries earlier. Charlemagne's reign was marked by political and social changes that had lasting influence on Europe throughout the Middle Ages.

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Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II's forces breach the walls of Constantinople after a 53-day siege.

The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, tears off his royal insignia and charges into the fighting — his body is never definitively identified.

The Fall of Constantinople, also known as the Conquest of Constantinople, was the capture of Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, by the Ottoman Empire. The city was captured on 29 May 1453 as part of the culmination of a 53-day siege which had begun on 6 April.

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England's smaller fleet repels the 130-ship Spanish Armada sent to invade the country.

More Armada ships are destroyed by storms off Ireland and Scotland than by English cannon fire.

The Spanish Armada was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, and was the largest engagement of the undeclared Anglo-Spanish War. The Armada was commanded by Alonso de Guzmán, Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aristocrat appointed by Philip II of Spain. His orders were to sail up the English Channel, join with the army of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma in Flanders, and escort an invasion force that would land in England and overthrow Elizabeth I. Its purpose was to reinstate Catholicism in England, end English support for the Dutch Republic in the north and prevent attacks by English and Dutch privateers against Spanish interests in the Americas.

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William of Orange lands in England with an army and King James II flees without a battle.

James drops the Great Seal of England into the Thames on the way out — possibly hoping to make governing without him impossible.

The Glorious Revolution was the deposition of King James II in November 1688. He was replaced by his daughter Mary II and her Dutch husband, James's nephew William III of Orange. The two ruled as joint monarchs of England, Scotland, and Ireland until Mary's death in 1694, when William became ruler in his own right. Jacobitism, the political movement that aimed to restore the exiled James or his descendants of the House of Stuart to the throne, persisted into the late 18th century. Some historians consider it the last successful invasion of England.

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American colonists dump 342 chests of British East India Company tea into Boston Harbour.

The participants disguise themselves as Mohawk Indians — though poorly enough that many are recognised by their neighbours the next morning.

The Boston Tea Party was an act of protest on December 16, 1773 during the American Revolution. Initiated by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, the capital of Massachusetts, one of the Thirteen Colonies of British America, it escalated hostilities between Great Britain and the Patriots, who opposed British policy towards its American colonies. Less than two years later, on April 19, 1775, the Battles of Lexington and Concord, also in Massachusetts, launched the eight-year American Revolutionary War, which resulted in the independence of the colonies as the United States.

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The Duke of Wellington and Prussian forces defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium.

Napoleon delays the battle's start until mid-morning, reportedly to let the wet ground dry for his artillery — and the Prussians arrive in time.

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, being the last engagement with Napoleon I. The French Imperial Army under the command of Napoleon I was defeated by two armies of the Seventh Coalition. One was a British-led force with units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of field marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. The other comprised three corps of the Prussian army under Field Marshal Blücher. The battle was known contemporaneously as the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean in France and La Belle Alliance in Prussia.

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East Germany opens its border checkpoints and jubilant Berliners begin tearing down the Berlin Wall.

The announcement is made by accident — a flustered spokesman, Günter Schabowski, reads out a memo he hadn't been briefed on, live on TV.

The Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989 during the Peaceful Revolution, marking the beginning of the destruction of the figurative Iron Curtain, as East Berlin transit restrictions were overwhelmed and discarded. Sections of the wall were breached, and planned deconstruction began the following June. It was one of the series of events that started the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. The fall of the inner German border took place shortly afterward. An end to the Cold War was declared at the Malta Summit in early December, and German reunification took place in October the following year.

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