Historical Events on Tuesday, 3rd June

03/06/2025

Reconstitution of the Academy of the Distrustful in the Sala Dalmases of the Historical Archive of the City of Barcelona in Barcelona.

The Academy of the Distrustful, or Distrustful Academy, is an academy of letters founded on 3 June 1700 in Barcelona as a Baroque literary and musical academy with the aim of promoting the study of classical and Catalan history and poetry, mostly in Spanish, by fourteen scholars headed by the noble Pau Ignasi de Dalmases i Ros. It published the work Nenias reales on the death of Charles II of Spain, and two of its members made the first edition of the works of Francesc Vicent Garcia, which contains a prologue praising the role of the academy. The poet, soldier and statesman Joan Bonaventura de Gualbes i Copons, although he was not a member, was the author of the same.

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03/06/2019

Khartoum massacre: In Sudan, over 100 people are killed when security forces accompanied by Janjaweed militiamen storm and open fire on a sit-in protest.

The Khartoum massacre occurred on 3 June 2019, when the armed forces of the Sudanese Transitional Military Council, headed by the Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and his deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the immediate successor organisation to the Janjaweed militia, used heavy gunfire and tear gas to disperse a sit-in by protestors in Khartoum, killing over 100 people. It has been difficult to assess the actual number killed. At least forty bodies were thrown in the River Nile. Hundreds of unarmed civilians were injured, hundreds more were arrested, many families were terrorised in their home estates across Sudan, and the RSF raped more than 70 women and men. The Internet was almost completely blocked in Sudan in the days following the massacre, making it difficult to estimate the number of victims.

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03/06/2013

The trial of United States Army private Chelsea Manning for leaking classified material to WikiLeaks begins in Fort Meade, Maryland.

United States v. Manning was the court-martial of Chelsea Manning, a former United States Army Private First Class.

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At least 119 people are killed in a fire at a poultry farm in Jilin Province in northeastern China.

On 3 June 2013, a fire at the Jilin Baoyuanfeng (吉林宝源丰) poultry processing plant in Mishazi (米沙子镇), a town about 35 km (22 mi) from Changchun, in Jilin province, People's Republic of China, killed at least 120 people. More than 60 others were hospitalised with injuries.

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03/06/2012

A plane carrying 153 people crashes in a residential neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria, killing everyone on board plus six people on the ground.

Dana Air Flight 0992 was a scheduled Nigerian domestic passenger flight from Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport to Murtala Muhammed International Airport. On 3 June 2012, the McDonnell Douglas MD-83 aircraft crashed following a dual-engine failure, killing all 153 people on board and six on the ground. It remains the deadliest commercial airliner crash in Nigeria since the 1973 Kano air disaster.

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The pageant for the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II takes place on the River Thames.

The Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant was a parade on 3 June 2012 of 670 boats on the Tideway of the River Thames in London as part of the celebrations of the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II. The Queen, Prince Philip and other members of the Royal Family were aboard vessels that took part in the parade. The parade was organised by the Thames Diamond Jubilee Foundation, and funded by private donations and sponsorship. The pageant master was Adrian Evans.

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03/06/2006

The union of Serbia and Montenegro comes to an end with Montenegro's formal declaration of independence.

The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, known until 2003 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and commonly referred to as Yugoslavia, was a country in Southeast Europe located in the Balkans that existed from 1992 to 2006, following the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The state was established on 27 April 1992 as a federation comprising the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Montenegro. In February 2003, it was transformed from a federal republic to a political union until Montenegro seceded from the union in June 2006, leading to the full independence of both Serbia and Montenegro.

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03/06/1998

After suffering a mechanical failure, a high speed train derails at Eschede, Germany, killing 101 people.

On 3 June 1998, part of an ICE 1 train on the Hanover–Hamburg railway near Eschede in Lower Saxony, Germany, derailed and crashed into an overpass that crossed the railroad, which then collapsed onto the train. 101 people were killed and at least 88 were injured, making it the second-deadliest railway disaster in German history after the 1939 Genthin rail disaster, and the world's worst ever high-speed rail disaster.

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03/06/1992

Australian Aboriginal land rights are recognised in Mabo v Queensland (No 2), a case brought by Torres Strait Islander Eddie Mabo which led to the Native Title Act 1993 overturning the long-held colonial assumption of terra nullius.

Mabo v Queensland is a landmark decision of the High Court of Australia that recognised the existence of Native Title in Australia. It was brought by Eddie Mabo and others against the State of Queensland, and decided on 3 June 1992. The case was the first in Australia to recognise pre-colonial land interests of Indigenous Australians within the common law of Australia.

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03/06/1991

Mount Unzen erupts in Kyūshū, Japan, killing 43 people, all of them either researchers or journalists.

Mount Unzen is an active stratovolcano of several overlapping small, volcanic cones, near the city of Shimabara, Nagasaki on the island of Kyushu, Japan's southernmost main island.

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03/06/1989

The government of China sends troops to force protesters out of Tiananmen Square after seven weeks of occupation.

Tiananmen Square or Tian'anmen Square is a city square in the city centre of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen located to its north, which separates it from the Forbidden City imperial palace complex. The square holds the Monument to the People's Heroes, the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China, and the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall. They were inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2024 as a part of the Beijing Central Axis.

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03/06/1984

Operation Blue Star, a military offensive, is launched by the Indian government at Harmandir Sahib, also known as the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine for Sikhs, in Amritsar. The operation continues until June 6, with casualties, most of them civilians, in excess of 5,000.

Operation Blue Star was a military operation by the Indian Armed Forces conducted between 1 and 10 June 1984, with the stated objective of removing Damdami Taksal leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and militants from the buildings of the Golden Temple, the holiest site of Sikhism, in Amritsar. The Akali Dal political party and other Sikh factions had been based there during the course of the Dharam Yudh Morcha. The operation would mark the beginning of the Insurgency in Punjab, India.

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03/06/1982

The Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov, is shot on a London street; he survives but is left paralysed.

Shlomo Argov was an Israeli diplomat. He was the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom, whose attempted assassination led to the 1982 Lebanon War.

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03/06/1980

The 1980 Grand Island tornado outbreak hits Nebraska, United States, causing five deaths and $300 million (equivalent to $1172 million in 2025) worth of damage.

The 1980 Grand Island tornado outbreak, also known as The Night of the Twisters, was a tornado outbreak that produced a series of destructive tornadoes that affected the city of Grand Island, Nebraska, on June 3, 1980. Seven tornadoes occurred in or near the city that night, killing five people and injuring 200.

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03/06/1979

A blowout at the Ixtoc I oil well in the southern Gulf of Mexico causes at least 3,000,000 barrels (480,000 m3) of oil to be spilled into the waters, the second-worst accidental oil spill ever recorded.

Ixtoc 1 was an exploratory oil well being drilled by the semi-submersible drilling rig Sedco 135 in the Bay of Campeche of the Gulf of Mexico, about 100 km (62 mi) northwest of Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche in waters 50 m (164 ft) deep. On 3 June 1979, the well suffered a blowout resulting in the largest oil spill in history at its time. To-date, it remains the second largest marine oil spill in history after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

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03/06/1973

A Soviet supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 crashes near Goussainville, France, killing 14, the first crash of a supersonic passenger aircraft.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), also known as the Soviet Union, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, largest by area, and bordered twelve countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, it was the flagship communist state. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

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03/06/1969

Melbourne–Evans collision: off the coast of South Vietnam, the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne cuts the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in half; resulting in 74 deaths.

The Melbourne–Evans collision was a collision between the light aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans of the United States Navy (USN). On 3 June 1969, the two ships were participating in SEATO exercise Sea Spirit in the South China Sea. Around 3:00 am, when ordered to a new escort station, Evans sailed under Melbourne's bow, where she was cut in two. Seventy-four of Evans's crew were killed.

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03/06/1965

The launch of Gemini 4, the first multi-day space mission by a NASA crew. Ed White, a crew member, performs the first American spacewalk.

Gemini 4 was the second crewed spaceflight in NASA's Project Gemini, occurring in June 1965. It was the tenth crewed American spaceflight. Astronauts James McDivitt and Ed White orbited the Earth 66 times in four days, making it the first US flight to approach the five-day flight of the Soviet Vostok 5. The highlight of the mission was the first space walk by an American, during which White floated free outside the spacecraft, tethered to it, for approximately 23 minutes.

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03/06/1963

Soldiers of the South Vietnamese Army attack protesting Buddhists in Huế with liquid chemicals from tear-gas grenades, causing 67 people to be hospitalized for blistering of the skin and respiratory ailments.

The Huế chemical attacks occurred on 3 June 1963, when soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) poured liquid chemicals from tear gas grenades onto the heads of praying Buddhists in Huế, South Vietnam. The Buddhists were protesting against religious discrimination by the regime of the Roman Catholic President Ngô Đình Diệm. The attacks caused 67 people to be hospitalised for blistering of the skin and respiratory ailments.

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03/06/1962

At Paris Orly Airport, Air France Flight 007 overruns the runway and explodes when the crew attempts to abort takeoff, killing 130.

Paris Orly Airport is one of two international airports serving Paris, France, the other one being Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG). It is located partially in Orly and partially in Villeneuve-le-Roi, 13 kilometres south of Paris. The airport served as the secondary hub for Air France until March 2026, handling many flights to domestic and overseas French territories. Most of these services have transferred to Charles de Gaulle Airport, with domestic routes from Orly handed over to the airline's low-cost subsidiary, Transavia France. Public service obligation (PSO) routes from the airport to Corsica continue to be operated by Air France. Orly operates flights to destinations in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Caribbean, South America, and North America.

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03/06/1950

Herzog and Lachenal of the French Annapurna expedition become the first climbers to reach the summit of an 8,000-metre peak.

Maurice André Raymond Herzog was a French mountaineer and administrator who was born in Lyon, France. He led the 1950 French Annapurna expedition that first climbed a peak over 8000m, Annapurna, in 1950, and reached the summit with Louis Lachenal. Upon his return, he wrote a best-selling book about the expedition, Annapurna.

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03/06/1943

In Los Angeles, California, white U.S. Navy sailors and Marines attack Latino youths in the five-day Zoot Suit Riots.

Los Angeles is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With an estimated 3.88 million residents within the city limits as of 2024, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, behind New York City, and the largest city in the Western United States. The city has an ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of a metropolitan area of 12.9 million people (2024). Greater Los Angeles, a combined statistical area that includes the Los Angeles and Riverside–San Bernardino metropolitan areas, is a sprawling metropolis of over 18.5 million residents.

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03/06/1942

World War II: Japan begins the Aleutian Islands Campaign by bombing Unalaska Island.

The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the period of Japanese history spanning 79 years, starting from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on 3 May 1947. From August 1910 to September 1945, it included the Japanese archipelago, the Kurils, Karafuto, Korea, and Taiwan. The South Seas Mandate and concessions such as the Kwantung Leased Territory were de jure not internal parts of the empire but dependent territories. In the closing stages of World War II, with Japan defeated alongside the rest of the Axis powers, the formalized surrender was issued on 2 September 1945, in compliance with the Potsdam Declaration of the Allies, and the empire's territory subsequently shrunk to cover only the Japanese archipelago, excluding Okinawa until the handover in 1972.

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03/06/1941

World War II: The Wehrmacht razes the Greek village of Kandanos to the ground and murders 180 of its inhabitants.

The Wehrmacht were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer (army), the Kriegsmarine (navy) and the Luftwaffe. The designation "Wehrmacht" replaced the previously used term Reichswehr and was the manifestation of the Nazi regime's efforts to rearm Germany to a greater extent than the Treaty of Versailles permitted.

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03/06/1940

World War II: During the Battle of France, the Luftwaffe bombs Paris.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against peace.

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Franz Rademacher proposes plans to make Madagascar the "Jewish homeland", an idea that had first been considered by 19th century journalist Theodor Herzl.

Franz Rademacher was a German lawyer and diplomat. As an official in the Nazi government of the Third Reich during World War II, he was known for initiating action on the Madagascar Plan.

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03/06/1937

The Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson.

Edward VIII, later known as the Duke of Windsor, was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 20 January 1936 until his abdication in December of the same year.

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03/06/1935

One thousand unemployed Canadian workers board freight cars in Vancouver, beginning a protest trek to Ottawa.

The On-to-Ottawa Trek was a mass protest movement in Canada in 1935 sparked by unrest among unemployed single men in federal relief camps principally in Western Canada. The trek started in Vancouver and, picking up reinforcements along the way, was conducted by riding traincars eastward. The trek was stopped in Regina where on July 1, 1935, police dispersed it with loss of life and mass arrests.

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03/06/1916

The National Defense Act is signed into law, increasing the size of the United States National Guard by 450,000 men.

The National Defense Act of 1916, Pub. L. 64–85, 39 Stat. 166, enacted June 3, 1916, was a United States federal law that updated the Militia Act of 1903, which related to the organization of the military, particularly the National Guard. The principal change of the act was to supersede provisions as to exemptions. The 1916 act included an expansion of the Army and the National Guard, the creation of an Officers' and an Enlisted Reserve Corps, and the creation of a Reserve Officers' Training Corps. The president was also given expanded authority to federalize the National Guard, with changes to the duration and the circumstances under which he could call it up. The Army began the creation of an Aviation arm, and the federal government took steps to ensure the immediate availability of wartime weapons and equipment by contracting in advance for production of gunpowder and other material.

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03/06/1892

Liverpool F.C. is founded by John Houlding.

Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and has played its home games at Anfield since its formation. Liverpool is one of the most valuable and widely supported clubs in the world.

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03/06/1889

The first long-distance electric power transmission line in the United States is completed, running 14 miles (23 km) between a generator at Willamette Falls and downtown Portland, Oregon.

Electric power transmission is the bulk movement of electrical energy from a generating site, such as a power plant, to an electrical substation. A long conductor used to facilitate such movement is called a transmission line. The interconnected transmission lines form a transmission network. In the power industry, electric power transmission is distinct from the local wiring between high-voltage substations and customers, which is typically referred to as electric power distribution, even though power distribution is semantically a type of power transmission in common parlance. The combined transmission and distribution network is part of electricity delivery, known as the electrical grid.

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03/06/1885

In the last military engagement fought on Canadian soil, the Cree leader, Big Bear, escapes the North-West Mounted Police.

The Cree are a North American Indigenous people, numbering more than 350,000 in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations macro-communities. There are numerous Cree peoples and several nations closely related to the Cree, these being the Plains Cree, Woodland Cree, Rocky Cree, Swampy Cree, Moose Cree, and East Cree with the Atikamekw, Innu, and Naskapi being closely related. Also closely related to the Cree are the Oji-Cree and Métis, both nations of mixed heritage, the former with Ojibweg (Chippewa) and the latter with European fur traders. Cree homelands account for a majority of eastern and central Canada, from Eeyou Istchee in the east in what is now Quebec to northern Ontario, much of the Canadian Prairies, and up into British Columbia and the Northwest Territories. Although a majority of Cree live in Canada, there are small communities in the United States, living mostly in Montana where they share Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation with the Ojibwe people.

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03/06/1864

American Civil War: Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant sustain heavy casualties attacking Confederate troops under Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Cold Harbor in Hanover County, Virginia.

Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th president of the United States, serving from 1869 to 1877. He previously led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War in 1865 as commanding general.

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03/06/1863

American Civil War: Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia begin marching to invade the North for a second time, starting the Gettysburg campaign.

Robert Edward Lee was a Confederate general whose early actions in the American Civil War led to his appointment as the overall commander of the Confederate States Army near the end of the war. He led the Army of Northern Virginia, the Confederacy's most powerful army, from 1862 until its surrender in 1865, earning a reputation as one of the war's most skilled tacticians.

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03/06/1861

American Civil War: Battle of Philippi (also called the Philippi Races): Union forces rout Confederate troops in Barbour County, Virginia, now West Virginia.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war lasted a little over four years, ending with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

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03/06/1844

The last pair of great auks is killed.

The great auk, also known as the garefowl or penguin, is an extinct species of flightless alcid that first appeared around 400,000 years ago and became extinct in the mid-19th century. It was the only modern species in the genus Pinguinus. It was not closely related to the penguins of the Southern Hemisphere, which were named for their resemblance to this species.

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03/06/1839

In Humen, China, Lin Zexu destroys 1.2 million kilograms of opium confiscated from British merchants, providing Britain with a casus belli to open hostilities, resulting in the First Opium War.

Humen Town (simplified Chinese: 虎门镇; traditional Chinese: 虎門鎮; pinyin: Hǔmén zhèn; Jyutping: Fu2mun4 zan3), formerly Fumun, is a town in Dongguan city on the eastern side of the Humen strait on the Pearl River Delta, in Guangdong province, China. The former town of Taiping was incorporated into Humen Town in 1985. The population was 838,000 in 2023, making it the second most populous town (zhèn) in China (after Chang'an in Dongguan as well).

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03/06/1781

Jack Jouett begins his midnight ride to warn Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia legislature of an impending British raid.

Jack Jouett Jr. was an American farmer and politician in Virginia and Kentucky best known for his 40-mile (60 km) ride during the American Revolution in 1781. Sometimes called the "Paul Revere of the South", Jouett rode to warn Thomas Jefferson, then the outgoing governor of Virginia that British cavalry had been sent to capture them.

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03/06/1700

Foundation of the Academy of the Distrustful in the library room of the Palau Dalmases in Barcelona.

The Academy of the Distrustful, or Distrustful Academy, is an academy of letters founded on 3 June 1700 in Barcelona as a Baroque literary and musical academy with the aim of promoting the study of classical and Catalan history and poetry, mostly in Spanish, by fourteen scholars headed by the noble Pau Ignasi de Dalmases i Ros. It published the work Nenias reales on the death of Charles II of Spain, and two of its members made the first edition of the works of Francesc Vicent Garcia, which contains a prologue praising the role of the academy. The poet, soldier and statesman Joan Bonaventura de Gualbes i Copons, although he was not a member, was the author of the same.

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03/06/1665

James Stuart, Duke of York (later to become King James II of England), defeats the Dutch fleet off the coast of Lowestoft.

James II and VII was King of England and Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII from February 1685 until he was deposed in the 1688 Glorious Revolution. The last Catholic monarch of England, Scotland, and Ireland, his reign was marked by conflicts over religion, absolutism and the divine right of kings; his deposition ended a century of political and civil strife by confirming the primacy of the English Parliament over the Crown.

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03/06/1658

Pope Alexander VII appoints François de Laval vicar apostolic in New France.

Pope Alexander VII, born Fabio Chigi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 7 April 1655 to his death, in May 1667.

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03/06/1621

The Dutch West India Company receives a charter for New Netherland.

The Chartered West India Company, commonly known as the Dutch West India Company, was a Dutch chartered company that was founded in 1621 and went defunct in 1792. Among its founders were Reynier Pauw, Willem Usselincx, and Jessé de Forest. On 3 June 1621, it was granted a charter for a trade monopoly in the Dutch West Indies by the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and given jurisdiction over Dutch participation in the Atlantic slave trade, Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America.

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03/06/1608

Samuel de Champlain lands at Tadoussac, Quebec, in the course of his third voyage to New France, and begins erecting fortifications.

Samuel de Champlain was a French explorer, navigator, cartographer, soldier, geographer, diplomat, and chronicler who founded Quebec City and established New France as a permanent French colony in North America.

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03/06/1602

An English naval force defeats a fleet of Spanish galleys, and captures a large Portuguese carrack at the Battle of Sesimbra Bay.

A galley is a type of ship optimised for propulsion by oars. Galleys were historically used for warfare, trade, and piracy mostly in the seas surrounding Europe. It developed in the Mediterranean world during antiquity and continued to exist in various forms until the early 19th century. It typically had a long, slender hull, shallow draft, and often a low freeboard. Most types of galleys also had sails that could be used in favourable winds, but they relied primarily on oars to move independently of winds and currents or in battle. The term "galley" originated from a Greek term for a small type of galley and came in use in English from about 1300. It has occasionally been used for unrelated vessels with similar military functions as galley but which were not Mediterranean in origin, such as medieval Scandinavian longships, 16th-century Acehnese ghalis and 18th-century North American gunboats.

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03/06/1539

Hernando de Soto claims Florida for Spain.

Hernando de Soto was a Spanish explorer and conquistador, who was involved in expeditions in Nicaragua and the Yucatan Peninsula. He played an important role in Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire in Peru, but is best known for leading the first European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States. He is the first European documented as having crossed the Mississippi River.

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03/06/1326

The Treaty of Novgorod delineates borders between Russia and Norway in Finnmark.

The Treaty of Novgorod was signed on 3 June 1326 in Novgorod and marked the end of decades of the Norwegian-Novgorodian border skirmishes in the far-northern region of Finnmark. The terms were an armistice for 10 years. A few years earlier in 1323, the Republic of Novgorod had settled its conflict with Sweden in the Treaty of Nöteborg.

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03/06/1140

The French scholar Peter Abelard is found guilty of heresy.

Peter Abelard was a medieval French scholastic, philosopher, leading logician, theologian, teacher, musician, composer, and poet.

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03/06/1098

After a five-month siege during the First Crusade, the Crusaders seize Antioch.

The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, which were initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the Middle Ages. Their aim was to return the Holy Land—which had been conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate in the 7th century—to Christian rule. By the 11th century, although Jerusalem had then been ruled by Muslims for hundreds of years, the practices of the Seljuk rulers in the region began to threaten local Christian populations, pilgrimages from the West and the Byzantine Empire itself. The earliest impetus for the First Crusade came in 1095 when Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos sent ambassadors to the Council of Piacenza to request military support in the empire's conflict with the Seljuk-led Turks. This was followed later in the year by the Council of Clermont, at which Pope Urban II gave a speech supporting the Byzantine request and urging faithful Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

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03/06/0713

The Byzantine emperor Philippicus is blinded, deposed and sent into exile by conspirators of the Opsikion army in Thrace. He is succeeded by Anastasios II, who begins the reorganization of the Byzantine army.

The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, it endured until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. The term 'Byzantine Empire' was coined only after its demise; its citizens used the term 'Roman Empire' and called themselves 'Romans'.

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03/06/0350

The Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, proclaims himself Roman emperor, entering Rome at the head of a group of gladiators.

The following is a list of usurpers in the Roman Empire —individuals who unsuccessfully claimed and/or attempted to usurp the throne of a ruling emperor (augustus). The ancient term was "tyrant", which had negative connotation in and of itself. Usurpation was common during the whole imperial era; virtually all imperial dynasties rose to power through usurpation and conspiracies. The "imperial office" established by Augustus never defined an stable system of succession, and emperors often had to rely solely on military power to survive.

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