Author: Marisa Ollero
Minervina and Fausta. March 31,307.
Minervina was the first wife of Constantine the Great. Constantine either took her as a concubine or married her in 303 AD, and the couple had one son, Crispus, also known as Flavius Claudius Crispus and Flavius Valerius Crispus, who later would be a Caesar of the Roman Empire. Constantine served as a hostage in the court of Eastern Roman Emperor Diocletian in Nicomedia, thus securing the loyalty ...
Richard Lionheart fatally injured. March 26,1199 .
Richard I was King of England from 1189 until his death. He was the second king of the House of Plantagenet. He was the third of five sons of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine and seemed unlikely to become king, but all of his brothers, including Henry “the Young King”, except the youngest, John, predeceased their father. Richard is known as Richard Cœur de Lion (Norman Fre...
Triumph in North Africa. March 10, 298.
Maximian was Roman Emperor from 286 to 305. He was Caesar from 285 to 286, then Augustus from 286 to 305. He shared the latter title with his co-emperor and superior, Diocletian, whose political brain complemented Maximian’s military brawn. The man he appointed to police the Channel shores, Carausius, rebelled in 286, causing the secession of Britain and northwestern Gaul. Maximian fa...
The Battle of Pavia. February 24, 1525.
The Battle of Pavia, fought on the morning of 24 February 1525, was the decisive engagement of the Italian War of 1521–26 between the Kingdom of France and the Habsburg Empire of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor as well as ruler of Spain, Austria, the Low Countries, and the Two Sicilies. The French army was led by King Francis I of France, who laid siege to the city of Pavia (then part of the Duchy o...
Risorgimento. February 18, 1861.
Italian unification, also known as the Risorgimento, was the political and social movement that consolidated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of the Kingdom of Italy in the 19th century. The process began with the revolutions of 1848, inspired by previous rebellions in the 1820s and 1830s that contested the outcome of the Congress of Vienna, and was completed when Ro...
Valentine´s Day. February 14.
Numerous early Christian martyrs were named Valentine. The Valentines honored on February 14 are Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni. Valentine of Rome was a priest in Rome who was martyred in 269 and was added to the calendar of saints by Pope Gelasius I in 496 and was buried on the Via Flaminia. The relics of Saint Valentine were kept in the Church and Catacombs of San Valentino in Rome, wh...
The death of Severus. February 4, 211.
In 208 Septimius Severus travelled to Britain with the intention of conquering Caledonia. He probably arrived in Britain with an army over 40,000, considering some of the camps constructed during his campaign could house this number. He strengthened Hadrian’s Wall and reconquered the Southern Uplands up to the Antonine Wall, which was also enhanced. Severus then thrust north with his army ac...
Heraclius and Constantine. January 22, 613.
In 608, Heraclius the Elder renounced his loyalty to the Emperor Phocas, who had overthrown Maurice six years earlier. The rebels issued coins showing both Heraclii dressed as consuls, though neither of them explicitly claimed the imperial title at this time. Heraclius’s younger cousin Nicetas launched an overland invasion of Egypt; by 609, he had defeated Phocas’s general Bonosus and ...
Julia. January 17, 38 BC.
According to Suetonius, Scribonia was married three times; her first two husbands were consuls. In 40 BC Scribonia was forced to divorce her second husband and marry Octavian who in turn had divorced his wife Clodia Pulchra. Octavian’s motive in marrying Scribonia was to cement a political alliance with Sextus Pompey, husband to Scribonia’s niece (or sister). The marriage was br...
The Capitulation of Granada. January 6, 1492.
With the fall of Baza and the capture of al-Zagal in 1490, it seemed as if the war was over; Ferdinand and Isabella believed this was the case. However, Boabdil was unhappy with the rewards for his alliance with Ferdinand and Isabella, possibly because lands that had been promised to him were being administered by Castile. He broke off his vassalage and rebelled against the Catholic Monarchs, desp...
Sacrifice to the gods. January 3, 250 AD.
Decius became Roman emperor in 249 as a result of military victories. He made efforts to revive Rome’s “Golden Age“, adding the name of one of his most admired predecessors, Trajan, to his own, revived the ancient office of censor and restored the Colosseum. Restoration of traditional Roman piety was another of his aims, and after performing the annual sacrifice to Jupiter on Jan...
Vespasian, pecunia non-olet. December 21, 69 AD.
Throughout the early months of 69, Vespasian convened frequently with the Eastern generals. Gaius Licinius Mucianus was a notable ally. Governor of Syria and commander of three legions, Mucianus also held political connections to many of the most powerful Roman military commanders from Illyricum to Britannia by virtue of his service to the famous Neronian general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo. In May 69...