Human Saga

On May 30

No pivotal events are recorded on exactly May 30 in the Human Saga — here is the surrounding week in history.

This week in history (May 27 – Jun 2)

29 May 1453 CEThe Ottoman conquest of ConstantinopleMilitary & conflict

On 29 May 1453, after a siege of some seven weeks begun on 6 April, the army of the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople, extinguishing the Byzantine Empire that had endured for over a thousand years as the eastern continuation…

28 May 585 BCE (traditional)Thales of Miletus and the predicted eclipse: the dawn of natural philosophyCulture, arts & philosophy

According to Herodotus, a solar eclipse that halted a battle between the Medes and Lydians had been foretold by Thales of Miletus, the figure later remembered as the first of the Ionian or Presocratic philosophers.

1830–1839 (Indian Removal Act 28 May 1830; Cherokee Trail of Tears 1838–39)Indian Removal Act and the Trail of TearsSocial & demographic

Signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on 28 May 1830, the Indian Removal Act authorised the federal government to negotiate the exchange of Native American lands east of the Mississippi for territory in the west, opening the way for…

29 May 1919 (announced 6 November 1919)Eddington's eclipse expeditions confirm general relativityScience, technology & invention

During the total solar eclipse of 29 May 1919, British expeditions led by Arthur Eddington (on Principe, off West Africa) and a Greenwich party at Sobral, Brazil, photographed stars near the obscured Sun and measured the deflection of…

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