April 29

Joan of Arc arrives to relieve the besieged city of Orléans, a turning point in the Hundred Years' War.

French peasant girl Joan of Arc, claiming divine guidance, arrived with a relief force to break the prolonged English siege of Orléans during the Hundred Years' War, a decisive turning point that revitalized French military morale and began a string of victories that helped secure the eventual coronation of Charles VII.

French forces begin a siege of Quebec, aiming to retake the city from British control.

Following Britain's capture of Quebec the previous year, French troops under the Chevalier de Lévis won an initial battlefield victory and besieged the British garrison inside the city's walls. The siege was lifted weeks later when British reinforcements arrived by sea before French relief ships could reach the city, securing Britain's hold on Quebec and, ultimately, Canada.

Captain James Cook and his crew arrive at Botany Bay on the eastern coast of Australia.

Captain James Cook and the crew of HMS Endeavour made their first landing on the eastern coast of Australia at Botany Bay, encountering and cataloging the region's distinctive flora and fauna alongside initial, often fraught, contact with the local Aboriginal Gweagal people, laying groundwork for Britain's later colonization of the continent.

British explorer Captain James Cook arrives at Botany Bay on the eastern coast of Australia.

Commanding HM Bark Endeavour, Cook charted the previously unmapped eastern coastline and made first recorded contact between local Aboriginal people and British explorers at the site. His landing and subsequent claim of the coastline for Britain later paved the way for the establishment of the first British penal colony at nearby Sydney Cove in 1788.

British and French fleets clash in the Battle of Fort Royal off the coast of Martinique.

Fought during the American Revolutionary War, the naval engagement pitted a British fleet under Samuel Hood against a larger French force under the Comte de Grasse escorting a valuable convoy to the French Caribbean colony. Though largely inconclusive, it was part of a wider contest for naval supremacy in the West Indies that shaped the course of the war.

Union naval forces under David Farragut capture New Orleans, a major Confederate port city.

Union naval forces under Admiral David Farragut successfully forced their way past Confederate coastal defenses and captured New Orleans, the Confederacy's largest city and a vital port, dealing a significant strategic and economic blow to the Southern war effort early in the American Civil War.

The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the 'People's Budget,' introducing new taxes on the wealthy to fund social welfare programs.

Championed by Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George, the budget proposed unprecedented land and income taxes to pay for old-age pensions and naval expansion, provoking fierce resistance from the Conservative-dominated House of Lords. The Lords' initial rejection triggered a constitutional crisis that ultimately led to the Parliament Act of 1911, curbing the upper chamber's power over money bills.

The Easter Rising in Dublin ends after six days as Irish rebel leaders surrender to British forces.

After six days of intense urban fighting against British forces, the leaders of the Easter Rising in Dublin, recognizing the hopelessness of their military position and wishing to spare further civilian casualties, formally surrendered, ending the armed uprising, though the subsequent execution of its leaders significantly boosted support for Irish independence.

The British 6th (Poona) Indian Division surrenders to Ottoman forces at the end of the Siege of Kut.

After a nearly five-month siege in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), roughly 13,000 starving British and Indian troops under General Charles Townshend surrendered, one of the most humiliating defeats suffered by British arms during the First World War. Many of the prisoners subsequently died in brutal captivity, and the disaster prompted a major reorganization of British military leadership in the Middle East.

Irish rebel leaders surrender to British forces in Dublin, ending the six-day Easter Rising.

Facing overwhelming British reinforcements and the destruction of much of central Dublin by artillery fire, rebel commander Patrick Pearse ordered an unconditional surrender to prevent further civilian casualties. The subsequent British execution of the rising's leaders transformed public opinion in Ireland and accelerated the movement toward Irish independence.

U.S. troops liberate the Dachau concentration camp in Germany.

United States Army troops liberated the Dachau concentration camp near Munich, discovering thousands of surviving prisoners in horrific conditions alongside overwhelming evidence of the systematic brutality inflicted at one of the Nazi regime's earliest and longest-operating camps, established originally to hold political prisoners in 1933.

Adolf Hitler marries Eva Braun in his Berlin bunker and names Karl Dönitz as his successor, the day before their joint suicide.

With Soviet forces closing in on his besieged Berlin bunker, Adolf Hitler married his longtime companion Eva Braun in a brief ceremony and dictated his final political testament, naming Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor, hours before the couple's joint suicide the following day.

German forces in Italy sign the Surrender of Caserta, agreeing to end hostilities against Allied troops.

Negotiated in secret and signed at Allied Forces Headquarters in Caserta, Italy, under British Field Marshal Harold Alexander's command, the agreement ended nearly two years of brutal fighting in the Italian campaign. It took effect on 2 May, several days before Germany's overall surrender, making it one of the first formal capitulations of German forces in Europe.

British aircraft begin dropping food supplies over German-occupied areas of the Netherlands in Operation Manna.

With much of the Dutch population facing starvation during the 'Hunger Winter,' RAF Bomber Command negotiated an informal truce with German occupiers to fly low-level airdrops of food into besieged areas, soon joined by the United States Army Air Forces. The operation delivered thousands of tons of supplies in the war's final days and remains fondly remembered in the Netherlands as an act of mercy.

The United States launches Operation Frequent Wind, evacuating remaining American personnel and at-risk Vietnamese civilians from Saigon as the city falls.

As North Vietnamese forces closed in on Saigon, the United States launched Operation Frequent Wind, a massive helicopter evacuation of American personnel and thousands of at-risk South Vietnamese civilians from the U.S. embassy and other sites, marking the chaotic final chapter of American involvement in the Vietnam War.

A powerful cyclone strikes Bangladesh with winds of roughly 155 miles per hour, killing well over one hundred thousand people.

An extremely powerful tropical cyclone made landfall in Bangladesh with sustained winds of roughly 155 miles per hour, generating a massive storm surge that killed well over one hundred thousand people, mostly in low-lying coastal areas, in one of the deadliest natural disasters of the 20th century.

Riots erupt in Los Angeles after a jury acquits police officers filmed beating motorist Rodney King.

Riots and widespread civil unrest erupted across Los Angeles after a jury acquitted four police officers who had been videotaped repeatedly striking motorist Rodney King, resulting in days of violence, arson, and looting that killed over 60 people and caused roughly a billion dollars in property damage.

Riots erupt in Los Angeles following the acquittal of police officers charged in the beating of Rodney King.

The verdict, which cleared four white officers despite a widely broadcast video of King's beating during a 1991 arrest, ignited days of rioting, looting, and arson across the city that killed more than 60 people and caused roughly a billion dollars in damage. The unrest prompted a national reckoning over policing, race, and inequality in American cities.

Prince William and Catherine Middleton marry at Westminster Abbey in London before a global television audience.

Prince William, second in line to the British throne, married Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in a lavish ceremony watched by a global television audience estimated in the hundreds of millions, a moment of significant celebration and renewed public interest in the British royal family.

Prince William marries Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London.

The wedding of the second in line to the British throne was watched by an estimated global television audience in the hundreds of millions and drew huge crowds to central London. The couple, now the Prince and Princess of Wales, became one of the most prominent public faces of the modern British monarchy.