Around ~1.8-million-year-old stone artifacts from Ain Hanech (Algeria) were considered to represent the oldest archaeological materials in North Africa. Stone artifacts and cut-marked bones that were excavated from two nearby deposits at Ain Boucherit are estimated to be ~1.9 million years old, and even older stone artifacts to be as old as ~2.4 million years. Hence, the Ain Boucherit evidence shows that ancestral hominins inhabited the Mediterranean fringe in northern Africa much earlier than previously thought. The evidence strongly argues for early dispersal of stone tool manufacture and use from East Africa, or a possible multiple-origin scenario of stone technology in both East and North Africa.
Neanderthal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles (43,000 BC) similar to those in the Levant. Algeria was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic Flake tool techniques. Tools of this era, starting about 30,000 BC, are called Aterian (after the archaeological site of Bir el Ater, south of Tebessa).
The earliest blade industries in North Africa are called Iberomaurusian (located mainly in the Oran region). This industry appears to have spread throughout the coastal regions of the Maghreb between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. Neolithic civilization (animal domestication and agriculture) developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean Maghreb perhaps as early as 11,000 BC or as late as between 6000 and 2000 BC. This life, richly depicted in the Tassili n'Ajjer paintings, predominated in Algeria until the classical period. The mixture of peoples of North Africa coalesced eventually into a distinct native population that came to be called Berbers, who are the indigenous peoples of northern Africa.
From their principal center of power at Carthage, the Carthaginians expanded and established small settlements along the North African coast; by 600 BC, a Phoenician presence existed at Tipasa, east of Cherchell, Hippo Regius (modern Annaba) and Rusicade (modern Skikda). These settlements served as market towns as well as anchorages.
As Carthaginian power grew, its impact on the indigenous population increased dramatically. Berber civilisation was already at a stage in which agriculture, manufacturing, trade, and political organisation supported several states. Trade links between Carthage and the Berbers in the interior grew, but territorial expansion also resulted in the enslavement or military recruitment of some Berbers and in the extraction of tribute from others.
By the early 4th century BC, Berbers formed the single largest element of the Carthaginian army. In the Revolt of the Mercenaries, Berber soldiers rebelled from 241 to 238 BC after being unpaid following the defeat of Carthage in the First Punic War. They succeeded in obtaining control of much of Carthage's North African territory, and they minted coins bearing the name Libyan, used in Greek to describe natives of North Africa. The Carthaginian state declined because of successive defeats by the Romans in the Punic Wars.
In 146 BC the city of Carthage was destroyed. As Carthaginian power waned, the influence of Berber leaders in the hinterland grew. By the 2nd century BC, several large but loosely administered Berber kingdoms had emerged. Two of them were established in Numidia, behind the coastal areas controlled by Carthage. West of Numidia lay Mauretania, which extended across the Moulouya River in modern-day Morocco to the Atlantic Ocean. The high point of Berber civilisation, unequalled until the coming of the Almohads and Almoravids more than a millennium later, was reached during the reign of Masinissa in the 2nd century BC.
After Masinissa's death in 148 BC, the Berber kingdoms were divided and reunited several times. Masinissa's line survived until 24 AD, when the remaining Berber territory was annexed to the Roman Empire.
For several centuries Algeria was ruled by the Romans, who founded many colonies in the region. Like the rest of North Africa, Algeria was one of the breadbaskets of the empire, exporting cereals and other agricultural products. Saint Augustine was the bishop of Hippo Regius (modern-day Annaba, Algeria), located in the Roman province of Africa. The Germanic Vandals of Geiseric moved into North Africa in 429, and by 435 controlled coastal Numidia. They did not make any significant settlement on the land, as they were harassed by local tribes. In fact, by the time the Byzantines arrived Leptis Magna was abandoned and the Msellata region was occupied by the indigenous Laguatan who had been busy facilitating an Amazigh political, military and cultural revival. Furthermore, during the rule of the Romans, Byzantines, Vandals, Carthaginians, and Ottomans the Berber people were the only or one of the few in North Africa who remained independent. The Berber people were so resistant that even during the Muslim conquest of North Africa they still had control and possession over their mountains.
The collapse of the Western Roman Empire led to the establishment of a native Kingdom based in Altava (modern day Algeria) known as the Mauro-Roman Kingdom. It was succeeded by another Kingdom based in Altava, the Kingdom of Altava. During the reign of Kusaila its territory extended from the region of modern-day Fez in the west to the western Aurès and later Kairaouan and the interior of Ifriqiya in the east.


Under the pretext of a slight to their consul, the French invaded and captured Algiers in 1830. Historian Ben Kiernan wrote on the French conquest of Algeria: "By 1875, the French conquest was complete. The war had killed approximately 825,000 indigenous Algerians since 1830." French losses from 1831 to 1851 were 92,329 dead in the hospital and only 3,336 killed in action. The population of Algeria, which stood at about 2.9 million in 1872, reached nearly 11 million in 1960. French policy was predicated on "civilising" the country. The slave trade and piracy in Algeria ceased following the French conquest. The conquest of Algeria by the French took some time and resulted in considerable bloodshed. A combination of violence and disease epidemics caused the indigenous Algerian population to decline by nearly one-third from 1830 to 1872. On 17 September 1860, Napoleon III declared "Our first duty is to take care of the happiness of the three million Arabs, whom the fate of arms has brought under our domination." During this time, only Kabylia resisted, the Kabylians were not colonized until after the Mokrani Revolt in 1871.
From 1848 until independence, France administered the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria as an integral part and département of the nation. One of France's longest-held overseas territories, Algeria became a destination for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants, who became known as colons and later, as Pied-Noirs. Between 1825 and 1847, 50,000 French people emigrated to Algeria. These settlers benefited from the French government's confiscation of communal land from tribal peoples, and the application of modern agricultural techniques that increased the amount of arable land. Many Europeans settled in Oran and Algiers, and by the early 20th century they formed a majority of the population in both cities.
During the late 19th and early 20th century, the European share was almost a fifth of the population. The French government aimed at making Algeria an assimilated part of France, and this included substantial educational investments especially after 1900. The indigenous cultural and religious resistance heavily opposed this tendency, but in contrast to the other colonised countries' path in central Asia and Caucasus, Algeria kept its individual skills and a relatively human-capital intensive agriculture.
During the Second World War, Algeria came under Vichy control before being liberated by the Allies in Operation Torch, which saw the first large-scale deployment of American troops in the North African campaign.
Gradually, dissatisfaction among the Muslim population, which lacked political and economic status under the colonial system, gave rise to demands for greater political autonomy and eventually independence from France. In May 1945, the uprising against the occupying French forces was suppressed through what is now known as the Sétif and Guelma massacre. Tensions between the two population groups came to a head in 1954, when the first violent events of what was later called the Algerian War began after the publication of the Declaration of 1 November 1954. Historians have estimated that between 30,000 and 150,000 Harkis and their dependants were killed by the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) or by lynch mobs in Algeria. The FLN used hit and run attacks in Algeria and France as part of its war, and the French conducted severe reprisals.
The war led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Algerians and hundreds of thousands of injuries. Historians, like Alistair Horne and Raymond Aron, state that the actual number of Algerian Muslim war dead was far greater than the original FLN and official French estimates but was less than the 1 million deaths claimed by the Algerian government after independence. Horne estimated Algerian casualties during the span of eight years to be around 700,000. The war uprooted more than 2 million Algerians.
The war against French rule concluded in 1962, when Algeria gained complete independence following the March 1962 Evian agreements and the July 1962 self-determination referendum.


Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in North Africa. Algeria is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia; to the east by Libya; to the southeast by Niger; to the southwest by Mali, Mauritania, and Western Sahara; to the west by Morocco; and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. It is considered to be a part of the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has a semi-arid geography, with most of the population living in the fertile north and the Sahara dominating the geography of the south. Algeria covers an area of 2,381,741 square kilometres (919,595 sq mi), making it the world's tenth largest nation by area, and the largest nation in Africa. With a population of 44 million, Algeria is the ninth-most populous country in Africa, and the 32nd-most populous country in the world. The capital and largest city is Algiers, located in the far north on the Mediterranean coast.
Algeria produced and is linked to many civilizations, empires and dynasties, including ancient Numidians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Umayyads, Abbasids, Rustamids, Idrisids, Aghlabids, Fatimids, Zirids, Hammadids, Almoravids, Almohads, Zayyanids, Spaniards, Ottomans and the French colonial empire. The vast majority of Algeria's population is Arab-Berber, practicing Islam, and using the official languages of Arabic and Berber. However, French serves as an administrative and educational language in some contexts. The main spoken language is Algerian Arabic.
Algeria is a semi-presidential republic, with local constituencies consisting of 58 provinces and 1,541 communes. Algeria is a regional power in North Africa, and a middle power in global affairs. It has the highest Human Development Index of all non-island African countries and one of the largest economies on the continent, based largely on energy exports. Algeria has the world's sixteenth-largest oil reserves and the ninth-largest reserves of natural gas. Sonatrach, the national oil company, is the largest company in Africa, supplying large amounts of natural gas to Europe. Algeria's military is one of the largest in Africa, and has the largest defence budget on the continent. It is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, the OIC, OPEC, the United Nations, and the Arab Maghreb Union, of which it is a founding member.


In 1516, the Ottoman privateer brothers Aruj and Hayreddin Barbarossa, who operated successfully under the Hafsids, moved their base of operations to Algiers. They succeeded in conquering Jijel and Algiers from the Spaniards with help from the locals who saw them as liberators from the Christians, but the brothers eventually assassinated the local noble Salim al-Tumi and took control over the city and the surrounding regions. When Aruj was killed in 1518 during his invasion of Tlemcen, Hayreddin succeeded him as military commander of Algiers. The Ottoman sultan gave him the title of beylerbey and a contingent of some 2,000 janissaries. With the aid of this force and native Algerians, Hayreddin conquered the whole area between Constantine and Oran (although the city of Oran remained in Spanish hands until 1792).
The next beylerbey was Hayreddin's son Hasan, who assumed the position in 1544. He was a Kouloughli or of mixed origins, as his mother was an Algerian Mooresse. Until 1587 Beylerbeylik of Algiers was governed by Beylerbeys who served terms with no fixed limits. Subsequently, with the institution of a regular administration, governors with the title of pasha ruled for three-year terms. The pasha was assisted by an autonomous janissary unit, known in Algeria as the Ojaq who were led by an agha. Discontent among the ojaq rose in the mid-1600s because they were not paid regularly, and they repeatedly revolted against the pasha. As a result, the agha charged the pasha with corruption and incompetence and seized power in 1659.
Plague had repeatedly struck the cities of North Africa. Algiers lost between 30,000 and 50,000 inhabitants to the plague in 1620–21, and had high fatalities in 1654–57, 1665, 1691 and 1740–42.
The Barbary pirates preyed on Christian and other non-Islamic shipping in the western Mediterranean Sea. The pirates often took the passengers and crew on the ships and sold them or used them as slaves. They also did a brisk business in ransoming some of the captives. According to Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th century, pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans as slaves. They often made raids on European coastal towns to capture Christian slaves to sell at slave markets in North Africa and other parts of the Ottoman Empire. In 1544, for example, Hayreddin Barbarossa captured the island of Ischia, taking 4,000 prisoners, and enslaved some 9,000 inhabitants of Lipari, almost the entire population. In 1551, the Ottoman governor of Algiers, Turgut Reis, enslaved the entire population of the Maltese island of Gozo. Barbary pirates often attacked the Balearic Islands. The threat was so severe that residents abandoned the island of Formentera. The introduction of broad-sail ships from the beginning of the 17th century allowed them to branch out into the Atlantic.
In July 1627 two pirate ships from Algiers under the command of Dutch pirate Jan Janszoon sailed as far as Iceland, raiding and capturing slaves. Two weeks earlier another pirate ship from Salé in Morocco had also raided in Iceland. Some of the slaves brought to Algiers were later ransomed back to Iceland, but some chose to stay in Algeria. In 1629, pirate ships from Algeria raided the Faroe Islands.
In 1671, the taifa of raises, or the company of corsair captains rebelled, killed the agha, and placed one of its own in power. The new leader received the title of Dey. After 1689, the right to select the dey passed to the divan, a council of some sixty nobles. It was at first dominated by the ojaq; but by the 18th century, it had become the dey's instrument. In 1710, the dey persuaded the sultan to recognise him and his successors as regent, replacing the pasha in that role. Although Algiers remained nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, in reality they acted independently from the rest of the Empire, and often had wars with other Ottoman subjects and territories such as the Beylik of Tunis.
The dey was in effect a constitutional autocrat. The dey was elected for a life term, but in the 159 years (1671–1830) that the system was in place, fourteen of the twenty-nine deys were assassinated. Despite usurpation, military coups and occasional mob rule, the day-to-day operation of the Deylikal government was remarkably orderly. Although the regency patronised the tribal chieftains, it never had the unanimous allegiance of the countryside, where heavy taxation frequently provoked unrest. Autonomous tribal states were tolerated, and the regency's authority was seldom applied in the Kabylia, although in 1730 the Regency was able to take control over the Kingdom of Kuku in western Kabylia. Many cities in the northern parts of the Algerian desert paid taxes to Algiers or one of its Beys, although they otherwise retained complete autonomy from central control, while the deeper parts of the Sahara were completely independent from Algiers.
Barbary raids in the Mediterranean continued to attack Spanish merchant shipping, and as a result, the Spanish Navy bombarded Algiers in 1783 and 1784. For the attack in 1784, the Spanish fleet was to be joined by ships from such traditional enemies of Algiers as Naples, Portugal and the Knights of Malta. Over 20,000 cannonballs were fired, much of the city and its fortifications were destroyed and most of the Algerian fleet was sunk.
In 1792, Algiers took back Oran and Mers el Kébir, the two last Spanish strongholds in Algeria. In the same year, they conquered the Moroccan Rif and Oujda, which they then abandoned in 1795.
In the 19th century, Algerian pirates forged affiliations with Caribbean powers, paying a "licence tax" in exchange for safe harbour of their vessels.
Attacks by Algerian pirates on American merchantmen resulted in the First and Second Barbary Wars, which ended the attacks on U.S. ships. A year later, a combined Anglo-Dutch fleet, under the command of Lord Exmouth bombarded Algiers to stop similar attacks on European fishermen. These efforts proved successful, although Algerian piracy would continue until the French conquest in 1830.


India is a megadiverse country, a term employed for 17 countries which display high biological diversity and contain many species exclusively indigenous, or endemic, to them. India is a habitat for 8.6% of all mammal species, 13.7% of bird species, 7.9% of reptile species, 6% of amphibian species, 12.2% of fish species, and 6.0% of all flowering plant species. Fully a third of Indian plant species are endemic. India also contains four of the world's 34 biodiversity hotspots, or regions that display significant habitat loss in the presence of high endemism.
According to official statistics, India's forest cover is 713,789 km² (275,595 sq mi), which is 21.71% of the country's total land area. It can be subdivided further into broad categories of canopy density, or the proportion of the area of a forest covered by its tree canopy. Very dense forest, whose canopy density is greater than 70%, occupies 3.02% of India's land area. It predominates in the tropical moist forest of the Andaman Islands, the Western Ghats, and Northeast India. Moderately dense forest, whose canopy density is between 40% and 70%, occupies 9.39% of India's land area. It predominates in the temperate coniferous forest of the Himalayas, the moist deciduous sal forest of eastern India, and the dry deciduous teak forest of central and southern India. Open forest, whose canopy density is between 10% and 40%, occupies 9.26% of India's land area. India has two natural zones of thorn forest, one in the Deccan Plateau, immediately east of the Western Ghats, and the other in the western part of the Indo-Gangetic plain, now turned into rich agricultural land by irrigation, its features no longer visible.
Among the Indian subcontinent's notable indigenous trees are the astringent Azadirachta indica, or neem, which is widely used in rural Indian herbal medicine, and the luxuriant Ficus religiosa, or peepul, which is displayed on the ancient seals of Mohenjo-daro, and under which the Buddha is recorded in the Pali canon to have sought enlightenment.
Many Indian species have descended from those of Gondwana, the southern supercontinent from which India separated more than 100 million years ago. India's subsequent collision with Eurasia set off a mass exchange of species. However, volcanism and climatic changes later caused the extinction of many endemic Indian forms. Still later, mammals entered India from Asia through two zoogeographical passes flanking the Himalayas. This had the effect of lowering endemism among India's mammals, which stands at 12.6%, contrasting with 45.8% among reptiles and 55.8% among amphibians. Among endemics are the vulnerable hooded leaf monkey and the threatened Beddome's toad of the Western Ghats.
India contains 172 IUCN-designated threatened animal species, or 2.9% of endangered forms. These include the endangered Bengal tiger and the Ganges river dolphin. Critically endangered species include: the gharial, a crocodilian; the great Indian bustard; and the Indian white-rumped vulture, which has become nearly extinct by having ingested the carrion of diclofenac-treated cattle. Before they were extensively utilized for agriculture and cleared for human settlement, the thorn forests of Punjab were mingled at intervals with open grasslands that were grazed by large herds of blackbuck preyed on by the Asiatic cheetah; the blackbuck, no longer extant in Punjab, is now severely endangered in India, and the cheetah is extinct. The pervasive and ecologically devastating human encroachment of recent decades has critically endangered Indian wildlife. In response, the system of national parks and protected areas, first established in 1935, was expanded substantially. In 1972, India enacted the Wildlife Protection Act and Project Tiger to safeguard crucial wilderness; the Forest Conservation Act was enacted in 1980 and amendments added in 1988. India hosts more than five hundred wildlife sanctuaries and thirteen biosphere reserves, four of which are part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves; twenty-five wetlands are registered under the Ramsar Convention.


The Indian early medieval age, from 600 to 1200 CE, is defined by regional kingdoms and cultural diversity. When Harsha of Kannauj, who ruled much of the Indo-Gangetic Plain from 606 to 647 CE, attempted to expand southwards, he was defeated by the Chalukya ruler of the Deccan. When his successor attempted to expand eastwards, he was defeated by the Pala king of Bengal. When the Chalukyas attempted to expand southwards, they were defeated by the Pallavas from farther south, who in turn were opposed by the Pandyas and the Cholas from still farther south. No ruler of this period was able to create an empire and consistently control lands much beyond their core region. During this time, pastoral peoples, whose land had been cleared to make way for the growing agricultural economy, were accommodated within caste society, as were new non-traditional ruling classes. The caste system consequently began to show regional differences.
In the 6th and 7th centuries, the first devotional hymns were created in the Tamil language. They were imitated all over India and led to both the resurgence of Hinduism and the development of all modern languages of the subcontinent. Indian royalty, big and small, and the temples they patronised drew citizens in great numbers to the capital cities, which became economic hubs as well. Temple towns of various sizes began to appear everywhere as India underwent another urbanisation. By the 8th and 9th centuries, the effects were felt in South-East Asia, as South Indian culture and political systems were exported to lands that became part of modern-day Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Brunei, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Indian merchants, scholars, and sometimes armies were involved in this transmission; South-East Asians took the initiative as well, with many sojourning in Indian seminaries and translating Buddhist and Hindu texts into their languages.
After the 10th century, Muslim Central Asian nomadic clans, using swift-horse cavalry and raising vast armies united by ethnicity and religion, repeatedly overran South Asia's north-western plains, leading eventually to the establishment of the Islamic Delhi Sultanate in 1206. The sultanate was to control much of North India and to make many forays into South India. Although at first disruptive for the Indian elites, the sultanate largely left its vast non-Muslim subject population to its own laws and customs. By repeatedly repulsing Mongol raiders in the 13th century, the sultanate saved India from the devastation visited on West and Central Asia, setting the scene for centuries of migration of fleeing soldiers, learned men, mystics, traders, artists, and artisans from that region into the subcontinent, thereby creating a syncretic Indo-Islamic culture in the north. The sultanate's raiding and weakening of the regional kingdoms of South India paved the way for the indigenous Vijayanagara Empire. Embracing a strong Shaivite tradition and building upon the military technology of the sultanate, the empire came to control much of peninsular India, and was to influence South Indian society for long afterwards.


Historians consider India's modern age to have begun sometime between 1848 and 1885. The appointment in 1848 of Lord Dalhousie as Governor General of the East India Company set the stage for changes essential to a modern state. These included the consolidation and demarcation of sovereignty, the surveillance of the population, and the education of citizens. Technological changes—among them, railways, canals, and the telegraph—were introduced not long after their introduction in Europe. However, disaffection with the company also grew during this time and set off the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Fed by diverse resentments and perceptions, including invasive British-style social reforms, harsh land taxes, and summary treatment of some rich landowners and princes, the rebellion rocked many regions of northern and central India and shook the foundations of Company rule. Although the rebellion was suppressed by 1858, it led to the dissolution of the East India Company and the direct administration of India by the British government. Proclaiming a unitary state and a gradual but limited British-style parliamentary system, the new rulers also protected princes and landed gentry as a feudal safeguard against future unrest. In the decades following, public life gradually emerged all over India, leading eventually to the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885.
The rush of technology and the commercialisation of agriculture in the second half of the 19th century was marked by economic setbacks and many small farmers became dependent on the whims of far-away markets. There was an increase in the number of large-scale famines, and, despite the risks of infrastructure development borne by Indian taxpayers, little industrial employment was generated for Indians. There were also salutary effects: commercial cropping, especially in the newly canalled Punjab, led to increased food production for internal consumption. The railway network provided critical famine relief, notably reduced the cost of moving goods, and helped nascent Indian-owned industry.
After World War I, in which approximately one million Indians served, a new period began. It was marked by British reforms but also repressive legislation, by more strident Indian calls for self-rule, and by the beginnings of a nonviolent movement of non-co-operation, of which Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi would become the leader and enduring symbol. During the 1930s, slow legislative reform was enacted by the British; the Indian National Congress won victories in the resulting elections. The next decade was beset with crises: Indian participation in World War II, the Congress's final push for non-co-operation, and an upsurge of Muslim nationalism. All were capped by the advent of independence in 1947, but tempered by the partition of India into two states: India and Pakistan.
Vital to India's self-image as an independent nation was its constitution, completed in 1950, which put in place a secular and democratic republic. It has remained a democracy with civil liberties, an active supreme court, and a largely independent press. Economic liberalisation, which began in the 1990s, has created a large urban middle class, transformed India into one of the world's fastest-growing economies, and increased its geopolitical clout. Indian movies, music, and spiritual teachings play an increasing role in global culture. Yet, India is also shaped by seemingly unyielding poverty, both rural and urban; by religious and caste-related violence; by Maoist-inspired Naxalite insurgencies; and by separatism in Jammu and Kashmir and in Northeast India. It has unresolved territorial disputes with China and with Pakistan. India's sustained democratic freedoms are unique among the world's newer nations; however, in spite of its recent economic successes, freedom from want for its disadvantaged population remains a goal yet to be achieved.


In the early 16th century, northern India, then under mainly Muslim rulers, fell again to the superior mobility and firepower of a new generation of Central Asian warriors. The resulting Mughal Empire did not stamp out the local societies it came to rule. Instead, it balanced and pacified them through new administrative practices and diverse and inclusive ruling elites, leading to more systematic, centralised, and uniform rule. Eschewing tribal bonds and Islamic identity, especially under Akbar, the Mughals united their far-flung realms through loyalty, expressed through a Persianised culture, to an emperor who had near-divine status. The Mughal state's economic policies, deriving most revenues from agriculture and mandating that taxes be paid in the well-regulated silver currency, caused peasants and artisans to enter larger markets. The relative peace maintained by the empire during much of the 17th century was a factor in India's economic expansion, resulting in greater patronage of painting, literary forms, textiles, and architecture. Newly coherent social groups in northern and western India, such as the Marathas, the Rajputs, and the Sikhs, gained military and governing ambitions during Mughal rule, which, through collaboration or adversity, gave them both recognition and military experience. Expanding commerce during Mughal rule gave rise to new Indian commercial and political elites along the coasts of southern and eastern India. As the empire disintegrated, many among these elites were able to seek and control their own affairs.
By the early 18th century, with the lines between commercial and political dominance being increasingly blurred, a number of European trading companies, including the English East India Company, had established coastal outposts. The East India Company's control of the seas, greater resources, and more advanced military training and technology led it to increasingly assert its military strength and caused it to become attractive to a portion of the Indian elite; these factors were crucial in allowing the company to gain control over the Bengal region by 1765 and sideline the other European companies. Its further access to the riches of Bengal and the subsequent increased strength and size of its army enabled it to annexe or subdue most of India by the 1820s. India was then no longer exporting manufactured goods as it long had, but was instead supplying the British Empire with raw materials. Many historians consider this to be the onset of India's colonial period. By this time, with its economic power severely curtailed by the British parliament and having effectively been made an arm of British administration, the company began more consciously to enter non-economic arenas, including education, social reform and culture.


According to the Oxford English Dictionary (third edition 2009), the name "India" is derived from the Classical Latin India, a reference to South Asia and an uncertain region to its east; and in turn derived successively from: Hellenistic Greek India ( Ἰνδία); ancient Greek Indos ( Ἰνδός); Old Persian Hindush, an eastern province of the Achaemenid empire; and ultimately its cognate, the Sanskrit Sindhu, or "river," specifically the Indus River and, by implication, its well-settled southern basin. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi (Ἰνδοί), which translates as "The people of the Indus".
The term Bharat (Bhārat; [ˈbʱaːɾət] (listen)), mentioned in both Indian epic poetry and the Constitution of India, is used in its variations by many Indian languages. A modern rendering of the historical name Bharatavarsha, which applied originally to North India, Bharat gained increased currency from the mid-19th century as a native name for India.
Hindustan ([ɦɪndʊˈstaːn] (listen)) is a Middle Persian name for India, introduced during the Mughal Empire and used widely since. Its meaning has varied, referring to a region encompassing present-day northern India and Pakistan or to India in its near entirety.


India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar and Indonesia.
Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago.
Their long occupation, initially in varying forms of isolation as hunter-gatherers, has made the region highly diverse, second only to Africa in human genetic diversity. Settled life emerged on the subcontinent in the western margins of the Indus river basin 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into the Indus Valley civilisation of the third millennium BCE.
By 1200 BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest, unfolding as the language of the Rigveda, and recording the dawning of Hinduism in India. The Dravidian languages of India were supplanted in the northern and western regions.
By 400 BCE, stratification and exclusion by caste had emerged within Hinduism,
and Buddhism and Jainism had arisen, proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity.
Early political consolidations gave rise to the loose-knit Maurya and Gupta Empires based in the Ganges Basin.
Their collective era was suffused with wide-ranging creativity, but also marked by the declining status of women, and the incorporation of untouchability into an organised system of belief. In South India, the Middle kingdoms exported Dravidian-languages scripts and religious cultures to the kingdoms of Southeast Asia.
In the early medieval era, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism became established on India's southern and western coasts.
Muslim armies from Central Asia intermittently overran India's northern plains,
eventually founding the Delhi Sultanate, and drawing northern India into the cosmopolitan networks of medieval Islam.
In the 15th century, the Vijayanagara Empire created a long-lasting composite Hindu culture in south India.
In the Punjab, Sikhism emerged, rejecting institutionalised religion.
The Mughal Empire, in 1526, ushered in two centuries of relative peace,
leaving a legacy of luminous architecture.
Gradually expanding rule of the British East India Company followed, turning India into a colonial economy, but also consolidating its sovereignty. British Crown rule began in 1858. The rights promised to Indians were granted slowly, but technological changes were introduced, and ideas of education, modernity and the public life took root. A pioneering and influential nationalist movement emerged, which was noted for nonviolent resistance and became the major factor in ending British rule. In 1947 the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two independent dominions, a Hindu-majority Dominion of India and a Muslim-majority Dominion of Pakistan, amid large-scale loss of life and an unprecedented migration.
India has been a federal republic since 1950, governed through a democratic parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society. India's population grew from 361 million in 1951 to 1.211 billion in 2011.
During the same time, its nominal per capita income increased from US$64 annually to US$1,498, and its literacy rate from 16.6% to 74%. From being a comparatively destitute country in 1951,
India has become a fast-growing major economy and a hub for information technology services, with an expanding middle class. It has a space programme which includes several planned or completed extraterrestrial missions. Indian movies, music, and spiritual teachings play an increasing role in global culture.
India has substantially reduced its rate of poverty, though at the cost of increasing economic inequality.
India is a nuclear-weapon state, which ranks high in military expenditure. It has disputes over Kashmir with its neighbours, Pakistan and China, unresolved since the mid-20th century.
Among the socio-economic challenges India faces are gender inequality, child malnutrition,
and rising levels of air pollution.
India's land is megadiverse, with four biodiversity hotspots. Its forest cover comprises 21.7% of its area. India's wildlife, which has traditionally been viewed with tolerance in India's culture, is supported among these forests, and elsewhere, in protected habitats.


India accounts for the bulk of the Indian subcontinent, lying atop the Indian tectonic plate, a part of the Indo-Australian Plate. India's defining geological processes began 75 million years ago when the Indian Plate, then part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana, began a north-eastward drift caused by seafloor spreading to its south-west, and later, south and south-east. Simultaneously, the vast Tethyan oceanic crust, to its northeast, began to subduct under the Eurasian Plate. These dual processes, driven by convection in the Earth's mantle, both created the Indian Ocean and caused the Indian continental crust eventually to under-thrust Eurasia and to uplift the Himalayas. Immediately south of the emerging Himalayas, plate movement created a vast crescent-shaped trough that rapidly filled with river-borne sediment and now constitutes the Indo-Gangetic Plain.   The original Indian plate makes its first appearance above the sediment in the ancient Aravalli range, which extends from the Delhi Ridge in a southwesterly direction. To the west lies the Thar desert, the eastern spread of which is checked by the Aravallis.
The remaining Indian Plate survives as peninsular India, the oldest and geologically most stable part of India. It extends as far north as the Satpura and Vindhya ranges in central India. These parallel chains run from the Arabian Sea coast in Gujarat in the west to the coal-rich Chota Nagpur Plateau in Jharkhand in the east. To the south, the remaining peninsular landmass, the Deccan Plateau, is flanked on the west and east by coastal ranges known as the Western and Eastern Ghats; the plateau contains the country's oldest rock formations, some over one billion years old. Constituted in such fashion, India lies to the north of the equator between 6° 44′ and 35° 30′ north latitude and 68° 7′ and 97° 25′ east longitude.
India's coastline measures 7,517 kilometres (4,700 mi) in length; of this distance, 5,423 kilometres (3,400 mi) belong to peninsular India and 2,094 kilometres (1,300 mi) to the Andaman, Nicobar, and Lakshadweep island chains. According to the Indian naval hydrographic charts, the mainland coastline consists of the following: 43% sandy beaches; 11% rocky shores, including cliffs; and 46% mudflats or marshy shores.
Major Himalayan-origin rivers that substantially flow through India include the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, both of which drain into the Bay of Bengal. Important tributaries of the Ganges include the Yamuna and the Kosi; the latter's extremely low gradient, caused by long-term silt deposition, leads to severe floods and course changes. Major peninsular rivers, whose steeper gradients prevent their waters from flooding, include the Godavari, the Mahanadi, the Kaveri, and the Krishna, which also drain into the Bay of Bengal; and the Narmada and the Tapti, which drain into the Arabian Sea. Coastal features include the marshy Rann of Kutch of western India and the alluvial Sundarbans delta of eastern India; the latter is shared with Bangladesh. India has two archipelagos: the Lakshadweep, coral atolls off India's south-western coast; and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a volcanic chain in the Andaman Sea.
Indian climate is strongly influenced by the Himalayas and the Thar Desert, both of which drive the economically and culturally pivotal summer and winter monsoons. The Himalayas prevent cold Central Asian katabatic winds from blowing in, keeping the bulk of the Indian subcontinent warmer than most locations at similar latitudes. The Thar Desert plays a crucial role in attracting the moisture-laden south-west summer monsoon winds that, between June and October, provide the majority of India's rainfall. Four major climatic groupings predominate in India: tropical wet, tropical dry, subtropical humid, and montane.
Temperatures in India have risen by 0.7 °C (1.3 °F) between 1901 and 2018. Climate change in India is often thought to be the cause. The retreat of Himalayan glaciers has adversely affected the flow rate of the major Himalayan rivers, including the Ganges and the Brahmaputra. According to some current projections, the number and severity of droughts in India will have markedly increased by the end of the present century.


By 55,000 years ago, the first modern humans, or Homo sapiens, had arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa, where they had earlier evolved. The earliest known modern human remains in South Asia date to about 30,000 years ago. After 6500 BCE, evidence for domestication of food crops and animals, construction of permanent structures, and storage of agricultural surplus appeared in Mehrgarh and other sites in what is now Balochistan, Pakistan. These gradually developed into the Indus Valley civilisation, the first urban culture in South Asia, which flourished during 2500–1900 BCE in what is now Pakistan and western India. Centred around cities such as Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Dholavira, and Kalibangan, and relying on varied forms of subsistence, the civilisation engaged robustly in crafts production and wide-ranging trade.
During the period 2000–500 BCE, many regions of the subcontinent transitioned from the Chalcolithic cultures to the Iron Age ones. The Vedas, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism, were composed during this period, and historians have analysed these to posit a Vedic culture in the Punjab region and the upper Gangetic Plain. Most historians also consider this period to have encompassed several waves of Indo-Aryan migration into the subcontinent from the north-west. The caste system, which created a hierarchy of priests, warriors, and free peasants, but which excluded indigenous peoples by labelling their occupations impure, arose during this period. On the Deccan Plateau, archaeological evidence from this period suggests the existence of a chiefdom stage of political organisation. In South India, a progression to sedentary life is indicated by the large number of megalithic monuments dating from this period, as well as by nearby traces of agriculture, irrigation tanks, and craft traditions.
In the late Vedic period, around the 6th century BCE, the small states and chiefdoms of the Ganges Plain and the north-western regions had consolidated into 16 major oligarchies and monarchies that were known as the mahajanapadas. The emerging urbanisation gave rise to non-Vedic religious movements, two of which became independent religions. Jainism came into prominence during the life of its exemplar, Mahavira. Buddhism, based on the teachings of Gautama Buddha, attracted followers from all social classes excepting the middle class; chronicling the life of the Buddha was central to the beginnings of recorded history in India. In an age of increasing urban wealth, both religions held up renunciation as an ideal, and both established long-lasting monastic traditions. Politically, by the 3rd century BCE, the kingdom of Magadha had annexed or reduced other states to emerge as the Mauryan Empire. The empire was once thought to have controlled most of the subcontinent except the far south, but its core regions are now thought to have been separated by large autonomous areas. The Mauryan kings are known as much for their empire-building and determined management of public life as for Ashoka's renunciation of militarism and far-flung advocacy of the Buddhist dhamma.
The Sangam literature of the Tamil language reveals that, between 200 BCE and 200 CE, the southern peninsula was ruled by the Cheras, the Cholas, and the Pandyas, dynasties that traded extensively with the Roman Empire and with West and South-East Asia. In North India, Hinduism asserted patriarchal control within the family, leading to increased subordination of women. By the 4th and 5th centuries, the Gupta Empire had created a complex system of administration and taxation in the greater Ganges Plain; this system became a model for later Indian kingdoms. Under the Guptas, a renewed Hinduism based on devotion, rather than the management of ritual, began to assert itself. This renewal was reflected in a flowering of sculpture and architecture, which found patrons among an urban elite. Classical Sanskrit literature flowered as well, and Indian science, astronomy, medicine, and mathematics made significant advances.


National Black Business Month
National Children's Vision and Learning Month
National Immunization Awareness Month
National Princess Peach Month
National Water Quality Month
National Win with Civility Month


Food Day (Canada)
Mead Day (United States)
National Mustard Day (United States)


August is the eighth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars, and the fifth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. Its zodiac sign is Leo and was originally named Sextilis in Latin because it was the 6th month in the original ten-month Roman calendar under Romulus in 753 BC, with March being the first month of the year. About 700 BC, it became the eighth month when January and February were added to the year before March by King Numa Pompilius, who also gave it 29 days. Julius Caesar added two days when he created the Julian calendar in 46 BC (708 AUC), giving it its modern length of 31 days. In 8 BC, it was renamed in honor of Emperor Augustus. According to a Senatus consultum quoted by Macrobius, he chose this month because it was the time of several of his great triumphs, including the conquest of Egypt. Commonly repeated lore has it that August has 31 days because Augustus wanted his month to match the length of Julius Caesar's July, but this is an invention of the 13th century scholar Johannes de Sacrobosco. Sextilis in fact had 31 days before it was renamed, and it was not chosen for its length.
In the Southern Hemisphere, August is the seasonal equivalent of February in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere, August falls in the season of summer. In the Southern Hemisphere, the month falls during the season of winter. In many European countries, August is the holiday month for most workers. Numerous religious holidays occurred during August in ancient Rome.
Certain meteor showers take place in August. The Kappa Cygnids take place in August, with the dates varying each year. The Alpha Capricornids meteor shower takes place as early as July 10 and ends at around August 10, and the  Southern Delta Aquariids take  place from mid-July to mid-August, with the peak usually around July 28–29. The Perseids, a major meteor shower, typically takes place between July 17 and August 24, with the days of the peak varying yearly. The star cluster of Messier 30 is best observed around August.
Among the aborigines of the Canary Islands, especially among the Guanches of Tenerife, the month of August received in the name of Beñesmer or Beñesmen, which was also the harvest festival held this month.


American Adventures Month (celebrating vacationing in the Americas)
Children's Eye Health and Safety Month
Digestive Tract Paralysis (DTP) Month
Get Ready for Kindergarten Month
Happiness Happens Month
Month of Philippine Languages or Buwan ng Wika (Philippines)
Neurosurgery Outreach Month
Psoriasis Awareness Month
Spinal Muscular Atrophy Awareness Month
What Will Be Your Legacy Month


John Gerard (also John Gerarde, c. 1545–1612) was an English herbalist with a large garden in Holborn, now part of London. His 1,484-page illustrated Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes, first published in 1597, became a popular gardening and herbal book in English in the 17th century. Except for some added plants from his own garden and from North America, Gerard's Herbal is largely a plagiarized English translation of Rembert Dodoens's 1554 herbal, itself highly popular in Dutch, Latin, French and other English translations. Gerard's Herball drawings of plants and the printer's woodcuts are mainly derived from Continental European sources, but there is an original title page with a copperplate engraving by William Rogers. Two decades after Gerard's death, the book was corrected and expanded to about 1,700 pages.


The publisher and Queen's Printer John Norton proposed to Gerard an English translation of Dodoens' popular herbal, Stirpium historiae pemptades sex (1583). This was a Latin version of an earlier work in Flemish by Dodoens, his Cruydeboeck (Herb Book, 1554). It had been translated into English in 1578 by Henry Lyte as A Niewe Herball and proved popular. Gerard was not Norton's first choice, the translation having originally been commissioned from Dr Robert Priest,{{efn |Presumably Dr Robert Preest (c. 1549–1596){{sfn |Barlow |1913b} a member of the London College of Physicians, who had meanwhile died. Although Gerard acknowledges Priest's role, he implies that he died before starting the work. As curator of the College garden, he would have been familiar with Priest and his work. The completed book appears to include much of Priest's work, with his own completion of the text in the form of annotations from his own garden, and for the first time, some North American plants. An example is the first English description of the potato, which he mistakenly believed came from Virginia, not South America (see illustration). He then incorporated some unpublished material from his friend L'Obel and material from the work of Clusius, which he rearranged to follow more closely L'Obel's scheme of his 1570 Stirpium adversaria nova. It is thought to be a disguise for the original source.
In the preface ("To the courteous and well-willing Readers"), Gerard acknowledged Priest's efforts, but claimed the work was his own;
"and since that Doctor Priest, one of our London Colledge, hath (as I heard) translated the last edition of Dodonaeus, which meant to publish the same; but being prevented by death, his translation likewise perished: lastly, my selfe one of the least among many, have presumed to set foorth unto the view of the world, the first fruits of these mine own labours"
This led to Gerard being accused of plagiarism, and even a "crook". The work, published in 1597, was his Great Herball, or, Generall Historie of Plantes. This edition reused hundreds of woodblocks from Jacobus Theodorus Tabernaemontanus' Kräuterbuch or Eicones Plantarum seu stirpium (Frankfurt, 1590), which themselves had been reused from earlier 16th-century botanical books by Pietro Andrea Mattioli, Rembert Dodoens, Carolus Clusius, and L'Obel. Gerard's lack of scientific training and knowledge led him to frequent inclusion of material that was incorrect, folkloric or mythical, such as the barnacle tree that bore geese (see illustration). Nevertheless, the work, including over 1,000 plants in 167 chapters remained popular, providing in English information about the names, habits and uses ("vertues") of many plants known and rare. It was seen as the best and most exhaustive work of its kind and a standard reference for some time.


Gerard married Anne (or possibly Agnes), who died in 1620, and by her had five children, of whom only one, Elizabeth, survived them. He spent his entire adult life in London, close to Barnards Inn, between Chancery Lane and Fetter Lane. It is thought he resided in a tenement with a garden belonging to Lord Burghley. After his death in February 1612, he was buried at St Andrews, Holborn on 18 February, but the grave is unmarked.


Gerard had a successful career with the Barber–Surgeons' Company. He became a member of the Court of Assistants (board of directors) on 19 June 1595, despite being accused of defaming the wife of a colleague in 1578. He was made an examiner of candidates for admission to the freedom of the company on 15 January 1598 and Junior Warden in August 1597, under the mastership of George Baker. Following a further dispute with a senior warden, he relinquished his positions of "second warden and upper governor" on 26 September 1605, but this was resolved and on 17 August 1607 he was elected Master of the company. In the Annals of the company, published in 1890, a biography of Gerard appears under a list of "Eminent Members".
While studying he developed the tenement garden in the suburb of Holborn, London, which he refers to frequently in his work, and later published a catalogue of the flowers there. This became popular and he received gifts of seeds and plants from around the world. He also received offers to supervise the gardens of noblemen. In 1577, he began work as superintendent at the gardens of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (Lord Burghley, the Queen's Lord High Treasurer) at the Strand and Theobalds, Hertfordshire, a position he continued in for more than 20 years. In 1586, the College of Physicians established a physic garden with Gerard as curator, a position he held till 1604. In 1588, Burghley was Chancellor of the University of Cambridge and Gerard wrote to him commending himself as a suitable superintendent of the university botanic garden, writing "to signe for ye University of Cambridge for planting of gardens". Amongst his qualifications he wrote "by reason of his travaile into farre countries his great practise and long experience". There is no evidence for the travel claim and nothing seems to have come of his application. By 1595, when he was appointed to the Court of Assistants, he had built up a reputation as a skilled herbalist and spent much time commuting from the Court to the garden he founded close to his cottage in Holborn, and also attending to his duties for Burghley. In 1596 he requested that the Barber–Surgeons' Company establish a physic garden ("Mr. Gerrard's garden") in East Smithfield, but this was not done. It was reported that Queen Elizabeth held his achievements in high regard. In 1604 he was granted a lease on a garden adjoining Somerset House, by Anne, the Queen Consort to King James I, but the following year relinquished it to Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, second son of Lord Burghley, in which he was described as "herbarist" to James I.
According to Anna Pavord, Gerard was a doer and not a scholar. Deborah Harkness notes that Gerard was not part of the community of Lime Street naturalists in London at the time. His flawed (from the perspective of some of his contemporaries) Herball is dedicated to Burghley. He surrounded himself with influential friends and contacts, including Lancelot Browne, George Baker, and the apothecaries James Garrett, Hugh Morgan and Richard Garth. Garret was a Huguenot living and working in London, and a neighbour of L'Obel. Many of these had fine gardens and would exchange plants. Garth, who described Gerard as "a worshipful gentleman and one that greatly delighteth in strange plants" had South American contacts from where he would import rarities. He also exchanged plants with Clusius and cultivated a certain "Captain Nicholas Cleet of the Turky Company" from whom he obtained specimens from the Middle East. He would also visit other collectors and nurserymen such as Richard Pointer of Twickenham, Master Fowle, keeper of the Queen's house at St. James and Master Huggens, keeper of the garden at Hampton Court. His servant, William Marshall travelled to the Mediterranean on his behalf and Jean Robin, the French king's gardener sent him seeds. After his death in February 1612 he was buried at the parish church of St Andrews, Holborn.


March 4 – Vladislav Ardzinba, Soviet-born politician (b. 1945)
March 6 – Mark Linkous, American singer-songwriter (b. 1962)
March 10
Corey Haim, Canadian actor (b. 1971)
Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy, Egyptian Muslim cleric (b. 1928)
March 11 – Merlin Olsen, American football player and actor (b. 1940)
March 12 – Miguel Delibes, Spanish author and journalist (b. 1920)
March 14 – Peter Graves, American actor (b. 1926)
March 17 – Alex Chilton, American singer-songwriter (b. 1950)
March 18 – Fess Parker, American actor (b. 1924)
March 20 – Girija Prasad Koirala, Nepalese politician (b. 1924)
March 21 – Wolfgang Wagner, German festival director (b. 1919)
March 22
James Black, British pharmacologist and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1924)
Valentina Tolkunova, Soviet and Russian singer (b. 1946)
March 24 – Robert Culp, American actor, screenwriter and director (b. 1930)
March 25 – Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, German political scientist (b. 1916)
March 27 – Vasily Smyslov, Soviet-Russian chess grandmaster (b. 1921)
March 28
Herb Ellis, American jazz guitarist (b. 1921)
June Havoc, Canadian-American actress (b. 1912)
March 30 – Martin Sandberger, German army officer (b. 1911)


2010 (MMX) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2010th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 10th  year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the  1st   year of the 2010s decade.

2010 was designated as:
International Year of Biodiversity
International Year of Youth
2010 European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion
International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures


May 20 – Lady Cosima Windsor, daughter of the Earl and Countess of Ulster.


1968
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1968th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 968th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 68th  year of the 20th century, and the  9th   year of the 1960s decade.

The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide.


The Khmer Rouge is officially formed in Cambodia as an offshoot movement of the Vietnam People's Army from North Vietnam to bring communism to the nation. A few years later, they will become bitter enemies.
United Artists pulls eleven Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons in its library from television due to the depiction of racist stereotypes towards African-Americans. These cartoons come to be known as the Censored Eleven.
An oil field is confirmed in Northern Alaska: the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field.
Midea Group, a well-known home appliance worldwide, founded in Guangdong Province, China.


1949
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1949th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 949th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 49th  year of the 20th century, and the  10th  and last year of the 1940s decade.


January 20 – Charles Elliot of the United Kingdom, and Qishan of the Qing Dynasty, agree to the Convention of Chuenpi.
January 26 – Britain occupies Hong Kong. Later in the year, the first census of the island records a population of about 7,500.
January 27 – The active volcano Mount Erebus in Antarctica is discovered, and named by James Clark Ross.
January 28 – Ross discovers the "Victoria Barrier", later known as the Ross Ice Shelf. On the same voyage, he discovers the Ross Sea, Victoria Land and Mount Terror.
January 30 – A fire ruins and destroys two-thirds of the villa (modern-day city) of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.
February 4 – First known reference to Groundhog Day in North America, in the diary of a James Morris.
February 10 – The Act of Union (British North America Act, 1840) is proclaimed in Canada.
February 11 – The two colonies of the Canadas are merged, into the United Province of Canada.
February 18 – The first ongoing filibuster in the United States Senate begins, and lasts until March 11.
February – El Salvador proclaims itself an independent republic, bringing an end to the (already de facto defunct) Federal Republic of Central America.
March 4 – William Henry Harrison is sworn in as the ninth President of the United States.
March 9 – United States v. The Amistad: The Supreme Court of the United States rules in the case, that the Africans who seized control of the ship had been taken into slavery illegally.
March 12 – SS President, commanded by legendary captain Richard Roberts ("I'd Go to Sea in a Bathtub"), founders in rough seas, with all passengers and crew lost.


October 10 – First Opium War: Battle of Chinhai – British capture a Chinese garrison.
October 13 – First Opium War: British occupy Ningbo.
October 16 – Queen's University is founded in Kingston, Ontario, by Rev. Thomas Liddell, who carries a Royal Charter from Queen Victoria, and becomes the school's first principal.
October 30 – A fire at the Tower of London destroys its Grand Armoury and causes a quarter of a million pounds' worth of damage.
November – The settlement of Dallas, Texas, is founded by John Neely Bryan.
November 13 – Scottish surgeon James Braid first sees a demonstration of animal magnetism by Charles Lafontaine in Manchester, which leads to his study of the phenomenon that he (Braid) eventually calls hypnotism.
December 20 – The first multilateral treaty for the suppression of the African slave trade, the Treaty for the Suppression of the African Slave Trade, signed in London by the representatives of Austria, Britain, France, Prussia and Russia.
December 23 – First Anglo-Afghan War: At a meeting with the Afghan general Akbar Khan, British diplomat Sir William Hay Macnaghten is shot dead at close quarters.


July – Scottish missionary David Livingstone arrives at Kuruman in the Northern Cape, his first posting in Africa.
July 5 – Thomas Cook arranges his first railway excursion, in England.
July 17 – The first edition of the humorous magazine Punch is published in London.
July 18 (Sunday)
Emperor Pedro II of Brazil is crowned in Rio de Janeiro.
The sixth bishop of Calcutta, Daniel Wilson, and Dr. James Taylor, Civil Surgeon at Dhaka, establish the first modern educational institution on the Indian subcontinent, Dhaka College.
July 20 – The Mercantile Agency (ancestor of Dun & Bradstreet) is founded in New York City, by Lewis Tappan.
August 11 – Frederick Douglass speaks in front of the Anti-Slavery Convention in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
August 16 – U.S. President John Tyler vetoes a bill which called for the re-establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members riot outside the White House, in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history.
August 20–October 16 – The Niger expedition of 1841 begins sailing up the Niger River by paddle steamers, under the auspices of the British Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade and the Civilisation of Africa; it is largely abortive, due to the high incidence of disease among the crews.
September 24 – Sarawak is broken away from Brunei, and becomes a protectorate of the United Kingdom; James Brooke is appointed rajah.


1841 (MDCCCXLI) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar, the 1841st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 841st  year of the 2nd millennium, the 41st  year of the 19th century, and the  2nd   year of the 1840s decade. As of the start of 1841, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


April 4 – President William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia, aged 68, becoming the first President of the United States to die in office, and at one month, the American president with the shortest term served. He is succeeded by Vice President John Tyler, who becomes the tenth President of the United States.
April 6 – President John Tyler is sworn in.
May – The Sino-Sikh War begins.
May 3 – New Zealand becomes a British colony.
May 22 – The Georgian province of Guria revolts against the Russian Empire.
June 6 – The United Kingdom Census is held, the first to record names and approximate ages of every household member, and to be administered nationally.
June 21 – St. John's College (later Fordham University) is founded in The Bronx, by the Society of Jesus.
June 28 – The ballet Giselle is first presented by the Ballet du Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique, at the Salle Le Peletier in Paris, France.


April 1 – Edwin Austin Abbey, American painter (d. 1911)
April 3 – Talbot Baines Reed, English author (d. 1893)
April 13 – Frank Winfield Woolworth, American merchant, businessman (d. 1919)
April 22 – William IV, Grand Duke of Luxembourg (d. 1912)
May 1
Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Spanish histologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1934)
Martha "Calamity" Jane Canary, American frontierswoman (d. 1903)
May 2 – Max von Gallwitz, German general (d. 1937)
May 4 – Alice Pleasance Liddell, inspiration for the English children's classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (d. 1934)
May 11 – Charles W. Fairbanks, 26th Vice President of the United States (d. 1918)
May 13 – Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov, Buryat Buddhist leader (d. 1927)
May 14
Émile Fayolle, French general (d. 1928)
Alton B. Parker, American judge, Democratic political candidate (d. 1926)
May 22 – Moritz von Auffenberg, Austro-Hungarian general and politician (d. 1928)
May 31
Aleksei Aleksandrovich Bobrinsky, Soviet historian and politician (d. 1927)
Julius Richard Petri, German bacteriologist (d. 1921)
June 13 – Anna Whitlock, Swedish women's rights activist  (d. 1930)
June 24 – Victor Adler, Austrian politician (d. 1918)
June 25
Antoni Gaudí, Spanish modernist architect (d. 1926)
Friedrich Loeffler, German bacteriologist (d. 1915)
June 30 – Karl Petrovich Jessen, Russian admiral (d. 1918)


1852 (MDCCCLII) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar, the 1852nd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 852nd  year of the 2nd millennium, the 52nd  year of the 19th century, and the  3rd   year of the 1850s decade. As of the start of 1852, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


January 14 – President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte proclaims a new constitution for the French Second Republic.
January 15 – Nine men representing various Jewish charitable organizations come together, to form what will become Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
January 17 – The United Kingdom recognizes the independence of the Transvaal.
February 3 – Battle of Caseros, Argentina: The Argentine provinces of Entre Rios and Corrientes, allied with Brazil and members of Colorado Party of Uruguay, defeat Buenos Aires troops under Juan Manuel de Rosas.
February 11 – The first British public toilet for women opens in Bedford Street, London.
February 14 – The Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, London, admits its first patient.
February 16 – The Studebaker Brothers Wagon Company, precursor of the automobile manufacturer, is established in South Bend, Indiana.
February 19 – Phi Kappa Psi fraternity was founded in Canonsburg, PA at Jefferson College.
February 25 – HMS Birkenhead sinks near Cape Town, British Cape Colony. Only 193 of the 643 on board survive, after troops stand firm on the deck, so as not to overwhelm the lifeboats containing women and children.
March 1 – Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton is appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
March 2 – The first American experimental steam fire engine is tested.
March 4 – Phi Mu sorority is founded in Macon, Georgia.
March 17 – Annibale De Gasparis discovers in Naples the asteroid Psyche from the north dome of the Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte.
March 18 – Henry Wells and William Fargo created Wells Fargo & Company.
March 20 – Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is published in book form in Boston.


July 9 – Grigore C. Crăiniceanu, Romanian general and politician (d. 1935)
July 12 – Hipólito Yrigoyen, 18th President of Argentina (d. 1933)
July 15 – Josef Josephi, Polish-born singer and actor (d. 1920)
July 20
Theo Heemskerk, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (d. 1932)
Maria Brace Kimball, American elocutionist (d. 1933)
July 31 – Charles Lanrezac, French general (d. 1925)
August 4 –
Catharine van Tussenbroek, Dutch physician (d. 1925)
Charles Coborn, British singer (d. 1945)
August 23 – Clímaco Calderón, 15th President of Colombia (d. 1913)
August 30 – Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Dutch chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1911)
September 6 – Schalk Willem Burger, Boer military leader, lawyer, politician, and statesman, acting President of the South African Republic (1900-1902) (d. 1918)
September 8 – Gojong, 26th king of the Korean Joseon dynasty, first emperor of Korea (d. 1919)
September 10 – Hans Niels Andersen, Danish businessman, founder of the East Asiatic Company (d. 1937)
September 12 – H. H. Asquith, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1928)
September 28
John French, 1st Earl of Ypres, British field marshal, commander of the British Expeditionary Force in World War I (d. 1925)
Henri Moissan, French chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1907)
September 29 – Ijuin Gorō, Japanese admiral (d. 1921)
September 30 – Charles Villiers Stanford, Irish composer, resident in England (d. 1924)


Alders are trees comprising the genus Alnus in the birch family Betulaceae. The genus comprises about 35 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, a few reaching a large size, distributed throughout the north temperate zone with a few species extending into Central America, as well as the northern and southern Andes.


Alnus fauriei H.Lév. & Vaniot – Honshu Island in Japan
Alnus ferdinandi-coburgii C.K.Schneid. – southern China
Alnus glutipes (Jarm. ex Czerpek) Vorosch.
Alnus hakkodensis Hayashi – Honshu Island in Japan
Alnus henryi C.K.Schneid. – Taiwan
Alnus lanata Duthie ex Bean – Sichuan Province in China
Alnus mairei H.Lév. – Yunnan Province in China
Alnus paniculata Nakai – Korea
Alnus serrulatoides Callier – Japan
Alnus vermicularis Nakai – Korea


With a few exceptions, alders are deciduous, and the leaves are alternate, simple, and serrated. The flowers are catkins with elongate male catkins on the same plant as shorter female catkins, often before leaves appear; they are mainly wind-pollinated, but also visited by bees to a small extent. These trees differ from the birches (Betula, another genus in the family) in that the female catkins are woody and do not disintegrate at maturity, opening to release the seeds in a similar manner to many conifer cones.
The largest species are red alder (A. rubra) on the west coast of North America, and black alder (A. glutinosa), native to most of Europe and widely introduced elsewhere, both reaching over 30 metres (100 ft). By contrast, the widespread Alnus alnobetula (green alder) is rarely more than a 5 m-tall (16 ft) shrub.


The genus is divided into three subgenera:


The Agra Canal opens in India.
St. Nicholas' Church, Hamburg, designed by English architect George Gilbert Scott, is completed. Its 147 metres (482 ft)-tall spire makes it (briefly, and by 5m) the world's tallest building (a title held since 1647 by Strasbourg Cathedral).
The House of Keys, lower house of the Tynwald, the legislature of the Isle of Man, moves from Castletown to Douglas.
Charles Taze Russell and the Bible Student movement claim this year marks the invisible return of Jesus Christ to earth.
Gold is discovered in the Black Hills.
DDT is first synthesized.
The San Diego Natural History Museum is founded.
The following Association football clubs are founded in Great Britain:
Aston Villa.
Bolton Wanderers (as Christ Church F.C.)
Greenock Morton.
English chemist C. R. Alder Wright synthetizes heroin for the first time.
The Supreme Council 33° Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of Canada is founded.
The medieval Frankish Tower on the Acropolis of Athens is demolished.
Schindler Group, known for escalators and elevators, is founded in Switzerland.


April 15–May 15 – A group of young painters, Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes, Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs, gives their first exhibition, at the studio of the photographer Nadar in Paris. Louis Leroy's critical review of it published on 25 April gives rise to the term Impressionism for the movement, with reference to Claude Monet's Impression, Sunrise.
May 2 – Third Carlist War – Siege of Bilbao: The siege is lifted.
May 9 – The first commercial horse-drawn carriage debuts in the city of Bombay, plying two routes.
May 14 – First admission charge at a football game. Harvard beats University of McGill (Montreal) 3-0
May 20 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans, with copper rivets. The price is $13.50 per dozen.
May 23 – Passenger ship British Admiral, on a voyage from Liverpool (England) to Melbourne (Australia), sinks after hitting rocks off King Island (Tasmania); only nine of the 88 passengers and crew are rescued.
May 27 – The first group of Dorsland Trekkers, a series of expeditions by Trekboere in search of political independence and better farming conditions, departs South Africa to settle in Angola, led by Gert Alberts.
June 14 – Michel Domingue becomes head of state of Haiti.
June 22 – Andrew Taylor Still starts the movement for osteopathic medicine in the United States at Kirksville, Missouri.
June 25–27 – Third Carlist War – Battle of Monte Muro: Carlist forces entrenched around Abárzuza, on the approach to Estella in Navarre, repel an attack by Isabelino/Liberal (supporters of Queen Isabella II) troops led by General Manuel Gutiérrez de la Concha, Marqués del Duero, who is killed on the third day of fighting.


July 1
The Universal Postal Union is established.
The Philadelphia Zoo opens, the first public zoo in the United States.
The Sholes and Glidden typewriter, with cylindrical platen and QWERTY keyboard, is first marketed in the United States.
The Bank of Spain emits the first peseta banknotes.
July 14 – The Chicago Fire of 1874 burns down 47 acres of the city, destroying 812 buildings, killing 20, and resulting in the fire insurance industry demanding municipal reforms from Chicago's city council.
July 24
Mathew Evans and Henry Woodward patent the first incandescent lamp, with an electric light bulb.
Third Carlist War – Sack of Cuenca: After Carlist forces successfully defend Estella, Don Alfonso de Bourbon, brother of the Don Carlos VII, leads 14,000 Catalan Carlists south to attack Cuenca (136 km from Madrid), held by Republicans under Don Hilario Lozano. After two days the outnumbered garrison capitulates, but Don Alfonso permits a terrible slaughter. The city is sacked. Subsequently, another republican force defeats the disorderly Catalans, who flee back to the Ebro.
July 31 – Patrick Francis Healy, S.J., the first Black man to receive a PhD, is inaugurated as president of Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic University in America, and becomes the first Black person to head a predominantly White university.
August 11 – Third Carlist War – Battle of Oteiza: Two months after Government forces were repulsed from Carlist-held Estella, in Navarre, Republican General Domingo Moriones makes a fresh diversionary attack a few miles to the southeast at Oteiza. In heavy fighting Moriones secures a costly tactical victory over Carlist General Torcuato Mendíri, but the war continues another 18 months, before Estella finally falls.
Heart of Midlothian was founded.
September 9 – Captain Lyman's wagon train besieged by Indians in Hemphill County, Texas.
September 14 – Battle of Liberty Place: In New Orleans, former Confederate Army members of the White League temporarily drive Republican Governor William P. Kellogg from office, replacing him with former Democratic Governor John McEnery. U.S. Army troops restore Kellogg to office five days later.
September 28 – Texas–Indian wars: U.S. Army Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie leads his force of 600 men on the successful raid of the last sanctuary of the Kiowa, Comanche and Cheyenne Indian tribes, a village inside the  Palo Duro Canyon in Texas, and carries out their removal to the designated Indian reservations in Oklahoma.


Better Breakfast Month
Food Safety Education Month
National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month
Hydrocephalus Awareness Month
Pain Awareness Month
National Preparedness Month
National Prostate Health Month
National Sickle Cell Awareness Month
National Yoga Month


Ancient Roman observances for September include Ludi Romani, originally celebrated from September 12 to September 14, later extended to September 5 to September 19. In the 1st century BC, an extra day was added in honor of the deified Julius Caesar on 4 September. Epulum Jovis was held on September 13. Ludi Triumphales was held from September 18–22. The Septimontium was celebrated in September, and on December 11 on later calendars. These dates do not correspond to the modern Gregorian calendar.
September was called "harvest month" in Charlemagne's calendar. September corresponds partly to the Fructidor and partly to the Vendémiaire of the first French republic. September is called Herbstmonat, harvest month, in Switzerland. The Anglo-Saxons called the month Gerstmonath, barley month, that crop being then usually harvested.
In 1752, the British Empire adopted the Gregorian calendar. In the British Empire that year, September 2 was immediately followed by September 14.
On Usenet, it is said that September 1993 (Eternal September) never ended.


The September equinox takes place in this month, and certain observances are organized around it. It is the Autumn equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, and the Vernal equinox in the Southern Hemisphere. The dates can vary from 21 September to 24 September (in UTC).
September is mostly in the sixth month of the astrological calendar (and the first part of the seventh), which begins at the end of March/Mars/Aries.


September's birthstone is the sapphire.
The birth flowers for September are the forget-me-not, morning glory and aster.
The zodiac signs for the month of September are Virgo (until September 22) and Libra (September 23 onwards).


September is the ninth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars, the third of four months to have a length of 30 days, and the fourth of five months to have a length of fewer than 31 days. September in the Northern Hemisphere and March in the Southern Hemisphere are seasonal equivalent.
In the Northern hemisphere, the beginning of the meteorological autumn is on 1 September. In the Southern hemisphere, the beginning of the meteorological spring is on 1 September.
September marks the beginning of the ecclesiastical year in the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is the start of the academic year in many countries of the northern hemisphere, in which children go back to school after the summer break, sometimes on the first day of the month.
September (from Latin septem, "seven") was originally the seventh of ten months in the oldest known Roman calendar, the calendar of Romulus c. 750 BC, with March (Latin Martius) the first month of the year until perhaps as late as 451 BC. After the calendar reform that added January and February to the beginning of the year, September became the ninth month but retained its name. It had 29 days until the Julian reform, which added a day.


1797 (MDCCXCVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar, the 1797th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 797th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 97th  year of the 18th century, and the  8th   year of the 1790s decade. As of the start of 1797, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


April 4 – Pierre-François Berruer, French sculptor (b. 1733)
April 17 – Susanna Boylston, prominent early-American socialite (b. 1708)
April 27 – Henry Louis, Prince of Nassau-Saarbrücken, titular prince of Nassau-Saarbrücken (b. 1768)
April 29 – Elizabeth Ryves, Irish writer, translator (b. 1750)
May 7 – Jedediah Strutt, English hosier and cotton spinner from Belper (b. 1726)
May 14 – Giovanni Fagnano, Italian churchman and mathematician (b. 1715)
May 17 – Michel-Jean Sedaine, French dramatist (b. 1719)
May 25
Andrew Elliot, acting colonial governor of the Province of New York (b. 1728)
John Griffin, 4th Baron Howard de Walden, British field marshal (b. 1719)
May 27
François-Noël Babeuf, French revolutionary leader (executed) (b. 1760)
Augustin Alexandre Darthé, French revolutionary leader (executed) (b. 1769)
June 15 – Christen Friis Rottbøll, Danish physician, botanist and pupil of Carolus Linnaeus (b. 1727)
June 17
Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar, founder of the Qajar dynasty of Iran (b. 1742)
Mohammad Khan Qajar, Iranian king (b. 1742)
June 21 – Andreas Peter Bernstorff, Danish statesman, politician (b. 1735)
June 24 – Bahadur Shah of Nepal, younger son of King Prithvi Narayan Shah (1723–1775) of modern Nepal (b. 1757)
June 30
Welbore Ellis Doyle, third Military Governor of British Ceylon (b. 1758)
Richard Parker, English sailor executed for his role as president of the so-called "Floating Republic" (b. 1767)


In Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox tradition, April is the Month of the Resurrection of the Lord. April and March are the months in which is celebrated the moveable Feast of Easter Sunday.
National Pet Month (United Kingdom)


April is the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian calendar, the fifth in the early Julian, the first of four months to have a length of 30 days, and the second of five months to have a length of less than 31 days.
April is commonly associated with the season of autumn in parts of the Southern Hemisphere, and spring in parts of the Northern Hemisphere, where it is the seasonal equivalent to October in the Southern Hemisphere and vice versa.


Youth Homelessness Matters Day
National Health Day (Kiribati): April 6
Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Week (United States): April 13–19
National Park Week (United States): April 18–26
Crime Victims' Rights Week (United States): April 19–25
National Volunteer Week: April 19–25
European Immunization Week: April 20–26
Day of Silence (United States): April 24
Pay It Forward Day: April 28 (International observance)
Denim Day: April 29 (International observance)
Day of Dialogue (United States)
Vaccination Week In The Americas
See: List of movable Western Christian observances
See: List of movable Eastern Christian observances


The Romans gave this month the Latin name Aprilis but the derivation of this name is uncertain. The traditional etymology is from the verb aperire, "to open", in allusion to its being the season when trees and flowers begin to "open", which is supported by comparison with the modern Greek use of άνοιξη (ánixi) (opening) for spring. Since some of the Roman months were named in honor of divinities, and as April was sacred to the goddess Venus, her Veneralia being held on the first day, it has been suggested that Aprilis was originally her month Aphrilis, from her equivalent Greek goddess name Aphrodite (Aphros), or from the Etruscan name Apru. Jacob Grimm suggests the name of a hypothetical god or hero, Aper or Aprus.
April was the second month of the earliest Roman calendar, before Ianuarius and Februarius were added by King Numa Pompilius about 700 BC. It became the fourth month of the calendar year (the year when twelve months are displayed in order) during the time of the decemvirs about 450 BC, when it also was given 29 days. The 30th day was added during the reform of the calendar undertaken by Julius Caesar in the mid-40s BC, which produced the Julian calendar.
The Anglo-Saxons called April ēastre-monaþ. The Venerable Bede says in The Reckoning of Time that this month ēastre is the root of the word Easter. He further states that the month was named after a goddess Eostre whose feast was in that month. It is also attested by Einhard in his work, Vita Karoli Magni.
St George's day is the twenty-third of the month; and St Mark's Eve, with its superstition that the ghosts of those who are doomed to die within the year will be seen to pass into the church, falls on the twenty-fourth.
In China the symbolic of the earth by the emperor and princes of the blood took place in their third month, which frequently corresponds to April. In Finnish April is huhtikuu, meaning slash-and-burn moon, when gymnosperms for beat and burn clearing of farmland were felled.
In Slovene, the most established traditional name is mali traven, meaning the month when plants start growing. It was first written in 1466 in the Škofja Loka manuscript.
The month Aprilis had 30 days; Numa Pompilius made it 29 days long; finally Julius Caesar’s calendar reform made it again 30 days long, which was not changed in the calendar revision of Augustus Caesar in 8 BC. Additionally in the Spanish colony, Las Islas Filipinas (now known as the Philippines), the month Aprilis had a significant meaning to the life of the natives as it was associated to the influence of the Chinese during the Spanish colonial period. The importance of this aspect to the lives of the natives was formerly associated to an event called "Abril na Ikaw" as it is closely linked to the famous trader, April Yu.
In Ancient Rome, the festival of Cerealia was held for seven days from mid-to-late April, but exact dates are uncertain. Feriae Latinae was also held in April, with the date varying. Other ancient Roman observances include Veneralia (April 1), Megalesia (April 10–16), Fordicidia (April 15), Parilia (April 21), Vinalia Urbana, Robigalia, and Serapia were celebrated on (April 25). Floralia was held April 27 during the Republican era, or April 28 on the Julian calendar, and lasted until May 3. However, these dates do not correspond to the modern Gregorian calendar.
The Lyrids meteor shower appears on April 16 – April 26 each year, with the peak generally occurring on April 22. Eta Aquariids meteor shower also appears in April. It is visible from about April 21 to about May 20 each year with peak activity on or around May 6. The Pi Puppids appear on April 23, but only in years around the parent comet's perihelion date. The Virginids also shower at various dates in April.
The "Days of April" (journées d'avril) is a name assigned in French history to a series of insurrections at Lyons, Paris and elsewhere, against the government of Louis Philippe in 1834, which led to violent repressive measures, and to a famous trial known as the procès d'avril.


Arab American Heritage Month
Autism Awareness Month
Cancer Control Month
Community College Awareness Month
Confederate History Month (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Virginia)
Donate Life Month
Financial Literacy Month
Jazz Appreciation Month
Mathematics and Statistics Awareness Month
Month of the Military Child
National Poetry Month
National Poetry Writing Month
Occupational Therapy Month
National Prevent Child Abuse Month
National Volunteer Month
Parkinson's Disease Awareness Month
Rosacea Awareness Month
Sexual Assault Awareness Month


April's birthstone is the diamond.
The birth flower is typically listed as either the common daisy (Bellis perennis) or the sweet pea.
The zodiac signs for the month of April are Aries (until April 20) and Taurus (April 20 onwards).


At the end of the Civil War, aside from the cattle, cotton, and coastal lands, much of Central Florida was wetlands. It took a major drainage project financed by businessman Hamilton Disston in the 1880s to make these wetland areas available for settlement.
Sanford was incorporated in 1877 as a port city at the Lake Monroe intersection and the St. Johns River. It was envisioned as a transportation center; the city's founder, Henry S. Sanford, nicknamed it "the Gate City of South Florida". It became a hub for shipping agricultural products, which earned the city another nickname, "Celery City".
Kissimmee, originally named Allendale, after Confederate Major J.H. Allen, who operated the first cargo steamboat on the Kissimmee River, boomed in the 1880s. It was the headquarters of Hamilton Disston's drainage company. The city was an important regional steamship port, owing that status to its location on Lake Tohopekaliga. Expanding the railroads into Central Florida eliminated the need for Kissimmee's steamship industry.
The Great Freeze of 1894-1895 ruined citrus crops, which had a detrimental ripple effect on the economy.
The hard-packed sand of Volusia County's beaches lent itself to auto races beginning in 1903 before paved roads were common, leading to the area's reputation for cars and racing. Ormond Beach was a popular spot for those who liked fast cars after the turn of the 20th century because the hard-packed beach was ideal for going fast. The same beach had led to the development of a tourist resort by Henry Flagler. It later attracted Flagler's former business partner John D. Rockefeller, who had a winter home in Ormond.
During and after World War II, the U.S. Army Air Forces (U.S. Air Force after 1947) and the U.S. Navy established several training facilities and operational bases in the region, mainly for aviation activities, followed by space exploration sites. In the late 1940s, the U.S. military established a missile testing facility on Merritt Island near Cape Canaveral. The land was largely undeveloped and the agreeable climate allowed for year-round operations. When NASA later searched for a long-term base in the 1960s to launch spacecraft, it chose the Merritt Island site next to Cape Canaveral for its access to the testing facility and nearby communities. NASA purchased over 100,000 acres (400 km²) of land for the Kennedy Space Center.
Deltona was developed in 1962 as a planned retirement community. It is now the largest city in Volusia County.
The construction of the Walt Disney World Resort was a transforming event for greater Orlando. Walt Disney wanted a location with abundant available land that was more accessible for the residents of the eastern United States to visit. Not only was there ample land in Central Florida, but it was inexpensive, and the inland location offered some protection from hurricanes. Plans were announced in 1965, and the theme park opened to the public in 1971.


Agriculture has occupied a large portion of Central Florida's economy, with winter strawberries, citrus, timber, vegetables, and aquaculture all making major contributions.
Tourism is a large contributor to Central Florida's economy.
The area has economically diversified in the past decade. As a high-tech industrial hub, Metro Orlando has the seventh largest research park in the U.S., Central Florida Research Park, the engineering and business school of the University of Central Florida. It has defense companies such as Lockheed Martin and Siemens.
Medical research is prominent at Tampa's University of South Florida and Orlando's University of Central Florida, as well as the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute biomedical research facility. USF in particular is a national leader in cancer and dementia research.
The Tampa Bay area has become a center of high-tech manufacturing and research, while both Orlando and the Tampa Bay area are centers for the financial industry, especially insurers and back-end operations for large banking companies.
Active military installations in the region include Patrick Space Force Base and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station located on the Atlantic coast; MacDill Air Force Base, Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater and Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg on the Gulf Coast; and Naval Support Activity Orlando, the Navy Pinecastle Impact (Bombing) Range, and the Avon Park Air Force Range located inland. These are augmented by major commands that are tenant activities at these installations, such as the headquarters for United States Central Command (USCENTCOM) and the headquarters for United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) at MacDill AFB, the Naval Ordnance Test Unit and Coast Guard Station Port Canaveral at Cape Canaveral SFS, and other Active, Reserve, Army National Guard, and Air National Guard activities that are located as either stand-alone facilities or as tenants on the active duty installations.
Additional former facilities that have since been closed and converted to civilian use include Hillsborough Army Air Field, a World War II training range which is now part of a neighborhood, Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, and the University of South Florida; Naval Air Station Sanford, which closed in 1968 and is the present day Orlando-Sanford International Airport; McCoy Air Force Base, which closed in 1975 and is the present day Orlando International Airport; and Orlando Air Force Base, which was transferred to the Navy in 1968 and renamed Naval Training Center Orlando until its BRAC-directed closure in 1999 and conversion to the present day Baldwin Park neighborhood.
The other major U.S. Government installations in Central Florida is the Kennedy Space Center, a NASA facility located adjacent to Cape Canaveral SFS, and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Outpatient Clinic at Baldwin Park (former Orlando AFB Hospital / former Naval Hospital Orlando) and the VA Hospital at Lake Nona.


Lamme and Oldakowski's survey identifies several demographic, political, and cultural elements that characterize Central Florida and distinguish it from other areas of the state. While people from all parts of the state associated their area as part of the South, people in the southern part of Central Florida did not typically identify their area as part of "Dixie", while people in northern Central Florida did. People from Central Florida usually did not consider their region part of the Bible Belt.
Politically, while North Florida overwhelmingly was considered conservative and South Florida was considered more liberal, the majority of Central Florida residents (52%) considered their area moderate; 41% considered it conservative, and 7% liberal. Lamme and Oldakowski's survey tracks with Barney Warf and Cynthia Waddell's studies of Florida's political geography during the 2000 Presidential election. Central Florida's economy is very similar to that in South Florida. Compared to the more diversified North Florida economy, tourism is by far the most significant industry in Central and South Florida, along with a much smaller but significant agricultural industry.
Lamme and Oldakowski's survey also found some cultural indicators that characterize Central Florida. In general, Central Florida was similar to North Florida and differed from South Florida in these measures. In Central and North Florida, American cuisine was the most popular food, in contrast to South Florida where ethnic foods were equally popular. Additionally, while there was little geographical variation for most styles of music, there was regional variation for both country and Latin music. Country was popular in Central and North Florida, and less so in South Florida, while Latin was less popular in Central and North Florida, and more so in South Florida.


In 2009, the estimated total population of the Central Florida, including the populations of Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Brevard, Volusia, and Lake Counties region was 3.3 million people. If the populations of Polk and Sumter counties were included, the estimated population would be 3.969 million people. Explosive growth has fueled Central Florida for the past thirty years.
As of 2007 there were 70,000 Asians in Central Florida according to the U.S. Census. There were almost 1,900 Japanese persons, making up 3% of the Asians.


Acronicta is a genus of noctuid moths containing about 150 species distributed mainly in the temperate Holarctic, with some in adjacent subtropical regions. The genus was erected by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae. Caterpillars of most Acronicta species are unmistakable, with brightly colored hairy spikes, and often feed quite visibly on common foliate trees. The hairy spikes may contain poison, which cause itchy, painful, swollen rash in humans on contact. The larva of the smeared dagger moth (A. oblinita) is unusually hairy even for this genus. Acronicta species are generally known as dagger moths, as most have one or more black dagger-shaped markings on their forewing uppersides. But some species have a conspicuous dark ring marking instead.


1758 (MDCCLVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar, the 1758th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 758th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 58th  year of the 18th century, and the  9th   year of the 1750s decade. As of the start of 1758, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


Kamehameha I, King of Hawaii (d. c. 1819)