His Onyichinaz

HIS: This Day in History: 1600 – The British East India Company is chartered. The East India Company (EIC), also known as the Honourable East India Company (HEIC), East India Trading Company (EITC), the English East India Company or (after 1707) the British East India Company, and informally known as John Company, Company Bahadur, or simply The Company, was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia), and later with Qing China. The company seized control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong after the First Opium War, and maintained trading posts and colonies in the Persian Gulf Residencies.  Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies", the company rose to account for half of the world's trade during the mid-1700...

HIS: This Day in History: 1963 – The Central African Federation officially collapses, subsequently becoming Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia. The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland , also known as the Central African Federation or CAF, was a colonial federation that consisted of three southern African territories: the self-governing British colony of Southern Rhodesia and the British protectorates of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. It existed between 1953 and 1963.  The Federation was established on 1 August 1953, with a Governor-General as the Queen's representative at the centre. The constitutional status of the three territories – a self-governing Colony and two Protectorates – was not affected, though certain enactments applied to the Federation as a whole as if it were part of Her Majesty's dominions and a Colony. A novel feature was the African Affairs Board, set up to safeguard the interests of Africans and endowed with statutory powers for that purpose, particularly in r...

HIS: This Day in History: 1999 – The first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, resigns from office, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President and successor. Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Russian and former Soviet politician who served as the first president of Russia from 1991 to 1999. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1961 to 1990. He later stood as a political independent, during which time he was viewed as being ideologically aligned with liberalism and Russian nationalism.  Yeltsin was born in Butka, Ural Oblast, to a peasant family. He grew up in Kazan, Tatar ASSR. After studying at the Ural State Technical University, he worked in construction. He joined the Communist Party, which monopolized power in the state and society. He rose through its ranks, and in 1976 he became First Secretary of the party's Sverdlovsk Oblast committee. Yeltsin was initially a supporter of the perestroika r...

HIS: This Day in History: 1983 – In Nigeria, a coup d'état led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari ends the Second Nigerian Republic. The Nigerian military coup of 1983 took place on 31 December that year. It was coordinated by key officers of the Nigerian military and led to the ousting of the democratically elected government of President Shehu Shagari and the installation of Major General Muhammadu Buhari as head of state. Tensions between the civilian and military aspects of Nigerian government were escalating. One major incident was when General Muhammadu Buhari, the commanding officer of the 3rd Division, cut off fuel and food supplies into neighboring Chad, an action caused by border disputes between Nigeria and Chad that was opposed by President Shehu Shagari. Buhari disregarded orders by Shagari to avoid entering Chadian territory, and his unit pursued Chadian intruders around 50 kilometers into Chad. This incident was one of the major contributing factors to the coup, as it...

HIS: This Day in History: 1922 – The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is formed. The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a socialist state that spanned Eurasia during its existence from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a federal union of multiple national republics; in practice its government and economy were highly centralized until its final years. The country was a one-party state (prior to 1990) governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with Moscow as its capital within its largest and most populous republic, the Russian SFSR. Other major urban centers were Leningrad (Russian SFSR), Kiev (Ukrainian SSR), Minsk (Byelorussian SSR), Tashkent (Uzbek SSR), Alma-Ata (Kazakh SSR) and Novosibirsk (Russian SFSR). It was the largest country in the world, covering over 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi), and spanning eleven time zones.  The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 when the Bo...

HIS: This Day in History: 537 – The construction of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople is completed. Hagia Sophia, officially known as the Holy Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque and formerly the Church of Hagia Sophia and formerly museum is a Late Antique place of worship in Istanbul, designed by the Greek geometers Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles. Built in 537 as the patriarchal cathedral of the imperial capital of Constantinople, it was the largest Christian church of the eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire) and the Eastern Orthodox Church, except during the Latin Empire from 1204 to 1261, when it became the city's Latin Catholic cathedral. In 1453, after the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire, it was converted into a mosque. In 1935, under the direction of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the secular Republic of Turkey established it as a museum. In 2020, under the direction of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, it re-opened as a mosque.  Built by the eastern Roman emperor J...

 HIS: This Day in History: 1831 – Charles Darwin embarks on his journey aboard HMS Beagle, during which he will begin to formulate his theory of evolution. The second voyage of HMS Beagle, from 27 December 1831 to 2 October 1836, was the second survey expedition of HMS Beagle, under captain Robert FitzRoy who had taken over command of the ship on its first voyage after the previous captain, Pringle Stokes, committed suicide. FitzRoy had thought of the advantages of having someone onboard who could investigate geology, and sought a naturalist to accompany them as a supernumerary. At the age of 22, the graduate Charles Darwin hoped to see the tropics before becoming a parson and accepted the opportunity. He was greatly influenced by reading Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology during the voyage. By the end of the expedition, Darwin had made his name as a geologist and fossil collector and the publication of his journal (later known as The Voyage of the Beagle) gave him wide ren...