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July 20

July 20

July 20 is the 201st day (202nd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 164 days remaining.

Events


- 514 - Pope Hormisdas assumes the papacy of the Roman Catholic Church.
- 1304 - English King Edward I of England takes the last rebel stronghold in the Wars of Scottish Independence, Stirling Castle.
- 1618 - Pluto reached, according to sophisticated mathematical calculations, its second most recent aphelion. The next one occurred in 1866, and the following one will occur in 2113.
- 1712 - The Riot Act takes effect in the Great Britain.
- 1738 - North America: French explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de la Vérendrye reaches the western shore of Lake Michigan.
- 1810 - Citizens of Bogotá, Colombia declare independence from Spain.
- 1833 - An Anti-Mormon mob in Independence, Missouri, destroys the printing press for the Book of Commandments, now among the most valuable 19th century books.
- 1861 - American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States of America begins sitting in Richmond, Virginia.
- 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Peachtree Creek - Near Atlanta, Georgia, Confederate forces led by General John Bell Hood unsuccessfully attack Union troops under General William T. Sherman.
- 1866 - Austro-Prussian War: Battle of Lissa - The Austrian navy, led by Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, defeats the Italian navy near the island of Vis.
- 1871 - British Columbia joins the confederation of Canada.
- 1872 - The United States Patent Office awards the first patent for wireless telegraphy to Mahlon Loomis.
- 1877 - rioting in Baltimore, Maryland by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers is put down by the state militia, resulting in nine deaths.
- 1881 - Indian Wars:Sioux Chief Sitting Bull leads the last of his fugitive people in surrender to United States troops at Fort Buford, Montana
- 1885 - The Football Association legalises professionalism in football under pressure from the British Football Association.
- 1907 - A train wreck on the Pere Marquette Railroad near Salem, Michigan kills thirty and injures seventy more.
- 1915 - A strike by coal miners in Wales is settled.
- 1916 - World War I: In Armenia, Russian troops capture Gumiskhanek.
- 1917 - World War I: The Corfu Declaration, which leads to the creation of the post-war Kingdom of Yugoslavia, is signed by the Yugoslav Committee and Kingdom of Serbia.
- 1917 - World War I: In the United States, the first military draft numbers are drawn for World War I.
- 1917 - Alexander Kerensky becomes Prime Minister and President of the provisional government and survives an assassination attempt.
- 1918 - World War I: German troops cross the Marne.
- 1920 - Boxer Jack Johnson is arrested near San Diego, California as he crosses the border from Tijuana, Mexico after being on the run for five years after his conviction under the Mann Act.
- 1921 - The Amatian oil fields 129 km south of Tampico, Mexico burn, causing millions of dollars in damage.
- 1921 - Air mail service begins between New York City and San Francisco.
- 1922 - The League of Nations awards mandates of Togoland to France and Tanganyika to the United Kingdom.
- 1924 - Teheran, Persia comes under martial law after the American vice consul, Robert Imbrie, is killed by a religious mob enraged by rumors he had poisoned a fountain and killed several people.
- 1924 - Americans Helen Wills and Vincent Richards win the Olympic tennis championships in Paris.
- 1924 - On a sweltering day, Coney Island in New York City breaks its attendance record as over 600,000 try to escape the heat.
- 1926 - A convention of the Methodist Church votes to allow women to become priests.
- 1927 - Michael I becomes king of Romania at age five upon the death of his grandfather Ferdinand I.
- 1928 - The government of Hungary issues a decree ordering Gypsies to end their nomadic ways, settle permanently in one place, and subject themselves to the same laws and taxes as other Hungarians.
- 1929 - Soviet troops attempt to cross the Amur River into Manchuria near Blagovestchensk as tensions mount between the Soviet Union and China.
- 1929 - The [France| French]] Parliament narrowly approves President Raymond Poincaré's plan to reschedule the country's foreign debts.
- 1930 - Maxim Litvinov is named the Soviet Union's Commissar of Foreign Affairs.
- 1931 - Former Interior Secretary Albert Fall enters state prison in Santa Fe, New Mexico on his bribery conviction from the Teapot Dome scandal.
- 1931 - Three are dead in rioting in Seville, Spain, after police clash with marchers in a funeral parade for a syndicalist killed by the police days earlier.
- 1932 - German president Paul von Hindenburg signs a decree ordering Franz von Papen to take control of the Prussian state government and declares martial law.
- 1932 - In Washington, D.C., police fire tear gas on World War I veterans part of the Bonus Expeditionary Force who attempt to march to the White House.
- 1932 - Crowds in the capitals of Bolivia and Paraguay demand their governments declare war on the other after fighting on their border.
- 1933 - Vice-Chancellor of Germany Franz von Papen and Vatican Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli sign a concordat on behalf of their respective nations.
- 1933 - In London, 500,000 march against anti-Semitism.
- 1933 - Germany: Two-hundred Jewish merchants are arrested in Nuremberg and paraded through the streets.
- 1934 - Labor unrest in the United States, as police in Minneaspolis fire upon striking truck drivers, wounding fifty; Seattle police led by the mayor police fire tear gas on and club 2,000 striking longshoremen, and the governor of Oregon calls out the National Guard to break a strike on the Portland docks.
- 1935 - Switzerland: A Royal Dutch Airlines plane en route from Milan to Frankfurt crashes into a Swiss mountain, killing thirteen.
- 1935 - Riots between Muslims and Sikhs over a mosque in Lahore, India leave eleven dead.
- 1936 - The Montreux Convention is signed in Switzerland, authorizing Turkey to fortify the Dardanelles and Bosphorus but guaranteeing free passage to ships of all nations in peacetime.
- 1937 - Two black men accused of stabbing a policeman are taken by a mob from the county jail in Tallahassee, Florida and lynched.
- 1938 - The Justice Department files suit in New York City against the motion picture industry charging violations of anti-trust law. The case would eventually result in a break-up of the industry in 1948.
- 1940 - Denmark leaves the League of Nations.
- 1940 - Billboard magazine publishes its first "Music Popularity Chart"; the first number one song is Frank Sinatra's "I'll Never Smile Again".
- 1940 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Hatch Act, limiting political activity by Federal government employees.
- 1940 - Admiral Jean Decoux is named governor of French Indochina by Marshal Philippe Pétain.
- 1941 - Soviet leader Joseph Stalin consolidates the Commissariats of Home Affairs and National Security to form the NKVD and names Lavrenti Beria its chief.
- 1942 - World War II: Red Army troops take bridgeheads over the Don River near Voronezh.
- 1942 - World War II: The first unit of the Women's Army Corps begins training in Des Moines, Iowa.
- 1943 - World War II: American and Canadian troops conquer Enna on Sicily.
- 1944 - World War II: Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt (known as the July 20 Plot) led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.
- 1944 - World War II: American troops land on Guam near Port Apra.
- 1944 - In Bombay, India, health authorities announce a cholera epidemic has killed 34,000 in three months.
- 1944 - The Democratic Party nominates Franklin D. Roosevelt for a fourth term as president.
- 1944 - Fifty are hurt in rioting in front of the presidential palace in Mexico City.
- 1945 - The U.S. Congress approves the Bretton Woods Agreement.
- 1946 - World War II: The U.S. Congress's Pearl Harbor Committee says Franklin D. Roosevelt was completely blameless for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and calls for a unified command structure in the armed forces.
- 1946 - A grand jury indicts nineteen members of the Michigan state legislature for bribery for obstructing a banking reform bill.
- 1947 - Police in Burma arrest former Prime Minister U Saw and 19 others on charges of assassinating Prime Minister U Aung San and seven members of his cabinet.
- 1947 - The viceroy of India says the people of the Northwest Frontier Province overwhelmingly voted the previous day to join Pakistan rather than India.
- 1948 - President Harry S. Truman issues the first peacetime military draft in the United States amid increasing tensions with the Soviet Union.
- 1948 - In New York City, twelve leaders of the Communist Party USA are indicted under the Smith Act including William Z. Foster and Gus Hall.
- 1948 - Syngman Rhee is elected president of South Korea by parliament.
- 1949 - Israel and Syria sign a truce to end their nineteen-month war.
- 1949 - Bulgaria: Parliament elects Vassil Kolarov prime minister, replacing Georgi Dimitrov.
- 1950 - Belgium: Parliament authorizes king Léopold III to return from exile in Austria.
- 1950 - Korean War: North Korea attacks the temporary South Korean capital, Taejon.
- 1950 - Cold War: In Philadelphia, Harry Gold pleads guilty to spying for the Soviet Union by passing secrets from atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs.
- 1950 -: A new federal system for Indonesia's government is agreed on to take effect August 17.
- 1951 - King Abdullah I of Jordan is assassinated while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem.
- 1952 - The Egyptian prime minister, Hussein Sirry Pasha resigns.
- 1952 - The 15th Olympic Games begin in Helsinki, Finland.
- 1953 - The United Nations Economic and Social Council votes to make UNICEF a permanent agency.
- 1954 - Germany: Otto John, head of West Germany's secret service, defects to East Germany.
- 1954 - At Geneva, Switzerland, an armistice is signed that ends fighting in Vietnam and divides the country along the 17th parallel.
- 1955 - China shells Taiwan's islands Quemoy and Matsu.
- 1955 - Michigan: The United Auto Workers is indicted under the Federal Corrupt Practices Act for its activities in Michigan in the 1954 elections.
- 1956 - A nationwide civil defense drill, "Operation Alert", is held, simulating a Soviet nuclear strike on seventy-five American cities. As part of the exercise, 10,000 bureaucrats and officials leave Washington, D.C., for bunkers around the capital.
- 1956 - In Mukden, Pu Yi, the former Emperor of China, testifies in the war crimes trials of twenty-two Japanese, the first time Pu Yi's whereabouts had been known since 1946.
- 1957 - The Soviet Union closes Peter the Great Bay, which provides access to Vladivostok, to foreign ships.
- 1958 - Twenty-six are dead in an explosion at a military base near Kokin Breg, Yugoslavia.
- 1958 - Jordan suspends diplomatic relations with the United Arab Republic after it recognizes the new government of Iraq.
- 1958 - Baseball: Jim Bunning of the Detroit Tigers pitches a no-hitter against the Boston Red Sox.
- 1959 - The Organization for European Economic Cooperation admits Spain.
- 1959 - Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, arrives in Paris for a state visit with President Charles de Gaulle.
- 1960 - Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) elects Sirimavo Bandaranaike Prime Minister, the world's first elected female head of government.
- 1960 - The Polaris missile is successfully launched from a submarine, the USS George Washington, for the first time.
- 1960 - Belgium defends its intervention in the Congo to the United Nations Security Council while the government of the Congo appeals to the Soviet Union to send troops to push back the Belgians. The governments of the United States and France and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization warn the Soviets to stay out of the dispute.
- 1960 - In Salisbury, Rhodesia, 20,000 protest over police brutality.
- 1960 - In Lebanon, Saeb Salem is named Prime Minister.
- 1960 - The head of the Physics Department at the Israel Institute of Technology, Kurt Sitte, is arrested for espionage.
- 1960 - King Mahendra of Nepal arrives in New Delhi, India, for a state visit, the first stop on a three- month world tour that will include a visit to the United States.
- 1961 - The United States House of Representatives rejects President John F. Kennedy's proposal to reform the National Labor Relations Board.
- 1961 - President John F. Kennedy transfers authority for civil defense planning to the Defense Department.
- 1961 - The Arab League admits Kuwait to membership.
- 1961 - French military forces break the Tunisian siege of Bizerte.
- 1962 - Earthquakes in Colombia kill 40.
- 1964 - Vietnam War: Viet Cong forces attack the capital of Dinh Tuong Province, Cai Be, killing 11 South Vietnamese military personnel and 40 civilians (30 of which are children).
- 1965 - Lyndon B. Johnson nominates Abe Fortas to the Supreme Court.
- 1965 - Columbia Records releases Bob Dylan's groundbreaking single "Like a Rolling Stone" to radio stations.
- 1965 - In Hayneville, Alabama, two civil rights protesters, one a priest and the other a seminarian, are shot by a deputy sheriff. The seminarian dies of his wounds.
- 1965 - Elias Tsirimokos becomes prime minister of Greece.
- 1965 - Turkish prime minister Suat Hayri Urguplu returns from a visit to Moscow and announces the Soviet Union will provide aid to his country.
- 1966 - Prime Minister Harold Wilson announces budget cuts to combat inflation and calls for voluntary wage and price controls.
- 1967 - French President Charles de Gaulle arrives in the North American enclaves of St. Pierre and Miquelon.
- 1969 - Apollo Program: Apollo 11 lands on the Moon and Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin become the first humans to walk on its surface.
- 1971 - President Richard M. Nixon tells Taiwan the United States will continue to sell it arms.
- 1971 - The Soviet Union says it will support China's admission to the United Nations
- 1971 - Syria and Jordan's armies exchange fire over the common frontier.
- 1972 - Netherlands: The cabinet of Prime Minister Barend Biesheuvel resigns in a dispute over the budget.
- 1972 - Uruguay is crippled by a general strike called to obtain wage increases in the face of high inflation.
- 1972 -: Police in Canberra, Australia, break up a protest by indigenous Australians in front of the Australian Parliament over land reform .
- 1973 - The United States Senate passes the War Powers Act.
- 1973 - Vietnam War: In testimony by Assistant Secretary of Defense Jerry Friedheim to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, the United States Defense Department admits it lied to U.S. Congress about bombing Cambodia .
- 1973 - Seventy-three government officials and military officers are charged with conspiracy to overthrow the Greekgovernment.
- 1973 -: Julius Kiano, Kenya's Commerce and Industry Minister, tells Asian-owned businesses to close by the end of the year.
- 1973 - Palestianian terrorists hijack a Japan Airlines jet en route from Amsterdam to Japan and force it down in Dubai.
- 1974 - Turkish occupation of Cyprus: Forces from Turkey invade Cyprus after Greek Cypriots' attempt at enosis. NATO's Council praises the United States and the United Kingdom for attempts to settle the dispute. Syria and Egypt put their militaries on alert.
- 1974 - Reconsidering its decision in June to create nude beaches, the Los Angeles city council votes to ban nudity on all public beaches after a public outcry.
- 1975 - India expels three reporters from The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and Newsweek because they refused to sign a pledge to abide by government censorship.
- 1976 - The Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.
- 1976 - Vietnam War: The United States military completes its troop withdrawal from Thailand.
- 1977 - Johnstown is hit by a flash flood that kills eighty and causes $350 million in damage.
- 1977 - The Central Intelligence Agency releases documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing it had engaged in mind control experiments.
- 1979 - Diana Nyad swims the sixty miles from the Bahamas to Florida.
- 1979 - American President Jimmy Carter says troop withdrawals from South Korea will cease and the remainder will stay for at least two years.
- 1980 - Takieddih Solh is named Lebanon's new prime minister.
- 1980 - The United Nations Security Council votes 14-0 that member states should not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
- 1982 - The Provisional IRA detonates two bombs in Hyde Park and Regents Park in central London, killing eight soldiers, wounding forty-seven people, and leading to the deaths of seven horses.
- 1983 - The United States House of Representatives censures two of its members, Gerry Studds (D-Massachusetts) and Daniel B. Crane (R-Illinois), for having sex with congressional pages: Studds for having sex with a sixteen-year-old male page in 1973 and Crane for having sex with a seventeen-year-old female page in 1980.
- 1983 - The Israeli cabinet votes to withdraw troops from Beirut but to remain in southern Lebanon.
- 1984 - Officials of the Miss America pageant ask Vanessa Lynn Williams to quit after Penthouse published nude photos of her.
- 1985 - The main ship wreck site of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha (which sank in 1622) is found 40 miles off the coast of Key West, Florida by treasure hunters who soon begin to raise $400 million in coins and silver.
- 1985 - The government of Aruba passes legislation to secede from the Netherlands Antilles.
- 1986 - In South Africa, police fire tear gas into a church service for families of those held under the government's emergency decrees.
- 1986 - In Cambridge, Gerald Amirault of the Fell Acres Day School is convicted of molesting nine children.
- 1987 - President Ronald Reagan appoints Larry Kramer, co-founder of Gay Men's Health Crisis, to a federal panel on AIDS.
- 1987 - President Ronald Reagan signs legislation, Public Law 100-75, designating August 3 "International Special Olympics Day".
- 1989 - Photographer Robert Mapplethorpe's show opens at Washington, D.C.'s Project for the Arts after the Smithsonian Institution's Corcoran Gallery cancels it.
- 1989 - The United States Senate voted 73-26 to privatize the Energy Department's uranium enrichment program by creating a private company, the United States Enrichment Corporation.
- 1989 - Burma's ruling junta puts opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.
- 1990 - Haiti asks the United States to send observers to monitor its upcoming elections.
- 1990 - A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb explodes at the International Stock Exchange in London.
- 1990 - All of Colonel Oliver North's convictions for perjury and other offenses in the Iran Contra affair are overturned by an appeals court.
- 1991 - The United States Department of Defense begins airlifting supplies to Albania
- 1992 - Václav Havel resigns as president of Czechoslovakia.
- 1992 - A TU-154 cargo plane crashes in the suburbs of Tbilisi, Georgia, killing forty.
- 1993 - 20,000 policemen gather at Wembley Stadium in London to protest pay reforms.
- 1994 - Israel's Shimon Peres visits Jordan, the highest ranking Israeli official to do so
- 1994 - Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9's Fragment Q1 hits Jupiter.
- 1995 - The Regents of the University of California vote to end all affirmative action in the UC system by 1997.
- 1996 - In Spain, an ETA bomb at an airport kills 35
- 1997 - In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serb Democratic Party forces President Biljana Plavšić to resign.
- 1998 - Two hundred aid workers from CARE International, Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups leave Afghanistan on orders of the Taliban.
- 1999 - Mercury program: Liberty Bell 7 is raised from the Atlantic Ocean.
- 1999 - The European Parliament elects Nichole Fontaine its president.
- 2000 - The leaders of Salt Lake City's bid to win the 2002 Winter Olympics are indicted by a federal grand jury for bribery, fraud, and racketeering.
- 2000 - In Zimbabwe, Parliament opens its new session and seats opposition members for the first time in a decade.
- 2000 - Terrorist Carlos the Jackal sues France in the European Court of Human Rights for allegedly torturing him.
- 2000 - American President Bill Clinton arrives on Okinawa, Japan, for the G8 summit and pledges to the islanders that the United States will reduce the impact American military bases have on their lives.
- 2001 - The London Stock Exchange goes public.
- 2002 - Italy: The 27th Annual G8 summit opens in Genoa. An Italian protester in Genoa, Carlo Giuliani, is shot by police.
- 2002 - The United States Senate confirms Roger L. Gregory as the first black to sit on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
- 2002 - South America: A fire in a discotheque in Lima, Peru kills over twenty-five.
- 2003 - Liberia: Fighting between militias controlled by the country's president, Charles Taylor, and rebels continues in Monrovia.
- 2003 - Middle East: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon meets with Mahmoud Abbas in Jerusalem.
- 2003 - Richard Sambrook, the Director of BBC News, reveals that David Kelly was the source of claims that Downing Street had "sexed up" the "Dodgy Dossier".
- 2003 - France: Sixteen people are injured after two bombs explode outside a tax office in Nice.
- 2003- Former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin is in a coma at a hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, as Uganda refused permission for him to return home.
- 2003- Golf: Rookie Ben Curtis, ranked 396th in the world, wins the British Open, the first golfer to win a major golf tournament on his first try in more than ninety years.
- 2003- Fourteen people—a American family of twelve who had chartered the plane and the South African crew of two—die when their light plane crashes into Mount Kenya after taking off from Nairobi for Buffalo Springs National Reserve in northern Kenya.
- 2004 - Middle East: Palestinian lawmaker Nabil Amr is shot in the West Bank.
- 2005 - Canada becomes the fourth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage, after the bill C-38 receives its Royal Assent.
- 2005 - In China's Shaanxi province, a coal mine explosion kills two dozen.
- 2005 - In Yemen, several people die during demonstrations against oil price increases.

Births


- 1304 - Francesco Petrarch, Italian poet (d. 1374)
- 1519 - Pope Innocent IX
- 1537 - Arnaud d'Ossat, French diplomat and writer (d. 1604)
- 1620 - Nikolaes Heinsius, Dutch scholar (d. 1681)
- 1659 - Hyacinthe Rigaud, French painter (d. 1743)
- 1661 - Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, French founder of the colony of Louisiana (d. 1706)
- 1673 - John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair, Scottish soldier and diplomat (d. 1747)
- 1754 - Destutt de Tracy, French philosopher (d. 1836)
- 1774 - Auguste Marmont, French marshal (d. 1852)
- 1797 - Sir Paweł Edmund Strzelecki, Polish explorer and geologist (d. 1873)
- 1838 - Augustin Daly, American playwright (d. 1899)
- 1838 - George Otto Trevelyan, British statesman and biographer (d. 1928)
- 1847 - Max Liebermann, German artist (d. 1935)
- 1849 - Robert Anderson Van Wyck, Mayor of New York City (d. 1918)
- 1858 - Ivan Vucetic, Croatian anthropologist (d. 1925)
- 1864 - Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1931)
- 1868 - Miron Cristea, first patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church (d. 1939)
- 1873 - Alberto Santos-Dumont, Brazilian aviator (d. 1932)
- 1889 - John Reith, British broadcast executive (d. 1971)
- 1890 - Theda Bara, American actress (d. 1955)
- 1890 - King George II of Greece (d. 1947)
- 1895 - László Moholy-Nagy, Hungarian painter, photographer, and sculptor (d. 1946)
- 1897 - Tadeus Reichstein, Polish-born chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1996)
- 1901 - Heinie Manush, American baseball player (d. 1971)
- 1902 - Jimmy Kennedy, Irish composer (d. 1984)
- 1912 - Tom McDermott, American actor (d. 1996)
- 1918 - Cindy Walker, American singer
- 1919 - Sir Edmund Hillary, New Zealand mountain climber
- 1920 - Elliot Richardson, American politician (d. 1999)

Leap year

A leap year (or intercalary year) is a year containing an extra day or month in order to keep the calendar year in sync with an astronomical or seasonal year. Seasons and astronomical events do not repeat at an exact number of days, so a calendar which had the same number of days in each year would over time drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track. By occasionally inserting (or intercalating) an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected. Leap years (which keep the calendar in sync with the year) should not be confused with leap seconds (which keep clock time in sync with the day).

Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar, the current standard calendar in most of the world, adds a 29th day to February in all years evenly divisible by 4, except for century years (those ending in -00), which receive the extra day only if they are evenly divisible by 400. Thus 1996 was a leap year whereas 1999 was not, and 1600, 2000 and 2400 are leap years but 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are not. The reasoning behind this rule is as follows:
- The Gregorian calendar is designed to keep the vernal equinox on or close to March 21, so that the date of Easter (celebrated on the Sunday after the 14th day of the Moon that falls on or after 21 March) remains correct with respect to the vernal equinox.
- The vernal equinox year is currently about 365.242375 days long.
- The Gregorian leap year rule gives an average year length of 365.2425 days. This difference of a little over 0.0001 days means that in around 8,000 years, the calendar will be about one day behind where it should be. But in 8,000 years' time the length of the vernal equinox year will have changed by an amount we can't accurately predict (see below). So the Gregorian leap year rule does a good enough job. Image:Gregoriancalendarleap.png

Which day is the leap day?

The Gregorian calendar is a modification of the Julian calendar first used by the Romans. The Roman calendar originated as a lunar calendar (though from the 5th century BC it no longer followed the real moon) and named its days after three of the phases of the moon: the new moon (calends, hence "calendar"), the first quarter (nones) and the full moon (ides). Days were counted down (inclusively) to the next named day, so 24 February was ante diem sextum calendas martii ("the sixth day before the calends of March"). Since 45 BC, February in a leap year had two days called "the sixth day before the calends of March". The extra day was originally the second of these, but since the third century it was the first. Hence the term bissextile day for 24 February in a bissextile year. Where this custom is followed, anniversaries after the inserted day are moved in leap years. For example, the former feast day of Saint Matthias, 24 February in ordinary years, would be 25 February in leap years. This historical nicety is, however, in the process of being discarded: The European Union declared that, starting in 2000, 29 February rather than 24 February would be leap day, and the Roman Catholic Church also now uses 29 February as leap day. The only tangible difference is felt in countries that celebrate feast days.

Julian calendar

The Julian calendar adds an extra day to February in years divisible by 4. This rule gives an average year length of 365.25 days. The excess of about 0.0076 days with respect to the vernal equinox year means that the vernal equinox moves a day earlier in the calendar every 130 years or so.

Revised Julian Calendar

The Revised Julian calendar adds an extra day to February in years divisible by 4, except for years divisible by 100 that do not leave a remainder of 200 or 600 when divided by 900. This rule agrees with the rule for the Gregorian calendar until 2799. The first year that dates in the Revised Julian calendar will not agree with the those in the Gregorian calendar will be 2800, because it will be a leap year in the Gregorian calendar but not in the Revised Julian calendar. This rule gives an average year length of 365.242222… days. This is a very good approximation to the mean tropical year, but because the vernal equinox tropical year is slightly longer, the Revised Julian calendar does not do as good a job as the Gregorian calendar of keeping the vernal equinox on or close to 21 March.

Chinese calendar

The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, so a leap year has an extra month, often called an embolismic month after the Greek word for it. In the Chinese calendar the leap month is added according to a complicated rule, which ensures that month 11 is always the month that contains the northern winter solstice. The intercalary month takes the same number as the preceding month; for example, if it follows the second month then it is simply called "leap second month".

Hebrew calendar

The Hebrew calendar is also lunisolar with an embolistic month. In the Hebrew calendar the extra month is called Adar Alef (first Adar) and is added before Adar, which then becomes Adar Sheni (second Adar). According to the Metonic cycle, this is done seven times every nineteen years, specifically, in years, 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19. In addition, the Hebrew calendar has postponement rules that postpone the start of the year by one or two days. The year before the postponement gets one or two extra days, and the year whose start is postponed loses one or two days. These postponement rules reduce the number of different combinations of year length and starting day of the week from 28 to 14, and regulate the location of certain religious holidays in relation to the Sabbath.

Hindu Calendar

In the Hindu calendar, which is a lunisolar calendar, the embolismic month is called adhika maas (extra month). It is the month in which the sun is in the same sign of the stellar zodiac on two consecutive dark moons.

Iranian calendar

The Iranian calendar also has a single intercalated day once in every four years, but every 33 years or so the leap years will be five years apart instead of four years apart. The system used is more accurate and more complicated, and is based on the time of the March equinox as observed from Teheran. The 33-year period is not completely regular; every so often the 33-year cycle will be broken by a cycle of 29 or 37 years.

Long term leap year rules

The accumulated difference between the Gregorian calendar and the vernal equinoctial year amounts to 1 day in about 8,000 years. This suggests that the calendar needs to be improved by another refinement to the leap year rule: perhaps by avoiding leap years in years divisible by 8,000. (The most common such proposal is to avoid leap years in years divisible by 4,000 [http://www.google.com/search?q=%22gregorian+calendar%22+error+%22leap+year%22+4000]. This is based on the difference between the Gregorian calendar and the mean tropical year. Others claim, erroneously, that the Gregorian calendar itself already contains a refinement of this kind [http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mleapyr.html].) However, there is little point in planning a calendar so far ahead because over a timescale of tens of thousands of years the number of days in a year will change for a number of reasons, most notably: #Precession of the equinoxes moves the position of the vernal equinox with respect to perihelion and so changes the length of the vernal equinoctial year. #Tidal acceleration from the sun and moon slows the rotation of the earth, making the day longer. In particular, the second component of change depends on such things as post-glacial rebound and sea level rise due to climate change. We can't predict these changes accurately enough to be able to make a calendar that will be accurate to a day in tens of thousands of years.

Marriage proposal

There is a tradition, said to go back to Saint Patrick and Saint Bridget in 5th century Ireland, whereby women may only make marriage proposals in leap years.

Saint Patrick and the leap year

:Saint Patrick, having driven the frogs out of the bogs was walking along the shores of Lough Neagh, when he was accosted by Saint Bridget in tears, and was told that a mutiny had broken out in the nunnery over which she presided, the ladies claiming the right of popping the question. :Saint Patrick said he would concede them the right every seventh year, when Saint Bridget threw her arms round his neck, and exclaimed, "Arrah, Pathrick, jewel, I daurn't go back to the girls wid such a proposal. Make it one year in four." Saint Patrick replied, "Bridget, acushla, squeeze me that way again, an' I'll give ye leap-year, the longest of the lot." Saint Bridget, upon this, popped the question to St Patrick himself, who, of course, could not marry: so he patched up the difficulty as best he could with a kiss and a silk gown. (Source: Evans, Ivor H, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Cassell, London, 1988) According to a 1288 law in Scotland, fines were levied if the proposal was refused by the man; compensation ranged from a kiss to a silk gown to soften the blow. Because men felt that put them at too great a risk, the tradition was in some places tightened to restricting female proposals to 29 February.

Birthdays

A person who was born on 29 February may be called a "leapling". In non-leap years they usually celebrate their birthday on 28 February or 1 March. There are many instances in children's literature where a person's claim to be only a quarter of their actual age turns out be based on counting their leap-year birthdays. A similar device is used in the plot of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance. Category:Calendars Category:Units of time als:Schaltjahr ko:윤년 ja:閏年 simple:Leap year th:ปีอธิกสุรทิน



Pope Hormisdas

Hormisdas was Pope from July 20, 514 to 523. He was born at Frosinone, Campagna di Roma, Italy. Saint Hormisdas was a widower and a Roman deacon at the time of his accession to the papal throne. His son became pope under the name of Silverius. One of the new pope's first cares was to remove the last vestiges of the Laurentian schism in Rome, receiving back into the Church those adherents who had not already been reconciled. Most of his papacy was concerned with healing the schism that had existed since 484 between East and West brought about by the Acacian schism. The schism was the result of Acacius of Constantinople's attempt to placate the Monophysites. The church of Constantinople was reunited with Rome in 519 by means of the confession of faith that is called The Formula of Hormisdas. In art, Hormisdas is portrayed as a young man with a camel. He is the patron saint of grooms and stable-boys. Hormisdas Hormisdas Hormisdas Hormisdas ko:교황 호르미스다

1304

Events


- 20 July - Fall of Stirling Castle: Edward I of England takes the last rebel stronghold in the Wars of Scottish Independence.
- James II of Aragon reconquers Villena, Spain.

Births


- February 24 - Ibn Battuta, Moroccan jurist
- July 20 - Petrarch, Italian poet (died 1374)
- William de Clinton, 1st Earl of Huntingdon
- Louis I of Flanders (died 1346)
- Jayaatu Khan, Grand Khan of the Mongol Empire (died 1332)
- Günther von Schwarzburg, German king (died 1349)

Deaths


- May 11 - Mahmud Ghazan, Persian ruler (born 1271)
- July 7 - Pope Benedict XI (born 1240)
- July 17 - Edmund Mortimer, 2nd Baron Wigmore
- August 17 - Emperor Go-Fukakusa of Japan (born 1243)
- August 22 - John II, Count of Hainaut (born 1247)
- September 27 - John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey, English soldier
- Jehan de Lescurel, poet and composer Category:1304 ko:1304년

Edward I of England

King Edward I of England (June 17 1239 – July 7, 1307), popularly known as "Longshanks" because of his 6 foot 2 inch frame and the "Hammer of the Scots" (his tombstone, in Latin, read, Hic est Edwardvs Primus Scottorum Malleus, "Here lies Edward I, Hammer of the Scots"), achieved fame as the monarch who conquered Wales and who kept Scotland under English domination. He reigned from 1272 to 1307, ascending the throne of England on November 21, 1272 after the death of his father, King Henry III of England. His mother was Queen consort Eleanor of Provence.

Biography

Edward was born at the Palace of Westminster on June 17 or 18, 1239. He married twice; his first marriage, in October 1254, was to Eleanor of Castile which produced sixteen children, and her death in 1290 affected Edward deeply. He displayed his grief by erecting the Eleanor crosses, one at each place where her funeral cortege stopped for the night. His second marriage, in September 1299, to Marguerite of France (known as the "Pearl of France" by her English subjects), the daughter of King Philippe III of France (Phillip the Bold) and Maria of Brabant, produced three children. Edward's character greatly contrasted that of his father, who reigned in England throughout Edward's childhood and consistently tended to favour compromise with his opponents. Edward had already shown himself as an ambitious and impatient man, displaying considerable military prowess in defeating Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham in 1265. He gained a reputation for treating rebels and other foes with great savagery. He relentlessly pursued the surviving members of the de Montfort family, his cousins.

Military campaigns

Crusades

In 1269 Cardinal Ottobono, the Papal Legate, arrived in England and appealed to Prince Edward and his brother Edmund to participate in the Eighth Crusade alongside Louis IX of France. In order to fund the crusade, Edward had to borrow heavily from Louis IX and the Jews of England. It is estimated by scholars such as P.R. Coss that Edward raised and spent close to half a million livres. The number of knights and retainers that accompanied Edward on the crusade was quite small, possibly around 230 knights. Many of the members of Edward's expedition were close friends and family including his wife Eleanor of Castile, his brother Edmund, and his first cousin Henry De Alamain. The original goal of the crusade was to relieve the beleagured Christian stronghold of Acre, but Louis had been diverted to Tunis. By the time that Edward arrived at Tunis, Louis had died of disease. The majority of the French forces at Tunis returned home, but a small number of them joined Edward who continued onward to Acre to participate in the Ninth Crusade. After a short stop in Cyprus, Edward arrived in Acre with thirteen ships. While in Acre, Edward engaged in diplomacy with the Mongols hoping to form an alliance against Sultan Baibars of Egypt. This did not come to fruition. In 1271 Hugh III of Cyprus arrived with a contingent of knights. The arrival of the additional forces emboldened Edward, who engaged in a raid on the town of Ququn. Soon afterward Edward signed a ten year peace treaty with Baibars. Around the same time, Edward was nearly assassinated but warded off his attacker, according to Matthew Paris, by bludgeoning his would be assassin with a metal tripod. Edward left the Holy Land and returned to England in 1272. Overall, Edward's crusade was insignificant and only gave the city of Acre a reprieve of ten years. However, Edward's reputation was greatly enhanced by his participation in the crusade and was hailed by some contemporary commentators as a new Richard the Lionheart. Furthermore, some historians believe Edward was inspired by the design of the castles he saw while on crusade and incorporated similar features into the castles he built to secure portions of Wales, such as Caernarfon Castle.

Welsh Wars

One of Edward's early achievements was the conquest of Wales. Under the 1267 Treaty of Montgomery, Llewelyn ap Gruffydd had extended Welsh territories southwards into what had been the lands of the English Marcher lords, and gained the title of Prince of Wales although he still owed homage to the English monarch as overlord. Edward refused to recognise the Treaty which had been concluded by his father. In 1275, pirates in Edward's pay intercepted a ship carrying Eleanor de Montfort, Simon de Montfort's only daughter, from France (where her family had lived in exile) to Wales, where she expected to marry Llywelyn. The parties' families had arranged the marriage previously, when an alliance with Simon de Montfort still counted politically. However, Llywelyn wanted the marriage largely to antagonise his long-standing enemy, Edward. With the hijacking of the ship, Edward gained possession of Eleanor and imprisoned her at Windsor. After Llywelyn repeatedly refused to pay homage to Edward in 1274-5, Edward raised an army and launched his first campaign against the Welsh prince in 1276-77. After this campaign Llywelyn was forced to pay homage to Edward and was stripped of all but a rump of territory in Gwynedd. But Edward allowed Llywelyn to retain the title of Prince of Wales, and the marriage with Eleanor de Montfort went ahead. However, Llywelyn's younger brother, Dafydd (who had briefly been an ally of the English) started another rebellion in 1282. Llywelyn died shortly afterwards in a skirmish. Subsequently, Edward destroyed the remnants of resistance, capturing, brutally torturing and executing Dafydd in the following year. To consolidate his conquest, he commenced the construction of a string of massive stone castles encircling the principality, of which Caernarfon Castle provides a notable surviving example. Wales became incorporated into England under the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 and in 1301 Edward created his eldest son Edward Prince of Wales, since which time the eldest son of each English monarch has borne the same title.

Scottish Wars

Edward then turned his attentions to Scotland and on May 10 1291 Scottish nobles recognised the authority of Edward I. He had planned to marry off his son to the child queen, Margaret of Scotland (Called 'The Maid of Norway') but when Margaret died the Scottish nobles agreed to have Edward select her successor from the various claimants to the throne, and he chose John Balliol over other candidates. Edward was anxious to impose his overlordship on Scotland and hoped that John Balliol would prove the most biddable candidate. Indeed, Edward summoned John Balliol to do homage to him in Westminster in 1293 and made it clear he expected John's military and financial support against France. But this was too much for Balliol, who concluded a pact with France and prepared an army to invade England. 1293 Edward gathered his largest army yet and razed Berwick, massacring its inhabitants, proceeding to Dunbar and Edinburgh. The Stone of Destiny was removed from Scone Palace and taken to Westminster Abbey. Until 1996, it formed the seat on King Edward's Chair, on which all English monarchs since 1308 have been crowned, with the exception of Mary I. In 1996, the stone was returned to Scotland, to return only during royal coronations. Balliol renounced the crown and was imprisoned in the Tower of London for three years before withdrawing to his estates in France. All freeholders in Scotland were required to swear an oath of homage to Edward, and he ruled Scotland like a province through English Viceroys. Opposition sprang up (see Wars of Scottish Independence), and Edward executed the focus of discontent, William Wallace, on August 23 1305, having earlier defeated him at the Battle of Falkirk (1298). His plan to unite the two countries never came to fruition during his lifetime, however, and he died in 1307 at Burgh-by-Sands, Cumberland on the Scottish border, while on his way to wage another campaign against the Scots under the leadership of Robert the Bruce. Against his wishes, Edward was buried in Westminster Abbey. His son, King Edward II of England, succeeded him.

Government and law under Edward I

Unlike his father, Henry III of England, Edward I took great interest in the workings of his government and undertook a number of reforms to safeguard the preservation of royal rights and improve the administration of the law. He spearheaded a wave of nationalism and solidified central authority over the country, a trend also used by contemporary monarchs. Late in his reign, Edward I issued the first trailbaston commissions (1305-7).

Edward and the Jews

To help finance his war to conquer Wales, Edward I taxed the Jewish moneylenders. However, the cost of Edward's ambitions soon drained the money-lenders dry. When the Jews could no longer pay, the state accused them of disloyalty. Already restricted to a limited number of occupations, Edward furthermore abolished their right to lend money at interest with the Statute of Jewry, [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/britain/mid_eng_jews.shtml] and eventually restricted their extra-curricular movements and activities. Edward decreed that all Jews wear a yellow patch in the shape of a star attached to their outer clothing to identify them in public (compare Star of David, Yellow badge). In the course of King Edward's persecution of the Jews, he arrested all the heads of Jewish households. The authorities took over 300 of them to the Tower of London and executed them, while killing others in their homes. Finally, in 1290, the King banished all Jews from the country.

Issue

Children of Edward and Eleanor: #Daughter, stillborn in May 1255 in Bordeaux, France. #Katherine, living June 17 1264, died September 5 1264 and buried at Westminster Abbey. #Eleanor, born 18 June 1264 and died 12 October 1297. She married (1) Alfonso III of Aragon, (2) Count Henry III of Bar. #Joan, born January 1265, buried at Westminster Abbey before September 7 1265. #John, born July 13 1266, died August 3 1271 at Wallingford, in the custody of his granduncle, Richard, Earl of Cornwall. Buried at Westminster Abbey. #Henry, born before May 6 1268, died October 16 1274. #Daughter, born May 1271 in Palestine and died before September 1271. #Joan of Acre born May 1271 and died April 7 1307. She married (1) Gilbert de Clare, 7th Earl of Hertford, (2) Ralph Morthermer, 1st Baron Monthermer. #Alphonso, Earl of Chester, born 24 November 1273, died 19 August 1284, buried in Westminster Abbey. #Margaret, born March 15 1275 and died after 1333. She married John II, Duke of Brabant. #Berengaria, born 1 May 1276 and died before June 27 1278, buried in Westminster Abbey. #Daughter, died shortly after birth, January 1278. #Mary, born 11 March 1279 and died 29 May 1332, a nun in Amesbury, Wiltshire (England). #Elizabeth of Rhuddlan, born August 1281 at Rhuddlan, died 5 May 1316. She married (1) John I, Count of Holland, (2) Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford & 3rd Earl of Essex. #Edward of Caernavon, born 25 April 1284 at Caernarvon, died 21 September 1327. He married Isabella of France. Children of Edward and Marguerite: #Thomas of Brotherton, 1st Earl of Norfolk (1300–1338), married firstly, Alice Hayles and had issue. He married secondly, Mary Brewes and had issue. #Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, married Margaret Wake, Baroness Wake of Liddell and had issue. #Eleanor (1306–1311), died young.

References


- Michael Prestwich, Edward I (London: Methuen, 1988, updated edition Yale University Press, 1997 ISBN 0-300-07209-0) Edward I Edward I Category:Londoners Category:House of Anjou Category:Heirs to the English & British thrones Edward I of England Category:Crusades Category:Wars of Scottish Independence Category:History of Wales Category:Lords Warden of the Cinque Ports Category:Earls in the Peerage of England ja:エドワード1世 (イングランド王)

Wars of Scottish Independence

The Wars of Scottish Independence were a series of military campaigns fought between Scotland and England in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. The First War (1296–1328) began with the English invasion of Scotland in 1296, and ended with the signing of the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton in 1328. The Second War (1332–1357) began with the English supported invasion of Edward Balliol and the 'Disinherited' in 1332, and ended around 1357 with the signing of the Treaty of Berwick. The wars were part of a great national crisis for Scotland and the period became one of the most defining moments in the nation's history. At the end of both wars, Scotland still retained her status as a free and independent nation, which was her main aim throughout the conflict. The wars were also important for other reasons, such as the emergence of the longbow as a key weapon in medieval warfare.

The First War of Independence: 1296-1328

Background to the war: 1286-92

King Alexander III of Scotland died in 1286, leaving his three-year old grand-daughter Margaret (called 'the Maid of Norway') as his heir. In 1290, the Guardians of Scotland signed the Treaty of Birgham agreeing to the marriage of the Maid of Norway and Edward of Caernarvon, the son of Edward I, who was Margaret's great-uncle. This marriage would create a union between Scotland and England. The Scots insisted that the Treaty declare that Scotland was separate and divided from England and that its rights, laws, liberties and customs were wholly and inviolably preserved for all time. However, Margaret, travelling to her new kingdom, died shortly after landing on the Orkney Islands around September 26 1290. With her death, the House of Dunkeld came to an end and thirteen competitors claimed their rights to the Scottish crown. The two main competitors were Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale (grandfather of the future King Robert the Bruce) and John Balliol, Lord of Galloway. Fearing civil war between the Bruce and Balliol families and their supporters, the Guardians of Scotland wrote to Edward I of England, asking him to come north and arbitrate among the claimants in order to avoid civil war. Edward I saw this as the opportunity he had long been waiting for to conquer Scotland as he had conquered Wales and rule over all the British Isles. Edward came north in 1291 and asserted that he had come as the Lord Paramount of Scotland to act as the adviser on the successor to the Scottish Crown and had to be recognised as Lord Paramount. This put the Scots in a very vulnerable position. All during the meeting, Edward had his army standing by in case of trouble. He gave the claimants three weeks to agree to his terms. With no King and with no army ready, the Scots had little choice, and the claimants acknowledged Edward as their Lord Paramount and were willing to receive his judgement. Their decision might have been influenced by the fact that the majority of the claimants had large estates in England and therefore would have lost these estates if they had defied Edward. On June 11, acting as the Lord Paramount of Scotland, Edward I ordered that on a "temporary basis" every Scottish Castle be placed under his control and all Scottish officials were to resign their offices and be re-appointed by him. Two days later, in Upsettlington, the Guardians and the leading Scottish nobles gathered to swear allegiance to King Edward I as their superior and Lord Paramount. All Scots were also required to pay homage to Edward I, either in person or at one of the designated centres by July 27 1291. There were thirteen meetings from May to August 1291 at Berwick, where the claimants pleaded their claim before Edward in what came to be known as the 'Great Cause.' The claims of most of the competitors were rejected as they were of illegitimate descent and the choice was between Balliol, Bruce and John de Hastings, 2nd Baron Hastings. Hastings wished the kingdom to be divided in three equal parts, for the three men; while Balliol and Bruce maintained that the country was indivisible. The Scots obviously wanted to keep the country together, so Hastings was disqualified. On August 3, Edward asked both Balliol and Bruce to choose forty arbiters while he chose twenty-four, to decide the case. There was then an adjournment until June 1292. Upon reconvening, the 104 arbiters wouldn't make a firm decision on the claimants. There was another recess until October 10, 1292, and at this time Edward got the arbiters to agree that as Lord Paramount of Scotland, he had the right to grant the kingship of Scotland as he would an earldom or barony. He chose Balliol on November 17 1292 and on November 30, he was crowned as King of Scots at Scone Abbey. On December 26, at Newcastle upon Tyne, King John swore homage to Edward I for the kingdom of Scotland. Edward soon made it clear that he regarded the country as his vassal state. Balliol was too weak to resist, and the Scots resented Edward's demands. In 1294, Edward summoned John Balliol to appear before him, and then ordered that he had until September 1 1294 to provide Scottish troops and funds for his invasion of France. On his return to Scotland, John held a meeting with his council and after a few days of heated debate plans were made to defy the orders of Edward I. A few weeks later a Scottish parliament was hastily convened and twelve members of a war council (four Earls, Barons, and Bishops respectively) were selected to advise King John. Emissaries were immediately dispatched to inform King Philip IV of France of the intentions of the English. They also negotiated a treaty by which the Scots would invade England if the English invaded France, and in return the French would support the Scots. The treaty would be sealed by the arranged marriage of Edward Balliol (John's son) and Jeanne de Valois (Philip's niece). Another treaty with King Eric II of Norway was hammered out, in which for the sum of fifty thousand groats he would supply one hundred battleships for four months of the year, so long as hostilities between France and England continued. Although Norway never acted, the Franco-Scottish alliance, later known as the Auld Alliance, was effective until 1560. It was not until 1295 that Edward I was even aware of the secret Franco-Scottish negotiations. In early October, Edward began to strengthen his northern defences against a possible invasion by a revitalised Scottish army. It was also at this point that Robert Bruce, 6th Lord of Annandale (father of the future King Robert the Bruce) was appointed governor of Carlisle Castle. Edward also ordered John Balliol to relinquish control of the castles and burghs of Berwick, Jedburgh and Roxburgh. In December, more than two hundred of Edward's tenants in Newcastle were summoned to form a militia by March 1296 and in February, a fleet of ships sailed north to rendezvous with his land forces in Newcastle. The build up of English forces south of the Anglo-Scottish border did not go undetected and in response, King John Balliol summoned all able-bodied Scotsmen to bear arms and converge near the border at Caddonlee by March 11. Several of the Scottish nobles choose to ignore the summons, including Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, whose father had his Annandale estate seized by John Balliol and reassigned to John 'The Red' Comyn, Earl of Buchan.

Beginning of the war: 1296–1306

The First War of Scottish Independence can be loosely divided into four phases: the initial English invasion and success in 1296; the campaigns led by William Wallace, Andrew de Moray and various Scottish Guardians from 1297 until John Comyn negotiated for the general Scottish submission in February 1304; the renewed campaigns led by Robert the Bruce between his coronation in 1306 and the Scottish victory at Bannockburn in 1314; and a final phase of Scottish diplomatic initiatives and military campaigns in Scotland, Ireland and Northern England from 1314 until the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton in 1328. The war began in earnest with Edward I's sacking of Berwick in March 1296, followed by the Scottish defeat at the Battle of Dunbar and the abdication of John Balliol in July. The English invasion campaign had subdued most of the country by August and, after removing the Stone of Destiny from Scone Abbey and transporting it to Westminster Abbey, Edward convened a parliament at Berwick, where the Scottish nobles paid homage to him as King of England. Scotland had been all but conquered. The revolts which broke out in early 1297, led by William Wallace, Andrew de Moray and other Scottish nobles, forced Edward to send more forces to deal with the Scots, and although they managed to force the nobles to capitulate at Irvine, Wallace and de Moray's continuing campaigns eventually led to the first key Scottish victory, at Stirling Bridge. This was followed by Scottish raids into northern England and the appointment of Wallace as Guardian of Scotland in March 1298. But in July, Edward invaded again, intending to crush Wallace and his followers, and defeated the Scots at Falkirk. Although Edward failed to subdue Scotland completely before returning to England, Wallace's military reputation was ruined, and he went into hiding, resigning the guardianship.

King Robert the Bruce: 1306–1314

Wallace was succeeded by Robert Bruce and John Comyn as joint guardians, with William Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews being appointed in 1299 as a third, neutral Guardian to try and maintain order between them. During that year, diplomatic pressure from France and Rome persuaded Edward to release the imprisoned King John into the custody of the Pope, and Wallace was sent to France to seek the aid of Philip IV, he possibly also travelled to Rome. Further campaigns by Edward in 1300 and 1301 led to a truce between the Scots and the English in 1302. After another campaign in 1303/1304, Stirling Castle, the last major Scottish held stronghold, fell to the English, and in February 1304, negotiations led to most of the remaining nobles paying homage to Edward and to the Scots all but surrendering. At this point, Robert Bruce and William Lamberton made a secret bond of alliance, aiming to place Bruce on the Scottish throne and continue the struggle. After the capture and execution of Wallace in 1305, Scotland seemed to have been finally conquered and the revolt calmed for a period. But in 1306, during a meeting between Bruce and Comyn, the two surviving claimants for the Scottish throne, Bruce quarrelled with and killed John Comyn. Comyn, it seems, had broken an agreement between the two, and informed King Edward of Bruce's plans to be king. The agreement was that one of the two claimants would renounce his claim on the throne of Scotland, but receive lands from the other and support his claim. Comyn appears to have thought to get both the lands and the throne by betraying Bruce to the English. A messenger carrying documents from Comyn to Edward was captured by Bruce and his party, plainly implicating Comyn. Bruce then rallied the Scottish prelates and nobles behind him and had himself crowned King of Scots at Scone. He then began a new campaign to free his kingdom. After being defeated in battle he was driven from the Scottish mainland as an outlaw. While hiding in a damp cave, considering giving up his seemingly forlorn cause, Bruce is reported to have watched a small spider trying to spin a line across a seemingly impossibly wide gap. As Bruce watched, the spider tried and tried and tried. "Foolish spider" thought Bruce, but continued to watch. Suddenly, the spider succeeded in leaping across the gap with its thread. Bruce considered this, and took it as an encouragement that he, too, should continue to persevere regardless of seeming circumstances. Bruce later came out of hiding in 1307. The Scots thronged to him, and he defeated the English in a number of battles. His forces continued to grow in strength, encouraged in part by the death of Edward I in July 1307.

From Bannockburn to Edinburgh-Northampton: 1314–1328

In 1320, the Declaration of Arbroath was sent by a group of Scottish nobles to the Pope affirming Scottish independence from England. Two similar declarations were also sent by the Clergy and Robert I. In 1327, Edward II of England was deposed and killed. The invasion of the North of England by Robert the Bruce forced Edward III of England to sign the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton on May 1 in 1328, which recognised the independence of Scotland with Bruce as King. To further seal the peace, Robert's son and heir David married the sister of Edward III.

The Second War of Independence: 1332–1357

After Robert the Bruce's death, King David II was too young to rule, so the guardianship was assumed by Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray. But Edward III, despite having given his name to the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton, was determined to avenge the humiliation by the Scots and he could count on the assistance of Edward Balliol, the son of John Balliol and a claimant to the Scottish throne. Edward III also had the support of a group of Scottish nobles, led by Balliol and Henry Beaumont, known as the 'Disinherited.' This group of nobles had supported the English in the First War and, after Bannockburn, Robert the Bruce had deprived them of their titles and lands, granting them to his allies. When peace was concluded, they received no reparations. These disinherited were hungry for their old lands and would prove to be the undoing of the peace. The Earl of Moray died July 20, 1332. The Scots nobility gathered at Perth where they elected Donald, Earl of Mar as the new Guardian. Meanwhile a small band led by Balliol had set sail from the River Humber. Consisting of the disinherited noblemen and mercenaries, they were probably no more than a few hundred men strong. Edward III was still formally at peace with David II and his dealings with Balliol were therefore deliberately obscured. He of course knew what was happening and Balliol probably did homage in secret before leaving, but Balliol's desperate scheme must have seemed doomed to failure. Edward therefore refused to allow Balliol to invade Scotland from across the River Tweed. This would have been too open a breach of the treaty. He agreed to turn a blind eye to an invasion by sea, but made it clear that he would disavow them and confiscate all their English lands should Balliol and his friends fail. The 'disinherited' landed at Kinghorn in Fife on 6 August. The news of their advance had preceded them, and, as they marched towards Perth, they found their route barred by a large Scottish army, mostly of infantry, under the new Guardian. At the Battle of Dupplin Moor, Balliol's army, commanded by Henry Beaumont, defeated the larger Scottish force. Beaumont made use of the same tactics that the English would make famous under the Hundred Years' War, with dismounted knights in the centre and archers on the flanks. Caught in the murderous rain of arrows, most of the Scots never reached the enemy's line. When the slaughter was finally over, Donald, Earl of Mar, Sir Robert Bruce (an illegitimate son of Robert the Bruce), many nobles and around 2,000 Scots had been slain. Edward Balliol then had himself crowned as King of Scots, firstly at Perth, and then again in September at Scone Abbey. Balliol's success surprised Edward III, and fearing that Balliol's invasion would eventually fail leading to a Scots invasion of England, he moved north with his army. In October, Sir Archibald Douglas, now Guardian of Scotland, made a truce with Balliol, supposedly to let the Scottish Parliament assemble and decide who their true king was. Emboldened by the truce, Balliol dismissed most of his English troops and moved to