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The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, the Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Pakistan is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The partition involved the division of two provinces, Bengal and the Punjab, based on district-wide non-Muslim (mostly Hindu and Sikh) or Muslim majorities. It also involved the division of the British Indian Army, the Royal Indian Navy, the Indian Civil Service, the railways, and the central treasury, between the two new dominions. The partition was set forth in the Indian Independence Act 1947 and resulted in the end of the British Raj, or Crown rule in India. The two self-governing countries of India and Pakistan legally came into existence at midnight on 14–15 August 1947. With the partition of British India and withdrawal of the British from the Indian subcontinent, the Indian Independence Act provided that the princely states were released from their subsidiary alliances and other obligations to the British, while the British withdrew from their obligations to the states, leaving the rulers to decide whether to accede to India or Pakistan or to remain independent outside both. Sardar Patel said in a speech in January 1948, "On the lapse of Paramountcy, every Indian State became a separate independent entity." The political integration of the princely states into the two new dominions was begun by many accessions in August 1947, but mostly it followed on later. Critically, the rulers of the states of Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir, and others, chose independence. The partition displaced between 12 and 20 million people along religious lines, creating overwhelming refugee crises associated with the mass migration and population transfer that occurred across the newly constituted dominions; there was large-scale violence, with disputed estimates of the loss of life before, at the time of, or following the partition. As of 2009, the estimates still varied between two hundred thousand and two million. The violent nature of the partition created an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion between India and Pakistan that plagues Indo-Pakistani relations to the present. The term partition of India does not cover the earlier separations of Burma (now Myanmar) and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) from the administration of British India. It does not cover the incorporation of the enclaves of French India into India during the period 1947–1954, nor the annexation of Goa and other districts of Portuguese India by India in 1961. Other contemporaneous political entities in the region in 1947, such as Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal, and the Maldives, were unaffected by the partition. The secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971 was a later partition of Pakistan, and not of India.

The Fall of Constantinople, also known as the Conquest of Constantinople, was the capture of Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, by the Ottoman Empire. The city was captured on 29 May 1453 as part of the culmination of a 53-day siege which had begun on 6 April. The attacking Ottoman Army, which significantly outnumbered Constantinople's defenders, was commanded by Sultan Mehmed II (later nicknamed "the Conqueror"), while the Byzantine army was led by Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos. After conquering the city, Mehmed II made Constantinople the new Ottoman capital, replacing Adrianople. The fall of Constantinople and of the Byzantine Empire was a watershed moment of the Late Middle Ages, marking the effective end of the Roman Empire, a state which began in roughly 27 BC and had lasted nearly 1,500 years. For many modern historians, the fall of Constantinople marks the end of the medieval period and the beginning of the early modern period. The city's fall also stood as a turning point in military history. Since ancient times, cities and castles had depended upon ramparts and walls to repel invaders. The walls of Constantinople, especially the Theodosian walls, protected Constantinople from attack for 800 years and were noted as some of the most advanced defensive systems in the world at the time. However, these fortifications were overcome by Ottoman infantry with the support of gunpowder, specifically from cannons and bombards, heralding a change in siege warfare. The Ottoman cannons repeatedly fired massive cannonballs weighing 500 kilograms (1,100 lb) over 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) which created gaps in the Theodosian walls for the Ottoman siege.

The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social change in Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government following two successive revolutions and a civil war. It can be seen as the precursor for other revolutions that occurred in the aftermath of World War I, such as the German Revolution of 1918–1919. The Russian Revolution was a key event of the 20th century. The Russian Revolution was inaugurated with the February Revolution in 1917, in the midst of World War I. With the German Empire inflicting defeats on the front, and increasing logistical problems causing shortages of bread and grain, the Russian Army was losing morale, with large scale mutiny looming. Officials were convinced that if Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, the unrest would subside. Nicholas stepped down on 15 March [O.S. 2 March], ushering in a provisional government led by the Duma (parliament). During the unrest, Soviet councils were formed by locals in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) that initially did not oppose the new government; however, the Soviets insisted on their influence in the government and control over militias. By March, Russia had two rival governments. The Provisional Government held state power in military and international affairs, whereas the network of Soviets held domestic power. Critically, the Soviets held the allegiance of the working class, and urban middle class. There were mutinies, protests and strikes. Socialist and other leftist political organizations competed for influence within the Provisional Government and Soviets. Factions included the Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, Anarchists, and the Bolsheviks, a far-left party led by Vladimir Lenin. The Bolsheviks won popularity with their program promising peace, land, and bread: an end to the war, land for the peasantry, and ending famine. After assuming power, the Provisional Government continued fighting the war in spite of public opposition. Taking advantage, the Bolsheviks and other factions gained popular support to advance the revolution. Responding to discontent in Petrograd, the Provisional Government repressed protestors leading to the July Days. The Bolsheviks merged workers' militias loyal to them into the Red Guards. The volatile situation reached its climax with the October Revolution, a Bolshevik armed insurrection in Petrograd beginning 7 November [O.S. 25 October] that overthrew the Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks established their own government and proclaimed the establishment of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Under pressure from German military offensives, the Bolsheviks relocated the capital to Moscow. The RSFSR began reorganizing the empire into the world's first socialist state, to practice soviet democracy on a national and international scale. Their promise to end Russia's participation in World War I was fulfilled when Bolshevik leaders signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany in March 1918. The Bolsheviks established the Cheka, a secret police and revolutionary security service working to uncover, punish, and eliminate those considered to be "enemies of the people" in campaigns called the Red Terror. Although the Bolsheviks held large support in urban areas, they had foreign and domestic enemies that refused to recognize their government. Russia erupted into a bloody civil war, which pitted the Reds (Bolsheviks), against their enemies, which included nationalist movements, anti-Bolshevik socialist parties, anarchists, monarchists and liberals; the latter two parties strongly supported the Russian White movement which was led mainly by right-leaning officers and seen as fighting for the restoration of the imperial order. The Bolshevik commissar Leon Trotsky began organizing workers' militias loyal to the Bolsheviks into the Red Army. While key events occurred in Moscow and Petrograd, every city in the empire was convulsed, including the provinces of national minorities, and in the rural areas peasants took over and redistributed land. As the war progressed, the RSFSR established Soviet power in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Byelorussia, Georgia, and Ukraine. Wartime cohesion and intervention from foreign powers prompted the RSFSR to begin unifying these nations under one flag and created the Soviet Union. Historians consider the end of the revolutionary period to be in 1922, when the civil war concluded with the defeat of the White Army and separatist factions, leading to mass emigration from Russia. The victorious Bolshevik Party reconstituted itself into the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and remained in power for six decades.

The American Revolution (1765–1789) was a political movement in the Thirteen Colonies of Great Britain. The movement began as a rebellion and evolved into a revolution resulting in the sovereign United States. These changes were the outcome of the associated American Revolutionary War. The Second Continental Congress, as the provisional government, established the Continental Army and appointed George Washington as its commander-in-chief in 1775. The following year, the Congress passed the Lee Resolution on July 2nd, then unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July. Throughout most of the war, the outcome appeared uncertain. However, in 1781, a decisive victory by Washington and the Continental Army in the Siege of Yorktown led King George III and the Fox–North coalition in government to negotiate the cessation of colonial rule and the acknowledgment of American sovereignty, formalized in the Treaty of Paris in 1783. The Constitution took effect in 1789 and the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. Discontent with colonial rule began shortly after the French and Indian War ended in 1763. Even though the colonies had fought in and supported the war directly with troops, funds and material, the British Parliament imposed new taxes to ostensibly compensate for wartime costs, and transferred control of the colonies' western lands to British officials in Montreal. Representatives from several colonies convened in New York City for the Stamp Act Congress in 1765; its "Declaration of Rights and Grievances" argued that this taxation without representation in Parliament and other policies violated their rights as Englishmen. In 1767, though the Stamp Act was repealed, tensions flared again following Parliament's passage of the Townshend Acts. In an effort to quell the mounting rebellion, King George III deployed British troops to the colony of Massachusetts, where they killed antagonists in the 1770 Boston Massacre. In December 1773, the local faction of the colonies-wide Sons of Liberty underground orchestrated the Boston Tea Party, during which they dumped chests of taxed tea owned by the British East India Company into Boston Harbor. Parliament responded by enacting a series of punitive laws, intended to end self-government in Massachusetts, but instead increased American support for the revolutionary cause. In 1774, twelve of the Thirteen Colonies sent delegates to the First Continental Congress; the Province of Georgia joined in 1775. The First Continental Congress began coordinating Patriot resistance through underground networks of committees largely built on the foundations of the Sons of Liberty network. In August 1775, King George III proclaimed Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion. The British attempted to disarm the colonists, resulting in the Battles of Lexington and Concord, sparking the Revolutionary War. The Second Continental Congress convened in May of 1775 and created the Continental Army, which then surrounded Boston, forcing the British to withdraw by sea in March 1776 and leaving Patriots in control in every colony. In May 1776, Congress voted to suppress all forms of Crown authority, to be replaced by locally created authority, and each colony created a state constitution. On July 2, the Congress passed the Lee Resolution, affirming their support for national independence. On July 4, 1776 they unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, famously proclaiming that "all men are created equal", having then evolved from a rebellion over British rights to a revolution based on universal rights. The Congress soon after began deliberating the Articles of Confederation, an effort to establish a multi-state self-governing coordinating body capable of negotiating international treaties and prosecuting the war. The Revolutionary War continued for another five years during which France ultimately entered, supporting the revolutionary cause. On September 28, 1781, Washington commanded the Continental Army's capture of a British army under General Cornwallis at the Siege of Yorktown, leading to the collapse of King George's control of Parliament. Consensus in Parliament soon shifted to the war ending on American terms. On September 3, 1783, the British signed the Treaty of Paris, recognizing the sovereign independence of the United States, and ceding to the new nation nearly all the territory east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes. The United States became the first nation to establish a federal republic with a written constitution based on the principles of universal natural rights, consent of the governed, and equality under the law, albeit with significant democratic limitations compared to later evolution of the concept.

Hurricane Katrina was an extremely powerful and catastrophic tropical cyclone that killed 1,392 people and caused damage estimated at $125 billion, particularly in and around the city of New Orleans, in late August 2005. It is tied with Hurricane Harvey as being the costliest tropical cyclone in the Atlantic basin. Katrina was the twelfth tropical cyclone, the fifth hurricane, the third major hurricane, and the second Category 5 hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It was also the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in the contiguous United States, as measured by barometric pressure. Katrina formed on August 23, 2005, with the merger of a tropical wave and the remnants of a tropical depression. After briefly strengthening to a tropical storm over south Florida, Katrina entered the Gulf of Mexico on August 26 and rapidly intensified to a Category 5 hurricane before weakening to a Category 3 at its landfall on August 29 near Buras-Triumph, Louisiana. Eighty percent of New Orleans, as well as large areas in neighboring parishes, were flooded. It is estimated that about 100,000 to 150,000 people remained in the City of New Orleans, despite mandatory evacuation orders. The flooding prompted a massive national and international response effort, including federal, local, and private rescue operations. The largest loss of life was due to flooding caused by engineering flaws in the federally built hurricane protection system, particularly the levees around New Orleans. Investigators concluded that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, tasked by Congress in the Flood Control Act of 1965 to design and build the region's hurricane protection, was responsible for the breached floodwalls. Later, a federal appeals court ruled that the Army Corps, despite being responsible, could not be held financially liable due to the Flood Control Act of 1928. The emergency response from federal, state, and local governments was widely criticized, leading to the resignation of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director Michael D. Brown and New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) superintendent Eddie Compass. Many other government officials faced criticism for their responses, especially New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco, and President George W. Bush. However, several agencies, such as the United States Coast Guard (USCG), National Hurricane Center (NHC), and National Weather Service (NWS), were commended for their actions, with the NHC being particularly praised for its accurate forecasts well in advance. The destruction and loss of life caused by the storm prompted the name Katrina to be retired by the World Meteorological Organization in April 2006. On January 4, 2023, the NHC updated the Katrina fatality data on the basis of a 2014 report, which reduced the total number from an estimated 1,833 to 1,392.

The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day (after the military term), it is the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of France and the rest of Western Europe, and laid the foundations for the Allied victory on the Western Front. Planning for the operation began in 1943. In the months leading up to the invasion, the Allies conducted a substantial military deception, codenamed Operation Bodyguard, to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the main Allied landings. The weather on the day selected for D-Day was not ideal, and the operation had to be delayed 24 hours; a further postponement would have meant a delay of at least two weeks, as the planners had requirements for the phase of the moon, the tides, and time of day, that meant only a few days each month were deemed suitable. German leader Adolf Hitler placed Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in command of German forces and developing fortifications along the Atlantic Wall in anticipation of an invasion. US president Franklin D. Roosevelt placed Major General Dwight D. Eisenhower in command of Allied forces. The invasion began shortly after midnight on the morning of 6 June with extensive aerial and naval bombardment as well as an airborne assault—the landing of 24,000 American, British, and Canadian airborne troops. The early morning aerial assault was soon followed by Allied amphibious landings on the coast of France c. 06:30. The target 80-kilometre (50 mi) stretch of the Normandy coast was divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. Strong winds blew the landing craft east of their intended positions, particularly at Utah and Omaha. The men landed under heavy fire from gun emplacements overlooking the beaches, and the shore was mined and covered with obstacles such as wooden stakes, metal tripods, and barbed wire, making the work of the beach-clearing teams difficult and dangerous. The highest number of casualties was at Omaha, with its high cliffs. At Gold, Juno, and Sword, several fortified towns were cleared in house-to-house fighting, and two major gun emplacements at Gold were disabled using specialised tanks. The Allies were able to establish beachheads at each of the five landing sites on the first day, but Carentan, Saint-Lô, and Bayeux remained in German hands. Caen, a major objective, was not captured until 21 July. Only two of the beaches (Juno and Gold) were linked on the first day, and all five beachheads were not connected until 12 June. German casualties on D-Day have been estimated at 4,000 to 9,000 men. Allied casualties were at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead.

John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on Friday, November 22, 1963. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife Jacqueline, Texas governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie, when he was fatally shot from the nearby Texas School Book Depository by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the shooting; Connally was also wounded in the attack but recovered. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was hastily sworn in as president two hours and eight minutes later aboard Air Force One at Dallas Love Field. After the assassination, Oswald returned home to retrieve a pistol; he shot and killed a lone Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit shortly afterwards. Around 70 minutes after Kennedy and Connally were shot, Oswald was apprehended by the Dallas Police Department and charged under Texas state law with the murders of Kennedy and Tippit. Two days later, as live television cameras covered Oswald being moved through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters, he was fatally shot by Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby. Like Kennedy, Oswald was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he soon died. Ruby was convicted of Oswald's murder, though the decision was overturned on appeal, and Ruby died in prison in 1967 while awaiting a new trial. After a 10-month investigation, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald assassinated Kennedy, and that there was no evidence that either Oswald or Ruby was part of a conspiracy. In 1967, New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison brought the only trial for Kennedy's murder against businessman Clay Shaw; Shaw was acquitted. Subsequent federal investigations—such as the Rockefeller Commission and Church Committee—agreed with the Warren Commission's general findings. In its 1979 report, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that Kennedy was likely "assassinated as a result of a conspiracy". The HSCA did not identify possible conspirators, but concluded that there was "a high probability that two gunmen fired at [the] President". The HSCA's conclusions were largely based on a police Dictabelt recording, which was subsequently debunked by the U.S. Justice Department. Kennedy's assassination is still the subject of widespread debate and has spawned many conspiracy theories and alternative scenarios; polls have found that a vast majority of Americans believe there was a conspiracy. The assassination left a profound impact and was the first of four major assassinations during the 1960s in the United States, coming two years before the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, and five years before the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Kennedy's brother Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Kennedy was the fourth U.S. president to be assassinated and is the most recent to have died in office.

On 26 December 2004, at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+7), a Mw 9.2–9.3 earthquake struck with its epicenter off the west coast of Aceh, in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The undersea megathrust earthquake, known in the scientific community as the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, was caused by a rupture along the fault boundary between the Burma plate and the Indian plate, and reached a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX in some areas. The earthquake caused a massive tsunami with waves up to 30 m (100 ft) high, referred to by British and Commonwealth media as the Boxing Day tsunami, after the Boxing Day holiday, or the Asian tsunami, which devastated communities along the surrounding coasts of the Indian Ocean, killing an estimated 227,898 people in 14 countries, especially in Aceh in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu in India, and Khao Lak in Thailand. The direct result was severe disruption to living conditions and commerce in coastal provinces of these and other surrounding countries. It is the deadliest tsunami in history, the deadliest natural disaster of the 21st century, and one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. It is also the worst natural disaster in the history of Indonesia, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The earthquake itself is the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Asia, the strongest of the 21st century, and the second- or third-most powerful globally since modern seismography began in 1900. It had the longest fault rupture ever observed, between 1,200 to 1,300 kilometres (746 to 808 mi), and had the longest duration of faulting ever observed, lasting at least ten minutes. It caused the entire planet to vibrate by as much as 10 mm (0.4 in), and also remotely triggered earthquakes as far away as Alaska. Its epicentre was located between Simeulue and mainland Sumatra. The plight of the affected people and countries prompted a worldwide humanitarian response, with donations totaling more than US$14 billion (equivalent to US$24 billion in 2025 currency).

A Moon landing or lunar landing is the arrival of a crewed or robotic spacecraft on the Moon. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was Luna 2 in 1959, and the first crewed mission to land on the Moon was Apollo 11 in 1969. There were six crewed landings between 1969 and 1972 and numerous uncrewed landings. All crewed missions to the Moon were conducted by the Apollo program, with the last departing in December 1972. After Luna 24 in 1976, there were no soft landings—landings without significant damage—on the Moon until Chang'e 3 in 2013. All soft landings took place on the near side of the Moon until Chang'e 4 landed on the far side of the Moon in 2019.

Black Thursday is a term used to refer to typically negative, notable events that have occurred on a Thursday. It has been used in the following cases: 6 February 1851, a devastating day of bushfires in Victoria, Australia 21 June 1877, an execution of 10 suspected leaders of the "Molly Maguires" 8 November 1901 (21 November in the Gregorian calendar), the climax of the gospel riots in Athens. 24 October 1929, start of the Wall Street crash of 1929. 14 October 1943, when the USAAF suffered large losses during bombing in the second Schweinfurt raid during World War II 12 April 1951, during the Korean War, when 25% of the Far East Air Force B-29 bombing force were damaged or destroyed by Soviet MiG-15s in MiG Alley. 21 November 1968, day of protests by students at University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh 12 April 1973, clashes between the police and right-wing demonstrators in Milan resulted in the killing of policeman Antonio Marino. 30 May 1975, the massacre of about 50 Lebanese Christians in the area of Bashoura in West Beirut. 22 January 1987, the Mendiola massacre, which claimed the lives of 13 protesters in Manila, Philippines 3 September 1987, known as the "Black Thursday of Warsaw Transit", when 15 people died in two separate rail accidents in Warsaw, Poland 24 July 2003, when former Guatemalan president Efraín Ríos Montt's supporters rioted in protest of a court decision barring him from standing in the 2003 general election 30 September 2009, when the Irish government revealed to its people the alleged full cost of bailing out Anglo-Irish Bank 15 November 2018, the Franco-Ontarian jeudi noir when the government of Ontario announced the elimination of several Franco-Ontarian institutions 12 March 2020, Black Thursday stock market crash A massacre during the 2022 Chadian protests "Black Thursday", the week day preceding Black Friday