On This Day
1812 – Imperial Russia signs the Treaty of Bucharest, ending the Russo-Turkish War. The Ottoman Empire cedes Bessarabia to Russia.[8]
The Treaty of Bucharest between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, was signed on 28 May 1812, in Manuc’s Inn in Bucharest, and ratified on 5 July 1812, at the end of the Russo-Turkish War of 1806–1812.[1] The Ottomans had done poorly in the war. The Sublime Porte above all wanted to stay out of the impending conflict between Napoleon’s France and Russia. The Russians didn’t want a war on two fronts, thus they made peace in order to be free for the upcoming war with France. The Ottomans had extricated themselves from a potentially disastrous war with a slight loss of territory. This treaty became the basis for future Russo-Ottoman relations.[2]
Under its terms, the Budjak and the eastern half of the Principality of Moldavia, between Prut and Dniester Rivers, with an area of 45,630 km2 (17,617.8 sq mi) (Bessarabia), was ceded by the Ottoman Empire (to which Moldavia was a vassal) to Russia. Also, Russia obtained trading rights on the Danube.
In Transcaucasia, the Ottomans renounced their claims to most of western Georgia by accepting the Russian annexation of the Kingdom of Imereti, in 1810.[3][4] In return they retained control of Akhalkalaki, Poti, and Anapa previously captured by the Russo-Georgian troops in the course of the war[5]
Furthermore a truce was signed (Article 8 of the Treaty) with the rebelling Serbs and autonomy given to Serbia.[6]
The Treaty of Bucharest, signed by the Russian commander Mikhail Kutuzov, was ratified by Alexander I of Russia 13 days before Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.
In 17 April 2011, Action 2012, a coalition of organizations supporting unification between Moldova and Romania, was founded. This coalition is named after the year 2012, which marked the 200th anniversary of the Treaty of Bucharest.[7][8]
1902 – Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais discovers the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient mechanical analog computer.
The Antikythera mechanism (/ˌæntɪkɪˈθɪərə/ AN-tih-kih-THEER-ə) is an Ancient Greek hand-powered orrery, described as the oldest example of an analogue computer[1][2][3] used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance.[4][5][6] It could also be used to track the four-year cycle of athletic games which was similar to an Olympiad, the cycle of the ancient Olympic Games.[7][8][9]
This artefact was among wreckage retrieved from a shipwreck off the coast of the Greek island Antikythera in 1901.[10][11] On 17 May 1902, it was identified as containing a gear by archaeologist Valerios Stais.[12] The device, housed in the remains of a 34 cm × 18 cm × 9 cm (13.4 in × 7.1 in × 3.5 in) wooden box, was found as one lump, later separated into three main fragments which are now divided into 82 separate fragments after conservation efforts. Four of these fragments contain gears, while inscriptions are found on many others.[13][14] The largest gear is approximately 13 centimetres (5.1 in) in diameter and originally had 223 teeth.[15]
In 2008, a team led by Mike Edmunds and Tony Freeth at Cardiff University used modern computer x-ray tomography and high resolution surface scanning to image inside fragments of the crust-encased mechanism and read the faintest inscriptions that once covered the outer casing of the machine. This suggests that it had 37 meshing bronze gears enabling it to follow the movements of the Moon and the Sun through the zodiac, to predict eclipses and to model the irregular orbit of the Moon, where the Moon’s velocity is higher in its perigee than in its apogee. This motion was studied in the 2nd century BC by astronomer Hipparchus of Rhodes, and it is speculated that he may have been consulted in the machine’s construction.[16] There is speculation that a portion of the mechanism is missing and it also calculated the positions of the five classical planets.
The instrument is believed to have been designed and constructed by Greek scientists and has been variously dated to about 87 BC,[17] or between 150 and 100 BC,[4] or to 205 BC.[18][19] In any case, it must have been constructed before the shipwreck, which has been dated by multiple lines of evidence to approximately 70–60 BC.[20][21] In 2022 researchers proposed that the initial calibration date of the machine could have been 23 December 178 BC. Other experts disagree proposing a date in the summer of 204 BC as a more likely calibration date.[22][23] Machines with similar complexity did not appear again until the astronomical clocks of Richard of Wallingford and Giovanni de’ Dondi in the fourteenth century.[24]
All known fragments of the Antikythera mechanism are now kept at the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, along with a number of artistic reconstructions and replicas[25][26] to demonstrate how it may have looked and worked.[27]
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332 – Emperor Constantine the Great announces free distributions of food to the citizens in Constantinople.[1]
Constantine I (Latin: Flavius Valerius Constantinus; Greek: Κωνσταντῖνος Konstantinos; 27 February c. 272 – 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great or just Constantine, was Roman emperor who reigned from 306 to 337 AD, and was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. Born in Naissus, Dacia Mediterranea (now Niš, Serbia), he was the son of Flavius Constantius, a Roman army officer who had been one of the four rulers of the Tetrarchy. His mother, Helena, was Greek and of low birth.[6][7][8] Constantine served with distinction under the Roman emperors Diocletian and Galerius. He began his career by campaigning in the eastern provinces (against barbarians and the Persians) before being recalled in the west (in AD 305) to fight alongside his father in Britain. After his father’s death in 306, Constantine became emperor. He was acclaimed by his army at Eboracum (York, England), and eventually emerged victorious in the civil wars against emperors Maxentius and Licinius to become the sole ruler of the Roman Empire by 324.
Upon his ascension to emperor, Constantine enacted numerous reforms to strengthen the empire. He restructured the government, separating civil and military authorities. To combat inflation, he introduced the solidus, a new gold coin that became the standard for Byzantine and European currencies for more than a thousand years. The Roman army was reorganized to consist of mobile units (comitatenses) and garrison troops (limitanei), which were capable of countering internal threats and barbarian invasions. Constantine pursued successful campaigns against the tribes on the Roman frontiers—such as the Franks, the Alamanni, the Goths and the Sarmatians—and resettled territories abandoned by his predecessors during the Crisis of the Third Century with citizens of Roman culture.
Constantine was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity.[notes 2] Although he lived much of his life as a pagan, and later as a catechumen, he began to favor Christianity beginning in 312, finally becoming a Christian and being baptised by either Eusebius of Nicomedia, an Arian bishop, as attested by many notable Arian historical figures, or Pope Sylvester I, which is maintained by the Catholic Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church. He played an influential role in the proclamation of the Edict of Milan in 313, which declared tolerance for Christianity in the Roman Empire. He convoked the First Council of Nicaea in 325 which produced the statement of Christian belief known as the Nicene Creed.[10] The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built on his orders at the purported site of Jesus’ tomb in Jerusalem and was deemed the holiest place in all of Christendom. The papal claim to temporal power in the High Middle Ages was based on the fabricated Donation of Constantine. He has historically been referred to as the “First Christian Emperor” and he did favor the Christian Church. While some modern scholars debate his beliefs and even his comprehension of Christianity,[notes 3] he is venerated as a saint in Eastern Christianity, and did much for pushing Christianity towards the mainstream of Roman culture.
The age of Constantine marked a distinct epoch in the history of the Roman Empire and a pivotal moment in the transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages.[13] He built a new imperial residence at the city of Byzantium and renamed it Constantinople (now Istanbul) after himself. It subsequently became the capital of the empire for more than a thousand years, the later Eastern Roman Empire being referred to as the Byzantine Empire by modern historians. His more immediate political legacy was that he replaced Diocletian’s Tetrarchy with the de facto principle of dynastic succession, by leaving the empire to his sons and other members of the Constantinian dynasty. His reputation flourished during the lifetime of his children and for centuries after his reign. The medieval church held him up as a paragon of virtue, while secular rulers invoked him as a prototype, a point of reference and the symbol of imperial legitimacy and identity.[14] Beginning with the Renaissance, there were more critical appraisals of his reign, due to the rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources. Trends in modern and recent scholarship have attempted to balance the extremes of previous scholarship.
Born On This Day
1890 – Edith Grace White, American ichthyologist (d. 1975)[26]
Edith Grace White (May 16, 1890 – December 1, 1975) was an American zoologist known for her studies of elasmobranchs (sharks and rays). She was a professor of biology at Wilson College, and was a research associate of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
1768 – Caroline of Brunswick (d. 1821)
Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (Caroline Amelia Elizabeth; 17 May 1768 – 7 August 1821) was Queen of the United Kingdom and Hanover as the wife of King George IV from 29 January 1820 until her death in 1821. She was Princess of Wales from 1795 to 1820.
The daughter of Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, and Princess Augusta of Great Britain, Caroline was engaged to her cousin George in 1794, despite their never having met. He was already illegally married to Maria Fitzherbert. George and Caroline married the following year but separated shortly after the birth of their only child, Princess Charlotte of Wales, in 1796. By 1806, rumours that Caroline had taken lovers and had an illegitimate child led to an investigation into her private life. The dignitaries who led the investigation concluded that there was “no foundation” to the rumours, but Caroline’s access to her daughter was nonetheless restricted. In 1814, Caroline moved to Italy, where she employed Bartolomeo Pergami as a servant. Pergami soon became Caroline’s closest companion, and it was widely assumed that they were lovers. In 1817, Caroline was devastated when Charlotte died in childbirth. She heard the news from a passing courier as George had refused to write and tell her. He was determined to divorce Caroline, and set up a second investigation to collect evidence of her adultery.
In January 1820, George became King of the United Kingdom and Hanover, and Caroline nominally became queen. George insisted on a divorce from Caroline, which she refused. A legal divorce was possible but difficult to obtain. Caroline returned to Britain to assert her position as queen. She was wildly popular with the British people, who sympathised with her and despised the new king for his immoral behaviour. On the basis of the loose evidence collected against her, George attempted to divorce Caroline by introducing the Pains and Penalties Bill 1820 to Parliament, but he and the bill were so unpopular, and Caroline so popular with the masses, that it was withdrawn by the Liverpool ministry. The King barred Caroline from his coronation in July 1821. She fell ill in London and died three weeks later. Her funeral procession passed through London on its way to her native Braunschweig, where she was buried.
1850 – Oliver Heaviside, English engineer, mathematician, and physicist (d. 1925)
Oliver Heaviside FRS[1] (/ˈhɛvisaɪd/; 18 May 1850 – 3 February 1925) was an English self-taught mathematician and physicist who brought complex numbers to circuit analysis, invented a new technique for solving differential equations (equivalent to the Laplace transform), independently developed vector calculus, and rewrote Maxwell’s equations in the form commonly used today. He significantly shaped the way Maxwell’s equations are understood and applied in the decades following Maxwell’s death. His formulation of the telegrapher’s equations became commercially important during his own lifetime, after their significance went unremarked for a long while, as few others were versed at the time in his novel methodology.[2] Although at odds with the scientific establishment for most of his life, Heaviside changed the face of telecommunications, mathematics, and science.[2]
FYI
NASA: Astronomy Picture of the Day
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Rasmuson Foundation dedicates $3 million to support statewide broadband efforts
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- Easy Slow Cooker BBQ Shredded Beef June 16, 2026Slow Cooker BBQ Shredded Beef is what you make when you want a big batch of crowd-pleasing food with relatively little effort. The succulent pulled beef is smothered in an incredible homemade barbecue sauce, and there’s so many ways to serve it – pile into sliders, heap onto plates or stuff into baked potatoes! Easy... […]Nagi
- Coffee Cake with Cinnamon Streusel June 12, 2026Firstly, thank you for the Jaffle love. 🥰 Hit the Jaffle button above to see what he got up to today! Secondly – cake. Specifically, Coffee Cake! A classic crumb cake with a jammy cinnamon ribbon, loaded with lots and lots of nubbly, extra crunchy cinnamon streusel. Outrageously good. Coffee Cake with Cinnamon Streusel This... […]Nagi
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- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for June 17 June 17, 2026Picture of the day Lt. Col. Nick Rutgers preparing his F-15 Eagle for flight
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for June 16 June 16, 2026Picture of the day View of Kirchberg an der Jagst, Germany, from the river Jagst. At the right the listed bridge, build in 1779; behind it the hill which supports Kirchberg Castle (top) and the old town of Kirchberg.
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