Which event does this 1469 photograph show?

Two cousins marry in secret and join two kingdoms into one country (1469). Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile married at Valladolid on 19 October 1469. They were second cousins and needed a papal dispensation, which had not arrived, so a forged one was produced. Their marriage joined the two crowns that became Spain, and it was they who funded Columbus twenty-three years later.

Which event does this 1216 photograph show?

A king dies of dysentery in a civil war he started by breaking his own charter (1216). John died at Newark on 19 October 1216, probably of dysentery, in the middle of a civil war. He had agreed to Magna Carta the year before and then persuaded the pope to annul it within ten weeks, which restarted the fighting. Days before his death his baggage train, reportedly including the crown jewels, was lost crossing the tidal marshes of the Wash.

Which event does this 1864 photograph show?

A general gallops twenty miles to a battle his army is losing and turns it around (1864). A Confederate surprise attack broke the Union camps at dawn on 19 October 1864 while Philip Sheridan was twenty miles away at Winchester. He rode back, rallied the retreating men on the road, and counterattacked that afternoon. The victory helped secure Lincoln's re-election three weeks later, and a poem about the ride became a schoolroom standard.

Which event does this 1943 photograph show?

A soil bacterium yields the first drug that can cure tuberculosis (1943). Streptomycin was first isolated on 19 October 1943, from a bacterium found in soil and in a chicken's throat, in Selman Waksman's laboratory at Rutgers. It was the first effective treatment for tuberculosis, which was then killing more people than almost anything else. The graduate student who did the work, Albert Schatz, had to sue for credit.

Which event does this 1745 photograph show?

A satirist who proposed eating babies to fix poverty dies in Dublin (1745). Jonathan Swift died in Dublin on 19 October 1745, aged 77. He was Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, and wrote Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal, the essay suggesting the Irish poor sell their children as food, which some readers took seriously. He left most of his money to found a hospital for the mentally ill, which still exists.

What happened on October 19? the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, the death of King John and 3 more

What happened on October 19

All 5 specimens from this file, spanning 1216 to 1943, with the story behind each photograph.

Reveal the full answer key

History · 1469

Two cousins marry in secret and join two kingdoms into one country

Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile married at Valladolid on 19 October 1469. They were second cousins and needed a papal dispensation, which had not arrived, so a forged one was produced. Their marriage joined the two crowns that became Spain, and it was they who funded Columbus twenty-three years later.
Monarchy · 1216

A king dies of dysentery in a civil war he started by breaking his own charter

John died at Newark on 19 October 1216, probably of dysentery, in the middle of a civil war. He had agreed to Magna Carta the year before and then persuaded the pope to annul it within ten weeks, which restarted the fighting. Days before his death his baggage train, reportedly including the crown jewels, was lost crossing the tidal marshes of the Wash.
Conflict · 1864

A general gallops twenty miles to a battle his army is losing and turns it around

A Confederate surprise attack broke the Union camps at dawn on 19 October 1864 while Philip Sheridan was twenty miles away at Winchester. He rode back, rallied the retreating men on the road, and counterattacked that afternoon. The victory helped secure Lincoln's re-election three weeks later, and a poem about the ride became a schoolroom standard.
Science · 1943

A soil bacterium yields the first drug that can cure tuberculosis

Streptomycin was first isolated on 19 October 1943, from a bacterium found in soil and in a chicken's throat, in Selman Waksman's laboratory at Rutgers. It was the first effective treatment for tuberculosis, which was then killing more people than almost anything else. The graduate student who did the work, Albert Schatz, had to sue for credit.
Literature · 1745

A satirist who proposed eating babies to fix poverty dies in Dublin

Jonathan Swift died in Dublin on 19 October 1745, aged 77. He was Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, and wrote Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal, the essay suggesting the Irish poor sell their children as food, which some readers took seriously. He left most of his money to found a hospital for the mentally ill, which still exists.