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Orléans, April 1429: a city besieged, weary after enduring months of relentless pressure. The Hundred Years’ War raged on, with English forces seemingly gaining the upper hand, leaving France in a state of despair.
The siege began the previous autumn, drawing out through the bitter winter months. The defenders of Orléans even offered to surrender the city to England’s ally, Burgundy, but English commanders insisted on taking the city for themselves, convinced it was only a matter of weeks before their victory. Although whispers of a mystical figure, a maiden in armor arriving to save them, circulated among the townsfolk, many dismissed it as mere folklore.
Then, a remarkable event unfolded. The English commanders received an unexpected message from a young girl identifying herself as “the Maiden,” commanding them to depart in the name of God or face imminent consequences. As April 28 dawned, rumors began circulating within the English camp that this maiden had indeed appeared, leading a convoy of supplies towards the city.
On the evening of April 28, Joan of Arc rode into Orléans, greeted with jubilation by the townspeople. “She entered fully armed, mounted on a white horse,” noted a chronicler, describing her standard emblazoned with two angels holding lilies, while the pennon depicted the Annunciation. To the gathered crowd, her arrival felt like a divine intervention. “They were fully comforted, as if liberated from siege by the holy presence of the simple Maid whom they cherished deeply,” the chronicler continued.
A week later, Joan led her forces against the English attackers, achieving a decisive victory despite sustaining injuries from an arrow. At that moment, she secured her status as a national heroine.
29 April 1559
Following extensive debate, the Act of Supremacy is enacted by the English Parliament, naming Queen Elizabeth I as the supreme governor of the Church of England.
29 April 1658
The demise of Royalist poet John Cleveland, who had served as judge-advocate for the king at Newark in 1645. After brief imprisonment during the Interregnum, he was released on Cromwell’s orders and later died in London.
29 April 1707
The Irish playwright George Farquhar passes away shortly after the debut of The Beaux Stratagem, which became his best-known work.
29 April 1762
Jean-Baptiste Jourdan is born in Limoges, France. He starts his military career as a private in the royal army, eventually rising to the rank of marshal under Napoleon.
29 April 1770: Captain Cook lands in Australia
The explorer arrives in a sheltered bay on the eastern coast, contemplating its name.
In April 1770, Captain James Cook, aged 41, had been voyaging for nearly two years. Tasked by the Royal Society to chart the transit of Venus, he sailed south-east to Tahiti before proceeding to follow sealed orders to explore the Pacific for the elusive southern continent, Terra Australis.
By late April, Cook’s ship, the Endeavour, had navigated around New Zealand, meticulously mapping its shorelines, and had finally reached Australia’s eastern coast. On April 28, he identified “a bay that appeared to be well sheltered from all winds,” and the next day he made landfall. Upon disembarking, Cook and his crew encountered several local inhabitants and a few huts, although the locals quickly fled after a musket was fired. In the trees nearby, they discovered small huts made from tree bark, one of which contained several children, to whom they left trinkets.
Initially, Cook named the bay Stingray Bay due to the plentiful stingrays they caught there. However, appreciating the diversity of flora observed by the ship’s naturalists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander, he revisited his journal entry, first naming it Botanist Bay, then changing it to Botany Bay—an enduring name in history.
29 April 1863
American newspaper magnate and Democratic politician William Randolph Hearst is born in San Francisco. The protagonist of Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane was in part inspired by him.
29 April 1944
British special agent Nancy Wake parachutes into the Auvergne to communicate with the Resistance, finding herself tangled in a tree as a local man comments on her beauty. “Don’t give me that French nonsense,” Wake retorts.
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