{"id":13532,"date":"2022-04-29T06:05:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-29T04:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=207162"},"modified":"2022-04-29T06:34:08","modified_gmt":"2022-04-29T04:34:08","slug":"29-april-on-this-day-in-history","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/29-april-on-this-day-in-history\/","title":{"rendered":"29 April: On this day in history"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Freya Parr\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 29 April 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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29 April 711<\/h3>\n

The Moorish invasion of the Iberian peninsula began as an army under the command of Tariq ibn Ziyad landed near Gibraltar (which derives its name from the Arabic Jabal Tariq, meaning the Mountain of Tariq).<\/p>\n

29 April 1429: Joan of Arc<\/a> enters Orl\u00e9ans<\/strong><\/h3>\n

A peasant girl takes on the might of the English army<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Orl\u00e9ans, April 1429: a city under siege, exhausted after months of pressure. The Hundred Years\u2019 War<\/a> was in full swing, the English were in the ascendancy, and France seemed almost past hope.<\/p>\n

The English army had arrived outside Orl\u00e9ans the previous autumn, and the siege had dragged on through the winter. The city\u2019s defenders offered to turn it over to England\u2019s ally Burgundy, but the English commanders said no. They wanted the city for themselves, and were confident that its fall was only weeks away. And although they had heard rumours of a legendary armoured maiden riding to its rescue, those were just peasants\u2019 folk tales \u2013 weren\u2019t they?<\/p>\n

And then the miracle happened. The English commanders had received a bizarre message from a teenage girl, calling herself \u201cthe Maiden\u201d, ordering them to \u201cbe gone, in the name of God, or I will make you go\u201d. And on 28 April, rumours spread through the English camp that the girl had appeared, leading a relief convoy from the south, and that supplies were even now being shipped to the city.<\/p>\n

At eight the following evening, Joan of Arc<\/a> entered Orl\u00e9ans in triumph. \u201cShe entered fully armed, mounted on a white horse,\u201d wrote one chronicler, \u201cand before her was borne her standard, which was likewise white, and which had two angels holding each a lily flower in her hand; and on the pennon was painted the Annunciation.\u201d To the townsfolk, who had gathered with torches to greet their saviour, it seemed a blessing from heaven. \u201cThey felt wholly comforted, and as if freed from siege by the divine virtue which they had been told was in the simple Maid, whom they regarded most affectionately; men, women, and little children,\u201d continued the chronicler.<\/p>\n

A week later, Joan led her troops in a bloody rout of the English attackers, holding her banner aloft even after being wounded by an arrow. At that moment, her reputation as a national heroine was assured.<\/p>\n

29 April 1559<\/h3>\n

After much debate and amendment the Act of Supremacy is passed by the English Parliament and Queen Elizabeth I<\/a> is declared the supreme governor of the Church of England.<\/p>\n

29 April 1658<\/h3>\n

Death of Royalist poet John Cleveland. In 1645 he served the king as judge-advocate at Newark. Briefly imprisoned during the Interregnum, he was released on Cromwell\u2019s orders, moving to London where he later died.<\/p>\n

29 April 1707<\/h3>\n

Irish dramatist George Farquhar dies a few weeks after the first performance of The Beaux Stratagem<\/em>, his most successful play.<\/p>\n

29 April 1762<\/h3>\n

Birth in Limoges, France, of Jean-Baptiste Jourdan. He enlisted as a private in the French royal army and rose to become a marshal under Napoleon.<\/p>\n

29 April 1770: <\/strong>Captain Cook lands in Australia<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The explorer makes landfall in a sheltered bay on the eastern coast \u2013 and then deliberates over what to call it<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In April 1770, the 41-year-old explorer Captain James Cook had been at sea for almost two years.<\/p>\n

On the instructions of the Royal Society, Cook had sailed south-east to Tahiti to record the transit of Venus across the sun, before opening sealed orders from the Admiralty, which instructed him to search the Pacific for signs of the mysterious southern continent of Terra Australis.<\/p>\n

By the end of April, Cook\u2019s ship, the Endeavour<\/em><\/a>, had not only sailed around New Zealand, diligently mapping its coastline, but had now reached the eastern coast of Australia. On Saturday 28 April he spotted \u201ca bay which appeared to be tolerably well sheltered from all winds\u201d, and the following day he made landfall. When he and his men went ashore, they found \u201cseveral of the natives and a few huts\u201d, but the inhabitants scattered when Cook fired his musket. In woods beyond the beach, he wrote, they came across \u201csmall huts made of the bark of trees in one of which were four or five small children with whom we left some strings of beads &c\u201d.<\/p>\n

At first, Cook called the bay Stingray Bay, after \u201cthe great quantity of these sort of fish\u201d that he and his men had caught there. But when he thought about it, he was equally impressed by the enormous variety of plants that the Endeavour\u2019s<\/em> naturalists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander had found on land. So when he wrote his journal, he called it Botanist Bay. Then he had another thought, struck a line through the word Botanist, and wrote instead the word \u2018Botany\u2019. And that, of course, is the name that has endured.<\/p>\n