1755 English diary baseball game

An English diary records baseball in 1755

A handwritten English diary entry from 1755 records a game called “base ball.” It places the game in England decades before the traditional mid-19th-century U.S. origin story, and supports the possibility that English settlers carried it across the Atlantic.

The British Empire covered a quarter of Earth’s land

At its height in the 1920s, the British Empire covered about a quarter of the world’s land and included about a quarter of its population. It was the largest empire in history.

An Icelandic eruption led to a deadly famine

Nearly ¼ Of Iceland'S Population Died

The Laki eruption of 1783–1784 caused a famine that killed nearly a quarter of Iceland's population. Dust and haze from the eruption spread across most of Europe and parts of Africa and Asia for months, and affected climates elsewhere.

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1755 English diary baseball game

An English diary records baseball in 1755

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