Louisville History
Interactive timeline - Conflict
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450 BC
Battle of Plataea
Final major battle of the Greco-Persian Wars; ending the expansion of the Persian Empire into Greece.
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1260 AD
Battle of 'Ain Jalut
'Ayn Jalut was a major world event. The first time a Mongol army was defeated in open battle.
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1346 AD
Battle of Crécy
First land victory of the '100 Years War' for English infantry over French mounted knights.
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1453 AD
Siege of Constantinople
The fall of Constantinople was the first great siege won with gunpowder artillery.
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1525 AD
Battle of Pavia
First significant victory by infantry with firearms over fully armoured knights on the battlefield.
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1526 AD
Battle of Panipat
A traditional Indian army with war elephants is beaten by artillery and infantry musketeers.
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1588 AD
Defeat of Spanish Armada
Spain's attempt to invade England ended when English ships with superior guns defeated its Armada.
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1600 AD
Battle of Sekigahara
100 years of civil war ends. Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu's dynasty rules Japan for the next 250 years.
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1645 AD
Battle of Naseby
Charles I defeated. He is arrested, tried and executed. Parliament rules England as a republic.
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1815 AD
Battle of Waterloo
Wellington described Napoleon's defeat as a 'close run thing'. The battle's outcome shaped Europe.
In the late nineteenth-century, John Doerhoefer, a wealthy tobacco man, purchased the site of 827-833 Main Street, Louisville, Kentucky, after it had been completely destroyed by the tornado of 1890, and built an impressive four-story, Chicago-style building, spanning four Main Street fronts.
When the Frazier Historical Arms Museum Foundation purchased the site in 2000, the architects of K. Norman Berry & Associates researched its history and found that the building once had a tower on the south-east corner adorned by a beautiful copper cupola.
Restoration of the building to its original grandeur was an important and symbolic step, as the museum’s aim is to explore our history and to inspire people. On the 7 November 2003 the museum was ‘crowned’ with an elegant copper cupola, returning the Louisville skyline to the way it appeared nearly 100 years ago.
The Frazier Historical Arms Museum opened its doors in May 2004 to a state-of-the-art, 100,000 sq-ft. facility with three floors of artefacts that capture over 1,000 years of history. The experience will include theatres, multi-media and interactive displays, life-size tableaux, live performance areas and a rooftop garden with an extensive view of the Ohio River.
The museum will house two collections: The Frazier collection and the Royal Armouries collection. Because of a unique collaboration with Britain’s oldest museum, the Royal Armouries, the Frazier Museum can now tell the entire American story starting from its origin in Europe. This type of museum is unprecedented in the United States.
The Royal Armouries had been looking for a presence in the United States for many years, and they chose Louisville over cities like New York, Boston and Chicago, because of Owsley Brown Frazier’s vision for the museum and his commitment to history and education.
The combination of these two world-class collections includes unique artefacts such as:
- the ceremonial sword of Founding Father Josiah Bartlett,
- the family bible of Daniel Boone,
- the ‘Big Stick’ of President Theodore Roosevelt,
- the bow attributed to the great Apache warrior Geronimo,
- the ivory-handled pistols of General George Armstrong Custer,
- a half-armour made in the English royal workshop at Greenwich,
- a Flemish burgonet by Adrian Collaert,
- 17th century Harquebusier’s equipment from Littlecote House,
- a 15th century mail shirt,
- a German wheellock rifle
- a German Sword with a writhen hilt of about 1480.