Magna Carta sealed at Runnymede

June 15, 1215

Cornered by his rebellious barons in a Thames-side meadow, King John pressed his seal to a charter limiting royal power. He repudiated it within weeks, but the document outlived him and seeded centuries of constitutional argument about the limits of a crown. Its sixty-three clauses would be cited by English parliamentarians, American colonists, and civil liberties lawyers for the next eight hundred years.