POPnews - September 2nd

[A memorial to the victims of Swissair Flight 111 was placed on The
Whalesback, a promontory 1 km north of Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia.]
44 BCE -Egyptian Pharaoh Cleopatra declared her three-year-old son Caesarion co-ruler of Egypt as Ptolemy XV.

31 BCE - The Battle of Actium, the decisive battle of the Roman civil war, saw the forces of Octavian defeat the combined fleets of Mark Antony and Cleopatra off the coast of Greece near modern-day Preveza. As a result of their loss the lovers would individually take their own lives; Octavian later killed Caesarion, Cleopatra's son by Julius Caesar, to ensure no challenges remained to his reign as Caesar Augustus.

1649 - The Pope Destroyed Castro! (Okay, okay... It was Pope Innocent X, and the Castro in question is a town in Italy, but I made you look.) Anyway, despite the fact that the siege ended the so-called Wars of Castro, the Vatican's very real war on a very different Castro persists to this day...

1752 - The United Kingdom adopted the Gregorian Calendar, nearly two centuries later than most of Western Europe; that year September 2nd was followed by September 14th.

1789 - The US Department of the Treasury was founded; the first Secretary of the Treasury was Alexander Hamilton, who'd been suggested for the position by Robert Morris, who himself declined it despite being President George Washington's first choice.

1792 - During what became known as the September Massacres of the French Revolution, rampaging mobs slaughtered three Catholic bishops, more than two hundred priests, and prisoners believed to be royalist sympathizers.

1807 - England's Royal Navy bombarded Copenhagen with fire bombs and phosphorus rockets to prevent Denmark from surrendering its fleet to Napoleon.

1833 - Ohio's Oberlin College was founded by John Shipherd and Philo P. Stewart.

1867 - Mutsuhito - the Meiji Emperor of Japan - married Masako Ichijō, following which the Empress consort was known as Lady Haruko; since her death in April 1914, she's been known by the posthumous name - as per the tradition of Japanese royalty - of Empress Shōken.

1898 - At the Battle of Omdurman British and Egyptian troops commanded by General Sir Horatio Kitchener defeated Sudanese tribesmen led by Abdullah al-Taashi and established British dominance in the Sudan.

1901 - US Vice President Theodore Roosevelt uttered his famous phrase, 'Speak softly and carry a big stick' at the Minnesota State Fair; henceforth Big Stick Ideology would provide a handy corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, allow for the establishment of an American Empire, and give rise to the impression that, diplomatically at least, the United States is something of a bully.

1935 - The worst hurricane in American history struck the Florida Keys, killing 423.

1945 - Envoys from the Empire of Japan and dignitaries from various Allied nations attended the signing of Japan's Instrument of Surrender aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay; the first to sign was Japan's Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu.

1960 - The historic first election of the Parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration was conducted; the Tibetan community in exile still observes this date as Democracy Day.

1967 - A micronation called The Principality of Sealand, ruled by Prince Paddy Roy Bates, was established on a disused Maunsell Sea Fort located off of England's Suffolk coast.

1969 - America's first electronic ATM was installed at Rockville Center, New York.

1979 - The body of a young woman named Barbara Leach, thought to be the twelfth victim of the so-called Yorkshire Ripper, was discovered in an alley near the centre of Bradford.

1990 - Transnistria was unilaterally proclaimed as a Soviet republic, which decision Mikhail Gorbachev declared null and void by presidential decree the following December.

1998 - Swissair Flight 111 crashed near Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia, killing all 229 on board.
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