POPnews: September 13th

[Although not the only wall to span the northernmost extent of Roman Britain, Hadrian's Wall is much more famous than either the Antonine Wall or the two other unnamed fortifications those resourceful Italians built to keep the Pictish tribes in.]
122 CE - Legend has it work began on Hadrian's Wall.

533 CE - General Belisarius of the Byzantine Empire defeated Gelimer and his Vandals at the Battle of Ad Decimium, near the North African city of Carthage.

1501 - Michelangelo began work on David - essentially completing rough work begun by Agostino di Duccio; the work was unveiled in the Palazzo della Signoria in September 1504, just days shy of three years later.

1504 - Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand issued a Royal Warrant for the construction of a Royal Chapel (Capilla Real) to be built in Granada to house them after their deaths; both of their bodies had been interred there by 1521, where their remains remain to this day.

1743 - Great Britain, Austria and Sardinia signed the Treaty of Worms, a handy bit of political manoeuvering designed to separate Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII from French influence while resolving issues which had developed between Archduchess Maria Theresa and Sardinia's King Charles Emmanuel III over some of Austria's holdings in Italy.

1759 - British forces under General James Wolfe defeated the French troops of Louis-Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm near Quebec City at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham during the Seven Years' War*; both generals lost their lives in the hostilities.

*Which is better known in the United States as the French and Indian War.

1788 - The Philadelphia Convention set the date for the country's first presidential election, and New York City became the temporary capital of the United States.

1812 - A supply wagon sent to relieve the nine-day siege of the Indiana Territory's Fort Harrison was ambushed by a Potawatomi war party during the Attack at the Narrows; eleven soldiers and all the supplies were lost in what was nevertheless considered the first major American land-based victory of the War of 1812 - the larger action known as the Battle of Fort Harrison.

1814 - Francis Scott Key wrote The Star-Sangled Banner, when he set his poem The Defense of Fort McHenry to the music of a British drinking ditty called The Anacreontic Song.

1848 - Vermont railroad worker Phineas Gage incredibly survived having an iron rod measuring 109 cm (43 inches) driven through his head following an accident with explosives during construction of the Rutland & Burlington Railroad; the reported effects on his behavior and personality stimulated thinking about the nature of the brain and its functions among Victorian scientists.

1850 - The first ascent of Piz Bernina - the highest summit of the eastern Alps - was made by Johann Coaz and his assistants the brothers Jon and Lorenz Ragut Tscharner.

1922 - The world's highest temperature was recorded at Al 'Aziziyah in Libya: 57.7 C (135.9 F) - one degree hotter than standing within arm's length of Luke LaRue.

1923 - Miguel Primo de Rivera was invited to be Prime Minister of Spain by King Alfonso XIII, setting up a dictatorship following a coup by that country's military.

1935 - A rockslide near Whirlpool Rapids Bridge ended the Great Gorge and International Railway in the Niagara Gorge.

1943 - Chiang Kai-shek was elected President of China.

1969 - Scooby Doo, Where Are You? made its television debut.

1993 - Late Night with Conan O'Brien made its television debut.

2001 - Iain Duncan Smith was elected leader of Britain's Conservative Party, replacing William Hague; he served until losing a vote of confidence in November 2003, following which he was replaced by Michael Howard.

2006 - Kimveer Gill killed 1, wounded 19 others, then committed suicide at Dawson College in Montreal.
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