POPnews - September 28th

[Sides 1 and 2 of Stevie Wonder's landmark album Songs in the Key of Life kick ass, while sides 3 and 4 take names.]
48 BCE - Having been lured ashore from his warship under false pretenses, Roman general and rival of Julius Caesar Pompey the Great was assassinated by Achillas and Lucius Septimius - or possibly by the eunuch Pothinus (Wikipedia isn't clear, surprise surprise) - on the orders of Theodotus of Chios, tutor to Egypt's boy-king Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator.

935 CE - Saint Wenceslas was murdered by his brother, Boleslaus I the Cruel, Duke of Bohemia; honestly, he shoulda seen it coming.

995 CE - Members of the Slavník Dynasty - Spytimír, Pobraslav, Pořej and Čáslav - were murdered by the somewhat misnamed Boleslaus II the Pious.

1066 - The Duke of Normandy, William the Bastard, landed at Pevensey in order to claim both the English throne and a cooler moniker - William the Conqueror.

1106 - England's King Henry I defeated his brother, Robert Curthose at the Battle of Tinchebrai in France.

1322 - Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV defeated Austria's King Frederick I in the Battle of Mühldorf.

1448 - Christian I was crowned King of Denmark following the death of Christopher of Bavaria; the dead king's widow, Dorothea of Brandenburg, loved being queen so much she later married his successor.

1779 - Samuel Huntington was elected the sixth President of the Continental Congress, succeeding John Jay.

1867 - Toronto became the capital of the Canadian province of Ontario; exactly when it became the centre of the universe has yet to be determined.

1928 - Sir Alexander Fleming noticed a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory, discovering what later became known as penicillin.

1944 - Soviet troops liberated Klooga concentration camp in the Estonian town of Klooga.

1961 - A military coup in Damascus effectively ended the United Arab Republic, a political union between Egypt and Syria.

1962 - The Paddington tram depot fire destroyed 65 trams in Brisbane.

1972 - Team Canada famously triumphed over the USSR at the so-called Summit Series of hockey, when Paul Henderson scored the winning goal.

1973 - Manhattan's ITT Building was bombed to protest ITT's involvement in the 1973 coup d'état in Chile.

1975 - The Spaghetti House siege, in which nine people were taken as hostages, took place in London.

1976 - Stevie Wonder released his landmark double album Songs in the Key of Life.

1987 - The first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation - entitled Encounter at Farpoint - aired.

2002 - With the publication of her diaries, former UK Cabinet Minister Edwina Currie - who resigned in scandal when she accused the British egg industry of being rife with salmonella even though it wasn't* - admitted she'd had a romantic relationship with former Prime Minister John Major between 1984 and 1988, when he was chief government whip under then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; that the revelation came after years of denial by both of those involved only proves that Tories are pathological liars and whores who'll do any shocking thing (up to and including actually telling the truth for a change) all for a book deal and a pot of filthy lucre.

*And whose Spitting Image is shown at right.
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