POPnews: September 8th

[The only time I can legitimately post a picture of a penis is when
I'm being artsy-fartsy, so lah-di-dah motherfuckers!]
1264 - The Statute of Kalisz - which guaranteed Jews safety and personal liberties and gave them battei din jurisdiction over Jewish matters - was promulgated by Boleslaus the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland.

1331 - Stefan Dušan declared himself King of Serbia.

1504 - Michelangelo unveiled his magnificent and iconic sculpture, David, in Firenze.

1565 - Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés settled St. Augustine, Florida.

1831 - William IV was crowned King of England.

1888 - Annie Chapman - second known victim of Jack the Ripper - was found brutally murdered in the doorway of 29 Hanbury Street, in the London neighbourhood of Spitalfields.

1900 - A hurricane made landfall at Galveston, Texas; as many as 12,000 people died, mostly due to flooding.

1914 - Private Thomas Highgate became the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during World War I.

1934 - A fire onboard the SS Morro Castle killed 135 people while the ship was beached off Asbury Park, New Jersey - a story well-told by Brian Hicks in his badly titled book When The Dancing Stopped: The Real Story of the Morro Castle Disaster and Its Deadly Wake.

1935 - In the state house he'd built in Baton Rouge as Governor, Senator Huey Long of Louisiana was shot - whether purposely by Carl Austin Weiss or accidentally, by Long's bodyguards trying to kill Weiss, we may never know. The man better known as 'Kingfish' died two days later of his injuries.

1943 - The surrender of Italy was announced by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, having been reached five days earlier.

1944 - The first V-2 rocket hit London.

1951 - 48 nations signed the Treaty of San Francisco with the Empire of Japan in formal recognition of the end of the Pacific War.

1966 - The Severn Bridge was officially opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

1971 - Washington DC's John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was inaugurated, with the premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass.

1974 - President Gerald Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon.

1975 - Two decades before Ellen Degeneres did it, Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, recipient of both the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star, came out on the cover of Time magazine. Not only was Matlovich eventually given a general discharge, he was also excommunicated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because that's what Jesus would have done.

1986 - The first episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show aired; conveniently, it was hosted by Oprah Winfrey.

1991 - The Republic of Macedonia gained its independence from Yugoslavia.
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