POPnews - November 25th

[The most poignant image from the State Funeral of slain US President
John F. Kennedy came when the President's son, John F. Kennedy, Jr.
saluted the passing cortege as it emerged from Washington DC's
St. Matthew's Cathedral; for an added blow to the solar plexus,
consider that the event occurred on John-John's third birthday.]
1034 - When Scotland's King Máel Coluim mac Cináeda (otherwise known as Malcolm II) died Donnchad (anglicized as Duncan) - the son of Malcolm's daughter Bethóc and Crínán of Dunkeld - inherited his throne; Duncan I is best remembered today as a character in William Shakespeare's play Macbeth.

1120 - The White Ship Disaster claimed William Adelin, the only male heir of Henry I of England; his death resulted in The Anarchy, a crisis over a disputed succession considered by many to have been the first English civil war which wouldn't be settled until the signing of the Treaty of Wallingford by Empress Matilda in 1153 and the accession of Henry II the following year after the death of King Stephen.

1177 - Saladin was defeated at the Battle of Montgisard by Raynald of Chatillon and Baldwin IV, King of Jerusalem.

1758 - The city of Pittsburgh was founded.

1767 - Poland's King Stanislaus II was crowned at St. John's Cathedral in Warsaw.

1783 - The last British troops withdrew from New York City under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, marking the end of the American Revolution.

1795 - Poland's King Stanislaus II was forced to abdicate, and thereafter went into exile to Russia.

1809 - British diplomat Benjamin Bathurst disappeared in the German town of Perleberg, and is presumed to have been murdered, although his body has never been found.

1839 - 300,000 people died when Coringa, India, was hit by three tidal waves as part of a 40 foot storm surge; it had previously been hit in 1789 and rebuilt, but in the wake of this tragedy was abandoned.

1864 - The so-called Confederate Army of Manhattan, led by one Jacob Thompson, attempted to burn down New York City on that year's Election Day.

1874 - The United States Greenback Party was established as a political party consisting primarily of farmers affected by the Panic of 1873.

1947 - The so-called Hollywood Ten - Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo - were officially blacklisted, prevented from working in American movies due to their supposed Communist sympathies.

1952 - The Mousetrap, Agatha Christie's redoubtable sleuther, hit the boards of London's New Ambassadors Theatre; transferred next door to the St Martin's Theatre in 1974, it's still running after 24,000+ performances. Based on a true story made fiction as Three Blind Mice (also by Christie) it's the longest-running stage play in history.

1960 - The Dominican Republic's Mirabal sisters were assassinated.

1963 - President John F. Kennedy was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.

1970 - Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima committed ritual suicide - seppuku - in Tokyo following a failed coup attempt.

1973 - Greece's far-right-wing junta, headed by George Papadopoulos, was ousted by another, slightly-less-right-wing, junta led by Dimitrios Ioannides under the figurehead President Phaidon Gizikis.

1984 - Largely at the behest of Bob Geldof, Band Aid recorded Do They Know It's Christmas - at Midge Ure's home studio in London's Notting Hill.

1992 - Czechoslovakia voted to split itself into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which it would do just 36 days later.
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