POPnews - June 28th

[Despite having just escaped an assassin's bomb, which had been thrown at their motorcade by Nedeljko Čabrinović at 10:10 AM, Austria-Hungary's Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were all smiles upon being received minutes later at the Town Hall in Sarajevo. Fortunately for them the bomb had bounced off their car and under the one behind it; unfortunately, it injured 20 spectators in the process. Following a speech by the shaken Archduke - in which he commented bitterly on the 'hospitality' shown him and his wife thus far - the couple departed for the next stop on their itinerary. A mix-up by their driver, Leopold Loyka, caused by a last-minute change in their route, giving Gavrilo Princip just the opportunity he needed, and this time they weren't so lucky; the royal couple were shot at 10:25 AM and both died shortly thereafter.]

1098 - Knights of the First Crusade - led by Bohemond of Antioch - defeated Kerbogha, Atabeg of Mosul, ending the Second Siege of Antioch during which Kerbogha had been attempting to take back the city, which had fallen to the Crusaders on June 2nd. 

1461 - Edward IV of the House of York was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey - having deposed his cousin Henry VI of the House of Lancaster on March 4th - thus beginning the bloodiest phase of that brutal game of musical thrones known as the Wars of the Roses. 

1519 - Spain's King Charles I was elected Holy Roman Emperor; he ruled under the name Charles V.
 
1635 - Guadeloupe became a French colony, under the aegis of the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique.

1651 - The biggest battle of the 17th century - the Battle of Beresteczko, between King John II Casimir's Poles and Zaporozhian Cossack Ukrainians - began, with as many as 200,000 troops in the field.

1776 - Thomas Hickey, a private in the Commander-in-Chief's Guard - which was assigned to protect General George Washington, his papers, and the Continental Army's coffers - was hanged for mutiny and sedition.

1778 - The Battle of Monmouth was fought between the American Continental Army under George Washington and the British Army led by Sir Henry Clinton, during which Washington appointed Molly Pitcher a sergeant.

1865 - The Army of the Potomac was disbanded when Major General George G. Meade relinquished his command.

1880 - Ned Kelly - the notorious Australian bushranger played in a 1970 film by Mick Jagger and again in 2003 by Heath Ledger - was captured at Glenrowan.
 
1894 - Labor Day became an official holiday in the US.
 
1904 - The Danish liner SS Norge ran aground on St Helen's Reef off the uninhabited North Atlantic island of Rockall; the vessel sank, claiming 635 lives (225 of them Norwegians emigrating to America), while 160 survivors - including 19 year-old poet Herman Wildenvey - spent up to eight days in open lifeboats before being rescued. The wreckage of the SS Norge was only discovered in July 2003.

1914 - Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and his wife Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo by a young Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip; the killing of the royal couple would quickly become the casus belli of World War I. All told there were six assassins that day, their actions coordinated by Danilo Ilić; Muhamed Mehmedbašić and Vaso Čubrilović failed to act, as did Cvjetko Popović and Trifun Grabež. Where Čabrinović and his bomb had failed, though, Princip and his pistol more than succeeded...
 
1922 - The Irish Civil War began with the shelling of Dublin's Four Courts by Free State forces.
 
1948 - Dick Turpin triumphed over Vince Hawkins at a bout held in Birmingham's Villa Park to become the first black British boxing champion in the modern era.

1964 - Malcolm X announced the formation of the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
 
1992 - The city of Jackson, Mississippi, unveiled a statue of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, whose June 1963 murder at the hands of Ku Klux Klan member Byron De La Beckwith added considerable momentum to the Civil Rights Movement.

1997 - At the second fight pitting Mike Tyson against Evander Holyfield, Tyson was disqualified in the 3rd round for biting a piece from Holyfield's ear; almost instantly, pundits gleefully dubbed the event The Bite Fight.

2000 - Elián González returned to Cuba following an order by the US Supreme Court.

2005 - Canada became the third country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage.  Despite many lies from them to the contrary no Christians were harmed in the process...
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