POPnews - June 8th

[162 people still live on the rocky outcrop of Lindisfarne, which is now a Nature Reserve and major tourist attraction in Northumbria; in its heyday, though, the Holy Island was a bustling religious community capable of producing something as beautiful as the Lindisfarne Gospels - which are dedicated to St. Cuthbert and thought to be largely the work of Eadfrith, who became Bishop of Lindisfarne in 698 and died in 721. During the raid on Lindisfarne on this day in 793 CE the book's cover was destroyed, but a replacement was made in 1852; the well-preserved tome (a priceless example of Insular art) currently resides at the British Library in London.]
68 CE - The Roman Senate accepted Galba as Emperor, making him the first to serve in the so-called Year of the Four Emperors.

536 CE - St. Silverius became Pope following the death of his predecessor Agapetus I.

793 CE - Vikings raided the abbey at Lindisfarne, a date commonly accepted as the beginning of the Viking Age - a period of Scandinavian invasions against England which wouldn't end until the Battle of Stamford Bridge in September 1066.

1191 - England's King Richard I arrived at the city of Acre during the Third Crusade.

1405 - Richard le Scrope, Archbishop of York and Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Norfolk, were executed in York on the orders of England's King Henry IV.

1690 - Siddi general Yadi Sakat razed the Mazagon Fort in Mumbai.

1776 - At the Battle of Trois-Rivières, American attackers led by William Thompson of the United Colonies were driven back by Sir Guy Carleton and Simon Fraser at Trois-Rivières, Quebec.

1783 - Iceland's Laki volcano began an eight-month eruption which killed over 9,000 people and started a seven-year famine.

1789 - James Madison introduced 12 proposed amendments to the United States Constitution in the US House of Representatives; 10 of them were later ratified by the state legislatures and became the Bill of Rights.

1856 - The community of Pitcairn Islands and descendants of the mutineers of HMS Bounty consisting of 194 people arrived on the Morayshire at Norfolk Island commencing the Third Settlement of the Island.

1906 - US President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the President to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value.

1912 - Carl Laemmle incorporated Universal Pictures.

1948 - Milton Berle hosted the debut of TV's Texaco Star Theater.

1950 - Sir Thomas Blamey was created the only Australian-born Field Marshal in that country's history.

1953 - During the Flint-Worcester tornado outbreak sequence a tornado hit Flint, Michigan, killing 115; it was the last tornado in US history to claim more than 100 lives.

1959 - The USS Barbero and United States Postal Service attempted the delivery of 3000 commemorative postal covers (like the one shown, at right) via Regulus cruise missile... All things considered, and given the US military's luck with missiles, bombs, and the like, we should be grateful that a) the Missile Mail arrived safely, b) it didn't wipe out a neighbouring town or the base itself, and c) it was never attempted again.

1968 - James Earl Ray was arrested for the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. at London's Heathrow Airport, having been captured while traveling on a Canadian passport under the name Ramon George Sneyd.

1986 - Former United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim was elected president of Austria.

1992 - The first World Ocean Day was celebrated, to coincide with the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro.
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