POPnews - July 29th

[Although Mary Queen of Scots was one of the beauties of her age - and thanks to the tutelage of her mother Marie de Guise was intellectually capable of good governance - her terrible taste in men (both romantically and in her choice of advisors) as much as her warped distrust of her cousin Elizabeth I proved to be her undoing.]*
1014 - During the Byzantine-Bulgarian Wars, at the Battle of Kleidion, Byzantine Emperor Basil II inflicted a decisive defeat on the Bulgarian army; news of his subsequent savage treatment of 15,000 prisoners reportedly caused Bulgaria's Tsar Samuil to die of shock.

1030 - During the Ladejarl-Fairhair succession wars, at the Battle of Stiklestad, Norway's King Olaf II fought and died trying to regain his throne from the Danes; His Majesty was later canonized, and is commemorated from Norway to Minnesota as Saint Olaf, although he may be best remembered today as the namesake of Rose Nylund's hometown...

1565 - The widowed Mary Queen of Scots married Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, Duke of Albany at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh.

1567 - 13-month-old James VI was crowned King of Scotland at The Church of the Holy Rude in Stirling following the deposition of his mother, Mary Queen of Scots; the sermon at his coronation was preached by John Knox.

1693 - During the War of the Grand Alliance, at the Battle of Landen, French commander Marshal Luxembourg won a Pyrrhic victory over Allied English-Dutch forces under the Dutch Republic's stadtholder William III.

1830 - France's King Charles X abdicated following the July Revolution; he was succeeded by Louis-Philippe I, who reigned as King of the French from the period of instability known as the July Monarchy until February 1848.

1848 - In the midst of the Irish Potato Famine the Tipperary Revolt - an unsuccessful nationalist uprising in that Irish city against British rule - was put down by police.

1851 - Annibale de Gasparis discovered the asteroid 15 Eunomia in the inner main asteroid belt.

1858 - The United States and Japan signed the Harris Treaty at the Ryōsen-ji temple in Shimoda.

1864 - Confederate spy Belle Boyd was arrested by Union troops and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, DC.

1900 - Italy's King Umberto I (shown, at right) was assassinated by Italian-born anarchist Gaetano Bresci while on a visit to Monza; His Majesty had previously survived an assassination attempt at the hands of Giovanni Passanante in November 1978, and another in April 1897 following an attack by Pietro Acciarito. Bresci later claimed he was avenging those killed in the Bava-Beccaris massacre, of which the King had approved - going so far as to specifically commend its architect, General Fiorenzo Bava Beccaris; Bresci's actions also inspired a similar killing, that of US President William McKinley in September 1901 by Leon Czolgosz.

1920 - Construction of Oregon's Link River Dam began as part of the Klamath Reclamation Project.

1948 - After a hiatus of 12 years caused by World War II, the first Summer Olympics to be held since the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin - The Games of the XIV Olympiad - opened in London.

1957 - The International Atomic Energy Agency is established.

1958 - US President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law, creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
1966 - Bob Dylan was injured in a motorcycle accident near Woodstock, New York.

1967 - Off the coast of North Vietnam the USS Forrestal caught fire, causing the worst US naval disaster since World War II, killing 134.

1976 - In New York City David Berkowitz - the soon-to-be so-called Son of Sam - killed Donna Lauria and seriously wounded Jody Valenti in the first of a series of attacks which had women in that city on edge for the next year. The story of the killings was the subject of Spike Lee's 1999 film Summer of Sam, in which Berkowitz was played by Michael Badalucco.

1993 - The Israeli Supreme Court acquitted accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk of all charges and he was set free.
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POPnews - April 23rd

[Originally opened in May 1779, the Molen De Adriaan had already been damaged by a storm in 1930 when it burnt to the ground on this day in 1932; the cause of the fire remains a mystery, but the reason it took as long as it did to rebuild is an all-too familiar tale. Bureaucratic wrangling and a lack of funds stalled the project until 1999, when reconstruction began; it was reopened in 2002, 70 years to the day after its fiery demise.]
1014 - At the Battle of Clontarf near Dublin the King of Munster Brian Boru and the King of Leinster, Máel Mórda mac Murchada, defeated Viking invaders; both, however, were killed in battle, as was Boru's son Machad.

1343 - During the St. George's Night Uprising Estonian peasants revolted against their German-dominated aristocracy, killing (by some reports) as many as 1,800; although it began on this night, the uprising lasted for two years. Long considered an attack against all Christianity by the still-pagan Estonians, it's now thought that most of their grievances were with the Livonian Order alone.

1348 - The founding of the Order of the Garter by England's King Edward III was announced on St George's Day.

1597 - The first recorded performance of William Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor was given at Windsor Castle, with Queen Elizabeth I in attendance, during that year's Garter Feast.

1635 - Boston Latin School, the first public school in the United States, was founded - predictably enough, in Boston.

1660 - The Treaty of Oliwa settled peace between Sweden and Poland - ending the so-called Deluge, or the Swedish invasion of Poland-Lithuania - when it was signed by Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia, King Charles X of Sweden, and King John II Casimir of Poland.

1661 - England's Charles II was crowned amidst even greater pomp than usual at Westminster Abbey.

1815 - The Second Serbian Uprising - the second phase of a revolution by the Serbs against their occupiers - erupted shortly after the annexation of the country to the Ottoman Empire.

1920 - The Grand National Assembly of Turkey was founded in Ankara.

1932 - A 153-year old windmill known as De Adriaan, located in the Dutch town of Haarlem, burnt down.

1935 - The Polish Constitution of 1935 was adopted.

1940 - The Rhythm Night Club fire at a dance hall in Natchez, Mississippi, killed 198 people, including bandleader Walter Barnes.

1941 - The Greek government of Ioannis Metaxas and the family of King George II evacuated Athens shortly before the invading Wehrmacht arrived, occupying the city by April 27th and shortly thereafter all of Greece.

1942 - During the so-called Baedeker Blitz German bombers hit Exeter, Bath and York in retaliation for the British raid on Lübeck; the point of the raid wasn't to interfere with Britain's industrial output but to weaken morale by attacking its loveliest and most historically significant locales.

1955 - The Canadian Labour Congress was formed by the merger of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada and the Canadian Congress of Labour.

1979 - Fighting in London between the Anti-Nazi League and the Metropolitan Police's Special Patrol Group resulted in the death of anti-fascist activist protester Blair Peach.

1982 - The Conch Republic was established when Key West jokingly seceded from the United States.

1985 - Coca-Cola changed its formula and released New Coke; the response was overwhelmingly negative, and the original formula was back on the market in less than 3 months, cleverly marketed as Coke Classic.

1992 - The divorce of The Princess Royal and Capt. Mark Phillips became final, marking the first event in Elizabeth II's famed 'annus horribilis'.
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