POPnews - July 22nd

[At the time of his death, John Dillinger was the most wanted man in America for his role in a series of bank robberies; he was even more wanted in another way - seen as a dashing hero by millions of Americans who were affected most acutely by the Great Depression, Dillinger was also one of the era's foremost sex symbols.]
1298 - At one of the major battles in the First War of Scottish Independence - the Battle of Falkirk - England's King Edward I and his longbowmen defeated William Wallace's Scottish schiltrons.

1456 - During the Ottoman Wars in Europe - as the Siege of Belgrade ended - the defending forces of John Hunyadi, regent of the Kingdom of Hungary, defeated the invading armies of Sultan Mehmet II; despite handing the Ottoman Empire a rout and effectively halting their intended invasion of Europe, an outbreak of plague in his camp would claim Hunyadi's life within three weeks.

1499 - At the Battle of Dornach Swiss troops decisively defeated the army of Emperor Maximilian I, thus ending the Swabian War; one possible reason for the Swiss victory was the death of the Imperial commander, Heinrich von Fürstenberg, early on in the fighting. Although the independence of Switzerland from the Holy Roman Empire was recognized by the Treaty of Basel (signed on September 22nd) as a result of this battle, it had been proclaimed by the Old Swiss Confederacy as early as August 1291.

1587 - A second group of English settlers numbering 117 in total and led by John White arrived on North Carolina's Roanoke Island in order to try to re-establish the Colony of Roanoke, which had mysteriously disappeared.

1686 - The city of Albany was formally chartered by New York governor Thomas Dongan; originally the site of a Dutch settlement, Fort Orange, Albany is now the capital of the state of New York.

1793 - Having reached the Pacific Coast of North America at Bella Coola (which is located on North Bentinck Arm via West Road River) on July 20th, Alexander Mackenzie reached the Pacific Ocean - becoming the first European to complete a transcontinental crossing of Canada - when he arrived at the westernmost point of his journey at Dean Channel. While there he inscribed Alex MacKenzie from Canada by land 22d July 1793 on a rock - an inscription which has been faithfully preserved ever since.

1796 - Surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company named an area in Ohio 'Cleveland' after Gen. Moses Cleaveland, the superintendent of the surveying party.

1812 - During the Peninsular War phase of the Napoleonic Wars British forces led by Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) defeated French troops commanded by Auguste Marmont at the Battle of Salamanca, seriously damaging the western quarter of the city of Salamanca in the process.

1894 - The first-ever motorized racing event was held - in France, between the cities of Paris and Rouen, a distance of 128 km (80 miles) - organized by the Parisian newspaper Le Petit Journal; although technically the race was won by Jules de Dion, because his vehicle was steam-powered he was never given the reward money being offered to the winner.

1916 - A bomb exploded on San Francisco's Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade, killing 10 and injuring 40; although labour leader Thomas Mooney and his assistant Warren K. Billings were eventually arrested and Mooney sentenced to die for the crime, their trial later proved overwhelmingly corrupt, and eventually both were released.

1933 - Famed aviator Wiley Post completed the first solo flight around the world, covering 25,100 km (15,596 miles) in 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes.

1934 - Agents of the newly empowered Federal Bureau of Investigation shot and mortally wounded their 'Public Enemy No. 1' John Dillinger outside Chicago's Biograph Theater; Dillinger had just left a showing of the gangster flick Manhattan Melodrama when his own Chicago melodrama played out. The event is the climactic moment of Michael Mann's film Public Enemies - based on the book of the same name by Bryan Burrough - in which Dillinger is portrayed by Johnny Depp.

1942 - Under Nazi supervision, the deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto began; the exiles were sent mainly to the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Treblinka.

1944 - The Polish Committee of National Liberation published its manifesto, starting the period of Communist rule in Poland.

1946 - At 12:37 PM Irgun bombs rocked Jerusalem's King David Hotel - headquarters of the British civil and military administration of the British Mandate - collapsing the western half of the H-shaped building's southern wing; although warning calls were placed to the hotel's switchboard, the offices of the Palestine Post, and the French consulate, they were not heeded and no evacuation was carried out. 91 people were killed and 46 injured in the blast.

1983 - Poland's state of martial law - declared by Wojciech Jaruzelski in December 1981 in response to the Solidarity movement - was officially revoked.

1991 - Jeffrey Dahmer was finally arrested, having murdered at least 11 (and as many as 17) young men in the Milwaukee area - as well as untold others (possibly including Adam Walsh) when he lived in Florida.

2003 - Members of the US 101st Airborne, aided by Special Forces, attacked a compound in Iraq, killing Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay, along with Mustapha Hussein (Qusay's 14-year old son), and a bodyguard.

2005 - Jean Charles de Menezes was shot seven times in the head at close range by London's Metropolitan Police at Stockwell tube station as their hunt for terrorist bombers responsible for attacks on the city's public transportation system on 7 July and 21 July intensified... De Menezes, a Brazilian national, bore a passing resemblance* to one of the suspects, Osman Hussain. His tragic death is currently the subject of a play, written by Kieron Brady and directed by Sophie Lifschutz. and has inspired a song by Pet Shop Boys entitled We're All Criminals Now.

*Police code for 'was brown'.
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POPnews - July 2nd

[In its typically melodramatic Victorian style, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper depicted the attack on US President James Garfield by Charles Guiteau, which occurred shortly after 9:30 AM on this day in 1881; here we see the stricken Chief Executive being supported by Secretary of State James G. Blaine immediately following the shooting, which occurred at the Sixth Street Station of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad in Washington, DC. In the background the assassin is shown being restrained by members of the public.]
310 CE - Miltiades was elected Pope to succeed Eusebius.

626 CE - Fearing assassination, Li Shimin ambushed and killed his rival brothers Li Yuanji and Li Jiancheng during the Incident at Xuanwu Gate; the following September Shimin's father Li Yuan abdicated in his favour and Shimin became Emperor of China as Taizong of Tang.

706 CE - Chinese Emperor Zhongzong of Tang had the remains of his father Gaozong of Tang, his wife and recently-deceased ruling empress Wu Zetian, her son Li Xian, her grandson Li Chongrun, and granddaughter Li Xianhui all re-interred in a new tomb complex known as the Qianling Mausoleum, which is located outside the former Tang capital Chang'an, on Mount Liang in Shaanxi province, 85 km (53 miles) northwest of Xi'an.

963 CE - The Byzantine Army proclaimed Nicephorus Phocas to be Emperor of the Romans on the plains outside Cappadocian Caesarea.

1298 - The Battle of Göllheim was fought between Albert I of Habsburg and Adolf of Nassau-Weilburg near the German town of Worms.

1494 - Pope Julius II's Treaty of Tordesillas - which divided the New World between Spain and Portugal - was ratified by Spain.

1644 - The Battle of Marston Moor was fought during the First English Civil War between an army of Royalists commanded by Prince Rupert of the Rhine and the Marquess of Newcastle against Parliamentarians under Lord Fairfax and the Earl of Manchester; the battle effectively ended the Siege of York.

1808 - Simon Fraser reached the Pacific Ocean near New Westminster - having left South Fort George in the interior of British Columbia with a party of 24 on May 28th and traveled along the river that would one day bear his name - on behalf of the North West Company.

1839 - Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 rebelling African slaves led by Joseph Cinque took over the slave ship La Amistad; 160 years later Steven Spielberg depicted these events in his film Amistad, in which Cinque was played with both grave determination and supreme hotness by Djimon Hounsou.

1878 - The Brighton Beach Line, connecting Prospect Park to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn by subway, opened; the route is now operated in New York City as the BMT Brighton Line.

1881 - Charles J. Guiteau shot and fatally wounded US President James Garfield, who eventually died in extreme agony - of a heart attack brought on by blood poisoning - on September 19th.

1890 - The US Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which called for the government to investigate and break up monopolies and cartels; although periodically altered over the ensuing years, it is the same law used to limit such crimes today.

1917 - The East St. Louis Riots ended with hundreds of whites marching into black neighbourhoods and setting fires, then cutting fire department hoses and shooting at those attempting to escape the flames.

1934 - The Night of the Long Knives ended with the death of Hitler's chief rival, Ernst Röhm.

1937 - Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan were last heard from over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first equatorial round-the-world flight in a Lockheed L-10E Electra purchased by Purdue University, where Earhart was a member of the faculty. An earlier attempt, begun on March 17th in Los Angeles, was called off in Honolulu following its first leg, owing to various mechanical faults with the aircraft; a second attempt was more successful, taking them 35,000 km (22,000 miles) in the opposite direction. Taking off from Lae in New Guinea and bound for Howland Island in the middle of the Pacific, the pair's last known coordinates were off the Nukumanu Islands, about 1,300 km (800 miles) into the final 11,000 km (7,000 miles) of their flight...

1962 - The first Wal-Mart store opened for business in Rogers, Arkansas, giving Satan a reason to smile.

1976 - North and South Vietnam, divided since 1954, reunited to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

1979 - The first US coin to honor a woman - the Susan B. Anthony dollar - was introduced; minted from 1979 to 1981 and again in 1999, it was not a popular item, either because it depicted a rather dour looking woman or else because of the American fascination with the $1 bill. (After all, it's not easy to fill a stripper's g-string with coins.) The coin's reverse depicts the Apollo 11 moon mission. While Britain, Canada, and Australia have all replaced their smallest note with coins, Americans have been reluctant to embrace them - despite the preponderance of silver dollars and such which have been in circulation since 1794; currently, a program exists to honour all US Presidents with dollar coins, and perhaps these will prove a winner where similar coins honouring Eisenhower and Sacagawea have failed.

2008 - Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other FARC hostages - including Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes, and Keith Stansell (three American military contractors employed by Northrop Grumman) and 11 Colombian military and police - were successfully rescued by the Colombian armed forces from their place of captivity in the jungles of Guaviare as part of Operation Jaque; not a single shot was fired.
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