POPnews - February 26th

[The current incarnation of Christiansborg Palace is actually an amalgam of three... The oldest (and, sadly, least) parts date from 1733, when King Christian VI commissioned Elias David Häusser to create for him a Baroque splendour, only to have all but its showgrounds succumb to a major fire on this day in 1794. It was rebuilt by Christian Frederik Hansen in the French Empire style between 1803 and 1828, but King Frederik VI turned up his nose and decided he didn't want to live there, preferring to use it for entertaining only. The palace burnt again in 1884 and Thorvald Jørgensen's contest-winning Neo-Baroque design to replace it would rise between 1903 and 1928, exposing the ruins of the site's former occupants - Absalon's Castle and Copenhagen Castle, dating back to 1167 - in the process. The current design incorporates the north facade of its predecessor, facing Prins Jørgens Gård.]

364 CE - Valentinian I was proclaimed Roman Emperor following the death of his predecessor, Jovian.

1266 - At the Battle of Benevento an army led by Charles, Count of Anjou, defeated a combined German and Sicilian force led by Sicily's King Manfred, who was killed in the battle, following which Pope Clement IV invested Charles as King of Sicily and Naples.

1577 - Sweden's King Eric XIV died while imprisoned at Örbyhus Castle (legend has it from eating a bowl of poisoned pea soup) having already been dethroned in September 1568 after killing several of his rivals in the Sture family as a result of what is now thought to have been a schizophrenic incident and succeeded by his half-brother, who reigned as John III.

1794 - Copenhagen's Christiansborg Castle burnt to the ground, the first of two major fires to damage the home of executive, legislative, and judicial authority in Denmark.

1815 - Napoleon escaped from Elba.

1914 - HMHS Britannic, sister to the RMS Titanic, was launched at Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast.

1917 - The first jazz record - (Livery Stable Blues and Dixie Jass Band One Step) - was made by The Original Dixieland Jass Band for the Victor label.

1919 - Most of the Grand Canyon was included in the creation of Grand Canyon National Park.

1929 - Grand Teton National Park was created.

1935 - Germany's Luftwaffe - initially organized during the First World War as the Luftstreitkräfte - was re-formed.

1936 - In the February 26 Incident, young military officers with the ultranationalist Kōdō-ha faction of the Imperial Japanese Army attempted to stage a coup against the government of Prime Minister Keisuke Okada, going so far as to storm his official residence, the Kantei, in order to assassinate him.

1961 - Morocco's King Mohammed V died; he was succeeded by his son Hassan II.

1972 - The Buffalo Creek Flood, caused by a burst coal slurry impoundment dam, killed 125 in West Virginia - four days after it had received a passing grade from a federal mines inspector.

1986 - Robert Penn Warren was named US Poet Laureate.

1991 - Tim Berners-Lee introduced the first Internet browser - the World Wide Web.

1993 - A truck bomb rocked the foundations of the World Trade Center beneath its North Tower; six people were killed and more than 1,000 injured in the blast.

1995 - The UK's oldest investment banking firm, Barings Bank, collapsed after a securities broker, Nick Leeson, lost $1.4 billion by speculating on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange using futures contracts. As greedy douchebags go, he was truly a trailblazer...

2001 - Two giant Buddha statues were destroyed on orders of the Taliban at Bamyam, Afghanistan; they should be rebuilt by 2012.

2004 - Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski was killed in a plane crash near Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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POPnews - December 13th

[If you think this is undignified you should have seen his execution!]
1294 - Saint Celestine V abdicated the papacy after only five months in office, hoping to return to his previous life as an ascetic hermit. Imagine something like that happening today... I know I do.

1545 - The Council of Trent began, called and presided over at first by Pope Paul III, then Pope Julius III, and finally Pope Pius IV; the Roman Catholic Church's 19th Ecumenical Council, it was held at the behest of Martin Luther (shown, at left) in order to examine so-called Protestant heresies. Alas, the princes of the church were uninterested in self-examination, and thus used the time to devise greater and more evil punishments for those responsible (because that's what Jesus would have done) rather than examining their own decadence and other laxities as the real cause of the Reformation. Not only did the Council of Trent reflect the highest ideals of the Counter-Reformation - namely bigotry, corruption, and greed - when it ended in December 1563 (just nine days shy of its own 18th birthday) it would be the church's last such navel-gazing session until Pope Pius IX called the First Vatican Council to order in December 1869.

1577 - Sir Francis Drake left Plymouth aboard the Pelican, (which was renamed the Golden Hind mid-voyage) intent on circumnavigating the Earth upon the orders of Elizabeth I.

1636 - The Massachusetts Bay Colony organized three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot nation; this necessary precaution is recognized today as the foundation of the US National Guard.

1642 - Abel Janszoon Tasman became the first European to reach New Zealand.

1769 - Dartmouth College was founded by Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, with a Royal Charter from King George III, on land donated by Royal Governor John Wentworth.

1937 - The Japanese military initiated the Nanjing Massacre, a genocidal killing spree which claimed more than 200,000 (mostly civilian) lives in the six weeks that followed their capture of the Chinese capital.

1938 - The Neuengamme concentration camp opened in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg.

1951 - Margaret Hilda Roberts married Denis Thatcher at London's City Methodist, making her Margaret Thatcher; the marriage would result in twin national embarassments named Carol and Mark, but nothing like her copulation with Satan in 1959, which would bring about her election to Parliament on behalf of Finchley and, twenty years later, the country's cruellest government since Cromwell.

1959 - Archbishop Makarios III became the first President of Cyprus.

1967 - King Constantine II of Greece led a successful counter-coup against the Regime of the Colonels.

1974 - Malta became a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations.

1977 - A DC-3 aircraft chartered from the Indianapolis-based National Jet crashed near Evansville Regional Airport, killing 29, including the University of Evansville basketball team, support staff and boosters of the team.

1979 - The minority government of Canada's Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Joe Clark fell following a vote of non-confidence sponsored by NDP Finance Critic (and future Ontario premier) Bob Rae.

1981 - Poland's General Wojciech Jaruzelski imposed martial law in order to suppress the pro-democracy Solidarity movement. It, uh, didn't work...

1996 - Kofi Annan was elected Secretary-General of the United Nations.

2000 - The so-called Texas Seven - led by George Rivas - escaped from the John Connally Unit near Kenedy, Texas, and went on a robbery spree during which police officer Aubrey Hawkins was shot and killed.

2003 - Saddam Hussein was captured near his hometown of Tikrit by US troops as part of Operation Red Dawn.

2006 - The Baiji, or Chinese River Dolphin, was announced as being functionally extinct.
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POPnews: September 17th

[September 17th has been Constitution Day in the United States since 2004; which is ironic, seeing that since George W. Bush took office in 2001 (and I do mean took) the Constitution hasn't been observed - along with the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Convention, and most of the Ten Commandments... I could go on but thankfully he didn't!]
1577 - Following the sixth phase of the French Wars of Religion the Peace of Bergerac was signed between France's King Henri III and the Huguenots; it replaced the Edict of Beaulieu, which was thought to be too favourable to Protestants.

1630 - The city of Boston, Massachusetts was founded, ten days after having its name changed from Shawmut.

1778 - The Treaty of Fort Pitt was signed, making it the first formal treaty between the United States and an American First Nation - in this case the Lenape or Delaware tribe.

1787 - The US Constitution was signed at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

1859 - Joshua A. Norton proclaimed himself Emperor Norton I of the United States in - where else? - San Francisco.

1862 - The Allegheny Arsenal explosion resulted in the single largest civilian disaster during the American Civil War.

1900 - Filipinos under Juan Cailles defeated Colonel Benjamin F. Cheatham's Americans at Mabitac during the Philippine-American War.

1908 - Lt. Thomas Selfridge became the first airplane fatality when the Wright Flyer piloted by Orville Wright crashed at Fort Myer, Virginia.

1914 - Andrew Fisher became Prime Minister of Australia for a third term.

1916 - Baron Manfred von Richthofen - the famous Red Baron - won the first of more than 80 aerial victories over the French town of Cambrai.

1920 - The National Football League was organized in Canton, Ohio.

1939 - German U-boat U 29 sank the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous.

1948 - The Lehi - radical Zionists who were also known as the Stern Gang after their founder, Avraham Stern - assassinated the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte, who was appointed by the United Nations to mediate between Arab nations and Israel during that phase of the Arab-Israeli conflict marked by the establishment of the Jewish state. The killing was directed by Yehoshua Zettler and carried out by a team led by Meshulam Makover, although the fatal shots were fired by Yehoshua Cohen; also thought to be involved were Shmuel Rosenblum, David Ephrati, and Yitzhak Markovitz.

1949 - The Canadian steamship and passenger liner SS Noronic caught fire while docked at Pier 9 in Toronto Harbour shortly after 2:30 AM, with an eventual loss of between 118 and 139 lives; most of the 524 passengers and 171 crew on board were American.

1956 - Television was first shown in Australia, apparently.

1972 - The first episode of the television series M*A*S*H - appropriately enough, entitled M*A*S*H the Pilot - aired on CBS; based on the Robert Altman film of the same name (which was itself based on a book by Richard Hooker), the series eventually aired 251 half-hour episodes over 11 years. Many of the episodes, including the pilot, were written by the late Larry Gelbart.

1978 - The Camp David Accords were signed by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt's President Anwar El Sadat, as facilitated and witnessed by US President Jimmy Carter.

1983 - Vanessa Williams became the first black Miss America.

1993 - The blatantly racist British National Party's Derek Beackon won a council seat in the East London district of Millwall.
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