POPnews - August 23rd

[The case of Sacco and Vanzetti electrified the punditocracy of
the 1920s - including the artist Ben Spahn, who created
this portrait of them in their honour in 1931-2.]

1305 - Scottish patriot William Wallace was executed by order of England's King Edward I at London's Smithfield for high treason following a show trial; a plaque on the wall of the city's St. Bartholomew's Hospital marks the site today, and is itself a place of pilgrimage for his modern-day compatriots.

1328 - At the Battle of Cassel French troops under King Philip VI stopped a peasant revolt in Flanders led by Nicolaas Zannekin.

1514 - The Battle of Chaldiran - in what is now north-western Iran - ended with a decisive victory for Sultan Selim I of the Ottoman Empire over Shah Ismail I, founder of the Safavid Dynasty.

1541 - Jacques Cartier made landfall at Stadacona (near the future Quebec City) during his Third Voyage to the New World.

1595 - Romania's Michael the Brave confronted an Ottoman army led by Sinan Pasha at the Battle of Calugareni, yielding a tactical victory for the Wallachian commander during the so-called Long War.

1614 - Holland's University of Groningen was established.

1708 - Meidingnu Pamheiba was crowned King of Manipur.

1784 - Eight counties in western North Carolina (now eastern Tennessee) declared themselves an independent state under the name of Franklin, with its capital at Greeneville... Despite appeals to its namesake, Benjamin Franklin, the fledgeling state never garnered much support; after just four years it became part of the Southwest Territory, while the would-be state's governor, John Sevier, went on to become the first governor of Tennessee.

1793 - During the French Revolution a levée en masse (or mass conscription) was decreed by the National Convention.

1813 - At the Battle of Grossbeeren, a combined force of Prussians and Swedish under Friedrich von Bülow and Crown Prince Charles John fought off the French army commanded by Nicolas Oudinot during the War of the Sixth Coalition. While Napoleon had ordered the battle in hopes of removing Prussia from the Sixth Coalition by capturing their capital the swampy terrain south of Berlin combined with poor weather and the ill-health of Marshal Oudinot all conspired against him.

1839 - The United Kingdom captured Hong Kong for use as a base of operations while it prepared to go to war with Qing China; the ensuing 3-year conflict would later become known as the First Opium War.

1873 - London's Albert Bridge, connecting Chelsea on the north bank of the River Thames with Battersea on the south, was opened without ceremony... Designed and built by Rowland Mason Ordish as an Ordish-Lefeuvre Principle modified cable-stayed bridge, when it soon proved structurally unsound - soldiers from the Chelsea Barracks who marched over it caused the bridge to shimmy, earning it the sobriquet 'The Trembling Lady' - it was redesigned as a suspension bridge by Sir Joseph Bazalgette; further modifications made in 1973 gave it elements of a beam bridge, making the current structure a rather unique hybrid of three different styles rarely seen in a single bridge.

1921 - Faisal I was crowned King of Iraq.

1927 - Sacco and Vanzetti were executed for the murders of Frederick Parmenter and Alessandro Berardelli and the the theft of $15,776.51 from the Slater-Morrill Shoe Company of South Braintree, Massachusetts.

1944 - Romania's King Michael dismissed the pro-Nazi government of General Ion Antonescu, who was then arrested, in what came to be known as King Michael's Coup; Romania then switched sides from the Axis to the Allies. The action distracted the Nazis long enough to allow the Red Army to occupy Romania, and may in fact have shortened World War II in Europe by as much as six months.

1948 - The World Council of Churches was formed, in Amsterdam, by the merger of the Faith and Order Movement and Life and Work Movement.

1977 - The Gossamer Condor won the Kremer prize for human powered flight.

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1979 - Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defected to the United States while on tour with the Bolshoi Ballet in New York City.

2006 - Natascha Kampusch - who was abducted in March 1998 at the age of 10 - managed to escape from her captor Wolfgang Priklopil after more than 8 years of captivity.
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POPnews - April 5th

[Jacob Roggeveen had been discharged with finding Terra Australis at the helm of a three-ship convoy - consisting of the Arend, the Thienhoven, and Afrikaansche Galey - when he accidentally encountered an island known to its residents as Rapa Nui on Easter Sunday 1722; the ships were greeted by as many as 3,000 natives and some mysterious sculptures known as moai...]
1566 - 200 Dutch noblemen, led by Hendrik van Brederode, forced their way into the presence of the country's regent - Margaret of Parma - and presented her with their Petition of Compromise, denouncing the Inquisition in the Netherlands; the Inquisition was subsequently suspended there and a delegation was sent to Spain to petition Philip II, although van Brederode himself was banished by the governor, the ruthless Duke of Alba.

1614 - Pocahontas married English colonist John Rolfe at Henricus, a plantation up river from Jamestown Settlement, after which they settled on their own property at Varina Farms.

1621 - Captain Christopher Jones left the Plymouth Colony aboard the Mayflower and returned to England.

1722 - The Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen became the first European to visit Easter Island.

1792 - The presidential veto power was first exercised when President George Washington vetoed the Apportionment Bill (on the grounds that it was unconstitutional); the Bill was designed to apportion representatives among the several states following a census (in this instance, that of 1790). Congress overrode this veto and the bill subsequently passed.

1804 - The High Possil Meteorite - Scotland's first recorded meteorite, and one of only four in that country's history - fell in High Possil, to the north of Glasgow (where it now resides, in the collection of the Hunterian Museum).

1818 - At the Battle of Maipú, Chile's independence movement - led by Bernardo O'Higgins and José de San Martín - won a decisive victory over Spain, leaving 2,000 Spanish and 1,000 Chilean patriots dead.

1847 - Birkenhead Park - Britain's first public civic park - was opened in (of all places) Birkenhead; designed by Joseph Paxton, it would later influence Frederick Law Olmsted's work on New York's Central Park.

1879 - Chile declared war on Bolivia and Peru, starting the War of the Pacific.

1904 - The first international rugby league match was played between England and an Other Nationalities team (comprised of Welsh & Scottish players) in Wigan's Central Park.

1932 - In the Dominion of Newfoundland 10,000 rioters unhappy with the government of Prime Minister Sir Richard Squires seized the Colonial Building; he only barely escaped with his life. As a result of the riot the Commission of Government was established, returning the colony to unelected leadership subordinate to London, and eventually leading to the country's admission into the Canadian Confederation in March 1949.

1949 - Fireside Theater had its television debut on NBC.

1951 - Americans Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death by Judge Irving Kaufman for engaging in espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union; their trial, which began on March 6th, had already led to their March 29th conviction.

1955 - Sir Winston Churchill resigned as British Prime Minister, citing ill-health; unbeknownst to the public, Churchill had suffered a stroke.

1958 - Ripple Rock, an underwater threat to navigation in British Columbia's Seymour Narrows, was destroyed in one of the largest non-nuclear controlled explosions to date.

1976 - During the Qingming Festival - China's annual day of mourning, held in Tiananmen Square, which was that year dominated by mourning for the country's recently deceased Premier Zhou Enlai - the removal of the usual displays of mourning evoked protests by members of the April Fifth Movement; later deemed 'counter-revolutionary' and resulting in the house arrest of Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping ordered by the Gang of Four, the Tiananmen Incident has since been considered a display of patriotism.

1986 - Three people were killed in the bombing of the La Belle Discotheque in West Berlin, two of whom were American servicemen - Kenneth T. Ford and James E. Goins - in addition to a Turkish woman, Nermin Hannay; in retaliation US President Ronald Reagan ordered Operation El Dorado Canyon against Libya, who it was believed ordered the attack.

1992 -President Alberto Fujimori used military force to dissolve the Peruvian Congress.

1998 - When Japan's Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge - linking Shikoku with Honshū at a cost of about US$3.8 billion - opened to traffic, it became the longest suspension bridge in the world, with a span of 1,991 m (6,529 ft).
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