POPnews - November 8th

[The distinctive round shape of the Bodleian Library amidst the splendour of Oxford's medieval quadrangles makes it a must-see destination for tourists, but belies its importance as one of six deposit libraries in Britain and the only deposit library for the Republic of Ireland within the United Kingdom.]
680 CE - The Sixth Ecumenical Council commenced in Constantinople.

1519 - Hernán Cortés entered Tenochtitlán as the guest of Aztec ruler Moctezuma II, who welcomed him with great a celebration; over the next few years Cortés would repay this hospitality by despoiling the city, plundering the country, and enslaving those who'd welcomed him.

1602 - Oxford University's Bodleian Library was first opened to the public... And by 'public' I mean certain scholars willing to undergo a spot of minor bureaucratic rigmarole for the privilege.

1619 - The former Princess Elizabeth of Scotland and England - daughter of James VI and I and Anne of Denmark - was crowned Queen of Bohemia as consort to Frederick I, three days after his own coronation; best known to history as the 'Winter Queen', regular readers might also remember that Her Majesty had earlier been the focus of a misguided attempt to restore a Catholic monarchy to England when, at the age of only nine, the Gunpowder Plot was foiled in November 1605. Oddly enough, it would be her Hanoverian descendants who became the saviours of Britain's Protestant monarchy after the demise of the House of Stuart with the death of Queen Anne in August 1714.

1793 - The Louvre was first opened to the public as a museum, during the French Revolution.

1864 - Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected to a second term as US President over Democrat George B. McClellan.

1889 - Montana became the 41st US state.

1892 - 22nd US President Grover Cleveland - a Democrat - was elected 24th US President over Republican incumbent Benjamin Harrison and Populist James Weaver; Cleveland remains the only US President elected to non-consecutive terms.

1895 - While experimenting with electricity, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered the X-ray.

1904 - Republican Theodore Roosevelt was elected 26th US President over Democrat Alton Brooks Parker; having succeeded to the Presidency following the assassination of William McKinley in September 1901, Roosevelt became the first 'accidental President' to be elected of his own accord.

1923 - Adolf Hitler's abortive Beer Hall Putsch began, in München.

1932 - Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected 32nd US President over Republican incumbent Herbert Hoover.

1933 - US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt unveiled plans for the Civil Works Administration.

1939 - Adolf Hitler escaped an assassination attempt by Georg Elser in München, during a celebration of the anniversary of the failed Beer Hall Putsch.

1960 - Democrat John F. Kennedy was elected 35th US President over Republican Richard Nixon.

1966 - Edward Brooke became the first African-American elected to the US Senate.

1971 - Led Zeppelin released Stairway to Heaven, from their album Led Zeppelin IV.

1973 - The right ear of kidnapped oil heir John Paul Getty III was mailed to a newspaper along with a ransom note; Getty's abduction has been thought to be the work of 'Ndrangheta, but their connection to the crime has never been proven.

1977 - Archaeologist Manolis Andronikos uncovered the tomb of Philip II of Macedon at Vergina.
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POPnews - July 30th

[England captain Bobby Moore accepted the coveted (and only recently recovered) Jules Rimet Trophy from his Queen on this day in 1966 and fortunately neither from World Cup Willie nor a dog called Pickles.]
762 CE - The city of Baghdad was founded by Abu Ja'far Al-Mansur.

1419 - The First Defenestration of Prague occurred when seven members of that city's council were thrown from a window at Charles Square's Novoměstská radnice (Town Hall) by a crowd of radical Hussites under the command of Jan Želivský; those who didn't die from the fall were handily dispatched by the angry mob waiting in the street below. Upon hearing the news, King Václav IV reportedly suffered such a shock that he died shortly after.

1619 - The first representative assembly in the Americas, the House of Burgesses, convened for the first time, in Jamestown; it was presided over by the Governor, George Yeardley, who appointed the journalist John Pory as speaker - although Pory was, in fact, little more than a recording secretary.

1729 - The city of Baltimore was founded, named after Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore; it then took the city more than 200 years to spawn John Waters, who would go on to immortalize it so memorably on film. Well worth the wait, I'd say...

1756 - Bartolomeo Rastrelli presented the newly-built Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo to Russia's Empress Elizabeth and her courtiers.

1811 - For having uttered the Grito de Dolores in September 1810 - thereby setting off the Mexican War of Independence - Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, leader of the insurgency, was executed by the Spanish outside the Government Palace of Chihuahua.

1825 - Malden Island was discovered by Captain George Anson, Lord Byron, of the HMS Blonde, who'd been charged with the solemn duty of repatriating the remains of the King and Queen of Hawai'i - Kamehameha II and Kamāmalu - after they died of measles during a state visit to Britain; the island was named for Lieutenant Charles Robert Malden, the ship's navigator, who first sighted it.

1859 - The first ascent of Grand Combin, one of the highest summits in the Alps, was made by Charles Sainte-Claire Deville with Basile Dorsaz and brothers Daniel, Emmanuel and Gaspard Balleys.

1871 - The Staten Island Ferry Westfield's boiler exploded, killing more than 85 people.

1916 - A series of small deliberately-set fires triggered an explosion at a munitions depot on New Jersey's Black Tom Island, in New York Harbor near Jersey City, killing 7 and injuring hundreds... Despite the low death count (which can be attributed to the fact that it occurred just after 2 AM) the explosion caused massive damage (valued at some $20 million*) lodging shrapnel in the Statue of Liberty** and the clock tower of the Jersey Journal building in Journal Square a mile away, as well as breaking windows all over Lower Manhattan (as far north as Times Square) and elsewhere in a radius estimated at 40 kilometres (25 miles). The initial blast - equivalent to an earthquake of between 5 and 5.5 on the Richter Scale - could be felt as far away as Philadelphia and Maryland, and as the fire continued to rage throughout the day there were dozens of smaller explosions at the site. While the crime remains officially unsolved, German saboteurs (such as Lothar Witzke and Franz von Papen) have been blamed for what is still one of the worst acts of terrorism to have ever been committed on US soil. The story has been thrillingly retold in The Detonators: The Secret Plot to Destroy America and an Epic Hunt for Justice by Chad Millman.

*Akin to $390 million in today's money! Imperial Germany was later sued for damages; a $50 million settlement (like, $976 million today) was ordered paid to the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company in 1953, and the last payment was finally made in 1979.
**The arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty closed as a result of the explosion, and have yet to reopen!

1932 - The Games of the X Olympiad (or the 10th Olympic Summer Games) opened in Los Angeles; plagued by the worsening Great Depression, the games had just half as many participants as the 1928 Games held in Amsterdam, and weren't even attended by US President Herbert Hoover.

1945 - The Japanese submarine I-58 sank the USS Indianapolis (CA-35), killing 883 seamen.

1954 - Elvis Presley made his first public performance at the Overton Park Shell in Memphis, Tennessee, performing as part of the Blue Moon Boys, who opened for Slim Whitman.

1956 - In God We Trust was made the official motto of the United States, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a Joint Resolution passed by Congress.

1966 - At Wembley Stadium, host England won the World Cup, defeating what was then West Germany 4-2.

1971 - David Scott and James Irwin - on board the Apollo Lunar Module module Falcon - landed on the moon with first Lunar Rover as part of the Apollo Program's Apollo 15 mission.

1980 - Vanuatu gained its independence from France and the UK.

2002 - The accounting law referred to as 'The Sarbanes Oxley Act' was signed into law by US President George W. Bush.

2006 - BBC Two aired the final broadcast of Top of the Pops after 42 years, during which time every notable (as well as many not) act in the music business appeared.
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POPnews - June 10th

[If you're like me - and let's face it, would you be if you didn't have to be? - you like gawking at super fit college aged men clad only in revealing sporting costumes, all the while enjoying yourself a pleasant afternoon in an idyllic riverside setting... Which makes the annual Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race the ideal way to combine my hobbies (and/or pervs). The image above shows a practice run by the Cambridge team in 1866 along the River Cam, near the Plough Inn at Fen Ditton. You know the place I mean. Anyway, that year Cambridge lost to Oxford - a race which included a dramatic near-collision with a barge!]
1190 - Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa drowned in Turkey's Saleph river while leading an army to Jerusalem on his way to fight the Third Crusade.

1619 - The Battle of Záblatí proved a turning point in the Bohemian Revolt during the Thirty Years' War when Karel Bonaventura Buquoy won the day for the Holy Roman Empire, while Ernst von Mansfeld suffered heavily losses in personnel and a baggage train as well, following which he was forced to lift the siege of Budějovice.

1692 - During the Salem Witch Trials, Bridget Bishop was hanged at Gallows Hill for 'certaine Detestable Arts called Witchcraft & Sorceries'. Which, I'm sure, is what Jesus would have done...

1719 - The Battle of Glen Shiel proved a decisive victory for its commander Joseph Wightman and put an end to the Jacobite Rising, whose commander Lord George Murray (among others) had hoped to put the Catholic Bonnie Prince Charlie on the throne of England as Charles III in place of the Protestant George I.

1786 - A landslide dam on the Dadu River created by the Kangding Louding earthquake ten days earlier collapsed, killing 100,000 in the Chinese province Sichuan province as far as 1400 km upriver, making it the second deadliest landslide on record.

1805 - Yussif Karamanli signed a treaty ending hostilities with the United States following the First Barbary War; try and guess whether or not that lasted...

1829 - The first Boat Race between the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge took place; annually pitting eights against each other on the River Thames since 1856 (and four times unofficially elsewhere during the Second World War) the brain-child of Charles Merivale, a student at St John's College, Cambridge, and his chum Charles Wordsworth, who was at Christ Church, Oxford, today the 6.8 km- (4 mile, 374 yard-) long race is attended by a quarter million spectators bankside along the course from Putney to Mortlake, while 7-9 million watch on telly in the UK, and more than 20 million people tune in worldwide.

1838 - At Australia's Myall Creek Massacre 28 Aboriginals were murdered near Inverell, a sheep station in New South Wales; seven of the 11 whites responsible were later found guilty, a first for Australian jurisprudence.

1886 - Following the eruption of New Zealand's Mount Tarawera, 153 people were killed and the country's famous Pink and White Terraces were destroyed.

1924 - Fascists kidnapped and killed Italian socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti in Rome, a crime which historians now believe was ordered by Il Duce himself, Benito Mussolini.

1925 - The inaugural service for the United Church of Canada - a union of Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregationalist churches - was held in Toronto Arena.

1935 - With the assistance of Bill Wilson, Dr. Robert Smith took his last drink, thereby helping to found Alcoholics Anonymous.

1942 - The Nazi occupiers of Czechoslovakia burned the village of Lidice in reprisal for the earlier killing of Reinhard Heydrich as part of Operation Anthropoid.

1944 - 15-year old Joe Nuxhall of the Cincinnati Reds became the youngest player ever in a Major League game.

1967 - The Six-Day War 'ended' when Israel and Syria agreed to a cease-fire... There are those, however, who feel a war cannot truly be over as long as one side continues to call for the death of all of those on the other side, in addition to all of their co-religionists throughout the world, and the total destruction of their country besides. I'm just saying, is all.

1977 - James Earl Ray escaped from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Petros, Tennessee; he was recaptured three days later.

1986 - Patrick Magee was found guilty of planting the bomb that damaged Brighton's Grand Hotel during a Conservative Party conference in October 1984, killing five.

2001 - Pope John Paul II canonized Lebanon's first female saint, Rafqa.

2003 - The Spirit Rover was launched, beginning NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission; it landed successfully the following January 4th, three weeks before its twin Opportunity landed on the other side of the planet.
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POPnews - May 13th

[Of all the things to be thrown onto pyres and consigned to oblivion by Savonarola and his cronies - from simple hair ribbons and cosmetics to priceless and irreplaceable works of art - the first and foremost, namely himself, was not; for daring to act in judgement against men (which by his own admission is ultimately the duty of God) his own bonfire would have to wait, but come it would, and it would make a very pretty flame indeed...]
1497 - Pope Alexander VI excommunicated Girolamo Savonarola; a critic of the decadent papacy, Savonarola's crusade extended to whatever elements of Renaissance culture he considered immoral, leading him to engage in book burnings, undertaking the so-called Bonfire of the Vanities, and the destruction of paintings containing pagan imagery by the likes of Botticelli and Michelangelo. Far be it from me to agree with a Pope - especially such a decadent and corrupt one - but Savonarola was more a tyrant than a culture warrior, and his comeuppance just short of one year later came several years too late to save the numerous treasures he'd destroyed.

1568 - At the Battle of Langside the forces of Mary, Queen of Scots (commanded by the Duke of Chatelherault) were defeated by a confederacy of Scottish Protestants under James Stewart, Earl of Moray, Regent of Scotland on behalf of Mary's infant son James VI and her half-brother.

1619 - Dutch statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt was executed in The Hague after having been accused of treason for his support of William the Silent and efforts to liberate Holland from Spanish control.

1787 - Captain Arthur Phillip sailed from Portsmouth in command of the First Fleet, which was charged with establishing a penal colony in Australia with eleven ships full of convicts.

1846 - The Mexican-American War was declared by President James K. Polk with the approval of Congress, which was how they did it in those days.

1848 - Finland's national anthem, Maame - with music by Fredrik Pacius and lyrics by Finn Johan Ludvig Runeberg - was first performed.

1861 - The Great Comet of 1861 was discovered by John Tebbutt in Australia; it came so close to Earth the planet passed through its tail, obscuring the sun even in the daytime. It will next return in 2269.

1888 - With the passage of the Lei Áurea or 'Golden Law' Brazil unconditionally abolished slavery.

1909 - The first Giro d'Italia took place in Milan; Italian cyclist Luigi Ganna was the winner.

1912 - Britain's Royal Flying Corps - the forerunner of the Royal Air Force - was established.

1939 - The first commercial FM radio station in the United States was launched in Bloomfield, Connecticut; the station later became WDRC-FM.

1940 - As the German army crossed the Meuse River and the Battle of France began, Winston Churchill made his 'blood, toil, tears, and sweat' speech to the House of Commons. Meanwhile Queen Wilhelmina fled the Nazi invasion of Holland aboard the HMS Hereward to lead the Dutch government in exile from London while her daughter and heir Princess Juliana took her children (Princesses Beatrix and Irene) to live in Ottawa for their safety.

1948 - The Kfar Etzion massacre was committed by Arab infantry, the day before the state of Israel issued its Declaration of Independence and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War began.

1952 - The Rajya Sabha - the upper house of the Parliament of India - held its first sitting.

1954 - The Anti-National Service Riots in Singapore were led by Chinese students between the ages of 18 and 20 who were unwilling to be drafted into compulsory military service.

1967 - Dr. Zakir Hussain became 3rd President of India, and the first Muslim President of Indian Union.

1969 - A series of race riots broke out in Kuala Lumpur which later came to be known as the May 13 Incident.

1985 - Police in Philadelphia stormed the headquarters of an African-American anti-technology organization called MOVE in order to end a stand-off, killing 11 MOVE members in the process; during the raid police also dropped a bomb from a helicopter, destroying the homes of 250 city residents in the process.

2000 - In the Dutch city of Enschede, a fireworks factory exploded, killing 22 people, wounding 950, and resulting in approximately €450 million in damage.
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