POPnews - January 28th

[An unfortunate allergy to the excessively mannered drawing-room comedies of Jane Austen has always prevented me from actually finishing a whole one of her novels, a dire situation only partially ameliorated by their numerous film and television adaptations; I can, without too much trouble, get through a whole one of them, however - such as Ang Lee's 1995 film Sense and Sensibility (which won an Oscar for its screenwriting star Emma Thompson) and this 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice starring the all-too lovely Keira Knightley - mainly because once my brain glazes over at the intricacies of Regency-era social discourse I can continue to admire the costumes, scenery, art direction and/or whatever bit of scrummy is portraying the cause of the heroine's busted corset stays, in this case Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Darcy.]
814 CE - Charlemagne died; he was succeeded by his son Louis the Pious.

1077 - Following the Walk to Canossa, the excommunication of Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV was lifted as easily as the gates to Canossa Castle were opened to him, settling the Investiture Controversy between himself and Pope Gregory VII.

1521 - The Diet of Worms began, presided over by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V; it would last until May 25th, and in the process judge Martin Luther guilty of Protestantism for the heresies apparently contained in his 95 Theses, which had already been condemned by Pope Leo X in the papal bull Exsurge Domine, issued the year before.

1547 - England's King Henry VIII died; he was succeeded by his nine year old son, who became Edward VI, and the first of that country's truly Protestant Kings.

1573 - The articles of Warsaw Confederation were signed, sanctioning freedom of religion in Poland.

1621 - Pope Paul V died; he would be succeeded by Gregory XV on February 9th.

1624 - Britain's first Caribbean colony, at Saint Kitts, was founded by Sir Thomas Warner.

1754 - Horace Walpole coined the word 'serendipity' in a letter to Horace Mann.

1813 - Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, was first published in the United Kingdom by T. Egerton of Whitehall.

1846 - The Battle of Aliwal, marking a turning point in the First Anglo-Sikh War, saw Ranjodh Singh Majithia defeated by the British troops of Sir Harry Smith.

1878 - Yale Daily News became the first daily college newspaper in the United States.

1902 - The Carnegie Institution was founded in Washington, DC, with a $10 million gift from robber baron turned philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

1917 - The first municipally owned streetcars began service in San Francisco.

1922 - The Knickerbocker Storm - the worst snowfall in the history of Washington, DC - caused the roof of the Knickerbocker Theater to collapse, which is the single most fatal event in the city's history.

1932 - Japanese forces attacked Shanghai.

1933 - The name Pakistan was coined by Choudhary Rehmat Ali Khan and was accepted by the Indian Muslims, who then adopted it for the Pakistan Movement, which was seeking independence from the United Kingdom.

1965 - The current design of the Flag of Canada - chosen by an act of Parliament after several years of occasionally acrimonious debate - was proclaimed by Elizabeth II in her role as Queen of Canada; designed by George F. G. Stanley and John Matheson, it was first flown on February 15th of that year, which is marked by the little-celebrated holiday National Flag of Canada Day.

1977 - The first day of the Great Lakes Blizzard of 1977 - which affected much of Upstate New York, but Buffalo, Syracuse, Watertown, and surrounding areas especially - with each of these areas accumulating close to 10 feet of snow in a single day.

1986 - The Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated shortly after liftoff, killing all seven astronauts on mission STS-51-L.
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POPnews - July 3rd

[We at the Pop Culture Institute make no bones about the threat to humanity posed by the internal combustion engine - in fact, we'll witter on about it ad nauseum to anyone fool enough to listen; we do accept, though, that what we consider to be the greatest invention of all time - namely photography - may have enemies of its own.]

324 CE - At the Battle of Adrianople - during one of the Roman Empire's occasional civil wars - Constantine I defeated Licinius, who then fled to Byzantium.

987 CE - Hugh Capet was crowned King of France, thereby establishing the Capetian Dynasty, which ruled that country until the French Revolution swept it from power in 1792.

1608 - Québec City was founded by Samuel de Champlain.

1754 - During the French and Indian War, George Washington surrendered Fort Necessity to the French - an incident most famous today for having been referenced on The Simpsons in the classic episode Bart Gets an F.

1767 - Adresseavisen, Norway's oldest extant newspaper, published its first issue.

1778 - During the American Revolution Loyalist British forces led by Colonel John Butler killed 360 American Patriot men, women, and children in 45 minutes, then burned their village to the ground, in the Wyoming Valley Massacre; Butler was aided in his task by Seneca warriors Sayenqueraghta and Cornplanter of the Iroquois Confederacy.

1844 - The last pair of Great Auks were killed on the Icelandic island of Geirfuglasker by Jón Brandsson and Sigurður Ísleifsson.

1863 - The final day of the Battle of Gettysburg culminated with Pickett's Charge.

1866 - The Austro-Prussian War was decided at the Battle of Königgratz, resulting in Prussia taking over as the prominent German nation from Austria.

1886 - Karl Benz officially unveiled the Benz Patent Motorwagen – the first purpose-built automobile.

1890 - Idaho became the 43rd US state.

1898 - During the Spanish-American War the Spanish fleet, led by Pascual Cervera y Topete and moored at the Cuban port of Santiago, was destroyed by the US Navy.

1913 - Confederate veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913 reenacted Pickett's Charge; upon reaching the high-water mark of the Confederacy they were met by the outstretched hands of friendship from Union survivors.

1938 - The world speed record for a steam railway locomotive was set in England, by the Mallard, which reached a speed of 126 mph (203 km/h).

1940 - The French fleet of the Atlantic based at Mers el Kébir was bombarded by the British fleet, coming from Gibraltar, causing the loss of three battleships: Dunkerque, Provence and Bretagne. 1,200 sailors died in the raid.

1962 - The Algerian War of Independence against colonial rule ended with the proclamation of Algeria as an independent state by French president Charles De Gaulle; two days later the fledgling nation's Provisional Executive re-made the declaration - on the 132nd anniversary of the invasion of Algeria - which is the day still celebrated there as the country's real Independence Day.

1988 - Istanbul's Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge was completed, providing a second connection between the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosphorus, the first being the Bosphorus Bridge, opened in October 1973.

1996 - The Stone of Scone was returned to Scotland from its opulent captivity within St. Edward's Chair, which itself sits at the heart of the most sacred precincts of Westminster Abbey; it currently resides in the very different (although entirely equal, as per EC regulations) splendour of Edinburgh Castle.

2004 - Bangkok's subway system was officially opened.
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