POPnews - February 13th

[Thomas Edison re-discovered the Edison Effect, now
known as thermionic emission, on this day in 1880.]
1130 - Pope Honorius II died; he was succeeded by Innocent II the following day.

1503 - The so-called Disfida di Barletta - a famous challenge between 13 Italian and 13 French knights from Canosa di Puglia near the Italian town of Barletta - resulted in an Italian victory, following which the French left the area; the event was immortalized in a novel named Ettore Fieramosca by Massimo D'Azeglio in 1833, and the town is still known as the Città della Disfida.

1542 - Catherine Howard, erstwhile fifth wife of England's Henry VIII, was executed.

1575 - France's King Henry III was crowned at Rheims, on the same day as he married Louise de Lorraine-Vaudémont.

1633 - Galileo arrived in Rome to testify before the Inquisition.

1689 - William III and Mary II were proclaimed co-rulers of England.

1692 - At the Massacre of Glencoe as many as 78 members of the Clan MacDonald in three towns adjacent to Scotland's Glen Coe - Invercoe, Inverrigan, and Achacon - were killed early in the morning hours for not promptly pledging allegiance to the new king, William of Orange.

1815 - The Cambridge Union Society was founded.

1866 - Members of the James-Younger Gang (including 19-year-old Jesse James) committed their first robbery - the first peacetime daylight bank robbery in US history - of the Clay County Savings Association in Liberty, Missouri; one man, 19-year-old James Wymore of William Jewell College, was killed by Jesse in their getaway.

1880 - Work began on the covering of the Zenne, which buried the river flowing through the centre of Brussels and brought about the creation of that city's modern central boulevards.

1881 - The feminist newspaper La Citoyenne was first published in Paris by Hubertine Auclert; it appeared bi-monthly until 1891, agitating for changes to the Napoleonic Code, female suffrage, and greater rights for women.

1894 - The Lumiere Brothers patented the Cinematograph, a combination movie camera and projector.

1914 - ASCAP was founded in New York City.

1920 - The Negro National League was established in Kansas City, Missouri; another league with the same name was later established in 1933.

1934 - The Soviet steamship Cheliuskin sank in the Arctic Ocean near Kolyuchin Island in the Chukchi Sea.

1935 - Bruno Richard Hauptmann, accused of the kidnap and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr., was found guilty by a jury in Flemington, New Jersey.

1945 - The siege of Budapest concluded with the unconditional surrender of German and Hungarian forces to the Red Army.

2000 - The final Peanuts comic strip appeared, the day after its creator Charles Schulz died; the first Peanuts strip debuted in October 1950.

2009 - 1234567890 in Unix Time occurred at 3:31:30 PM (PST).
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POPnews - March 26th

[You see, kids... Once upon a time there was an American president who cared about peace in the Middle East. I know, I know, you think I'm shitting you, but it's really true! Look - here's a picture to prove it.]
1026 - Pope John XIX crowned Conrad II - first King of the Salian Dynasty - as Holy Roman Emperor.

1130 - Norway's King Sigurd I died without a legitimate male heir, precipitating a civil war that persisted until 1240; in the meantime he was succeeded by his illegitimate son Magnus IV and his half-brother Harald IV.

1212 - Portugal's King Sancho I died, at which time he was succeeded by his eldest son, who reigned as Afonso II.

1552 - Guru Amar Das became the third of eleven Sikh Gurus, following in the footsteps of Guru Angad Dev.

1636 - Holland's Utrecht University was founded.

1812 - An earthquake destroyed Caracas in the midst of the Venezuelan War of Independence.

1839 - The Henley Royal Regatta was first proposed by Captain Edmund Gardiner.

1958 - The US Army launched Explorer 3 to explore the Van Allen radiation belt.

1969 - American novelist John Kennedy Toole - best remembered today for his epic work A Confederacy of Dunces, for which he was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1981 - committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning near Biloxi, Mississippi.

1971 - East Pakistan declared its independence from Pakistan to form the People's Republic of Bangladesh, inciting the Bangladesh Liberation War.

1975 - The Biological Weapons Convention entered into force.

1976 - Britain's Queen Elizabeth II sent out the first royal email - from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment - apparently.

1979 - Following the Camp David Accords Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter signed the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty in Washington, DC.

1982 - The groundbreaking ceremony for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was held on Washington, DC's National Mall.

1990 - American fashion designer Halston - an icon of the 1970s - died in San Francisco of AIDS-related complications following a lifetime of legendary debauchery.

1997 - Thirty-nine bodies were found in a rented mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California, belonging to members of the Heaven's Gate cult; the followers of Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles had been brainwashed into believing that a spaceship following the Comet Hale-Bopp would take their souls with them. Whatever you believe, they were definitely taken for a ride...

1998 - During Algeria's Oued Bouaicha massacre 52 people were killed with axes and knives, 32 of them babies under the age of 2.

1999 - The so-called Melissa worm infected Microsoft word processing and e-mail systems around the world, but not those of Apple. Suckers...

2005 - The Taiwanese government called on 1 million of its citizens to demonstrate in Taipei, in opposition to the Anti-Secession Law of the People's Republic of China; between 200,000 and 300,000 actually attended the walk.
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