POPnews - June 13th

[The daughter of France's King Henri IV and his second wife Marie de Medici, through her daughter Henrietta, Duchess of Orléans Charles I's queen is related to French monarchs Louis XV, Louis XVI, Louis XVII, Louis XVIII & Charles X plus such modern-day luminaries as Diana, Princess of Wales , Prince William, Prince Harry, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall as well through the illegitimate children of her son, Charles II. Despite being such a pivotal figure in history - every bit as much as Queen Victoria if not more - Henrietta Maria has been written about very little, and understood even less...]
1525 - Martin Luther married Katharina von Bora, openly defying the celibacy doctrine decreed by the Roman Catholic Church on priests and nuns in the most boring way imaginable.

1625 - England's King Charles I married French princess Henrietta Maria; not only would she become the mother of two kings (Charles II and James II) she would also be the grandmother of two queens (Mary II and Queen Anne) as well as William III - who, according to rumour was both a king and a queen - besides.

1777 - At the outset of the American Revolution the Marquis de Lafayette (who during the subsequent French Revolution renounced his title in a fit of Republicanism and became plain-old Gilbert de Motier) landed near Charleston in order to help the Continental Congress to train its army, which he did as an unpaid volunteer. Some idea of the closeness between the has-been Marquis and the would-be President George Washington can be gleaned from David A. Barry's book Adopted Son: Washington, Lafayette, and the Friendship That Saved the Revolution, which will have to do until I decide* to take up writing slash fiction.

*Or am driven, out of sheer desperation, more like...

1798 - The Mission San Luis Rey de Francia was founded in what is now Oceanside, California.

1881 - The USS Jeannette was crushed in an Arctic Ocean ice pack and sunk under the command of George W. DeLong; owned by James Gordon Bennett, Jr., owner of the New York Herald, the Jeannette had been sent North to look for an overdue expedition aboard the Vega.

1886 - A fire devastated much of Vancouver; on the same day Bavaria's King Ludwig II was found dead in Lake Starnberg, south of Munich. Most historians feel the two events aren't related - and even a paranoid bastard such as myself can't force any connection, but I'll probably keep trying anyway...

1898 - Yukon Territory was formed, with Dawson chosen as its capital; the capital was moved to Whitehorse following World War II, to little effect.

1927 - A ticker-tape parade was held for aviator Charles Lindbergh down Manhattan's Fifth Avenue upon his return to New York City from Paris following his historic transatlantic flight on May 20th.

1935 - In one of the biggest upsets in championship boxing, the 10 to 1 underdog James J. Braddock (shown, at right) defeated Max Baer at the Madison Square Garden Bowl in Long Island City, New York, making him the heavyweight champion of the world. Braddock's life was reverently inhabited by Russell Crowe in Ron Howard's 2005 biopic Cinderella Man; he was joined by Paul Giamatti as Braddock's manager Joe Gould and for once Squinty McCokeface doesn't ruin the film by playing Braddock's long-suffering wife Mae, although the unflattering - and inaccurate - portrayal of Max Baer (otherwise well-played by Craig Bierko) nearly does. 

1942 - The US government opened its Office of War Information.

1955 - Mir Mine - the Soviet Union's first diamond mine - was discovered.

1966 - The US Supreme Court ruled, in Miranda v. Arizona, that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them; Justice John Marshall Harlan II didn't agree, nor did Justice Tom C. Clark, or Justices Potter Stewart and Byron White for that matter. Oh that wacky Warren Court!

1967 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Solicitor-General Thurgood Marshall to become the first black justice on the US Supreme Court following the retirement of Justice Tom C. Clark.

1977 - Convicted Martin Luther King Jr. assassin James Earl Ray was recaptured after escaping from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary three days earlier. 

1982 - Fahd became King of Saudi Arabia upon the death of his brother, Khalid. 

1983 - Pioneer 10 became the first man-made object to leave the solar system when it left the orbit of Neptune. 

1991 - Boris Yeltsin became Russia's first popularly elected President.

1996 - The Montana Freemen surrendered after an 81-day standoff with FBI agents.

1997 - A jury sentenced Timothy McVeigh to the death penalty for his part in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
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POPnews - March 27th

[The Paiute and Sierra Miwok peoples had lived in the vicinity of the Yosemite Valley for centuries before Lafayette Bunnell first clapped eyes on it; to his credit, he named the area Yosemite following discussions with Chief Tenaya of the Ahwahneechee, whose territoriality and allegedly violent natures soon led to their extermination.]
1329 - Pope John XXII issued his papal bull In Agro Dominico condemning some of the writings of Meister Eckhart as heretical.

1513 - While searching for the Fountain of Youth explorer Juan Ponce de León became the first European on record to sight Florida.

1613 - A son born to Nicholas Guy and his wife at the English plantation at Cuper's Cove, in Newfoundland's Conception Bay, was the first white child born in Newfoundland (and thus Canada).

1625 - Charles I became King of England, Scotland and Ireland (and claimed the title King of France for good measure) upon the death of his father, King James VI and I.

1794 - The US government passed the Naval Act of 1794, which established a permanent Navy to replace the Continental Navy which had served during the American Revolution and authorized the building of six frigates.

1851 - Dr. Lafayette Bunnell - physician with the Mariposa Battalion - became the first European to describe the Yosemite Valley.

1868 - The Lake Ontario Shore Railroad Company was organized in Oswego, New York.

1958 - Nikita Khrushchev became Premier of the Soviet Union after forcing his predecessor, Nikolai Bulganin, to resign from the position following a purge of hardliners from the Politburo.

1963 - Wielding the so-called Beeching Axe British Railways chairman Dr. Richard Beeching issued a report calling for huge cuts to the United Kingdom's rail network for God knows what real reason but which he claimed was for efficiency and profitability's sake.

1964 - The Good Friday Earthquake - at a magnitude of 9.2 the most powerful earthquake in U.S. history - struck south central Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage.

1968 - Yuri Gagarin - Soviet cosmonaut and the first human in space - died during an aircraft training accident.

1969 - Mariner 7 was launched as part of NASA's Mariner Program, the second of a two-part mission to explore Mars.

1976 - The first 7 km (4.6 miles) of the Washington Metro opened; since then the system has grown to include five lines, 86 stations, and 171.1 km (106.3 miles) of track.

1980 - The Norwegian oil platform Alexander Kielland collapsed in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212.

1986 - A car bomb concealed in a 1979 Holden Commodore exploded outside the Russell Street Police HQ in Melbourne, killing Constable Angela Taylor and injuring 21 others; the motive and perpetrator remain unknown.

1994 - The Eurofighter took its first flight over the German municipality of Manching.

1998 - The Food and Drug Administration approved Viagra for use as a treatment for erectile dysfunction, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States.

2002 - At the so-called Passover Massacre a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 29 people and injured 140 partaking of the Passover meal at a hotel in Netanya; many of the dead were over the age of 70.

2004 - HMS Scylla - a decommissioned Leander-class vessel and the last Royal Navy frigate to have been built at the Devonport Royal Dockyard - was intentionally sunk for use as an artificial reef (the first of its kind in Europe) off Whitsand Bay in Cornwall.
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