POPnews - July 15th

^{[Containing the same passage written in classical Greek,
demotic and hieroglyphic Egyptian, the Rosetta Stone
enabled scholars to finally understand hieroglyphics,whose meaning had hitherto stymied them.]}

1099 - The First Crusade achieved its goal when a Christian army commanded by Raymond of Toulouse and Godfrey of Bouillon took the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem following the final assault in a difficult siege.

1207 - England's King John expelled the Canterbury monks for their support of Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton.

1240 - A Novgorodian army led by Alexander Nevsky defeated the Swedes - legend has it commanded by Birger Magnusson - at the Battle of the Neva.

1381 - John Ball, a leader in the Peasants' Revolt, was hanged, drawn, and quartered in the presence of King Richard II, in what was surely the goriest Royal Variety Performance ever.

1685 - James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, was executed at London's Tower Hill following his defeat at the Battle of Sedgemore on July 6th.

1741 - When Alexei Chirikov sighted land, possibly at what is now Prince of Wales Island, the men he sent ashore in a longboat to investigate became the first Europeans to visit Alaska.

1789 - Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette, was named colonel-general of the new National Guard of Paris by acclamation.

1799 - The Rosetta Stone was found in an Egyptian village by Pierre-Francois Bouchard; the stone was later seized by the British Army in 1801 and brought to London, where today it resides in the British Museum.

1806 - When US Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike embarked upon the Pike Expedition from Fort Bellefontaine near St. Louis his stated aim was to explore the American West; Colorado's majestic Pikes Peak today bears his name as a tribute to that brave endeavour.

1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered to the British aboard the HMS Bellerophon.

1823 - A fire destroyed the ancient Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome.

1870 - The Hudson's Bay Company transferred control of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory to the Dominion of Canada, out of which was created Manitoba and the Northwest Territories.

1931 - Kid Chocolate became Cuba's first world boxing champion.

1954 - The maiden flight of the Boeing 707, the first passenger jet liner, ushered in the age of jet travel.

1957 - Full-scale production of the Ford Edsel began; though in production for three years from 1958 to 1960, the Edsel was a famous flop.

1974 - Florida television personality Christine Chubbuck committed suicide live on the air.

1995 - Amazon.com sold its first item.

1997 - Andrew Cunanan murdered fashion designer Gianni Versace on the steps of Versace's palatial Florida home.

2004 - Monorail service opened along the Las Vegas Strip.
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POPnews - June 25th

[The scene depicted in the Cornaro Window is the grueling test of wits that was the awarding of a 17th Century doctorate... There, in the Duomo di Padova and in the presence of University of Padua authorities - as well as the professors of all the faculties, the students, and the majority of the Venetian Senators, together with many invited guests from the Universities of Bologna, Ferrara, Perugia, Rome, and Naples - the Lady Elena spoke for an hour in classical Latin, explaining difficult passages selected at random from the works of Aristotle. It is said she was listened to with rapt attention, and when she had finished, received plaudits as Professor Rinaldini proceeded to award her with the insignia of the Doctorate, placing the wreath of laurel on her head, the ring on her finger, and an ermine mozetta around her shoulders. Uh... You GO girl!]
524 CE - At the Battle of Vézeronce, waged by the main claimants to the throne left vacant by the death of the Frankish King Clovis I - his four sons Childebert I, Chlodomir, Clotaire I, and Theuderic I - the Franks defeated the Burgundian King Sigismund, although Chlodomir was killed (tradition has it by Sigismund's brother Gundomar III).

1530 - The Augsburg Confession was presented at the Diet of Augsburg to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V by the Lutheran princes and Electors of Germany.

1678 - Elena Cornaro Piscopia became the first woman awarded a doctorate of philosophy, a scene illustrated today in the Cornaro Window (designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany) in the West Wing of the Thompson Memorial Library at Vassar College.

1741 - Maria Theresa of Austria was crowned King of Hungary - not the first time a woman had reigned over Hungary, but nearly... Mary I was also queen regnant, twice, in the late 14th Century. Despite the Pragmatic Sanction promoted by her father - Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor - Maria Theresa's accession to the throne of Austria had caused the War of Austrian Succession (better known in North America as the Seven Years' War) which broke out in 1740.

1788 - Virginia became the 10th US state.

1876 - At the Battle of the Little Bighorn Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer was killed, a rare First Nations victory during the Indian Wars for Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Chief Gall.

1906 - Following their attendance at the premiere of the musical revue Mam'zelle Champagne, Pittsburgh millionaire Harry Thaw shot and killed prominent architect Stanford White at the roof garden of what was the second incarnation of Madison Square Garden (which White himself had designed and built); Thaw's ire was due to White's affair with Mrs. Thaw - better known as model and actress Evelyn Nesbit. The killing was fictionalized in the superlative 1975 novel Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow (which was later made into a movie and a stage musical) having already been the subject of the 1955 film The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, starring Joan Collins, Ray Milland and Farley Granger - which had as a creative consultant none other than Nesbit herself.

1938 - Dr. Douglas Hyde was inaugurated the first President of Ireland.

1944 - The Battle of Tali-Ihantala, the largest battle ever fought in the Nordic Countries, began as part of the Continuation War, the second of two wars fought between Finland and the Soviet Union during World War II.

1947- The Diary of Anne Frank was first published, in Holland, as Het Achterhuis; Anne's father Otto Frank had been given the diaries by Miep Gies, who had not only been instrumental in hiding the family but had later rescued the diary from the Gestapo.

1948 - The Berlin Airlift was instituted as a means to relieve the situation caused by East Germany's Berlin Blockade.

1950 - The Korean War began with the invasion of South Korea by North Korea - an action condemned by the United Nations.

1975 - Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi compelled President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed to declare a State of Emergency in India under Article 352 of the Indian Constitution, suspending civil liberties and elections following Mrs. Gandhi's conviction by the Allahabad High Court on charges of corruption 13 days earlier.

1991 - Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia.

1993 - Kim Campbell was chosen as leader of the governing Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and thus became the country's first female Prime Minister. In political terms she was a sacrificial lamb, though; at the next federal election later that year her party was so soundly defeated she even lost her own seat, to political newcomer (and my MP) Hedy Fry.

1996 - The Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia killed 19 American servicemen.

1997 - An unmanned Progress spacecraft collided with the Russian space station, Mir.

1998 - In Clinton v. City of New York, the US Supreme Court decided that the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 was unconstitutional.

2008 - Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe had his honourary knighthood stripped by HM The Queen.
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