POPnews - December 7th

[As these things go, it's a third-rate planet in the boondocks of the
galaxy, but I like it better than any place I've ever lived thus far.]
43 BCE - Roman statesman and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero was assassinated.

1696 - Connecticut Route 108 - one of the oldest extant roads in the US - was completed through Trumbull; it was then known as the Farm Highway, and is now called Nichols Avenue.

1724 - Religious unrest following the execution of nine Protestant citizens and the mayor of Thorn (Toruń) by Polish authorities resulted in the Tumult of Thorn, an event still observed in remembrance there at St. Mary's Church.

1732 - The Royal Opera House opened at London's Covent Garden.

1776 - France's Marquis de Lafayette attempted to enter the American military as a major general through the American agent in Paris, Silas Deane.

1787 - Delaware became the first state to ratify the US Constitution, making it the first US state.

1889 - Gilbert & Sullivan's comic light opera The Gondoliers premiered at the Savoy Theatre in London.

1916 - David Lloyd George was elected Prime Minister of Great Britain.

1930 - W1XAV in Boston broadcast video from the CBS radio orchestra program, The Fox Trappers; the broadcast also included America's first television commercial, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show.

1946 - A fire at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta killed 119.

1955 - Clement Attlee stepped down as leader of Britain's Labour Party to be created Earl Attlee and Viscount Prestwood by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II ten days later.

1963 - Instant replay was used for the first time at an Army-Navy game in Philadelphia.

1965 - Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras simultaneously lifted mutual excommunications against their respective positions that had been in place since 1054.

1972 - Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, was launched; during the flight the crew took the photograph known as The Blue Marble.

1982 - Charles Brooks, Jr. became the first person executed by lethal injection in the United States.

1987 - Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 crashed near Paso Robles, California, killing all 43 on board, after a disgruntled passenger shot his ex-boss traveling on the flight, then shot both pilots and himself.

1993 - Colin Ferguson murdered 6 and injured 19 during the so-called Long Island Railroad Massacre.

1995 - The Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.

2006 - A tornado struck Kensal Green in North West London, seriously damaging around 150 properties - none of which were mobile homes.
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POPnews - April 21st

[Peter Paul Rubens really outdid himself with this fanciful rendering of carbohydrate-enhanced tots Romulus and Remus, who were said to be the sons of the vestal virgin Rhea Silvia and the god of war, Mars; rather than have them killed, the legend goes, their mother abandoned them on the banks of the River Tiber, whereupon the river deity Tiberinus delivered them safely to a she-wolf who suckled them and raised them as her own. Considering what must have been a fairly ghastly time in foster care, together they founded a great city which Romulus reigned over as its first King. Aside from the fact that he had to kill Remus to do it, of course, it would have been idyllic, although following his own death he was deified as Quirinus - the divine persona of the Roman people - so I guess in the end they forgave him... Unless it's all a great big metaphor like the rest of religion and the twins were actually fathered by an Army officer and raised by a prostitute (who were known as 'she-wolves'); either way, it goes a long way towards proving that the surreal films Federico Fellini made about Rome were actually, as he has insisted, 'documentaries'.]
753 BCE - Romulus and Remus are traditionally considered to have founded Rome.

43 BCE - At the Battle of Mutina - waged to avenge the murder of Julius Caesar - Mark Antony was again defeated in battle by Aulus Hirtius (having lost the Battle of Forum Gallorum to him the previous week), although Hirtius was himself killed; while Antony failed to capture Mutina, Decimus Brutus (one of Caesar's assassins) was murdered shortly afterwards while escaping to Gaul.

1073 - Pope Alexander II died; he was succeeded by Gregory VII the following day.

1109 - Having been sent into exile by both William II and Henry I in the years since his enthronement in December 1093 Anselm of Canterbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, died; he was succeeded by Ralph d'Escures.

1142 - Pierre Abélard - of Héloïse and Abelard fame - died at the priory of St. Marcel, near Chalon-sur-Saône; initially buried there, his remains were later given secretly to Héloïse, who was herself buried beside them after her death in May 1164. Their tomb can be found in the Cimetière du Père Lachaise in Paris, although there is some debate as to where they are actually buried.

1509 - Henry VIII ascended the throne of England upon the death of his father, Henry VII.

1792 - Tiradentes - a revolutionary and leader of the movement for Brazilian Independence - was hanged and quartered in Rio de Janeiro at a square which now bears his name, the Praça Tiradentes. The day is now celebrated as a holiday in Brazil.

1809 - Two Austrian army corps were driven from Landshut by a First French Empire army led by Napoleon as two French corps to the north held off the main Austrian army on the first day of the Battle of Eckmühl.

1836 - At the Battle of San Jacinto, during the Texas Revolution, forces of the Republic of Texas under Sam Houston defeated the army of Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna.

1868 - Henry James O'Farrell - the Irish-born Australian who'd attempted to assassinate Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh on March 12th - was executed for his efforts, despite the best efforts of his lawyer Butler Cole Aspinall and the intercession of the Prince himself.

1918 - World War I flying ace Manfred von Richthofen - better known as The Red Baron - was shot down and killed over Morlancourt Ridge, near the Somme River; for many years Canadian Captain Arthur 'Roy' Brown was considered the source of Richtofen's fatal shot, but a new theory indicates it may have been Australian Sergeant Cedric Popkin who actually downed the destructive Hun.

1922 - The first Aggie Muster was held by Texas A&M University as a remembrance for fellow alumnus (known colloquially as Aggies) who had died in the previous year; the date chosen is also San Jacinto Day, the commemoration of the Battle of San Jacinto during which Texas won its independence from Mexico in 1836.

1926 - A daughter was born to Britain's Duke and Duchess of York in their home at 17 Bruton Street in London... None that day could have known that this infant would one day not just be queen but one of Britain's greatest sovereigns ever.

1960 - Brasília, Brazil's capital, was officially inaugurated when, at 9:30 am, the Three Powers of the Republic were simultaneously transferred from the old capital, Rio de Janeiro.

1962 - The Seattle World's Fair (Century 21 Exposition) opened, making it the first World's Fair in the United States since World War II.

1966 - The visit by Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia to Jamaica is an event now celebrated as Grounation Day by the Rastafari movement.

1967 - A few days before the general election in Greece, Colonel George Papadopoulos led a coup d'état against the government of Georgios Athanasiadis-Novas, establishing a military regime that lasted for seven years. The catalyst for the coup was the earlier dismissal of former Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou by King Constantine II, an affair known as the Apostasia of 1965.

1970 - The Hutt River Province Principality, near Geraldton, seceded from Australia.

1971 - Haiti's dictator François 'Papa Doc' Duvalier - who ruled that country from 1957 until his death - died; he was succeeded by his son, Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier, who managed to govern until being chased into exile in February 1986.
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POPnews - April 14th

[Shortly after noon on this day in 1935 a cloud of dust traveling 100 kilometres (60 miles) an hour came swirling out of the American West over the Great Plains... Not the first - and by no means the last - by 1940 dust storms such as this one had forced 2.5 million people to flee what was left of their farms for greener pastures, while an untold quantity of the once-fertile topsoil that had once upon a time made those farms bountiful ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.]

43 BCE - At the Battle of Forum Gallorum Mark Antony - while besieging Julius Caesar's assassin Decimus Junius Brutus in Mutina - defeated the forces of the consul Pansa, who was killed.

1434 - The foundation stone of Cathedral St. Peter and St. Paul in Nantes was laid by John, Duke of Brittany and Jean de Malestroit, Bishop of Nantes; the first architect on the site was Guillaume de Dammartin, who was later replaced by Mathurin Rodier.

1471 - In England, Yorkist forces under Edward IV defeated their Lancastrian opponents under the Earl of Warwick at the Battle of Barnet, during which Warwick was killed and following which the deposed monarch was able to resume his throne - the first and only English King to do so*.

*Charles II technically became King upon the removal of his father Charles I's head in January 1649, but since Parliament under Oliver Cromwell had abolished the monarchy as it abolished its monarch, technically the succession was broken - at least in England.

1775 - The first abolition society in the North America - the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage - was established in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.

1846 - The Donner Party of pioneers departed for California from Springfield, Illinois, on what would become a year-long journey of hardship, cannibalism, and survival.

1865 - US Secretary of State William H. Seward and his family were attacked in his home by Lewis Powell at the same time as President Abraham Lincoln was being shot at Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth; a third attack, against Vice President Andrew Johnson - meant to be carried out by George Atzerodt - was not.

1881 - The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight erupted in El Paso, Texas.

1894 - Thomas Edison demonstrated the kinetoscope - a device for peep-show viewing using photographs that flip in sequence, a precursor to movies.

1912 - The British passenger liner RMS Titanic hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic just before midnight; the so-called un-sinkable ship sank within hours, with the loss of more than 1,500 lives.

1927 - The first Volvo rolled off the assembly line in Gothenburg.

1931 - The Spanish Cortes deposed King Alfonso XIII and proclaimed the 2nd Spanish Republic.

1935 - 'Black Sunday' - arguably the single worst dust storm of the US Dust Bowl - reduced visibility to five feet in some places, smothering wild and domesticated animals and people alike in its relentless advance; stretching from the Dakotas to Texas, drought coupled with unwise farming methods and a lack of understanding about conservation almost brought the once-rich agricultural output of the nation to a standstill.

1943 - James Boarman, Fred Hunter, Harold Brest and Floyd G. Hamilton took part in an attempted escape from Alcatraz. Boarman was shot in the water and is presumed dead; although his body was never found, his accomplices were all recaptured.

1958 - The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 fell from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days.

1968 - At the 41st Academy Awards, an unprecedented tie between Katharine Hepburn (for The Lion in Winter) and Barbra Streisand (for Funny Girl) resulted in the two sharing that year's Best Actress Oscar.

1978 - At a series of demonstrations in Tbilisi, thousands of Georgians protested against the attempt by the Soviet authorities to change the constitutional status of their language.

1994 - In a friendly fire incident during Operation Provide Comfort in northern Iraq, two US Air Force aircraft mistakenly shot down two US Army helicopters, killing 26 people.

2002 - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returned to office two days after being ousted and arrested by his country's military.

2005 - The Oregon Supreme Court nullified nearly 3,000 marriage licenses issued to gay couples a year earlier by Multnomah County.

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