Fact of the Day
The eighteenth-century evangelical preacher George Whitefield considered it a badge of honour that, along with rotten fruit, he might be pelted by 'pieces of dead cats'.
Quote of the Day
"They are well named, for they have the countenance of angels, and as such should be coheirs with the angels in heaven.
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~ Pope Gregory I on the Angles, recorded by Bede
On This Day
1307 Edward I, 'Longshanks' or the 'Hammer of the Scots', died on his way to fight Robert the Bruce.
1456 Joan of Arc was belatedly found innocent in a posthumous retrial ordered by Pope Callixtus III and the Inquisitor-General Jean Bréhal.
1575 The last major battle between the kingdoms of Scotland and England took place during a border skirmish known as the Raid of Redeswire. It resulted in a Scottish victory.
1816 Richard Brinsley Sheridan, playwright, poet, and politician died in poverty in London. He was buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, and his funeral was attended by dukes, earls, lords, and the Lord Mayor of London.
1865 Four people convicted of being conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln - George Atzerodt, David Herold, Lewis Payne and Mary Surratt - were hanged.
1928 Sliced bread was first sold, by the Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri, USA.
1937 Japanese forces invaded China, beginning the Second Sino-Japanese War, which continued until 9 September 1945.
2005 Fifty-two people were killed and over seven hundred were injured in the London bombings, a series of suicide bomber attacks targeting public transport during the morning rush hour.