The two-hundredth anniversary.
Bicentennial
Fact of the Day
Peter, one of William II's chaplains, reputedly got pregnant...
Quote of the Day
"A French bastard arriving with armed banditti and establishing himself the King of England against the consent of the natives is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original and certainly has no divinity in it.
"
~ Thomas Paine, 1776
On This Day
1330 Roger Mortimer, de facto ruler of England after he and Edward II's wife Isabella deposed Edward, was hanged at Tyburn for assuming royal power.
1530 Cardinal Thomas Wolsey died of natural causes on his way to face charges of treason.
1781 The crew of the British slave ship Zong massacred 131 captives by throwing them overboard in a bid to claim insurance money after the crew had made a navigational error and missed their destination.
1812 Napoleon's army retreated across the Berezina River in Belarus. Although the army managed to avoid getting trapped, they suffered massive casualties, and the word 'berezina' became French slang for 'disaster.'
1947 The United Nations approved the partition of Palestine to form an independent Jewish state.
