In 1506 the Principal of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, was accused of baptising a cat as part of a conjuring ritual to find buried treasure. He later became Bishop of London and a notorious heretic hunter, and was mockingly known as 'Bloody Bishop Christen-cat'.
Fact of the Day
Quote of the Day
"Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking.
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~ Clement Attlee
On This Day
1174 William I of Scotland, a key ally of Henry the Young King in his revolt against his father Henry II, was captured while besieging Alnwick Castle. He was kept prisoner in Normandy under he promised fealty to Henry II, gave his brother as a hostage, and handed over Scotland's five most important castles.
1249 The seven-year-old Alexander III was crowned king of Scotland.
1643 Parliamentarian forces, which had been besieging Devizes in Wiltshire during the First English Civil War, were crushingly defeated by Royalist cavalry at the Battle of Roundway Down.
1713 Under the Treaty of Utrecht, Spain ceded Gibraltar and Minorca to Britain.
1793 John-Paul Marat, radical journalist of the French Revolution, was killed while taking a medicinal bath by the Girondin sympathiser Charlotte Corday.
1860 Marine John Dallinger, of a previously unsavoury character, became the last man to be hanged from the yardarm, on HMS Leven. He had shot his commanding officer and a lieutenant when they accused him of theft.
1878 The Treaty of Berlin was signed, granting the Balkan states of Serbia, Montenegro, and Romania independence from the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
1955 Ruth Ellis became the last woman to be hanged in Britain, for the murder of her lover.