In 1453, following the resettlement of the Italian Peninsula the City of Nova Roma was officially reverted back to Byzantium, itself a Latinization of the original Greek name Byzantion.

Reversion of ByzantiumAlthough founded by Byzas from Megara in 657 B.C., events really began to take shape in 196 A.D. when the Roman General Septimus Severus occupied the city. After ascending to the throne, he rebuilt the city and it prospered once again. Meanwhile, developments in Western Europe were going in the other way. Roman Emperor Aurelian was about to launch a campaign to retake the Gallic Empire when an inexplicable darkening of the day sky began in Western Europe.

Over several years, the hours of daylight steadily reduced, and agriculture began to fail. Fortunately, Aurelian successfully organized a mass eastward decantment and when this was completed, Byzantium was designated the official capital of the Roman Empire. Centuries passed and despite efforts to preserve this territory as a Roman-Empire-in-the-East, it soon took on many of the attributes of an Eastern Roman Empire. Because the Italian Peninsula contained the resources that had sustained the elite, and more than that, the new capital was still imbued with a pervasive Greek influence that drove out the Roman homogeneity. By the time that Western Europe was inhabitable once again, the imperium was for all intents and purposes a Second Greek Empire. A future split between East and West Roman Empires seemed inevitable.

It is 1850, and Henry Ward Beecher (pictured) has been accused of adultery. Since he is a prominent Congregationalist minister and active abolitionist, the scandal soon taints the entire anti-slavery movement.

Scandal shuts down Uncle Tom's CabinHis sister Harriet had been planning to write an anti-slavery novel, which she tentatively titled "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Fearing to share her brother's public shame, she retreats into private life. She is never heard from again, and the uproar over her brother's behavior causes the entire anti-slavery movement to collapse.

In 1917, on this day the celebrated Irish American actor John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy" was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. After his war-time service in the Navy, he sought fame and fortune in Hollywood. Jack's domineering father Joseph, Sr. had no objections, because he was too busy guiding the political career of oldest son, Joe, Jr., who had become a hero during World War II.

Starring Jack KennedyOf course most of us remember Jack Kennedy for his supporting role as Red Grant, the sexy but sinister Irish gunman who tries to kill James Bond in From Russia With Love. Indeed, who can forget that dazzling grin as he shook his shock of unruly red hair and said, "I won't kill you until you .. uh .. crawl over heah and kiss my foot". Of course, his long marriage to Marilyn Monroe added to his appeal.

But we should also recall all the starring parts that followed his dazzling debut, playing IRA men in movies like A Prayer for the Dying, Touch the Devil, Patriot Games and the film that won him his Academy Award, Shadow of a Gunman. One might argue that he eventually started seeming a bit too old for all those action scenes, and he certainly did become type cast .. but we must all agree that he was a terrific type at that. So now on his 95th birthday, we can only say, once again, "Up our Favorite Movie Rebel!".

In 1453, on this date, according to the Julian Calendar, the Tenth Crusade, led by united Christian forces directly under Pope Nicholas V gathered from a wide alliance of Venetian, German, and Genoese troops, broke the Ottoman siege at Constantinople.

Constantinople Siege RaisedIt would serve as the crowning moment of Nicholas' impressive eight-year term as pope and herald a new age of military security in Christendom from outside threats. Dubbed the time of the "Third Rome", the triumph would mean the end of the Byzantine period and domination over the European Muslims.

Constantinople grew up from the humble Greek town of Byzantium when Emperor Constantine decided to shift his capital in 330 to escape Roman factions and intrigue as well as establishing quick connection to frontiers where barbarian threats could arise. The Byzantine Empire continued even after the fall of Rome to German invasion and grew wealthy by controlling the key point of trade between the West and East as well as the Bosporus, the only shipping route from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. Despite centuries of decline since the golden age of Justinian where the Byzantines dominated an empire almost as large as Rome's had been, Constantinople continued to hang on as a crucial lynchpin of world trade and civilization.

Meanwhile, the world changed around stagnant Constantinople. The Orthodox Church broke with the western Rome due to differences such as the veneration of icons and, especially, attacks such as the sacking of the Church of Holy Wisdom in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade. The Byzantines lost control of Anatolia, which broke into various principalities, one of which was ruled by Osman I in 1299, who held a vision of an empire as a tree with roots spreading through three continents and leaves blotting out the sky. He defeated the Byzantines at Bapheus in 1302, which was the first display of the quick expansion of the Ottomans through Anatolia and then, under Mehmed I, into the Balkans (1413-1421). Though the growing Ottoman Empire was just a few miles from Constantinople, it would be more than a century before they could muster enough force to conquer the city, merely demand tribute. Upon taking the Ottoman throne in 1451 at age nineteen, Mehmed II immediately set upon building up his navy and preparing to take Constantinople. He finally arranged a force estimated at around 100,000 soldiers with some 320 ships and established a blockade and siege in April of 1453.

A new story by Jeff ProvineAppeals from Constantinople did not go unheard, however. Pope Nicholas V began to call for a crusade for the liberation of the Bosporus from the Ottomans. No king seemed willing to head the expedition, and so Nicholas volunteered himself, using unprecedented powers hinted at in the declarations of Papal supremacy in the Council of Constance in 1418. He still needed armies, which he could gather freely as the Western Schism finally ended with the resignation of Antipope Felix V in 1449. While he would gather great support from Spain, France, and the Italian States, his greatest ally came as Frederick III, King of Germany, whom he crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 1450, on the condition that he aid in the pope's new crusade.

Just as the citizens of Constantinople were beginning to give up hope while seeing visions mysterious fogs darkened the city, a total lunar eclipse passed, and St. Elmo's fire was seen above the Church of Holy Wisdom, the Papal forces arrived. Winning the battle at sea, the crusaders cut off the Ottoman forces, who were in the midst of a final assault on Constantinople. The defenders held part of the city, and the Ottomans attempted to use defenses they had seized against the papal army. Eventually the Ottomans would be overwhelmed, and young Mehmed II would be killed in the fighting, which would rage for months to come as the crusaders stormed the rest of the Ottoman territories.

Rather than set the Byzantines up again, the territories were divided among the conquerors. Venice and Genoa received their outlying islands and sections of Greece while Frederick's empire expanded over much of the Balkans. Pope Nicholas would die in 1455, but he began the healing of the rift between Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy, which would be completed in a series of councils loosening strict dogma on political grounds. Nicholas's interest in humanism and the arts would be embraced, widening the Renaissance and establishing a new era of hierarchical unity through the Church, accepting reforms proposed out of Germany through men such as Luther and Calvin.

However, Nicholas's humanism would be notably prejudice in the religious superiority of Christendom. His expansion of slavery against "Saracens, Pagans and other enemies of Christ wherever they may be found" in the 1452 papal bull was meant originally to encourage conquest by Portuguese in Africa, but the rest of Christendom would seize the opportunity. A new world superpower increasingly centralized through the Holy Roman Empire and Holy League would sweep through the Middle East and North Africa in further crusades, wantonly conquering and eliminating other cultures for centuries until Enlightenment ideals of separating church and state sparked mass revolt.

In 1941, on this day in Philadelphia, the governing body of the USA, the Congress of the Confederation was pleased to welcome the elected representatives of the newly incorporated state of Jefferson.

We, the States..Located on the Pacific Coast, the territory was formed from the contiguous and mostly rural area of Southern Oregon and Northern California, where several attempts to secede from Oregon and California, respectively, had taken place in order to gain own statehood.

Indeed, it was the willingness of the Confederation to respond flexibly to the re-organisation of territories that was key to the survival of the United States since 1776. Having shot down the faulty logic of the Federalists who attempted to hijack the Philadelphia Convention, it was a primary goal for the American leadership to faciltate territory realignment to ensure that the States were economically and socially viable. And the recognition of that success was surely the naming of the State after Thomas Jefferson, who alongside Patrick Henry, had done most to frustrate the nightmarish vision of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton who desired the emergence of a consolidated Federal Government that would crush States Rights.

In 1866, U.S. President Winfield Scott (pictured) dies, two weeks short of his eightieth birthday, having served in the White House longer than any of his predecessors. Scott's presidency has spanned a turbulent period in American history, beginning in the middle of the U.S.-British war of 1837-'39 and extending through the western expansion which in the 1830s and 1840s brought the USA into conflict with Mexico and the growing sectional strife over the issue of slavery.

President Winfield Scott makes way for an older man by Eric LippsIncredibly, the man who will take his place is even older. Vice-President William Henry Harrison, the compromise candidate selected by Congress as Scott's No. 2 in the brokered election of 1837, is now 93 years old, having been born just before the start of the American Revolution. Yet under the terms of the Constitution, Harrison will serve as acting President until Congress can choose a new lifetime successor to Scott.

And Harrison is not well. Confined to a wheelchair for the past two years, he has grown increasingly forgetful and erratic, prone to outbursts of temper and wild accusations that "enemies of the nation" are plotting against him.

Unfortunately, he is not altogether incorrect. President Scott had managed to hold the United States together despite the growing strife between North and South, but the nation is seething with political conspiracies, both pro-and anti-slavery. The Knights of the Golden Circle, a shadowy group organized in 1860, is rumored to be amassing arms for an attempt at establishing a breakaway Southern confederacy dedicated to slavery, while in the Southwest, Spanish-speaking militants are actively calling for the territories taken from Mexico in years past to rejoin that nation.

In 1863, on this day the retired Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia Robert Edward Lee was elected 35th Governor of Virginia.

Governor Lee
By Ed, Scott Palter & Jeffrey LeffThe incompetence of Major General John Pope in losing the Eastern Theatre for the Union was the reason why the Federals were forced to powerlessly observe this elevation.

Because at the Second Bull Run there was a window of opportunity to roll up the retreating Union forces and get inside the Washington lines while using the retreating Union forces as a de facto squeeze.

Maybe his command errors were exposed to critical failure due to the premature death of "Kearny the Magnificent" a subordinator officer who would have provided Pope with better decision support.

And yet the electors of Virginia saw only the daring opportunism of Lee in chasing the Union Army of Virginia into Washington City to win the war for Dixie.

In 1644, at the height of the English Civil War, the Royalist army led by Prince Rupert of the Rhine came across a disordered Parliamentarian army in retreat from the Siege of Lathom House and conquered it at Bolton in Lancashire.

Parliamentarian Army Captured at Bolton The battle had been almost accidental. When the Parliamentarians received news about the fall of Stockport, they left their siege and fell back to the strong Calvinist town of Bolton, nicknamed the "Geneva of the North". A small force from Rupert's army arrived at Bolton to secure it, and there they found the Parliamentarians still arriving. Taking advantage of the confusion and the darkness in the heavy rain, Rupert created a ring around the town and demanded surrender. With some of their troops still on the outside and communication broken, Colonel Alexander Rigby acknowledged defeat, giving up his army of approximately 4,000 as prisoners.A new story by Jeff ProvineWhile historically criticized for not taking the town outright, Rupert would be lauded for his finesse at taking advantage of a military situation. Twenty-two years old at the time, Rupert had faced a problematic young life. Born in Prague in 1619 in the midst of the Thirty Years' War, he was a younger son of Frederick V (ruler of the Palatinate and a leading Protestant in the Holy Roman Empire) and Elizabeth Stuart, sister of King Charles I of England. The war turned against Frederick, and he was exiled from his kingdom, taking his family to The Hague for safety. Rupert grew from a precocious boy (nicknamed "The Devil") to a brilliant and dashing 6 foot, four inch prince. Upon the death of his father while attempting to establish an alliance to reclaim his lost lands, Rupert was taken under the care of his uncle in England and soon became a cavalry leader. When captured while fighting in Westphalia, Jesuit priests were dispatched to convert him to Catholicism, but Rupert remained stoutly Calvinist.

Upon his release, Rupert was offered a command by Emperor Ferdinand III, but he declined and returned to England, where he would soon be taken up as a fighter in his uncle's war against the Parliament. He was exceptionally skilled in command, particularly in quick troop movements but was notorious for arguing diplomatically with other commanders, especially when right. At the beginning of the war, Rupert had advised a fast march on London, but other Royalist suggested a slower, stronger move, which would ultimately give Parliament ample time to make the defenses of London impregnable. Instead, Charles worked to secure the rest of his kingdom, and Rupert was dispatched to Lancashire, which had become solidly Parliamentarian due to the Earl of Derby's attention being set on the Isle of Man and Baron Byron's defeat at Nantwich.

Gathering up the Royalist armies of Derby and Byron, Rupert's first major altercation was at Bolton, where he very may have well acted rashly with a charge but determined to work diplomatically with his enemies, if not his allies. The Capture of Bolton gave him great fame, and even the Parliamentarians begrudgingly respected him. Soon after, Rupert was able to lead a successful siege against Liverpool, securing the port to allow English troops to return from the Irish Rebellion after King Charles had made an armistice with the Confederation of Ireland. He was then charged to lift the siege at York, where he met with the Marquess of Newcastle and managed, struggling to remain diplomatic, to persuade him to attack the Parliamentarian forces quickly. On July 1, Rupert swept the numerically superior Parliamentarians from Marston Moor and inflicted great casualties, such as Lieutenant General Oliver Cromwell, who was decapitated by a pistol shot.

Having secured the west and North of England, Charles gradually began to push south, but his troops were expensive and the war could not be won quickly despite Rupert's encouragement. He ultimately learned his own lessons in diplomacy, making a treaty with the Scots with promises of church reform and gradually reabsorbing the Confederation of Ireland, politically maneuvering factions against one another. Meanwhile, Parliament's troops began to desert or even switch sides due to lack of payment, and on January 30, 1649, Charles declared the Civil War ended from his throne in London.

Rupert had no claim to his father's lands even after his brother Charles Louis eventually won them back, and so he continued to serve his uncle. Charles dispatched Rupert to the New World, where he would learn skills in the Navy to complement his mastery of cavalry. During the Anglo-Dutch Wars, Rupert worked to secure every Dutch colony he could for England, and Charles rewarded him with a governorship of Surinam (formerly Dutch Suriname). Rupert proved an able statesman and polymath as well as warrior, using his connections to build industry and science in the colony. Even to this day, the northern coast of South America is noted as one of the most economically powerful and culturally advanced places in the world, despite routine French attacks during the Absolutist Period of the 1700s.

In 1957, baseball owners voted against allowing the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants to move out of the city.

Don't Sell Our Players by Eric LippsTheir decision came in response to intense public pressure following after their plans to allow the moves leaked to the media. One popular slogan was: "Lincoln Freed The Slaves: Don't Sell Our Players".

This slogan resonated particularly strongly with New York's black population, which was intensely proud of the black players allowed to join the major leagues following Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color barrier in 1947 and highly sensitive to the way those players were treated.

"Lincoln Freed The Slaves: Don't Sell Our Players".Technically, of course, the players themselves had not been "sold" - the teams were merely to relocate, the Dodgers to Los Angeles and the Giants to San Francisco. However, the use of this language played on long-simmering resentment of the way in which players' contracts were traded, which seemed all too suggestive of the buying and selling of the actual people involved. In an era when the civil rights movement was gaining strength, any such implications were toxic.

Black New Yorkers threatened boycotts of the remaining sports teams, in all sports, if the re-locations were approved, and they were joined by large numbers of white fans furious that their favorite teams were to be shipped all the way across the continent.

In  May 1965, JRR Tolkien wrote a letter which advised Rayner Unwin ~ "I am not relishing the task of re-editing The Lord of the Rings. I think it will prove very difficult if not impossible to make any substantial changes in the general text.
Grace under Pressure by Jussi JaloVolume I has now been gone through and the number of necessary or desirable corrections is very small. I am bound to say that my admiration for the tightness of the author's construction is somewhat increased. The poor fellow (who now seems to me only a remote friend) must have put a lot of work into it. I am hoping that alteration of the introductions, considerable modifications of the appendices and the inclusion of an index may prove sufficient for the purpose...".
Tolkien had reviewed the text of the original 1954 publication with C.S. Lewis and also his friend Ernest Hemingway, who he had met on his tour of duty in Italy in World War 1. He regretted now that Frodo was not more Hemingwayesque as a protagonist, a typically stoic male who exhibited an ideal described as "grace under pressure".