392 Emperor Theodosius of Rome banned all pagan worship in the empire in favour of Christianity. Christians celebrated by murdering pagans.
1519 Henán Cortés met Aztec emperor Montezuma in Mexico City. It turned sour soon enough, chocolate or no chocolate. We have been there and hope to see Montezuma’s feather cape in Vienna sometime.
1602 The Bodleian Library at Oxford University opened. Thomas Bodley, a graduate of Merton College, had married a wealthy woman and when she died, he offered to rebuild the library at Oxford University which had suffered during the English Civil War. Both the collection and the building had been sacked by soldiers of the battling armies of Christians. There was a time when readers had to purchase a copy of the catalogue to use the library. Been there.
1895 In Wurzburg Germany, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen observed X-rays which made the invisible visible. X-Rays were used within two years to locate bullets for surgeons. The ‘X’ meant the source of the radiation was unknown at the time. Had a few.
1946 Nova Scotia, Viola Desmond refused to leave a whites-only area in a movie theatre. She was jailed, convicted, and fined. Unlike Rosa Parks, Desmond had no organised support and went it alone. Her likeness now graces the $C 10 bill. Nova Scotia had been a terminus for the underground railroad that transported runaway slaves north.
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