Today in history, greetings, and social banter here. (More)

Louis XII named Cesare Borgia Duke of Valentinois, making Borgia the first Catholic cardinal to resign that church office, today (1498). Also, the Scottish Reformation Parliament signed the new confession of faith, displacing the Catholic Church as the official state religion (1560), 8000 people died as a magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck the Anatolia region of what is now Turkey (1668), James Robertson made the first ascent of Scotland’s Ben Nevis (1771), the commercial steamboat era began as Robert Fulton’s North River Steamboat left New York City for Albany today (1807), the Dominican Republic’s national anthem, Himno National, was performed in public for the first time (1883), Seattle’s Pike’s Place Market opened (1907), 400 people died as a category 4 hurricane struck Galveston (1915), Indonesia declared independence (1945), Britain announced the Radcliffe Line dividing the then-dominions of India and Pakistan (1947), the first Narcotics Anonymous meeting was held (1953), a magnitude 7.5 earthquake in Yellowstone National Park formed Quake Lake, on the same day Miles Davis’ landmark jazz album Kind of Blue was released (1959), Gabon gained independence (1960), East German border guards killed 18-year-old Peter Fletcher as he attempted to cross the Berlin Wall into West Berlin (1962), 265 people died as Hurricane Camille struck the U.S. Gulf Coast (1969), Venera 7 was launched (1970), the Soviet icebreaker Arktika became the first surface ship to reach the North Pole (1977), the Double Eagle II landed in Miserey, France after her 137-hour journey from Presque Isle, Maine, making her the first hot air balloon to cross the Atlantic (1978), two-month-old Azaria Chamberlain was taken by a dingo during a family camping trip, a disappearance that would spark the most publicized criminal trial in Australia’s history (1980), the world’s first compact discs were released in Germany (1982), Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Akhtar Abdur Rehman died in a plane crash along with U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel and U.S. general Herbert Wassom (1988), President Bill Clinton admitted to his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky (1998), 17,000 people died as a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck İzmit, Turkey (1999), two people were killed as terrorists detonated over 500 bombs in a half-hour across Bangladesh (2005), and U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps won a record eighth gold medal in a single Olympic Games (2008). And 75 people died when a defective turbine at Russia’s Sayano–Shushenskaya hydroelectric station tore apart, allowing a flood that filled several work rooms inside the dam (2009).

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Good morning! ::hugggggs::