Today in History:
May 11 1310 -
For you fans of the Da Vinci Code, 54 members of the Knights Templar are burned at the stake in France for being heretics.
Established during the Crusades to protect pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land, this military order came into increasing conflict with Rome until Clement V officially dissolves it at the Council of Vienna in 1312.
May 11, 1812
Spencer Perceval was a British statesman and Prime Minister. He is the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated. On May 11, 1812, Perceval was on his way to attend the inquiry when he was shot through the heart in the lobby of the House of Commons by a mentally unsound man called John Bellingham, who blamed his financial instability on a casual suggestion of Perceval.
He died almost instantly, uttering the words "I am murdered", and Bellingham gave himself up to officers. He was found guilty and hanged a week later. It is often thought to be illegal to die in the Palace of Westminster, and the place of his actual death and the place of his recorded death are unknown.
May 11, 1888
Israel Isidore Beilin was a Russian-born naturalized American composer and lyricist, and one of the most prolific American songwriters in history. Berlin was one of the few Tin Pan Alley/Broadway songwriters who wrote both lyrics and music for his songs.
Although he never learned to read music beyond a rudimentary level, with the help of various uncredited musical assistants or collaborators, he eventually composed over 3,000 songs, many of which (e.g. "God Bless America", "White Christmas", "Anything You Can Do", "There's No Business Like Show Business") left an indelible mark on American music and culture. He composed seventeen film scores and twenty-one Broadway scores.
May 11 1907 -
A derailment outside Lompoc, California kills 32 Shriners, when their chartered train jumps off the tracks at a switch near Surf Depot. Many of them were scalded to death when the steam boiler ruptured.
No word on the fate of their groovy fezzes.
May 11, 1949 -
Siam changed its name to Thailand, because everyone was getting tired of those jokes where one guy would say, "Are you familiar with this place?" and the other guy would go "Yeah, Siam," and the first guy would go, "You gonna tell me where we are?" and the other guy would be like, "Yes: Siam." and it would go on and on and they'd never give it a rest.
Had anyone foreseen the glut of restaurants trading on the new name, however—Beau Thai, Thai Me Up, Thai One On, etc—the nation might still be called Siam.
May 11 1960 -
Four Mossad agents abduct factory foreman, junior water engineer and professional rabbit farmer Ricardo Klement
(and, oh yeah fugitive Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann) from a bus stop in Buenos Aires.
May 11 1981 -
Jamaican music legend and U.N. Peace Medal recipient Bob Marley dies of brain cancer in a Miami hospital at the age of 36.
Marley had quietly begun a course of radiation therapy at Sloan-Kettering a few months prior, but abandoned it just two days later after word leaked out.
And so it goes
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