| 1214 | At the Battle of Bouvines in France, Philip Augustus of France defeats John of England. | |
| 1245 | Frederick II is deposed by a council at Lyons, which found him guilty of sacrilege. | |
| 1586 | Sir Walter Raleigh returns to England from Virginia. | |
| 1663 | British Parliament passes a second Navigation Act, requiring all goods bound for the colonies be sent in British ships from British ports. | |
| 1689 | Government forces defeat the Scottish Jacobites at the Battle of Killiecrankie. | |
| 1777 | The Marquis of Lafayette arrives in New England to help fight the British. | |
| 1778 | British and French fleets fight to a standoff in the first Battle of Ushant. | |
| 1793 | Robespierre becomes a member of the Committee of Public Safety. | |
| 1861 | President Abraham Lincoln replaces General Irwin McDowell with General George B. McClellen as head of the Army of the Potomac. | |
| 1905 | The International Workers of the World found their labor organization in Chicago. | |
| 1909 | Orville Wright sets a world record for staying aloft in an airplane–one hour, 12 minutes and 40 seconds. | |
| 1914 | British troops invade the streets of Dublin, Ireland, and begin to disarm Irish rebels. | |
| 1921 | Canadians Sir Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolate insulin at the University of Toronto. | |
| 1944 | U.S. troops complete the liberation of Guam. | |
| 1953 | Representatives of the United Nations, Korea and China sign an armistice at Panmunjon, Korea. | |
| 1964 | President Lyndon Johnson sends an additional 5,000 advisers to South Vietnam. | |
| 1993 | Israeli guns and aircraft pound southern Lebanon in reprisal for rocket attacks by Hezbollah guerrillas. |
"At the end of the day, make no mistake about it, it was the president of the United States that shouldered the burden of this operation, that made the hard decision," McRaven said during an on-stage interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer that served as the kickoff session of the Aspen Security Forum.
"The president of the United States is fantastic," the admiral said. "I very much enjoy working for President Obama. This isn't about politics. This is about a Commander in Chief who I have the opportunity to engage with on a routine basis."
"I'm not a political guy, but I’ll tell you as an interested observer of this, they were magnfiicent how they handled the start-to-finish," McRaven said. "The president asked all the right questions…The president gave me ample time to prepare once the conversations were through."
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this entire controversy is the one NOT being discussed much: How did Romney get himself into this position in the first place? He has been running for office for a long time. His presidential aspirations predate the tax returns in question.
What could he possibly have been thinking when he failed to ensure that everything contained in those documents was above reproach? Or was he simply not thinking at all? Surely he could not have arrogantly believed that he could withstand any storm that developed by bluffing his way through it? If so, it hasn’t worked.
If Romney intends to win, he is going to have to make the tax forms public. This storm won’t go away. It will distract from his policy debate with Obama — and it will distract from Obama’s failures, providing the incumbent with the smokescreen he is attempting to create.
Romney needs to end this. He needs to end this by revealing the tax documents, explaining them, explaining the legality behind his actions, and then he needs to move on.
During a meeting with Labor Party leader Ed Miliband, a British reporter asked both Miliband and Romney for their views on current British economic policy.Um, the only time you refuse to answer a question because you don't want to be critical is because you were planning on being critical. He could have simply said "I agree with the Prime Minister." But he didn't, because he didn't want to be critical of the austerity program, which is the same thing that wingnuts - Romney's own party - are pushing in the US.
"While I'm on foreign soil, I'm very careful not to be critical of my own government's policies," Romney said. "I would be even more remiss if I were to be critical to any other government's policies. I will instead look forward to an exchange of ideas."
@jameschappers: Serious dismay in Whitehall at Romney debut. 'Worse than Sarah Palin.' 'Total car crash'. Two of the kinder verdicts #romneyshamblesChapman has more:
Can this get any worse for Romney? Boris is now mocking him in front of 60,000 people in Hyde Park#romneyshamblesThe Guardian now has a story out about all the Romney gaffes.
“England [sic] is just a small island. Its roads and houses are small. With few exceptions, it doesn’t make things that people in the rest of the world want to buy."
Mr Romney questioned the enthusiasm of the British public. "Do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment?" he asked. "And yesterday we found out that Romney questioned the achievement of our Olympic athletes (probably because they weren't able to buy their way into the Olympics, like Romney did).
@BBCNewsnight: Will Mitt Romney carry the Olympic torch? "Certainly not after today", according to Olympics Minister Hugh Robertson on #newsnightThinkProgress got the video - the Minister literally laughs at the notion of Romney getting to carry the Olympic torch.
The curious circumstances surrounding the kidnapping and then release
of Cal Ripken Jr.'s 74-year-old mother are all the talk of her
community outside Baltimore, where such crime doesn't happen and where
her neighbors know the matriarch of the famous baseball family as "just
Vi." Vi Ripken was found bound but unharmed in her car Wednesday
morning, ... (more)
A striking image from Spitzer shows the intact dust towers next to a giant cloud of hot dust thought to have been scorched by the blast of a star that exploded, or went supernova. Astronomers speculate that the supernova's shock wave could have already reached the dusty towers, causing them to topple about 6,000 years ago.More
However, because light from this region takes 7,000 years to reach Earth, we won't be able to capture photos of the destruction for another millenium or so.
Just
a tiny hint of opportunity has a disproportionately powerful effect –
making unfairness more acceptable to disadvantaged people, new ...
If
you're over 35 years old, then you've probably thought to yourself how
all pop music sound the same and that they're all very loud.Researchers in Spain used a huge archive known as the Million Song Dataset, which breaks down audio and lyrical content into data that can be crunched, to study pop songs from 1955 to 2010.Now excuse me while I put up my "Get off my lawn" sign: More
A team led by artificial intelligence specialist Joan Serra at the Spanish National Research Council ran music from the last 50 years through some complex algorithms and found that pop songs have become intrinsically louder and more bland in terms of the chords, melodies and types of sound used.
"We found evidence of a progressive homogenization of the musical discourse," Serra told Reuters. "In particular, we obtained numerical indicators that the diversity of transitions between note combinations - roughly speaking chords plus melodies - has consistently diminished in the last 50 years."
Hunter gatherer clue to obesity
The idea that exercise is more important than diet in the fight against obesity has been contradicted by new research.
Forests' biodiversity 'declining'
For
the first time, scientists have identified tropical and subtropical
species of marine protozoa living in the Arctic Ocean. Apparently ... 
Even ancient people used a nit comb
