| 1099 | Members of the First Crusade witness an eclipse of the moon and interpret it as a sign they will recapture Jerusalem. | |
| 1568 | Ferdinand, the Duke of Alba, crushes the Calvinist insurrection in Ghent. | |
| 1595 | Henry IV’s army defeats the Spanish at the Battle of Fontaine-Francaise. | |
| 1637 | American settlers in New England massacre a Pequot Indian village. | |
| 1783 | Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier make the first public balloon flight. | |
| 1794 | The U.S. Congress prohibits citizens from serving in any foreign armed forces. | |
| 1827 | Athens falls to Ottoman forces. | |
| 1851 | Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes the first installment of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in The National Era. | |
| 1856 | U.S. Army troops in the Four creeks region of California, head back to quarters, officially ending the Tule River War. Fighting, however, will continue for a few more years. | |
| 1863 | The Confederate raider CSS Alabama captures the Talisman in the Mid-Atlantic. | |
| 1872 | The Republican National Convention, the first major political party convention to include blacks, commences. | |
| 1880 | Wild woman of the west Myra Maybelle Shirley marries Sam Starr even though records show she was already married to Bruce Younger. | |
| 1900 | British troops under Lord Roberts seize Pretoria from the Boers. | |
| 1940 | The German army begins its offensive in Southern France. | |
| 1944 | The first B-29 bombing raid strikes the Japanese rail line in Bangkok, Thailand. | |
| 1947 | Secretary of State George C. Marshall outlines “The Marshall Plan,” a program intended to assist European nations, including former enemies, to rebuild their economies. | |
| 1956 | Premier Nikita Khrushchev denounces Josef Stalin to the Soviet Communist Party Congress. | |
| 1967 | The Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, Syria and Jordan begins. | |
| 1968 | Sirhan Sirhan shoots Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy after Kennedy’s victory in the pivotal California primary election. | |
| 1973 | Doris A. Davis becomes the first African-American woman to govern a city in a major metropolitan area when she is elected mayor of Compton, California. | |
| 2004 | Reagan dies at age 93. Reagan was the 40th president of the United States. |
A village administrator said he believed the workers left the three letters up intentionally to get a few laughs and a contractor said they didn't mind the attention.
"We kind of like the honks when they go by and a little bit of the road traffic," the contractor said.
Plaza employees remember her as a firebrand, a scourge who exploited every wrinkle in rent-control law with the subtlety and skill of a top-tier real estate attorney.
She was a terror when dealing with hotel management, too. "Part of what the law required is that you were entitled to the same services that you got when the unit was first under rent control," Lyman explains. "In those days, they did a 'high dusting,' I think they called it, once a month. It was a whole scheduled cleaning. Painting was required every couple of years; she knew her rights extremely well. And she would push."
In the early 1980s, according to a Newsday article, she had dragged the Westin Corporation—then the Plaza's owner—to court over defective carpeting. After this suit was thrown out, Lyman says, she immediately began to claim that Westin was trying to kill her with toxic paint. The hotel hired experts to take spore samples. She called in the New York City Health Department, who found nothing amiss.
As her health began to fail, Lowenstein convinced herself that her room was irredeemably contaminated by the "toxic" paint. She moved to the Park Lane—paying the full nightly price—and died there on April 28, 1992, the final rent-controlled holdout to live in the Plaza. She was 85 years old.
Throughout all this time, however, his parents had been diligently searching, and their efforts were finally rewarded when they happened upon their son’s castle. Unfortunately, Julian was away on a hunt, but his wife welcomed them with great joy. Indeed, so pleased was she to meet her in-laws for the first time that she honored them with her home’s master bedroom as their quarters.The couple spent the rest of their lives trying to make up for the murders, and became known for hospitality and aid to travelers. You can read the story of St. Julian the Hospitaller at Catholic Exchange. St. Julian's story is one of 15 Unusual Patron Saints you can read about at Mental Floss.
Returning home much later, Julian discovered the couple in his own sbed and assumed it was his wife with another man. In a mad rage, he killed them both, thus fulfilling the prophetic jinx. When his wife, who’d been to church, informed him of his tragic error, Julian grew despondent and despaired of his salvation. Nevertheless, according to one medieval version of the story, his wife offered unyielding encouragement. “Well I know that God is so merciful and so kind and loving,” she insisted, “that if we serve Him all our lives without anger and without envy, I do surely believe that he will grant us mercy.”
Conceived by Vietnamese architect Đặng Việt Nga, the Crazy House opened in 1990 as a guest house. Her creation immediately made a splash on the architectural scene, with its cave-like rooms and organic tree-like passageways (mostly) drawing praise. Throughout its life, the Hằng Nga (as it’s officially known) has undergone continuous renovations and expansions; a new aquatic-themed room was being crafted during our visit.
