The foundation stone for the Gothic Cathedral of Nantes was laid today in 1434. The building work, including the vaulting (above) was completed between then and 1891, 457 years later.
At 11.40pm today in 1912 the RMS Titanic, sailing from Southampton to New York on her maiden voyage, struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Five of her watertight compartments began to flood (one less and she would have survived), and Titanic quickly foundered, plunging two miles to the ocean floor at 2.20am. With an inadequate number of lifeboats, she sank with 1,500 souls, the most privileged of whom heard the ship’s band playing a final song, which was the hymn, ‘Nearer My God to Thee’.
Between 4 and 5am, today in 1561, the people of Nuremberg, Germany, were terrified by a series of apparitions in the skies. They saw objects shaped like balls, donuts, crosses and rods flying around and fighting each other, before falling to the ground and burning, with copious amounts of smoke. The event has been much discussed by UFO enthusiasts, but at the time, it was seen as a warning of the apocalypse.
‘Although we have seen, shortly one after another, many kinds of signs in the heaven, which are sent to us by the Almighty God to bring us to repentance, we are unfortunately still so ungrateful that we despise such high signs and miracles of God. Or we speak of them with ridicule and discard them to the wind, in order that God may send us a frightening punishment on account of our ungratefulness.’ Broadsheet article, Nuremberg, April 1561
Pope Sergius III died today in the year 911. During his reign, his two predecessors, Pope Leo V and Antipope Christopher, were strangled in prison, and Sergius himself fathered the future Pope John XI. Which makes him a contender for the coveted title of Christian Leader who Looks Least like Christ.
‘A wretch, worthy of the rope and of fire… flames could not have caused this execrable monster to suffer the punishments which he merited. It is impossible to believe that such a pope was a lawful one.’ Cardinal Caesar Baronius’s obituary for Pope Sergius III
Image: Gary Bembridge