History Trivia

August 11, 480 BC Greco-Persian Wars: Battle of Artemisium – the Persians won a naval victory over the Greeks in an engagement fought near Artemisium, a promontory on the north coast of Euboea (island of central Greece in the Aegean Sea). 355 Claudius Silvanus, accused of treason, proclaimed himself Roman Emperor against Constantius II. 1492 Rodrigo Borgia became Pope Alexander VI. One of the most notorious men to sit on the papal throne, Alexander VI was worldly, ambitious and ruthless. However he was a patron of the arts (Raphael, Michelangelo and Pinturicchio) and also encouraged the development education as evidenced by the 1495 issuing of a Papal Bull at the request of William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, and King James IV of Scotland, founding King’s College, Aberdeen.