History Trivia

November 18, 326 Old St. Peter's Basilica in Rome was consecrated. 942 Saint Odo of Cluny died. The second abbot of the great monastery at Cluny, Odo achieved exemption from all but papal authority for his monastic community and reformed monasteries in Gaul and Italy. 1105 Maginulf elected the Antipope Sylvester the IV. 1210 Pope Innocent III excommunicated Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV. 1302 Pope Boniface VIII issued the Papal bull Unam sanctam (One Faith). 1307 William Tell shot an apple off of his son's head. 1421 A seawall at the Zuiderzee dike in the Netherlands broke, flooding 72 villages and killing about 10,000 people. 1477 William Caxton produced Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, the first book printed on a printing press in England. 1494 French King Charles VIII occupied Florence, Italy. 1626 St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome was officially dedicated on the same day the Old Basilica was consecrated 1300 years earlier.