1143 - King Fulk of Jerusalem

Famous Death on this Day in History

Fulk (1089/1092 in Angers – 13 November 1143 in Acre), also known as Fulk the Younger, was Count of Anjou (as Fulk V) from 1109 to 1129, and King of Jerusalem from 1131 to his death. He was also the paternal grandfather of Henry II of England.

Fulk was born in Angers between 1089 and 1092, the son of Count Fulk IV of Anjou and Bertrade de Montfort. In 1092, Bertrade deserted her husband and bigamously married King Philip I of France.

He became count of Anjou upon his father's death in 1109, at the age of approximately twenty. In that year, he married Erembourg of Maine, cementing Angevin control over the County of Maine.

He was originally an opponent of King Henry I of England and a supporter of King Louis VI of France, but in 1127 he allied with Henry when Henry arranged for his daughter Matilda to marry Fulk's son Geoffrey of Anjou. Fulk went on crusade in 1120, and became a close friend of the Knights Templar. After his return he began to subsidize the Templars, and maintained two knights in the Holy Land for a year.

354 - [Christian] Aurelius Augustine, bp of Hippo in Roman Africa

Famous Birthday on this Day in History

Augustine of Hippo (November 13, 354 – August 28, 430), Bishop of Hippo Regius, also known as St. Augustine or St. Austin, was a Berber philosopher and theologian.

Augustine, a Latin church father, is one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity. Augustine was heavily influenced by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus. He framed the concepts of original sin and just war. When the Roman Empire in the West was starting to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Church as a spiritual City of God (in a book of the same name) distinct from the material City of Man. His thought profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. Augustine's City of God was closely identified with the church, and was the community which worshipped God.

Augustine was born in the city of Thagaste, the present day Souk Ahras, Algeria, to a pagan father named Patricius and a Catholic mother named Monica. He was educated in North Africa and resisted his mother's pleas to become Christian. Living as a pagan intellectual, he took a concubine and became a Manichean. Later he converted to Christianity, became a bishop, and opposed heresies, such as the belief that people can have the ability to choose to be good to such a degree as to merit salvation without divine aid (Pelagianism).

In the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, he is a saint and pre-eminent Doctor of the Church, and the patron of the Augustinian religious order; his memorial is celebrated 28 August. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists, consider him to be one of the theological fathers of Reformation teaching on salvation and divine grace. In the Eastern Orthodox Church he is blessed, and his feast day is celebrated on 15 June, though a minority are of the opinion that he is a heretic, primarily because of his statements concerning what became known as the filioque clause. Among the Orthodox he is called Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed.

866 - Pope Nicholas I answers the envoys of Boris (Ad consulta vestra)

Historical Event on this Day in History

Pope Saint Nicholas I, (Rome c. 820 – November 13, 867), or Nicholas the Great, reigned from April 24, 858 until his death. He is remembered as a consolidator of papal authority and power, exerting decisive influence upon the historical development of the papacy and its position among the Christian nations of Western Europe, and is considered a saint.

He refused to grant an annulment to Lothar II from Theutberga so that Lothar could marry his mistress Waldrada; when a Council pronounced in favor of annulment, Nicholas I declared the Council to be deposed, its messengers excommunicated, and its decisions void. Despite pressure from the Carolingians, who laid siege to Rome, his decision held. During his reign, relations with the Byzantine Empire soured over his support for Ignatius as Patriarch of Constantinople, who had been removed and Photius appointed to replace him.

930 - Daigo, Emperor of Japan (b. 885)

Famous Death on this Day in History

Emperor Daigo (醍醐天皇 Daigo-tennō) (January 18, 885– October 23, 930) was the 60th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. He reigned from 897 to 930.[1] Emperor Daigo's mausoleum, known as Nochi no Yamashina no misasagi, is located in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto.

Before his ascension of the Chrysanthemum Throne, his personal name (his imina) was Atsuhito-shinnō (敦仁親王).

Atsuhito-shinnō was the eldest son of his predecessor, Emperor Uda. His mother was Fujiwara no Taneko, daughter of the minister of the center, Fujiwara no Takafui. He succeeded the throne after his father, the Emperor Uda, abdicated in 897.

Daigo had 21 empresses, imperial consorts, and concubines; he had 36 imperial sons and daughters.

1503 - Isabella of Portugal, queen of Spain and empress of Germany (d. 1539)

Famous Birthday on this Day in History

Isabella of Portugal ( 24 October 1503 – 1 May 1539) was the daughter of Manuel I of Portugal and Maria of Aragon. By her marriage to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Isabella was also Holy Roman Empress and Queen consort of Aragon and Castile.

Isabel was the second child and eldest daughter of Manuel I of Portugal and his second wife, Infanta Maria of Castile and Aragon. She was named after her maternal grandmother, Isabella I of Castile and her aunt Isabella, Princess of Asturias, who had been her father's first wife.

Through her father, she was a granddaughter of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu (the second son of king Edward of Portugal and brother of Afonso V of Portugal) and Infanta Beatrice, the daughter of Infante João, Lord of Reguengos (brother of king Edward). Through her mother she was a granddaughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon.

Isabel was second-in-line to the throne until the birth of her brother Louis in 1505. However, as the oldest daughter of Manuel I of Portugal, she was a rather attractive party. She married her first cousin, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, the son of Joanna of Castile and Philip the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy, who as Holy Roman Emperor, King of Aragon and Castile, Archduke of the Habsburg dominions, titular Duke of Burgundy, and ruler of the Netherlands and the Spanish empire in the Americas and the Mediterranean and Italy was one of the most powerful men of his time.

425 - Valentinian III is elevated as Roman Emperor, at the age of 6.

Historical Event on this Day in History

Flavius Placidius Valentinianus (July 2, 419 – March 16, 455), known in English as Valentinian III, was among the last Western Roman Emperors (425-455).

After the death of his father in 421, Valentinian followed his mother and his sister (Justa Grata Honoria) to Constantinople, when Galla Placidia broke with her half-brother, Emperor Honorius, and went to live at the court of Theodosius II.

In 423, Honorius died, and the usurper Joannes took the power in Rome. To counter this menace, Theodosius nominated Valentinian Caesar of the west (October 23, 424), and betrothed him to his own daughter Licinia Eudoxia (Valentinian would marry her in 437). In 425, after Joannes had been defeated in war, Valentinian was installed Western Emperor in Rome, on October 23, at the age of six.

Given his minority, the new Augustus ruled under the control first of his mother, and then, after 433, of the Magister militum Flavius Aëtius. Valentinian's reign is marked by the dismemberment of the Western Empire; the conquest of the province of Africa by the Vandals in 439; the loss of great portions of Spain and Gaul, in which the barbarians had established themselves; and the ravaging of Sicily and of the western coasts of the Mediterranean Sea by the fleets of Geiseric.

As an off-set against these calamities, there was the great victory of Roman general Aëtius over Attila the Hun in 451 near Chalons. Aëtius had also campaigned successfully against the Visigoths in southern Gaul (426, 429, 436), and against various invaders on the Rhine and Danube (428-431).

Charles Martel, ruler of the Franks, dies at 63

Famous Deaths on this Day in History

Charles Martel (Latin: Carolus Martellus) (ca. 688 – 22 October 741), called Charles the Hammer, was a Frankish military and political leader, who served as Mayor of the Palace under the Merovingian kings and ruled de facto during an interregnum (737–43) at the end of his life, using the title Duke and Prince of the Franks. In 739 he was offered the title of Consul by the Pope, but he refused. He is perhaps best remembered for winning the Battle of Tours in 732, in which he defeated an invading Muslim army and halted northward Islamic expansion in western Europe.

A brilliant general he lost only one battle in his career (the Battle of Cologne) -he is a founding figure of the Middle Ages, often credited with a seminal role in the development of feudalism and knighthood, and laying the groundwork for the Carolingian Empire.

Charles Martel died on October 22, 741, at Quierzy-sur-Oise in what is today the Aisne département in the Picardy region of France. He was buried at Saint Denis Basilica in Paris. His territories were divided among his adult sons a year earlier: to Carloman he gave Austrasia and Alemannia (with Bavaria as a vassal), to Pippin the Younger Neustria and Burgundy (with Aquitaine as a vassal), and to Grifo nothing, though some sources indicate he intended to give him a strip of land between Neustria and Austrasia.

Gibbon called him "the hero of the age" and declared "Christendom ... delivered ... by the genius and good fortune of one man, Charles Martel."