Today in...

Today in 927, King Tomislav of Croatia was decisively beaten in the Battle of the Bosnian Highlands by Simeon I of Bulgaria. Started over a dubious line call in a tennis match, the conflict was known in the Balkans as the "war to end all wars".

Peter Stuyvesant was inaugurated as Governor of New Amsterdam (later named New York) in 1647. He is remembered for razing people's houses, ordering the public torture of a Quaker, and jail for anyone harbouring Quakers. To this day, his name remains synonymous with glamour.

Happy 60th birthday to Dutch civil servant Wubbo de Boer, current President of the European Union body, the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market. Mr de Boer is reportedly no relation to Louis the Fly, or Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.

Today is the 101st anniversary of the birth of pioneering environmental alarmist, Rachel Carson. Debate continues to rage about whether her book Silent Spring indirectly led to the deaths of millions of people in the third world from malaria, or merely hundreds of thousands. Carson's legacy is carried on to this day by environmentalists urging us to switch to ethanol.

Happy 190th birthday to suffragette, Amelia Bloomer. Ms Bloomer had a major impact on American culture.