Theodore Komnenos Doukas (died c. 1253) ruled Epirus and Thessaly from
1215 to 1230, and most of Macedonia and western Thrace as Emperor of
Thessalonica from 1224 to 1230. He was also the power behind the rule of
his two sons John and Demetrios over Thessalonica in 1237–46. The
scion of a distinguished Byzantine aristocratic family, he was called to
Epirus by his bastard half-brother Michael I Komnenos Doukas, who had
founded an independent principality there after the Fourth Crusade. When
Michael died in 1215, Theodore assumed governance and allied with
Serbia, taking the Latin Kingdom of Thessalonica in 1224. He declared
himself emperor, challenging the claims of the Nicaean emperor John III
Vatatzes on the Byzantine imperial throne. In 1230 he amassed an army to
besiege Constantinople, but diverted it to fight in Bulgaria, where he
was defeated, blinded, and imprisoned for seven years. In 1237 he
installed his older son John, and later Demetrios, as emperor in
Thessalonica, remaining the de facto regent of the state. He was taken
prisoner again in 1252 by Vatatzes and sent into exile in Nicaea, where
he died the next year.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Komnenos_Doukas>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
628:
Khosrow II, the last great king of the Sasanian Empire, was
overthrown by his son Kavadh II.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khosrow_II>
1843:
Captain Lord George Paulet of the British Royal Navy began a
five-month occupation of land in the Hawaiian islands.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulet_Affair_(1843)>
1933:
USS Ranger, the first ship of the United States Navy designed
as an aircraft carrier, was launched.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ranger_(CV-4)>
1948:
Fearful of civil war and Soviet intervention in recent unrest,
Czechoslovakian president Edvard Beneš ceded control over the
government to the Communist Party.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Czechoslovak_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat>
2009:
Members of the Bangladesh Rifles mutinied at its headquarters
in Pilkhana, Dhaka, Bangladesh, resulting in 74 deaths, in addition to
eight mutineers killed.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Rifles_revolt>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
shovelware:
1. (computing, slang, derogatory) A haphazard collection of software
assembled in terms of quantity rather than quality.
2. (media, slang) Traditional media content, such as printed news reports,
republished hastily on the Internet without considering the needs and
capabilities of that medium.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shovelware>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
You can be standing right in front of the truth and not
necessarily see it, and people only get it when they’re ready to get
it.
--George Harrison
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Harrison>