William of Wrotham (died c. 1217) was a medieval English royal administrator and clergyman. Hubert Walter, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury and the king's chief minister, gave William responsibility for the royal tin mines in 1197, and the following year he was placed in charge of tin production, an office later known as the Lord Warden of the Stannaries. William also held ecclesiastical office, eventually becoming Archdeacon of Taunton, and served King John of England as an administrator of ecclesiastical lands and a collector of taxes. He was in charge of the royal fleet in the south of England from 1206 until 1215, and was one of those responsible for the development of Portsmouth as a naval dockyard. He is usually given the title of "keeper of ports" or "keeper of galleys", probably a forerunner of the office of First Lord of the Admiralty. By 1215 William had joined the First Barons' War against John, but returned to the royalist cause after John's death in 1216. The medieval chronicler Roger of Wendover called him one of John's "evil advisers", but modern historians say Roger's account was exaggerated.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Wrotham
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1610:
Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei made his first observation of the four Galilean moons through his telescope: Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa, although he was not able to distinguish the latter two until the following day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon)
1797:
The first official Italian tricolour was adopted by the government of the Cispadane Republic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Italy
1948:
Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell fatally crashed his P-51 Mustang while in pursuit of a UFO near Fort Knox, Kentucky. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantell_UFO_incident
1978:
An article titled "Iran and Red and Black Colonization" was published in the newspaper Ettela'at to attack Ruhollah Khomeini, described as an Indian Sayyed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_Red_and_Black_Colonization
2012:
A hot air balloon flight from Carterton, New Zealand, collided with a power line while landing, causing it to catch fire, disintegrate and crash, killing all eleven people on board. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Carterton_hot_air_balloon_crash
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
wide of the mark: 1. Of a projectile: missing the target. 2. (idiomatic) (Very) inaccurate. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wide_of_the_mark
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Let us remember that revolutions do not always establish freedom. Our own free institutions were not the offspring of our Revolution. They existed before. --Millard Fillmore https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Millard_Fillmore