Paul Palaiologos Tagaris (c. 1330 – after 1394) was a Byzantine Greek monk, a swindler, and an impostor. A scion of the Tagaris family, Paul also claimed a—somewhat dubious—connection with the Palaiologos dynasty that ruled the Byzantine Empire at the time. Married as a teenager, he left his wife and became a monk, but soon his fraudulent practices embroiled him in scandal. Fleeing Constantinople, he travelled widely, from Palestine to Persia and Georgia and eventually, via Ukraine and Hungary, to Italy, Latin Greece, Cyprus and France. During his long and tumultuous career, Paul was appointed an Orthodox bishop, sold ordinations to ecclesiastical offices, pretended to be the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, switched from Greek Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism and back again, supported both the See of Rome and the Avignon anti-popes in the Western Schism, and managed to be named Latin Patriarch of Constantinople. In the end, his deceptions unmasked, he returned to Constantinople, where he confessed his sins before a synod in 1394.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Palaiologos_Tagaris
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
539 BC:
Cyrus the Great captured Babylon, incorporating the Neo- Babylonian Empire and making the Achaemenid Empire the largest in the history of the world to that time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_the_Great
1792:
Lt. William Broughton, a member of George Vancouver's expedition, observed a peak in what is now Oregon, U.S., and named it Mount Hood after British admiral Samuel Hood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Hood
1917:
The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, in charge of preparing for and carrying out the Russian Revolution, was established. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrograd_Military_Revolutionary_Committee
1960:
The C-46 airliner carrying the Cal Poly Mustangs football team crashed during takeoff from Toledo Express Airport in Ohio, U.S., resulting in 22 deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Poly_football_team_C-46_crash
1999:
About 10,000 people died when a supercyclone hit the Indian state of Odisha near the city of Bhubaneswar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Odisha_cyclone
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
fust: 1. A strong musty smell; mustiness. 2. (architecture) The shaft (main body) of a column. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fust
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
The American public highly overrates its sense of humor. We're great belly laughers and prat fallers, but we never really did have a real sense of humor. Not satire anyway. … When we realize finally that we aren't God's given children, we'll understand satire. Humor is really laughing off a hurt, grinning at misery. --Bill Mauldin https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Mauldin