Ambrose Rookwood (c. 1578 – 31 January 1606) was a member of the failed 1605 Gunpowder Plot, a conspiracy to replace the Protestant English King James I with a Catholic monarch. Born into a wealthy family of Catholic recusants, and educated by Jesuits at Flanders, Rookwood became a horse-breeder. He was enlisted into the plot in September 1605 by Robert Catesby, a religious zealot whose impatience with James's treatment of English Catholics had grown so severe that he conspired to blow up the House of Lords with gunpowder, looking to kill the king and much of the Protestant hierarchy. Rookwood's stable of fine horses was seen as essential for the uprising to succeed. The plan failed when the man left in charge of the gunpowder stored beneath the House of Lords, Guy Fawkes, was discovered there and arrested. After surviving an attack by the Sheriff of Worcestershire, Rookwood was imprisoned in the Tower of London and executed.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Rookwood

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1747:

The London Lock Hospital, the first clinic specialising in the treatment of venereal diseases, opened. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Lock_Hospital

1862:

American astronomer Alvan Graham Clark first observed the faint white dwarf companion of Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius

1961:

Aboard NASA's Mercury-Redstone 2, Ham the Chimp became the first hominid launched into outer space. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ham_%28chimpanzee%29

2007:

Suspects were arrested in Birmingham, England, accused of plotting to kidnap, and eventually behead, a Muslim British soldier serving in Iraq. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_plot_to_behead_a_British_Muslim_soldier

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

Tiggerish: (Britain) (Excessively) cheerful and exuberant; bouncy. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Tiggerish

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

I don't think life is absurd. I think we are all here for a huge purpose. I think we shrink from the immensity of the purpose we are here for.   --Norman Mailer https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Norman_Mailer