Henry IV (11 November 1050 – 7 August 1106) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1084 to 1105. After his father's death in 1056, Henry was placed under his mother's guardianship. Archbishop Anno II of Cologne kidnapped him in 1062 and administered Germany until he came of age in 1065. Ignoring the ideas of the Gregorian Reform, Henry insisted on the royal prerogative to appoint bishops in his German and Italian realms. The Investiture Controversy culminated when Pope Gregory VII excommunicated Henry in response to Henry's attempt to dethrone him. Henry carried out his penitential Walk to Canossa in 1077 and Gregory absolved him. Henry's German opponents ignored this absolution and elected an anti-king. Most German and northern Italian bishops remained loyal to Henry and elected the antipope, Clement III, who crowned Henry emperor in Rome in 1084. His son, Henry V, forced him to abdicate on 31 December 1105.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_IV,_Holy_Roman_Emperor

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1794:

U.S. president George Washington invoked the Militia Acts of 1792 to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_Acts_of_1792

1946:

The Soviet Union informed Turkey that the way in which the latter was handling the Turkish Straits no longer represented the security interests of its fellow Black Sea nations, escalating the Turkish Straits crisis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Straits_crisis

2008:

Fighting between the Georgian and South Ossetian separatist forces escalated to the six-day Russo-Georgian War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

calabash: 1. A tree (known as the calabash tree; Crescentia cujete) native to Central and South America, the West Indies, and southern Florida, bearing large, round fruit used to make containers (sense 3); the fruit of this tree. 2. The bottle gourd (calabash vine, Lagenaria siceraria), a vine believed to have originated in Africa, which is grown for its fruit that are used as a vegetable and to make containers (sense 3); the fruit of this plant. 3. A container made from the mature, dried shell of the fruit of one of the above plants; also, a similarly shaped container made from some other material. 4. A calabash and its contents; as much as fills such a container. 5. (music) A musical instrument, most commonly a drum or rattle, made from a calabash fruit. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/calabash

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

The real struggle is not between the right and the left — that's where most people assume — but it's between the party of the thoughtful and the party of the jerks. And no side of the political spectrum has a monopoly on either of those qualities.   --Jimmy Wales https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wales