60px|William of St Calais from an 11th-century manuscript
William de St-Calais was a medieval Norman monk, abbot of the abbey
of St. Vincent in Le Mans in Maine, who was nominated as Bishop of
Durham in 1080 by King William I of England. During his term as bishop,
St-Calais replaced the canons of his cathedral chapter with monks, and
began the construction of Durham Cathedral. In addition to his
ecclesiastical duties, he served as a commissioner for the Domesday
Book. He was also a councilor and advisor to both King William I and
his son, King William II, known as William Rufus. Following William
Rufus' accession to the throne in 1087, St-Calais was considered by
scholars to be the new king's chief advisor. However, when the king's
uncle, Odo of Bayeux, raised a rebellion against the king in 1088,
St-Calais was implicated in the revolt. Imprisoned briefly, St-Calais
was allowed to go into exile in Normandy, where he became a leading
advisor to Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy. By 1091, St-Calais had
returned to England and regained royal favour. In England, St-Calais
once more became a leading advisor to the king. In 1093 he negotiated
with Anselm, Abbot of Bec, concerning Anselm's becoming Archbishop of
Canterbury; in 1095 it was St-Calais who prosecuted the royal case
against Anselm after he had become archbishop. Before his death in
1096, he had made his peace with Anselm, who blessed and consoled
St-Calais on his deathbed. (more...)
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1292:
John Balliol was chosen to be King of Scots over Robert de Brus.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Balliol>
1869:
The Suez Canal opened, allowing shipping to travel between Europe and
Asia via the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal>
1950:
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama , was enthroned as Tibet's head of
state at the age of fifteen.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Dalai_Lama>
1970:
The Soviet Union's Lunokhod 1 landed on the Moon to become the first
roving remote-controlled robot to operate on another celestial body.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_1>
2009:
Administrators at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East
Anglia discovered their servers had been hacked and thousands of emails
and files on climate change had been stolen.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
factious (adj):
1. Of, pertaining to, or caused by factions.
2. Given to or characterized by discordance or insubordination
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/factious>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free; so
soon as you make a declaration on paper that speech shall be free, you
will have a hundred lawyers proving that "freedom does not mean abuse,
nor liberty license"; and they will define and define freedom out of
existence. Let the guarantee of free speech be in every man's
determination to use it, and we shall have no need of paper
declarations. On the other hand, so long as the people do not care to
exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for
tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name
of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon
sleeping men.
--Voltairine de Cleyre
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Voltairine_de_Cleyre>
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