TODAY IN HISTORY

In 585 B.C., the first known prediction of a solar eclipse occurred.

In 1085, Alfonso VI of Castile captured Toledo, Spain, and brought the Moorish centre of science into Christian hands.

In 1521, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V pronounced Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther an outlaw and heretic for refusing to recant his teachings while at the Diet of Worms (held the previous month).

In 1792, a highwayman named Pelletier became the first person under French law to be executed by the guillotine.

In 1793, 25-year-old Stephen T. Badin was ordained in Baltimore, Md. He was the first Roman Catholic priest to be ordained in the newly independent United States. He later served as a frontier missionary, and played a key role in establishing Catholicism in Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee during the early nineteenth century.