Did you know...

• ... that Quan Thanh Temple (principal gate pictured), a Taoist temple in Hanoi, was once wrongly named as a Buddhist pagoda by the French?
• ... that American football guard Justin Boren cited family values as the reason for transferring from the University of Michigan to its arch rival, The Ohio State University?
• ... that one of the few cases of poisoning by the Montpellier snake occurred when someone stuck his finger into the snake's mouth?
• ... that Trần Minh Tông ceded the throne to his five-year-old son Trần Dụ Tông because he considered the eldest prince too extravagant for the position of Đại Việt Emperor?
• ... that Oregon doctor Augustus C. Kinney lived in Astoria, but died in Oakland, California, and was buried in Salem, Oregon?
• ... that the fuselage of the Polikarpov NB was built from molded plywood reinforced with a welded steel tube framework?
• ... that John Alario, the longest-serving member of the Louisiana State Legislature whose tenure began in 1972, is currently a freshman member of the state Senate?
• ... that the day after the death of businessman Fairfax Harrison, The New York Times accidentally ran the wrong picture with his obituary?

 THIS WEEK IMPORTANT DATES

• 1095 – At the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade, declaring holy war against the Muslims who had occupied the Holy Land and were attacking the Eastern Roman Empire.
• 1868 – American Indian Wars: George Armstrong Custer's 7th U.S. Cavalry defeated Chief Black Kettle and the Cheyenne Indians on the Washita River near present-day Cheyenne, Oklahoma.
• 1895 – Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, setting aside the bulk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after his death.
• 1978 – San Francisco mayor George Moscone and openly gay supervisor Harvey Milk (pictured) were assassinated by supervisor Dan White.
• 1999 – The Labour Party defeated the governing National Party in the New Zealand general election, making the Labour Party's Helen Clark the first female to win the office of Prime Minister at an election.

IN THE NEWS

• Flash floods on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia during the Hajj pilgrimage leave 83 people dead and more than 350 others missing.
• Wolfgang Schneiderhan (pictured), the Chief of Staff of the German Bundeswehr, and Franz Josef Jung, the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, resign over allegations that they withheld information in the aftermath of the Kunduz airstrike.
• Citizens of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines reject a new constitution which would have replaced Queen Elizabeth II with a president as Head of State.
• The Murphy Report, the result of an investigation into sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin, is published.
• The investment company Dubai World, owned by the Dubai government, asks creditors for a six-month moratorium on its US$59-billion debt.
• More than 300,000 animals are ritually slaughtered in Gadhimai festival in southern Nepal amid controversy, in the world's largest animal sacrifice.