30 April 1006 Great Balls of Fire and All That

30 April 1006 - Supernova SN 1006, the brightest supernova in recorded history, appears in the constellation Lupus.

Pretend it's 1066 and all that with 8 Inch Supernova Color Changing Sphere.
Visit medieval-novels.com with over 1500 novels and movies set in the Middle Ages.

29 April 711 Islamic Spain, Moor or Less

29 April 711 - Islamic conquest of Hispania: Moorish troops led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad land at Gibraltar to begin their invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus).

See the DVD  about the Moors in Spain in When the Moors Ruled in Europe or watch Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren in El Cid.
More llike it at medieval-novels.com with over 1500 novels and movies set in the Middle Ages.

28 April 1192 The Pot-heads Strike Again

28 April 1192 - Assassination of Conrad of Montferrat (Conrad I), King of Jerusalem, in Tyre, two days after his title to the throne is confirmed by election. The killing is carried out by Hashshashin.

Read about this and the events surrounding it in Richard Warren Field's The Swords of Faith.

More llike it at medieval-novels.com with over 1500 novels and movies set in the Middle Ages.

27 April 1509 Talk About Overkill

27 April 1509 - Pope Julius II places the Italian state of Venice under interdict. As i said the other day, that ruined the day for hundreds of thousands of people!

Yeah, that's the same pope as in The Agony and the Ecstacy, and you can read much more about him in Julius II: The Warrior Pope

Beloved Pilgrim, by Nan Hawthorne, a novel of the Crusade of 1101, is now available on Amazon.com.

26 April 1564 Little Latin and No Greek

26 April 1564 - Birth of William Shakespeare, English poet and playwright (baptism) (d. 1616)

It would almost be easier to list books NOT about Shakespeare, but here are a few:  Nothing Like the Sun (Norton Paperback Fiction)by Anthony Burgess; The Players: A Novel of the Young Shakespeare by Stephanie Cowell; and Jess Winfield's My Name Is Will: A Novel of Sex, Drugs, and Shakespeare, not to mention the movie Shakespeare in Love.

Find out what Will and Elisabeth may have had in common in Nan Hawthorne's Beloved Pilgrim, now available on Amazon.com.

25 April 1565 An Unparalleled Love Story

25 April 1565 - Death of Diane de Poitiers, mistress of King Henry II of France (b. 1499)

Read her story as told by Diane Haegar in Courtesan: A Novel.

And read Elisabeth von Winterkirche's story by Nan Hawthorne in Beloved Pilgrim, now available at Amazon.com.

24 April 1558 A Cetacean Bridegroom

The Life of Mary: Queen of
Scots: An Accidental Tragedy
by Roderick Graham

24 April 1558 - Mary Queen of Scots marries the Dauphin of France, François, at Notre Dame de Paris.

She wrote poetry!  Bittersweet within My Heart: The Love Poems of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Beloved Pilgrim, a novel by Nan Hawthorne of the doomed Crusade of 1101, is available now at Amazon.com.

23 April 1014 Oh Kincorra!

23 April 1014 - Battle of Clontarf: Brian Boru defeats the Norse rulers of Dublin and their allies, but is killed in battle.

Read Lion of Ireland by Morgan Llywelyn and Edward Rutherfurd's The Princes of Ireland for excellent fictional accounts of the historical battle.  Or listen to his march!  Brian Boru's March.

Beloved Pilgrim, a novel by Nan Hawthorne of the doomed Crusade of 1101, is available now at Amazon.com.

22 April 1451 Did Columbus Send Her a Brithday Card?

22 April 1451  Birth of Queen Isabella I of Castile (d. 1504)

Read a short story that posits a different story about Isabella in Time Well Bent: Queer Alternative Histories from Lethe Press.

And read about a similar love as part of Beloved Pilgrim, a novel by Nan Hawthorne of the doomed Crusade of 1101, is available now at Amazon.com.

21 April 1142 More Sinned Against than Sinning? Or Not?

21 April 1142 - Pierre Abélard, French writer and philospher, dies in 1142 (b. 1079)

Read the love story of Héloise and Abelard in Madeline Hunter's Stealing Heaven.  It's a movie too: Stealing Heaven (Em Nome De Deus) - Import, All Regions.  You can even read their letters in The Letters of Abelard and Heloise.

Read another unusual love story in Beloved Pilgrim, a novel by Nan Hawthorne of the doomed Crusade of 1101, is available now at Amazon.com.