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Meurig ab Arthfael was a king in south-east Wales in the Early Middle Ages. In the ninth century, the Kingdom of Gwent was divided between Glywysing, which had a higher status, and a smaller Gwent, covering the area which is now Monmouthshire. Historians disagree whether Meurig was king of Glywysing, with authority across south-east Wales, or only of Gwent. The twelfth-century Book of Llandaff records charters in which Meurig granted land to bishops or guaranteed grants by others. Two charters state that he freed all churches from obligations to laymen; in the view of the historian Wendy Davies, he was one of the few kings recorded in the charters who attempted to guarantee ecclesiastical immunity from widespread lawlessness and arbitrary use of power. Historians disagree on when he died. Deaths of kings called Meurig are recorded in 849 and 874; some historians date Meurig ab Arthfael's death definitely to 874, but others think that it is possible that he was the Meurig who died in 849. (Full article...)

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On this day

July 11: Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Genocide in Poland

Leicester balloon riot, 1864

1833 – Yagan, a Noongar warrior wanted for leading attacks on British colonists in Western Australia, was killed, becoming a symbol of the unjust and sometimes brutal treatment of indigenous Australians by colonial settlers.
1864 – A riot broke out in Leicester, England, at the failed launching of a gas balloon (pictured).
1936 – New York City's Triborough Bridge, the "biggest traffic machine ever built", opened to traffic.
1960 – To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel by Harper Lee featuring themes of racial injustice and the loss of innocence in the Deep South of America, was published.
1991 – Shortly after taking off from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 caught fire and crashed, killing all 261 people on board.

Iskaq Tjokrohadisurjo (b. 1896)
Giorgio Armani (b. 1934)
Lady Bird Johnson (d. 2007)
Satoru Iwata (d. 2015)

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Today's featured picture

Arthur Tedder, 1st Baron Tedder (11 July 1890 – 3 June 1967), was a senior British air commander who played a significant role in the Allied victory in the Second World War. After serving in the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War, he rose to command RAF Middle East Command, where his organisational reforms and the "Tedder Carpet" bombing tactic helped secure victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein. He later served as deputy to Dwight D. Eisenhower during the Allied invasion of France, and went on to sign the German Instrument of Surrender on Eisenhower's behalf. After the war, Tedder became Chief of the Air Staff and later Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. He was elevated to the peerage in 1946. This photograph, in the collection of the Imperial War Museum, shows Tedder on the Italian coast in December 1943. At that time, he held the rank of air chief marshal, and later that month returned to Britain to take up his appointment as deputy commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces.

Photograph credit: unknown; restored by Adam Cuerden

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