Interesting Facts

3rd June 1539 – Hernando De Soto, Spanish explorer and conquistador, claimed Florida for Spain. 1839 – Lin Tse-hsü destroyed 1.2 million kg of opium in Humen, confiscated from British merchants, providing Britain with a Casus belli to open hostilities with China, resulting in the First Opium War. 1924 – Franz Kafka died. 1937 – The Duke of Windsor married Wallis Simpson. 1940 – The Luftwaffe bombed Paris. 1946 - The first (modern) bikini bathing suit was displayed in Paris. Where else? 1956 – British Rail renamed 'Third Class' passenger facilities as 'Second Class'. Second Class facilities had been abolished in 1875, leaving just First Class and Third Class. (That's Britain for you.) 1989 – Troops attempted to force protesters out of Tiananmen Square after seven weeks of occupation.

Kafka, a Prague native who wrote in German, was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, best known for his surreal tales he wrote classics like "The Metamorphosis," in which a salesman wakes up transformed into a giant insect, and "The Trial," where a bank clerk is put through an excruciating trial without ever being told the charges against him. (Interestingly a horde of his writings are caught up in a Trial of there own. Papers, retrieved from bank vaults where they have sat untouched and unread for decades, could shed new light on one of literature's darkest figures, but they won't see the light of day until an Israeli court unravels the tangled question of the collection's rightful owner.) Full story here.