Year 876 was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. At the invitation of Benevento, the newly-restored Byzantine fleet appears in the waters off Otranto. On the orders of Emperor Basil I, the Byzantines sail up the Adriatic Sea and reconquer part of southern Italy; the city of Bari is occupied in the name of the Byzantine Empire. Instead of holding it for his'ally' Adelchis of Benevento, Basil makes it the capital of the new Byzantine Theme of Longobardia. August 28 – King Louis the German dies at Frankfurt, while preparing for war against his brother Charles II, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire; the East Frankish Kingdom is divided among his three sons: Carloman receives Bavaria and styles himself "King of Bavaria". Louis the Younger receives Saxony, Charles the Fat receives Swabia. October 8 – Battle of Andernach: Frankish forces, led by Louis the Younger, prevent a West Frankish invasion and defeat Charles II at Andernach; the Rhineland remains part of the East Frankish Kingdom.

The Great Summer Army, led by Guthrum, captures the fortress of Wareham, is met by a Viking army from the sea, which lands at Poole Harbour. King Alfred the Great traps the Vikings, demands hostages in return for a peace agreement; the Danes divide their forces. Viking leader Halfdan Ragnarsson formally establishes the Danish kingdom of York, after the removal of the puppet king Ricsige of Northumbria, becomes the first monarch. April 8 – Battle of Dayr al-'Aqul: Abbasid forces, led by Al-Muwaffaq, halt a Saffarid invasion on the River Tigris. Emir Ya'qub ibn al-Layth tries to capture the Abbasid Caliphate's capital of Baghdad, but he is forced, with his army, to retreat. Emperor Seiwa abdicates the throne, in favor of his 7-year-old son Yōzei. Seiwa becomes a Buddhist priest. June – Synod of Ponthion: Charles II summons a council, in which a papal brief is read from Pope John VIII, he appoints Ansegisus as papal primate over Gaul, in the West Frankish Kingdom. John VIII travels throughout Campania, in an effort to form an alliance among the southern Italian states against Muslim raids.

Eutychius, patriarch of Alexandria Henry the Fowler, king of Germany John of Rila, Bulgarian hermit Lu Wenji, Chinese chancellor Toda, queen of Pamplona January 31 – Hemma of Altdorf, Frankish queen August 28 – Louis the German, king of the East Frankish Kingdom Bagrat I, prince of Iberia Bodo, Frankish deacon Conrad I, Frankish nobleman Conrad II, Frankish nobleman Domagoj, duke of Croatia Donatus of Fiesole, Irish bishop Gurvand, duke of Brittany Heiric of Auxerre, Frankish theologian and writer Hessel Hermana, Frisian governor Pascweten, duke of Brittany Pyinbya, king of Burma Raganar, Frankish nobleman Wulfad, Frankish archbishop

The Malleus Maleficarum translated as the Hammer of Witches, is the best known treatise on witchcraft. It was written by the Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer and first published in the German city of Speyer in 1486, it endorses extermination of witches and for this purpose develops a detailed legal and theological theory. It has been described as the compendium of literature in demonology of the fifteenth century; the top theologians of the Inquisition at the Faculty of Cologne condemned the book as recommending unethical and illegal procedures, as well as being inconsistent with Catholic doctrines of demonology. The Malleus elevates sorcery to the criminal status of heresy and recommends that secular courts prosecute it as such in order to eliminate witches; the recommended procedures include torture to obtain confessions and the death penalty as the only sure remedy against the evils of witchcraft. At that time, it was typical to burn heretics alive at the stake and the Malleus encouraged the same treatment of witches.

The book had a strong influence on culture for several centuries. Jacob Sprenger's name was added as an author beginning in 1519, 33 years after the book's first publication and 24 years after Sprenger's death. Kramer wrote the Malleus following his expulsion from Innsbruck by the local bishop, due to charges of illegal behavior against Kramer himself, because of Kramer's obsession with the sexual habits of one of the accused, Helena Scheuberin, which led the other tribunal members to suspend the trial, it was used by royal courts during the Renaissance, contributed to the brutal prosecution of witchcraft during the 16th and 17th centuries. Witchcraft had long been forbidden by the Church, whose viewpoint on the subject was explained in the Canon Episcopi written in about AD 900, it stated that witchcraft and magic were delusions and that those who believed in such things "had been seduced by the Devil in dreams and visions". However, in the same period supernatural intervention was accepted in the form of ordeals that were also used during witch trials.

Possessions by the Devil are considered real in present times by some Christians and it is an element of doctrine that demons may be cast out by appropriate sacramental exorcisms. In the Malleus, exorcism is, for example, one of the five ways to overcome the attacks of incubi. Prayer and transubstantiation are excluded from the category of magical rites, as they emanate from God. In 1484 clergyman Heinrich Kramer made one of the first attempts at prosecuting alleged witches in the Tyrol region, it was not a success: he was expelled from the city of Innsbruck and dismissed by the local bishop as "senile and crazy". According to Diarmaid MacCulloch, writing the book was Kramer's act of self-justification and revenge. Ankarloo and Clark claim that Kramer's purpose in writing the book was to explain his own views on witchcraft, systematically refute arguments claiming that witchcraft did not exist, discredit those who expressed skepticism about its reality, claim that those who practised witchcraft were more women than men, to convince magistrates to use Kramer's recommended procedures for finding and convicting witches.

Some scholars have suggested that following the failed efforts in Tyrol, Kramer requested explicit authority from the Pope to prosecute witchcraft. Kramer received a papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus in 1484, it gave full papal approval for the Inquisition to prosecute what was deemed to be witchcraft in general and gave individual authorizations to Kramer and Dominican Friar Jacob Sprenger specifically. Other scholars have disputed the idea that Sprenger was working with Kramer, arguing that the evidence shows that Sprenger was a persistent opponent of Kramer going so far as to ban him from Dominican convents within Sprenger's jurisdiction while banning him from preaching. In the words of Wolfgang Behringer: Sprenger had tried to suppress Kramer's activities in every possible way, he forbade the convents of his province to host him, he forbade Kramer to preach, tried to interfere directly in the affairs of Kramer's Séléstat convent... The same day Sprenger became successor to Jacob Strubach as provincial superior, he obtained permission from his general, Joaquino Turriani, to lash out adversus m Henricum Institoris inquisitorem.

The preface includes an alleged unanimous approbation from the University of Cologne's Faculty of Theology. Many historians have argued that it is well established by sources outside the Malleus that the university's theology faculty condemned the book for unethical procedures and for contradicting Catholic theology on a number of important points: "just for good measure Institoris forged a document granting their unanimous approbation." The book became the handbook for secular courts throughout Renaissance Europe, but was not used by the Inquisition, which "denied any authority to the Malleus" in the words of historian Wolfgang Behringer. In modern times, the book has been viewed as a typical inquisitorial manual, a perception that many historians have refuted. According to historian Jenny Gibbons:in the 1970s, when feminist and Neo-Pagan authors turned their attention to the witch trials, the Malleus Maleficarum was the only manual available in translation. Authors naively assumed that the book painted an accurate picture of how the Inquisition tried witches.

Heinrich Kramer, the text's demented author, was held up as a typical inquisitor. His rather stunning sexual preoccupations were pre

Oliver Bronson was an American physician and educator, "heir to a wealthy Connecticut financier and real estate speculator." Bronson was born on October 3, 1799, at Breakneck in Middlebury and was named after his parent's first son who died in infancy. He was eldest surviving son of ten children born to Anna Bronson and Isaac Bronson, a surgeon during the American Revolutionary War, a successful banker and land speculator credited with co-founding the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company and Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company. Among his siblings was sister Maria Bronson and Frederic Bronson Sr.. His maternal grandfather was Thomas Olcott and his paternal grandparents were Captain Isaac Bronson and Mary Bronson. Through his brother Frederic, he was an uncle of prominent lawyer Frederic Bronson, who married Sarah Gracie King. Bronson attended Yale University and graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons a part of Columbia University, in 1818, his father used his insurance companies to finance the purchase of nearly a third of a million acres in multiple states.

Oliver and his younger brothers Arthur and Frederic aided their father in the land speculation business. From 1851 to 1854, Oliver was the first superintendent of schools in Hudson, New York, was a shareholder in the Hudson Gas Company. Bronson was described by Isabel Donaldson Bronson as "a cultivated, intelligent man, well-educated in his profession both in America & in Paris, his delicate health obliged him to early give up active practice, but to the end of his kind and charitable life he ministered to the poor and lonely. He was a most excellent physician and a most excellent man... He was a serious man, taking a stern view of life in accorance with his strict Presbyterian belief."In November 1868, during Reconstruction following the end of the U. S. Civil War, Bronson was appointed the first superintendent of the new St. Johns County School System in St. Johns County, Florida and by March 1869, the school board was appointed. Before the Civil War, Bronson had contact with Buckingham Smith and Sarah Mather, who may have been the instigators of bringing Bronson to St. Johns.

In Florida, they bought a house and lived in St. Augustine, Florida In 1838, Bronson purchased the former home and estate of Samuel Plumb in Hudson, New York, from Robert Frary, he hired architect Alexander Jackson Davis to updated and expand the Federal-style villa, built on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River's South bay, Andrew Jackson Downing to do the landscaping and gardens. The house, completed in 1849, is an early example of the Hudson River Bracketed style and features a three-story bracket tower, semi-octagonal rooms, bays and an ornamental veranda. In 1849, Bronson acquired an additional 29 acres south of his original purchase, reuniting the original estate land, excluded in his first purchase, bringing the estate up to 50 acres. Bronson sold the house in 1853 to Frederick Fitch Folger, returned to Connecticut; the house and surrounding landscape had been painted by William Guy Wall in 1819, today the watercolor is in the possession of the New-York Historical Society. Portions of the property became the site of the New York Training School for Girls, established in the 1860s at a site southwest of the estate, with the Bronson House serving as the residence of the school's director until c. 1970.

The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2003. On May 15, 1833, Bronson was married to Joanna Donaldson at the Murray Street Presbyterian Church in New York. Joanna, born in North Carolina, was the daughter of Sarah Donaldson and Robert Donaldson Sr. a Scottish born merchant, the younger sister of Robert Donaldson Jr. a prominent banker and patron of the arts. Together, they were the parents of: Isaac Bronson, a lawyer who married Harriet Whitney Phoenix, daughter of U. S. Representative Jonas P. Phoenix and granddaughter of Stephen Whitney, at St. Paul's Chapel in New York on March 1, 1859. Harriet died of diphtheria in Baden-Baden, five years after their marriage, during the Civil War. After her death, he married Alice Whetten. Oliver Bronson, a graduate of Williams College and Harvard Law School who married Julia Frances Colt at Trinity Church on June 2, 1870, he was a St. Johns County Commissioner during Reconstruction. Willett Bronson, who married Margaret O'Farrell on November 16, 1871.

He was a lawyer and real estate investor who went bankrupt by 1883 after buying up-town lots and having houses built on them in New York. Robert Donaldson Bronson, who married his cousin Isabel Donaldson; the painting was acquired by Richard Jenrette and displayed at his residence in the Hudson Valley, Edgewater in Barrytown, New York. Bronson died on June 1875, in Richfield Springs in Otsego County, New York. After a funeral at the Church of the Strangers, a church for Southerners in New York, he was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Less than a year after his death, his widow died on February 1876, in Baltimore, Maryland. Through his son Oliver, he was a grandfather, namesake, of Oliver Bronson, who died young, Francis Philip Bronson. Oliver Bronson at Find a Grave Bronson family papers 1790-1875 at the New York Public Library

Rear-Admiral Valentine Collard was a Royal Navy officer of the early nineteenth century, best known for his service in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Born into a naval family, Collard served at numerous engagements of the wars, including the Siege of Toulon, operations against Corsica, the Battle of Cape St Vincent, the Siege of Genoa, the Battle of Copenhagen and numerous smaller actions off the Netherlands, Egypt and in the Baltic Sea, his last active service came in 1810. In his years he suffered severe ill-health and the loss of his first and second wives, leading him to commit suicide. Valentine Collard was born in 1770 into a naval family: two of his uncles were Admiral Sampson Edwards and Captain Valentine Edwards, killed in a shipwreck in 1794. Pursuing a naval career, Collard first appears in the records as a midshipman at the end of the American War of Independence in 1783. For four years he was under his uncle Captain Valentine Edwards in HMS Shark off Scotland before taking a position on HMS Champion with Sampson Edwards.

He served in HMS Iphigenia, at the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793 was transferred to HMS St George in the Mediterranean. There he took part in the Siege of Toulon engaging French Republican artillery along the siege lines, in October 1793 was with the force that captured a French ship lying in Genoa harbour at the Action of 5 October 1793. In November 1793, while stationed in Sardinia, Collard was promoted to lieutenant and joined HMS Tartar before receiving his own small command, the schooner Petite Boston, which participated in the Siege of Bastia and Siege of Calvi on Corsica, he spent two years on HMS Eclair before joining HMS Britannia as senior lieutenant. Britannia was subsequently engaged at the Battle of Cape St Vincent in February 1797 and Collard was promoted to commander as a reward, he was in command of HMS Fortune, wrecked off Portugal before joining the small frigate HMS Vestal and participating in the Siege of Genoa and the blockade of Egypt, capturing a storeship in 1801.

The frigate was paid off in 1802 at the Peace of Collard entered the reserve. In 1804 Collard was returned to service and joined the fleet under Lord Keith as captain of the brig HMS Railleur and the explosion vessel HMS St Vincent, he served off the Dutch coast and captured a number of small vessels and military equipment in April 1805. He commanded a squadron of armed vessels on the Weser River as part of the defence of Hanover. In 1806 and 1807 he was placed in command of squadrons of small warships that escorted merchant shipping through the Baltic Sea, joining with the fleet under James Gambier that fought in the Battle of Copenhagen, he served in a number of temporary captaincies, including postings to HMS Majestic, HMS Gibraltar and HMS Dreadnought before he retired from the sea in 1810. Collard retired to Teddington in Middlesex with his first wife, who died in 1821, he remarried in 1823 to May Ann Kempster, who died in 1844. The loss of his second wife drove him into depression, during which he suffered from apoplexy and committed suicide in March 1846 aged 76.

Collard had remained in the Navy after and continued gaining seniority becoming a rear-admiral in 1841. Throughout his career, Collard was a popular officer, who gained the nickname "the animated life-boat" after rescuing men who fell overboard from his ship on two separate occasions. "Obituary". The Gentleman's Magazine. XXV: 555. January–June 1846. Retrieved on 8 September 2010 O'Byrne, William Richard. "Collard, Valentine". A Naval Biographical Dictionary. John Murray – via Wikisource. Marshall, John. Royal Naval Biography. London: Longman, Orme and Green. P. 221. Valentine Collard

Kermia episema is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Raphitomidae. The length of the shell attains its diameter 1.25 mm. This neat little species has the usual fusiform shape, it contains exclusive of the apical, not present in our specimens. The whorls are clathrate, with longitudinal ribs and spiral lirae, these being pale ochreous-white, the interstices darker ochreous; the body whorl is prolonged and sculptured in the same way as the upper whorls. One or two of the longitudinal ribs seem thicker than the others, giving a slightly varicose appearance; the columellar margin is straight, six denticled. The outer lip is incrassate, six denticled within; the sinus is large. This marine species occurs off Taiwan to Australia. Catalogue and Bibliography of the Marine Shell-Bearing Mollusca of Japan. Elle Scientific Publications, Japan, 749 pp. Liu J. Y... Checklist of marine biota of China seas. China Science Press. 1267 pp. Tucker, J. K.. "Catalog of recent and fossil turrids".

Zootaxa. 682: 1–1295. Gastropods.com: Kermia episema Hedley, C. 1922. A revision of the Australian Turridae. Records of the Australian Museum 13: 213-359, pls 42-56 This article incorporates text from this source, in the public domain

Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court involving the doctrines of qualified immunity and absolute immunity. A. Ernest Fitzgerald filed a lawsuit against government officials claiming that he lost his position as a contractor with the United States Air Force because of whistleblower testimony made before Congress in 1969.. Absolute immunity was claimed by the officials involved, including Richard Nixon and several of his aides, generating several additional cases which made their way to the Supreme Court. While Nixon, named in the lawsuit, was found to have absolute immunity in his role as president, as decided in Nixon vs. Fitzgerald, Harlow vs. Fitzgerald examined whether this degree of immunity extended to the president's aides. In an 8 to 1 decision, the court held that government officials other than the president were entitled to qualified immunity. An official can obtain absolute immunity, but must "first show that the responsibilities of his office embraced a function so sensitive as to require a total shield from liability.

He must demonstrate that he was discharging the protected function when performing the act for which liability is asserted." Despite its immediate application to White House aides in the case at bar, the case is regarded as most important for its revision of the qualified immunity standard, applicable to government actors more generally. The Court held that "government officials performing discretionary functions are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Text of Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800 is available from: Justia Library of Congress Oyez