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Catherine de' Medici (1519–1589) was queen consort of King Henry II of France from 1547 to 1559. Throughout Henry II's reign, he excluded Catherine from influence and instead showered favours on his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Henry's death in 1559 thrust Catherine into the political arena as mother of the frail fifteen-year-old King Francis II. When he died in 1560, she became regent on behalf of her ten-year-old son King Charles IX and was granted sweeping powers. After Charles died in 1574, Catherine played a key role in the reign of her third son, Henry III. He dispensed with her advice only in the last months of her life. Catherine's three sons reigned in an age of almost constant civil and religious war in France. The problems facing the monarchy were complex and daunting. At first, Catherine compromised and made concessions to the rebelling Protestants, or Huguenots, as they became known. Later, she resorted in frustration and anger to hard-line policies against them. Her policies may be seen as desperate measures to keep the Valois monarchy on the throne at all costs, and her spectacular patronage of the arts as an attempt to glorify a monarchy whose prestige was in steep decline. Without Catherine, it is unlikely that her sons would have remained in power. The years in which they reigned have been called "the age of Catherine de' Medici". (more...)

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October 7: Feast Day of St. Osyth

• 1542 – Explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo became the first European to set foot on Santa Catalina Island off the coast of California.
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• 1849 – American writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe died under mysterious circumstances at Washington Medical College after being found four days earlier on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland, in a delirious and incoherent state.
• 1967 – Marxist revolutionary and guerrilla leader Che Guevara was captured near La Higuera, Bolivia.
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