Today in history—May 14

1265: Soldier, politician, bureaucrat, pharmacist, and poet Dante Alighieri is born at Florence.

1643: Four year old Louis XIV—who may or may not have actually said, “L’état, c’est moi!”—ascends the French throne he will hold for 72 years.

1787: Delegates meet in Philadelphia for the opening of a new Constitutional Convention.

1870: Nelson College and the Nelson Rugby Football Club play the first rugby match in New Zealand.

1906: Carl Schurz, the exiled German revolutionary who became a Wisconsin lawyer, Civil War general, diplomat, newspaper editor, cabinet secretary, and U.S. Senator from Missouri, dies at New York City.

1913: The Rockefeller Foundation, endowed with $100 million by old John D., comes into being.

1936: Joe Webb will get the pension he says he was promised, as the Alabama Supreme Court releases its decision in Webb v. McGowin.

1944: Film mogul George Lucas is born at Modesto, California. He’s famous for his films, but the real money comes from his Industrial Light & Magic, THX, and Lucasfilm operations—and he also founded what became Pixar.

1983: Former California Chief Justice Roger John Traynor (Boalt Hall 1927) dies at Berkeley, California.

1998: After a nine-year run, the popular television series Seinfeld hits the trail for syndication re-runs.