On This Day
1479 – The Treaty of Constantinople ends the 16-year-long First Ottoman–Venetian War.[5]
The Treaty of Constantinople was signed on 25 January 1479, which officially ended the sixteen-year-long war between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire. The Venetians were forced to hand over Scutari (which had been besieged by the Ottomans for many months) in Albania and the island of Lemnos and the Mani Peninsula in Greece; and acknowledge the loss of Negroponte (Euboea) and Croia. The treaty allowed a full restoration of Venetian trading privileges in the Ottoman Empire against an annual flat tax of 10,000 ducats, as well as a 100,000 ducats in arrears owed by Venetian citizens to the Porte.
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1564 – The Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeats the Tsardom of Russia in the Battle of Ula during the Livonian War.[5]
The Battle of the Ula or Battle of Chashniki was fought during the Livonian War on 26 January 1564 between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Tsardom of Russia on the Ula River [be] (tributary of the Daugava River) north of Chashniki in the Vitebsk Region.[1] The Russian troops, unarmed and moving in a loose formation, were taken by complete surprise and defeated, losing their large wagon train.
1343 – Pope Clement VI issues the papal bull Unigenitus, laying out the scriptural justification for indulgences, identifying only the Pope and episcopate as capable of accessing the treasury of merit, and establishing a jubilee year every half century.[5]
Unigenitus (named for its Latin opening words Unigenitus Dei filius, or “Only-begotten Son of God”) is a papal bull promulgated by Pope Clement VI on January 27, 1343. It designated the year 1350 as a year of Jubilee and set the tradition for a Jubilee to be held every fifty years.
Born On This Day
1459 – Paul Hofhaimer, Austrian organist and composer (d. 1537)[24]
Paul Hofhaimer (25 January 1459 – 1537) was an Austrian organist and composer. He was particularly gifted at improvisation, and was regarded as the finest organist of his age by many writers, including Vadian and Paracelsus; in addition he was one of only two German-speaking composers of the time (Heinrich Isaac was the other) who had a reputation in Europe outside of German-speaking countries. He is grouped among the composers known as the Colorists.
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1549 – Jakob Ebert, German theologian (d. 1614)[57]
Jakob Ebert (26 January 1549 – 5 February 1614) was a German theologian and poet.
1546 – Joachim III Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg (d. 1608)
Joachim Frederick (27 January 1546 – 18 July 1608), of the House of Hohenzollern, was Prince-elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg from 1598 until his death.
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FYI
NASA: Astronomy Picture of the Day
EarthSky News
This Day in Tech History
This Day In History
Interesting Facts
Word Genius: Word of the Day
Wise Trivia
When the internet feels like a bit of a dystopian nightmare, you know you’re always welcome here. Make yourself at home.
I’m not breaking up with the internet. I still love it and I don’t actually know where I, or many of my creative friends and small businesses, would be without it. I know it still has secret gardens and hidden springs of inspiration if you know where to look. But lately, it does feel like we need to work so much harder to harness the positive powers of our wi-fi connection.
I have a few thoughts to help us curb anxiety when using the world wide web:
Play Wikipedia roulette. Many of my most interesting finds end up in your weekly 13 Things I Found on the Internet Today.
Post some art that you like. Help make the internet a more visually inspiring place by curating your own little virtual art galleries. Introduce friends to an artist they might never have seen.
Recommend a book or a small museum. Keep sharing the stories about the unsung heroes our history books forgot.
Let the media worry and chatter about whether Tik Tok is shutting down, and instead, let’s get out there and support the small brick and mortar businesses in our towns (because they’re all on the brink of shutting down). Then, use whatever social media platform is available to encourage others to do the same.
Dive into obscure digital archives. Choose a niche object and digitally collect it on Pinterest. Find comfort in Youtube’s kitchen with some Italian nonnas making the world’s rarest pasta.
Start a community crafts night (IRL) and use social media to invite your neighbours. I’ll go first: next week here in Paris, we’re spending an evening at Messy Nessy’s Cabinet embroidering bookmarks guided by local collective, Idle Hands Paris. There are still a few spots left.
Find a great deal and book yourself a wild card weekend far in advance. Pick a place, any place and I probably have some recommendations for it in the A-Z Travel Directory.
Make a playlist for your upcoming trip. And in the meantime, start armchair travelling.
Like most things, our digital garden just needs tending to.
Stay curious,
Nessy
By Reece Roogers, Wired: How to Use Stolen Device Protection on Apple’s iPhone
Whether you’re worried about a new iPhone or the Apple smartphone you’ve had for ages, activating Stolen Device Protection can limit what thieves can access.
Posts from swissmiss for 01/27/2025
Nick J. Freitas: My annual message on gas cans and why the government sucks.
Cleared Hot Podcast: Episode 371 – Kegan Gill
You call them swear words I call them sentence enhancers.
Unknown
Ideas
By AnnaliseP1: Embroidered Corner Bookmarks
Recipes
By In The Kitchen With Matt: How to Cook Popcorn in a Skillet
Simply Recipes: The 21 Best Chili Recipes Ever
Food Talk Daily: 10 Of The Web’s Most Googled Recipes
Desserts With Stephanie: Smores Pie – No Bake, Easy and Delicious
Just the Recipe: Paste the URL to any recipe, click submit, and it’ll return literally JUST the recipe- no ads, no life story of the writer, no nothing EXCEPT the recipe.
DamnDelicious
RecipeTinEats
- Spinach French Onion Cob Dip – Australia’s favourite dip! June 19, 2026Meet Australia’s favourite dip!!! This Spinach French Onion Cob Dip is made using a French Onion Soup mix and is served in a cob bread loaf. It is unapologetically retro, gloriously unfashionable, breaks every real-food rule I preach, and is completely addictive!! Spinach French Onion Cob Dip This dip has been a fixture at Australian... […]Nagi
- Easy Slow Cooker BBQ Shredded Beef June 16, 2026Slow Cooker BBQ Shredded Beef is what you make when you want a big batch of crowd-pleasing food with relatively little effort. The succulent pulled beef is smothered in an incredible homemade barbecue sauce, and there’s so many ways to serve it – pile into sliders, heap onto plates or stuff into baked potatoes! Easy... […]Nagi
wikimedia
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for June 20 June 20, 2026Picture of the day Flower of a Geranium sanguineum, bloody crane's-bill. Focus stack of 51 photos.
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for June 19 June 19, 2026Picture of the day Alley on Escheckstraße (and part of the cuckoo clock trail), Schönwald im Schwarzwald, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
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Welcome to the Stump the Bookseller blog!
Stump the Bookseller is a service offered by Loganberry Books to reconnect people to the books they love but can’t quite remember. In brief (for more detailed information see our About page), people can post their memories here, and the hivemind goes to work. After all, the collective mind of bibliophiles, readers, parents and librarians around the world is much better than just a few of us thinking. Together with these wonderful Stumper Magicians, we have a nearly 50% success rate in finding these long lost but treasured books. The more concrete the book description, the better the success rate, of course. It is a labor of love to keep it going, and there is a modest fee. Please see the How To page to find price information and details on how to submit your Book Stumper and payment.
Thanks to everyone involved to keep this forum going: our blogging team, the well-read Stumper Magicians, the many referrals, and of course to everyone who fondly remembers the wonder of books from their childhood and wants to share or revisit that wonder. Isn’t it amazing, the magic of a book?