Cathedral of the bishop of Exeter, who condemned the order in 1348

The Order of Brothelyngham was a gang of men who, in mid-14th-century England, formed themselves into a fake religious order in Exeter, Devon. Styling themselves as theatrical players, they terrorised, kidnapped and extorted the locals. They may well have been satirising the church, which was commonly perceived as corrupt. The group appears to have named itself after a non-existent place, "Brothelyngham". The name was probably meant as an allusion to the Order of Sempringham, which was known to enclose both monks and nuns on the same premises. Members of the Order of Brothelyngham dressed as monks. They supposedly elected a madman to rule them as their abbot, possibly from a theatrical stage, and bore their ruler aloft before them in a mockery of a bishop's throne. As one of the few such gangs known to modern historians, the order is considered significant for what it suggests of anticlerical activities and attitudes in England during the period. (Full article...)

Mugshot of Pep

• ... that Pep (pictured) was falsely accused of murdering a cat and sent to Eastern State Penitentiary?
• ... that color-changing cats could help us communicate with the future?
• ... that the charm quark made physicists eat hats?
• ... that ur mum has an eleven-second scream?
• ... that the White Dagoba at Lianxing Temple was probably not originally made of an enormous pile of salt?
• ... that no one laughed at the worst joke in legal history?
• ... that when Olivia Rodrigo spilled her guts, her obsession came out?
• ... that you could be sentenced to serve time in prison for stuffing cookies?
• ... that a blizzard helped end the Cold War?
• ... that Colin Mackay, the political editor at Scottish Television, was "very sad" when Colin MacKay, the political editor at Scottish Television, died?

Wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge

• A bus falls from a bridge in Limpopo, South Africa, killing 45 people.
• The Francis Scott Key Bridge in the U.S. city of Baltimore collapses (wreckage pictured) after being hit by a container ship.
• Bassirou Diomaye Faye is elected President of Senegal.
• A mass shoot­ing and ex­plo­sions kill 143 people at the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, Russia.

April 1: April Fools' Day; Iranian Islamic Republic Day (1979)

Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

• 1871 – The Duke of Buckingham (pictured) opened the first section of the Brill Tramway, a short railway line to transport goods between his lands and the national rail network.
• 1952 – Israel enacted a citizenship law, prior to which the country technically had no citizens.
• 1969 – The Hawker Siddeley Harrier, the first operational fighter aircraft with V/STOL capabilities, entered service with the Royal Air Force.
• 2001 – Same-sex marriage in the Netherlands was legalised, with the country becoming the first to do so.