Thursday,  March 6, 2014 • Vol. 16--No. 233 • 30 of 32

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edge to do?
• Bring on the rocket cats!
• Fanciful illustrations from a circa-1530 manual on artillery and siege warfare seem to show jet packs strapped to the backs of cats and doves, with the German-language text helpfully advising military commanders to use them to "set fire to a castle or city which you can't get at otherwise."
• Digitized by the University of Pennsylvania, the unusual, full-color illustrations recently caught the attention of an Australian book blog and then found their way to Penn researcher Mitch Fraas, who set out to unravel the mystery.
• "I really didn't know what to make of it," said Fraas, a historian and digital humanities expert at the Penn library. "It clearly looks like there's some sort of jet of fire coming out of a device strapped to these animals."

Today in History

• The Associated Press
• Today is Thursday, March 6, the 65th day of 2014. There are 300 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:
On March 6, 1836, the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, fell to Mexican forces after a 13-day siege.

On this date:
In 1834, the city of York in Upper Canada was incorporated as Toronto.
• In 1853, Verdi's opera "La Traviata" premiered in Venice, Italy.
• In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford that Scott, a slave, was not an American citizen and could not sue for his freedom in federal court.
• In 1912, Oreo sandwich cookies were first introduced by the National Biscuit Co.
• In 1933, a national bank holiday declared by President Franklin D. Roosevelt aimed at calming panicked depositors went into effect. Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, wounded in an attempt on Roosevelt's life the previous month, died at a Miami hospital at age 59.
• In 1944, U.S. heavy bombers staged the first full-scale American raid on Berlin during World War II.
• In 1953, Georgy Malenkov was named premier of the Soviet Union a day after

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