16 Sunday

April

The emperor Otho, who literally rose to power on his knees before Nero, stabs himself in the heart, 69 A.D.

17 Monday

Constantin Cavafy, Greek poet whose homosexual verses have been appropriately illustrated by English painter David Hockney, born in Alexandria, Egypt, 1863.

18 Tuesday

Vice President William Rufus De Vane King, rumored to be the lover of bachelor President James Buchanan and referred to in his day as "Miss Nancy," dies at Cahauba, Alabama, 1853.

19 Wednesday

After a long court battle in New York, Radclyffe Hall's then-daring lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness is held to be "not obscene," 1929.

20 Thursday

Karl Eitel, the German king of Rumania who was infatuated with two American teen-age boys who exploited him for their mutual benefit before being expelled from the court by the king's ministers in the early 1880s, born in Dresden, 1839.

21 Friday

The Roman statesman Aulus Hirtius, having once taken the young Octavius (Caesar Augustus) to bed for 3,000 pieces of gold, is allegedly murdered by the future emperor to prevent him from ever telling the tale, 43 B.C.

22 Saturday

Passover

James Buchanan:

Was the President's First Lady a man?

Bram Stoker, umarried author of Dracula, whose long career as the manager-companion of actor Henry Irving and whose fan letters to Walt Whitman are ripe for speculation, dies in London, 1912.