Today is the birthday, in 1818, of Lucy Stone. She was was an American orator, abolitionist and suffragist who was a vocal advocate for and organizer of promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women’s rights and against slavery. Stone was known for using her birth name, after marriage, contrary to the custom of women taking their husband’s surname.
Stone’s organizational activities for the cause of women’s rights yielded tangible gains in the difficult political environment of the 19th century. Stone helped initiate the first National Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts, and she supported and sustained it, annually, along with a number of other local, regional, and state activist conventions. She assisted in establishing the Woman’s National Loyal League to help pass the Thirteenth Amendment and thereby abolish slavery, after which she helped form the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), which built support for a woman suffrage Constitutional amendment by winning woman suffrage at the local and state levels.
Stone wrote, extensively, about a wide range of women’s rights, publishing and distributing speeches by herself and others, and convention proceedings. In the long-running and influential Woman’s Journal, a weekly periodical that she founded and promoted, Stone aired both her own and differing views about women’s rights. Called “the orator”, the “morning star,” and the “heart and soul” of the women’s rights movement, Stone influenced Susan B. Anthony to take up the cause of women’s suffrage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote that “Lucy Stone was the first person by whom the heart of the American public was deeply stirred on the woman question.” Together, Anthony, Stanton, and Stone have been called the 19th-century “triumvirate” of women’s suffrage and feminism.
Daguerreotype of Lucy Stone, American suffragist
Coldplay Cam…
I guess we all have to be more cost-conscious…
Teachers must behave!!!!
Hoarder Barbie…
Screenshot
Today is the birthday, in 1938, of American musician Scott Powell, best known as one of the founders of the rock and roll group Sha Na Na. They played at Woodstock Festival, made possible with help from their friend Jimi Hendrix. The group hosted Sha Na Na, a syndicated variety series that ran from 1977 to 1981. The group also appeared in the movie Grease as Johnny Casino & The Gamblers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isvK4PzeA4c
On this day in 30 BC, Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator, last of the Egyptian Ptolemaic Dynasty, committed suicide rather than be displayed in a triumphal parade in Rome. After her death, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, marking the end of the Hellenistic period in the Mediterranean, which had begun during the reign of Alexander.
Cleopatra began her reign alongside her brother Ptolemy XIII, but falling-out between them led to a civil war. Roman statesman Pompey fled to Egypt after losing the 48 BC Battle of Pharsalus against his rival Julius Caesar, the Roman dictator, in Caesar’s civil war. Ptolemy XIII died in the Battle of the Nile. Caesar declared Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIV joint rulers, and maintained a private affair with Cleopatra which produced a son, Caesarion.
In the Liberators’ civil war of 43–42 BC, Cleopatra sided with the Roman Second Triumvirate formed by Caesar’s heir Octavian, Mark Antony, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. After their meeting at Tarsos in 41 BC, the queen had an affair with Antony which produced three children. Antony became increasingly reliant on Cleopatra for both funding and military aid during his invasions of the Parthian Empire and the Kingdom of Armenia.
After defeating Antony and Cleopatra’s naval fleet at the 31 BC Battle of Actium, Octavian’s forces invaded Egypt in 30 BC and defeated Antony, leading to Antony’s suicide. After his death, Cleopatra killed herself, probably by poisoning, to avoid being publicly displayed by Octavian in Roman triumphal procession.
When a spy informed her that Octavian planned to move her and her children to Rome in three days, she prepared for suicide as she had no intentions of being paraded in a Roman triumph like her sister Arsinoe IV. Cleopatra’s physician, Olympos, did not explain her cause of death, although the popular belief is that she allowed an asp or Egyptian cobra to bite and poison her. Plutarch relates this tale, but then suggests an implement (κνῆστις, knêstis, ‘spine, cheese-grater’) was used to introduce the toxin by scratching,; Dio says that she injected the poison with a needle, and Strabo argued for an ointment of some kind. Horace corroborates the common belief that it was a venomous snake, but instead states that it was several (serpentēs, ‘serpents’). Vergil agrees that it was several serpents.
She was an amazing woman who cleverly twisted many leaders of the Roman Empire around her fingers.
The Death of Cleopatra (1658), by Guido Cagnacci
I’ve devised a perfect method to transform beer, wine, and liquor into urine…
Pimp my ride, the early years…
Welcomne…
Dee-Deee-Da-Dee-Dee
Kristi Noem’s brother???
Misogyny…
BADA BING!!!!!
I called my mom to see if she could come pick me up from this sleepover that I wasn’t having fun at. She told me “No way. You’re 38 now and that’s your wife and kids. You have to stay!”
I’m an alpha MAGA. I fear nothing — except trans, gay, Brown, Black, Muslim, and non-American people. Oh, and job numbers, fair elections, vaccines, rainbows, cities, education, socialism, pronouns, democracy, Taylor Swift, and Sesame Street.
True conversation heard at Applebee’s, “She would really like him if it wasn’t for his personality”.
My son proposed to his girlfriend about six months ago. They’re super happy, we love her family too. I just found out today that another girl is in love with him and plans to propose next week. Should I say anything? Oh and also, he’s 4. They’re all 4.
Marriage is realizing that your wife wants you to be quiet, but also talk to her, but also leave her alone, but also give her attention.
I think it’s foolish to spend so much on clothes to impress someone we want to be naked with.
Today I’m choosing kindness, but we’ll see. It’s still early.
My daughter told me she didn’t want to eat pork tongue because it came out of a pigs mouth. So I gave her an egg.
We have instant access to limitless information. It’s SO easy to not be wrong and yet some people stubbornly insist on it.
If we’re ever in a situation where I am the voice of reason, you’d better get yourself an attorney. (Bilbo)
Comedian Steve Hofstetter’s FB page…Gordan to Steve: Your and idiot. Steve: Holy hell. You wrote three words and you got two of them wrong. Bravo.
I took my suit to the cleaners, who wanted to charge me $15.00. So I gave my suit to the charity shop next door. They cleaned and pressed it and put it in the window. I bought it for $4.50!
I just saw this online: “I thought the White House already had a ballroom where they store the testicles of Congressional republicans.”
If you’re trying to distract us from the Epstein files and the fact you’re a rapist, maybe don’t go onto the White House roof. Cuz we’re all gonna call you the “Diddler on the Roof”.
Be decisive. The road of life is paved with flat squirrels who couldn’t make a decision.
Boobs are natures stress balls. Ironically they come attached to the greatest stress creating device known to man.
BEFORE THE INTERNET, MOST PEOPLE THOUGHT VILLAGES ONLY HAD ONE IDIOT. WOW, WE DID NOT HAVE THAT RIGHT.
Pepsi and Coca-Cola can’t even be in the same restaurant. And we want world peace.
I saw a guy at Starbucks today with no iPhone, no tablet, no laptop. He just sat there, drinking coffee, like a psychopath!
My grandson asked, “Do trees poop?”. I said, “That’s where #2 pencils comes from“.
The day they handed out patience, I left because it was taking too long.
Hooked all my wrist watches together and made a belt. Turned out to be a waist of time.
Saw someone taking a leek in the produce section today.
If you exchange two ten cent coins for 4 nickels you have a paradime shift.
Them: I eat mostly whole foods. Me: So do I. Whole pizzas, whole can of biscuits, whole cakes, whole bags of Doritos, whole tub of ice cream.
You can lead a person to the Internet, but you can’t make them think.
Eye drops are technically blinker fluid.
Me in HR office: “Does this rule apply to me?” HR: “A lot of these rules are because of you, so yes.”
Brain dead??
Today is the birthday, in 1963, of Sir Mix-A-Lot, American rapper, songwriter, and record producer who had the 1992 US No.1 single https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w59e20ijOpE
Today is the birthday, in 1667, of Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, last of the Medicis. A patron of the arts, she bequeathed the Medicis’ large art collection, including the contents of the Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti and the Medici villas, which she inherited upon her brother Gian Gastone’s death in 1737, and her Palatine treasures to the Tuscan state, on the condition that no part of it could be removed from “the Capital of the grand ducal State….[and from] the succession of His Serene Grand Duke”.
The House of Medici was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first consolidated power in the Republic of Florence under Cosimo de’ Medici and his grandson Lorenzo “the Magnificent” during the first half of the 15th century. The Medici family financed the construction of Saint Peter’s Basilica and Florence Cathedral, and were patrons of Donatello, Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Machiavelli, Galileo, and Francesco Redi, among many others in the arts and sciences. They funded the invention of the piano, and arguably that of opera.
Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici (1667-1743), Electress of the Palatinate
Ice Cream!
Parking for fat guys who like to grill…
If famous composers were cats…
On July 24th, 1953, American writer Shirley Jackson responded to a reader who was disappointed by her story “The Lottery”.
KIDS!
Today is the birthday, in 1949, of Eric Carmen, American singer, songwriter, guitarist and keyboardist, who with The Raspberries had the 1972 US No.5 single ‘Go All The Way’ and the 1976 solo US No.2 single, ‘All By Myself’, plus other hits with ‘She Did It’, ‘Hungry Eyes’, and ‘Make Me Lose Control. He died on 11 March 2024 age 74. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ssCL292DQA
Today is the birthday of Matthew Henson, an African-American explorer who accompanied Robert Peary on seven voyages to the Arctic over a period of nearly 23 years. They spent a total of 18 years on expeditions together. He is best known for his participation in the 1908–1909 expedition that claimed to have reached the geographic North Pole on April 6, 1909.
Henson was born in Nanjemoy, Maryland, to sharecropper parents who were free Black Americans before the Civil War. He spent most of his early life in Washington, D.C. At the age of 12, the youth made his way to Baltimore, Maryland, a busy port. He went to sea as a cabin boy on the merchant ship Katie Hines, traveling to ports in China, Japan, Africa, and the Russian Arctic seas. The ship’s leader, Captain Childs, took Henson under his wing and taught him to read and write. He later worked as a salesclerk at a department store. One of his customers was Robert Peary. Learning of Henson’s sea experience, Peary recruited him as an aide for his planned voyage and surveying expedition to Nicaragua, with four other men. Peary supervised 45 engineers on the canal survey in Nicaragua. Impressed with Henson’s seamanship on that voyage, Peary recruited him as a colleague and he became “first man” in his expeditions.
Their first Arctic expedition together was in 1891–92. Henson served as a navigator and craftsman, and was known as Peary’s “first man”. Like Peary, he studied Inuit survival techniques. Henson traded with the Inuit and mastered the Inuit language. In 1908–09, Peary mounted his eighth attempt to reach the North Pole.
Peary selected Henson and four Inuit as part of the team of six men who would make the final run to the Pole. Before the goal was reached, Peary could no longer continue on foot and rode in a dog sled. Various accounts say he was ill, was exhausted, or had frozen toes. He sent Henson ahead as a scout.
In a newspaper interview, Henson later said:
‘I was in the lead that had overshot the mark a couple of miles. We went back then and I could see that my footprints were the first at the spot.’ Henson proceeded to plant the American flag.
Matthew Henson in arctic gear
This is very strong paint!
A tuter…
Today is the birthday, in 1950, of American rock drummer Liberty DeVitto, best known for his work as a drummer for Billy Joel’s recording and touring band as well as Carly Simon, Phoebe Snow, Karen Carpenter, Stevie Nicks, Rick Wakeman, Bob James and Meat Loaf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g
Today is the birthday, in 1876, of Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod (née Zelle), better known by the stage name Mata Hari, Indonesian for ‘sun’. She was a Dutch dancer and supposed courtesan who was convicted of being a spy for Germany during World War I, and executed by a firing squad. It has been said that she was convicted and condemned because the French Army needed a scapegoat for their failures and that the files used to secure her conviction contained falsifications.
After a failed marriage to a Dutch colonial officer, Rudolf MacLeod, she moved to Paris, where she performed as a circus horse rider using the name Lady MacLeod, much to the disapproval of the Dutch MacLeods. Struggling to earn a living, she also posed as an artist’s model.
By 1904, Mata Hari rose to prominence as an . She was a contemporary of dancers Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis. Promiscuous, flirtatious, and openly flaunting her body, Mata Hari captivated her audiences and was an overnight success from the debut of her act on 13 March 1905.
Before the war, Zelle had performed as Mata Hari several times before the Crown Prince Wilhelm, eldest son of Kaiser Wilhelm II and nominally a senior German general on the Western Front. The Deuxième Bureau believed she could obtain information by seducing the Crown Prince for military secrets and offered her 1 million francs if she could seduce him.
In late 1916, she traveled to Madrid, where she met the German military attaché Major Arnold Kalle and asked if he could arrange a meeting with the Crown Prince.[32] During this period, she apparently offered to share French secrets with Germany in exchange for money, though whether this was because of greed or an attempt to set up a meeting with Crown Prince Wilhelm remains unclear.
On 13 February 1917, Mata Hari was arrested in her room at the Hotel Elysée Palace on the Champs Elysées in Paris. She was tried on 24 July, accused of spying for Germany and consequently causing the deaths of at least 50,000 soldiers. Although the French and British intelligence suspected her of spying for Germany, neither could produce definite evidence against her.
In 1917, France had been badly shaken by the Great Mutinies of the French Army in the spring of 1917 following the failure of the Nivelle Offensive and massive strikes. France might have collapsed from war exhaustion. Having one German spy on whom everything that went wrong with the war could be blamed was convenient for the French government. Mata Hari seemed the perfect scapegoat. The case against her received maximum publicity in the French press and led to her importance being greatly exaggerated.
She was executed by a firing squad consisting of 12 French soldiers just before dawn on 15 October 1917. She was 41. According to an eyewitness account by British reporter Henry Wales, she was not bound and refused a blindfold. She defiantly blew a kiss to the firing squad.
Certainly not the only one…
‘Sheik’
What could be better than a CORNDOG????
Some Signs….
Today is the birthday, in 1960, of Jacqui O’Sullivan, singer who joined British female pop group Bananarama in 1988. She sang on the hits ‘I Want You Back’ and ‘Nathan Jones’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4-1ASpdT1Y
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