1167: Empress Matilda, Domina Anglorum (Lady of the English), died. She fought against her cousin Stephen for the succession to the throne of England in a bloody civil war, and won succession for her son, Henry II.
1740: Mary Willing Byrd born (plantation manager)
1758: Hannah Webster Foster born (writer)
1797: Mary Wollstonecraft (writer, philosopher) died of childbed fever, shortly after giving birth to the future Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley (writer: Frankenstein )
1864: Josephine Adams Rathbone born (librarian)
1877: Katherine Dreier born (artist, art patron)
1886: Hilda Doolittle ("H.D.") born (writer, poet)
1948: Margaret Trudeau born (Canadian First Lady)
Quote for Today
All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.
All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.
Greece sees unmoved,
God's daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses.
— H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) on Helen of Troy
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This Day in Women's History Calendar © 1999-2006 Jone Johnson Lewis.
