Eggplant.place

219d

As by barren trackway
on a mountain crest
with view of scree and corrie,
ridge and col,
a traveller might pause…

—“A cairn”, by Gael Turnbull (1928–2004) – born #OTD, 7 April
from WHILE BREATH PERSIST (The Porcupine’s Quill, 1992)

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https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/cairn/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

A Cairn
by Gael Turnbull

As by barren trackway
on a mountain crest
with view of scree and corrie,
ridge and col,
a traveller might pause,
take bearings, cast
in tribute to record:
“A man came here, went on,
left common token, shared
with those who went before
and shall come after.”

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220d

#OnThisDay, 7 Apr 1141, Matilda is legally recognised as ruler of England in her own right. Her coronation never happens.

She was appointed heir by her father Henry I, then usurped by her cousin Stephen after Henry’s death. The civil war between the cousins is known as the Anarchy and lasted from 1138 to 1153.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory
#EnglishHistory #AnarchyInTheUK #Histodons

line drawing illustration of Empress Matilda.

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217d

#OTD In 1859, Samuel Langhorne Clemens receives his steamboat pilot’s license.

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-april-9-2026/

Books by Mark Twain at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/53

#books #literature

Young Mark Twain. He is turned to his left. He moustache and hair appear brown.

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198d

ON THIS DAY

❝ Benito Mussolini, the deposed Italian Fascist dictator, was summarily executed by an Italian partisan in the village of Giulino di Mezzegra in northern Italy on 28 April 1945, in the final days of World War II in Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Benito_Mussolini

the biggest mistake? not going after #USA and #Eu #oligarchy that kept Hitler and Mussolini in power for so long.

#antifa VPOTUS Wallace said as much ―and that’s why he was ousted, so he wouldn’t succeed a dying #FDR.

#OTD #history

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197d

When the long, varnished buds of beech
Point out beyond their reach,
And tanned by summer suns
Leaves of black bryony turn bronze…

—Andrew Young, “The Beech-Wood”

Andrew Young (1885–1971) – described by C.S. Lewis as “A modern Marvell & a modern marvel” – was born #OTD, 29 April

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#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

The Beech-Wood
Andrew Young

When the long, varnished buds of beech
Point out beyond their reach,
And tanned by summer suns
Leaves of black bryony turn bronze,
And gossamer floats bright and wet
From trees that are their own sunset,
Spring, summer, autumn I come here,
And what is there to fear?
And yet I never lose the feeling
That someone close behind is stealing
Or else in front has disappeared;
Though nothing I have seen or heard,
The fear of what I might have met
Makes me still walk beneath these boughs
With cautious steps as in a haunted house.

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216d

"I don’t wear men’s clothes, I wear my own."

#OnThisDay, 10 Apr 1864, army surgeon Dr Mary Edwards Walker is captured by the Confederates during the US Civil War. She later receives the Medal of Honor.

As well as serving in the Civil War, and being a dress reformer who preferred to wear trousers, she was also a suffragist who declined to take her husband’s name when they married.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #Histodons

Dr Mary Edwards Walker with her medal. She is a white woman with dark hair. She's wearing a dress and looking miserable about it.

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Dr Mary Edwards Walker in later life. She is wearing a wing collar shirt with a cravat, a heavy overcoat and a top hat. She is a white woman with white hair.

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Dr Mary Edwards Walker in later life. She is wearing a trouser suit, overcoat and scarf, and carrying a top hat. She is a white woman with white hair.

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215d

#OTD in 1935 Anna Katharine Green died. "She was one of the first authors of detective fiction in the United States and distinguished herself by writing well plotted, legally accurate stories."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Katharine_Green

Books by Green at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/541

#books #literature

Photograph of Anna Katharine Green. She is turned to her right, but her face is towards the camera. Her coat is fur-lined.

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214d

Laid-back in orbit, they found their minds.
They found their minds were very clean and clear…

—Edwin Morgan, “A Home in Space”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

Yuri Gagarin completed a single orbit of the Earth #OTD, 12 April, 1961. Today is the International Day of Human Space Flight

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https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784109967/centenary-selected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #space #spaceflight #InternationalDayOfHumanSpaceFlight #Gagarin

A Home in Space
Edwin Morgan

Laid-back in orbit, they found their minds.
They found their minds were very clean and clear.
Clear crystals in swarms outside were their fireflies and larks.
Larks they were in lift-off, swallows in soaring.
Soaring metal is flight and nest together.
Together they must hatch.
Hatches let the welders out.
Out went the whitesuit riggers with frames as light as air.
Air was millions under lock and key.
Key-ins had computers wild on Saturday nights.
Nights, days, months, years they lived in space.
Space shone black in their eyes.
Eyes, hands, food-tubes, screens, lenses, keys were one.
One night – or day – or month – or year – they all –
all gathered at the panel and agreed –
agreed to cut communication with –
with the earth base – and it must be said they were –
were cool and clear as they dismantled the station and –
and gave their capsule such power that –
that they launched themselves outwards –
outwards in an impeccable trajectory, that band –
that band of tranquil defiers, not to plant any –
any home with roots but to keep a –
a voyaging generation voyaging, and as far –
as far as there would ever be a home in space –
space that needs time and time that needs life.

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213d

To have carved on the days of our vanity
A sun
A ship
A star
A cornstalk

Also a few marks
From an ancient forgotten time
A child may read…

—“A Work for Poets”: the final poem of George Mackay Brown (1921–1996) who died #OTD, 13 April

Published in CARVE THE RUNES (Polygon, 2021)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/carve-the-runes/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #poets #Orkney #20thcentury #GeorgeMackayBrown

A Work for Poets
George Mackay Brown

To have carved on the days of our vanity
A sun
A ship
A star
A cornstalk

Also a few marks
From an ancient forgotten time
A child may read

That not far from the stone
A well
Might open for wayfarers

Here is a work for poets –
Carve the runes
Then be content with silence

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195d

#OnThisDay, 1 May 1944, South African Phyllis Latour parachutes into occupied France to be a radio operator for the British Special Operations Executive.

She's never captured.

She died in 2023, in New Zealand.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WorldWar2 #Histodons
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photo of Phyllis Latour during the 1940s. She is a white woman with dark hair.

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197d

Very early #OnThisDay, 30 April 1944, New Zealander Nancy Wake parachutes into occupied France to be a courier for the Special Operations Executive. The British SOE supported French Resistance to Nazi occupation.

Couriers like Wake would take messages and materials such as explosives, guns or grenades around the patch their network covered.

Nick-named 'the white mouse' by the Gestapo, she's never captured. She died in 2011.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WorldWar2 #Histodons

Studio portrait of Nancy Wake in uniform, showing her parachute badge. She is a white woman with dark hair.

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191d

#OnThisDay, 5 May 1938, Dorothy Anderson presents her medical research identifying cystic fibrosis at a meeting of the American Pediatric Association.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomenInMedicine #CysticFibrosis #Histodons

Dorothy Anderson sat behind a desk. She's a white woman with dark hair and is wearing a white doctor's coat.

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190d

#OtD 6 May 1933 Nazis raided the Institute of Sex Research in Berlin. It was a pioneering org which supported LGBT rights, and equality for women. It employed numerous trans workers and pioneered gender affirmation surgery. Its library was then burned https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10648/nazis-raid-sex-institute

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176d

“Have ye come far?”
“Only from America.”

#OnThisDay, 21 May 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first woman - and only the second person - to fly solo and without stops across the Atlantic.

She lands unexpectedly in Ireland. There’s some wonderful images of her here: https://joecampbellart.com/2015/03/12/amelia-earhart-in-ireland-solo-atlantic-crossing-may-21st-1932/

Watch newsreel of her taking off here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-itPeJOyzI

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AviationHistory @histodons #Histodons

Amelia Earhart sitting on the wheel of her small prop plane, posing for photos. She's a white woman with cropped hair and dressed in a flight suit.

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189d

“More decidedly evil is the nosferatu, or vampire, in which every Roumanian peasant believes as firmly as he does in heaven or hell…”

—from THE LAND BEYOND THE FOREST: Facts, Figures, & Fancies from Transylvania, by the 19th-century Scottish author & anthropologist Emily Gerard (1849–1905) – born #OTD, 7 May

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https://crimereads.com/the-scottish-anthropologist-who-inspired-dracula/

#Scottish #literature #Dracula #vampire #Transylvania #folklore #anthropology #19thcentury #Victorian #womenwriters

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189d

#OTD in 1812 Robert Browning was born.

He was "English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterisation, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings and challenging vocabulary and syntax."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Browning

Browning at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/146

#books #literature #poetry

An 1865 photo of Robert Browning taken by Julia Margaret Cameron. It shows him from the waist up. In this he is an older man with a beard that is mostly gray. He is looking towards his left and wrapped in a dark robe.

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189d

Happy 75th Birthday to Chris Frantz – drummer and co-founder of both the Talking Heads and the Tom Tom Club, born on May 8, 1951, in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, USA.

📸 Tom Hill

#punkrock #postpunk #newwave #chrisfrantz #talkingheads #tomtomclub #punkrockhistory #otd

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189d

#OnThisDay, 8 May 1946, Estonian teens Aili Jürgenson and Ageeda Paavel blew up a Soviet war memorial in response to Soviet destruction of Estonian war memorials. They served eight years in the gulag as punishment.

In 1988 they were awarded the Estonian Order of the Cross of the Eagle to recognise their fight.

We only have a photo of Aili Jürgenson.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #EuropeanHistory #Histodons

Police mugshots of Aili Jürgenson after her arrest. She is a white woman with dark hair.

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187d

#OtD 9 May 2012 Vidal Sassoon, "anti-fascist warrior hairdresser" died aged 84. As a teenager in London he fought Oswald Mosley's fascists in the streets with his hairdressing scissors, as part of the militant 43 Group. Learn about the group in our pod: https://workingclasshistory.com/2020/02/17/e35-37-the-43-group/

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187d

“Barrie was a wounded creature, from his earliest youth, and his probing of that wound is what makes PETER PAN so enduringly painful to read […] The tensions are bald and excruciating.”

A 🎂 🧵 for JM Barrie (1860–1937) – born #OTD, 9 May

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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/11/22/lost-boys

#Scottish #literature #JMBarrie #kidlit #ChildrensLiterature #PeterPan

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187d

They are lang deid, folk that I used to ken
their firm set lips aa mowdert and agley,
sherp-tempert een rusty amang the cley…

—“Elegy” by Robert Garioch (1909–1981) – born #OTD, 9 May
from The Golden Treasury of Scottish Verse, @canongatebooks 2021

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https://canongate.co.uk/books/3267-the-golden-treasury-of-scottish-verse/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #Scots #Scotslanguage

Elegy
by Robert Garioch

They are lang deid, folk that I used to ken
their firm set lips aa mowdert and agley,
sherp-tempert een rusty amang the cley:
they are baith deid, thae wycelike, bienlie men,

heidmaisters, that had been in pouer for ten
or twenty year afore fate's taiglie wey
brocht me, a young, weill-harnit, blate and fey
new-cleckit dominie, intill their den.

Ane tellt me it was time I learnt to write -
round-haund, he meant – and saw about my hair:
I mind of him, beld-heidit, wi a kyte.

Ane sneerit quarterly – I cuidna square
my savings bank – and sniftert in his spite.
Weill, gin they arena deid, it's time they were.

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188d

#OnThisDay, 9 May 1922, the International Astronomical Union formally adopts Annie Jump Cannon's stellar classification system. The principles in it still underpin modern classification.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #Astronomy #WomenInSTEM #AmericanHistory #Histodons

Annie Jump Cannon sat at a desk. She is clearly not a fan of a clear desk policy as it's messy with papers and open drawers. She is a white woman with pale hair.

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185d

#OTD in 1926, C.S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien meet for the first time.

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-may-11-2026/

At PG:

Lewis:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/782

Tolkien
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/42379

Tolkien

#books #literature

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122d

#OTD in 1930 the First FIFA World Cup Kicks Off

Soccer, or association football, as it is known throughout much of the world, has been an Olympic sport since 1900. In 1930, FIFA—soccer's international governing body—decided to stage its own tournament, the World Cup. Reigning Olympic champion Uruguay was chosen as host and went on to win the inaugural event.

https://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/1930+FIFA+World+Cup

#sports