Eggplant.place

144d

#OnThisDay, 26 Jun 1949, all Belgian women are able to vote in Parliamentary elections for the first time.

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

A white woman posting her vote into the ballot box whilst holding a baby in a hat with HUGE pointy ears. The baby appears to be watching the ballot paper go in.

123d

#OnThisDay, 17 July 1979, Simone Veil became the first President of the European Parliament, and the first woman to preside over any EU institution.

As Health Minister in France, Veil had passed laws enabling access to contraception and legalising abortion.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #EuropeanHistory #Histodons

Simone Veil taking up the Presidency. She is a white woman. Six white men are standing beside or behind her.

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120d

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…

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

#OTD, 20 July, 1969, Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon

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

#Scottish #literature #MoonLanding #MoonLandingDay #poem #poetry #astronauts #scifi #scifipoem #scifipoetry

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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143d

#OnThisDay, 27 Jun 1833, Prudence Crandall stands trial for running a school to educate African-American girls in Canterbury, Connecticut. She spends the night in County Jail until bail is posted, and pursues her case as far as the Supreme Court.

Read more: http://ow.ly/eGQj30kF35C

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

newspaper illustration showing the south view of the village of Canterbury with Miss Crandall's school highlighted.

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Portrait of Miss Crandall. She is a white woman in a fashionable shawl and with her hair pinned back.

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143d

Emma Goldman — born #onthisday in 1869 — was a radical critic of capitalism, the state, patriarchy and colonialism during the fertile political years of the late 19th and early 20th century. More on her life and “anarchism without adjectives” here: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/emma-goldmans-anarchism-without-adjectives #otd

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143d

39 years today since Jim Henson's cult classic 'Labyrinth' was released on June 27th 1986, with George Lucas as executive producer, starring Jennifer Connelly as Sarah Williams and David Bowie as Jareth the Goblin King.

(Original illustration by Kevin M Wilson https://www.apemeetsgirl.com)

#Labyrinth #OTD #Movies #Cinemastodon #FilmMastodon #80s #JimHenson #OnThisDay #Art #Artwork #Illustration

Illustration showing Sarah from the Labyrinth sitting in her bedroom, wearing her distinctive outfit from the film, sitting with her legs crossed on the bed holding a book and reading it with visible fascination as she is surrounded by most of the main characters from the film including Hoggle the dwarf, Ludo, a brown horned beast, William the worm, a blue worm-like creature wearing a tiny red scarf around its neck, Sir Didymus a talking Yorkshire Terrier wearing an eye patch and Ambrosius the dog sitting next to the bed near them. In the room there are several items referencing both the film and other Jim Henson works including the Muppets and The Dark Crystal, including a picture of Henson himself holding Kermit the frog hanging on the wall.

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122d

#OnThisDay, 18 July 1976, Romanian Nadia Comăneci becomes the first gymnast to score a perfect 10 at the Olympics. She broke the scoreboards as they only went to 9.99.

In 1989, having lived under tight surveillance and control since she was a child, she defected to the USA by walking through the night from Romania to Hungary.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #OlympicWomen

Nadia Comăneci dismounting the parallel bars. She is a teenage girl, curving as if in flight.

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142d

#OtD 27 Jun 1880 deafblind American author, socialist, and lecturer, Helen Keller was born. A member of the @iww union, she fought for women's suffrage, workers' rights, and socialism https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9918/helen-keller-born

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122d

Belle Stewart (1906–1997) – singer, storyteller, tradition-bearer – was born #OTD, 18 July, in a bow tent on the banks of the Tay at Caputh, near Blairgowrie. She ranks alongside Jeannie Robertson in the roll of the finest Scots ballad-singers.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0sMwlevTMU

#Scottish #literature #travellers #folklore #folksong

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119d

Scotland’s a sense of change, an endless
becoming for which there was never a kind
of wholeness or ultimate category.
Scotland’s an attitude of mind.

—“Speaking of Scotland” by Maurice Lindsay (1918–2009) – born #OTD, 21 July
Published in COLLECTED POEMS 1940–1990 (AUP 1990)

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https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/speaking-scotland/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

Speaking of Scotland
Maurice Lindsay

What do you mean when you speak of Scotland?
The grey defeats that are dead and gone
behind the legends each generation
savours afresh, yet can’t live on?

Lowland farms with their broad acres
peopling crops? The colder earth
of the North East? Or Highland mountains
shouldering up their rocky dearth?

Inheritance of guilt that our country
has never stood where we feel she should?
A nagging threat of unfinished struggle
somehow forever lost in the blood?

Scotland’s a sense of change, an endless
becoming for which there was never a kind
of wholeness or ultimate category.
Scotland’s an attitude of mind.

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113d

#OtD 26 Jul 1952 Eva "Evita" Peron, Argentinian actor and wife of president Peron, died. Commonly seen as a workers' hero, she and her husband admired Hitler and Mussolini, and provided refuge to numerous Nazi war criminals after WWII https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9831/eva-%22evita%22-peron-dies

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118d

“When the lights come out at sundown along the shores of Scotland, I am proud to think they burn more brightly for the genius of my father.”
—from MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF, Robert Louis Stevenson’s uncompleted (indeed, barely begun) autobiography

Thomas Stevenson (1818–1887), lighthouse engineer & father of Robert Louis Stevenson, was born #OTD, 22 July

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#Scottish #literature #Victorian #19thcentury #lighthouse #engineer #engineering #RobertLouisStevenson

Sepia photograph of Thomas Stevenson – a pensive-looking head-and-shoulders portrait of a Victorian gentleman, balding, clean-shaven with side-whiskers, his left hand raised to touch his face. A ring is visible on the pinkie of his left hand.

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140d

#OnThisDay, 30 June 1966 Pauli Murray, Betty Friedan and 26 others founded the National Organisation for Women (NOW) in the USA.

NOW are currently campaigning for abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, racial and economic justice and the end to violence against women and girls.

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

photo of Pauli Murray: a black civil rights lawyer and eventually a priest.

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photo of Betty Friedan: a white woman, author of the Feminine Mystique which is credited with launching second wave feminism.

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139d

😍 80 years young ❤️
Happy birthday to the wonderful, incredible Angela Trimble aka Deborah Ann Harry, born today in 1945 in Miami, Florida.

#punkrock #womenofpunk #debbieharry #blondie #history #punkrockhistory #otd

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139d

The First Battle of the Somme began #OTD, 1 July, 1916. Violet Jacob’s only child, Harry, was killed in action in the battle. Jacob’s war poems are some of the most poignant & affecting works from the Home Front.

“To A.H.J.”, from MORE SONGS OF ANGUS & OTHERS (1918)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #warpoem #warpoetry #Somme #WW1 #FirstWorldwar

Violet Jacob
“To A.H.J.”

Past life, past tears, far past the grave,‍‍
‍‍‍‍The tryst is set for me,
Since, for our all, your all you gave‍‍
‍‍‍‍On the slopes of Picardy.

On Angus, in the autumn nights,‍‍
‍‍‍‍The ice-green light shall lie.
Beyond the trees the Northern Lights‍‍
‍‍‍‍Slant on the belts of sky.

But miles on miles from Scottish soil‍‍
‍‍‍‍You sleep, past war and scaith,
Your country’s freedman, loosed from toil.‍‍
‍‍‍‍In honour and in faith.

For Angus held you in her spell,
‍‍‍‍Her Grampians, faint and blue,
Her ways, the speech you knew so well,
‍‍‍‍Were half the world to you.

Yet rest, my son; our souls are those‍‍
‍‍‍‍Nor time nor death can part,
And lie you proudly, folded close‍‍
‍‍‍‍To France’s deathless heart.

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138d

#OtD 1 Jul 1943 gay Dutch anti-Nazi resistance fighter Willem Arondeus was executed after attacking the Amsterdam ID registry. Before his death Willem asked a friend to testify after the war that "homosexuals are not cowards" https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8082/willem-arondeus-executed

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116d

The Battle of Harlaw was fought #OTD, 24 July, 1411. Before the battle the Clan Donald bard Lachlann Mòr MacMhuirich composed this brosnachadh or incitement to battle. Each line contains 2 describing words, & each successive pair of lines all begin with the same letter while retaining the 7-syllable format of each line. The poet works through the entire Gaelic alphabet in sequence.

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https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/inverurie/battleofharlaw/index.html

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #medieval #history #battle

Brostughadh-catha Chlann-Domhnaill, Là Chatha Gharbhaich
Lachlann Mòr MacMhuirich

A Chlanna Cuinn, cuimhnichibh
Cruas an am na h-iorghaile:
Gu h-àirneach, gu h-arranta,
Gu h-athlamh, gu h-allanta,
Gu beòdha, gu barramhail,
Gu brìoghmhor, gu buan-fheargach,
Gu calma, gu curanta,
Gu cròdha, gu cath-bhuadhach,
Gu dùr is gu dàsannach,
Gu dian is gu deagh-fhulang,
Gu h-èasgaidh, gu h-eaghnamhach,
Gu h-éidith’, gu h-eireachdail,
Gu fortail, gu furachail,
Gu frithir, gu forniata,
Gu gruamach, gu gràineamhail,
Gu gleusta, gu gaisgeamhail,
Gu h-ullamh, gu h-iorghaileach,
Gu h-olla-bhorb, gu h-àibheiseach,
Gu h-innill, gu h-inntinneach,
Gu h-iomdha, gu h-iomghonach,
Gu laomsgar, gu làn-athlamh,
Gu làidir, gu luath-bhuilleach,
Gu mearghanta, gu mór-chneadhach,
Gu meanmnach, gu mìleanta,
Gu neimhneach, gu naimhdeamhail,
Gu niatach, gu neimh-eaglach,
Gu h-obann, gu h-olla-ghnìomhach,
Gu h-oirdheirc, gu h-oirbheartach,
Gu prap is gu prìomh-ullamh,
Gu prosta, gu prionnsamhail,
Gu ruaimneach, gu ro-dhàna,

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116d

Miscarriage

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138d

#OnThisDay, 2 Jul 1928, the UK's Representation of the People Act comes into effect, finally giving women equal voting rights to men. It increases the number of women eligible to vote to 15 million.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #VotesForWomen #Histodons

frontpage of the 1928 representation of the people act

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114d

#OTD in 1856 playwright George Bernard Shaw was born.

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

George Bernard Shaw books at PG

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/467

#plays #literature #books

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115d

Elizabeth Hamilton (1756?–1816) was (probably) born #OTD, 25 July. We republished her 1808 novel THE COTTAGERS OF GLENBURNIE, edited by Pam Perkins: an entertaining & skilful dissection of 18th-century class issues, British imperialism, & war

@litstudies

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https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/glenburnie/

#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters