#OnThisDay, 5 Aug 1888, Bertha Benz drove from Mannheim to Pforzheim: the first journey of 100+km in a car by *anyone*.
She'd got tired of her husband tinkering with his prototype so took it on the road with her sons. And without him.
Along the way, she made running repairs to the engine and realised there would need to be refueling stations.
#WomenInSTEM #EuropeanHistory #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #Histodons
#OTD, 7 Aug, 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson boarded the SS Devonia to make the ten-day passage from Greenock to New York to pursue his thwarted relationship with Fanny Osbourne. In THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT he gives a vivid, sharp, & engaging account of his (impoverished) travels to & in America – read the first 5 chapters free 👇
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https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/free-publications/the_amateur_emigrant/
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #travelwriting #RobertLouisStevenson #emigration
#OnThisDay, 7 Aug1948, Fanny Blankers-Koen wins her fourth gold Olympic medal at a single games: the first woman to do so.
Fanny had been regarded by critics as 'too old' at 30, and nicknamed 'the Flying Housewife”. Yes, really. 🙄
Watch footage here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y_G0H-b3QE
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #OlympicWomen #Histodons
Anima Celtica: Ella Carmichael as scholar, activist & muse in the Scottish Celtic Revival
Ella Carmichael (1870–1928) was born #OTD, 9 Aug. Abigail Burnyeat talks about Ella Carmichael & her role in the Scottish Celtic revival. The first female student of Celtic at Edinburgh University, Ella Carmichael was also founder of the Celtic Union & the journal The Celtic Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoVzPDYfsoQ
#Scottish #literature #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #folklore #CelticStudies #CelticRevival
I’ll ha’e nae hauf-way hoose, but aye be whaur
Extremes meet – it’s the only way I ken
To dodge the curst conceit o’ bein’ richt
That damns the vast majority o’ men.
—from “A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle”
A 🎂🧵 for Hugh MacDiarmid—born #OTD, 11 Aug 1892
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https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/hugh-macdiarmid
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #modernism #20thcentury #MacDiarmid
#OTD in 1880 Radclyffe Hall was born. She was the author of the pioneering lesbian novel "The Well of Loneliness" and was also a poet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radclyffe_Hall
Books by Hall at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Radclyffe+Hall
#OtD 12 Aug 1900 Dorvalina Martins was born in Brazil. She set up the rationalist Modern School in her hometown, educating 400 working class children, later raiding a Catholic barracks with her husband to rescue children from poor conditions https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8370/dorvalina-martins-ribas
