Birthdays
1759 - Mary Wollstonecraft, English writer, philosopher, advocate of women's rights, mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and her works as important influences. She wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book. She is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. Wollstonecraft died at the age of 38 leaving behind several unfinished manuscripts. She died eleven days after giving birth to her second daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who would become an accomplished writer and author of Frankenstein.
1791 - Samuel Morse (born Samuel Finley Breese Morse), American painter and inventor. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs. He was a co-developer of Morse code and helped to develop the commercial use of telegraphy.
1822 - Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant), American military leader who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As president, Grant was an effective civil rights executive who created the Justice Department and worked with the Radical Republicans during Reconstruction to protect African Americans. As Commanding General, he led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War in 1865 and thereafter briefly served as Secretary of War.
1874 - Maurice Baring, OBE, English man of letters, known as novelist, essayist and poet, translator. He was also a travel writer and war correspondent. During World War I, Baring served in the Intelligence Corps and Royal Air Force. He is remembered in verse in Belloc's Cautionary Verses: "Like many of the upper class, He liked the sound of broken glass*. (* A line I stole with subtle daring.) From Wing-Commander Maurice Baring."
Lefties:
None known
More birthdays and historical events today, 27 April - On This Day.
1667 - Poet John Milton, now blind and destitute, sells the publishing rights to his most famous work, the epic Paradise Lost, for 10 British Pounds. (Here's a link, all about John Milton's Paradise Lost, uploaded by Eric Masters. © ''IntelliQuest World's 100 Greatest Books'' 1995. Accessed April 27, 2018.)
1775 - The Tea Act is passed by the British Parliament, lowering the tea tax and allowing East India Company to monopolize the tea trade in America.
Historical Events
1667 - Poet John Milton, now blind and destitute, sells the publishing rights to his most famous work, the epic Paradise Lost, for 10 British Pounds. (Here's a link, all about John Milton's Paradise Lost, uploaded by Eric Masters. © ''IntelliQuest World's 100 Greatest Books'' 1995. Accessed April 27, 2018.)
1775 - The Tea Act is passed by the British Parliament, lowering the tea tax and allowing East India Company to monopolize the tea trade in America.
