Thursday

Nov. 13, 1997

Roots

by Nancy Willard

THURSDAY 11/13

Today's Reading: "Roots" by Nancy Willard from SWIMMING LESSONS, published by Alfred A. Knopf (1996).

In 1956 the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that two Alabama laws, requiring segregation on public buses, violated the 15th Amendment.

The Holland Tunnel opened on this day in 1927, linking Jersey City, New Jersey to Lower Manhattan.

The brassiere, invented by Caresse Crosby, was patented on this day in 1914.

Dramatist Eugene Ionesco (THE BALD SOPRANO, RHINOCEROS, KILLING GAME) was born in Slatina, Romania, in 1909.

Lewis Carroll wrote in his diary in 1862, "Began writing the fairy-tale of Alice---I hope to finish it by Christmas."

Novelist and poet Robert Louis Stevenson, author of TREASURE ISLAND, KIDNAPPED, and A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSE, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1850.

Louis Brandeis, the first Jew to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1856.

Saint Augustine, one of the earliest Christian theologians, was born in the Tell Atlas Mountains of Numidia, in what is now Algeria, in 354 A.D. In his book CONFESSIONS he wrote, "Give me chastity and continence, but not just now."

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

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