Monday
Mar. 8, 1999
The Writer
Poem: "The Writer," by Richard Wilbur, from New and Collected Poems (Harcourt Brace).
Today is INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY, a day that's been celebrated all over the world since 1910. March 8 was later established as the official date because it was the anniversary of two protest marches in New York Cityone in 1857 by women textile workers, and one in 1908 when over 15,000 women marched through the streets shouting their slogan, "Bread and Roses"the symbols of better wages and shorter hours.
It was on this day in 1965 that the first U.S. combat troops in VIETNAM, about 4,000 Marines, went ashore at Da Nang in South Vietnam in a mission to protect U.S. air bases in the area.
It was on this day in 1917 that riots broke out in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) over the shortage of food, beginning the RUSSIAN REVOLUTION.
It's the birthday of KENNETH GRAHAME, born 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland, author of the children's book The Wind in the Willows with its characters Rat, Mole, Badger and Toad, and it's famous line, "There is nothingabsolutely nothinghalf so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®