The Biddenden Maids, Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst, were conjoined twins
supposedly born in the village of Biddenden, Kent, in the year 1100. It
is claimed that they were joined at both the shoulder and the hip, and
that on their death they bequeathed land to the village. The income
from this land was used to pay for a gift of food and drink to the poor
every Easter. Since at least 1775 this has included hard biscuits
imprinted with an image of two conjoined women, known as "Biddenden
Cakes". Some historians dismissed the story as a folk myth, claiming
that the image on the cakes had originally represented two poor women
and that the story of the conjoined twins was invented to account for
it. Despite doubts as to its authenticity, in the 19th century the
legend became increasingly popular and the village of Biddenden was
thronged with rowdy visitors every Easter. In 1907 the land supposedly
bequeathed by the twins was sold. The income from the sale allowed the
annual distribution of gifts to expand in scale, providing the widows
and pensioners of Biddenden with cheese, bread and tea at Easter and
with cash payments at Christmas. Biddenden cakes continue to be given
to the poor of Biddenden each Easter Monday, and are sold as souvenirs
to visitors.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biddenden_Maids>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1341:
Italian scholar and poet Petrarch took the title poet laureate at a
ceremony in Rome.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrarch>
1820:
A Greek peasant discovered a statue of a woman with its arms
missing—the Venus de Milo—on the Aegean island of Milos.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_de_Milo>
1886:
British Prime Minister William Gladstone introduced the first Irish
Home Rule Bill into the British House of Commons.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Ireland_Bill_1886>
1904:
Longacre Square in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, was renamed Times
Square after The New York Times building.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Square>
1992:
American tennis player Arthur Ashe announced that he had contracted HIV
from blood transfusions; he would spend the remainder of his life as an
AIDS activist.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ashe>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
cross swords (v):
(idiomatic) To quarrel or argue with someone, to have a dispute with
someone
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cross_swords>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Life by life and love by love
We passed through the cycles strange,
And breath by breath and
death by death
We followed the chain of change.
Till there came a time in the law
of life
When o’er the nursing sod,
The shadows broke and soul awoke
In a
strange, dim dream of God.
--Langdon Smith
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Langdon_Smith>