Masako Katsura (1913–1995) was a carom billiards player most active in
the 1950s who trailblazed a path for women in the sport by competing
and placing among the best in the male-dominated world of professional
billiards. First learning the game from her brother-in-law and then
under the tutelage of Japanese champion Kinrey Matsuyama, Katsura
finished second in Japan's national three-cushion billiards
championship three times. In exhibition she was noted for running
10,000 points at the game of straight rail. After marrying a U.S. army
officer in 1950, Katsura emigrated with him to the United States in
1951, where she was invited to play in the 1952 U.S.-sponsored World
Three-Cushion Championship, ultimately taking seventh place at that
competition. Katsura was the first woman ever to be included in any
world billiards tournament. Her fame cemented, Katsura went on an
exhibition tour of the United States with 8-time world champion Welker
Cochran, and later with 51-time world champion, Willie Hoppe. In 1953
and 1954 she again competed for the world three-cushion crown, taking
fifth and fourth places respectively.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masako_Katsura>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1862:
American telescope-maker and astronomer Alvan Graham Clark first
observed the faint white dwarf companion of Sirius , the brightest star
in the night sky.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius>
1917:
World War I: Germany announced its U-boats would resume unrestricted
submarine warfare, less than two years after suspending its attacks
when the United States protested the sinking of the ocean liner RMS
Lusitania.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-boat_Campaign_%28World_War_I%29>
1943:
World War II: American and Australian forces stopped a Japanese advance
during the New Guinea campaign, killing around 1,200 troops during the
Battle of Wau.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wau>
1946:
In the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a new constitution
established the six constituent republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Federal_Republic_of_Yugoslavia>
1971:
The Winter Soldier Investigation, a three-day media event sponsored by
the anti-war organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War to publicize
war crimes and other atrocities by American forces and their allies
during the Vietnam War, began.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Soldier_Investigation>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
caltrop (n):
A small, metal object with spikes arranged so that, when thrown onto
the ground, one always faces up as a threat to [[passer-by
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/caltrop>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Anybody can they say they are being "spiritual" — and they are, because
everybody has some type and level of concern. Let us therefore see
their actual conception, in thought and action, and see how many
perspectives it is in fact concerned with, and how many perspectives it
actually takes into account, and how many perspectives it attempts to
integrate, and thus let us see how deep and how wide runs that
bodhisattva vow to refuse rest until all perspectives whatsoever are
liberated into their own primordial nature.
--Ken Wilber
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber>