Luo Yixiu (1889–1910) was the first wife of the future Chinese communist revolutionary and political leader Mao Zedong, to whom she was married from 1908 until her death. She came from a family of impoverished Han Chinese landowners near Shaoshan, Hunan, in south central China. Most of what is known about their marriage comes from Mao and appears in the 1936 book Red Star Over China by the reporter Edgar Snow. The marriage was arranged by their fathers when Luo was eighteen and Mao was just fourteen. He later said that he was unhappy with the marriage, never consummating it and refusing to live with his wife. He moved out of the village to continue his studies elsewhere, eventually becoming a founding member of the Communist Party of China. Luo, socially disgraced, lived with Mao's parents for two years until she died of dysentery. Various biographers have suggested that this marriage affected Mao's later views, leading him to become a critic of arranged marriage and a vocal feminist. He would marry three more times, to Yang Kaihui, He Zizhen and Jiang Qing.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luo_Yixiu
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1740:
Under the terms of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, Maria Theresa assumed the throne of the Habsburg Monarchy in Austria. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Theresa
1818:
The United Kingdom and the United States signed the Treaty of 1818, which settled the Canada–United States border on the 49th parallel between the Pacific Ocean and Lake of the Woods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_1818
1944:
World War II: Fulfilling a promise he made two years previous, General Douglas MacArthur landed on Leyte to begin the recapture of the entire Philippine Archipelago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Leyte
1961:
The Soviet Union performed the first armed test of a submarine- launched ballistic missile, launching an R-13 from a Golf class submarine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine-launched_ballistic_missile
1982:
During a UEFA Cup match between FC Spartak Moscow and HFC Haarlem, a large number of attendees tried to leave the Grand Sports Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium at the same time, resulting in a stampede that caused 66 deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luzhniki_disaster
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
atrabilious: 1. (medicine, obsolete) Having an excess of black bile. 2. Characterized by melancholy. 3. Ill-natured; malevolent. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atrabilious
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Those who have deprived themselves of this Resurrection by reason of their mutual hatreds or by regarding themselves to be in the right and others in the wrong, were chastised on the Day of Resurrection by reason of such hatreds evinced during their night. Thus they deprived themselves of beholding the countenance of God, and this for no other reason than mutual denunciations. --The Báb https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/B%C3%A1b