The Eastbourne manslaughter was an 1860 legal case in Eastbourne,
England, concerning the death of 15-year-old Reginald Cancellor at the
hands of his teacher, Thomas Hopley. Hopley intended to use corporal
punishment to overcome what he perceived as stubbornness on Cancellor's
part, but instead he beat the boy to death. An inquest into Cancellor's
death began when his brother requested an autopsy. As a result of the
inquest Hopley was arrested and charged with manslaughter. He was found
guilty at trial and sentenced to four years in prison, although he
insisted that his actions were justifiable and that he was not guilty
of any crime. The trial was sensationalised by the Victorian press, and
incited debate over the use of corporal punishment in schools. After
Hopley's release and subsequent divorce trial, he largely disappeared
from the public record. The case became an important legal precedent in
the United Kingdom for discussions of corporal punishment in schools
and reasonable limits on discipline. (more...)
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Today's selected anniversaries:
476:
Germanic leader Odoacer captured Ravenna, the capital of the Western
Roman Empire, and deposed Emperor Romulus Augustus.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odoacer>
1781:
Los Angeles was founded as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los
Ángeles de Porciúncula by 44 Spanish settlers.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles>
1843:
Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies married Pedro II of Brazil at a
state ceremony.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_Cristina_of_the_Two_Sicilies>
1957:
Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to
prevent nine African American students from attending Little Rock's
Central High School.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_National_Guard_and_the_Integration_of_Central_High_School>
1998:
Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in Menlo Park, California, to
promote the web search engine that they developed as Stanford
University students.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
lightfast (adj):
Resistant to fading
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lightfast>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we
loathe, we graft into our very soul.
--Mary Renault
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mary_Renault>