Ellen Wilkinson (1891–1947) was a British Labour Party politician, Member of Parliament (MP) for Jarrow from 1935 to 1947 and Minister of Education from July 1945 until her death. In 1936 she was a leader of the Jarrow March, an iconic symbol of 1930s unemployment and impoverishment. On graduating from the University of Manchester in 1913, Wilkinson worked mainly as a trade union official, and was briefly a member of the British Communist Party before becoming Labour MP for Middlesbrough East in 1924. After losing her seat in the 1931 general election she worked as a writer and journalist before resuming her parliamentary career in 1935. A strong advocate for the Republican faction in the Spanish Civil War, she made several visits to the battle zones. During the Second World War Wilkinson served in Churchill's wartime coalition as a junior minister. By the time she achieved cabinet office in Clement Attlee's postwar Labour ministry she was in poor health due to constant overwork, and was able to promote only modest educational reforms. She died of an accidental overdose of medication while under treatment for an acute bronchial disease.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Wilkinson
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1658:
After a devastating defeat in the Northern Wars, King Frederick III of Denmark–Norway was forced to give up nearly half his Danish territory to Sweden to save the rest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Roskilde
1736:
Nader Shah, founder of the Afsharid dynasty, was crowned Shah of Iran. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nader_Shah
1924:
Three violent explosions at a coal mine near Castle Gate, Utah, US, killed all 171 miners working there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Gate_Mine_disaster
1963:
The Ba'ath Party came to power in Syria in a coup d'état by a clique of quasi-leftist Syrian Army officers calling themselves the National Council of the Revolutionary Command. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_Syrian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
1983:
The Cold War: During a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida, U.S. President Ronald Reagan described the Soviet Union as an "evil empire". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_empire
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
gogo: (South Africa) Grandmother; elderly woman. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gogo
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so. --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes,_Jr.