Margaret Macpherson Grant (1834–1877) was a Scottish heiress and
philanthropist. Born in Aberlour parish to a local surgeon, she was
educated in Hampshire and inherited a large fortune from her uncle,
Alexander Grant, a planter and merchant who had become rich in Jamaica.
Macpherson Grant took up residence in Aberlour House, which had been
built for her uncle by William Robertson. She lived unconventionally for
a woman of her time, entering into what was described as a form of
marriage with a female companion, Charlotte Temple, whom she met in
London in 1864. Macpherson Grant donated generously to charitable
enterprises, establishing an orphanage (now the Aberlour Child Care
Trust) and founding St Margaret's Episcopal Church in Aberlour. She
made several wills over the course of her life that would have left her
estate to Temple, but after Temple left her to marry a man, Macpherson
Grant revoked her will, and the bulk of her fortune went to cousins, who
were probably unknown to her.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Macpherson_Grant>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1875:
The Ellen Southard was wrecked in a storm at Liverpool,
England; the U.S. Congress subsequently awarded 27 gold Lifesaving
Medals to the men who rescued her crew.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Southard>
1908:
The first production Ford Model T, the car credited with
initiating the mass use of automobiles in the United States, was
completed at the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit, Michigan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Piquette_Avenue_Plant>
1940:
World War II: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Empire of
Japan signed the Tripartite Pact in Berlin, officially forming a
military alliance known as the Axis powers.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_Pact>
1983:
Software developer Richard Stallman announced plans for the
Unix-like GNU operating system, the first free software developed by the
GNU Project.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
saturnine:
1. (comparable) Of a person: having a tendency to be cold, bitter,
gloomy, sarcastic, and slow to change and react.
2. (comparable) Of a setting: depressing, dull, gloomy.
3. (comparable, chemistry, archaic) Of, pertaining to, or containing
lead (which was symbolically associated with the planet Saturn by
alchemists).
4. (not comparable, pathology) Of a disease: caused by lead poisoning
(saturnism); of a person: affected by lead poisoning.
5. (not comparable, astrology, obsolete) Pertaining to the astrological
influence of the planet Saturn; having the characteristics of a person
under such influence (see sense 1).
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/saturnine>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty
is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified
by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions.
--Samuel Adams
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Adams>