90px|Nathaniel Parker Willis
Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806–1867) was an American author, poet and
editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar
Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became the highest-paid
magazine writer of his day. For a time, he was the employer of former
slave and future writer Harriet Jacobs. Born in Portland, Maine, Willis
came from a family of publishers. He developed an interest in
literature while attending Yale College and began publishing poetry.
After graduation, he worked as an overseas correspondent for the New
York Mirror. He eventually moved to New York and began to build his
literary reputation. In 1846, he started his own publication, the Home
Journal, which was eventually renamed Town & Country. Shortly after,
Willis moved to a home on the Hudson River where he lived a
semi-retired life until his death in 1867. Willis embedded his own
personality into his writing and addressed his readers personally,
specifically in his travel writings, so that his reputation was built
in part because of his character. Critics, including his sister in her
novel Ruth Hall, occasionally described him as being effeminate and
Europeanized. Despite his intense popularity for a time, at his death
Willis was nearly forgotten. (more...)
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1867:
The Manchester Martyrs were hanged in Manchester, England, for killing
a police officer while assisting two Irish nationalists, who had played
important roles in the failed Fenian Rising, to escape from custody.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Martyrs>
1876:
William "Boss" Tweed, a major New York City politician who had been
arrested for embezzlement, was handed to US authorities after having
escaped from prison to Spain.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M._Tweed>
1934:
An Anglo-Ethiopian boundary commission in the Ogaden encountered a
garrison of Somalis in Italian service at Walwal, which led to the
Abyssinia Crisis.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyssinia_Crisis>
1996:
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 was hijacked by three Ethiopians seeking
political asylum, then crashed into the Indian Ocean near Comoros after
running out of fuel, killing 125 of the 175 people on board.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_961>
2005:
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was declared the winner of the Liberian general
election, making her the first democratically elected female head of
state of an African country.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Johnson-Sirleaf>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
labyrinthine (adj):
1. Physically resembling a labyrinth; with the qualities of a maze.
2. Twisting, convoluted, baffling, confusing, perplexing
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/labyrinthine>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth,
for the want of which whole nations fare the worse.
--John Milton
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Milton>