Betsy Bakker-Nort (1874–1946) was a Dutch feminist, lawyer, and
politician who served as a member of the House of Representatives for
the Free-thinking Democratic League (VDB) from 1922 to 1942. Born in
Groningen, she became involved with the feminist movement in 1894. At
age 34, Bakker-Nort started studying law, realising that the fight for
women's rights required a thorough understanding of the law. In the 1922
general election, the first in which women were allowed to vote, she was
elected to parliament and became the VDB's first female representative.
She was re-elected four times and was an advocate for more women's
rights with respect to marriage and labour law. She took a leading role
in preparations for a 1930 League of Nations conference. After the
German invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940, Bakker-Nort did not
return to parliament. From December 1942 she was detained in internment
and concentration camps. She was liberated in June 1945 and died the
following year.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsy_Bakker-Nort>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1945:
Manzanar, a camp in California for the internment of Japanese
Americans during World War II, was closed.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manzanar>
1964:
The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, connecting Staten Island and
Brooklyn in New York City, opened to traffic as the longest suspension
bridge in the world at the time.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verrazzano-Narrows_Bridge>
1970:
Vietnam War: American forces raided the North Vietnamese Sơn
Tây prison camp in an attempt to rescue 61 American POWs who were
thought to be held there.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivory_Coast>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
fisherfolk:
1. People who fish for a living.
2. (anthropology) Members of a culture that is dominated by fishing.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fisherfolk>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe
absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices. If you do not
use the intelligence with which God endowed your mind to resist
believing impossibilities, you will not be able to use the sense of
injustice which God planted in your heart to resist a command to do
evil. Once a single faculty of your soul has been tyrannized, all the
other faculties will submit to the same fate.
--Voltaire
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Voltaire>