Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972) was an American author and poet,
who lived as an expatriate in Paris. Barney's salon was held at her
home on Paris's Left Bank for more than 60 years and brought together
writers and artists from around the world, including many leading
figures in French literature along with American and British Modernists
of the Lost Generation. She worked to promote writing by women and
formed a "Women's Academy" in response to the all-male French Academy
while also giving support and inspiration to male writers from Remy de
Gourmont to Truman Capote. She was openly lesbian and began publishing
love poems to women under her own name as early as 1900, considering
scandal as "the best way of getting rid of nuisances". In her writings
she supported feminism, paganism and pacifism. She opposed monogamy and
had many overlapping, long and short-term relationships, including an
on-and-off romance with poet Renée Vivien, dancer Armen Ohanian and a
50-year relationship with painter Romaine Brooks. Her life and love
affairs served as inspiration for many novels, ranging from the
salacious French bestseller Sapphic Idyll to The Well of Loneliness,
arguably the most famous lesbian novel of the 20th century.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Clifford_Barney>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1071:
Byzantine-Seljuk wars: Seljuk Turks led by Alp Arslan captured
Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV at the Battle of Manzikert .
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Manzikert>
1346:
Hundred Years' War: English forces established the military supremacy
of the English longbow over the French combination of crossbow and
armoured knights at the Battle of Crécy.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cr%C3%A9cy>
1789:
French Revolution: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the
Citizen, defining a set of individual and collective rights of the
people, was approved by the National Constituent Assembly at
Versailles.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Man_and_of_the_Citizen>
1928:
At a cafe in Paisley, Scotland, May Donoghue found the remains of a
snail in her bottle of ginger beer, causing her to launch one of the
landmark civil action cases in British Common Law, Donoghue v
Stevenson.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donoghue_v_Stevenson>
1968:
The U.S. Democratic Party's National Convention began at the
International Amphitheatre in Chicago, sparking four days of clashes
between anti–Vietnam War protesters and police.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Democratic_National_Convention>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
proprioception (n):
The sense of the position of parts of the body, relative to other
neighbouring parts of the body
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/proprioception>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
I doubt if one ever accepts a belief until one urgently needs it.
--Christopher Isherwood
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Christopher_Isherwood>