Isabelle Eberhardt (17 February 1877 – 21 October 1904) was a Swiss explorer and writer. As a teenager, she published short stories under a male pseudonym. She became interested in North Africa, and was considered a proficient writer on the region despite learning about it only through correspondence. Eberhardt moved to Algeria in 1897, where she converted to Islam, dressed as an Arabic man and adopted a male name. Her unorthodox behaviour made her an outcast to European settlers and the French administration. Her acceptance by the Qadiriyya, an Islamic order, convinced the French that she was a spy or an agitator. In 1901 she survived an assassination attempt and was ordered to leave Algeria, but was allowed to return the following year after marrying her long-time partner, an Algerian soldier. In 1904, aged 27, she was killed by a flash flood in Aïn Sefra. Her manuscripts were collected and published posthumously, receiving critical acclaim. Streets were named after her in Béchar and Algiers.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle_Eberhardt
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1621:
Myles Standish was elected as the first commander of the Plymouth Colony militia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myles_Standish
1814:
War of the Sixth Coalition: Napoleon led a French army to a crushing victory in the Battle of Mormant, nearly destroying a Russian division. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mormant
1913:
In the U.S. National Guard's 69th Regiment Armory in New York City, the Armory Show opened (poster pictured), introducing Americans to avant-garde and modern art. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armory_Show
1978:
The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a bomb at the La Mon restaurant near Belfast, Northern Ireland, killing twelve people and injuring thirty others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Mon_restaurant_bombing
2011:
Arab Spring: Bahrain security forces launched a pre-dawn raid on protesters at the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, killing four of them, and in Libya, a "Day of Rage" took place with protests across the country against the government of Muammar Gaddafi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Civil_War_(2011)
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
QWERTY: Denoting a standard layout of keys on a keyboard for typing, in which the leftmost keys of the top lettered row are Q-W-E-R-T-Y. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/QWERTY
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Diverse living things represent diverse divinities and diverse powers, which, besides the absolute being they possess, obtain the being communicated to all things according to their capacity and measure. Whence all of God is in all things (although not totally, but in some more abundantly and in others less) … Just as Divinity descends in a certain manner, to the extent that one communicates with Nature, so one ascends to Divinity through Nature, just as by means of a life resplendent in natural things one rises to the life that presides over them. --Giordano Bruno https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno