Matthew Quay (1833–1904) represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate from 1887 until 1899 and from 1901 until his death. As chair of the Republican National Committee and thus party campaign manager, he helped elect Benjamin Harrison president in 1888; he was also instrumental in the 1900 election of Theodore Roosevelt as vice president. Quay received the Medal of Honor for heroism at the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg. Beginning in 1867, he became part of the political machine run by Senator Simon Cameron. Quay served as the secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia county recorder, and Pennsylvania state treasurer. The last office, to which he was elected in 1885, made him the state's Republican political boss. At his height, Quay influenced appointments to thousands of state and federal positions in Pennsylvania, the occupants of which had to help finance the machine. After his death, the machine was taken over by the state's other senator, Boies Penrose, who continued to run it until his own death in 1921.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Quay

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1489:

Catherine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, was forced to abdicate and sell the administration of the island to the Republic of Venice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Cornaro

1885:

The Mikado, Gilbert and Sullivan's most frequently performed Savoy opera, debuted at the Savoy Theatre in London. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mikado

1969:

Edward M. Burke, the longest-serving alderman in the history of the Chicago City Council, was sworn into office. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_M._Burke

1984:

Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Féin, was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt by Ulster Freedom Fighters in central Belfast, Northern Ireland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Adams

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

chronoception: (physiology) The perception or sense of time. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chronoception

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavor in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is.   --Albert Einstein https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein