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>
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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>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
chronoception:
(physiology) The perception or sense of time.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chronoception>
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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>
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