The Biddenden Maids, Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst, were conjoined twins supposedly born in the village of Biddenden, Kent, in the year 1100. It is claimed that they were joined at both the shoulder and the hip, and that on their death they bequeathed land to the village. The income from this land was used to pay for a gift of food and drink to the poor every Easter. Since at least 1775 this has included hard biscuits imprinted with an image of two conjoined women, known as "Biddenden Cakes". Some historians dismissed the story as a folk myth, claiming that the image on the cakes had originally represented two poor women and that the story of the conjoined twins was invented to account for it. Despite doubts as to its authenticity, in the 19th century the legend became increasingly popular and the village of Biddenden was thronged with rowdy visitors every Easter. In 1907 the land supposedly bequeathed by the twins was sold. The income from the sale allowed the annual distribution of gifts to expand in scale, providing the widows and pensioners of Biddenden with cheese, bread and tea at Easter and with cash payments at Christmas. Biddenden cakes continue to be given to the poor of Biddenden each Easter Monday, and are sold as souvenirs to visitors.
Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biddenden_Maids
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1341:
Italian scholar and poet Petrarch took the title poet laureate at a ceremony in Rome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrarch
1820:
A Greek peasant discovered a statue of a woman with its arms missing—the Venus de Milo—on the Aegean island of Milos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_de_Milo
1886:
British Prime Minister William Gladstone introduced the first Irish Home Rule Bill into the British House of Commons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Ireland_Bill_1886
1904:
Longacre Square in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, was renamed Times Square after The New York Times building. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Square
1992:
American tennis player Arthur Ashe announced that he had contracted HIV from blood transfusions; he would spend the remainder of his life as an AIDS activist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ashe
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
cross swords (v): (idiomatic) To quarrel or argue with someone, to have a dispute with someone http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cross_swords
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Life by life and love by love
We passed through the cycles strange, And breath by breath and death by death
We followed the chain of change. Till there came a time in the law of life
When o’er the nursing sod, The shadows broke and soul awoke In a strange, dim dream of God. --Langdon Smith http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Langdon_Smith
daily-article-l@lists.wikimedia.org