Masako Katsura (1913–1995) was a carom billiards player most active in the 1950s who trailblazed a path for women in the sport by competing and placing among the best in the male-dominated world of professional billiards. First learning the game from her brother-in-law and then under the tutelage of Japanese champion Kinrey Matsuyama, Katsura finished second in Japan's national three-cushion billiards championship three times. In exhibition she was noted for running 10,000 points at the game of straight rail. After marrying a U.S. army officer in 1950, Katsura emigrated with him to the United States in 1951, where she was invited to play in the 1952 U.S.-sponsored World Three-Cushion Championship, ultimately taking seventh place at that competition. Katsura was the first woman ever to be included in any world billiards tournament. Her fame cemented, Katsura went on an exhibition tour of the United States with 8-time world champion Welker Cochran, and later with 51-time world champion, Willie Hoppe. In 1953 and 1954 she again competed for the world three-cushion crown, taking fifth and fourth places respectively.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masako_Katsura

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1862:

American telescope-maker and astronomer Alvan Graham Clark first observed the faint white dwarf companion of Sirius , the brightest star in the night sky. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius

1917:

World War I: Germany announced its U-boats would resume unrestricted submarine warfare, less than two years after suspending its attacks when the United States protested the sinking of the ocean liner RMS Lusitania. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-boat_Campaign_%28World_War_I%29

1943:

World War II: American and Australian forces stopped a Japanese advance during the New Guinea campaign, killing around 1,200 troops during the Battle of Wau. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wau

1946:

In the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a new constitution established the six constituent republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Federal_Republic_of_Yugoslavia

1971:

The Winter Soldier Investigation, a three-day media event sponsored by the anti-war organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War to publicize war crimes and other atrocities by American forces and their allies during the Vietnam War, began. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Soldier_Investigation

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

caltrop (n): A small, metal object with spikes arranged so that, when thrown onto the ground, one always faces up as a threat to [[passer-by http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/caltrop

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Anybody can they say they are being "spiritual" — and they are, because everybody has some type and level of concern. Let us therefore see their actual conception, in thought and action, and see how many perspectives it is in fact concerned with, and how many perspectives it actually takes into account, and how many perspectives it attempts to integrate, and thus let us see how deep and how wide runs that bodhisattva vow to refuse rest until all perspectives whatsoever are liberated into their own primordial nature. --Ken Wilber http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber