Mary Bell (3 December 1903 – 6 February 1979), nicknamed "Paddy",
was an Australian aviator and founding leader of the Women's Air
Training Corps, a volunteer organisation that provided support to the
Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) during World War II. She later helped
establish the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF), the first
and largest women's wartime service in the country, which grew to more
than 18,000 members by 1944. Born Mary Fernandes in Launceston,
Tasmania, she married John Bell, an RAAF officer, in 1923 and obtained a
pilot's licence in 1927. Given temporary command of the WAAAF on its
formation in 1941, she was passed over as its inaugural director in
favour of corporate executive Clare Stevenson. Bell refused the post of
deputy director and resigned, but later rejoined and served until the
final months of the war. She and her husband became farmers after
leaving the military.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Bell_%28aviator%29>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1945:
Indonesian National Revolution: Following the killing of
British officer Brigadier A. W. S. Mallaby a few weeks earlier, British
forces retaliated by attacking Surabaya.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Surabaya>
1969:
The children's television series Sesame Street (puppeteer
Caroll Spinney pictured) premiered in the United States.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Street>
1975:
SS Edmund Fitzgerald, the largest ship on North America's
Great Lakes, sank in Lake Superior with the loss of 29 lives.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald>
2009:
Ships of the South Korean and North Korean navies skirmished
off Daecheong Island in the Yellow Sea.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Daecheong>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
sumac:
1. Any of various shrubs or small trees of the genus Rhus and other
genera in Anacardiaceae, particularly the elm-leaved sumac, Sicilian
sumac, or tanner's sumac (Rhus coriaria).
2. Dried and chopped-up leaves and stems of a plant of the genus Rhus,
particularly the tanner's sumac (see sense 1), used for dyeing and
tanning leather or for medicinal purposes.
3. A sour spice popular in the Eastern Mediterranean, made from the
berries of tanner's sumac.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sumac>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
All writers … have an obligation to our readers: it's the
obligation to write true things, especially important when we are
creating tales of people who do not exist in places that never were —
to understand that truth is not in what happens but what it tells us
about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.
--Neil Gaiman
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Neil_Gaiman>
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