Nadezhda Alliluyeva (1901–1932), also known as Nadya or Nadia, was the
second wife of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. She was born in Baku to a
friend of Stalin, a fellow revolutionary, and was raised in Saint
Petersburg. Alliluyeva was exposed to revolutionary activity throughout
her youth. Having known Stalin from a young age, she married him when
she was 18, and they had two children. Alliluyeva worked as a secretary
for Bolshevik leaders, including Vladimir Lenin and Stalin, and also as
an assistant in the Department of Agitation and Propaganda, before
enrolling at the Industrial Academy in Moscow to study synthetic fibres
and become an engineer. She had health issues, which had an adverse
impact on her relationship with Stalin. She also suspected he was
unfaithful, which led to frequent arguments with him. On several
occasions, Alliluyeva reportedly contemplated leaving Stalin. After an
argument she shot herself early in the morning of 9 November 1932.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadezhda_Alliluyeva>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1892:
The English association football club Newcastle United was
founded by the merger of Newcastle East End and West End.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcastle_United_F.C.>
1917:
First World War: Hussein al-Husayni, the Ottoman mayor of
Jerusalem, surrendered the city to British forces (pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jerusalem>
2016:
Park Geun-hye, the president of South Korea, was impeached,
marking the culmination of the country's political scandal.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Park_Geun-hye>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
sophisticate:
1. (transitive)
2. To make (something) less innocent or natural; to artificialize.
3. To make (something) more sophisticated (“complex, developed, or
refined”); to develop, to refine.
4. (also reflexive) To make (oneself or someone) more sophisticated
(“experienced in the ways of the world, that is, cosmopolitan or
worldly-wise”); to cosmopolitanize.
5. (also figuratively) To alter and make impure (something) by mixing it
with some foreign or inferior substance, especially with an intention to
deceive; to adulterate; (generally) to corrupt or deceive (someone,
their thinking, etc.).
6. To change the meaning of (something) in a deceptive or misleading
way.
7. (archaic) To apply an artificial technique to (something).
8. (intransitive) To practise sophistry (“the (deliberate) making of
arguments that seem plausible but are fallacious or misleading”). [...]
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sophisticate>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Ideas, and even the detection of errors, require more than care
and caution.
--Ernest Gellner
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ernest_Gellner>
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