Grace Sherwood was a healer, midwife, and farmer from Princess Anne
County and Pungo, Virginia. Sherwood's neighbors claimed that she
ruined crops, killed livestock, and conjured storms. She was tried for
witchcraft several times, the first in 1697 when she was accused of
casting a spell on a bull, resulting in its death. The following year
she was charged again, for bewitching the hogs and cotton crop
belonging to one of her neighbors. Her final trial took place in 1706,
when she was accused of bewitching Elizabeth Hill, causing Hill to
miscarry. The court ordered that Sherwood's guilt or innocence should
be determined by ducking her in water. If the water rejected her and
she floated, then she was guilty; if the water accepted her and she
drowned, then she was innocent. Sherwood floated to the surface, and
subsequently spent up to seven years and nine months in the jail next
to Lynnhaven Parish Church. She was free by 1714 and succeeded in
recovering her property from Princess Anne County, after which she
lived quietly until her death in 1740 at the age of 80.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Sherwood>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1517:
According to traditional accounts, Martin Luther first posted his
Ninety-Five Theses onto the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg,
present-day Germany, marking the beginning of the Protestant
Reformation.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther>
1864:
Nevada was admitted as the 36th U.S. State, in part to help ensure
Abraham Lincoln's re-election as President of the United States eight
days later.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada>
1941:
More than 101 crew members of the USS Reuben James perished when their
vessel became the first United States Navy ship sunk by hostile action
during World War II after it was torpedoed by the German submarine
U-552.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Reuben_James_%28DD-245%29>
1973:
Three Provisional Irish Republican Army members escaped from Mountjoy
Prison in Dublin after a hijacked helicopter landed in the prison's
exercise yard.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Mountjoy_Prison_helicopter_escape>
1999:
All 217 people on board EgyptAir Flight 990 were killed when the
aircraft suddenly plummeted into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of
Nantucket, Massachusetts, US.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
fetch (n):
1. The source and origin of attraction; a force, quality or propensity
which is attracting.
2. A stratagem by which a thing is indirectly brought to pass; a trick
or artifice.
3. The apparition of a living person; a wraith
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fetch>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Wherein lies happiness? In that which becks
Our ready minds to fellowship divine,
A fellowship with essence;
till we shine,
Full alchemiz’d, and free of space. Behold
The clear religion of
heaven!
--John Keats
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Keats>
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