Alice Ayres (c. 1859–1885) was an English household assistant and nursemaid to the family of her brother-in-law and sister, Henry and Mary Ann Chandler. The Chandlers owned an oil and paint shop in Southwark, and Ayres lived with them above the shop. In 1885, fire broke out in the shop and Ayres rescued three of her nieces from the burning building but fatally injured herself. Ayres died during a era of great social change in Britain in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. The manner of her death caused great public interest, and large numbers of people attended her funeral and contributed to the funding of a memorial. She then underwent a "secular canonisation" and became widely depicted in the popular culture of the period. The circumstances of her death were distorted to give the impression that she was an employee willing to die for the sake of her employer's family. She was widely cited as a role model, and was promoted as an example of the values held by various social and political movements. In 1902 her name was added to the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice and in 1936 a street near the scene of the fire was renamed Ayres Street in her honour. The case of Alice Ayres came to renewed public notice with the release of Patrick Marber's 1997 play Closer, and the 2004 film based on it.

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

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

435:

Nestorius, the originator of Nestorianism, was exiled by Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II to a monastery in Egypt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestorius

1916:

Irish nationalist Sir Roger Casement was hanged at London's Pentonville Prison for treason for his role in the Easter Rising, a rebellion to win Irish independence from Britain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Casement

1948:

Before the House Un-American Activities Committee of the United States House of Representatives, former spy turned government informer Whittaker Chambers accused U.S. State Department official Alger Hiss of being a communist and a Soviet spy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whittaker_Chambers

1949:

The Basketball Association of America agreed to merge with the National Basketball League to form the National Basketball Association. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Basketball_Association

2005:

President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya of Mauritania was overthrown in a military coup while he was attending the funeral of King Fahd in Saudi Arabia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maaouya_Ould_Sid%27Ahmed_Taya

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

ochre (n): 1. An earth pigment containing silica, aluminum and ferric oxide. 2. A somewhat yellowish orange colour http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ochre

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

I did not want to move. For I had the feeling that this was a place, once seen, that could not be seen again. If I left and then came back, it would not be the same; no matter how many times I might return to this particular spot the place and feeling would never be the same, something would be lost or something would be added, and there never would exist again, through all eternity, all the integrated factors that made it what it was in this magic moment. --Clifford D. Simak http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Clifford_D._Simak