Themes in Maya Angelou's autobiographies include racism, identity, family, and travel. Angelou (1928–2014), an African-American writer, achieved critical acclaim for her first of seven autobiographies, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969). That book and the second in the series, Gather Together in My Name (1974), are about the lives of Black women in America. Her autobiographies all have the same structure, a narrative of how she coped within the larger white society she inhabited. In her third autobiography, Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (1976), she showed the integrity of the African-American character as she experienced more positive interactions with whites. The series continues with The Heart of a Woman (1981), All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986), A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002), and Mom & Me & Mom (2013). Angelou's autobiographies take place from Arkansas to Africa and back to the US, and span almost forty years, from the start of World War II to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Full article...). Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themes_in_Maya_Angelou%27s_autobiographies> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 759: Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu departed for Chengdu, staying with his fellow poet Pei Di, where he composed poems about life in his thatched cottage. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Fu> 1871: Aida, one of Giuseppe Verdi's most popular operas, made its debut in Cairo, Egypt. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aida> 1953: On New Zealand's North Island, at Tangiwai, a railway bridge was damaged by a lahar and collapsed beneath a passenger train, killing 151 people. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangiwai_disaster> 1968: Astronaut William Anders of the NASA Apollo 8 mission, the first manned voyage to orbit the Moon, took the famous photograph known as "Earthrise", showing the Earth rising above the lunar surface. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthrise> 1974: Cyclone Tracy struck Darwin, Australia, eventually destroying more than 70% of the city. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Tracy> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: sommelier: The member of staff at a restaurant who keeps the wine cellar and advises guests on a choice of wines; a wine steward, a wine waiter. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sommelier> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:   I think it will be found that the grand style arises in poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject.   --Matthew Arnold <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Matthew_Arnold>