The Manchester Mummy, Hannah Beswick (1688–1758), was a wealthy woman with a pathological fear of premature burial whose body was embalmed and kept above ground for over 100 years after her death. The "cold dark shadow of her mummy hung over Manchester in the middle of the eighteenth century", according to writer Edith Sitwell. The mid-18th century saw an upsurge in the public's fear of being mistakenly buried alive, and Beswick had seen one of her brothers show signs of life just as his coffin lid was about to be closed. Writing in 1895, the physician J. C. Ouseley claimed that as many as 2,700 people were buried prematurely each year in England and Wales. For more than 50 years Beswick's mummified body was kept in an old clock case in the home of her family physician, Dr Charles White, and periodically checked for signs of life. Eventually it was donated to the Museum of the Manchester Natural History Society, where it was put on display in the entrance hall. Beswick's home was converted into workers' tenements following her death; several of those living there claimed to have seen an apparition dressed in a black silk gown and a white cap, and described it as Hannah Beswick.

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

_______________________________ 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, to protest what he believed were some of the Roman Catholic clergy's sinful abuses, marking the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther

1864:

The territory that is well known today as the home of the "City of Sin", legalized gambling, legalized prostitution, and other devilish vices became the 36th U.S. state. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada

1941:

Several witnesses first reported seeing clearly visible images of four deceased former U.S. Presidents on the face of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore

1973:

Three Provisional Irish Republican Army members imprisoned at Dublin's Mountjoy Prison vanished into the sky, embarrassing the government of Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave as it launched a manhunt involving twenty thousand members of the Irish Defence Forces and Garda Síochána for the escapees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Mountjoy_Prison_helicopter_escape

1999:

All 217 people on board EgyptAir Flight 990 perished when the aircraft suddenly plummeted into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, USA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990

_____________________________ 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

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Youth is not a question of years: one is young or old from birth. --Natalie Clifford Barney http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Natalie_Clifford_Barney