Margaret Murray (13 July 1863 – 13 November 1963) was an Anglo-Indian
Egyptologist, archaeologist, historian, and folklorist. The first female
archaeology lecturer in the United Kingdom, she worked at University
College London and served as president of the Folklore Society.
Encouraged in her research by the department head Flinders Petrie, she
established a reputation in Egyptology for her excavations of the
Osireion temple and Saqqara cemetery. She taught at the British Museum
and also the Manchester Museum, where she led the unwrapping of one of
the mummies from the Tomb of the Two Brothers. A first-wave feminist,
Murray joined the Women's Social and Political Union. She also focused
her research on the witch-cult hypothesis, a theory that the witch
trials of early modern Christendom were targeted at a pre-Christian
religion devoted to a Horned God; this theory was later discredited, but
it gained widespread attention and provided the basis for Wicca.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Murray>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1643:
English Civil War: Royalist forces defeated the
Parliamentarians at the Battle of Roundway Down near Devizes, Wiltshire.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Roundway_Down>
1913:
While on a campaign in Bulgaria, the Romanian Army suffered a
cholera outbreak that led to 1,600 deaths.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1913_Romanian_Army_cholera_outbreak>
1973:
Watergate scandal: Under questioning by Senate investigators,
White House deputy chief of staff Alexander Butterfield revealed the
existence of a secret taping system (tape recorder pictured) in the Oval
Office.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_White_House_tapes>
2003:
French Directorate-General for External Security personnel
aborted an operation to rescue Colombian politician Íngrid Betancourt
from FARC guerrillas, resulting in a political scandal.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op%C3%A9ration_14_juillet>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
evil eye:
1. A wicked look conveying dislike or envy that in many cultures is
believed to be able to cause bad luck or injury; also, the ability to
cause bad luck or injury through such a look, supposed to be possessed
by some people.
2. (often humorous) A look conveying disapproval, envy, hostility, etc.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/evil_eye>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
No act is of itself either good or bad. Only its place in the
order of things makes it good or bad.
--Milan Kundera
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Milan_Kundera>
Show replies by date