Mary Margaret O'Reilly (1865–1949) was the Assistant Director of the United States Bureau of the Mint. One of the highest-ranking female civil servants of her time, the "sweetheart of the Treasury" often served as the Mint's acting director in the absence of the director from 1916 until 1924, when she was formally made assistant director. O'Reilly lived her early life in Massachusetts. She left school around age 14 to help support her widowed mother and her siblings, and worked in Worcester for twenty years as a clerk. In 1904, O'Reilly succeeded in gaining a position at the Mint Bureau. Her rapid rise in the hierarchy was unusual for a woman at that time, and with many of the directors under whom she served having little knowledge of or interest in the bureau's operations, the task of running the Mint often fell to her. Beginning in 1933, O'Reilly served under her first female director, Nellie Tayloe Ross, and soon forged a strong bond with her. O'Reilly was so indispensable to the bureau's operations that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt postponed her retirement, scheduled for 1935, to 1938.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Margaret_O%27Reilly

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1805:

War of the Third Coalition: French forces under Marshal Michel Ney defeated Austrian forces in Elchingen, present-day Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Elchingen

1888:

French inventor Louis Le Prince filmed Roundhay Garden Scene, the earliest surviving motion picture, in Roundhay, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Le_Prince

1912:

Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt was shot in an assassination attempt, but delivered a speech before receiving treatment from preeminent surgeon John Benjamin Murphy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Benjamin_Murphy

1940:

Second World War: During the Blitz, a 1,400 kg (3,100 lb) semi-armour piercing fragmentation bomb fell on the road above Balham station, which was being used as an air-raid shelter, killing at least 64 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balham_station

1981:

Hosni Mubarak was elected President of Egypt, one week after Anwar Sadat was assassinated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosni_Mubarak

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

dude-bro: (slang) A hypermasculine man, especially one who is misogynist and/or homophobic. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dude-bro

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different. Life would undergo a change of appearance because we ourselves had undergone a change of attitude.   --Katherine Mansfield https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Katherine_Mansfield