Lady Grange (1679–1745) was the wife of James Erskine, Lord Grange, a Scottish lawyer with Jacobite sympathies. After 25 years of marriage and nine children, the Granges separated acrimoniously. When Lady Grange produced letters that she claimed were evidence of his treasonable plottings against the Hanoverian government in London, her husband had her kidnapped from her home in Edinburgh on the night of 22 January 1732. She was incarcerated in various remote locations on the western seaboard of Scotland, including the Monach Isles, Skye and the distant islands of St Kilda. Lady Grange's father was convicted of murder when she was about 10 years old and she is known to have had a violent temper; initially her absence seems to have caused little comment. No action was ever taken on her behalf by any of her children, the eldest of whom would have been in their early twenties when she was abducted. News of her plight eventually reached Edinburgh however, and an unsuccessful rescue attempt was undertaken by her lawyer, Thomas Hope of Rankeillor. She died in captivity, after being effectively imprisoned for 13 years. Her life has been remembered in poetry, prose and a play.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Chiesley,_Lady_Grange
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1551:
The National University of San Marcos, the oldest university in the Americas, was founded in Lima, Peru. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_University_of_San_Marcos
1846:
Led by George Donner, the American pioneer group known as the Donner Party, which would become known for resorting to cannibalism when they became trapped in the Sierra Nevadas, left Independence, Missouri, for California. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party
1941:
German engineer Konrad Zuse presented the Z3 (replica pictured), the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, to an audience of scientists in Berlin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)
1955:
The Allied occupation of Austria came to an end, with the nation regaining its independence ten years after the end of World War II. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied-occupied_Austria
1975:
The Cambodian navy seized the American container ship SS Mayaguez in recognized international waters, but claimed as territorial waters by Cambodia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayaguez_incident
2008:
An earthquake measuring about 8.0 Ms struck the Sichuan province of China, killing at least 69,000 people, injuring at least 374,000, and leaving at least 4.8 million others homeless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Sichuan_earthquake
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
deskfast: Breakfast eaten at work, particularly while sitting at a desk. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/deskfast
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Ignorance is not bliss — it is oblivion. Determined ignorance is the hastiest kind of oblivion. --Philip Wylie https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Philip_Wylie
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