Elizabeth Canning (1734–73) was an English maidservant who claimed to have been kidnapped and held in a hayloft against her will, and who ultimately became central to one of the most famous English criminal mysteries of the 18th century. She disappeared on 1 January 1753, returning 28 days later, emaciated and in a "deplorable condition", to her mother's home in the City of London. After Canning was interviewed, two women, Susannah Wells and Mary Squires, were identified as her supposed captors and arrested. Local magistrate Henry Fielding investigated Canning's story, interviewing several witnesses. Wells and Squires were tried and found guilty; Wells was sentenced to death for theft. However, the trial judge, Crisp Gascoyne, was unhappy with the verdict and began his own investigation. Upon being questioned, some witnesses recanted their earlier testimony, and evidence from others implied that Squires could not have abducted Canning. Gascoyne had Canning arrested, and she was found guilty of perjury at a trial in 1754. She was imprisoned for a month and transported for seven years. She died in British America in 1773, but the mystery surrounding her disappearance remains unsolved.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Canning

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1859:

Disgruntled with the legal and political structures of the United States, Joshua Norton distributed letters to various newspapers in San Francisco, proclaiming himself Emperor Norton. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton

1914:

Andrew Fisher became Prime Minister of Australia for the third time, beginning a period of reform unmatched in the Commonwealth until the 1940s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Fisher

1939:

World War II: The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, sixteen days after Nazi Germany's attack on that country from the west. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland

1978:

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin (both pictured with Jimmy Carter) signed the Camp David Accords after twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_Accords

2011:

Adbusters, a Canadian anti-consumerist publication, organized a protest against corporate influence on democracy at Zuccotti Park in New York City that became known as Occupy Wall Street. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

rapine: The seizure of someone's property by force; plunder. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rapine

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

What I always wanted to be was a magician… Doing magic, you not only have to be able to do a trick, you have to have a little story line to go with it.   --Ken Kesey https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Kesey