Benjamin Tillman (1847–1918) was the Democratic Governor of South Carolina from 1890 to 1894 and a United States Senator from 1895 until his death in 1918. A white supremacist who opposed civil rights for blacks, Tillman led a paramilitary group of Red Shirts during South Carolina's violent 1876 election. One of his legacies was South Carolina's 1895 constitution, which disenfranchised most of the black majority and ensured white rule for more than half a century. On the floor of the U.S. Senate, he frequently ridiculed blacks, and boasted of having helped to kill them during the 1876 campaign. He was known as "Pitchfork Ben" after he threatened to use a pitchfork to prod that "bag of beef", President Grover Cleveland. He was the primary sponsor of the Tillman Act (1907), the first federal campaign finance reform law, which banned corporate contributions in federal political campaigns.

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

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1899:

Second Boer War: In the Battle of Magersfontein, Boers defeated the forces of the British Empire trying to relieve the Siege of Kimberley. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Magersfontein

1972:

Apollo 17 (Lunar Roving Vehicle pictured), the last Apollo mission, landed on the Moon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_17

1981:

Salvadoran Civil War: About 900 civilians were killed by the Salvadoran armed forces in an anti-guerrilla campaign. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Mozote_massacre

2008:

American stockbroker Bernard Madoff was arrested and charged with securities fraud in a $64.8 billion Ponzi scheme, the largest in history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

elevenses: (Britain, informal) A short mid-morning break taken around eleven o'clock for a drink or light snack. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elevenses

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion. Communist propaganda would sometimes include statements such as "we include almost all the commandments of the Gospel in our ideology". The difference is that the Gospel asks all this to be achieved through love, through self- limitation, but socialism only uses coercion. This is one point. Untouched by the breath of God, unrestricted by human conscience, both capitalism and socialism are repulsive.   --Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn