Martha Layne Collins (born 1936) is a businesswoman and politician from Kentucky who was the state's 56th governor from 1983 to 1987. Prior to her election as governor, she was the 48th Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky, serving under John Y. Brown, Jr. She is the only woman to have been governor of Kentucky, and her election made her the highest-ranking Democratic woman in the U.S. at the time. She was considered as a possible running mate for Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale in the 1984 presidential election, but Mondale chose Geraldine Ferraro instead. Her administration had two primary focuses: education and economic development. She secured an increase in education funding during a special legislative session in 1985 and successfully used economic incentives to bring a Toyota manufacturing plant to Georgetown, Kentucky, in 1986. After her term as governor, she became president of Saint Catharine College near Springfield, Kentucky. Her husband's conviction on charges of influence-peddling in 1993 damaged her hopes for a return to political life. She is currently an executive scholar in residence at Georgetown College.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Layne_Collins

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1576:

A letter to King Philip II of Spain contained the first European mention of the Mayan ruins of Copán in modern Honduras. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop%C3%A1n

1658:

After a devastating defeat in the Northern Wars, the King of Denmark–Norway was forced to give up nearly half his Danish territory to Sweden to save the rest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Roskilde

1736:

Nader Shah, founder of the Afsharid dynasty, was crowned Shah of Iran. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nader_Shah

1924:

Three violent explosions at a coal mine near Castle Gate, Utah, US, killed all 171 miners working there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Gate_Mine_disaster

1978:

BBC Radio 4 transmitted the first episode of English author and dramatist Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a science fiction radio series that was later adapted into novels, a television series, and other media formats. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_%28radio_series%29

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

maillot (n): 1. A one-piece swimsuit (for women) 2. A leotard or tights of stretchable, jersey fabric, generally worn by dancers and gymnasts http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/maillot

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

You cannot avoid making judgements but you can become more conscious of the way in which you make them. This is critically important because once we judge someone or something we tend to stop thinking about them or it. Which means, among other things, that we behave in response to our judgements rather than to that to which is being judged. People and things are processes. Judgements convert them into fixed states. This is one reason that judgements are often self-fulfilling. --Neil Postman http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Neil_Postman