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>
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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>
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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>
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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>
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