Princess Charlotte of Wales (1796–1817) was the only child of George,
Prince of Wales (later George IV) and Caroline of Brunswick. Had she
outlived her father and her grandfather, King George III, she would
have become Queen of the United Kingdom. Instead, she died following
childbirth at the age of 21. Charlotte's parents disliked each other
from before their pre-arranged marriage and soon separated. As
Charlotte grew to adulthood, her father pressured her to marry William,
Hereditary Prince of Orange, but after initially accepting him,
Charlotte soon broke off the match. This resulted in an extended
contest of wills between her and her father, and finally the Prince of
Wales permitted her to marry Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (later
Leopold I of Belgium). After a year and a half of happy marriage,
Charlotte died after giving birth to a stillborn son. Charlotte's death
set off tremendous mourning in the country, which had seen her as a
sign of hope and a contrast to her mentally ill grandfather and
unpopular father. As she had been King George III's only legitimate
grandchild, there was pressure on the King's unwed sons to marry. King
George III's fourth son, Edward, Duke of Kent, fathered the eventual
heir, Queen Victoria.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Charlotte_of_Wales>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1610:
Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei first observed three of the
eventual four Galilean moons through his telescope: Io, Europa, and
Callisto.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Io_%28moon%29>
1922:
Dáil Éireann narrowly approved the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which ended the
Irish War of Independence and established the Irish Free State a
self-governing dominion within the British Empire.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Irish_Treaty>
1948:
Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell fatally crashed his P-51
Mustang while in pursuit of a supposed UFO near Fort Knox, Kentucky,
US.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantell_UFO_incident>
1975:
The National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women was established
to promote empowerment and gender equality for the women of the
Philippines.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Commission_on_Women>
2007:
Newly appointed Archbishop of Warsaw Stanisław Wielgus resigned amid
allegations that he collaborated with the Polish communist government's
secret police.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Wielgus>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
hoo-ha (n):
A fuss, uproar, commotion or stir; hype; brouhaha
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hoo-ha>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
When I take people round to see my animals, one of the first questions
they ask (unless the animal is cute and appealing) is, "what use is
it?" by which they mean, "what use is it to them?" To this one can
reply "What use is the Acropolis?" Does a creature have to be of direct
material use to mankind in order to exist? By and large, by asking the
question "what use is it?" you are asking the animal to justify its
existence without having justified your own.
--Gerald Durrell
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gerald_Durrell>
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