Isabelle Eberhardt (17 February 1877 – 21 October 1904) was a Swiss
explorer and writer. As a teenager, she published short stories under a
male pseudonym. She became interested in North Africa, and was
considered a proficient writer on the region despite learning about it
only through correspondence. Eberhardt moved to Algeria in 1897, where
she converted to Islam, dressed as an Arabic man and adopted a male
name. Her unorthodox behaviour made her an outcast to European settlers
and the French administration. Her acceptance by the Qadiriyya, an
Islamic order, convinced the French that she was a spy or an agitator.
In 1901 she survived an assassination attempt and was ordered to leave
Algeria, but was allowed to return the following year after marrying her
long-time partner, an Algerian soldier. In 1904, aged 27, she was killed
by a flash flood in Aïn Sefra. Her manuscripts were collected and
published posthumously, receiving critical acclaim. Streets were named
after her in Béchar and Algiers.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle_Eberhardt>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1621:
Myles Standish was elected as the first commander of the
Plymouth Colony militia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myles_Standish>
1814:
War of the Sixth Coalition: Napoleon led a French army to a
crushing victory in the Battle of Mormant, nearly destroying a Russian
division.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mormant>
1913:
In the U.S. National Guard's 69th Regiment Armory in New York
City, the Armory Show opened (poster pictured), introducing Americans to
avant-garde and modern art.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armory_Show>
1978:
The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a
bomb at the La Mon restaurant near Belfast, Northern Ireland, killing
twelve people and injuring thirty others.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Mon_restaurant_bombing>
2011:
Arab Spring: Bahrain security forces launched a pre-dawn raid
on protesters at the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, killing four of them,
and in Libya, a "Day of Rage" took place with protests across the
country against the government of Muammar Gaddafi.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Civil_War_(2011)>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
QWERTY:
Denoting a standard layout of keys on a keyboard for typing, in which
the leftmost keys of the top lettered row are Q-W-E-R-T-Y.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/QWERTY>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Diverse living things represent diverse divinities and diverse
powers, which, besides the absolute being they possess, obtain the being
communicated to all things according to their capacity and measure.
Whence all of God is in all things (although not totally, but in some
more abundantly and in others less) … Just as Divinity descends in a
certain manner, to the extent that one communicates with Nature, so one
ascends to Divinity through Nature, just as by means of a life
resplendent in natural things one rises to the life that presides over
them.
--Giordano Bruno
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno>
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