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December 22

12-22 TABLE of CONTENTS: The Symbol of Soviet Resistance DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS QUOTE by Molly Ivins. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya       Event, December 1941: the German army captured Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, a Soviet partisan. Rape, torture, and mutilation could not break her, so they hanged her in public and left her half-naked body on display as an "example" to others. She became the symbol of Soviet resistance to Nazi occupation. German generals noted that Soviet battle resolve hardened soon afterwards. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | 12-22 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS B. 12-22-1789, Ann Hasseltine Judson, eulogized by a number of poets and novelists, she was the first wife of noted missionary Adoniram Judson, and the first American woman to become a foreign missionary. Her noted husband's conversion to the Baptist faith left them destitute in India when their Congregationalist sponsors withdrew financial support. She also converted and went with him to Burma, living in great poverty where she ministered and preached to Burmese women while he wrote a Burmese New Testament. She returned once to the United States for health reasons but returned to Burma within two years.       During the Burmese war with Britain, Judson was imprisoned and Ann lost her health permanently while caring for her infant daughter, an adopted Burmese girl, and nursing her husband in prison at incredible peril and poverty. She died shortly after his release. B. 12-22-1802, Sara Coleridge, English translator. A talented poet in her own right but she is always referred to as the editor of the works of her father, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. B. 12-22-1853, Maria Teresa Carreno, Venezuelan pianist, composer, singer. Debuted in the U.S. at nine, toured Europe 1865-75. MTC was known for her great technical virtuosity and dramatic intensity. B. 12-22-1912, Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson, better known as Lady Bird, held a journalism degree, helped her husband Lyndon Johnson every inch of the way to prominence in the U.S. Senate and later as an effective president. CATJ was an extremely capable businesswoman, and took an active role in public affairs. B. 12-22-1926, Deborah Partridge Wolfe, chief of education (1951), House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE | | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | QUOTES DU JOUR IVINS, MOLLY:       "Also a bit beyond my ken is the furor over women in combat. Of course there has to be a single standard of physical ability for soldiers; by one estimate, 95 percent of women don't have the upper body strength to lug mortars around. Fine, so admit the 5 percent who do.       "Look at it this way: a woman with that much upper body strength can deck anyone who sexually harasses her."             -- Molly Ivins, syndicated columnis, columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE | | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE |