08-23 TABLE of CONTENTS:
Agrippina the Younger
DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
QUOTE by
Cornelia Otis Skinner.
Agrippina the Younger
Agrippina, the Younger (15
AD -59 AD) - Few mothers have been quite as vilified as Agrippina, the
mother of Nero and sister of Emperor (Gaius) Caligula. Suppositions and
rumors about her alleged depravities are repeated constantly although the
original chroniclers were known to be highly prejudiced such as one man
who was said to be in lust for her son.
She was married three
times, the third time to her uncle the emperor Claudius who ordered
her to marry him. Rumors accuse her of poisoning her second husband to
pave the way for Claudius while others say Claudius had it done or ordered
Agrippina to do it.
Claudius agreed to name
her son Nero (fathered by her first husband) as heir. Within five years
Emperor Claudius died - and Agrippina again was suspected of helping things
along. She attempted to act as regent for her son Emperor Nero who would
later do a famous fiddling act but as he matured he shunted her aside.
A motherly - some say
incestuous - objections to his affairs with other women and men resulted
in an attempt on her life by drowning which failed. Later, however, Nero
did have her put to death.
It should be noted that
Roman women had almost no legal powers and were almost entirely subject
to their familial men and, of course, the absolute rule of an Emperor.
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08-23 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
B. 08-23-1906, Gertrude Kuenzel, American harpsichordist of international
reputation.
B. 08-23-1912, Coya Knutson,
U.S. Representative to Congress from Minnesota (9th District), elected
1954 as the farm woman's candidate pledged to 90% parity for farm products.
She was raised a farmer.
B. 08-23-1942, Patricia McBride, ballerina with the NYC Ballet
(1959).
Event 08-23-1943, along the beaches at Cape Fear outside Camp
Davis, A-24 planes flown by members of the Women Air Service Pilots are
dragging training targets behind them. The targets are being shot at with
live ammunition by men training to be part of anti-aircraft gun crews.
Instructors are next to each man to pull a recruit's finger away who is
too excited and shoots at the plane instead of the target. It happens often.
WASP Byrd Granger in On Final Approach, the History
of the Women Air Service Pilots wrote:
"Instructor Lt. Bruce Arnold,
son of General Hap Arnold is... too late (as) he reaches to snatch a gunner's
hand from the trigger. Dismayed he sees a 50mm round speed with deplorable
accuracy toward the A-24, not the target. It will be a direct hit."
WASP Mabel Rawlinson is piloting while
in the rear cockpit is male instructor Lt. Roubillard who is checking her
on night flying. Pilot Rowlinson immediately radios they have been hit.
Granger writes:
"The engine is rough, faltering. The landing
pattern takes the plane, sputtering over the barracks where women pilots
hear it. They run out of the barracks as the crippled plane coughs one
last time, then plunges into the swampy wood at the north end of the runway.
On impact it breaks in two and the front section blazes. Mabel struggles
to release the hatch. She cannot open it.
"Lt. Roubillard, emerging (almost unhurt) from
the separated rear section, hears her screams as she burns to death. So
do the women WASP pilots running towards the crash. It is 9:20 p.m. It
is almost totally dark. And the crash will remain one of the closest guarded
secrets of World War II. Roubillard says Rawlinson's flying ability saved
his life.
"... She might have survived if the A-24 cockpit
latch had operated. But (the latch which she had written up to be fixed)
was (considered too) minor a problem to have repair priority."
To this day Rawlinson's death as a result of friendly
fire is hardly acknowledged and there are many who claim no women were
ever killed. Thirty-seven women died in the WASP program.
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QUOTES DU JOUR
SKINNER, CORNELIA OTIS:
"Women's virtue is
man's greatest invention."
-- Cornelia Otis Skinner
(b. 1901), American actor
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