America during the Civil War. Born in Kentucky, he graduated from the
U.S. Military Academy and had a career as a soldier, fighting in the
Mexican–American War. As a plantation owner, he employed slave labor
as did many of his peers in the South, and supported slavery. He served
as Secretary of War and U.S. senator, arguing against secession, but
agreeing that each state had the right to secede. At the beginning of
the Civil War in 1861, Davis was chosen as President of the Confederate
States. He took personal charge of the Confederate war plans but was
unable to defeat the larger, more powerful and better organized Union.
He is often blamed for contributing to the fall of the Confederacy. His
diplomatic efforts failed to gain recognition from any foreign country
and he paid little attention to the collapsing economy. At the end of
the war in 1865, he was captured and imprisoned; after his release he
entered private life. He wrote a memoir, The Rise and Fall of the
Confederate Government, eventually became a Civil War hero to many white
Southerners and, in later life, encouraged reconciliation with the
North.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Davis>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1658:
Pope Alexander VII appointed François de Laval as vicar
apostolic of New France.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_de_Laval>
1839:
Qing government official Lin Zexu catalysed the First Opium War
after ordering the destruction of nearly 1.2 million kg (2.6 million
lbs) of opium in Humen, China.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_Zexu>
1888:
American writer Ernest Thayer's baseball poem "Casey at the
Bat" was first published in the San Francisco Examiner.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_at_the_Bat>
1940:
Franz Rademacher, a Nazi government official, proposed that
Madagascar should be made available for the resettlement of the Jews of
Europe.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan>
2012:
Dana Air Flight 992, a passenger flight from Abuja to Lagos,
Nigeria, suffered dual engine failure and crashed into a building,
resulting in the deaths of all 153 on board and ten more on the ground.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_Air_Flight_992>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
guardian angel:
A spirit believed to protect and to guide a particular person.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/guardian_angel>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
 So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in ideas
that we don't even notice how monstrous it is to deny ideas to a people
who are dying without them. So uncritically do we accept the idea of
property in culture that we don't even question when the control of that
property removes our ability, as a people, to develop our culture
democratically. Blindness becomes our common sense. And the challenge
for anyone who would reclaim the right to cultivate our culture is to
find a way to make this common sense open its eyes. So far, common sense
sleeps. There is no revolt. Common sense does not yet see what there
could be to revolt about.
--Lawrence Lessig
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig>
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