Assistant Secretary to the President under Abraham Lincoln and
McKinley's final Secretary of State. Originally published anonymously in
installments in The Century Magazine, the book attracted wide interest
and provoked considerable speculation over the author's identity. Hay
wrote his only novel as a reaction to several strikes that affected him
and his business interests in the 1870s and early 1880s. In the main
storyline, a wealthy former army captain, Arthur Farnham, organizes
Civil War veterans to keep the peace when the Bread-winners, a group of
lazy and malcontented workers, call a violent general strike. Hay had
left hints as to his identity in the novel, and some guessed right, but
he never acknowledged the book as his, and it did not appear with his
name on it until after his death in 1905. Hay's hostile view of
organized labor was soon seen as outdated, and the book is best
remembered for its onetime popularity and controversial nature.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bread-Winners>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
794:
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, King Æthelberht II of
East Anglia was beheaded on the order of King Offa of Mercia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86thelberht_II_of_East_Anglia>
1609:
Thomas Thorpe published the first copies of Shakespeare's
sonnets (title page pictured), possibly without William Shakespeare's
consent.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare%27s_sonnets>
1875:
Representatives from seventeen countries signed the Metre
Convention which set up an institute for the purpose of coordinating
international metrology and for coordinating the development of the
metric system.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre_Convention>
1996:
The U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws in Colorado that would
have prevented any jurisdiction in the state from taking any
governmental action to protect homosexual citizens from discrimination
on the basis of their sexual orientation.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romer_v._Evans>
2012:
The first of two major earthquakes struck Northern Italy,
resulting in seven deaths.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Northern_Italy_earthquakes>
More anniversaries:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Northern_Italy_earthquakes>
May 19
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Northern_Italy_earthquakes>
May 20
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_20>
May 21
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_20>
Archive
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Selected_anniversaries/May>
By email
<https://en.wikipedia.orghttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-article-l>
List of historical anniversaries
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_anniversaries>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
much of a muchness:
(idiomatic) Of two or more things, having little difference of any
significance between them.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/much_of_a_muchness>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he
can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need
nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on
and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows
wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to
supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the
subject.
--John Stuart Mill
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill>
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