Born on January 27, 1832 in Daresbury, Cheshire, England, Charles Dodgson wrote and created games as a child. At age 20 he received a studentship at Christ Church and was appointed a lecturer in mathematics. Dodgson was shy but enjoyed creating stories for children. His books including "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" were published under the pen name Lewis Carroll. Dodgson died in 1898.

Quotes

Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

– Lewis Carroll

Early Life

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, best known by his pseudonym, Lewis Carroll, was born in the village of Daresbury, England, on January 27, 1832. The eldest boy in a family of 11 children, Carroll was rather adept at entertaining himself and his siblings. His father, a clergyman, raised them in the rectory. As a boy, Carroll excelled in mathematics and won many academic prizes. At age 20, he was awarded a studentship (called a scholarship in other colleges) to Christ College. Apart from serving as a lecturer in mathematics, he was an avid photographer and wrote essays, political pamphlets and poetry. "The Hunting of the Snark" displays his wonderful ability in the genre of literary nonsense.

Alice and Literary Success

Carroll suffered from a bad stammer, but he found himself vocally fluent when speaking with children. The relationships he had with young people in his adult years are of great interest, as they undoubtedly inspired his best-known writings and have been a point of disturbed speculation over the years. Carroll loved to entertain children, and it was Alice, the daughter of Henry George Liddell, who can be credited with his pinnacle inspiration. Alice Liddell remembers spending many hours with Carroll, sitting on his couch while he told fantastic tales of dream worlds. During an afternoon picnic with Alice and her two sisters, Carroll told the first iteration of what would later become Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. When Alice arrived home, she exclaimed that he must write the story down for her.

He fulfilled the small girl's request, and through a series of coincidences, the story fell into the hands of the novelist Henry Kingsley, who urged Carroll to publish it. The book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was released in 1865. It gained steady popularity, and as a result, Carroll wrote the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871). By the time of his death, Alice had become the most popular children's book in England, and by 1932 it was one of the most popular in the world.

Photography and Legacy

Besides writing, Carroll created a number of fine photographs. His notable portraits include those of the actress Ellen Terry and the poet Alfred Tennyson. He also photographed children in every possible costume and situation, eventually making nude studies of them. Despite conjecture, little real evidence of child abuse can be brought against him. Shortly before his 66th birthday, Lewis Carroll caught a severe case of influenza, which led to pneumonia. He died on January 14, 1898, leaving an enigma behind him.

Lemuel Haynes

Lemuel Haynes

Born in West Hartford, Connecticut July 18, 1753. Lemuel Haynes was the son of a black man and a Scotch servant girl, Alice Fitch, who was employed by John Haynes of West Hartford. In Lieu of an orphanage, he was bound out when 5 weeks of age to a Deacon Rose of Granville, MA. Enlisted as a Minute Man in the Colonial Army, 1775; Volunteer in expedition to Ticonderoga, 1776. Supplied, Congregational church, Granville, NY 1780. Ordained, 1785. Pastor, Torrington, Connecticut 1785-1787; Rutland, Vt. 1787-1818. Removed to Manchester, VT, 1818. Pastor, Granville, NY 1822-1833. Author: "Divine Decrees, an Encouragement to the Use of Means" and "Universal Salvation," his response to Hosea Ballou a popular preacher of the day. Lemuel Haynes was married to Elizabeth Babbit, 22 September 1783 at Hartland, Connecticut by Rev. Samuel Woodbridge. She was born 29 February 1763 at Dighton, Massachusetts and died 8 February 1836.

Today in History!!

1429 - Joan of Arc leads French army in Battle of Orleans
 

 Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans", is a folk heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint













 Joan of Arc was born in 1412 in Domrémy, Bar, France. Believing that she was acting under divine guidance, she led the French army in a momentous victory at Orléans that repulsed an English attempt to conquer France during the Hundred Years' War. Captured a year afterward, Joan was burned by the English and their French collaborators as a heretic. She was canonized as a saint on May 16, 1920.

• NAME: St Joan of Arc
• OCCUPATION: Warrior
• BIRTH DATE: c. 1412
• DEATH DATE: May 30, 1431
• PLACE OF BIRTH: Domremy, France

Best Known For

Joan of Arc was a peasant girl who, believing that she was acting under divine guidance, led the French army in a momentous victory at Orlans.


 

Today in History!! Wilma Rudolph ... American hero

She was born today - June 23, 1940

Wilma Rudolph

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Olympic medalist
Medal record
Women's athletics
Gold	1960 Rome	100 m
Gold	1960 Rome	200 m
Gold	1960 Rome	4 x 100 m relay
Bronze	1956 Melbourne	4 x 100 m relay

Wilma Glodean Rudolph (June 23, 1940 – November 12, 1994) was an American athlete. Rudolph was considered the fastest woman in the world in the 1960s and competed in two Olympic Games, in 1956 and in 1960.

In the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome Rudolph became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field during a single Olympic Games.^[1] A track and field champion, she elevated women's track to a major presence in the United States. She is also regarded as a civil rights and women's rights pioneer. Along with other 1960 Olympic athletes such as Cassius Clay, who later became Muhammad Ali, Rudolph became an international star due to the first international television coverage of the Olympics that year.^[2]
The powerful sprinter emerged from the 1960 Rome Olympics as "The Tornado," the fastest woman on earth.^[3] The Italians nicknamed her La Gazzella Negra ("The Black Gazelle"); to the French she was La Perle Noire ("The Black Pearl").^[4][5] She is one of the most famous Tennessee State University Tigerbelles, the name of the TSU women's track and field program.

Biography

 

Wilma Rudolph was born prematurely at 4.5 lbs., the 20th of 22 siblings; her father Ed was a railway porter and her mother Blanche a maid.^[6] Rudolph contracted infantile paralysis (caused by the polio virus) at age four. She recovered, but wore a brace on her left leg and foot (which had become twisted as a result) until she was nine. She was required to wear an orthopaedic shoe for support of her foot for another two years. Her family travelled regularly from segregated Clarksville, Tennessee, to Fisk University's black medical college hospital in Nashville, Tennessee for treatments for her twisted leg. In addition, by the time she was twelve years old she had also survived bouts of scarlet fever, whooping cough, chickenpox, and measles. ^[6]

Wilma Rudolph at the finish line during 50 yard dash at track meet in Madison Square Garden, 1961

 

In 1952, 12-year-old Rudolph finally achieved her dream of shedding her handicap and becoming like other children. Her older sister was on a basketball team, and Wilma vowed to follow in her footsteps. While in high school, Rudolph was on the basketball team when she was spotted by Tennessee State track and field coach Ed Temple. Being discovered by Temple was a major break for a young athlete. The day he saw the tenth grader for the first time, he knew he had found a natural athlete. Rudolph had already gained some track experience on Burt High School's track team two years before, mostly as a way to keep busy between basketball seasons.^[7]

While attending Burt High School, Rudolph became a basketball star setting state records for scoring and leading her team to the state championship. She also joined Temple's summer program at Tennessee State and trained regularly and raced with his Tigerbelles for two years.^[6] By the time she was 16, she earned a berth on the U.S. Olympic track and field team and came home from the 1956 Melbourne Games with an Olympic bronze medal in the 4 x 100 m relay to show her high school classmates.^[6]

At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome she won three Olympic titles: the 100 m, 200 m and the 4 x 100 m relay. As the temperature climbed toward 110 degrees, 80,000 spectators jammed the Stadio Olimpico. Rudolph ran the 100-meter dash in an impressive 11 seconds flat. However the time was not credited as a world record, because it was wind-aided. She also won the 200-meter dash in 23.2 seconds, a new Olympic record. After these wins, she was being hailed throughout the world as "the fastest woman in history". Finally, on September 11, 1960, she combined with Tennessee State teammates Martha Hudson, Lucinda Williams and Barbara Jones to win the 400-meter relay in 44.5 seconds, setting a world record.^[6] Rudolph had a special, personal reason to hope for victory—to pay tribute to Jesse Owens, the celebrated American athlete who had been her inspiration, also the star of the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in Berlin, Germany.^[8]
Following post-games European tour by the American team Rudolph returned home to Clarksville. At her wishes, her homecoming parade and banquet were the first fully integrated municipal events in the city's history. ^[6]

 
Rudolph retired from track competition in 1962 at age 22 after winning two races at a U.S.–Soviet meet.
In 1963, Wilma married her high school sweetheart, Robert Eldridge, with whom she had four children: Yolanda (1958), Djuanna (1964), Robert Jr. (1965), and Xurry (1971). They later divorced.

Awards and honors

Rudolph was United Press Athlete of the Year 1960 and Associated Press Woman Athlete of the Year for 1960 and 1961. Also in 1961, the year of her father's death, Rudolph won the James E. Sullivan Award, an award for the top amateur athlete in the United States, and visited President John F. Kennedy.^[9]
She was voted into the National Black Sports and Entertainment Hall of Fame in 1973^[10] and the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1974.^[11]

 
She was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1983, honored with the National Sports Award in 1993, and inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1994.^[12]

In 1994, the portion of U. S. Route 79 in Clarksville, Tennessee between the Interstate 24 exit 4 in Clarksville to the Red River (Lynnwood-Tarpley) bridge near the Kraft Street intersection was renamed to honor Wilma Rudolph.

Career and family

In 1963, Rudolph was granted a full scholarship to Tennessee State University where she received her bachelor's degree in elementary education. After her athletic career, Rudolph worked as a teacher at Cobb Elementary School, coaching track at Burt High School, and became a sports commentator on national television.

She married her high school sweetheart Robert Eldridge in 1963, and had four children: Yolanda (b. 1958), Djuanna (b. 1964), Robert Jr. (b. 1965) and Xurry (b. 1971). Rudolph and Eldridge later divorced.

Death

In July 1994, shortly after her mother’s death, Rudolph was diagnosed with brain cancer. On November 12, 1994, at age 54, she died of cancer in her home in Nashville. At the time of her death, she had four children, eight grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews.^[13] Thousands of mourners filled Tennessee State University's Kean Hall on November 17, 1994, for the memorial service in her honor. Others attended the funeral at Clarksville's First Baptist Church. Across Tennessee, the state flag flew at half-mast.
Nine months after Rudolph's death, Tennessee State University, on August 11, 1995, dedicated its new six-story dormitory the "Wilma G. Rudolph Residence Center." A black marble marker was placed on her grave in Clarksville's Foster Memorial Garden Cemetery by the Wilma Rudolph Memorial Commission on November 21, 1995. In 1997, Governor Don Sundquist proclaimed that June 23 be known as "Wilma Rudolph Day" in Tennessee.^[14]
 

Legacy

In 1994, Wilma Rudolph Boulevard was the name given to the portion of U.S. Route 79 in Clarksville, Tennessee.

The Woman's Sports Foundation Wilma Rudolph Courage Award is presented to a female athlete who exhibits extraordinary courage in her athletic performance, demonstrates the ability to overcome adversity, makes significant contributions to sports and serves as an inspiration and role model to those who face challenges, overcomes them and strives for success at all levels. This award was first given in 1996 to Jackie Joyner-Kersee.^[15]

A life-size bronze statue of Rudolph stands at the southern end of the Cumberland River Walk at the base of the Pedestrian Overpass, College Street and Riverside Drive, in Clarksville.^[16]

In 2000 Sports Illustrated magazine ranked Rudolph as number one in its listing of the top fifty greatest sports figures in twentieth-century Tennessee.^[17]

Following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Berlin in 1994, Berlin American High School (BAHS) was turned over to the people of Berlin and became the "Gesamtschule Am Hegewinkel." The school was renamed the "Wilma Rudolph Oberschule" in her honor in the summer 2000.^[18]

On July 14, 2004, the United States Postal Service issued a 23 cent Distinguished Americans series postage stamp in recognition of her accomplishments.
 


In 1977 a made-for-TV docudrama titled Wilma (also known as The Story of Wilma Rudolph) was produced by Bud Greenspan; it starred Shirley Jo Finney, Cicely Tyson, Jason Bernard and Denzel Washington in one of his first roles.