Rotha Lintorn-Orman - Female Fuhrer

For those interested in this long forgotten part of British history, please visit "History Planet" to read this article in its entirity.  A snippet to whet the appetite:

Female Fuhrer

The History of British Fascism tends to be dominated by Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, itself a very a-typical fascist organisation. However Baronet Mosley’s (touted as future British Prime Minister during his tenure in both the Labour and Conservative parties) conversion to Fascism didn’t occur until 1931 when he visited Mussolini in Italy and the British Union of Fascists wasn’t formed until 1932 a full ten years after Il Duce’s march on Rome and 6 years after Hitler had published Mein Kampf.

Rotha was the daughter of a British army major, but her grandfather was Field Marshall Sir John Lintorn Arabin Simmons and she grew up in a minor gentry household able to afford a servant. When World War One broke out like many women Rotha went to work, but unlike most she did it by joining the army as an ambulance driver serving in the Reserve Ambulance Corp and later the Scottish Women’s Hospital Corps with whom she won Croix du Chairite twice for bravery, serving on the Drins Front in Serbia. In 1917 she was invalided back home with malaria where she joined the Red Cross and became commandant of the Motor School at Devonshire House in charge of training ambulance drivers.

Ancient Romano-British Homicide

From UPI:

The body of a girl believed to have been killed by Roman soldiers almost 2,000 years ago has been discovered in north Kent in Britain, researchers say.

Archaeologists working on the site of a Roman settlement built on the route between Canterbury and St. Albans uncovered the remains, the BBC reported Thursday.

"She was killed by a Roman sword stabbing her in the back of the head," Paul Wilkinson, director of the excavation, said. "By the position of the entry wound she would have been kneeling at the time."

She had been between 16 and 20 years old when she was killed, and her bones suggested she had been in good health, Wilkinson said.

Fragments of Iron Age pottery found in the shallow grave date it to about A.D. 50 and suggest she was part of the indigenous population, he said.

That view was reinforced by the orientation of the body. Romans buried their dead lying east-west, whereas

this body was buried north-south as was the custom for pagan graves, Wilkinson said.

Curse of a Female Politician

From the Association of Zimbabwe Journalists:

FUNERALS by their very nature leave you depressed and demotivated. They invariably also leave you with so many questions.

Thenjiwe Lesabe’s funeral at Fort Rixon on Saturday, February 19, 2011, left me with more questions than answers. Here I was at a funeral of arguably one of the greatest women in the history of this country, a woman whose life had traversed different generations and a multiplicity of struggles and yet no one seemed to be able to draw an accurate picture of her life.

Lesabe, whose life’s history I have had to piece together from various conversations with different people, was an activist and a fighter during the liberation struggle. She was also at the center of the post-colonial Gukurahundi era, which ended with the ZAPU/ZANU Unity Agreement in 1987.And Lesabe is probably the only prominent woman who left Zanu PF to re-join the reformed ZAPU, now led by Dumiso Dabengwa.

Puerto Rican Women Make History

From NCN News:

A historic moment occurred at the Puerto Rico East District Assembly when presiding General Superintendent Emerita Nina G. Gunter and District Superintendent Olga Robles worked together at the table. It was not until the assembly business began that both realized this was the first district assembly in the Church of the Nazarene conducted with a female general superintendent and a female district superintendent in leadership.

Gunter, who served as general superintendent from 2005 to 2009, is the only woman ever elected to the highest office of the denomination. She officiated at the Puerto Rico East assembly on behalf of Mesoamerica Region jurisdictional general superintendent Dr. Eugénio R. Duarte. Robles is serving in her third year as superintendent of the Puerto Rico East District.

"There was quite the applause from the delegates and visitors to the assembly when Rev. Robles acknowledged this historic aspect," Gunter said. "I was delighted to serve with this positive, relational, and visionary leader." Robles also represents the Mesoamerica Region as a member of the General Board of the Church of the Nazarene.

Inspiring Women Summit 2011

From CSR Wire:

Organizer: The Shift Network

Date: 05.07.11, 08:00AM – 05.13.11, 04:00PM

Location:Worldwide - from your computer & telephone!

Sponsor:The Shift Network

Website: inspiringwomensummit.com

This is quite an exciting time in history to be a woman! More and more of us are waking up to our true gifts and helping midwife the birth of a new era that re-balances our culture with feminine qualities and leadership.

That’s why we're thrilled to be co-sponsoring the 2nd annual Inspiring Women Summit, May 7th-13th, which is bringing together empowered women from all over the world to make the biggest impact possible in these shifting times.

Click here to sign up now for this FREE virtual event: https://shiftnetwork.infusionsoft.com/go/iws3CSR/CSRwire/

Robin Oliveira - My Name Is Mary Sutter

From Buffalo Rising:

This book is a good suggestion for reading on the occasion starting this year of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and a fitting end to March as Women's History Month. It is the story of one woman who starts out as a midwife and yearns to become a surgeon. Since this was an unlikely occupation for a woman in the mid-1800's, she was rejected time and again from medical school and eventually answers the call of reformer Dorothea Dix to become a nurse just as the Civil War is beginning. She was at first even turned down for that because of the strict social regulations of the time for women and men.

Mary sets off on her own to the front and apprentices herself to a doctor. The story of the Civil War from a medical standpoint unfolds from there. It is not light reading, but her personal story woven throughout exposes the reader to the full scale of how inadequately prepared both the North and South were for real battle, real deaths, and real lifelong injuries.

Remembering Almena Lomax

From Black Star News:

She was a pioneering journalist who founded a newspaper at a most challenging time in the nation's history, especially for a Black woman.

Almena Lomax, 95, who was also a civil rights activists, died on March 25, in Pasadena, California after a brief illness; the family did not disclose details.

Mrs. Lomax became the first black journalist to be accredited by the Motion Picture Academy, and led boycotts of the movies “Porgy and Bess” and “Imitation of Life,” which Mrs. Lomax believed “libeled the Negro race.” Active in the Civil Rights Movement, in 1956 Mrs. Lomax was active in the bus boycott, and stayed with Martin Luther King, Jr. and his family in Montgomery, Alabama, producing her highly acclaimed “Mother’s Day in Montgomery: Boycott Leader Serves His Congregation Toynbee, Langston Hughes, Emerson and Jesus Christ, and is Received in Complete Consanguinity.”

Ancient & Mordern Nubian Women

From the Washington Times:

The land of Nubia extends from the first, as Aswan, to the fourth cataract, in the Nubian Desert. Nubia is divided into lower Nubia in Egypt and upper Nubia in Sudan.

Historically speaking Nubia’s strategic importance comes from the fact that it is the only continuously inhabited corridor between the Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa, which in many ways has shaped its history.

That Nubian history starts around 3100 B.C. similar to the Egyptian history; to keep track of Nubia’s history it is divided into Groups A, C and the Kerma culture.

History tells us Nubia enjoyed many episodes of political power under the kingdoms of Kerma, Napata as well as the Meriotic kingdoms. It is worth noting that the Golden Age of Nubia started after a decline in the Egyptianization of the Kush region-which lies to the south of Egypt and north of Sudan.

Nubian Kings and Queens came to power starting the 25th Dynasty and ruled the whole land of Egypt during a period known as the Napatan period (760-593 B.C.).

Film - The Conspirator

From Gateway:

"The Conspirator" is the story of Mary Surratt (Robin Wright), the only woman charged as a co-conspirator in the killing of President Lincoln, and the mother of John Surratt, one of the eight conspirators that included John Wilkes Booth. The 28-year-old Fredrick Aiken is a Union solider who recently returned from the war and is just beginning to practice law. His mentor, Reverdy Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) asks him to take the case. He is reluctant at first but soon begins to see the injustices in Surratt's military tribunal.

This movie isn't just about the execution of Surratt. Though it plays like a legal thriller, you never get that David and Goliath feel. History has told us how this story ends, and it's fairly clear from almost the first courtroom scene that Aiken has no chance of winning.