Lucy Mercer Armstrong

October 12, 2010 tues.

1492- COLUMBUS STEPS ASHORE IN AMERICA.- The Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria drop anchor off San Salvador in the Bahamas after sighting land around 2:10 A.M.Oct 22nd Old Style. It was a full moon. Columbus had offered a reward for the first man to see land. Juan de Boromeo aboard the Pinta sighted land first, but Columbus later claimed he did and kept the money- cheap bugger. Expecting to meet Chinese people Columbus brought with him a translator who could speak Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Turkish and Hebrew as well as a letter from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to the Great Khan of Cathay. None of these were much help speaking with the Taino Indians. 1915- British nurse Edith Cavell was put up against a wall and shot by a German firing squad. She remained behind when allied armies retreated, and was accused of espionage for helping wounded soldiers escape to neutral Holland. The execution of a 49 year old woman outraged Victorian opinion in Britain and the US, and was played up by the press to drum up enthusiasm for the war. 1998- Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, was taken out to a field by a gang of other boys, tied to a rail fence and beaten savagely with a pistol. His assailants left him tied to the fence all night with no way to call for help. He was dead by morning. Matthew Shepards’ death caused a wave of revulsion nationwide against anti-gay violence.

Movies made for television, the telefeature and the mini-series, 1964-1986

Newsweek

Movies made for television, 1964-2004

Using literature in the middle school curriculum

The genealogical department, source records from the DAR magazine, 1947-1950