On This Day

1890 – Completion of the first Lake Biwa Canal.
Lake Biwa Canal (琵琶湖疏水 or 琵琶湖疎水, Biwako Sosui) is a waterway in Japan constructed during the Meiji Period to transport water, freight, and passengers from Lake Biwa to the nearby City of Kyoto. The canal supplied Japan’s first public hydroelectric power generator, which served from 1895 to provide electricity for Kyoto’s trams.[1]

In 1996 the canal was designated a Historic Site.[2] As of 2008, the waterway is not used so much to generate electricity, but rather for water supply, fire-fighting and irrigation purposes.[citation needed]

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Born On This Day

1870 – Gustav Landauer, Jewish-German theorist and activist (d. 1919)
Gustav Landauer (7 April 1870 – 2 May 1919) was one of the leading theorists on anarchism in Germany at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He was an advocate of social anarchism and an avowed pacifist. In 1919, during the German Revolution, he was briefly Commissioner of Enlightenment and Public Instruction of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic.[1] He was killed when this Republic was overthrown.

Landauer is also known for his study of metaphysics and religion, and his translations of William Shakespeare’s works into German.

Life and career
Landauer was the second child of Jewish parents Rosa (Neuberger) and Herman Landauer.[2]

Landauer supported anarchism already in the 1890s. In those years, he was especially enthusiastic about the individualistic approach of Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche, but also “cautioned against an apotheosis of the unrestrained individual, potentially leading to the neglect of solidarity”.[3] Landauer believed that social change could not be achieved solely through control of the state or economic apparatus, but required a revolution in interpersonal relations. [4] True socialism could result only in conjunction with this spiritual work, writing “the community we long for and need, we will find only if we sever ourselves from individuated existence; thus we will at last find, in the innermost core or our hidden being, the most ancient and most universal community: the human race and the cosmos.”[5]

One of Landauer’s grandchildren, with wife and author Hedwig Lachmann, was Mike Nichols, the American television, stage and film director, writer, and producer.[6]

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FYI

 
 
 
 
NASA Commemorates 50th Anniversary of Apollo 13, ‘A Successful Failure’
 
 
 
 

By Zach Seemayer, ET: Lady Gaga Apologizes to Jimmy Fallon After Awkward ‘Tonight Show’ Interview Moment
 
 
 
 
By messynessy, 13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CDXCVII): An online museum of plastic lost at sea; The Food Artistry of this Baker; How this Woman bought a Chateau when she was only 29 Year Old; Caravan House boat, 1954; This North Pole Radio Station is Excellent and more ->
 
 
 
 

ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative: Recently in Community Networks… Week of 4/7
 
 
 
 

Recipes

By Lisa Kaminski, Taste of Home: 40 Homemade Easter Treats Better Than What the Bunny Brings

On This Day

1320 – The Scots reaffirm their independence by signing the Declaration of Arbroath.
The Declaration of Arbroath (Scots: Declaration o Aiberbrothock; Latin: Declaratio Arbroathis; Scottish Gaelic: Tiomnadh Bhruis) is the name usually given to a letter, dated 6 April 1320 at Arbroath, written by Scottish barons and addressed to Pope John XXII.[1] It constituted King Robert I’s response to his excommunication for disobeying the pope’s demand in 1317 for a truce in the First War of Scottish Independence.[2] The letter asserted the antiquity of the independence of the Kingdom of Scotland, denouncing English attempts to subjugate it.[1][2]

Generally believed to have been written in Arbroath Abbey by Bernard of Kilwinning (or of Linton), then Chancellor of Scotland and Abbot of Arbroath,[3] and sealed by fifty-one magnates and nobles, the letter is the sole survivor of three created at the time. The others were a letter from the King of Scots, Robert I, and a letter from four Scottish bishops which all made similar points. The Declaration was intended to assert Scotland’s status as an independent, sovereign state and defend Scotland’s right to use military action when unjustly attacked.

Submitted in Latin, the Declaration was little known until the late 17th century and is unmentioned by any of Scotland’s major 16th century historians.[1][4] In the 1680s the Latin text was printed for the first time and translated into English in the wake of the Glorious Revolution, after which time it was sometimes described as a declaration of independence.[1]

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Born On This Day

1787 – Celestina Cordero, Puerto Rican educator (d. 1862)
Celestina Cordero (April 6, 1787 – January 18, 1862), was an educator who in 1820 founded the first school for girls in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Early years
Cordero (birth name: Celestina Cordero y Molina [note 1]) was second of three children born in San Juan, Puerto Rico to Lucas Cordero and Rita Molina. Her older sister was named Gregoria and her younger brother was Rafael Cordero. Cordero’s father, a former slave, was a “Freeman.” In 1789, the Spanish Crown issued the “Royal Decree of Graces of 1789,” also known as El Código Negro (The Black Code). In accordance with El Código Negro a slave could buy their freedom and thus a former slave would become known as “freeman” or “freewoman.”[1][2]

Cordero’s family moved to the town of San German. Her father was an experienced artisan who also worked in the tobacco fields. During his free time he taught his children and those in the neighborhood his artisan skills, while Cordero’s mother taught her children the importance of obtaining an education.

Cordero’s parents taught her and her siblings how to read and write. Inspired by her mother’s teachings, Cordero developed the love of teaching others. It was in San German where Cordero and her brother began their careers as educators.[2][3]

Educator
During the Spanish colonization of the island, Puerto Rico, which depended on an agricultural economy, had an illiteracy rate of over 80% at the beginning of the 19th century. Most women were home educated. The first library in Puerto Rico was established in 1642 in the Convent of San Francisco, and access to its books was limited to those who belonged to the religious order.[4] The only women who had access to the libraries and who could afford books, were the wives and daughters of Spanish government officials or wealthy landowners. Those who were poor had to resort to oral story-telling in what are traditionally known in Puerto Rico as Coplas and Decimas.[2][4]

Cordero and her brother moved back to San Juan. Despite the fact that she was subject to racial discrimination because she was a black free woman, she continued to pursue her goal of teaching others regardless of their race and or social standing. In 1820, Cordero founded the first school for girls in San Juan, the first of its kind in Puerto Rico. Cordero also presented herself as a public speaker in favor of women’s public education. After several years of struggle, the Spanish government officially gave her the title of teacher and accredited her school as an official educational institution.[2][3]

Legacy
Cordero never married and died penniless in her home in San Juan on January 18, 1862. Puerto Rico recognized her brother Rafael as “The Father of Public Education” in Puerto Rico. However, her contributions to the educational system of the island are seldom mentioned.[2][3] On December 9, 2013, Pope Francis advanced the sainthood of her brother when he declared that he lived the Christian virtues in a heroic way and is venerable.[5]

In 2012, the library of the Dr.José Celso Barbosa Jr. High School dedicated its “Women Day” to Celestina Cordero.[6][7]
 
 

FYI

By Marisa Abeyta, Beyond Bylines: Blog Profiles: Dog Fostering Blogs
 
 
 
 

By Lyndsey Parker, Yahoo Entertainment Video: Shania Twain adorably duets with her horse on the Academy of Country Music Awards’ at-home TV special
 
 
 
 

49 Writer’s Blog: Writing the Distance: Mar Ka
 
 
 
 

The Rural Blog: Bill Withers, a son of W.Va. who understood everyday lives and stuck to his songwriting muse, dies; his songs live on and more ->
 
 
 
 

Omniglot: Idioms and sayings in various languages
 
 
 
 
By Irin Carmen, The Cut: My Cousin Jack Survived the Unimaginable. Here’s His Advice for Right Now.
 
 
 
 

Hank Shaw, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook: Stretching in Place
 
 
 
 
Today’s email was an updated version of one that originally ran on June 18, 2018. It was written by Stacy Conradt, re-edited by Annaliese Griffin, and produced by Luiz Romero and Tori Smith. Quartz Daily Obsession: Sneezes: Salud, dinero, amor

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