Morning, Clunkers!
On this day in 1793, Marie Antoinette was convicted and condemned to death the following day. She was Austrian and had been married at 14 to Louis XVI of France. For the first eight years of her marriage, she was regarded with little respect because she showed no signs of pregnancy. Things improved slightly when she began bearing the first of her four children.
Marie Antoinette was the victim of a sustained smear campaign and was blamed single-handedly for ruining the country’s finances. She was profligate, no doubt about that, but she wasn’t responsible for the several expensive wars and the unwillingness of the privileged classes to give up some of their financial privileges to help fund the costs of government. was given the nickname of "Madame Déficit".
She was guillotined at the age of 37.
In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to St. Helena, a volcanic island just ten miles by five. He died there six years later, of stomach cancer, although like many people at that time, there was a high level of arsenic in his body. Arsenic was then used in many manufacturing process, including dyes and wallpaper.
Margaretha MacLeod of The Netherlands was executed by a French firing squad on this day in 1917 for espionage. Known by her stage name, Mata Hari, many people still believe that she was innocent even though she admitted taking money to work as a German spy.
Elizabeth Alexander of Merton, Surrey, died this day in 1958 at the age of 50. She was a geologist, academic, and physicist, whose wartime work with radar and radio led to early developments in radio astronomy - one of the first women scientists in that field.
Elizabeth has been a Captain in Naval Intelligence in Singapore and had to evacuate with her young children to New Zealand when Singapore fell during WWII. For six months, she believed her husband was dead, so chaotic was the situation. She carried out pioneering work into radio meteorology, microwave radio and solar radiation and identified the Norfolk Island Effect. A brave and inspiring woman of science.
In 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for opening up Russia to the world and reducing Cold War tensions.
Here’s to you, Marie Antoinette and Elizabeth 🥂