Born Margaretha Geertruida “Grietje” Zelle, Mata Hari was a Frisian exotic dancer and courtesan who created a sensational stage show by pretending to be a Javan princess. She was accused of spying during World War I and was executed by firing squad for espionage, though she was probably no more a spy than she was Javan or a princess.
You can read more about her here.
Benjamin Franklin Butler
1818-1893
During the American Civil War, his administration of occupied New Orleans, his policies regarding slaves as contraband, his ineffectual leadership in the Bermuda Hundred Campaign, and the fiasco of Fort Fisher rank him as one of the most controversial political generals of the war. He was widely reviled for years after the war by Southern whites, who gave him the nickname “Beast Butler.”
Butler was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1867 to 1875 and again in 1877 to 1879. Despite his pre-war allegiance as a Democrat, in Congress he was conspicuous as a Radical Republican in Reconstruction legislation, and wrote the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (Ku Klux Klan Act). Along with Republican Senator Charles Sumner, he proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, a seminal and far-reaching law banning racial discrimination in public accommodations. The law was declared unconstitutional, and racial minorities in the United States would have to wait nearly a century before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would revive, and expand, the provisions of the law Butler backed.
George Westinghouse
(1846-1914)
George Westinghouse is a name most people recognize for the appliances that carry his name. Westinghouse was an entrepreneur and inventor who was responsible for air brakes on trains. This made train travel faster and much safer. He later went on to champion Nicola Tesla’s alternating current, laying the foundation for the electrical network that we enjoy today.
You can read more about Westinghouse here.
Okay, so Thomas Nast wasn’t the origin of the word nasty, but he did bring about the downfall of Boss Tweed and his corrupt political machine through the publication of his Nast-y political cartoons. Nast is also responsible to a great degree for the appearance of Santa Claus in America, having revamped the image into the jolly fat man we know today for an advertising campaign. Read more about artist Thomas Nast here.
Louisa May Alcott
(November 29, 1832 – March 6, 1888)
One of the great American writers and vastly underappreciated, Louisa May Alcott is best known for her novel “Little Women.” Read more about her here.
Kowdiar Palace in Trivandrum, Kerala, India was built in 1915 by Maharajah Moolam Thirunal for his niece Maharani Sethu Parvathi Bayi, and is the official residence of the Travancore Royal Family. Kowdiar Palace’s architectural work is famous and has over 150 rooms.
Beautiful isn’t it. I found this when I was looking up palaces for Brech, Brechalon.
City of Amathar 