...1954, the BBC reported: "Housewives celebrate end of rationing." That day, 12 years' enforced scarcity of staples, begun during World War II, came to a close. The headline prompts a wee tribute to my late mother-in-law, Margaret Mary Kerlin O'Neill, a legend for her skill in stowing foodstuffs in her undergarments in order to get them across the Irish border and home to Derry City, then, as now, under British rule. Butter is said to have posed particular difficulties. (photo courtesy of the BBC)... 1884, the 108th anniversary of the proclamation in Philadelphia of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, a statue named "Liberty Enlightening the World" was formally presented to a U.S. diplomat at a ceremony in Paris. A contemporary account described this Statue of Liberty as a "great artistic monument, the gift of France, to which have contributed by their votes 180 cities, forty general councils, a large number of chambers of commerce and of societies, and over a hundred thousand subscribers."
