... 1946, in Hanoi, representatives of France and of Vietnam -- among the latter Ho Chi Minh -- signed a Franco-Vietnam Agreement in which France recognized the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a free state with its own government, one that was a member both of the Indo-Chinese Federation and to the French Union. In return, the government declared itself ready to accept French troops on its soil.
... 1888 (120 years ago today), Louisa May Alcott (below) died in Boston, Massachusetts. She'd been born 56 years earlier in a town that's now part of Philadelphia, the 2d of 4 daughters of Abigail May Alcott, an activist for slavery abolition and women's suffrage, and Amos Bronson Alcott, a transcendentalist philosopher and education and social reformer. As a teenager Louisa began to contribute to the family income, working as a teacher, seamstress, and
servant, and, eventually, as a poet, playwright, short story writer, and novelist, at times publishing as "A.M. Barnard" and other pseudonyms. Her most famous work, Little Women (1868), is based on her family's experience at Orchard House, their home in Concord, Massachusetts. Like her mother, Louisa also was active in the abolition and suffrage movements.
