On this day in ...... 1806, Maria Weston was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts. The eldest of 8 children, she was educated in England. She returned to the United States in 1828 to work as a high school principal. Eventually she married a Boston merchant active in the antislavery movement and, as Maria Weston Chapman, became a noted abolitionist. She served as an officer in antislavery organizations and as an abolitionist writer. Her work took her outside the United States -- she spent considerable time in Haiti an France. After U.S. emancipation, Chapman (right) "devoted herself to education for the former slaves" until her death in 1885.
... 2000, 10 miles north of Paris, a Concorde jet bound for New York crashed moments after takeoff, a tire
having caught fire as it left the ground. The tragedy killed 113 persons. Immediately after the accident all the supersonic jets (left) were grounded. Flights resumed in 2001, but passengers did not return, and the last commercial flight took place in October 2003.
