The Demi-Virgin is a three-act play written by Avery Hopwood(pictured). Producer Albert H. Woods staged it on Broadway, where it was one of the most successful plays of the 1921–22 season. The play is a bedroom farce about former couple Gloria Graham and Wally Deane, both movie actors, whose marriage was so brief that the press speculated about whether Gloria was still a virgin. Because it contained suggestive dialog and the female cast wore revealing clothes, the production was considered highly risqué at the time. The script alluded to a contemporary scandal involving actor Fatty Arbuckle, and one scene featured actresses stripping as part of a card game. Reviewers generally panned the play as unfunny and vulgar. A magistrate ruled the play was obscene, and obscenity charges were brought against Woods, but a grand jury declined to indict him. Woods promoted the controversy to increase ticket sales. The play had no long-term literary impact and was never published, but it did stimulate arguments over censorship of theatrical performances. (Full article...)
... that Taufa Vakatale was the first indigenous Fijian woman to serve as a secondary school principal, to be elected as a cabinet minister, and to be president of her political party?
... that the Marriage (Wales) Act 2010 was passed by Parliament to bring the marriage law of the disestablished Church in Wales into line with the established Church of England?
1982 – An assassination attempt on Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom, failed; this was later used as justification for the 1982 Lebanon War.
Odiham Castle is a ruined castle situated near Odiham in Hampshire, England. It is one of only three fortresses built by King John during his reign. Completed between 1207 and 1214, it fell to a French siege in 1216 but was later rebuilt. Used to host Parliament and, later, as a prison in the 13th and 14th centuries, by 1605 Odiham was described as a ruin. Its only visible remains today are part of the octagonal keep and outlying earthworks.
