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Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972) was an American playwright, poet and novelist who lived as an expatriate in Paris. Barney's salon was held at her home on Paris's Left Bank for more than 60 years and brought together writers and artists from around the world, including many leading figures in French literature along with American and British Modernists of the Lost Generation. She worked to promote writing by women and formed a "Women's Academy" in response to the all-male French Academy while also giving support and inspiration to male writers from Remy de Gourmont to Truman Capote. She was openly lesbian and began publishing love poems to women under her own name as early as 1900, considering scandal as "the best way of getting rid of nuisances". In her writings she supported feminism and pacifism. She opposed monogamy and had many overlapping, long and short-term relationships, including an on-and-off romance with poet Renée Vivien, dancer Armen Ohanian and a 50-year relationship with painter Romaine Brooks. (more...)

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August 26: Qi Xi in the Chinese lunar calendar (2009); Namibia Day

• 1071 – Byzantine-Seljuk wars: Seljuk Turks led by Alp Arslan captured Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV at the Battle of Manzikert (pictured).
• 1346 – Hundred Years' War: English forces established the military supremacy of the English longbow over the French combination of crossbow and armoured knights at the Battle of Crécy.
• 1789 – French Revolution: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, defining a set of individual and collective rights of the people, was approved by the National Constituent Assembly at Versailles.
• 1928 – At a cafe in Paisley, Scotland, May Donoghue found the remains of a snail in her bottle of ginger beer, causing her to launch one of the landmark civil action cases in British common law, Donoghue v Stevenson.
• 1968 – The U.S. Democratic Party's National Convention began at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, sparking four days of clashes between anti–Vietnam War protesters and police.

More anniversaries: August 25 – August 26 – August 27