Painful or hard effort. It can also refer to a woman in childbirth.
Travail
Fact of the Day
Roman women would use lead and crocodile dung, among other things, as make-up.
Quote of the Day
"Blessed are the peacemakers
"
~ James I & VI's personal motto
On This Day
1184 BCE The traditional date for the fall of Troy, when the besieged city was eventually broken by the Greeks.
1558 Sixteen-year-old Mary Queen of Scots married the fourteen-year-ols Dauphin of France, Francis. The marriage didn't last long: Francis died just two years later from an ear condition, although the cause of it has never been confirmed.
1731 Daniel Defoe, writer, spy and merchant died, probably while in hiding from his creditors (it is said he owed £17,000 after a souring of business relationships with France).
1915 The Armenian Genocide started, when the Ottoman government arrested and deported around 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders. By its cessation in 1923, about 1.5 million Armenians are thought to have died.
1916 At midday, the Easter Rising started. It was the attempt by a group of Irish republicans to establish a free Irish state.