Today -100: May 8, 1916: I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me

Countess Constance Markievicz is sentenced to death by a court-martial trial for her part in the Easter Rising, but the sentence is commuted to life because she’s a, you know, girl. As a feminist, this offends her. She tells the court “I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me.” She’ll be out of prison in a year and elected to Parliament the year after.

A band of Mexicans, who are assumed without much evidence to be Pancho Villa’s men (they seem to have yelled both “Viva Villa!” and “Viva Carranza”), attack Boquillas, Texas, but are driven off by mine company employees. They move on to Glen Springs, Texas, where they attack a small US Army outpost, shouting “Death to the gringoes,” as was the custom. They kill 3 soldiers & a 9-year-old deaf-mute boy. They go on to destroy a wax factory, because why not destroy a wax factory?

Dominican President Gen. Juan Jimenes, who had asked for American military intervention to protect him against impeachment by the Congress, changes his mind and resigns. Way to waste a perfectly good invasion, Juan!

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