When Jemima Wilkinson was 17 years old, in 1776, she caught a plague spread by the discharged British prisoners of the American naval ship Columbus, and died.
When Jemima Wilkinson was 17 years old, in 1776, she caught a plague spread by… REPORTER AT LARGE to the Oneida Community Mansion, Kenwood, N.Y., built over 65 years ago by American Communists as a communal dwelling, founded by John… REPORTER AT LARGE.
As Gatsby waits for Daisy to arrive for tea, you can catch a glimpse of OCD-plagued Howard Hughes from The Aviator; as he tosses shirts down at Daisy, a flicker of Titanic's Jack Dawson shines across DiCaprio's face.
A commander roars that we'll catch the plague".
Something like, I admire you, but don't touch me or I might catch your plague of misfortune.
Did you catch the plague or something?" "You got three extra suppers, so don't worry about it".
On the other are people who would rather catch the plague than be connected in the country or who object to the sight of cellphone towers.
The Greek historian Thucydides recorded that, when the plague was raging in Athens during the 5th century bc, the sick and dying would have received no nursing at all had it not been for the devotion of those who had already recovered from the disease; it was known that no one ever caught the plague a second time.
I imagined what the last days of my life would be like if I somehow caught the plague in a remote village in Madagascar and became sick so quickly that I'd be unable to seek help.
What is taught need not be "our island story", a narrative full of shifty foreigners and eager Empire builders, but it should have more emphasis on facts than the present focus on soap opera inspired empathy (how would you have felt if you had been a single mother in Victorian times? Grim. What was it like to catch the bubonic plague? Even grimmer).
