On this day, February 5, 1885, news reached London that the Mahdists had taken Khartoum and killed General Charles George Gordon. The news would prompt an expedition to rescue Emin Pasha, the Governor of the Egyptian province of Equatoria.
The history of cotton clothing has followed an interesting path, including a period of a few decades in the United States when cotton represented ingenuity, resilience, and patriotism itself.