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Gertrude Bell, a Masterful Spy and Diplomat
Gertrude Bell attends a meeting of the Mesopotamia Commission at the Cairo Conference of 1921. Other members of the commission include Winston Churchill and T.E. Lawrence (visible in enlargement).
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The extraordinary British diplomat and spy Gertrude Bell was buried 80 years ago today. After World War I, she was almost single-handedly responsible for the founding of modern Iraq, where her grave is still located.
Bell was the first woman to graduate with a history degree from Oxford and became one of the country's leading Arabists. She rode camels with the Bedouin in the Arabian desert and dined on sheep's eyes with tribal sheikhs.
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