This Day in History: Empress Elisabeth of Austria was stabbed with a thin file by Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni while strolling through Geneva with her lady-in-waiting on this day in 1898. The wound pierced her pericardium and a lung. Her extremely tight corset held the wound closed, so she did not realize what had happened (believing a passerby had struck her), and walked on for some time before collapsing.
Conversely, corsets have been known to save women from stabbings. In 1888 in Barnsley, England, Mary Sarah Phillips was stabbed repeatedly but the stays on her corset broke the blade of the knife.
In Plainfield New Jersey in 1897 a homeless man entered the home of Mrs. A. Moebius and demanded money. When she refused he stabbed, and again, the stays on her corset broke the blade of the knife.
A stranger entered the home of Mrs. George Alger in San Francisco in 1906 and stabbed her. She was also saved by her corset.
In 1909 Chicago, Dr. Jennie Beardsley was stabbed twice, but her steel-ribbed corset saved her life.
In St. Petersburg, Florida, two people got into an argument when one stabbed the other. The victim was saved by her corset.
Several women, like Dora Bowman in Nebraska in 1890, another woman in Troy, NY, in 1897 and yet another woman in the same year in Wellington NZ were all saved from gunshots because they were wearing a corset.
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