Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York. It is the seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca–Tompkins County metropolitan area; this area contains the municipalities of the Town of Ithaca, the village of Cayuga Heights, other towns and villages in Tompkins County. The city of Ithaca is located on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, in Central New York, about 45 miles south-west of Syracuse, it is named after the Greek island of Ithaca. Additionally, Ithaca is located 247 miles southeast of Toronto, 223 miles northwest of New York City. Ithaca is home to Cornell University, an Ivy League school of over 20,000 students, most of whom study at its local campus. In addition, Ithaca College is a private, liberal arts college of over 7,000 students, located just south of the city in the Town of Ithaca, adding to the area's "college town" atmosphere. Nearby is Tompkins Cortland Community College; these three colleges bring tens of thousands of students, who increase Ithaca's seasonal population during the school year.

The city's voters are notably more liberal than those in the remainder of Tompkins County or in upstate New York voting for Democratic Party candidates. As of 2010, the city's population was 30,014. A 2017 census estimate stated the population was 31,006. Namgyal Monastery in Ithaca is the North American seat of the 14th Dalai Lama. Native Americans wandered in this area for thousands of years; when discovered, this area was controlled by the Cayuga tribe of Indians, one of the powerful Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois League. Jesuit missionaries from New France are said to have had a mission to convert the Cayuga as early as 1657. Saponi and Tutelo peoples, Siouan-speaking tribes occupied lands at the south end of Cayuga Lake. Dependent tributaries of the Cayuga, they had been permitted to settle on the tribe's hunting lands at the south end of Cayuga Lake, as well as in Pony Hollow of what is known as present-day Newfield, New York. Remnants of these tribes had been forced from Virginia and North Carolina by tribal conflicts and European colonial settlement.

The Tuscarora people, an Iroquoian-speaking tribe from the Carolinas, migrated after defeat in the Yamasee War. During the Revolutionary War, four of the six Iroquois nations helped the British attempt to crush the revolution, although bands made decisions on fighting in a decentralized way. Conflict with the rebel colonists was fierce throughout western New York. In retaliation for conflicts to the east and resentment at the savage way in which the Iroquois made war, the 1779 Sullivan Expedition was conducted against the Iroquois in the west of the state, destroying more than 40 villages and stored winter crops and forcing their retreat from the area, it destroyed the Tutelo village of Coregonal, located near what is now the junction of state routes 13 and 13A just south of the Ithaca city limits. Most Iroquois were forced from the state after the Revolutionary War; the state sold off the former Iroquois lands to stimulate settlement by Americans. Within the current boundaries of the City of Ithaca, Native Americans maintained only a temporary hunting camp at the base of Cascadilla Gorge.

In 1788, eleven men from Kingston, New York came to the area with two Delaware people guides, to explore what they considered wilderness. The following year Jacob Yaple, Isaac Dumond, Peter Hinepaw returned with their families and constructed log cabins; that same year Abraham Bloodgood of Albany obtained a patent from the state for 1,400 acres, which included all of the present downtown west of Tioga Street. In 1790, the federal government and state began an official program to grant land in the area, known as the Central New York Military Tract, as payment for service to the American soldiers of the Revolutionary War, as the government was cash poor. Most local land titles trace back to these Revolutionary war grants; as part of this process, the Central New York Military Tract, which included northern Tompkins County, was surveyed by Simeon De Witt, Bloodgood's son-in-law. De Witt was the nephew of Governor George Clinton; the Commissioners of Lands of New York State met in 1790. The Military Tract township in which proto-Ithaca was located was named the Town of Ulysses.

A few years De Witt moved to Ithaca called variously "The Flats," "The City," or "Sodom". Around 1791 De Witt sold them at modest prices; that same year John Yaple built a grist mill on Cascadilla Creek. The first frame house was erected in 1800 by Abram Markle. In 1804 the village had a postmaster, in 1805 a tavern. Ithaca became a transshipping point for salt from curing beds near Salina, New York to buyers south and east; this prompted construction in 1810 of the Owego Turnpike. When the War of 1812 cut off access to Nova Scotia gypsum, used for fertilizer, Ithaca became the center of trade in Cayuga gypsum; the Cayuga Steamboat Company was organized in 1819 and in 1820 launched the first steamboat on Cayuga Lake, the Enterprise. In 1821, the village was incorporated at the same time the Town of Ithaca was organized and separated from the parent

Eliza Healy was an educator, a member of the Congregation of Notre-Dame and the first African-American Catholic Mother Superior. She is a member of the Healy family, known for its illustrious achievements in spite of institutional racial segregation in the second half of the nineteenth century. Born in 1846 in Macon, Eliza Healy was the youngest daughter of Michael Morris Healy, an Irish immigrant and successful plantation owner, Mary Eliza Clarke, a biracial slave. Born in County Roscommon, Michael traveled to Canada as a member of the British army, he emigrated to Jones County, near Macon, Georgia. The couple lived together from 1829 until their deaths in 1850 and raised 10 children, nine of which survived to adulthood; because of the partus sequitur ventrem principle and her siblings were considered slaves though their father was a free white man and they had three fourths white ancestry. Georgia state law at the time prohibited slaves from receiving an education and prohibited manumission, so the Healy children were sent to the North to have an education and higher quality of life than what slaves in the South were accorded.

When Eliza's parents died within months of each other in 1850, her five older brothers and one older sister were living in the North. The three youngest Healy children, including Eliza, left Georgia after their parents' death and relocated to New York. Though Michael was Catholic, his children were not baptized Catholics. Eliza and her two younger siblings and Eugene, were baptized Catholic in New York in 1851. Eliza and Josephine both attended schools operated by the Congregation of Notre-Dame in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and in Montreal, Quebec. Eliza and Josephine joined their siblings in Boston, Massachusetts when Eliza finished her secondary education in 1861. On May 1, 1874, at the age of 27, Eliza entered the novitiate of the Congregation of Notre Dame in Montreal and, in December of that same year, received the habit and her new religious name. Despite the customs of the times, the fact that she was black was not a hindrance to her admission by Mother Saint-Victor and her council. In fact, some twenty years earlier, Eliza's older sister, Martha Ann Healy entered the Congregation as professed Sister Sainte-Lucie from 1855 to 1863.

Martha Ann received a dispensation from her vows. After pronouncing her first vows on July 19, 1876, at twenty-nine years of age, Sister Saint Mary Magdalen began teaching at Saint-Patrick's Academy in Montreal. Two years in 1878, she was among the three sisters who opened the CND mission in Brockville, Ontario; some of the other places she taught were, Quebec, at St-Anthony's in Montreal. After a year as assistant superior in Ottawa, Sister Saint Mary Magdalen was superior of a convent in Huntingdon, Quebec from 1895 to 1897 where her strong administrative skills enabled her to work in other capacities. From 1897 to 1898, she was superior at St-Denis's Academy; the two following years she was dean of English studies at the Congregation's sixth Mother House and from 1900 to 1903 she taught at École Normale Jacques-Cartier, section pour filles, in Montreal. From 1903 to 1918, Sister Saint Mary Magdalen was superior and headmistress of the Villa Barlow in St. Albans, where she reorganized the school and its community.

She was the first African American woman to receive this distinction. Documents from the Congregation indicate that it was in a precarious financial situation at the start of her tenure and the community was prepared to abandon the site, she "had to struggle against the parish and the diocesan authorities. Her wisdom enabled her to unravel the complicated problems, to assure the resources, to pay the debts, to make this...mission one of our most prosperous houses in the United States." She managed the health and hygiene practices of her fellow religious sisters and pupils in her charge. In 1918, her fifteen years as superior came to an end when the new Code of Canon Law set limits to terms for religious superiors. Sadly but obediently, Sister Saint Mary Magdalen accepted a new challenge as superior of Notre Dame Academy in Staten Island, New York, where in a short time, she improved the academy's financial situation. After eight months, due to health reasons, she had to leave this position, returning to the Mother House in Montreal.

She died on September 1919, of heart disease. Her funeral was held at the Mother House on Friday, September 19. Archives written by Eliza's community members describe her as having business and organizational acumen, an optimistic disposition and high expectations for her Congregation, they noted her leadership skills and devotion to prayer. They described her as "so attractive, so upright!... She reserved the heaviest tasks for herself... in the kitchen, in the garden in the housework... She listened to everyone... was equal to everything... spared herself nothing... so that nothing was lacking to make the family perfect."All three of the Healy daughters were professed nuns, though Martha left religious life in 1863. Four of the six Healy sons devoted their lives to Catholic religious orders. No surviving documents written by the Healy siblings address the issue of race though the issue of race lies at the core of their family history, her brothers James and Alexander were described as visibly black, but Patrick's racial identity was not known outside of his Jesuit community.

No surviving documents indicate that any of the Healy siblings engaged in the black Catholic community

No. 226 Operational Conversion Unit was a Royal Air Force Operational Conversion Unit, active between 1946 and 1991. It was first formed in August 1946 at RAF Molesworth under No. 11 Group of Fighter Command by redesignation of No. 1335 Conversion Unit with the mission of training fighter pilots. The unit operated a variety of aircraft; those aircraft included the Gloster Meteor, Hawker Tempest, De Havilland Hornet and De Havilland Vampire.226 OCU relocated to RAF Bentwaters, Suffolk on 10 October 1946, training pilots for day fighter and fighter-reconnaissance roles consisting of four flights of de Havilland Hornet F.1, Hawker Tempest II, de Havilland Vampire FB.1 and Gloster Meteor F.3 and F.4. Meteor two seat Mk VIII trainers were added. Students trained on only one type during the course and did not fly other aircraft other than the Avro Anson I for twin engine familiarisation and the squadron North American Harvard I. At that time it was directed from Fighter Command Headquarters, Bentley Priory, via 11 Fighter Group at Hillingdon.

On 26 August 1949 220 OCU moved to RAF Driffield in Yorkshire where it disbanded for the first time by being redesignated as No. 203 Advanced Flying School. The following month, September 1949, the unit was resurrected at RAF Stradishall and No. 226 OCU's service began a new chapter. In No. 12 Group, again in Fighter Command, the unit had the more specific mission of training Meteor pilots. This lasted until 1955. Continuing the tradition of training fighter pilots, the OCU reformed in June 1963 at RAF Middleton St George, flying the English Electric Lightning with the redesignation of the Lightning Conversion Squadron, it moved to RAF Coltishall in April 1964. During 1968 and 1969, the OCU was involved in the training of pilots of the Royal Saudi Air Force in flying their newly acquired Lightnings. On 30 September 1974, it was disbanded at RAF Coltishall, the OCU's association with fighters came to an end; the next area where 226 OCU saw service was Scotland. Shifting emphasis to strike aircraft, 226 OCU reformed at RAF Lossiemouth the day after disbandment and undertook its peacetime role training pilots for the Sepecat Jaguar.

Less well known was 226 OCU's wartime emergency role as a'shadow squadron' or reserve unit made up principally of the squadron's instructors. From 1975 until 1991 the unit's wartime role was as an operational squadron in the front line assigned to SACEUR with twelve Jaguar aircraft, eight WE.177 nuclear bombs, a variety of conventional weapons. In a high-intensity European war the unit's role was to support land forces on the Continent, first with conventional weapons and secondly with tactical nuclear weapons as required, should a conflict escalate to that stage; the apparent mismatch between aircraft numbers and nuclear bombs was a consequence of RAF staff planners concluding that there would be one-third attrition of aircraft in an early conventional phase, leaving the remaining survivors numerically strong enough to deliver the unit's entire stockpile of eight nuclear bombs. With the post-Cold War drawdown of the RAF the OCU fell victim to defence cuts in 1991 and was disbanded for the last time by redesignation to No. 16 Squadron, although the redesignated unit continued with both its peacetime and wartime roles as before, in its new guise as No. 16 Squadron until retirement of the WE.177 weapon.

Royal Air Force Operational Conversion Units Sturtivant, Ray. Royal Air Force Flying Training and Support Units. Air-Britain Ltd. ISBN 0-85130-252-1. 226 OCU at RAF Web