In an era when it was considered immodest for a woman to expose her ankle in public, World War One's Karma Sutri blazed a scandalous trail that would culminate in the advent of modern exotic dance. Sutri was born Carmella Evangelica Sutrio in Italy in 1874. Her father wanted a boy and pretended she was his son, giving her a set of toy soldiers on her eighth birthday. By the time she reached adulthood, she had developed a deep admiration for men in uniform. All of her husbands would be soldiers. Her first took her to India, where she studied dance and worked as a nude model, brilliantly fusing the two occupations into a compelling stage show under the name Karma Sutri, after the Sanskrit word 'karma' for 'luck'. Her second was in India on leave and had an extra ticket to Italy when her first went mysteriously bankrupt. Her third married her to save her honor after killing her second in a drunken duel. He disowned her when she refused to give up dancing, driving her into the arms of her fourth and longest lasting husband, a spy with the added uniform of a French lieutenant to compliment his own country's uniform of a captain. He supported her dancing and introduced her to society through his diplomatic friends. By the outbreak of war in 1914, her racy act had made her the toast of Europe. When her husband was caught spying, she was arrested as an extra measure of security. Charged with espionage and dancing for the enemy, she was executed by a firing squad in 1917. She ought not to be confused with Marie Curie, the French physicist and discoverer of radium from the same period.
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