Today in History (April 14th):
1629: Birthdays: Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens, founder of the wave theory of light.
1775: The first slavery abolition society in North America was founded by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.
1828: Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language. It was the first dictionary of American English to be published.
1861: The flag of the Confederacy was raised over Fort Sumter, S.C., as Union troops there surrendered in the early days of the Civil War.
1865: John Wilkes Booth shot U.S. President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater in Washington. Lincoln died the next morning. He was succeeded by Vice President Andrew Johnson.
1866: Birthdays: Anne Sullivan, the miracle worker who taught a blind and deaf Helen Keller.
1889: Birthdays: English historian Arnold Toynbee.
1904: Birthdays: British actor John Gielgud.
1907: Birthdays: Haitian dictator Francois Papa Doc Duvalier.
1925: Birthdays: Actor Rod Steiger.
1927: The first Volvo was produced in Sweden.
1930: Birthdays: Actor Bradford Dillman.
1935: Birthdays: Country singer Loretta Lynn; Writer Erich von Daniken.
1936: Birthdays: Crusading New York police detective Frank Serpico.
1939: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck was published.
1941: Birthdays: Actor Julie Christie; Former baseball star and manager Pete Rose.
1961: Birthdays: Actor Robert Carlyle.
1968: Birthdays: Actor Anthony Michael Hall.
1973: Birthdays: Actor Adrien Brody.
1977: Birthdays: Actor Sarah Michelle Gellar.
1986: U.S. warplanes struck Libya in the biggest U.S. airstrike since the Vietnam War. Libya claimed 40 people were killed.
1991: 20 major paintings by Van Gogh were stolen from an Amsterdam museum by two gunmen. The paintings were found abandoned 35 minutes later.
1992: A federal appeals court in New York ruled that hotel magnate Leona Helmsley, 71, must go to prison for tax evasion.
1993: 12 top former Communist officials went on trial charged with treason in the August 1991 coup attempt that hastened the fall of the Soviet Union. Violence raged throughout South Africa as hundreds of thousands of blacks protested the slaying of popular Communist Party chief Chris Hani.
1994: Executives representing seven major tobacco companies told a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee that they didn’t believe cigarettes were addictive. In what was called a tragic mistake, two U.S. warplanes shot down two U.S. Army helicopters in northern Iraq’s no-fly zone. All 26 people aboard, including 15 Americans, were killed.
1996: Birthdays: Actor Abigail Breslin.
1997: Comedian Ellen DeGeneres revealed she was a lesbian in an interview with Time magazine.
2002: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in an unsuccessful effort to ease tensions with Israel and stop a wave of suicide bombings.
2003: U.S. military officials declared that the principal fighting in Iraq was over after Marines captured Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s home town.
2005: Several indictments were handed down in the U.N. oil-for-food program. A U.S. oil trader was charged with making kickbacks to Iraqis to win contracts.
2007: 32 people died when a bus carrying elementary school students collided with a truck on a highway in Turkey.
2008: Major U.S. airlines Delta and Northwest agreed on a $3.1 billion merger deal. Silvio Berlusconi swept back into power in a third term as prime minister of Italy in a new election that gave him control of both houses of Parliament.
2009: The United States lifted restrictions on Cuban-Americans visiting relatives in Cuba but, left intact were the trade embargo and travel restrictions for non-Cuban Americans. North Korea said it would restart its Yongbyon nuclear facility and boycott talks aimed at halting the nation’s nuclear weapons program. 21 people were killed and 20 others were hurt when fire swept through a hostel for the homeless in northwest Poland.
2010: At least 2,200 people were reported killed and an estimated 100,000 left homeless after an earthquake struck northwest China. Authorities said the quake measured 7.1 on the Richter scale. A major volcano eruption in Iceland spewed a vast amount of thick ash into the atmosphere, crippling air traffic in much of Europe for almost a week and affecting an estimated 10 million passengers and 100,000 flights.
2011: The Federal Aviation Administration’s investigation into reports of air traffic controllers sleeping on duty at U.S. airports led to the resignation of the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization chief and a number of changes including adjustment of schedules to lessen fatigue which the agency blames for the problem.
2012: Talks on Iran’s nuclear program opened in Istanbul, Turkey. Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili said he’d discuss new initiatives with officials from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.
Quotes
“Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best. Genius must always have lapses proportionate to its triumphs.” – Max Beerbohm, essayist, parodist, and caricaturist (1872-1956)
“If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.” – Abraham Lincoln
“I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalog: “No good in a bed, but fine against a wall.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose.” – Darrin Weinberg
“A couple of months in the laboratory can save a couple of hours in the library.” – Frank H. Westheimer, chemistry professor (1912-2007)
“How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success.” – Madame Anne Sophie Swetchine, mystic (1782-1857)
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Alan Watts (1915-1973) Philosopher, writer, and speaker:
“Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.”
“No one imagines that symphony is supposed to improve as it goes along, or that the whole object of playing is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening to it. It is the same, I feel, with the greater part of our lives, and if we are unduly absorbed in improving them we may forget altogether to live them.”
Annie Sullivan (1866-1936) American educator (notably of Helen Keller):
“My heart is singing for joy this morning! A miracle has happened! The light of understanding has shone upon my little pupil’s mind, and behold, all things are changed!”
“People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved.”
“The truth is not wonderful enough to suit the newspapers; so they enlarge upon it, and invent ridiculous embellishments.”
“We all like stories that make us cry. It’s so nice to feel sad when you’ve nothing in particular to feel sad about.”
“Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction.”
Babylon
PRONUNCIATION: (BAB-uh-luhn, -lawn)
http://wordsmith.org/words/Babylon.mp3
MEANING: (noun), A place of great luxury and extravagance, usually accompanied with vice and corruption.
ETYMOLOGY: After Babylon, an ancient city of southwestern Asia, on the Euphrates River. It was the capital of Babylonia and known for its opulence and culture. It was the site of Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
USAGE: “Tsuyoshi Morimoto said that when the economic crisis hit the international market, many big companies turned to Iraq in hopes that it would save them. ‘Big companies talked a lot about Iraq and paid a huge amount of attention to it. It is just like we suddenly built a Babylon, and now the Babylon is collapsing.'” – Qassim Khidhir; “Don’t Expect Too Much From Iraq”; Kurdish Globe (Arbil, Kurdistan); Jan 16, 2010.
Explore “babylon” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=babylon
ugsome
PRONUNCIATION: (UG-suhm)
MEANING: (adjective), Dreadful, loathsome.
ETYMOLOGY: From Middle English, from uggen, from Old Norse ugga (to fear). As in many typical stories where one child in a family becomes well-known while the other remains obscure, “ugly” and “ugsome” are two words derived from the same root — one is an everyday word while the other remains unusual.
USAGE: “With her too sweet tea, cloying manners, and stuffy living room, Jed felt that his grandmother was at times ugsome.”
peeping Tom
PRONUNCIATION: (PEE-ping tom)
http://wordsmith.org/words/peeping_Tom.mp3
MEANING: (noun), Someone who gets se_xual pleasure from secretly watching others; voyeur.
ETYMOLOGY: From the legend of Lady Godiva who rode unclothed through the streets of Coventry, England to persuade her husband to lower taxes on the people. All the townfolk shuttered their windows, except for a tailor named Tom who couldn’t resist and watched. Earliest documented use: 1769.
USAGE: “A peeping Tom who used a stealth camera to photograph up the skirt of a cabin attendant during a flight last month has avoided charges.” – Airborne Peeping Tom Photog Slips Through Jurisdictional Cracks; The Japan Times (Tokyo); Oct 13, 2012.
knaggy
PRONUNCIATION: (NAG-ee)
http://wordsmith.org/words/knaggy.mp3
MEANING: adjective: Knotty; rough; rugged.
ETYMOLOGY: From Middle English knag (knot). Earliest documented use: 1552.
USAGE: “Despite all odds, quarry boys do not spare a minute to chase flies or gaze at knaggy taxi drivers.” – Living on Stones; Cameroon Tribune (Yaoundé); Oct 17, 2005.
beau monde
PRONUNCIATION: (BO mond)
http://wordsmith.org/words/beau_monde.mp3
MEANING: (noun), The world of fashion; high society.
ETYMOLOGY: From French, literally, fine world.
USAGE: “The wealthy can be entertainingly absurd, as in Hannah Greig’s enjoyable account of the struggles of the Countess of Strafford to be accepted as a leader of London’s beau monde in the early 18th century.” – John Mullan; Vex’d by Wallpaper; The Guardian (London, UK); Aug 18, 2007.