Today in History (April 22nd):
1451: Birthdays: Spanish Queen Isabella I, who funded the first voyage of Christopher Columbus to the New World.
1500: Brazil was discovered by Pedro Alvarez Cabral.
1707: Birthdays: English novelist Henry Fielding.
1724: Birthdays: German philosopher Immanuel Kant.
1870: Birthdays: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, leader of Russia’s 1917 Communist revolution.
1889: About 20,000 homesteaders massed along the border of the Oklahoma Territory, awaiting the signal to start the Oklahoma land rush.
1899: Birthdays: Novelist Vladimir Nabokov.
1904: Birthdays: Pioneer nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.
1906: Birthdays: Actor Eddie Albert.
1914: Babe Ruth made his professional baseball debut as a pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles.
1915: During World War I, German forces became the first to use poison gas on the Western Front.
1916: Birthdays: Violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin.
1922: Birthdays: Jazz bass player Charles Mingus.
1923: Birthdays: TV producer Aaron Spelling.
1926: Birthdays: Actress Charlotte Rae.
1936: Birthdays: Singer Glen Campbell.
1937: Birthdays: Actor Jack Nicholson.
1944: Birthdays: Businessman and balloon-flight record setter Steve Fossett.
1946: Birthdays: Filmmaker John Waters.
1950: Birthdays: Rock guitarist and singer Peter Frampton.
1952: Birthdays: Actor Marilyn Chambers.
1959: Birthdays: Actor Ryan Stiles.
1961: Birthdays: Comedian/TV host Byron Allen.
1964: Birthdays: Actor Chris Makepeace.
1970: Earth Day was first marked.
1972: Apollo 16 astronauts John Young and Charles Duke walked and rode on the surface of the moon for 7 hours, 23 minutes.
1985: Jose Sarney was sworn in as Brazil’s first civilian president in 21 years.
1990: Muslim extremists in Lebanon freed a U.S. hostage for the first time in more than three years, releasing Robert Polhill, a college professor, after 39 months in captivity.
1991: 70 people were killed and 500 injured when an earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale struck Costa Rica.
1993: The Holocaust Memorial Museum was dedicated in Washington.
1994: Richard Nixon, the 37th U.S. president and the only one to resign from the office, died four days after suffering a stroke. He was 81.
1997: A 126-day standoff at the Japanese Embassy in Lima ended after Peruvian commandos stormed the building and freed 72 hostages held by the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. All 14 rebels were killed.
2000: In a predawn raid, armed U.S. immigration agents broke into the Miami house where Elian Gonzalez had been staying, took charge of the 6-year-old Cuban refugee, then flew him to Washington to be reunited with his Cuban father.
2004: Former NFL star Pat Tillman, who turned down a lucrative contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the U.S. Army Rangers, was killed in Afghanistan. The U.S. military said later he was a victim of friendly fire.
2005: Zacarias Moussaoui, the only man charged in the United States in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.
2006: Iraq’s Parliament ratified the selection of Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister, ending a four-month political deadlock.
2007: Gunmen in the Iraqi city of Mosul killed 23 followers of Yazidi, a religious minority, after they were pulled from their bus. Individuals of other faiths were unharmed.
2010: Russia banned Scientology literature for undermining the traditional spiritual values of the citizens of the Russian Federation.
2012: U.S. officials said they reached a preliminary security agreement that pledges U.S. support for Afghanistan for 10 years after the American troop withdrawal is completed in 2014.
Quotes
“That sorrow which is the harbinger of joy is preferable to the joy which is followed by sorrow.” – Saadi, poet (c.1213-1291) [Gulistan]
“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” – Confucius
“In the stormy current of life characters are weights or floats which at one time make us glide along the bottom, and at another maintain us on the surface.” – Hippolyte Taine, 1828-1893
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” – George Patton, 1885-1945
“To reach a port, we must sail–Sail, not tie at anchor–Sail, not drift.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1882-1945
Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on “I am not too sure.” – H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)
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“Oh, how small a portion of earth will hold us when we are dead, who ambitiously seek after the whole world while we are living!” – Philip of Macedon, king, father of Alexander the Great (382-336 BCE)
Ellen Glasgow (1874-1945) American writer:
“All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.”
“As far back as I remember, long before I could write, I had played at making stories. But not until I was seven or more, did I begin to pray every night, “O God, let me write books! Please, God, let me write books!””
“He knows so little and knows it so fluently.”
“I agree with every word you write, and I can prove this in no better way than by taking your advice from beginning to end.”
“I haven’t much opinion of words. They’re apt to set fire to a dry tongue, that’s what I say.”
“No life is so hard that you can’t make it easier by the way you take it.”
“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
indomitable
PRONUNCIATION: (in-DOM-ih-tuh-buhl)
MEANING: (adjective), Incapable of being subdued or overcome; unconquerable.
ETYMOLOGY: Indomitable is from Latin indomitabilis, from in-, “not” + domitare, from domare, “to tame.”
USAGE: “While Frank’s body may have been imprisoned behind concrete walls, his spirit remained indomitable.”
fanfaron
PRONUNCIATION: (FAN-fuh-ron)
http://wordsmith.org/words/fanfaron.mp3
MEANING: (noun), A boaster or a braggart.
ETYMOLOGY: From French fanfaron, from Spanish fanfarrón (braggart), perhaps from Arabic farfar (talkative), of expressive origin. The words fanfaronade and fanfare have the same origin. Earliest documented use: 1622.
USAGE:
“I yelled in his ear congratulations for not spending his egg money on fancy clothes and strutting about like a fanfaron.” – Moritz Thomsen; Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle; University of Washington Press; 1990.
“Well made and thought-provoking the program may be, but it’s unlikely to drag viewers away from the exotic fanfaron that is Celine Dion’s head.” – Shane Danielsen; Waiting for the Ship to Come in on Oscar Night; The Australian (Sydney); Mar 23, 1998.
foible
PRONUNCIATION: (FOI-buhl)
http://wordsmith.org/words/foible.mp3
MEANING: noun:
1. A minor weakness or an idiosyncrasy in someone’s character.
2. The weaker, upper part of a sword blade.
ETYMOLOGY: From obsolete French foible (feeble), from Latin flere (to weep). Earliest documented use: before 1648.
USAGE: “Despite all our faults and foibles, human beings are apparently pretty good at sharing and cooperating.” – Faye Flam; Humans Are More Cooperative Than Chimps; The Philadelphia Inquirer; Mar 2, 2012.
Explore “foible” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=foible
Achates
PRONUNCIATION: (uh-KAY-teez)
http://wordsmith.org/words/Achates.mp3
MEANING: (noun), A trusty friend or companion.
ETYMOLOGY: After Achates, the faithful companion and friend of Aeneas, in the epic poem Aeneid by the Roman poet Vergil (70-19 BCE). In the story, Achates is called fidus Achates (faithful Achates) and he accompanies Aeneas everywhere in his adventures.
USAGE: “I was baffled by the lack of reference to the sleuth of Baker Street and his trusty Achates.” – John Banville; Bloomsday, Bloody Bloomsday; The New York Times; Jun 13, 2004.
xanthodontous
http://wordsmith.org/words/xanthodontous.mp3
PRONUNCIATION: (zan-tho-DON-tuhs)
MEANING: (adjective), Having yellow teeth.
ETYMOLOGY: From Greek xanthos (yellow) + -odon (toothed).
USAGE: “That I am becoming, or have become, xanthodontous cannot be of interest to anybody.” – Reginald Moore, Edward Lane; The Windmill (London, UK); 1946.