Today in History (May 20th):
526: An estimated 300,000 people died because of an earthquake in Syria and Antiochia.
1506: Christopher Columbus died in Spain.
1759: Birthdays: William Thornton, architect of the Capitol building in Washington.
1768: Birthdays: Dolley Madison, wife of the fourth U.S. president, James Madison.
1776: Birthdays: Canadian explorer Simon Fraser.
1799: Birthdays: French novelist Honore de Balzac.
1806: Birthdays: English philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill.
1851: Birthdays: German Emile Berliner, inventor of the flat phonograph record.
1873: Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis were granted a patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.
1908: Birthdays: Actor James Stewart.
1915: Birthdays: Israeli military commander and politician Moshe Dayan.
1916: The Saturday Evening Post published its first cover drawn by Norman Rockwell.
1919: Birthdays: Comedian George Gobel.
1927: Charles Lindbergh took off from New York in his single-engine monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis, bound for Paris. He landed 33 1/2 hours later, completing the first solo, non-stop trans-Atlantic flight.
1936: Birthdays: Actor Anthony Zerbe.
1940: Birthdays: Hockey Hall of Fame member Stan Mikita; Japanese baseball home run king Sadaharu Oh.
1944: Birthdays: British singer/songwriter Joe Cocker.
1946: Birthdays: Singer/actor Cher, born Cherilyn Sarkisian.
1949: Birthdays: Actor Dave Thomas.
1958: Birthdays: Ronald Prescott Reagan, son of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
1959: Birthdays: Actor Bronson Pinchot.
1968: Birthdays: Actor Timothy Olyphant.
1971: Birthdays: Race car driver Tony Stewart.
1972: Birthdays: Rapper Busta Rhymes.
1974: Judge John Sirica ordered U.S. President Richard Nixon to turn over tapes and other records of 64 White House conversations on the Watergate affair.
1984: Birthdays: Singer/actor Naturi Naughton.
1989: Chinese Premier Li Peng declared martial law in Beijing in response to heightened student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.
1999: A high school student in Georgia opened fire on his classmates, wounding six of them before surrendering to school authorities. The same day, U.S. President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton met in Littleton, Colo., with students, teachers and families of the victims of the previous month’s deadly shootings at Columbine High School.
2002: East Timor, a small Pacific Coast nation, gained independence from Indonesia. It is called Timor Leste.
2006: In an unprecedented move, the FBI searched the Capitol Hill office of U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., in a bribery investigation. Barbaro, the unbeaten Kentucky Derby winner, entered the Preakness a heavy favorite but pulled up shortly after it began when he fractured his left hind leg. It ended his racing career and eventually, led to his death. The race was won by Bernardini, owned by the Dubai royal family.
2008: U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., 76, a champion of liberal causes in the Senate for more than four decades, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.
2009: Congress passed with strong bipartisan approval three consumer protection bills designed to crack down on financial fraud, help stave off home foreclosures and restrict credit card issuers in raising interest rates and imposing fees on cardholders.
2010: Paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Modigliana and others, worth an estimated $124 million, were reported missing from the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Researchers announced the creation of a synthetic genetic cell that could replicate itself.
2012: The Pakistani government temporarily blocked access to Twitter because of what an official called objectional discussions about the Prophet Muhammad.
Quotes
“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring.” – Martin Luther King, Jr., civil-rights leader (1929-1968)
“To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.” – Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784
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“Time and tide wait for no man.” – Geoffrey Chaucer, 1343-1400
Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) French writer:
“A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.”
“A lover always thinks of his mistress first and himself second; with a husband it runs the other way.”
“A mother who is really a mother is never free.”
“A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.”
“All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.”
“An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man’s entire existence.”
“Behind every great fortune there is a crime.”
“Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.”
“Finance, like time, devours its own children.”
“First love is a kind of vaccination which saves a man from catching the complaint the second time.”
“Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane.”
“I do not regard a broker as a member of the human race.”
errant
PRONUNCIATION: (E-rehnt)
MEANING: (adjective), Off course, off track, straying from appropriate standards; roving aimlessly or in pursuit of elusive goals.
ETYMOLOGY: The word is a confusion of the participle of Old French errer “to wander” and that of Old French errer “to wander off course, err.” The first verb originates in Latin iterare “travel” from Latin iter “journey.” The second goes back to Late Latin errare “go or lead astray.” These two verbs ultimately converged over time in the Romance languages (cf. Spanish “errar” and Italian “errare”). Today’s word is akin to erratic “wandering from place to place; irregular in movement or behavior.” Today’s word is closely knit with the phrase “knights errant,” referring to knights who went out in search of adventures that would prove their chivalry. Today this phrase refers to someone who embarks on quixotic ventures: “Sigfried is this university’s knight errant of the pass-fail grading system.” Be careful not to confuse this word with arrant “complete, thorough, absolute,” as in “an arrant fool” or “his arrant intoxication by her beauty.”
USAGE: “The errant boys were brought into the principal’s office for the third time that week.”
parnassian
PRONUNCIATION: (pahr-NAS-ee-uhn)
http://wordsmith.org/words/parnassian.mp3
MEANING: (adjective), Of or relating to poetry.
ETYMOLOGY: After Mount Parnassus, a mountain in Greece, considered sacred to Apollo, the Greek god of music and poetry, and the Muses. Earliest documented use: 1565.
USAGE: “Whether scaling to Parnassian heights or plunging inward to insight, the poems’ impeccable musicality and craftsmanship will win the trust and admiration of many.” – Fiction Reviews; Publishers Weekly (New York); Oct 15, 2007.
Explore “parnassian” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=parnassian
copperplate
PRONUNCIATION: (KOP-uhr-playt)
http://wordsmith.org/words/copperplate.mp3
MEANING: (noun), A fine style of handwriting marked by flowing shapes and strokes of varying width.
ETYMOLOGY: After engraved or etched copper plates used in printing on which this style of handwriting is based. Earliest documented use: 1663.
USAGE: “Harriet opened the envelope and pulled out a thick piece of white paper covered in perfect copperplate handwriting.” – Penny Vincenzi; Baby Knows Best; The Daily Express (London, UK); Mar 19, 2012.
Explore “copperplate” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=copperplate