Today in History (May 21st):
1471: Birthdays: German painter Albrecht Durer.
1527: Birthdays: King Philip II of Spain, who launched the Spanish Armada.
1688: Birthdays: English poet and satirist Alexander Pope.
1832: The first Democratic Party national convention met in Baltimore.
1844: Birthdays: French painter Henri Rousseau.
1851: Birthdays: French diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Leon Bourgeois.
1856: Lawrence, Kan., was burned by pro-slavery forces.
1881: Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross.
1898: Birthdays: Industrialist Armand Hammer.
1902: Birthdays: Architect Marcel Breuer.
1904: Birthdays: Composer and barrelhouse piano player Thomas Fats Waller.
1916: Birthdays: Author Harold Robbins; Singer Dennis Day.
1917: Birthdays: Actor Raymond Burr.
1921: Birthdays: Soviet physicist-turned-humanitarian Andrei Sakharov.
1923: Birthdays: Hall of Fame football Coach Ara Parseghian.
1924: Birthdays: Actor Peggy Cass.
1927: Charles Lindbergh landed the Spirit of St. Louis in Paris, completing the first non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic in 33 1/2 hours.
1932: Five years to the day after Charles Lindbergh’s historic flight, Amelia Earhart became the first pilot to repeat the feat, flying solo across the Atlantic from Newfoundland, Canada, to Ireland. She completed her flight in 13 1/2 hours.
1941: U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed an unlimited state of national emergency, seven months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Birthdays: Former baseball Manager Bobby Cox; Singer Ronald Isley.
1944: Birthdays: Romance novelist Janet Dailey.
1951: Birthdays: Comedian and U.S. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn.
1952: Birthdays: Actor Mr. T, born Lawrence Tureaud.
1957: Birthdays: Actor Judge Reinhold.
1960: Birthdays: Convicted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
1966: Birthdays: Actor Lisa Edelstein.
1972: A Hungarian man, Lazlo Tooth, attacked Michelangelo’s sculpture The Pieta while screaming I am Jesus Christ! The statue was badly damaged. Birthdays: Rapper The Notorious B.I.G.
1985: After taking fertility drugs, Patti Frustaci of Orange, Calif., gave birth to the first recorded American septuplets. Six of the seven infants were born alive. Three survived.
1991: Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated while campaigning. South Korean Prime Minister Ro Jai-bong quit after four weeks of student protests demanding his resignation.
1993: The Venezuelan Senate authorized the country’s Supreme Court to try President Carlos Andres Perez on corruption charges. Perez was suspended from office.
1998: Two students were killed and 22 others wounded when a classmate opened fire in a high school cafeteria in Eugene, Ore. A 15-year-old boy was arrested in connection with the shootings; police found his parents shot to death at home. Weeks of demonstrations led to the resignation of Indonesian President Suharto.
2003: An earthquake, which measured 6.8 on the Richter scale, struck near Algiers, Algeria, killing more than 2,200 people and injuring another 10,000.
2006: The FBI accused U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and said agents found $90,000 of the money in a freezer at his home.
2008: Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group, reached an agreement with the Lebanese government on a power-sharing formula, ending an 18-month political stalemate and clearing the way for the election of Gen. Michel Suleiman president.
2009: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh began his second term after a coalition led by his Congress party scored a resounding victory in parliamentary elections.
2010: A Malawi judge sentenced two gay men to 14 years in prison for unnatural acts and gross indecency. The judge said he didn’t believe the southeastern African nation was ready to see its sons getting married to other sons.
2011: Mexican drug lord Barragan Gilberto Balderas, a major leader of the Gulf Cartel and wanted in the United States for alleged drug smuggling, was arrested in the border town of Reynosa near McAllen, Texas.
2012: A New Jersey judge sentenced Dharun Ravi to 30 days in jail, 300 hours of community service, three years’ probation and ordered him to contribute $10,000 to an organization that helps victims of bias crimes. Ravi had been convicted of invasion of privacy and other charges for using a webcam to spy on his gay college roommate, Tyler Clementi, who later committed suicide by jumping off a bridge.
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“Without the freedom to criticize, there is no true praise.” – Pierre Beaumarchais, playwright (1732-1799)
“If the Creator had a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he surely meant us to stick it out.” – Arthur Koestler
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) Italian writer:
“Be as a tower firmly set; Shakes not its top for any blast that blows.”
“Consider your origins: you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.”
“For where the instrument of intelligence is added to brute power and evil will, mankind is powerless in its own defense.”
“Remember tonight.. for it is the beginning of always.”
“Small projects need much more help than great.”
“The customs and fashions of men change like leaves on the bough, some of which go and others come.”
“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.”
“The secret of getting things done is to act!”
“We must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all.”
tangential
PRONUNCIATION: (tan-JEN-shuhl)
MEANING: (adjective)
1. Only slightly relevant to the matter in hand; digressive; divergent.
2. Merely touching.
3. Mathematics: Of or pertaining to the nature of a tangent.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin tangent-, tangens, present participle of tangere (to touch).
USAGE: “Lucidly and economically written, Courtenay felt that the book gives her just enough of everything so that she had some sense of context yet never felt that the author was rambling or becoming mired in the tangential.”
chevy
PRONUNCIATION: (CHEV-ee)
http://wordsmith.org/words/chevy.mp3
MEANING:
(verb tr.), To chase or annoy.
(noun), A chase, hunt, or a hunting cry.
ETYMOLOGY: After Cheviot Hills bordering England and Scotland. A battle between English and Scottish forces over a hunting expedition is described in a 15th-century ballad (The Ballad of Chevy Chase). A chase is a tract of land reserved for hunting. The name of the city Chevy Chase in Maryland has the same origin. Earliest documented use: before 1825.
USAGE: “[Boys] chevied the younger boys to greater speed as they stumbled down the stairs.” – Clinton W. Trowbridge; All Tied Up; The Christian Science Monitor (Boston, Massachusetts); Jan 22, 1999.
Explore “chevy” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=chevy
tin god
PRONUNCIATION: (tin god)
http://wordsmith.org/words/tin_god.mp3
MEANING: (noun)
1. A pompous, self-important person.
2. A person who regards himself or herself as infallible and tries to dictate standards of behavior or beliefs.
ETYMOLOGY: From a reference to tin as a base metal compared to precious metals; in other words, petty or worthless. Earliest documented use: before 1880 .A tin god may or may not have a tin ear.
USAGE: “You’re so used to playing tin god that you can’t imagine anyone standing up to you!” – Sandra Marton; Spring Bride; Harlequin; 1996.