Today in History (June 8th):
1789: James Madison proposed the Bill of Rights, which led to the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
1810: Birthdays: German composer Robert Schumann.
1861: Tennessee seceded from the Union to join the Confederacy.
1867: Birthdays: Architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
1869: Ives McGaffney of Chicago obtained a patent for a sweeping machine, the first vacuum cleaner.
1910: Birthdays: Science fiction publisher John W. Campbell.
1916: Birthdays: British geneticist Francis Crick, who helped determine the double helix structure of DNA.
1917: Birthdays: College Football Hall of Fame member and former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron White.
1918: Birthdays: Actor Robert Preston.
1921: Birthdays: Painter LeRoy Neiman.
1925: Birthdays: Former first lady Barbara Bush.
1927: Birthdays: Actor Jerry Stiller.
1933: Birthdays: Comedian Joan Rivers.
1936: Birthdays: Actor/singer James Darren.
1940: Birthdays: Singer Nancy Sinatra.
1944: Birthdays: Singer/songwriter Boz Scaggs.
1949: Celebrities such as Danny Kaye and Helen Keller were named members of the Communist party during the Red Scare.
1950: Birthdays: Actor Kathy Baker.
1955: Birthdays: Actor Griffin Dunne.
1957: Birthdays: Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams.
1958: Birthdays: Comedian Keenen Ivory Wayans.
1962: Birthdays: Rock musician Nick Rhodes.
1966: Birthdays: Actor Julianna Margulies.
1967: The USS Liberty, an intelligence ship sailing in international waters off Egypt, was attacked by Israeli jet planes and torpedo boats. Thirty-four Americans were killed in the attack, which Israel said was a case of mistaken identity.
1968: James Earl Ray, an escaped convict, was arrested in London and charged with the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
1977: Birthdays: Rapper Kanye West.
1987: Fawn Hall, former secretary to Iran-Contra scandal figure Oliver North, told congressional hearings that to protect her boss she helped him alter and shred sensitive documents and smuggle papers out of the White House.
1994: Two of the major warring factions in Bosnia, the Muslim-Croat federation and the Bosnian Serbs, signed a cease-fire agreement.
1995: U.S. Marines rescued downed American pilot Scott O’Grady in Bosnia.
1999: The case of five New York City police officers accused in the 1997 torturing of a Haitian immigrant ended with the conviction of one of the officers. A second officer pleaded guilty, three others were acquitted.
2003: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said he stood by his testimony before the United Nations that Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction before the war.
2004: Police in Milan, Italy, arrested an Egyptian man suspected of masterminding Madrid commuter train bombings that killed 191 people and injured more than 2,000 in March.
2006: The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and seven others were confirmed killed in an airstrike on a house north of Baquba.
2008: The AAA reported the average cost of gasoline in the United States had reached $4 a gallon for the first time.
2009: North Korea sentenced American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling to 12 years in prison each for illegal entry but released them after a visit by former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
2011: Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi vowed to fight on to the death as NATO bombed his Tripoli compound and his forces counterattacked in Misurata.
2012: U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, apologized to the Afghan people for the deaths of 18 civilians, including children, in an airstrike.
Quotes
“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” – James Madison
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“Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.” – William C. Dement, professor of psychiatry (b. 1928)
“As the pain that can be told is but half a pain, so the pity that questions has little healing in its touch.” – Edith Wharton, novelist (1862-1937)
“The price we pay for money is paid in liberty.” – Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet (1850-1894)
Robert Schumann (1810-1856) German composer:
“If we were all determined to play the first violin we should never have an ensemble. therefore, respect every musician in his proper place.”
“Nothing right can be accomplished in art without enthusiasm.”
“People compose for many reasons: to become immortal; because the pianoforte happens to be open; because they want to become a millionaire; because of the praise of friends; because they have looked into a pair of beautiful eyes; for no reason whatsoever.”
“Talent works, genius creates.”
“To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the duty of the artist.”
“In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of.”
pompadour
PRONUNCIATION: (POM-puh-dor)
MEANING: (noun), A hairstyle where the hair at the front is brushed up into a mound or a roll, above the forehead. Also known as quiff.
ETYMOLOGY: After the Marquise de Pompadour, the title of Jeanne Antoinette Poisson (1721-1764), mistress of Louis XV of France, who popularized the style.
USAGE: “Impressed with himself over his new pompadour which he felt made him look like Elvis, Charles was crestfallen when informed that Kim Jong Il had one as well.”
tintinnabulation
PRONUNCIATION: (tin-ti-nab-yuh-LAY-shuhn)
http://wordsmith.org/words/tintinnabulation.mp3
MEANING: noun: The ringing of or the sound of bells.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin tintinnabulum (bell), from tintinnare (to ring, jingle), reduplication of tinnire (to ring), of imitative origin. Earliest documented use: 1831, in Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Bells.
USAGE: “Abigail gazed to the sea where splashing surf sounded like the tintinnabulation of a thousand tiny bells.” – Tony Baker; A True Story; The New Zealand Herald (Auckland); Aug 19, 2008.
Explore “tintinnabulation” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=tintinnabulation
congeries
PRONUNCIATION: (kon-JEER-eez, KON-juh-reez)
http://wordsmith.org/words/congeries.mp3
MEANING: (noun), A collection of miscellaneous things.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin congeries (heap), from congerere (to heap up), from con- (with) + gerere (to carry).
USAGE: “What an unsightly congeries of mismatched assets the McGuinty government seems to have in mind.” – David Olive; Ontario’s Super-corporation Has Hallmarks of Trial Balloon; Toronto Star (Canada); Mar 9, 2010.
Explore “congeries” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=congeries
Mata Hari
PRONUNCIATION: (MA-tuh HAR-ee, MAT-uh HAR-ee)
http://wordsmith.org/words/Mata_Hari.mp3
MEANING: (noun), A seductive woman who works as a spy.
ETYMOLOGY: After exotic dancer Mata Hari, a stage name of Margaretha Geertruida Zelle (1876-1917). She was a Dutch woman, who took a Malay name, allegedly spied for the Germans, and was executed by the French. Her stage name Mata Hari means sun, literally “eye of the day”, from Malay mata (eye) + hari (day, dawn).
USAGE: “Roxana Saberi, in the space of a few months, has gone from freelance journalist arrested for carrying an illicit bottle of wine, to American Mata Hari spying against Iran for the CIA and now a free woman allowed to return home.” – Richard Beeston; Ayatollah Ali Khameini’s Hidden Hand in Roxana Saberi Case; The Times (London, UK); May 12, 2009.