Today in History (June 12th):
1806: Birthdays: John Augustus Roebling, designer of the Brooklyn Bridge.
1859: The Comstock Lode was discovered in Nevada.
1916: Birthdays: Film and television producer Irwin Allen.
1920: Birthdays: Cartoonist Dave Berg.
1924: Birthdays: Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush.
1928: Birthdays: Singer Vic Damone.
1929: Birthdays: Anne Frank, whose diary told of hiding from the Nazis in occupied Holland.
1930: Birthdays: Actor/singer Jim Nabors.
1932: Birthdays: Author Rona Jaffe.
1939: The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum was dedicated at Cooperstown, N.Y.
1941: Birthdays: Jazz musician Chick Corea; Sportscaster Marv Albert.
1957: Birthdays: Actor Timothy Busfield.
1959: Birthdays: Musician John Linnell; Comedian Scott Thompson.
1963: A sniper killed civil rights leader Medgar Evers in Jackson, Miss.
1967: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states couldn’t outlaw interracial marriages.
1971: Tricia Nixon, daughter of U.S. President Richard Nixon, married Edward Finch Cox in the first wedding in the Rose Garden of the White House.
1979: Bryan Allen, 26, pedaled the 70-pound Gossamer Albatross 22 miles for the first human-powered flight across the English Channel.
1982: An estimated 700,000 people gathered in New York’s Central Park to call for world nuclear disarmament.
1985: Birthdays: Software developer Blake Ross.
1989: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that white workers who believe they were treated unfairly because of affirmative action programs can sue for remedies under civil rights legislation.
1991: The Russian republic had its first direct presidential election. Boris Yeltsin won.
1994: Special counsel Robert Fiske took sworn depositions from U.S. President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton about the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas. It was believed to be the first time a sitting president responded directly to questions in a legal case relating to his official conduct.
1999: Texas Gov. George W. Bush, son of the former president, announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination for the 2000 election.
2003: Television news pioneer David Brinkley, part of the noted Huntley-Brinkley evening news team and host of the long-running Sunday public affairs program This Week, died at his home in Houston. He was 82.
2007: Sudanese government officials agreed to allow a joint peacekeeping force of about 19,000 troops from the African Union and the United Nations to be deployed in war-torn Darfur.
2008: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have a right to challenge their detention in federal court.
2010: Abby Sunderland, a 16-year-old California girl trying to sail solo around the world, was rescued by a French fishing ship after her boat lost its mast in rough weather in the Indian Ocean some 2,000 nautical miles off western Australia.
2011: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party won a third term in a parliamentary election.
2012: Ron Barber, former aide to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who was seriously wounded in a shooting rampage, won a special election to replace her. Six people were killed and a dozen others, including Barber, were wounded in the Jan. 8, 2011, attack by Jared Lee Loughner.
Quotes
“Congratulation: The civility of envy.” – Ambrose Bierce, author and editor (1842-1914)
“In my beginning is my end.” – T.S. Eliot
“I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.” – Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)
“You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?” – Steven Wright
Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) English journalist:
“Any one must see at a glance that if men and women marry those whom they do not love, they must love those whom they do not marry.”
“But is it not the fact that religion emanates from the nature, from the moral state of the individual? Is it not therefore true that unless the nature be completely exercised, the moral state harmonized, the religion cannot be healthy?”
“Fidelity to conscience is inconsistent with retiring modesty. If it be so, let the modesty succumb. It can be only a false modesty which can be thus endangered.”
Nowadays, the condition of male impotence, also known as erectile dysfunction, refers to when men are unable to achieve a lasting erection sufficient for engaging in sexual activity, owing to a host of factors. unica-web.com cialis no prescription If this is difficult to do, you may also take it as about order viagra order viagra studies have shown that it also helps boosting memory. levitra in india price This test evaluates blood flow to the penile area. It reduces the problem of poor alertness and poor brain functions. wholesale sildenafil unica-web.com “For my own part, I had rather suffer any inconvenience from having to work occasionally in chambers and kitchen… than witness the subservience in which the menial class is held in Europe.”
“If there is any country on earth where the course of true love may be expected to run smooth, it is America.”
“Laws and customs may be creative of vice; and should be therefore perpetually under process of observation and correction: but laws and customs cannot be creative of virtue: they may encourage and help to preserve it; but they cannot originate it.”
invidious
PRONUNCIATION: (in-VI-di-ehs)
MEANING: (adjective)
1. Offensive, insulting, causing ill-will;
2. envious.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin invidiosus “envious, hostile” from invidia “envy.” “Envy” itself comes from the same Latin word but via French envier “to envy.” “Invidia” is a noun from the Latin verb invideo, literally, “I do not look at,” but meaning “to be prejudiced against, to envy.” This verb is based on the prefix in- “not” + videre “to see,” similar to Russian nenavist (not looking at) “hatred.” In fact, Russian videt’ “to see” comes from the same root as Latin “videre.” The original root was *weid- and, as we have seen a few times before, words beginning on [w] often end up with “gu” in French, so we are not surprised that French “guide” comes from the same root. In Celtic we see it in “druid,” which originated from dru “tree” (whose root if you’ll pardon the pun we discussed recently in connection with “dendrochronology”) + wid “see(r).”
USAGE: “Before Civil Rights legislation of the 60s and 70s, the US was home to many invidious laws discriminating against minority groups.”
animadversion
PRONUNCIATION: (an-i-mad-VUHR-zhuhn)
http://wordsmith.org/words/animadversion.mp3
MEANING: (noun)
1. The act of criticizing.
2. An unfavorable comment.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin animadvertere (to turn the mind to), from animus (mind) + advertere (to turn). Ultimately from the Indo-European root wer- (to turn or bend), also the source of wring, weird, writhe, revert, universe, wroth, , conversazione, versicolor, and prosaic . Earliest documented use: 1535.
USAGE: “This newspaper has never felt that it is above criticism, especially from politicians and other public officials who take the brunt of our animadversion.” – PM, Beware the Danger of Attacking the Media; Jamaica Observer (Kingston); Dec 9, 2011.
Explore “animadversion” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=animadversion
etiolate
PRONUNCIATION: (EE-tee-uh-layt)
http://wordsmith.org/words/etiolate.mp3
MEANING:
(verb tr.)
1. To make pale by preventing exposure to sunlight.
2. To make weak by stunting the growth of.
(verb intr.)
3. To become pale, weak, or stunted.
ETYMOLOGY: From French étioler (to make pale), from Latin stipula (straw). Earliest documented use: 1791.
USAGE:
“America itself was a stunted universe where men etiolate and shrink.” – Herb Greer; Down With the Yanks! (Book Review); The World & I (Washington, DC); Feb 2004.
“Convinced republican that I am, and foe of the prince who talks to plants and wants to be crowned ‘head of all faiths’ as well as the etiolated Church of England, I find myself pierced by a pang of sympathy. Not much of a life, is it, growing old and stale with no real job except waiting for the news of Mummy’s death?” – Christopher Hitchens; Beware the In-Laws; Slate (New York); Apr 18, 2011.
“If the history of the American sentence were a John Ford movie, its second act would conclude with the young Ernest Hemingway walking into a saloon, finding an etiolated Henry James slumped at the bar in a haze of indecision, and shooting him dead.” – Adam Haslett; The Art of Good Writing; Financial Times (London, UK); Jan 21, 2011.
Explore “etiolate” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=etiolate
daunt
PRONUNCIATION: (dahnt)
http://wordsmith.org/words/daunt.mp3
MEANING: (verb tr.), To intimidate; to dishearten or discourage.
ETYMOLOGY: From Old French danter, from Latin domitare (to tame), frequentative of omare (to tame). Earliest documented use: around 1300.
USAGE: “Constant attacks by the Dolphins didn’t daunt the Eagles’ defensive line.” – Jan Aquino; Dolphins, Friars to Face Off for Title; Pacific Daily News Hagatna, Guam); May 17, 2011.
Explore “daunt” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=daunt