Today in History (July 8th):
1497: Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon on a voyage that would lead to discovery of a sea route to India around the southern tip of Africa.
1776: The Liberty Bell was rung to gather people to the reading of the Declaration of Independence.
1776: The Declaration of Independence was read in public for the first time, to people gathered at Philadelphia’s Independence Square.
1835: The Liberty Bell cracked while being rung during the funeral of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall in Philadelphia.
1836: Birthdays: Chemist John Pemberton, inventor of Coca-Cola.
1838: Birthdays: German dirigible inventor Ferdinand von Zeppelin.
1839: Birthdays: Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller.
1853: Commodore Matthew Perry, representing the U.S. government, sailed into Tokyo Bay to begin negotiations that led to the United States becoming the first Western nation to establish diplomatic relations with Japan in two centuries.
1857: Birthdays: French psychologist Alfred Binet.
1889: The Wall Street Journal was first published.
1908: Birthdays: John’s grandson, former U.S. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller; Band leader Louis Jordan.
1910: Birthdays: White House journalist Sarah Newcomb McClendon.
1913: Birthdays: Drama critic Walter Kerr.
1914: Birthdays: Jazz singer Billy Eckstine.
1931: Birthdays: TV executive Roone Arledge.
1932: Birthdays: Singer Jerry Vale.
1934: Birthdays: Actor Marty Feldman.
1935: Birthdays: Singer Steve Lawrence.
1944: Birthdays: Actor Jeffrey Tambor.
1946: Birthdays: Ballet dancer Cynthia Gregory.
1947: Birthdays: Actor Kim Darby.
1948: Birthdays: Children’s singer Raffi (Cavoukian).
1949: Birthdays: Chef Wolfgang Puck.
1950: U.S. Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur was designated commander of U.N. forces in Korea.
1951: Birthdays: Actor Anjelica Huston.
1952: Birthdays: Football Hall of Fame member Jack Lambert; Writer Anna Quindlen.
1958: Birthdays: Actor Kevin Bacon.
1968: Birthdays: Actor Billy Crudup.
1969: The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam began.
1970: Birthdays: Singer Beck (Hansen).
1991: Yugoslav leaders signed an accord calling for an internationally observed cease-fire in Slovenia and Croatia.
1994: North Korean President Kim Il Sung died at age 82. He had led the country since its founding in 1948.
1997: NATO invited Eastern European nations Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic to join the organization.
1998: Four leaders of the Montana Freemen were convicted in federal court in Billings, Mont., of conspiring to defraud banks. The anti-government, anti-tax group had staged an 81-day standoff at its ranch in 1996. Birthdays: Actor Jaden Smith.
2003: North Korea said work had begun on nuclear weapons with enough plutonium on hand to build six bombs.
2004: A U.S. Marine reported to have been beheaded by Iraqi captors showed up alive and well at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, 24, was turned over to military authorities.
2006: Atlantic City’s 12 casinos reopened after being forced to shut down for three days, as were a number of New Jersey state offices, in a political dispute that virtually closed government over a proposed 1-cent raise in the sales tax. The state, which employs inspectors at the casinos, lost about $4 million in gambling taxes.
2009: Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, benefiting from a robust economy, was easily re-elected.
2010: A French surgeon said he had performed the first successful transplant of a complete face, giving a 35-year-old disfigured man every feature, including tear ducts.
2011: The Atlantis began the 135th and final mission of the U.S. space shuttle program that started in 1981, a two-week voyage to the International Space Station with a cargo of supplies and spare parts.
2012: Oscar-winning actor Ernest Borgnine (Marty) died in Los Angeles. He was 95.
Quotes
“The soul of conversation is sympathy.” – Thomas Campbell, 1777-1844
“The mind that is anxious about future events is miserable.” – Seneca, 4 B.C.-65 A.D
“Business? That’s very simple. It’s other people’s money.” – Alexandre Dumas.
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“He who loses money, loses much; He, who loses a friend, loses much more; He, who loses faith, loses all.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much extinguishes it.” – Hanah More, writer (1745-1833)
“Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)
Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945) German artist:
“I do not want to die…until I have faithfully made the most of my talent and cultivated the seed that was placed in me until the last small twig has grown.”
“I am gradually approaching the period in my life when work comes first… No longer diverted by other emotions, I work the way a cow grazes.”
“Genius can probably run on ahead and seek out new ways. But the good artists who follow after genius – and I count myself among these – have to restore the lost connection once more.”
“There are moments on most days when I feel a deep and sincere gratitude, when I sit at the open window and there is a blue sky or moving clouds.”
“Look at life with the eyes of a child.”
“To this day I do not know whether the power which has inspired my works is something related to religion, or is indeed religion itself.”
“I want to cultivate the seed that was placed in me until the last small twig has grown.”
“For the last third of life there remains only work. It alone is always stimulating, rejuvenating, exciting and satisfying.”
adage
PRONUNCIATION: (AD-ij0
MEANING: (noun), An old saying, which has obtained credit by long use; a proverb.
ETYMOLOGY: Adage derives from the Latin adagium (akin to aio, “I say”).
USAGE: “We may find out too late the wisdom of the adage that cautions us to be careful what we wish for lest we get it.”
four-flush
PRONUNCIATION: (FOHR-flush)
http://wordsmith.org/words/four-flush.mp3
MEANING: (verb intr.), To bluff or act in a fraudulent manner.
ETYMOLOGY: In a game of poker, a full flush is five cards of the same suit. A four-flush, only four cards of the same suit, is almost worthless. A player pretending to have a full flush while holding only a four-flush, is said to be four-flushing. Earliest documented use: 1896.
USAGE:
“When you cheat in car racing, it’s supposed to be inventive. This was just cheap, lousy, four-flushing chicanery.” – Sally Jenkins; A Rule Not Meant to Be Broken; The Washington Post; Feb 16, 2007.
“Bruce Olds pushes his readers so far and so forcibly away from his subject that they come away feeling abused, or at least four-flushed.” – Donald Seacreast; Nodoby’s Buckaroo; The World & I (Washington, DC); Dec 2001.
Explore “four-flush” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=four-flush
risque or risqué
PRONUNCIATION: (ri-SKAY)
http://wordsmith.org/words/risque.mp3
MEANING: adjective: Bordering on indelicacy or impropriety, especially in a sexually suggestive manner.
ETYMOLOGY: From Fremch risqué (risky), past participle of risquer (to risk). Earliest documented use: 1867.
USAGE:
“A woman who was fired from her job at a NY lingerie business says she was fired because her employer complained her work attire was too risque.” – Lingerie Employee Fired for Risque Attire; Globe and Mail (Toronto,Canada); May 23, 2012.
“The normally pristine Senator Evan Bayh made a risqué joke abouta fellow Indianan from a town called French Lick.” – Sleepless in Manhattan; The Economist (London, UK); Aug 1, 2002.
somnolent
PRONUNCIATION: (SOM-nuh-lent)
http://wordsmith.org/words/somnolent.mp3
MEANING: (adjective)
1. Sleepy; drowsy.
2. Sleep-inducing.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin somnus (sleep). Ultimately from the Indo-European root swep- (to sleep) that is also the source of insomnia, hypnosis, soporific (inducing sleep), and somnambulate (to walk in sleep). – Somnopathy, a variant of somnipathy, the word for a sleep disorder, has four consecutive letters from the alphabet.
USAGE: “It is encouraging to see such curiosity from the traditionally somnolent panel.” – The House Eyes the Swamp; The New York Times; Jul 2, 2009.