Today in History (December 2nd):
1804: Napoleon crowned himself emperor of France.
1823: During his annual address to the U.S. Congress, President James Monroe proclaimed a new U.S. foreign policy initiative that became known as the Monroe Doctrine.
1848: Franz Joseph I became King of Austria.
1859: Abolitionist John Brown was hanged for his raid on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, W.Va. Birthdays: French painter Georges-Pierre Seurat.
1863: Birthdays: Circus co-founder Charles Ringling.
1906: Birthdays: Engineer Peter Carl Goldmark, the inventor of the long-playing record.
1914: Birthdays: Composer/lyricist Adolph Green.
1923: Birthdays: Opera singer Maria Callas.
1924: Birthdays: Former Secretary of State Alexander Haig Jr.
1925: Birthdays: Actor Julie Harris.
1927: The Model A Ford was introduced as the successor to the Model T. The price of a Model A roadster was $395.
1931: Birthdays: Former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III.
1939: Birthdays: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.
1942: The Atomic Age was born when scientists demonstrated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction at a laboratory below the stands at the University of Chicago football stadium.
1943: Birthdays: Artist and dog photographer William Wegman.
1944: Birthdays: Actor Cathy Lee Crosby.
1946: Birthdays: Fashion designer Gianni Versace.
1954: The U.S. Senate voted 65 to 22 to condemn Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wis., for conduct unbecoming a senator. The condemnation, which was equivalent to a censure, related to McCarthy’s controversial investigation of allegedly suspected communists in the U.S. government, military and civilian society.
1958: Birthdays: Figure skater Randy Gardner.
1961: Fidel Castro disclosed he was a communist, acknowledging he concealed the fact until he solidified his hold on Cuba.
1963: Birthdays: Writer Ann Patchett.
1968: Birthdays: Actor Lucy Liu.
1973: Birthdays: Tennis player Monica Seles.
1978: Birthdays: Singer-songwriter Nelly Furtado.
1981: Birthdays: Pop singer Britney Spears.
1982: Retired dentist Barney Clark, 62, became the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart. He survived 112 days.
1990: Deaths: Aaron Copland, the dean of American music, died at age 90; Actor Bob Cummings died at age 80.
1993: Colombian drug trafficker Pablo Escobar was killed in a shoot-out with police and soldiers in the Colombian city of Medellin.
2001: U.S. forces in Afghanistan captured John Walker Lindh, 20, a U.S. citizen from San Anselmo, Calif., found fighting with the Taliban. Enron, the giant Houston energy trading company, its stock nearly worthless, became the largest firm to file for bankruptcy.
2004: John Danforth, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, resigned.
2006: At least 32 people died and 16 were injured when a 150-year-old pedestrian bridge collapsed onto a passenger train near Bhagalpur, India. Three Baghdad car bombs, detonated in quick succession, killed at least 51 people, many shopping at a food market in a Shiite neighborhood.
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2010: The U.S. Congress approved a national child nutrition bill expanding the scope of the current school lunch program and implementing improvements to the overall health of available foods to help reduce childhood hunger and obesity. South Korea military officials say they believe North Korea suffered many casualties in Seoul’s bombardment response to the North’s shelling of a South island.
2011: U.S. unemployment declined to 8.6 percent in November, its lowest level in two and a half years. Employers added 120,000 jobs during the month. People in southern Yemen blamed forces loyal to the outgoing president for shelling that killed a dozen civilians and wounded 45 this week.
Quotes
Alexander Haig (1924- ) US general, secretary of state:
“That’s not a lie, it’s a terminological inexactitude. Also, a tactical misrepresentation.”
“Practice rather than preach. Make of your life an affirmation, defined by your ideals, not the negation of others. Dare to the level of your capability then go beyond to a higher level.”
“The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood.”
“As of now, I am in control here in the White House.”
“I probably carry more scar tissue on my derriere than any other candidate- that’s political scar tissue.”
“I’m the only American alive or dead who presided unhappily over the removal of a vice president and a president.”
septentrional
PRONUNCIATION: (sep-TEN-tree-uh-nuhl)
http://wordsmith.org/words/septentrional.mp3
MEANING: (adj) Northern.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin septentriones, literally the seven ploughing oxen, a name for the seven stars of the Great Bear constellation that appears in the northern sky. From Latin septem (seven) + triones (ploughing oxen). Earliest documented use: around 1400.
USAGE:
“Once the tourists have filtered back to their septentrional homes in Europe, the men of Spetsai [Greece] resume their norm of shooting birds.” – C.L. Sulzberger; A Return Visit to Glistening Spetsai; The New York Times; Sep 28, 1986.
“The first entailed … traveling north at a snail’s pace through the septentrional regions of North Korea.” – Claude Lanzmann; The Patagonian Hare: A Memoir; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 2012. (translation by Frank Wynne)
elixir
PRONUNCIATION: (eh-LIK-sehr)
MEANING: (noun)
1. Like the philosopher’s stone, a substance believed to have the power to change base metal into gold;
2. a magic potion with a miraculous curative or restorative effect, sometimes believed to prolong life indefinitely;
3. a sweetened, flavored base for medicines.
ETYMOLOGY: In Middle English today’s word meant “a substance of transmutative properties,” borrowed from Old French “elissir” with the same meaning. French inherited the word from Medieval Latin elixir, borrowed in turn from Arabic al-‘iksir : al “the” + ‘iksir “elixir.” Arabic probably borrowed the word from Greek xerion, “powder used for drying wounds” from xeros “dry.” “Xeros,” of course, you recognize from “Xerox,” the company that made the first dry copier. In the first sense, that of the philosopher’s stone, today’s word is often used with “the,” as “A good junk-yard manager is the elixir that turns the basest metal into gold.” The British sometimes speak of “Daffy’s elixir” in a sense similar to “snake oil” in the USquack medicine. It began as a name of a baby medicine frequently mixed with gin, which led to its being used as a slang name for gin alone.
USAGE: “James was quick to point out that there is no elixir for a lagging economy; and that we must wait for market adjustments to run their course.”
llano
PRONUNCIATION: (LAH-noh, YAH-no)
http://wordsmith.org/words/llano.mp3
MEANING: noun: An open grassy, almost treeless plain.
ETYMOLOGY: From Spanish llano (plain), from Latin planus (plain), from planus (level). First recorded use: 1613.
USAGE: “I decided to prepare this year by reading some Westerns to get in the mood. Generally, that is a type of literature I have avoided, but once you get to where you recognize the names of places and know a llano from a plateau, they are kind of fun.” – Jan Glidewell; Hippies, Cowboys Good for the Heart; St. Petersburg Times (Florida); Jun 8, 2009.
Explore “llano” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=llano