Today in History (December 17th):
1760: Birthdays: American Revolutionary War soldier Deborah Sampson, who fought as a man under the alias Robert Shurtleff.
1790: The Aztec Calendar or Solar Stone was uncovered by workmen repairing Mexico City’s Central Plaza.
1807: Birthdays: Poet John Greenleaf Whittier.
1894: Birthdays: Conductor Arthur Fiedler.
1903: Orville Wright made history’s first sustained airplane flight in the Wright Flyer, lasting 12 seconds and covering 120 feet near Kitty Hawk, N.C. His brother Wilbur flew 852 feet later that day. Birthdays: Novelist Erskine Caldwell; Composer/bandleader Ray Noble.
1910: Birthdays: Western swing bandleader/violinist Spade Cooley.
1913: Birthdays: Ice cream businessman Burt Baskin.
1925: U.S. Army Gen. William Billy Mitchell, outspoken advocate of a separate Air Force, was found guilty of conduct prejudicial to the good of the armed services. He was awarded the Medal of Honor 20 years after his death.
1929: Birthdays: Writer William Safire.
1930: Birthdays: Publisher Bob Guccione.
1935: Birthdays: Actor George Lindsey.
1936: Birthdays: British singer/actor Tommy Steele.
1939: The Nazi warship Graf Spee was scuttled off the coast of Uruguay as British vessels pursued it.
1942: Birthdays: Blue musician Paul Butterfield.
1944: The more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans who had been relocated from the West Coast shortly after the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor were told they would be allowed to return home on Jan. 2.
1945: Birthdays: Political commentator Chris Matthews; Actor Ernie Hudson.
1946: Birthdays: Comedian Eugene Levy.
1949: Birthdays: British rock singer Paul Rodgers.
1953: Birthdays: Actor Bill Pullman; Actor Barry Livingston.
1967: The Clean Air Act was passed by the U.S. Congress.
1975: A federal jury in Sacramento, Calif., sentenced Lynette Alice Squeaky Fromme to life in prison for her attempted assassination of U.S. President Gerald R. Ford. She was released from prison in August 2009. Birthdays: Actor Milla Jovovich.
1978: Birthdays: Boxer, politician and entertainer Manny Pacquiao.
1981: U.S. Army Brig. Gen. James Dozier was kidnapped in Rome by Italy’s Red Brigades. He was freed 42 days later in a raid by Italian anti-terrorist forces.
1986: A Las Vegas federal jury awarded entertainer Wayne Newton $19.3 million in his defamation suit against NBC. A judge reduced the award to $5.3 million.
1987: Birthdays: Bradley Manning, accused of giving classified information to WikiLeaks.
1989: The Simpsons, which began as a section of The Tracy Ullman Show, had its first stand-along episode broadcast.
1990: Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a radical Roman Catholic priest and opponent of the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier, was elected president of Haiti in a landslide victory.
1991: 15 people were killed and 20 wounded in clashes between Soviet troops and guerrillas in a disputed Armenian enclave.
1992: Israel tried to deport hundreds of Palestinians to Lebanon but Beirut closed the border, trapping them in the Israeli-controlled security zone. U.S. President George H.W. Bush formally signed the North American Free Trade Treaty simultaneously with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.
1994: North Korea said it shot down a U.S. Army helicopter in North Korean airspace, killing one pilot. The second pilot was reportedly uninjured but was held in North Korea.
1996: The United Nations elected Kofi Annan of Ghana as secretary-general.
1997: New Jersey became the first state in the United States to permit same-sex couples to adopt children.
2001: U.S. officials said they believed they had destroyed Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network in Afghanistan but it became evident in a few days that hundreds of bin Laden’s men were escaping through the mountains into Pakistan.
2005: An anti-illegal immigration bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives called for hundreds of miles of border fences and new regulations for employers.
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2006: Two large Virginia Episcopal parishes and several smaller churches in the state, reportedly upset over the consecration of an openly gay bishop and same-sex weddings in some congregations, voted to secede from the worldwide organization.
2007: Iran received its first nuclear fuel from Russia for use in the joint nuclear power plant being built in Bushehr.
2009: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke won the approval of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee for a second four-year term as head of the Fed.
2010: U.S. President Barack Obama signed legislation that extended Bush-era tax cuts for two years and gave the unemployed 13 months more of benefits. More than 12,000 people died in 2010 as a result of Mexico’s drug wars, officials said.
2011: The last U.S. troops in Iraq crossed the border into Kuwait, ending almost nine years of a deadly and divisive war. The death toll from a tropical storm that struck the Philippines topped 1,000 within three days.
Quotes
“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.” – Henry James (Hawthorne)
“Kind words are the music of the world.” – F. W. Faber, 1814-1863
“No longer forward nor behind I look in hope and fear; But grateful take the good I find, The best of now and here.” – John G. Whittier, 1807-1892
“Nothing of character is really permanent but virtue and personal worth.” – Daniel Webster, 1782-1852
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) American Poet:
“All the windows of my heart I open to the day.”
“An ashen memory in its stead.”
“As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth.”
“Before me, even as behind, God is, and all is well.”
“For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are those ‘It might have been.'”
“God’s colors all are fast.”
“It is no use trying to sum people up. One must follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entirely what is done.”
“It really costs me a lot emotionally to watch myself on-screen. I think of myself, and feel like I’m quite young, and then I look at this old man with the baggy chins and the tired eyes and the receding hairline and all that.”
“Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope.”
“No longer forward nor behindI look in hope or fear;But, grateful, take the good I find,The best of now and here.”
escarpment
PRONUNCIATION: (i-SKARP-ment)
MEANING: (noun)
1. A steep slope or long cliff that results from erosion or faulting and separates two relatively level areas of differing elevations.
2. A steep slope in front of a fortification.
ETYMOLOGY: French escarpe, from Italian scarpa.
USAGE: “Before they could climb the castle wall they first had to navigate a treacherous escarpment during which time they would be frightfully exposed to archers and other ranged weaponry from the crenellated battlements.”
quadrennium
PRONUNCIATION: (kwa-DREN-ee-uhm)
http://wordsmith.org/words/quadrennium.mp3
MEANING: (noun), A period of four years.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin quadri (four) + annus (year), ultimately from the Indo-European root at- (to go), which is also the source of annual, annals, annuity, anniversary, and perennial. Earliest documented use: 1779.
USAGE: “Maybe it’s because I’m an Olympic dad, but my wife and I had a baby each quadrennium.” – Jean Lopez, et al.; Family Power; Celebra; 2009.
Explore “quadrennium” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=quadrennium