Thoughts for the Day

Today in History (February 3rd):

1377: 2,000 people in Cesena, Italy, were killed by papal troops in what became known as the Cesena Bloodbath.

1690: Massachusetts Colony issued the first paper money in America.

1783: Spain recognized the independence of the United States from Great Britain.

1809: The Illinois Territory is created. It will go on to be the 21st state to join the United States, located in the former Northwest Territory. Its name was given by the state’s French explorers after the indigenous Illiniwek people, a consortium of Algonquin tribes that thrived in the area. The word Illiniwek means simply “the people.” Birthdays: German composer Felix Mendelssohn.

1811: Birthdays: U.S. journalist Horace Greeley.

1821: Birthdays: Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor of medicine.

1870: The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, decreeing that the right to vote shall not be denied on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.

1874: Birthdays: Poet and novelist Gertrude Stein.

1894: Birthdays: Artist Norman Rockwell.

1904: Birthdays: Gangster Charles Arthur Pretty Boy Floyd.

1907: Birthdays: Author James Michener.

1913: The 16th Amendment, allowing establishment of an income tax, became part of the U.S. Constitution after ratification by Wyoming.

1917: The United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany after a German declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare.

1918: Birthdays: Comedian Joey Bishop.

1924: Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States, died in Washington at the age of 67.

1925: Birthdays: Comedian Shelley Berman; Actor John Fiedler.

1940: Birthdays: Football Hall of Fame quarterback Fran Tarkenton.

1943: Birthdays: Actor Blythe Danner.

1945: Birthdays: Football Hall of Fame quarterback Bob Griese.

1948: Birthdays: Nobel Peace Prize laureate Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo.

1950: Birthdays: Actor Morgan Fairchild; Actor Pamela Franklin.

1956: Birthdays: Actor Nathan Lane.

1959: Singers Buddy Holly, J.P. The Big Bopper Richardson and Ritchie Valens were killed in a plane crash near Mason City, Iowa. Birthdays: Actor Thomas Calabro.

1965: Birthdays: Actor Maura Tierney.

1966: The Soviet Union accomplished the first controlled landing on the moon when the unmanned spacecraft Lunik 9 touched down on the Ocean of Storms.

1969: Birthdays: Professional golfer Retief Goosen.

1970: Birthdays: Actor Warwick Davis.

1973: U.S. President Richard Nixon signed into law the Endangered Species Act.

1992: Angry rhetoric escalated between the United States and Japan when Japanese Prime Minister Miyazawa accused U.S. workers of lacking a work ethic.

1994: The shuttle Discovery blasted off into space with the first Russian astronaut aboard a U.S. spacecraft. U.S. President Bill Clinton announced the United States was lifting its trade embargo against Vietnam.

1998: Texas executed Karla Faye Tucker, the first female inmate to be put to death by the state in 135 years. A U.S. Marine jetfighter, flying low over mountains in Italy, accidentally severed a ski lift cable, sending 20 people in a cable car plunging to their deaths.

2003: U.S. President George W. Bush sent lawmakers a $2.23 trillion budget for 2004, including major new tax cuts and a big increase in defense spending, projecting a deficit of $307.4 billion.

2004: The discovery of the lethal poison ricin in the mailroom of U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., the Senate majority leader, forced the closing of three Senate office buildings in Washington.

2005: More than 50 people died when a train rammed a trailer carrying a wedding party at a railroad crossing in India.
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2006: Almost 200 people were reported dead with another 800 listed as missing after an Egyptian ferry sank in the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt.

2007: A truck bomb exploded in a Baghdad market killing at least 135 and injuring more than 300.

2008: Serbian President Boris Tadic, a pro-Western leader who favors closer ties with the United States, won re-election over a hard-line Radical Party candidate.

2009: U.S. President Barack Obama signed a bill expanding a popular health insurance program for children.

2010: Self-help guru James Arthur Ray was charged in Flagstaff, Ariz., with manslaughter in three deaths during a two-hour spirit cleansing ceremony in a hot, packed sweat lodge.

2011: On the heels of uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, some 20,000 demonstrators took to the streets in Sanaa, Yemen, demanding a change in government. Arab Spring protests also targeted several other points, including Iraq, Libya, Jordan, Algeria and Bahrain. The New York City Council approved a measure banning smoking in 1,700 parks and along 14 miles of beaches.

2012: The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 8.9 percent in January, lowest level since February of 2009, and there were 243,000 new jobs. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke cautioned against making too much of the positive signs, however, saying the job market was weak. Mitt Romney claimed victory in his race for the Republican presidential nomination after a big win in the bitterly contested Florida primary.



Quotes

“Habit with him was all the test of truth, / It must be right: I’ve done it from my youth.” – George Crabbe, poet and naturalist (1754-1832)



Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) American author:

“A masterpiece… may be unwelcome but it is never dull.”

“A vegetable garden in the beginning looks so promising and then after all little by little it grows nothing but vegetables, nothing, nothing but vegetables.”

“A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.”

“Americans are very friendly and very suspicious, that is what Americans are and that is what always upsets the foreigner, who deals with them, they are so friendly how can they be so suspicious they are so suspicious how can they be so friendly but they just are.”

“Communists are people who fancied that they had an unhappy childhood.”

“Considering how dangerous everything is, nothing is really very frightening.”

“Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.”

“Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.”

“Hemingway’s remarks are not literature.”

“I do want to get rich but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich.”

“I like a view but I like to sit with my back turned to it.”

“I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. It’s better to be rich.”



schadenfreude

PRONUNCIATION: (SHOD-n-froy-duh)

MEANING: (noun), A malicious satisfaction obtained from the misfortunes of others.

ETYMOLOGY: Schadenfreude comes from the German, from Schaden, “damage” + Freude, “joy.” It is often capitalized, as it is in German.

USAGE: “That the report of Franklin’s grave illness might also have been tinged with Schadenfreude appears not to have crossed Albert’s mind.”



impetuous

PRONUNCIATION: (im-PECH-oo-uhs)
http://wordsmith.org/words/impetuous.mp3

MEANING: (adjective), Marked by impulsiveness or impatience.

ETYMOLOGY: From Latin impetus (assault, impetus), from impetere (to attack), from in- (in) + petere (to go to). Ultimately from the Indo-European root pet- (to rush or fly), which also gave us feather, petition, compete, perpetual, pterodactyl, helicopter, propitious, pinnate, and lepidopterology (study of butterflies and moths). Earliest documented use: 1398.

USAGE: “Fools rush in … Taylor Swift often acts, well, like an impetuous teen straight out of one of her songs.” – Eric Andersson; Why Taylor Can’t Find Love; Us Weekly (New York); Nov 19, 2012.

Explore “impetuous” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=impetuous


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