Today in History (March 4th):
1681: To satisfy a debt, England’s King Charles II granted a royal charter, deed and governorship of Pennsylvania to William Penn.
1746: Birthdays: Polish-born American patriot Tadeusz Kosciuszko.
1789: The U.S. Congress met for the first time, in New York City.
1791: Vermont was admitted to the United States as the 14th state.
1801: Thomas Jefferson became the first President of the United States to be inaugurated in Washington, D.C.
1837: The city of Chicago was incorporated.
1877: Swan Lake, a ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was first performed at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.
1881: Birthdays: French cubist painter Fernand Leger.
1902: Birthdays: Aviator Charles Lindbergh.
1912: Birthdays: Legendary golfer Byron Nelson.
1913: Birthdays: Civil rights activist Rosa Lee Parks.
1917: Jeanette Rankin, a Montana Republican, was sworn in as a member of the House of Representatives. She was the first woman to serve in Congress.
1918: Birthdays: Actor Ida Lupino.
1921: Birthdays: Feminist Betty Friedan.
1933: Frances Perkins was sworn in as Labor Secretary, first female member of a U.S. Cabinet.
1936: Birthdays: Comedian David Brenner.
1940: Birthdays: Actor John Schuck.
1947: Birthdays: Former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle.
1948: Birthdays: Rock musician Alice Cooper.
1952: Birthdays: Actor Lisa Eichhorn.
1958: The U.S. atomic submarine Nautilus reached the North Pole by passing beneath the arctic ice cap.
1959: Birthdays: Football Hall of Fame member Lawrence Taylor.
1962: Birthdays: Country singer Clint Black.
1970: Birthdays: Actor Gabrielle Anwar.
1973: Birthdays: Boxer Oscar de la Hoya.
1987: U.S. President Ronald Reagan acknowledged his administration swapped arms to Iran for U.S. hostages and said, It was a mistake.
1994: Four men were found guilty in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
1999: A U.S. Marine pilot whose plane had snapped a ski-lift cable high in Italy, killing 20 people, was acquitted of charges of involuntary homicide and manslaughter.
2002: After more than 40 people died violently in a week, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he aimed to kill as many Palestinians as possible to force negotiation.
2003: Philippine authorities blamed two bombings on the island of Mindanao on Islamic separatists. Twenty-two people, including a U.S. missionary, were killed and 150 injured in one blast and one died and three were hurt in the other.
2004: As U.S. Marines mobilized and patrolled the streets of Port-au-Prince, rebel forces proclaiming themselves Haiti’s reinvented military after the president fled said they would lay down their weapons.
2005: Homemaking guru Martha Stewart returned home after serving five months in a federal prison for conspiracy, obstruction of an agency proceeding and making false statements to federal investigators and began five months of home confinement.
2007: Sunni insurgents killed and wounded hundreds of Shiite Muslim pilgrims traveling to the holy city of Karbala in Iraq. At least 77 died at Hilla in the worst of the four-day series of attacks.
2008: U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., clinched the Republican nomination for U.S. president with primary wins in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois remained a slim front-runner over Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York in the tight Democratic contest.
2009: The international criminal court issued an arrest warrant for Sudan President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir at The Hague, Netherlands, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region of Western Sudan. It was the first ICC warrant against a sitting president.
2010: The U.S. House of Representatives approved a $15 billion jobs bill that includes a Social Security tax break for companies hiring new employees. More than 100 aftershocks menaced earthquake-ravaged Chile one week after a near record 8.8-magnitude tremor struck off the central coast. However, aid was reported reaching the hardest hit areas. The official death toll topped 800 before being scaled back.
2011: As Libya plunged toward civil war, witnesses reported that Moammar Gadhafi’s forces gunned down non-violent protesters in the city of Zawiya, 30 miles west of Tripoli. Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, opened a Gadhafi war crimes investigation.
2012: Vladimir Putin was again elected president of Russia with 64 percent of the vote but the outcome was challenged for possible fraud by the United States and Europe while thousands of anti-Putin protesters hit the streets in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Quotes
“In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds.” – Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)
“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” – Thomas Jefferson
“What you dislike in another take care to correct in yourself.” – Thomas Sprat, 1635-1713
“It is interesting to notice how some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage, and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles.” – Washington Irving, 1783-1859
“Vigilance in watching opportunity; tact and daring in seizing upon opportunity; force and persistence in crowding opportunity to its utmost of possible achievement — these are the martial virtues which must command success.” – Austin Phelps, 1820-1890
“We should not write so that it is possible for the reader to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us.” – Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilianus), rhetorician (c. 35-100)
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“Like cars in amusement parks, our direction is often determined through collisions.” – Yahia Lababidi, author (b. 1973)
“Laugh, and the world laughs with you;”
“Weep, and you weep alone.”
“For this brave old earth must borrow its mirth,”
“But has trouble enough of its own.”
– Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet (1850-1919)
Knute Rockne (1888-1931) American football coach:
“Build up your weaknesses until they become your strong points.”
“Drink the first. Sip the second slowly. Skip the third.”
“Let’s win one for the Gipper.”
“No star playing, just football.”
“One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than fifty preaching it.”
“Show me a good and gracious loser and I’ll show you a failure.”
“Win or lose, do it fairly.”
prudential
PRONUNCIATION: (proo-DEN-shuhl)
MEANING: (adjective)
1. Of or relating to prudence.
2. Exercising good judgment, common sense, forethought, caution, etc.
ETYMOLOGY: From Middle English prudence, from Middle French, from Latin prudentia, contraction of providentia, from provident-, present participle stem of providere (to provide). The words improvise, provide, provident, proviso, purvey, all derive from the same root.
USAGE: “While agreeing that prudential reasons could be mounted on either side of the argument, Meghan felt that there were persuasive reasons not to go to war against Iraq.”
sprezzatura
PRONUNCIATION: (spret-sah-TOOR-uh)
MEANING: (noun), Doing (or giving the appearance of doing) something effortlessly; effortless grace; nonchalance.
ETYMOLOGY: From Italian. Earliest documented use: 1957.
USAGE: “Norris is a man always in equipoise, a living illustration of the art of sprezzatura. No one has ever seen him ruffled.” – Hilary Mantel; Bring Up the Bodies; Henry Holt; 2012.
clou
PRONUNCIATION: (kloo)
http://wordsmith.org/words/clou.mp3
MEANING: (noun), A major point of interest, or a central idea.
ETYMOLOGY: From French clou (nail), from Latin (clavus).
USAGE: “Day four. Open introduction. Read these lines by Joyce describing his novel — ‘Penelope is the clou of the book’.” – Kevin Myers; Bluffer’s Guide to Ulysses; Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland); Jun 16, 1997.
baksheesh
PRONUNCIATION: (BAK-sheesh)
http://wordsmith.org/words/baksheesh.mp3
MEANING: (noun), A payment, such as a tip or bribe.
ETYMOLOGY: From Persian bakhshish, from bakhshidan, from baksh (to give).
USAGE:
“A certain favoritism, even in the absence of baksheesh-pocketing headwaiters, is indispensable to restaurants that expect to maintain a steady clientele — especially in New York, where every other big shot seems to demand the ‘best’ table and, instead of something fabulous to eat, a custom-baked potato.” – Thomas McNamee; The Joy of Cooking; The New York Times Book Review; Jun 23, 2002.
“About 130 officials were fired for taking baksheesh, and the volume of tariff revenue that actually reached state coffers jumped by almost 50% in two years.” – Maturing Mozambique; The Economist (London, UK); Dec 4, 1999.
Explore “baksheesh” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=baksheesh
phat
PRONUNCIATION: (fat)
http://wordsmith.org/words/phat.mp3
MEANING: adjective: Great; excellent.
ETYMOLOGY: Respelling of fat. Various acronyms have been suggested as possible origins of the word, but they are examples of backronyms. The word phatic has nothing to do with phat. Earliest documented use: 1963.
USAGE:
“When I was seventeen I got a phat job at a dry cleaner. Making $4.75 an hour I felt kingly compared to my prior job at McDonald’s.” – Steve Hilton; Ask Steve; Telephony; Jul 28, 2009.
“It took twice as long as the original did but the end result is phat.” – Kim Dawson; Hollyoaks Star is a Decks Maniac!; Daily Star (London, UK); Mar 15, 2008.