Today in History (March 12th):
1831: Birthdays: Pioneer automaker Clement Studebaker.
1858: Birthdays: New York Times publisher Adolph Ochs.
1912: Juliette Gordon Low organized the first Girl Scouts of America troop in Savannah, Ga.
1918: Birthdays: Artist Elaine de Kooning.
1921: Birthdays: Actor/singer Gordon MacRae.
1922: Birthdays: Novelist Jack Kerouac.
1923: Birthdays: Astronaut Wally Schirra.
1928: Birthdays: Playwright Edward Albee.
1930: Mahatma Gandhi began a campaign of civil disobedience against British rule in India.
1931: Birthdays: Actor Billie Buckwheat Thomas.
1932: Birthdays: Former U.N. Ambassador and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young.
1933: U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered the first of his Sunday evening fireside chats — informal radio addresses from the White House to the American people. Birthdays: Actor Barbara Feldon.
1936: Birthdays: Hall of Fame basketball coach Eddie Sutton.
1938: Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Austria.
1940: Birthdays: Singer/songwriter Al Jarreau.
1946: Birthdays: Singer/actor Liza Minnelli.
1947: In a speech to Congress, U.S. President Harry Truman outlined what became known as the Truman Doctrine, calling for U.S. aid to countries threatened by communist revolution. Birthdays: Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
1948: Birthdays: Singer/songwriter James Taylor.
1957: Birthdays: Jackson 5 member Marlon Jackson.
1962: Birthdays: Former baseball player Darryl Strawberry.
1963: The U.S. House of Representatives voted to grant former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill honorary U.S. citizenship.
1968: Birthdays: Actor Aaron Eckhart.
1979: Birthdays: Musician Pete Doherty.
1990: Exxon pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to pay a $100 million fine in a $1.1 billion settlement of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. South African President F.W. de Klerk introduced legislation to revise land tenure laws and end racial discrimination in land ownership.
1993: More than 250 people were killed when a wave of bombings rocked Mumbai.
1994: The Church of England ordained its first women priests.
1999: Former Soviet allies the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined NATO.
2000: Pope John Paul II apologized for the errors of the Roman Catholic Church during the past 2,000 years.
2001: Six people, including five Americans, were killed when an errant bomb from a U.S. Navy fighter jet exploded at an observation post in Kuwait.
2002: U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, speaking after Israeli raids killed 31 Palestinians, declared that Israel must end its illegal occupation of Palestinian land. That night, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.
2003: Elizabeth Smart, 15, who had been kidnapped from her Salt Lake City home in June 2002, was found in the custody of a panhandler and his wife in nearby Sandy, Utah. The premier of Serbia, Zoran Djindjic, died after being shot by assassins.
2005: Iran rejected Washington’s willingness to offer economic incentives if the Islamic state gives up its nuclear program.
2006: Iraqi violence claimed at least 70 lives, including nearly 50 who died in six car bombings in Baghdad’s major Shiite stronghold.
2008: New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned after being caught in a high-priced prostitution scandal. He was succeeded by Lt. Gov. David Paterson, New York’s first African-American (and legally blind) governor.
2009: A 17-year-old youth, who felt no one recognized my potential, killed 17 people, including nine students, at his former school in Winnenden, Germany. The shooter died in a police gun battle.
2010: Two suicide attacks against the Pakistani military in Lahore killed 45 people and wounded 100 others.
2012: U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the killing of 16 civilians, including nine children, allegedly by a U.S. Army sergeant, wouldn’t knock the United States and its NATO allies off their planned Afghan course. After days of pounding violence, Palestinian and Israeli authorities agreed to a truce, an agreement reached with the help of Egyptian mediators.
Quotes
“Dreams have only one owner at a time. That’s why dreamers are lonely.” – Erma Bombeck, author (1927-1996)
“Once the Xerox copier was invented, diplomacy died.” – Andrew Young told Playboy magazine
“Words can be so strong, they can hurt and you should always remember that once words are spoken, they are no longer your words, they belong to the person hearing them.” – Anonymous
“Within the power of orgasm is the meaning of existence.” – Maria Tegzes
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Be known for pleasing others, especially if you govern them. Ruling other has one advantage: you can do more good than anyone else. – Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658
If you do not hope, you will not find what is beyond your hopes. – Clement of Alexandria, 150-211
To find what you seek in the road of life, the best proverb of all is that which says: “Leave no stone unturned.” – Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1803-1873
“Snakes and ladders: the game of organized religions.” – Yahia Lababidi, writer (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)
Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) American Writer:
“All our best men are laughed at in this nightmare land.”
“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”
“If moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime.”
“It is not my fault that certain so-called bohemian elements have found in my writings something to hang their peculiar beatnik theories on.”
“”Now you understand the Oriental passion for tea,” said Japhy. “Remember that book I told you about the first sip is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy.””
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to talk, mad to live, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding.”
“Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?”
pyrophoric
PRONUNCIATION: (pie-ruh-FOR-ik)
MEANING: (adjective)
1. Spontaneously igniting in air.
2. Producing sparks by friction.
ETYMOLOGY: From pyrophorus, substance that ignites spontaneously :, from Greek purophoros, fire-bearing : puro-, pyro- + -phoros, -phorous.
USAGE: “A pyrophoric mix of extreme opinons prevented any real progress being made at the council meeting.”
bromide
PRONUNCIATION: (BRO-myd)
http://wordsmith.org/words/bromide.mp3
MEANING: (noun)
1. A tired or meaningless remark.
2. A tiresome or boring person.
ETYMOLOGY: From bromine, from Greek bromos (stench). Earliest documented use: 1836.
NOTES: In earlier times, potassium bromide used to be taken as a sedative. So any statement that was intended to be soothing (“Don’t worry, everything will be OK.”) acquired the name bromide. Eventually any commonplace or tired remark and anyone uttering such remarks came to be known as a bromide. – The term was popularized in the title of Gelett Burgess’s 1906 book “Are You a Bromide?” It was to promote this book that Burgess coined the term “blurb”.
USAGE: “His daddy occasionally pops back in to dispense nonsensical bits of advice — ‘If you’re not first, you’re last’ — a bromide that the young Ricky Bobby adopts as his motto.” – Teresa Wiltz; Where There’s Will; Washington Post; Aug 4, 2006.
Explore “bromide” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=bromide
gedankenexperiment
PRONUNCIATION: (guh-DAHNG-kuhn-ik-SPER-uh-muhnt)
http://wordsmith.org/words/gedankenexperiment.mp3
MEANING: noun: A thought experiment: an experiment carried out in imagination only.
ETYMOLOGY: From German Gedanke (thought) + Experiment (experiment). Earliest documented use: 1913.
NOTES: Here’s an example of a famous Gedankenexperiment on gravity to determine whether a heavier object falls faster than a lighter one: Galileo’s Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment.
USAGE: I watched a TSA officer confiscate my father’s aftershave at the airport … Feeling curiouser, I did a gedankenexperiment: What if the bottle had been completely empty — would he have taken it then?” – Steve Mirsky; Not a Close Shave; Scientific American (Washington, DC); Jan 30, 2009.
dermatoglyphics
PRONUNCIATION: (duhr-mat-uh-GLIF-iks, -muh-tuh-)
http://wordsmith.org/words/dermatoglyphics.mp3
MEANING: (noun)
1. The ridge patterns of skin on the inner surface of the hands and feet.
2. The scientific study of these skin patterns.
ETYMOLOGY: The term was coined in 1926 by Dr Harold Cummins (1893-1976), from Greek dermato- (skin) + glyphein (to carve). Ultimately from the Indo-European root gleubh- (to tear apart) that is also the source of cleve, glyph, clever, and clove (garlic). And that’s also where we get cleavage, cleft palate, and cloven hooves.
USAGE: “What makes dermatoglyphics important as markers for disease and traits is the fact that they develop at specific times in the foetus. Fingerprints, for example, begin to form at around the 13th week and are completed around week 18 – the same time that critical growth in the brain is taking place.” – Roger Dobson; Scientists Say Palm-reading is True Guide to Intelligence; The Sunday Times (London, UK); Dec 9, 2001.