Today in History (March 23rd):
1765: The British Parliament passed the Stamp Act for taxing the American colonies, an action that became a major grievance for rebellious colonials.
1775: In a speech supporting the arming of the Virginia militia, Patrick Henry delivered his famous “Give me liberty or give me death” speech at St. John’s Church in Richmond, VA.
1857: Elisha Otis installed his first elevator in New York City. Birthdays: Culinary expert Fannie Farmer.
1887: Birthdays: Czech writer Josef Capek.
1900: Birthdays: Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm.
1905: Birthdays: Actor Joan Crawford.
1910: Birthdays: Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa.
1912: Birthdays: Rocket scientist Wernher von Braun.
1929: Birthdays: Roger Bannister, the first person to run the mile in less than 4 minutes.
1937: Birthdays: Land speed racing pioneer Craig Breedlove.
1938: Birthdays: Former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson Jr.
1942: During World War II, Japanese-Americans were forcibly moved from their homes along the Pacific Coast to inland internment camps.
1949: Birthdays: Musician Ric Ocasek.
1951: Birthdays: Television analyst and former NFL player Ron Jaworski.
1952: Birthdays: Author Kim Stanley Robinson.
1953: Birthdays: Musician Chaka Khan.
1957: Birthdays: Actor Amanda Plummer.
1964: Deaths: Peter Lorre.
1965: Astronauts Gus Grissom and John Young are launched in Gemini 3, the first U.S. two-man crew in space.
1966: Pope Paul VI met Britain’s archbishop of Canterbury at the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, the first meeting between the heads of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches in 400 years.
1975: Birthdays: Alydar.
1976: Birthdays: Actor Keri Russell.
1978: Birthdays: Gossip blogger Perez Hilton.
1983: Ronald Reagan unveiled the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The world’s first recipient of a permanent artificial heart, Barney Clark of Seattle, died in a Salt Lake City hospital.
1985: The United States completed the secret air evacuation of 800 Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
1989: Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announced that they had achieved cold fusion. Dick Clark retired from hosting the TV show American Bandstand after 33 years.
1996: Taiwan elected Lee Teng-hui in the island’s first direct presidential election.
1998: Russian President Boris Yeltsin fired his entire Cabinet. Titanic won 11 Academy Awards, tying the record total won by Ben-Hur in 1959.
1999: The vice president of Peru was assassinated.
2001: The United States expelled 40 Russian diplomats it said were spies. The action had come in response to the arrest of FBI agent and accused Russian spy Robert Hanssen. The Russian space station Mir was brought down in the Pacific Ocean near Fiji after more than 15 years in orbit.
2003: A U.S. soldier was arrested after allegedly throwing grenades into the tents of three American officers in Kuwait. Two soldiers died, 12 others were wounded. Nine U.S. Marines were killed in Nasiriyah where fellow Marines found 3,000 chemical warfare suits and masks at a hospital.
2004: NASA said findings on Mars suggest a sea once covered part of the planet.
2005: Iraqi forces attacked a training camp for suspected insurgents west of Baghdad, killing 80 gunmen in one of the largest operations to stamp out terrorism. An explosion at a BP refinery in Texas City, Texas, killed 15 workers and severely injured several others.
2007: Eight British sailors and seven marines on a U.N. mission patrolling the Persian Gulf were seized at gunpoint by members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who accused them of being in Iranian waters. The British insisted they were in Iraqi territorial waters.
2008: Officials said the U.S. military death toll in the Iraq war, in its sixth year, climbed to more than 4,000 with the deaths of four U.S. soldiers in Baghdad. The reported wartime wounded roster passed 29,600. A heavy mortar assault on Baghdad’s Green Zone killed 62 people.
2009: The Mexican government offered rewards of up to $2 million apiece for information leading to the capture of 24 drug kingpins and $1 million each for 13 of their top lieutenants.
2010: U.S. President Barack Obama signed the landmark healthcare reform bill into law. The legislation was designed to extend health insurance to some 32 million Americans over a 10-year period. A former community doctor with a history of mental health problems was accused of fatally stabbing eight children and injuring five others in an attack at a school in China’s Fujian Province.
2011: A U.S. soldier pleaded guilty to murder charges accusing him of killing three Afghan civilians for sport. Spc. Jeremy Morlock of Wasilla, Alaska, sentenced to 24 years in prison, told his court-martial, The plan was to kill people.
2012: U.S. President Barack Obama nominated Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim to lead the World Bank. Pope Benedict XVI condemned the evil drug war and its violence before landing in Mexico for a six-day visit to Mexico and Cuba. He said it’s the responsibility of the church to unmask the evil that spreads money worship, lies and fraud behind drugs.
Quotes
“That man can destroy life is just as miraculous a feat as that he can create it, for life is the miracle, the inexplicable.” – Erich Fromm
These generic brand viagra days, because of the troubled economy, many men and women’s companies are becoming downsized. But tadalafil india online the landlord is protected if the dog had shown previous vicious and dangerous behavior, and might be found liable for the victim’s losses in a civil lawsuit. Generally, the prevalence of this condition will vary as per the dosage suggested by doctor, before 45 mins of sexual activity for stable erection. lowest prices cialis The place in the Corpora Cavernosa cheap viagra order for blood to fill your penis, making it erect. “If you shut your door to all errors truth will be shut out.” – Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)
“The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tries to invent a heaven that it shows itself cloddish.” – Evelyn Waugh, novelist (1903-1966)
Wernher von Braun (1912-1977) German-American rocket expert:
“Don’t tell me that man doesn’t belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go – and he’ll do plenty well when he gets there.”
“For my confirmation, I didn’t get a watch and my first pair of long pants, like most Lutheran boys. I got a telescope. My mother thought it would make the best gift.”
“I have learned to use the word “impossible” with the greatest caution.”
“It will free man from the remaining chains, the chains of gravity which still tie him to this planet.”
“Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft… and the only one that can be mass-produced with unskilled labor.”
“Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living things in that enormous immensity.”
“Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program – your tax-dollar will go further.”
“We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.”
quicksand
PRONUNCIATION: (KWIK-saend)
MEANING: (noun)
1. A bed of dense, sticky sand or mud that clings to objects that fall into it, making escape difficult;
2. a situation in which attempts to escape only make matters worse.
ETYMOLOGY: Today’s word comes from Middle English quyksond “living sand,” with quick in its original sense of “alive,” as in the Sharon Stone-Russell Crowe movie, ‘The Quick and the Dead.’ It comes from a suffixed form (Old English cwicu “alive”) of the Proto-Indo-European root *gwiwo-, which also converted to Sanskrit “jiva,” Latin “vivus,” Lithuanian “gyvas,” Russian “zhiv,” and, believe it or not, Greek bios “life.” The noun “quick,” which means sensitive flesh or tissue, as in “to cut something to the quick,” derives from the original meaning of the adjective. Some interesting facts. Quicksand is seldom more than two or three feet deep, so the quicksand itself does not kill people unless they are alone and starve to death while stuck in it. You sink in quicksand only if you struggle; if you do not struggle, you will float on top of it.
USAGE: “The contract negotiations turned into quicksand as, the more we talked, the worse our position became.”
lapidary
PRONUNCIATION: (LAP-i-der-ee)
http://wordsmith.org/words/lapidary.mp3
MEANING:
(adj.)
1. Relating to precious stones or cutting and polishing them.
2. Having elegance, precision, or refinement suggestive of gem cutting.
(noun)
1. One who cuts, polishes, or deals in precious stones.
2. The art of cutting and polishing gems.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin lapis (stone). Earliest documented use: 1382.
USAGE:
“The event will feature live and silent auctions of minerals and fossils … and demonstrations of lapidary and jewelry making.” – Earth Science Show Planned; Naperville Sun (Illinois); Feb 8, 2011.
“The beauty of this film is in its lapidary details, which sparkle with feeling and surprise.” – Carina Chocano; Movie Review: Babel; Los Angeles Times; Oct 27, 2006.
Explore “lapidary” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=lapidary
bread and circuses
PRONUNCIATION: (bred and SUR-kuh-sez)
http://wordsmith.org/words/bread_and_circuses.mp3
MEANING: (noun), Things intended to keep people happy and to divert their attention from the problems.
ETYMOLOGY: Translation of Latin term panis et circenses, from panis (bread) + et (and), circenses (circuses). The term originated in the satires of Roman poet Juvenal (c. 60-140). Circus refers to the circus games, such as chariot races, held in the Roman times. The term has been loan translated into many other languages. In Spanish, for example, it is pan y toros (bread and bullfights).
USAGE: “Madrid has set up a series of summits that look a lot like bread and circuses for a domestic audience at time of economic misery.” – John Vinocur; Still Waiting for a Brave New Europe; The New York Times; Jan 4, 2010.
snake eyes
PRONUNCIATION: (snayk aaiz)
http://wordsmith.org/words/snake_eyes.mp3
MEANING: (noun), A throw of two ones with a pair of dice. Since this is the lowest possible score, by extension the term is also used to refer to bad luck.
ETYMOLOGY: Either from the apparent resemblance of such a throw to a snake’s eyes, or from the association of snakes with treachery. The origin of the word craps, where this term is often used, is also derived from an animal: crab. A synonym of today’s term is ambsace.
USAGE: “Detroit’s bet on big trucks and sport-utility vehicles has turned snake eyes.” – David Kiley; Michigan: Epicenter of Unemployment; BusinessWeek (New York); Jun 24, 2008.