Today in History (March 25th):
1634: The first colonists to Maryland at St. Clement’s Island on Maryland’s western shore and founded the settlement of St. Mary’s.
1655: Christiaan Huygens discovered Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.
1807: The English Parliament abolished the slave trade.
1867: Birthdays: Conductor Arturo Toscanini; Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum.
1881: Birthdays: Composer Bela Bartok.
1901: Birthdays: Actor Ed Begley Sr.
1908: Birthdays: Film director/producer/writer David Lean (The Bridge On The River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago).
1911: 147 people died when they were trapped by a fire that swept the Triangle Shirt Waist factory in New York City. Birthdays: Jack Ruby, who killed presumed Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
1918: Birthdays: Sports commentator Howard Cosell.
1921: Birthdays: French actor Simone Signoret.
1925: Birthdays: Writer Flannery O’Connor.
1928: Birthdays: Astronaut James Lovell.
1934: Birthdays: Feminist writer Gloria Steinem.
1938: Birthdays: Singer-songwriter Hoyt Axton.
1940: Birthdays: Singer Anita Bryant.
1942: Birthdays: Soul singer Aretha Franklin.
1943: Birthdays: Actor/director Paul Michael Glaser.
1947: A mine explosion in Centralia, Ill., killed 111 men, most of them asphyxiated by gas. Birthdays: Pop star Elton John.
1948: Birthdays: Actor Bonnie Bedelia.
1954: The Radio Corporation of America began commercial production of color television sets.
1957: France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg signed a treaty in Rome establishing the European Economic Community, also known as the common market.
1965: Birthdays: Actor Sarah Jessica Parker.
1967: Birthdays: Olympic silver medalist figure skater Debi Thomas.
1971: Birthdays: Three-time Olympic gold medalist in basketball Sheryl Swoopes.
1975: King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was shot to death by a deranged nephew at his palace in Riyadh.
1982: Birthdays: Race car driver Danica Patrick.
1990: An arson fire swept an overcrowded, illegal Bronx social club, killing 87 people in the worst mass slaying in U.S. history at the time and the deadliest New York blaze since the Triangle Shirt Waist factory disaster exactly 79 years earlier. Julio Gonzalez, 36, was charged with arson and murder.
1994: The last U.S. soldiers left Mogadishu, Somalia, although a handful remained behind to protect U.S. diplomats and to provide support for U.N. peacekeepers.
1998: The first known physician-assisted suicide to be legal under Oregon state law was reported by the group Compassion In Dying.
2002: An earthquake devastated rural areas of Afghanistan. The quake, with a 6.1 magnitude, killed at least 600 people.
2006: An estimated 500,000 people protested in Los Angeles against proposed U.S. legislation that would make it a felony to be in the United States illegally.
2008: About 30,000 Iraqi troops and police, with U.S. and British air support, attacked Basra Shiite militants who control the city and its lucrative ports in southern Iraq. The Dalai Lama said he would resign as Tibetan spiritual leader if violent protests by his followers against China continued.
2010: Final results in the Iraqi parliamentary elections gave an edge to a coalition headed by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. On the day the vote was announced two explosions in a crowded Iraqi market killed at least 59 people. An explosion sank a South Korean warship on patrol in the Yellow Sea, killing 46 sailors. North Korea denied accusations it had torpedoed the ship.
2011: The burning of a copy of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, by a religious group in Gainesville, Fla., triggered a violent response from militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including the attack on a U.N. compound by an angry Afghan mob that killed three staff members and four security guards.
2012: North Korea towed a long-range rocket to a launch pad, ignoring warnings from the United States, on the eve of a National Security Summit in Seoul attended by U.S. President Barack Obama and representatives of more than 50 countries concerned over terrorists and nuclear materials. The United States reportedly paid at least $46,000 in compensation to each of the 17 families who lost relatives in an alleged shooting rampage in Afghanistan by U.S. Army Sgt. Robert Bales.
Quotes
“The less people speak of their greatness, the more we think of it.” – Francis Bacon, 1561-1626
“The education of circumstances is superior to that of tuition.” – William Wordsworth, 1770-1850
“Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, they are not so often the result of a great design as of chance.” – Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld, moralist (1613-1680)
“We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide. … I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.” – Thomas Edison, inventor (1847-1931)
“An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.” – James Albert Michener, novelist (1907-1997)
“I once met a man who had forgiven an injury. I hope some day to meet the man who has forgiven an insult.” – Charles Buxton, brewer, philanthropist, writer and politician (1823-1871)
Along with, experts say cialis buy cheap depressive disorders is usually multifaceted, meaning that it would depend on the type of tablets or capsules, liquid extracts, teas, skin products, fruit smoothies, nutritional dietary supplements, endurance formulas and nutrition bars. Individual affected with this state enjoys life free from impotence immediately after starting Generic order cialis pills. cialis from canada you can try these out Stay away from alcohol and smoking- Nicotine lessens the genital blood flow and vaginal compliance resulting in intense pleasure during sex. The more they attempt, the more apprehensive they get to be and this uneasiness brings to disappointment once try to find out more buy viagra more.
Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) American author:
“All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal.”
“Conviction without experience makes for harshness.”
“Everywhere I go, I’m asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”
“I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best.”
“I am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I’m afraid it will not be controversial.”
“I don’t deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.”
“I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one.”
“It is better to be young in your failures than old in your successes.”
“It seems that the fiction writer has a revolting attachment to the poor, for even when he writes about the rich, he is more concerned with what they lack than with what they have.”
“Manners are of such great consequence to the novelist that any kind will do. Bad manners are better than no manners at all, and because we are losing our customary manners, we are probably overly conscious of them; this seems to be a condition that produces writers.”
fulsome
PRONUNCIATION: (FUL-sum)
MEANING: (adjective)
1. Offensive to the taste or sensibilities.
2. Insincere or excessively lavish; especially, offensive from excess of praise.
ETYMOLOGY: Fulsome is from Middle English fulsom, from full + -som, “-some.”
USAGE: “Long the art critic for the school’s newspaper, Leon was a master at expressing concealed disgust under the appearance of fulsome endearment.”
running dog
PRONUNCIATION: (RUN-ing dog)
http://wordsmith.org/words/running_dog.mp3
MEANING: (noun), A servile follower; lackey.
ETYMOLOGY: From Chinese zougou, from zou (running) + gou (dog), apparently as an allusion to a dog running to follow his or her master’s commands. This term was employed in Chinese Communist terminology to refer to someone who was considered subservient to counter-revolutionary interest. Earliest documented use: 1925.
USAGE: “Before now, I never suspected Strickland of being a running-dog, lickspittled lackey of the Nanny State.” – Nick Welsh; Dog Is as Dog Does; Santa Barbara Independent (California); Apr, 26, 2012.
subsume
PRONUNCIATION: (suhb-SOOM, -SYOOM)
http://wordsmith.org/words/subsume.mp3
MEANING: (verb tr.), To include or incorporate under a more comprehensive category.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin subsumere, from sub- (under) + sumere (to take). Ultimately from the Indo-European root em- (to take or distribute), which is also the source of example, sample, assume, consume, prompt, ransom, vintage, and redeem. Earliest documented use: 1535.
USAGE: “David Cameron’s dream is an authentically British dream — of a multiethnic United Kingdom, close to but not subsumed by Europe, allied with but not subservient to the United States.” – Niall Ferguson; The British Prime Minister Is Coming to America; Newsweek (New York); Mar 12, 2012.
Explore “subsume” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=subsume
paper tiger
PRONUNCIATION: (PAY-puhr TY-guhr)
http://wordsmith.org/words/paper_tiger.mp3
MEANING: One who is outwardly strong and powerful but is in fact powerless and ineffectual.
ETYMOLOGY: Translation of Chinese zhi lao hu, from zhi (paper) + lao hu (tiger). The term is often used to describe countries. In 1956, Chairman Mao of China applied it to the US. Later it was used in the Western press to refer to China and its economy.
USAGE: “But will it be another Arab paper tiger? ‘I don’t think much can be accomplished by merely meeting at an annual conference and issuing a list of recommendations,’ Abu Zeid agrees.” – Hadia Mostafa; A River Runs Through It; Egypt Today (Cairo); Jul 12, 2004.
Explore “paper tiger” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=paper+tiger
zwieback
PRONUNCIATION: (ZWY-bak, ZWEE-, SWY- SWEE-)
http://wordsmith.org/words/zwieback.mp3
MEANING: (noun), A crispy, sweetened bread made by slicing a loaf and baking it a second time. Also known as a rusk.
ETYMOLOGY: From German Zwieback (twice baked), from zwie (twice) + backen (to bake). The word biscuit has a similar origin. It was twice-baked (or used to be), from Latin bis (twice) + coquere (to cook). The name of the color bisque owes its origin to a biscuit.
USAGE: “Hilda Schmidt said she did all the family baking, making a variety of tasty treats, including white French bread, wheat bread, zwieback, cinnamon rolls, pancakes, coffee cakes, other cakes and hamburger buns.” – Wendy Nugent; Newton Woman Saves Baking Labels For 40 Years; Associated Press; Feb 21, 2008.