Today in History (March 28th):
1515: Birthdays: Roman Catholic St. Teresa of Avila.
1797: Nathaniel Briggs was awarded a patent for the washing machine.
1836: Birthdays: Brewer Frederick Pabst.
1862: Birthdays: Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aristide Briand.
1868: Birthdays: Russian author Maxim Gorky.
1881: P.T. Barnum and James A. Bailey merged their circuses to form The Greatest Show on Earth.
1899: Birthdays: Brewer August Anheuser Busch Jr.
1905: Birthdays: Naturalist Marlin Perkins.
1907: Birthdays: Famed Hollywood agent Irving Swifty Lazar.
1914: Birthdays: Edmund Muskie, the 1968 Democratic Party vice presidential candidate.
1921: Birthdays: Actor Dirk Bogarde.
1924: Birthdays: Child star Freddie Bartholomew.
1928: Birthdays: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter administration national security adviser.
1939: Madrid surrendered to the nationalist forces of Generalissimo Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
1943: Birthdays: Actor Conchata Ferrell.
1944: Birthdays: Basketball Hall of Fame member Rick Barry; Actor Ken Howard.
1948: Birthdays: Actor Dianne Wiest.
1955: Birthdays: Country singer/actor Reba McEntire.
1968: The counterculture musical Hair opened on Broadway.
1969: Deaths: Dwight D. Eisenhower, World War II hero and 34th president of the United States, died in Washington at age 78.
1970: Birthdays: Actor Vince Vaughn.
1975: Birthdays: Television personality Kate Gosselin.
1979: A failure in the cooling system at the nuclear power plant on Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania caused a near meltdown and resulted in contamination of the water from nuclear waste. It was the worst accident at a U.S. civilian nuclear facility.
1981: Birthdays: Actor Julia Stiles.
1986: Birthdays: Singer Lady Gaga, born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.
1991: Just days before the 10th anniversary of the attempt on his life, former U.S. President Ronald Reagan endorsed a seven-day waiting period for handgun purchases, reversing his earlier opposition.
1993: Russian President Boris Yeltsin survived an impeachment vote by the Congress of People’s Deputies. French voters rejected the ruling Socialists and gave the conservative alliance a crushing majority in legislative elections.
1994: Pre-election clashes between Zulu nationalists, the ANC and police claimed 53 lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.
1996: The U.S. Congress approved the presidential line-item veto.
2004: More than 40 people were reported killed in a series of bombings and gun battles in Uzbekistan.
2005: A massive earthquake jolted the western coast of Sumatra killing as many as 3,000 people and destroying hundreds of buildings.
2006: The U.S. Senate voted to prohibit lobbyists from giving lawmakers gifts and meals. Lobbyist Jack Abramoff, with ties to several members of Congress, was sentenced to six years in prison after a conviction on fraud charges. The French Constitutional Council validated a hotly contested youth labor law despite a general strike that ground public life to a near halt and led to protests in Paris and across the nation.
2007: In a speech to members of the Arab League meeting in Saudi Arabia, Saudi King Abdallah called the U.S. occupation of Iraq illegal.
2008: North Korea fired short-range missiles off its western coast, a move the United States said wasn’t illegal but a diversion from the work the nation needs to do to finish a complete declaration of its nuclear program.
2009: The space shuttle Discovery landed at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida after a 13-day mission to the International Space Station during which the ISS was brought up to full power with the installation of its fourth set of solar wings.
2010: U.S. President Barack Obama visited Afghanistan for the first time since taking office, a six-hour, unannounced trip to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and address American troops.
2011: U.S. President Barack Obama said the United States and its allies had intervened to halt Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s brutal repression but wouldn’t attempt to overthrow him by force. At least 110 people were killed in an explosion at a southern Yemen weapons factory reportedly while area residents were stealing ammunition. The plant had been attacked and looted the day before by al-Qaida.
2012: Cuba made Good Friday an official holiday for the first time in half a century at the request of the visiting Pope Benedict XVI. It’s the day Christians observe the death of Jesus Christ and joined Christmas as the only religious holidays on the Communist island nation.
Quotes
“Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you.” – William Arthur Ward, college administrator, writer (1921-1994)
“What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.” – Seneca
“No cow’s like a horse, and no horse like a cow. That’s one similarity, anyhow.” – Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)
“When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if I’m leaving.” – Steven Wright
“There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man.” – Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)
“I’d rather be a climbing ape than a falling angel.” – Terry Pratchett, novelist (b. 1948)
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“Eroticism has its own moral justification because it says that pleasure is enough for me; it is a statement of the individual’s sovereignty.”
“If you are killed because you are a writer, that’s the maximum expression of respect, you know.”
“It isn’t true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.”
“No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing.”
“Prosperity or egalitarianism – you have to choose. I favor freedom – you never achieve real equality anyway: you simply sacrifice prosperity for an illusion.”
“There is an incompatibility between literary creation and political activity.”
“Writing a book is a very lonely business. You are totally cut off from the rest of the world, submerged in your obsessions and memories.”
reprobate
PRONUNCIATION: (REP-ruh-bayt)
MEANING:
(adjective), Depraved.
(noun), A wicked person.
(verb tr.), To disapprove or condemn.
ETYMOLOGY: From Middle English, from Late Latin reprobatus, from reprobare (to disapprove), from re- + probare (to test, approve), from probus (good).
USAGE: “The officer warned that certain persons would be booked as reprobate offenders, adding that they risked being jailed.”
deus ex machina
PRONUNCIATION: (DAY-uhs eks MAH-kuh-nuh, -nah, MAK-uh-nuh)
http://wordsmith.org/words/deus_ex_machina.mp3
MEANING: (noun), An unexpected or improbable person or event that saves a seemingly hopeless situation.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin deus ex machina, deus (god) + ex (from) + machina (machine), loan translation of Greek theos apo mekhanes. Earliest documented use: 1697.
NOTES: In ancient Greek and Roman drama, often a god was lowered onto the stage by means of a crane to help a protagonist from a hopeless situation. Well, you can say they had rather mechanical plots.
USAGE: “Warren Buffet is the deus ex machina of the stock market, a constant background presence who could decide from his bathtub in 2011 to rescue confidence in Bank of America with bags of cash.” – Dan McCrum; Relish the Lessons in Buffett Ketchup Deal; Financial Times (London, UK); Feb 15, 2013.
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elbow grease
PRONUNCIATION: (EL-bo grees)
http://wordsmith.org/words/elbow_grease.mp3
MEANING: (noun), Hard work; vigorous exertion.
ETYMOLOGY: Originally elbow grease was a metaphor for manual labor, as in elbow grease is the best wax for polishing furniture. Now in an extended sense it can refer to any effort, physical or mental. Earliest documented use: 1672.
USAGE: “It comes down a question of who is going to provide the manpower and elbow grease that any project requires.” – Bill Crist; Making the Case For An Investment For Manpower; Cameron Herald (Texas); Aug 24, 2009.
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avulse
PRONUNCIATION: (uh-VUHLS)
http://wordsmith.org/words/avulse.mp3
MEANING: (verb tr.), To pull off or tear away.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin avellere (to tear off), from a- (away from) + vellere (to pull, pluck). Earliest documented use: before 1765.
USAGE:
“The dog caught his paw in the grates and lacerated his paws and avulsed his nails.” – Denise Baran-Unland; Animal Health Care Insurance Can Cut Down on VetBills; The Herald-News (Joliet, Illinois); Nov 7, 2011.
“[The Hoh River] chews, it gnaws and jumps around, avulsing in a tantrum of energy to new channels, taking anything in its way right along with it.” – Lynda V. Mapes; Besieged by Water; The Seattle Times; Mar 8, 2010.
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gotterdammerung
PRONUNCIATION: (got-uhr-DAM-uh-roong, -rung)
http://wordsmith.org/words/gotterdammerung.mp3
MEANING: (noun), Complete destruction of an institution, regime, order, etc.
ETYMOLOGY: From German Götterdämmerung (twilight of the gods), from Götter, plural of Gott (god) + Dämmerung (twilight). Götterdämmerung was the name of the last of Richard Wagner’s four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). The German word Götterdämmerung is a translation of the Old Norse Ragnarök which in Scandinavian mythology refers to the destruction of the gods in a battle with evil, resulting in the end of the world. The term Ragnarök is from regin (gods) + rok (fate, course) confused by some with Ragnarökkr (literally, twilight of the gods).
USAGE: “What began as the exuberant union of two college-age strivers is coming to a devastating end after 18 years, and the Gotterdammerung is being fought out not in court but inside the couple’s perfect house.” – Michelle Green; Dirty Divorcing; People (New York); Feb 19, 1990.
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