Today in History (November 28th):
1520: Ferdinand Magellan entered the Pacific Ocean on his way around the world. He was the first European to sail the Pacific from the east.
1628: Birthdays: English writer John Bunyan.
1757: Birthdays: English poet William Blake.
1837: Birthdays: John Hyatt, inventor of celluloid.
1866: Birthdays: Architect Henry Bacon, designer of the Lincoln Memorial.
1919: Virginia-born Nancy Astor became the first woman member of the British Parliament.
1925: The Grand Ole Opry, the famed country music show, made its radio debut.
1929: Birthdays: Motown Records founder Berry Gordy.
1933: Birthdays: Actor Hope Lange.
1942: A fire at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston killed 491 people. Most victims suffocated or were trampled to death.
1943: Birthdays: Singer/composer Randy Newman.
1949: Birthdays: Ballet dancer Alexander Godunov; Band leader Paul Shaffer.
1950: Birthdays: Actor Ed Harris.
1952: Birthdays: Actor S. Epatha Merkerson (TV’s Law and Order).
1958: The United States fired an intercontinental ballistic missile at full range for the first time.
1959: Birthdays: Actor Judd Nelson.
1962: Birthdays: Comedian Jon Stewart.
1963: Cape Canaveral, the space center in Florida, was renamed Cape Kennedy to honor the assassinated president. Area residents later voted to revert to the original name.
1989: Czechoslovakian Premier Ladislav Adamec agreed to a coalition government. The next day, the Czech Parliament revoked the Communist Party’s monopoly.
1992: A fire destroyed parts of the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria, threatening the famous Lipizzaner stallions.
1993: Carlos Roberto Reina was elected president of Honduras.
1994: Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and a second inmate were beaten to death by another prisoner at the Columbia Correctional Center in Portage, Wis.
2002: An explosion hit an Israeli-owned hotel near Mombasa, Kenya, killing at least 15 people and two missiles were fired at a departing Israeli passenger plane.
2003: An estimated 182 people were killed when two crowded ferries collided during a storm in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
2004: A gas explosion in a central China mine killed a reported 166 people. About 123 miners escaped.
2005: At least 150 miners were killed in a northeast China coal mine explosion. Seventy-one were reported missing. U.S. Rep. Randall Duke Cunningham, R-Calif., pleaded guilty to tax evasion and conspiracy charges involving bribes from military contractors.
2006: Pope Benedict XVI flew to Ankara, Turkey, amid heavy security to mend religious fences and establish a dialogue with Muslims. Some 250,000 Muslims demonstrated against the papal visit over remarks Benedict made in September perceived as offensive to Islam. Leftist candidate Rafael Correa was declared winner of the Ecuadorian presidential election.
2007: A U.S. airstrike in eastern Afghanistan killed 22 Afghan civilian road construction workers. The men, working on a U.S. military contract, died as they slept in tents in a remote mountainous area.
2008: At least 400 people were killed and hundreds more wounded in clashes in Nigeria between Muslims and Christians over local elections. The assault on Mumbai ended after three violent days of shooting and bombings by a team of militants. The death toll stood at 173 with about 300 injured. The only attacker captured alive said he belonged to a militant group in Pakistan.
2009: Golf superstar Tiger Woods was treated and released at a hospital after his car slammed into a fire hydrant and a tree near his home in suburban Orlando, Fla. Police said Woods was unconscious and they were told his wife smashed a window with a golf club to pull him from the car. A terrorist bomb planted on train tracks between Moscow and St. Petersburg derailed Russia’s high-speed Nevsky Express, killing at least 27 people and injuring close to 100.
2010: Reaction around the world was swift and mostly negative to a new batch of more than 200,000 confidential U.S. diplomatic documents published on the WikiLeaks whistle-blower Web site. U.S. officials denounced the release, which included many items classified as secret, and branded them a threat to global security. The first round of Haiti’s elections was so chaotic 12 of the 19 presidential candidates, alleging voter fraud, demanded it be canceled, reports said. Former first lady Mirlande Manigat and Jude Celestine, favorite of outgoing President Rene Preval, finished 1-2 to qualify for a January runoff but the omission of popular singer Michel (Sweet Micky) Martelly touched off angry demonstrations.
2011: The congressional supercommittee’s failure to come to grips with the federal debt led Fitch Ratings to put the U.S. credit rating on a negative outlook, meaning there was a better than 50-50 chance the rating could be downgraded within two years. Iran’s Parliament voted to downgrade diplomatic ties with Britain in angry response to added sanctions by Western nations.
Quotes
“Speech is of time, silence is of eternity.” – Thomas Carlyle
“When money speaks, the truth keeps silent.” – Russian proverb
“Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way to do it would be start his own religion.” – L. Ron Hubbard, science fiction author who later started the Church of Scientology (1911-1986)
William Blake (1757-1827) English Poet:
“A truth that’s told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.”
“Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.”
“Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death.”
“As a man is, so he sees. As the eye is formed, such are its powers.”
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“Both read the Bible day and night, but thou read black where I read white.”
“Can I see another’s woe, and not be in sorrow too? Can I see another’s grief, and not seek for kind relief?”
“Embraces are cominglings from the head even to the feet, and not a pompous high priest entering by a secret place.”
“Energy is an eternal delight, and he who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.”
wassail
PRONUNCIATION: (WOS-uhl, wo-SAYL)
http://wordsmith.org/words/wassail.mp3
MEANING:
verb tr.: To toast.
verb intr.: To go from house to house singing carols at Christmas.
noun:
1. A toast to someone’s health.
2. A festivity with much drinking.
3. A drink for toasting, especially spiced ale.
4. The singing of Christmas carols going from house to house.
ETYMOLOGY: From Old Norse ves heill (be well). Earliest documented use: 1275.
USAGE: “Cows and oxen used to be wassailed too for the same reason, to bring luck and encourage good health in the coming year.” – Days Lengthen, Cold Strengthens; Beverley Guardian (UK); Jan 16, 2012.
Explore “wassail” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=wassail
perspicacious
PRONUNCIATION: (pehr-spi-KEY-shehs)
MEANING: (adjective) – Displaying insightful mental capacities and/or shrewd discernment.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin perspicere “to look through” from per “through” + spicere “see, look.” Akin to perspective. The Proto-Indo-European root underlying “spicere,” *spek-, also gave us “spy.” It metathesized (the consonants switched places) to skop- in Greek, whence all the Greek words on -scope borrowed by English: “telescope,” “microscope,” “periscope.” The noun is “perspicacity” [per-spi-‘ka-si-ti]. A shrewd person has a practical kind of intelligence and a sagacious one has knowledge usually accumulated over time. “Perspicacious” implies an ability to perceive hidden truths and to understand what puzzles others.
USAGE: “Deanne was very perspicacious to remain aloof from Jefferson when he started asking her to trust him.”
sforzando
PRONUNCIATION: (sfort-SAHN-do)
http://wordsmith.org/words/sforzando.mp3
MEANING:
adjective, adverb: With sudden force or strong accent (used as a musical direction).
noun: A note or group of notes with strong emphasis.
ETYMOLOGY: From Italian sforzare (to force), from Latin fortis (strong). Ultimately from the Indo-European root bhergh- (high), which is also the source of iceberg, belfry, borough, burg, burglar, bourgeois, fortify, and force. First recorded use: 1801.
USAGE: “Establishing a driving rhythm with the barking of sforzando strings, the piece remained complex, teetering between moments of brooding and violent bursts.” – Penderecki Thrills Beijing; Global Times (Beijing, China); Oct 17, 2010.
Explore “sforzando” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=sforzando
equable
PRONUNCIATION: (EK-wuh-buhl, EE-kwuh-)
http://wordsmith.org/words/equable.mp3
MEANING: adjective:
1. Not easily upset; tranquil.
2. Uniform; steady.
3. Free from extremes.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin aequus (even, equal). Earliest documented use: before 1676.
USAGE:
“It takes a lot to disturb the equable temperament of Celtic goalkeeper Jonathan Gould.” – Ian Paul; Enforced Rest Has Left Gould Seething; The Herald (Glasgow, Scotland); Sep 29, 1999.
“What was, until quite recently, predictable, temperate, mild, and equable British weather, now sees the seasons reversed and temperature and rainfall records broken almost every year.” – John Vidal; Extreme Weather Ahead; The Guardian (London, UK); Jun 14, 2011.
Explore “equable” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=equable