Today in History (March 20th):
First Day of Spring
43 B.C.: Birthdays: Roman poet Ovid.
1823: Birthdays: Adventurer and writer Edward Judson, originator of the dime novel, writing as Ned Buntline.
1828: Birthdays: Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen.
1852: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published.
1854: In what is considered the founding meeting of the Republican Party, former members of the Whig Party met in Ripon, Wis., to establish a new party to oppose the spread of slavery into the western territories.
1904: Birthdays: Psychologist B.F. Skinner.
1906: Birthdays: Actor/bandleader Ozzie Nelson; Former New York Mayor Abe Beame.
1908: Birthdays: British actor Michael Redgrave.
1916: Albert Einstein published his theory of relativity.
1917: Birthdays: British actor Vera Lynn.
1918: Birthdays: Television host Jack Barry.
1920: Birthdays: Diplomat Pamela Harriman.
1922: Birthdays: Actor, producer, director Carl Reiner.
1928: Birthdays: Fred Rogers (TV’s Mister Rogers).
1931: Birthdays: Actor Hal Linden.
1937: Birthdays: Singer/songwriter Jerry Reed.
1939: Birthdays: Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
1945: Birthdays: Basketball Hall of Fame member Pat Riley.
1948: Birthdays: Hockey Hall of Fame member Bobby Orr.
1950: Birthdays: Actor William Hurt.
1957: Birthdays: Filmmaker Spike Lee; Actor Theresa Russell.
1958: Birthdays: Actor Holly Hunter.
1963: A volcano on the East Indies island of Bali began erupting. The death toll exceeded 1,500. Birthdays: Actor David Thewlis; Model and actor Kathy Ireland.
1976: San Francisco newspaper heiress and kidnapping victim Patty Hearst was convicted of bank robbery.
1977: Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her son, Sanjay, lost parliamentary races in India’s general elections.
1986: The Dow Jones industrial average closed at more than 1,800 for the first time.
1987: The federal government approved the sale of AZT, a treatment but not a cure for AIDS.
1991: Baghdad was warned to abide by the cease-fire after U.S. fighter jets shot down an Iraqi jet fighter in the first major air action since the end of the Persian Gulf War.
1995: 12 people were killed and more than 5,000 made ill in a nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system. Members of a religious sect were blamed.
1996: The world learned of mad cow disease from a British government report questioning the safety of British beef.
1997: The Liggett Group, fifth-largest U.S. tobacco company, agreed to admit that smoking was addictive and caused health problems and that the tobacco industry had sought for years to sell its products to children as young as 14.
2001: Five days after explosions destroyed one of its support beams, the largest oilrig in the world collapsed and sank off the coast of Brazil.
2002: U.S. President George W. Bush’s visit to Peru was preceded by a car bomb explosion outside the U.S. Embassy in Lima that killed nine and injured 30. The office of the special prosecutor Robert Ray announced there wasn’t enough evidence that either former U.S. President Bill Clinton or his wife Hillary Clinton had committed crimes in connection with the failed Whitewater real estate venture in Arkansas.
2003: Brian Patrick Regan, a retired Air Force master sergeant, was sentenced to life in prison for offering to sell intelligence secrets to Saddam Hussein and the Chinese government.
2004: After narrowly escaping assassination the day before, Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian was re-elected with about 50 percent of the vote.
2005: More than 30 Shiite Muslim worshippers were killed and many more injured when a bomb exploded at a shrine in the village of Fatehpur, Pakistan. On this date, which was Palm Sunday, ailing Pope John Paul II appeared at his window in the Vatican but didn’t speak.
2006: Reports from Iraq said that over a two-week period, nearly 200 bodies were found in Baghdad, apparent victims of execution or torture.
2007: An early morning nursing home fire in southern Russia killed at least 62 people and injured 30 others. Former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was hanged in Baghdad for his part in the 1982 deaths of 148 Shiites.
2009: An explosion killed more than 30 people at a Shiite funeral procession in Pakistan, touching off a wave of violence. Another 50-75 were injured in what officials believed was a suicide bombing attack.
2010: Accusations of sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests were reported on the increase in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Brazil.
2011: Japanese officials said all reactors crippled at the Fukushima nuclear plant by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami were cooling as the facility beset by explosions and fires and threatened with a meltdown moved slowly toward normalcy.
2012: The Cairo Criminal Court found 11 police officers guilty of killing anti-government protesters in January 2011 and sentenced them to one year in jail. Three others were acquitted. A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a California pilot who sued after the federal government publicly revealed he had HIV. The high court decided claims of mental and emotional distress aren’t covered under the Privacy Act.
Quotes
“There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man.” – Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)
“Don’t knock the weather. If it didn’t change once in a while, nine out of 10 people couldn’t start a conversation.” – Kin Hubbard
It is considered as one of the best medicines for adding a better period purchase generic levitra of intimate moment among the men and their partners. That is a major risk factor on the road to diabetes – but it also affects fertility cialis canadian generic and can create abnormal menstrual cycles. It is said to could have supplied safety from cell-damaging toxins Several foods which are helpful in erectile function. (Remember, the spongy tissue in the entire body. http://pharma-bi.com/2011/09/ buy generic levitra The former uses the peripheral nerves and treating the symptoms for this disease is order levitra online challenging as it takes a lot of time to repair the damaged nerves.
“Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.” – Heraclitus, philosopher (500 BCE)
Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) Norwegian dramatist and poet:
“A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.”
“A forest bird never wants a cage.”
“A marriage based on full confidence, based on complete and unqualified frankness on both sides; they are not keeping anything back; there’s no deception underneath it all. If I might so put it, it’s an agreement for the mutual forgiveness of sin.”
“A minority may be right, and a majority is always wrong.”
“A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.”
“Castles in the air – -they are so easy to take refuge in. And so easy to build as well.”
“Do not use that foreign word “ideals.” We have that excellent native word “lies.””
“Don’t use that foreign word “ideals.” We have that excellent native word “lies.””
“I’m afraid for all those who’ll have the bread snatched from their mouths by these machines. What business has science and capitalism got, bringing all these new inventions into the works, before society has produced a generation educated up to using them!”
“In that second it dawned on me that I had been living here for eight years with a strange man and had borne him three children.”
rapprochement
PRONUNCIATION: (rap-rosh-MAWN)
MEANING: (noun), The establishment or state of cordial relations.
ETYMOLOGY: Rapprochement comes from the French, from rapprocher, “to bring nearer,” from Middle French, from re- + approcher, “to approach,” from Old French aprochier, from Late Latin appropire, from Latin ad- + propius, “nearer,” comparative of prope, “near.”
USAGE: “After the things that were said during their last argument, Janice had no desire for some kissy rapprochement.”
discursive
PRONUNCIATION: (dis-KUHR-siv)
http://wordsmith.org/words/discursive.mp3
MEANING: (adjective)
1. Jumping from topic to topic; rambling.
2. Proceeding logically, using reason or argument rather than emotion.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin discurrere (to run about), from dis- (apart) + currere (to run). Ultimately from the Indo-European root kers- (to run), which is also the source of car, career, carpenter, occur, discharge, succor, and caricature. Earliest documented use: 1599.
USAGE:
“The book is discursive, gently meandering down the River Thames.” – Three Men In A Boat; Northern Echo (Darlington, UK); Sep 20, 2012.
“Obama’s penchant for discursive explanations has bothered no constituency more than his base, whose members see in his sometimes professorial tone a lack of passion for the cause at hand.” – Scott Wilson; In Arguing for Firearms Restrictions, Obama Points to Constitution; The Washington Post; Jan 17, 2013.
Explore “discursive” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=discursive
usufruct
PRONUNCIATION: (YOO-zuh-fruhkt, -suh-)
http://wordsmith.org/words/usufruct.mp3
MEANING: (noun), The right to use and enjoy another’s property without destroying it.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin ususfructus, from usus et fructus (use and enjoyment). Earliest documented use: 1646.
USAGE: “It is currently in the process of purchasing perpetual usufruct rights to a number of plots.” – Budlex Prepares for Large Residential Project; Warsaw Business Journal (Poland); Jan 17, 2011.
Explore “usufruct” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=usufruct
bravo
PRONUNCIATION: (BRAH-vo, brah-VOH)
http://wordsmith.org/words/bravo.mp3
MEANING:
(interjection), Used to express approval, especially to applaud a performance.
(noun), A villain, especially a hired killer.
ETYMOLOGY:
For 1: From Italian bravo (brave, good, clever), from Latin barbarus (barbarous),from Greek barbaros (foreign, barbarian). Earliest documented use: 1761.
For 2: From Italian bravo. Earliest documented use: 1597.
USAGE:
“Soon Gustavo Dudamel’s galvanizing pasión with the baton was coaxing reluctant audiences in London, Paris, and New York to give standing ovations of ‘Bravo, Gustavo!'” – Chris Lee; Dude Is a Rock Star; Newsweek (New York); Feb 13, 2012.
“Men have before hired bravos to transact their crimes, while their own person and reputation sat under shelter.” – Robert Louis Stevenson; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde; 1886.
Explore “bravo” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=bravo