Today in History (May 9th):
1502: Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain on his fourth and final voyage to the New World.
1800: Birthdays: Abolitionist John Brown.
1860: Birthdays: Scottish novelist James Barrie, author of Peter Pan.
1874: Birthdays: Howard Carter, the British Egyptologist who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen.
1882: Birthdays: Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser.
1883: Birthdays: Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset.
1887: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show opened in London.
1914: Birthdays: Country singer Hank Snow.
1918: Birthdays: TV journalist Mike Wallace.
1926: U.S. Navy Cmdr. Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett were the first to fly over the North Pole.
1928: Birthdays: Tennis champion Richard Pancho Gonzales.
1936: Birthdays: English actor Albert Finney; English actor Glenda Jackson.
1940: Birthdays: TV producer and filmmaker James L. Brooks.
1942: Birthdays: Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft; Pop singer Tommy Roe.
1944: Birthdays: Rock musician Richie Furay.
1946: Birthdays: Actor Candice Bergen.
1949: Birthdays: Singer/songwriter Billy Joel.
1960: Birthdays: Baseball Hall of Fame member Tony Gwynn.
1961: In a speech to TV executives at the National Association of Broadcasters convention, new Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton Minow referred to television as a vast wasteland.
1962: Birthdays: Actor John Corbett.
1974: The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee opened its hearing on the possible impeachment of U.S. President Richard Nixon.
1978: Former Italian Prime Aldo Moro, who had been kidnapped by Red Brigade terrorists, was found shot to death in the back of a car in Rome.
1979: The United States and Soviet Union reached a basic accord on the SALT 2 nuclear arms treaty.
1980: A Liberian freighter rammed a bridge in Florida’s Tampa Bay, collapsing part of the span and dropping 35 people to their deaths. A new $240 million Sunshine Skybridge opened April 30, 1987.
1987: 183 people died when a Polish airliner bound for New York crashed near Warsaw.
1993: Thousands of war veterans, politicians and anti-government demonstrators gathered across Moscow and the former Soviet Union to mark the World War II victory over Germany at Stalingrad.
2001: At least 123 people were killed during a stampede at a soccer match in Accra, Ghana.
2003: A well-connected Los Angeles socialite, Katrina Leung, who also allegedly acted as a double-agent for China, was formally charged with passing sensitive documents on to Chinese intelligence officers.
2004: President Akhmad Kadyrov of Chechnya was assassinated in an explosion at a stadium in Grozny where Russia’s World War II victory was being celebrated. Thirty-one other people also died.
2008: The acting chief of the Mexican federal police was assassinated in reported response to the government’s crackdown on organized crime and drug cartels.
2009: Jacob Zuma, African National Congress leader, was sworn in as president of South Africa.
2011: Thousands of citizens in Mexico City protested raging violence that bedeviled the country since the government launched its drug cartel crackdown and demanded more steps to protect the people.
2012: U.S. President Barack Obama said he had reversed his opposition to same-sex marriage: I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.
Quotes
“I’m not at all contemptuous of comforts, but they have their place and it is not first.” – E.F. Schumacher, economist and author (1911-1977)
“Experience keeps a dear school but fools will learn in no other.” – Benjamin Franklin
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” – Edith Wharton, novelist (1862-1937)
Sir James M. Barrie (1860-1937) Scottish writer:
“A safe but sometimes chilly way of recalling the past is to force open a crammed drawer. If you are searching for anything in particular you don’t find it, but something falls out at the back that is often more interesting.”
“A woman can be anything the man who loves here would have her be.”
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“Ambition – it is the last infirmity of noble minds.”
“Do you believe in fairies? Say quick that you believe. If you believe, clap your hands!”
“Dreams do come true, if we only wish hard enough, You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.”
“Every man who is high up likes to think that he has done it all himself, and the wife smiles and lets it go at that.”
“Everytime a child says ‘I don’t believe in fairies’ there is a a little fairy somewhere that falls down dead.”
“For several days after my first book was published, I carried it about in my pocket and took surreptitious peeps at it to make sure the ink had not faded.”
“God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.”
“His lordship may compel us to be equal upstairs, but there will never be equality in the servants hall.”
adrenalize
PRONUNCIATION: (a-DREEN-uh-lyz)
MEANING: (verb), To excite and stir to action.
ETYMOLOGY: From adrenaline, a hormone produced by adrenal glands (above the kidneys), secreted when a person is excited. From Latin renes, kidney.
USAGE: “After his girlfriend, his latest ‘true love,’ dumped him, Frank watched his roommate’s spirits sink so low that he was convinced that nothing would adrenalize him, not even tickets to see his favorite band.”
niggard
PRONUNCIATION: (NIG-hurd)
http://wordsmith.org/words/niggard.mp3
MEANING:
(noun), A mean, stingy person.
(adjective), Stingy.
ETYMOLOGY: From Middle English nigard, of Scandinavian origin. Earliest documented use: 1384.
NOTES: Today’s word has nothing to do with the N-word, however, similarity in sounds has led to people objecting to it. It’s seen more often in its adjectival form, niggardly, as in: “Japan has the world’s second-largest economy, yet its promised $200m so far is niggardly.” (The Economist). In the US, the word has become radioactive and its use has led to many controversies.
USAGE: “It is a niggard’s gift that costs the giver nothing.” – George R.R. Martin; A Dance with Dragons; Bantam Books; 2011.
Explore “niggard” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=niggard
poetaster
PRONUNCIATION: (POH-it-as-tuhr)
http://wordsmith.org/words/poetaster.mp3
MEANING: (noun), An inferior poet.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin poetaster, from Latin poeta (poet), from Greek poietes (poet, maker), from poiein (to make) + -aster (pejorative suffix). Earliest documented use: 1601.
NOTES: What can you do when someone calls you a poetaster? Why, you can call them a criticaster (an inferior critic). Also see mathematicaster, philosophaster, and politicaster.
USAGE:
“In the title story, a poetaster suffering from ‘chronic acuteness’ is rushed to the hospital before his verse does much harm.” – Anthony Bukoski; Average Joes Wind Up in ‘Hospital’; Star-Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota); May 3, 2009.
“You have revealed yourself to the world as a conceited little poetaster.” – Simon Barnes; Rooney No Longer in Control of Fame Game; The Times (London, UK); Sep 13, 2010.
consuetudinary
PRONUNCIATION: (kon-swi-TOOD-n-er-ee, -TYOOD-)
http://wordsmith.org/words/consuetudinary.mp3
MEANING: (adjective), Customary.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin consuetude (custom), from consuescere (to accustom), from con- (with) + suescere (to accustom). Earliest documented use: 1590.
USAGE: “Soon she’ll welcome me with a bear hug, her sweet smile, and her consuetudinary greeting: My princess!” – My Teacher, My Queen; The Miami Herald (Florida); May 5, 2000.
Explore “consuetudinary” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=consuetudinary