Today in History (June 4th):
1738: Birthdays: George III, king of England during the American Revolutionary War.
1784: France’s Marie Thible of Lyons became the first woman to fly in a hot-air balloon.
1896: Henry Ford took his first automobile – the Quadricycle – for a test drive. He wheeled his first car from a brick shed in Detroit and drove it around darkened streets on a trial run.
1907: Birthdays: Actor Rosalind Russell.
1917: The first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded. Birthdays: Opera singer Robert Merrill.
1924: Birthdays: Actor Dennis Weaver.
1928: Birthdays: Radio/TV host Ruth Westheimer.
1936: Birthdays: Actor Bruce Dern.
1937: Birthdays: Singer Freddy Fender; Publisher and commentator Mortimer Zuckerman.
1940: The World War II evacuation of Dunkirk, France, was completed. A flotilla of small boats spent nearly a week crossing the English Channel to rescue nearly 350,000 British, French and Belgian troops from advancing German forces.
1944: Rome was liberated as the last of the German occupiers fled the Italian capital ahead of the U.S. 9th Army. Birthdays: Singer/actor Michelle Phillips.
1952: Birthdays: Actor Parker Stevenson.
1961: Birthdays: Singer El DeBarge.
1968: Birthdays: Actor Scott Wolf.
1969: Birthdays: Actor Horatio Sanz.
1971: Birthdays: Actor Noah Wyle.
1972: Black militant Angela Davis was acquitted of murder, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy charges stemming from a California courtroom shootout in which a judge and three other people were killed.
1975: Birthdays: Actor Angelina Jolie.
1985: The U.S. Supreme Court struck down an Alabama minute-of-silence law as specifically fostering classroom prayer.
1989: In what became known as the Tiananmen Square massacre, hundreds of pro-democracy students were reported killed and thousands wounded as Chinese troops swept demonstrators from the square in Beijing.
1990: An Oregon woman, Janet Adkins, killed herself in Michigan using a suicide machine developed by Dr. Death Jack Kevorkian. She was the retired pathologist’s first reported medicide patient.
1991: Albania’s Cabinet resigned, ending 46 years of Communist rule.
1992: U.S. Postal Service officials announced that a young, 1950s-era Elvis Presley portrait was chosen overwhelmingly over an older, Las Vegas-style Elvis in a nationwide vote for a new postage stamp honoring The King.
1998: Terry Nichols was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for his part in the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.
2003: Martha Stewart, the home decorating guru, was indicted on federal charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and securities fraud in a dispute over a stock sale.
2005: The Covington Diocese in Kentucky agreed to pay up to $120 million to more than 100 alleged victims of child molestation from the last 50 years.
2006: Former Peruvian President Alan Garcia Perez regained the presidency in a runoff victory over Ollanta Humula Tasso.
2007: U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., accused of accepting about $400,000 from companies hoping to do business in Africa, was indicted on 16 counts including racketeering, conspiracy, money laundering and obstruction of justice.
2009: The U.S. government reported the nation’s unemployment rate in June reached 9.4 percent, its highest figure in 26 years. The report said 14.5 million Americans were out of work.
2010: U.S. President Barack Obama named Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper Jr. director of national intelligence, with the task of improving coordination between the 16 American spy and intelligence agencies.
2012: A suicide car-bomb explosion next to a Shiite office building in Baghdad killed 18 people and wounded 125.
Quotes
“The cure for anything is salt water — sweat, tears, or the sea.” – Isak Dinesen (pen name of Karen Blixen), author (1885-1962)
“The great secret of successful marriage is to treat all disasters as incidents and none of the incidents as disasters.” – Harold Nicholson
“Two peanuts were walking down the street. One was assaulted.” – Anonymous
‘Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.’ – Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826
“A strong imagination begetteth opportunity.” – Michel de Montaigne, 1533-1592
“Seek not to follow in the footsteps of men of old; seek what they sought.” – Matsuo Basho, poet (1644-1694)
“It is not life and wealth and power that enslave men, but the cleaving to life and wealth and power.” – Buddha (c. 563-483 BCE)
Rosalind Russell (1908-1976) U.S. actor:
“A man is insensible to the relish of prosperity until he has tasted adversity.”
“Acting is standing up naked and turning around very slowly.”
“Flops are a part of life’s menu and I’ve never been a girl to miss out on any of the courses.”
“I’ll match my flops with anybody’s but I wouldn’t have missed ’em.”
“Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death.”
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“Success is a public affair. Failure is a private funeral.”
“Taking joy in living is a woman’s best cosmetic.”
tenet
PRONUNCIATION: (TEN-it)
MEANING: (noun), Any opinion, principle, dogma, belief, or doctrine that a person holds or maintains as true.
ETYMOLOGY: Tenet comes from Latin tenet “he holds” (something as true), from tenere, “to hold.”
USAGE: “George lived his life by the simple tenet ‘Do unto others before they do unto you.'”
theocrasy
PRONUNCIATION: (thee-AWK-ruh-see)
http://wordsmith.org/words/theocrasy.mp3
MEANING: (noun), A mixture of deities or religious forms.
ETYMOLOGY: From Greek theo- (god)- + -krasia (blending). Earliest documented use: 1816.
USAGE: “Even if the Jewish travellers were giving thanks to Pan Euhodos, such minor use of a pagan temple hardly represents a movement towards theocrasy.” – R.P. Gordon; The God of Israel; Cambridge University Press; 2007.
liege
PRONUNCIATION: (leej, leezh)
http://wordsmith.org/words/liege.mp3
MEANING:
(noun)
1. A feudal lord.
2. A vassal or subject.
(adjective)
1. Pertaining to the relationship between a feudal vassal and lord.
2. Loyal; faithful.
ETYMOLOGY: From Old French lige, from Latin laetus (serf). Earliest documented use: 1297.
USAGE:
“I am not worthy to buckle your shoe, my liege. Please would youspit on me?” – Nathan Bevan; If It’s On, He’s On It; Wales On Sunday (Cardiff); Feb 28, 2010.
“AT&T is demanding that repair crews from the regional Bell telephone companies place Velcro patches bearing the AT&T emblem on their uniforms. ‘We told them, “We are not your liege,”‘ recalled Thomas Hester, the general counsel of the Ameritech Corporation.” – Mark Landler; After the Bells and Their New Rivals Have It Out; The New York Times; Jul 15, 1996.
Explore “liege” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=liege
gaff
PRONUNCIATION: (gaf)
MEANING:
(noun)
1. A pole with a hook on the end, used to land large fish.
2. A metal spur for a gamecock.
3. A hoax or fraud.
4. Gimmick or trick.
5. Harsh treatment or criticism.
6. A place of entertainment, especially with a disreputable reputation.
7. A house, apartment, shop, or other building.
8. A social error; a faux pas.
(verb tr.)
1. (to stand or take the gaff) To receive severe criticism; to endure hardship.
2. To cheat.
3. To gamble.
ETYMOLOGY:
(noun)
1-4: From gaffe (boat hook), ultimately from the Indo-European root kap- (to grasp) that is also the root of captive, capsule, chassis, cable, occupy, and deceive.
5-7: Of unknown origin.
8: A variant of gaffe.
(verb), 1-3: Of uncertain origin.
USAGE:
“I had murdered a couple of nice halibut, impaling them with the gaff and then happily beating their brains out all over the deck of a friend’s boat.” – Richard Chiappone; The Killing Season; Anchorage Press (Alaska); May 13, 2009.
“Derek Dingle, a famous closeup man, adjusted the Cigarette Through Quarter trick by palming and replacing one gaffed quarter with another.” – Adam Gopnik; The Real Work; New Yorker; Mar 17, 2008.
“‘They don’t want to take the gaff when something goes wrong,’ said Bud Long.” – A Dismal Record; The Fresno Bee (California); Aug 9, 1992.