Today in History (June 25th):
1788: Virginia ratified the U.S. Constitution, the 10th state to do so.
1860: Birthdays: French composer Gustave Charpentier.
1876: U.S. Army Gen. George Custer and his force of 208 men were killed by Chief Sitting Bull’s Sioux warriors at The Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana.
1887: Birthdays: Broadway producer George Abbott.
1903: Birthdays: English novelist and critic George Orwell, author of 1984.
1924: Birthdays: Movie director Sidney Lumet.
1925: Birthdays: Actor June Lockhart.
1933: Birthdays: Civil rights advocate James Meredith.
1939: Birthdays: Musician Harold Melvin.
1942: U.S. Army Gen. Dwight Eisenhower took command of the U.S. World War II forces in Europe. Birthdays: Basketball Hall of Fame member Willis Reed.
1945: Birthdays: Musician Carly Simon.
1946: Birthdays: Musician Ian McDonald.
1947: Birthdays: Actor Jimmie Walker.
1950: North Korean forces invaded South Korea.
1951: CBS aired the first color television broadcast. At the time, no color TV sets were owned by the public.
1954: Birthdays: Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor.
1961: Birthdays: Actor/writer Ricky Gervais.
1962: The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision interpreted as barring prayer in public schools.
1963: Birthdays: Musician George Michael.
1967: With Mick Jagger, Keith Richard and others singing backup, the Beatles recorded All You Need Is Love before an international television audience estimated at 400 million people.
1973: White House attorney John Dean told a U.S. Senate committee that U.S. President Richard Nixon joined in a plot to cover up the Watergate break-in.
1991: Slovenia and Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia, sparking civil war.
1993: Kim Campbell was sworn in as Canada’s first woman prime minister.
1994: Japan’s Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata resigned two months after taking office rather than face a no-confidence vote by Parliament.
1997: About half of Mir’s power supply was knocked out when an unmanned cargo ship collided with the Russian space station and put a hole in it.
1998: U.S. President Bill Clinton arrived in China for a much-debated visit.
2003: The U.S. Federal Reserve Board lowered the key federal funds rate, the overnight loan rate between banks, to 1.0 percent, lowest since 1958.
2004: The film Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore’s critical view of the invasion of Iraq, broke box-office records for a documentary in its first few days.
2005: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran.
2006: Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by militants from the Gaza Strip. He was released Oct. 18, 2011.
2008: The U.S. Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, ruled that the death penalty is unconstitutional for child rape.
2009: Entertainment superstar Michael Jackson, known as the king of pop, a vast influence on the music scene of his day, died of cardiac arrest at age 50 while preparing a comeback.
2012: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that mandatory sentencing of teenage killers to life without parole is unconstitutional.
Quotes
“I begin to see what marriage is for. It’s to keep people away from each other. Sometimes I think that two people who love each other can be saved from madness only by the things that come between them: children, duties, visits, bores, relations, the things that protect married people from each other.” – Edith Wharton, novelist (1862-1937)
“Bureaucrats are the only people in the world who can say absolutely nothing and mean it.” – James H. Boren
“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” – William Shakespeare, 1564-1616
“Imagine every day to be the last of a life surrounded with hopes, cares, anger and fear. The hours that come unexpectedly will be much the more grateful.” – Horace, 65 BC-8 BC
“No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.” – Alexis de Tocqueville, statesman and historian (1805-1859)
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer:
“A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.”
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“Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.”
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
“All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.”
“All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”
“At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.”
“Big Brother is watching you.”
“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
“But the thing that I saw in your face no power can disinherit: No bomb that ever burst shatters the crystal spirit.”
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
unctuous
PRONUNCIATION: (UNGK-choo-us)
MEANING: (adjective)
1. Of the nature or quality of an unguent or ointment; fatty; oily; greasy.
2. Having a smooth, greasy feel, as certain minerals.
3. Insincerely or excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech; marked by a false or smug earnestness or agreeableness.
ETYMOLOGY: Unctuous is from Medieval Latin unctuosus, from Latin unctus, “anointed, besmeared, greasy,” past participle of unguere, “to anoint, to besmear.”
USAGE: “Peter approached Linna wearing a smile so unctuous it seemed about to slide right off his face.”
gossamer
PRONUNCIATION: (GOS-uh-muhr)
http://wordsmith.org/words/gossamer.mp3
MEANING:
(noun)
1. Something light, thin, or insubstantial.
2. A soft sheer gauzy fabric, used for veils, etc.
3. A fine, filmy cobweb or its thread seen floating in the air in calm weather.
(adjective), Thin, light, or delicate.
ETYMOLOGY: From goose + summer. The term is believed to have originated as a name for late autumn when geese are in season and then transferred to cobwebs seen around that time of the year. Earliest documented use: 1325.
USAGE: “Indeed one dare not breathe near them for fear of breaking the gossamer visions, causing movement to disrupt our focus.” – Joan Stanley-Baker; Ephemeral Feminine Fibers of Chen Shu-yen; Taipei Times (Taiwan); Jul 11, 2004.
Explore “gossamer” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=gossamer
suasion
PRONUNCIATION: (SWAY-zhuhn)
http://wordsmith.org/words/suasion.mp3
MEANING: (noun), The act of urging: persuasion. (Often used in the phrase ‘moral suasion’)
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin suadere (to advise). Ultimately from the Indo-European rootswad- (sweet, pleasant), which also gave us sweet, suave, hedonism, persuade, and Hindi swad (taste). Earliest documented use: 1374.
USAGE: “He was so convinced by my arguments that he lent me his bestriding-horse without further suasion.” – Neal Stephenson; Quicksilver; William Morrow; 2003.
Explore “suasion” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=suasion
excoriate
PRONUNCIATION: (ik-SKOR-ee-ayt)
http://wordsmith.org/words/excoriate.mp3
MEANING: (verb tr.)
1. To severely criticize someone or something.
2. To strip off the skin.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin excoriare (to strip or to skin), ex- (out) + corium (skin, hide). Ultimately from the Indo-European root sker- (to cut) that is also the source of words such as skirt, sharp, scrape, screw, shard, shears, carnage, curt, carnivorous, hardscrabble, and incarnadine.
USAGE: “Why is she [Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, president of Philippines] being excoriated for trying to implement her campaign promise?” – Efren L. Danao; Give Light, Not Heat, to Cha-cha Issue; The Manila Times (Philippines); Jun 17, 2009.