Today in History (October 30th):
Scorpio (October 23rd to November 21st)
1735: Birthdays: John Adams, second president of the United States.
1817: Simon Bolivar established the independent government of Venezuela.
1821: Birthdays: Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky.
1839: Birthdays: French Impressionist painter Alfred Sisley.
1871: Birthdays: French poet Paul Valery.
1882: Birthdays: U.S. Navy Adm. William Halsey, Jr.
1885: Birthdays: Poet Ezra Pound.
1892: Birthdays: Strongman Charles Atlas.
1896: Birthdays: Actor Ruth Gordon.
1898: Birthdays: Baseball Hall of Fame member Bill Terry.
1922: Benito Mussolini became prime minister of Italy.
1932: Birthdays: French film director Louis Malle.
1938: Orson Welles triggered a national panic with a realistic radio dramatization of a Martian invasion, based on H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds.
1939: Birthdays: Rock ‘n’ roll Hall of Fame member Grace Slick.
1941: More than a month before the United States entered World War II, a U.S. destroyer, the USS Reuben James, was sunk by a German submarine.
1945: Birthdays: Actor/director Henry Winkler.
1946: Birthdays: News correspondent Andrea Mitchell; Rock musician Chris Slade.
1947: Birthdays: Rock musician Timothy B. Schmit.
1951: Birthdays: Actor Harry Hamlin.
1970: Birthdays: Actor Nia Long.
1975: As dictator Francisco Franco was near death, Prince Juan Carlos assumed power in Spain.
1983: The Rev. Jesse Jackson announced plans to become the first African-American to mount a full-scale campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in the United States.
1991: The Middle East peace conference convened in Madrid with participants including Israel, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestinians from the Israeli-occupied territories.
1993: The U.N. Security Council condemned Haiti’s military leaders for preventing the return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
1995: By a narrow margin, Quebec voters decided to remain a part of Canada.
2003: The death toll in the Southern California wildfire outbreak was set at 20 with 2,605 homes destroyed and 657,000 acres charred.
2005: Indian authorities sent army divers to look for people trapped in a derailed train near Veligonda, the result of massive flooding. Officials said 112 died in the train wreck while another 100 perished in the flood.
2006: Pakistani forces attacked an Islamic school near the Afghan border, killing at least 80 suspected militants.
2007: Iraqi rebuilding has fallen far short of goals, despite expenditures of more than $100 billion, a report from the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction said.
2008: The U.S. gross domestic product dropped 0.3 percent, government officials say. It’s the first decrease in the GDP in 17 years. Nine explosions ripped through crowded places in four towns in northern India, killing at least 39 people and wounding more than 100, police said. The U.S. Department of Justice approved a $28.1 billion merger of Verizon Wireless and Alltel Corp. that would result in the nation’s largest wireless company.
2009: U.S. President Barack Obama announced he would end the U.S. travel and immigration restrictions on people infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Shame and tadalafil sample embarrassment made sexual dysfunction a taboo subject in polite company for a long time, which gave it a prominent position in the urban legends and endorsed dozens of folk remedies of doubtful effectiveness. One of the cialis samples in canada is curing Raynaud’s phenomenon. Apart from this, cheap viagra is also useful to treat men with erectile dysfunction and as an alternative to viagra, cheap viagra. OCD is five times more likely in first degree relatives of someone with OCD (Menzies cialis uk no prescription 2008). 2010: Security screening of cargo and air passengers in the United States, Britain and Canada was stepped up after bombs were found in packages from Yemen to two Chicago synagogues.
2011: The Obama administration is reported seeking to reinforce military ties with six Middle East nations — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Regional leaders have voiced concern about possible instability in the area when American troops go home, in light of an increasing threat from Iran. An explosion in a southeastern China coal mine, believed caused by natural gas, killed 29 workers. Six miners were rescued.
Quotes
“You can’t do anything with anybody’s body to make it dirty to me. Six people, eight people, one person — you can do only one thing to make it dirty: kill it. Hiroshima was dirty.” – Lenny Bruce, comedian and social critic (1925-1966)
“Materialism is substance abuse.” – Ben Price
John Adams (1735-1826) US President (2):
“You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other. The two former presidents and political rivals both died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.”
“A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.”
“Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.”
“All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.”
“Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion… in private self-defense.”
“As much as I converse with sages and heroes, they have very little of my love and admiration. I long for rural and domestic scene, for the warbling of birds and the prattling of my children.”
“Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
Mitty
PRONUNCIATION: (MIT-ee)
MEANING: noun: An ordinary, timid person who indulges in daydreams involving great adventures and triumphs.
ETYMOLOGY: After the title character in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a short story (1939) by James Thurber, later made into a movie (1947) of the same name.
NOTES: James Thurber’s story appeared in the March 18, 1939 issue of the New Yorker. In the story, Walter Mitty is a meek husband, rather uxorious, who fantasizes of great exploits to escape the humdrum of daily life. One minute he is dreaming of being a heroic pilot (“Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8500!”), next minute he becomes a daring naval commander. In his next thought he transforms into a master surgeon, and even a cool killer.
USAGE: “It was not a Mitty dream. It was no fantasy at all.” – Richard Bach; A Gift of Wings; Dell; 1974.
Explore “mitty” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=mitty
Falstaffian
PRONUNCIATION: (fohl-STA-fee-ehn)
MEANING: adjective: Characterized by joviality and conviviality.
ETYMOLOGY: A large word for a large personality, today’s word comes after Sir John Falstaff, a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare primarily as a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V. Round and glorious, tradition holds that Shakespeare wrote the part for his second comedian, a fat man, John Heminges, who played a bold, bawdy humor of a John Candy sort. An alternative theory is that Falstaff was written for Will Kemp, the clown of Shakespeare’s company. The original actor was later succeeded by John Lowin, another portly comic actor. Flush with flatulent humor, Falstaff still managed to embody a kind of depth common to Shakespeare’s tricky comedy. In Act II, Scene III of Henry V, his death is described by the character “Hostess”, possibly the bar-lady Mistress Quickly, who describes his body in terms that echo the death of Socrates.
USAGE: “Colton’s bushy beard, boisterous manner, and overall Falstaffian personality endeared him to as many people as it put off.”