Today in History (January 26th):
1715: Birthdays: French philosopher Claude Helvetius.
1788: The first shipload of British convicts arrived in Australia. The establishment of an Australian prison colony was aimed at relieving overcrowding in British prisons.
1837: Michigan joined the United States as the 26th state.
1861: Louisiana seceded from the United States.
1875: The electric dental drill was patented by George Green of Kalamazoo, Mich.
1880: Birthdays: U.S. Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
1905: Birthdays: Austrian singer Maria von Trapp, whose family was the basis for The Sound of Music.
1918: To promote food conservation during World War I, the U.S. government called for one meatless day, two wheatless days and two porkless days each week. Birthdays: Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu; Author Philip Jose Farmer.
1925: Birthdays: Actor Paul Newman.
1928: Birthdays: French film director Roger Vadim.
1929: Birthdays: Cartoonist, playwright and author Jules Feiffer.
1935: Birthdays: Sports personality Bob Uecker.
1941: Birthdays: Actor Scott Glenn.
1944: Birthdays: Political activist Angela Davis.
1946: Birthdays: Film critic Gene Siskel.
1949: The 200-inch Hal Telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California has first-light exposure. Birthdays: Actor David Strathairn.
1950: India ceased to be a British dominion and became the Republic of India, most populous democracy in the world.
1953: Birthdays: NATO Secretary-General Andres Fogh Rasmussen; Singer Lucinda Williams.
1955: Birthdays: Rock musician Eddie Van Halen.
1958: Birthdays: Comedian Ellen DeGeneres.
1961: Birthdays: Hockey Hall of Fame member Wayne Gretzky.
1980: Six Americans hidden for three months in the Canadian Embassy in Tehran were smuggled out of Iran by Canadian diplomats.
1988: The Phantom of the Opera opened on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre in New York.
1990: Hurricane-force winds pounded the British Isles and much of Northern Europe, killing at least 92 people and knocking out power to nearly 1 million people.
1991: Iraq fired Scuds at Israel and Saudi Arabia but most were intercepted by Patriot missiles.
1996: The U.S. Senate ratified SALT II. President George H.W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin had signed the arms reduction agreement three years before.
1998: In response to allegations that he had an affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, U.S. President Bill Clinton declared, I did not have sexual relations with that woman.
1999: U.S. President Bill Clinton welcomed Pope John Paul II to St. Louis.
2001: More than 20,000 people were killed when a magnitude-7.9 earthquake rocked western India.
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2006: Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and his Cabinet resigned after their party was defeated by Hamas in the parliamentary election. However, President Mahmoud Abbas of the defeated Fatah party remained in office.
2008: Kenya sent military forces into the Rift Valley to deal with escalating ethnic violence growing from the disputed Dec. 30 election that has killed an estimated 650 people and displaced tens of thousands.
2009: A 33-year-old single California mom gave birth to eight babies, reported to be only the second set of octuplets ever to be born alive in the United States. The six boys and two girls ranged in weight from 1 1/2 pounds to just more than 3 pounds. Nadya Suleman earlier had six other children. All 14 of her children were conceived through in vitro fertilization.
2010: U.S. President Barack Obama said in a TV interview he would rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.
2011: The Dow Jones industrial average climbed past the 12,000 mark for the first time since June 2008.
2012: The U.S. Federal Reserve said low interest rates were likely to be the status quo through late 2014 because of the slumping American economy. Reaction among investors was mixed. To some, it was good news; others saw it as an admission the economic recovery would remain tepid for an additional 18 months.
Quotes
“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.” – Bertrand Russell
Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) American General:
“A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.”
“Americans never quit.”
“And like the old soldier in that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the sight to see that duty.”
“Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.”
“Could I have but a line a century hence crediting a contribution to the advance of peace, I would yield every honor which has been accorded by war.”
“I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.”
“I can recall no parallel in history where a great nation recently at war has so distinguished its former enemy commander.”
“I suppose, in a way, this has become part of my soul. It is a symbol of my life. Whatever I have done that really matters, I’ve done wearing it. When the time comes, it will be in this that I journey forth. What greater honor could come to an American, and a soldier?”
garth
PRONUNCIATION: (garth)
MEANING: (noun), A small yard surrounded by a cloister. Also known as cloister garth.
ETYMOLOGY: From Middle English, from Old Norse (garthr) yard. Ultimately from Indo-European root gher- (to enclose or grasp) that is also the ancestor of such words as court, orchard, kindergarten, French jardin (garden), choir, courteous, Hindi gherna (to surround), yard, and horticulture.
USAGE: “While many found the sounds coming from the garth’s brooks to be musical and enchanting, Neil felt that they were noisy and distracting.”
gascon
PRONUNCIATION: (GAS-kuhn)
http://wordsmith.org/words/gascon.mp3
MEANING:
(noun), A braggart.
(adjective), Boastful.
ETYMOLOGY: After Gascon, a native of the Gascony region in France, from the stereotypeof Gascons as boasters. Earliest documented use: before 1771.
NOTES: Were people from Gascony full of boasts and bravado? Not necessarily. Historical rivalries lead one people to generalize others’ names as having some shortcoming and some of those names become part of the language. Other examples of such words aresolecism, Boeotian, and fescennine.
USAGE: Here indeed the King of Cornwall plays the gascon, not the King of LittleBritain.” – John Wesley Hales and Frederick James Furnivall (eds.); Bishop Percy’sFolio Manuscript: Ballads and Romances; 1867.