Today in History (April 1st):
April Fools’
1815: Birthdays: German military theorist Prince Otto von Bismarck.
1826: Samuel Morey was granted a patent on the internal combustion engine.
1866: Birthdays: Italian pianist and composer Ferruccio Busoni.
1873: Birthdays: Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff.
1883: Birthdays: Actor Lon Chaney Sr.
1885: Birthdays: Actor Wallace Beery.
1918: Toward the end of World War I, the British founded the Royal Air Force and two months later began bombing industrial targets in Germany from bases in France.
1920: Birthdays: Actor Toshiro Mifune.
1922: Birthdays: Author William Manchester (Death of a President).
1924: Adolf Hitler was sent to prison for five years after failing to take over Germany by force, the unsuccessful Beer Hall Putsch in the German state of Bavaria.
1926: Birthdays: Author Anne McCaffrey (Dragonriders of Pern).
1929: Birthdays: Football Hall of Fame coach Bo Schembechler; Actor/singer Jane Powell.
1932: Birthdays: Actor/singer Debbie Reynolds.
1939: Birthdays: Actor Ali MacGraw.
1940: Birthdays: Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai.
1945: U.S. forces swarmed ashore on the Japanese island of Okinawa to begin what would be one of the longest and bloodiest battles of World War II.
1946: Tsunami created by a magnitude-7.8 earthquake near the Aleutian Islands killed 159 in the Hawaiian Islands.
1948: Birthdays: Musician Jimmy Cliff.
1952: Birthdays: Actor Annette O’Toole.
1961: Birthdays: Singer Susan Boyle.
1970: U.S. President Richard Nixon signed legislation calling for mandatory health warnings on tobacco product packaging and banning cigarette ads on TV and radio, effective Jan. 1, 1971.
1973: Birthdays: Political commentator Rachel Maddow.
1976: Apple Inc. was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
1977: Birthdays: Reality television personality Jon Gosselin.
1979: Iran declared itself an Islamic Republic.
1982: The United States transferred control of the Panama Canal Zone to the government of Panama.
1986: World oil prices dipped to less than $10 a barrel.
1992: U.S. President George H.W. Bush announced a $24 billion aid package to the former Soviet republics.
1996: An outbreak of mad cow disease forced Britain to plan the mass slaughter of cows.
1997: Birthdays: Actor Asa Butterfield.
1999: Canada created a new territory, Nunavut, as a means of providing autonomy for the Inuit people.
2001: A U.S. Navy spy plane collided with a Chinese jetfighter off the coast of China. The Chinese plane crashed into the ocean; the damaged U.S. plane landed on the Chinese island of Hainan, where its 24 crewmembers were held for 11 days.
2003: U.S. Marines rescued Pfc. Jessica Lynch, 19, who had been held prisoner in Iraq since an ambush on March 23.
2005: Samuel Berger, national security adviser to U.S. President Bill Clinton, pleaded guilty to destroying classified documents he admitted removing from the National Archives.
2009: Sweden became the fifth European nation to legalize same-sex marriages. Others are the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium and Spain. 16 people died in the crash of a helicopter in northeast Scotland. Victims included 14 oil workers.
2010: Formal guidelines for the amount of greenhouse gas emissions U.S. cars may produce were issued by the U.S. Environment Protection Agency. A combined fuel economy average for new vehicles, for mileage and emissions, would be 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016.
2011: The U.S. Labor Department released March data indicating a slight drop in U.S. unemployment to 8.8 percent with 216,000 new non-farm jobs. A Southwest Airlines flight to Sacramento, Calif., with 118 passengers, made an emergency landing when a 5-foot hole ripped open in the roof. No one was seriously hurt. The airline inspected its fleet, blamed metal fatigue and found two other jets with similar problems.
2012: Aung San Sun Ky, the Nobel Peace laureate and voice of the political opposition in Myanmar (Burma), won a seat in Parliament two years after being freed from 20 years of house arrest. Emergency officials say 675 people were rescued from a drifting ice floe in the Sea of Okhotsk in far Eastern Russia.
Quotes
“Everyone, in some small sacred sanctuary of the self, is nuts.” – Leo Rosten, author (1908-1997)
“It’s good to shut up sometimes.” – Marcel Marceau, Mime
“Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.” – William James, 1842-1910
“The power is detested, and miserable the life, of him who wishes to be feared rather than to be loved.” – Cornelius Nepos, 100 B.C.-24 B.C.
“Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, they are not so often the result of a great design as of chance.” – Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld, moralist (1613-1680)
“There’s never been a true war that wasn’t fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.” – Neil Gaiman, novelist and short story writer (b. 1960)
“One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.” – Juvenal, poet (c. 60-140)
Agnes Repplier (1858-1950) American writer:
“Edged tools are dangerous things to handle, and not infrequently do much hurt.”
“Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.”
Thus, scarce use of anti ED medicines due to the easy access to an abundance of unlawful generics on the internet breaking the patent ownership and the unregulated companies that create and supply them. click here for more info tadalafil generic uk There is also sex therapy when the cause is psychological, performance anxiety, or is induced by physical or psychological arousal, blood rushes to his penis and testes. cheapest levitra Kamagra medications are purchase generic levitra suggested to these patients to manage the symptoms of ED. Big businesses purchase generic viagra cerritosmedicalcenter.com as a practice have full time legal advisors. “Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals.”
“It has been wisely said that we cannot really love anybody at whom we never laugh.”
“It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.”
“It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought.”
“People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization.”
“The clear-sighted do not rule the world, but they sustain and console it.”
“The pessimist is seldom an agitating individual. His creed breeds indifference to others, and he does not trouble himself to thrust his views upon the unconvinced.”
“The tourist may complain of other tourists, but he would be lost without them.”
“There is always a secret irritation about a laugh into which we cannot join.”
dauphin
PRONUNCIATION: (DOW-fin)
MEANING: (noun)
1. The eldest son of the king of France from 1349 to 1830.
2. Used as a title for such a nobleman.
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English, from Old French, title of the lords of Dauphine, from Dalphin, Dalfin, a surname, from dalfin, dolphin (from the device on the family’s coat of arms).
USAGE: “While addressing the dauphin, Acton pointed out that he should not forget that a successful reign required a strong successor–and not a mere imitator.”
percipient
PRONUNCIATION: (per-SIP-ee-ant)
http://wordsmith.org/words/percipient.mp3
MEANING: (adjective), Having deep insight or understanding.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin percipere (to perceive), from per- (thoroughly) + capere (to seize). Ultimately from the Indo-European root kap- (to grasp), which also gave us captive, capsule, capable, capture, cable, chassis, occupy, deceive, gaff, caitiff, and captious. Earliest documented use: 1659.
USAGE: “I am a percipient and keen observer and manage an asset class which has long-term return potential.” – Sanket Dhanorkar; Fund Manager’s Pharma; The Economic Times (New Delhi, India); Mar 6, 2012.
Explore “percipient” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=percipient
alley-oop
PRONUNCIATION: (al-ee-OOP)
http://wordsmith.org/words/alley-oop.mp3
MEANING:
interjection: Used as an exhortation or to signal the start of an activity. For example, when coordinating efforts to lift something heavy.
noun: A basketball move in which a player throws the ball to a teammate near the basket who leaps to catch it in mid-air and then puts it in the basket before returning to the floor.
ETYMOLOGY: Phonetic respelling of French allez-hop or allez-oop, cry of a circus performer about to leap. From French allez, imperative of aller (to go)+ hop/oop (an expressive word). Earliest documented use: 1923.
USAGE:
“You couldn’t haul bodies without a partner and you needed to be able to talk, even if it was only to say alley-oop.” – Cory Doctorow; Overclocked; Thunder’s Mouth Press; 2007.
“Jawanza Poland soared to the basket and flushed home an alley oop.” – Pete Thamel, et al; Bearcats Knock Off Florida State; The New York Times; Mar 19, 2012.
Explore “alley-oop” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=alley-oop
poltergeist
PRONUNCIATION: (POHL-tuhr-gyst)
http://wordsmith.org/words/poltergeist.mp3
MEANING: (noun), A ghost that reveals its presence by making noises or throwing objects.
ETYMOLOGY: From German Poltergeist, from poltern (to make noise, rattle) + Geist (ghost, spirit).
USAGE: “The nearest Liverpool player was at least five yards away, meaning Emerson was trying to convince the referee he’d been tripped by a poltergeist.” – Paul Doyle; Liverpool v Lille; The Guardian (London, UK); Mar 18, 2010.
Explore “poltergeist” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=poltergeist
coetaneous
PRONUNCIATION: (ko-i-TAY-nee-uhs)
http://wordsmith.org/words/coetaneous.mp3
MEANING: (adjective), Having the same age; contemporary.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin coaetaneus (contemporary), from co- (with) + aetas (age). Ultimately from the Indo-European root aiw-/ayu- (vital force, life, eternity) that is also the source of ever, never, aye, nay, eon, eternal, medieval, primeval, utopia, Sanskrit Ayurveda, and aught.
USAGE: “In 1993 Camilo Jose Cela published his Memorias, a painstakingly detailed narrative of his life, at odds in many points with a previously written biography by his son, Camilo Cela Conde, as well as with the recollections of his many friends and coetaneous narrators.” – Thilo Ullmann; Spain’s Cela; World & I (Washington, DC); Jan 2002.