Today in History (December 5th):
1776: The first scholastic fraternity in America, Phi Beta Kappa, was organized at William and Mary College in Virginia.
1782: Birthdays: Martin Van Buren, eighth president of the United States.
1839: Birthdays: U.S. Army Gen. George Custer.
1848: U.S. President James Polk confirmed the discovery of gold in California, leading to the gold rush of 1848 and ’49.
1890: Birthdays: Film director Fritz Lang.
1901: Birthdays: German physicist Werner Heisenberg; Entertainment entrepreneur Walt Disney.
1902: Birthdays: U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C.
1905: Birthdays: Film director Otto Preminger.
1932: Birthdays: Singer Little Richard (Richard Penniman).
1933: Prohibition of liquor in the United States was repealed when Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
1934: Birthdays: Author Joan Didion.
1935: Birthdays: Writer Calvin Trillin.
1938: Birthdays: Songwriter J.J. Cale.
1945: Five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo-bombers disappeared on a routine flight in the area of the Atlantic known as the Bermuda Triangle.
1946: Birthdays: Opera tenor Jose Carreras.
1947: Birthdays: Rock ‘n’ roll Hall of Fame member Jim Messina; Football Hall of fame member Jim Plunkett.
1955: In one of the early civil rights actions in the South, blacks declared a boycott of city buses in Montgomery, Ala., demanding seating on an equal basis with whites. The boycott, prompted by the arrest of Rosa Parks, a black woman who refused to give up her bus seat to a white man. The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organization merged after 20 years of rivalry to form the AFL-CIO.
1968: Birthdays: Comedian Margaret Cho.
1985: Birthdays: Actor Frankie Muniz.
1991: British media magnate Robert Maxwell disappeared while on his yacht off the Canary Islands. Convicted mass murderer Richard Speck died, one day short of his 50th birthday and 25 years after killing eight student nurses in Chicago.
1993: Rafael Caldera Rodriguez was elected president of Venezuela.
2001: Factions in war-shaken Afghanistan agreed on an interim government, naming Hamid Karzai as their new leader.
2002: U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., celebrated his 100th birthday on Capitol Hill. Thurmond, who retired the following year, had served the Senate since 1954, making him both the longest-serving and oldest member of Congress. He died June 27, 2003.
2007: A man opened fire in a popular Omaha mall, killing eight and wounding five others before turning the gun on himself.
2008: About 533,000 non-farm U.S. jobs were lost in November, the highest number since 1974, the Labor Department said. The unemployment rate increased 0.2 of a percentage point to 6.7 percent.
2009: An explosion and blaze ignited by fireworks killed 107 people and injured 130 others at a Russian nightclub in the Urals. The owner and the manager were charged with causing deaths by breaching fire safety regulations. American exchange student Amanda Knox of Seattle was convicted by an Italian jury of killing former roommate Meredith Kercher of England during what prosecutors called a sexual game that turned deadly. She was sentenced to 26 years in prison but was freed two years later when an appeals court overturned her conviction.
2010: The head of Iran’s atomic agency says the country was converting its own yellow cake uranium, which, he said, means its nuclear program has become self-sufficient. Russia and Qatar were chosen first-time hosts for the World Cup soccer tournament in 2018 and 2022, respectively.
2011: Tension rose in Egypt as the first parliamentary election since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak resulted in a runoff. The ruling military council and the Muslim Brotherhood party, which led after the first round of a three-stage runoff, meanwhile accused each other of plotting a dictatorship. Officials in Paris said talks between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, involving bailout money and perhaps budgetary policy, could lead to a $2.7 trillion eurozone rescue package.
Quotes
“No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.” – Viktor Frankl, author, neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (1905-1997)
“They were the first self-constituted, self-declared, self-created people in the history of the world.” – Archibald MacLeish said of Americans
“It is observed that the red-haired of both sexes are more libidinous and mischievous than the rest, whom yet they much exceed in strength and activity.” – Jonathon Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, part 4, A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms
“We make more progress by owning up to our faults than by always dwelling on our virtues.” – Thomas Brackett Reed
Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) 8th President of the United States:
“To avoid the necessity of a permanent debt and its inevitable consequences, I have advocated and endeavored to carry into effect the policy of confining the appropriations for the public service to such objects only as are clearly with the constitutional authority of the Federal Government.”
“I tread in the footsteps of illustrious men… in receiving from the people the sacred trust confided to my illustrious predecessor.”
“The less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for general prosperity”
“No evil can result from its (slavery’s) inhibition more pernicious than its toleration”
“As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it.”
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“The people under our system, like the king in a monarchy, never dies.”
“On receiving from the people the sacred trust twice confided on my illustrious predecessor, and which he has discharged so faithfully and so well, I know that I can not expect to perform the arduous task with equal ability and success.”
“It is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didn’t.”
“For myself, therefore, I desire to declare that the principle that will govern me in the high duty to which my country calls me is a strict adherence to the letter and spirit of the Constitution as it was designed by those who framed it.”
“There is a power in public opinion in this country and I thank God for it: for it is the most honest and best of all powers which will not tolerate an incompetent or unworthy man to hold in his weak or wicked hands the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens.”
doyen
PRONUNCIATION: (doi-EN, DOI-uhn)
http://wordsmith.org/words/doyen.mp3
MEANING: (noun), The senior member of a group, profession, etc.
ETYMOLOGY: From French doyen (most senior member), from Latin decanus (chief of ten), from decem (ten). Earliest documented use: 1422.
USAGE: “[The financial sector’s] doyens have gained powerful positions in government, although this may be down to the modern assumption that if people are rich they must be smart.” – The War on Finance; The Economist (London, UK); Feb 4, 2012.
Explore “doyen” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=doyen
epizootic
PRONUNCIATION: (e-peh-zo-AH-tik)
MEANING: (adjective), Temporarily and unusually prevalent among animals or animals of a certain species, especially a disease.
ETYMOLOGY: From Greek epi- “(up)on” + zoon “animal” + -otic “related to a specific condition or disease” paralleling “epidemic” from epi + demos “people” + -ic. The Greek root zo- derives from the Proto-Indo-European gwoi-/gwei- “to live” which turns up in the English adjective “quick” which originally meant “alive.” “Azoth,” an old word for quick-silver, comes from Arabic “az-zauq,” borrowed from Old Persian zhiwak “alive” from the same source. (Persian but not Arabic is a related Indo-European language.) The Persian stem is a close relative of Russian zhivoj “alive.”
USAGE: “The clang of the dog dish on Jack Russell’s back porch occasions an epizootic outbreak of tail-wagging throughout the neighborhood.”
pleonasm
PRONUNCIATION: (PLEE-uh-naz-uhm)
http://wordsmith.org/words/pleonasm.mp3
MEANING: (noun), The use of more words than those necessary to express an idea; redundancy. Example: free gift.
ETYMOLOGY: From Latin pleonasmus, from Greek pleonasmos, from pleonazein(to be in excess), from pleon (more). First recorded use: 1610.
NOTES: Pleonasm is often used for emphasis, as in free gift, true fact,or revert back. While such repetition is discouraged, sometimes it becomespart of the language and is used idiomatically, as in a hot water heater.
USAGE: “Why some people walk around with a little dark cloud over their heads all the time, while others ceaselessly view the world through rose-colored glasses, to use a tired cliche (‘tired cliche’ is also a cliche, as well as a pleonasm, but what the heck).” – Otto Penzler; What a Wonderful Year!; The New York Sun; Dec 28, 2005.
tabby
PRONUNCIATION: (TAB-ee)
http://wordsmith.org/words/tabby.mp3
MEANING: noun:
1. A domestic cat with a striped or brindled coat.
2. A domestic cat, especially a female one.
3. A spinster.
4. A spiteful or gossipy woman.
5. A fabric of plain weave.
6. A watered silk fabric.
7. A building material made of lime, oyster shells, and gravel.
ETYMOLOGY:
For 1-6: From French tabis, from Medieval Latin attabi, from Arabic attabi, from al-Attabiya, a suburb of Baghdad, Iraq, where silk was made, from the name of Prince Attab. Cats got the name tabby after similarity of their coats to the cloth; the derivations of words for females are probably from shortening of the name Tabitha.
For 7: From Gullah tabi, ultimately from Spanish tapia (wall).
USAGE:
“I was playing whist with the tabbies when it occurred, and saw nothingof the whole matter.” – Charles James Lever; Jack Hinton, the Guardsman; 1857.
“Kay Sekimachi uses tabby and twill weaving to contrast black and beigelinens.” – Stunning 30-year Retrospective at San Jose Museum of Quilts Textiles; Independent Coast Observer (California); Jan 4, 2008.
“Mayor Carl Smith suggested that tabby fence posts be used around the cemetery’s perimeter because the oyster-based concrete would better fit the island’s character.” – Jessica Johnson; Group Restoring Cemetery; The Post and Courier (South Carolina); Jan 21, 2010.
Explore “tabby” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=tabby