Today in History (December 19th):
1777: Gen. George Washington and the Continental Army began a winter encampment at Valley Forge, Pa.
1820: Birthdays: Women’s suffrage leader Mary Livermore.
1868: Birthdays: Novelist Eleanor Porter (Pollyanna).
1902: Birthdays: British actor Ralph Richardson.
1906: Birthdays: Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev.
1910: Birthdays: French dramatist Jean Genet, a pioneer in the theater of the absurd.
1915: Birthdays: French singer Edith Piaf.
1920: Birthdays: Country singer Little Jimmy Dickens.
1933: Birthdays: Actor Cicely Tyson.
1934: Birthdays: Baseball Hall of Fame member Al Kaline.
1940: Birthdays: Folk singer Phil Ochs.
1941: Birthdays: South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
1944: Birthdays: British rock musician Alvin Lee; Actor Tim Reid.
1946: Birthdays: Actor Robert Urich.
1958: The U.S. satellite Atlas transmitted the first radio voice broadcast from space, a 58-word recorded Christmas greeting from U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower.
1963: Birthdays: Actor Jennifer Beals.
1966: Birthdays: Actor Robert MacNaughton.
1972: Apollo 17 returned to Earth. The splashdown of Apollo 17 ended the United States’ manned moon exploration program. Birthdays: Actor Alyssa Milano.
1984: The United States formally withdrew from UNESCO to force reform of the U.N. cultural organization’s budget and alleged Third World bias. The prime ministers of Britain and China signed an accord, returning Hong Kong to China in 1997.
1991: The Bank of Credit and Commerce International agreed to plead guilty to federal racketeering charges, forfeiting $550 million.
1998: U.S. President Bill Clinton became the second U.S. president to be impeached when the House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment, charging him with perjury and obstruction of justice. He was acquitted in the subsequent trial.
2002: South Korea elected Roh Moo-hyun as its president.
2003: Libya announced it would abandon efforts to develop nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
2004: At least 60 people were killed in Iraq by car bombings in the Shiite Muslim holy cities of Karbala and Najaf.
2005: A Shiite Muslim coalition showed a strong overall lead in preliminary returns from Iraq’s parliamentary election.
2006: U.S. President George W. Bush said he would increase the number of Americans in the military to deal with terrorism worldwide. Bush acknowledged that U.S. military forces were stretched too thin. A Libyan court sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a doctor to death for deliberately infecting 426 children with HIV.
2007: U.S. President George W. Bush signed energy legislation that increased average vehicle’s fuel economy by 2020 to 35 miles per gallon, a 40 percent hike. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said states cannot set their own emission standards. Seventeen states, including California, sought tougher restrictions. Conservative Lee Myung-bak won the South Korea presidential election.
2008: U.S. President George W. Bush announced he would lend General Motors and Chrysler $17.4 billion to help the automakers survive the next three months. A landmark $200 billion program intended to support consumer credit will allow hedge funds to borrow from the Federal Reserve for the first time. Deaths: Mark Felt, an FBI official who became known as The Washington Post journalists’ shadowy source Deep Throat in the Watergate scandal, died at the age of 95.
2009: Irish Catholic Bishop Donald Murray resigned after bring criticized in a report that accused the church of covering up priests’ alleged sexual abuse of Dublin children.
2011: An oil drilling rig being towed in a storm with 67 aboard sank in the Pacific Ocean off the Russian east coast north of Japan. Officials estimated 50 people were dead or missing. Deaths: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il died at age 69. Kim, son of the founder of the communist country, had been in power since 1994. He was succeeded by his son Kim Jong Un.
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“There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses.” – George Bernard Shaw
“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)
“Homosexuality is God’s way of insuring that the truly gifted aren’t burdened with children.” – Sam Austin
“Instead of getting married again, I’m going to find a woman I don’t like and give her a house.” – Lewis Grizzard
“My stories run up and bite me in the leg — I respond by writing them down — everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.” – Ray Bradbury, science-fiction writer (b. 1920)
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (1906-1982) Soviet leader:
“God will not forgive us if we fail.”
“One sits the whole day at the desk and appetite is standing next to me. “Away with you,” I say. But Comrade Appetite does not budge from the spot.”
“The trouble with free elections is, you never know who is going to win.”
xerophyte
PRONUNCIATION: (ZEER-uh-fyt)
http://wordsmith.org/words/xerophyte.mp3
MEANING: (noun), A plant adapted to growing in a very dry or desert environment.
ETYMOLOGY: From Greek xero- (dry) + phyton (plant). Earliest documented use: 1897.
USAGE: “Saavik’s bemused comment when Captain Howe, her former first officer, had sent her a ‘get well cactus’ was that on Vulcan it was a superfluous xerophyte.” – Keith R.A. DeCandido; Star Trek: Tales of the Dominion War; Simon & Schuster; 2004.
Explore “xerophyte” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=xerophyte
cataract
PRONUNCIATION: (KAT-uh-rakt)
MEANING: (noun)
1. A large or high waterfall.
2. A great downpour; a deluge.
3. Opacity of the lens or capsule of the eye, causing impairment of vision or blindness.
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English cataracte, from Old French, from Latin cataracta, from Greek katarraktes, kataraktes, probably from katarassein, to dash down : kat-, kata-, cata- + arassein, to strike.
USAGE: “Determined to press on through the sudden afternoon cataract, Jeff finished the long distance race well ahead of his competitors but had a nasty cold to show for his efforts.”
prognathous
PRONUNCIATION: (PROG-nuh-thuhs, prog-NAY-thuhs)
http://wordsmith.org/words/prognathous.mp3
MEANING: (adjective)
1. Protruding outwards.
2. Having a jaw that protrudes outwards.
ETYMOLOGY: From Greek pro- (before) + gnathos (jaw). Ultimately from the Indo-European root genu- (jawbone, chin), which is also the source of chin and Sanskrithanu (jaw). Hanuman (literally, having a large jaw) was the name of a monkey god in Hindu mythology. Earliest documented use: 1836.
USAGE: “Nature had given Smith an enormous prognathous jaw. It was wide and heavy,and protruded outward and down until it seemed to rest on his chest.” – Jack London; White Fang; Macmillan; 1906.
Explore “prognathous” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=prognathous