Today in History (February 2nd):
Groundhog Day
1653: The city of New Amsterdam was incorporated. It later was renamed New York City.
1754: Birthdays: French statesman Charles de Talleyrand.
1848: The war between the United States and Mexico formally ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It provided for Mexico’s cession to the U.S. of the territory that became the states of New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and parts of Colorado and Wyoming in exchange for $15 million.
1859: Birthdays: Psychologist Havelock Ellis.
1876: The National Baseball League was formed, with teams in Boston; Chicago; Cincinnati; New York; Philadelphia; St. Louis; Louisville, Ky.; and Hartford, Conn.
1882: Birthdays: Irish novelist James Joyce.
1887: Groundhog Day was celebrated for the first time when first observed in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.
1890: Birthdays: Charles Correll, Andy of radio’s Amos and Andy program.
1895: Birthdays: National Football League co-founder George Halas.
1897: Birthdays: Hotel magnate Howard Johnson.
1901: Birthdays: Lithuanian violinist Jascha Heifetz.
1905: Birthdays: Novelist Ayn Rand.
1923: Birthdays: Columnist Liz Smith.
1925: Birthdays: Actor Elaine Stritch.
1927: Birthdays: Musician Stan Getz.
1933: Two days after becoming chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler ordered dissolution of the German Parliament.
1937: Birthdays: Comedian Tom Smothers.
1942: Birthdays: Singer Graham Nash.
1947: Birthdays: Actor Farrah Fawcett.
1949: Birthdays: Actor Brent Spiner.
1954: Birthdays: Model Christie Brinkley.
1962: Birthdays: Actor Michael T. Weiss.
1963: Birthdays: Singer Eva Cassidy.
1977: Birthdays: Singer Shakira.
1990: South African President F.W. de Klerk announced he would free Nelson Mandela and lift a 30-year ban on the African National Congress. Mandela was released nine days later.
1993: More than 7,500 United Mine Workers miners went on strike against the Peabody Coal Co., the nation’s largest coal producer. First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton banned smoking in the White House.
1998: U.S. President Bill Clinton submitted the first balanced federal budget in 29 years.
2002: A report requested by the board of directors of the Enron Corp. accused top executives of forcing the company into bankruptcy by, among other things, inflating profits by almost $1 billion.
2003: Vaclav Havel, the playwright who became a president, stepped down after his second five-year term as head of the Czech Republic.
2004: Roger Federer took over the No. 1 ranking in men’s tennis. He held the position for a record 237 weeks.
2005: In a wide-ranging State of the Union address, U.S. President George Bush said that U.S. troops would remain in Iraq until Iraqis can provide their own security.
2007: Hundreds of scientists taking part in a U.N.-sponsored study concluded in a report that human activity was to blame for climate change, largely through greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels.
2008: A reported 2,000 rebels stormed Chad’s capital city of N’Djamena in an unsuccessful attempt to oust President Idriss Deby. A cease-fire went into effect two days later with an estimated toll of 400 civilians dead.
2010: U.S. President Barack Obama introduced a $30 billion loan program that would use bank bailout money to help small businesses get loans.
2011: The death toll rose rapidly in clashes between pro- and anti-government demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and elsewhere in Egypt as huge crowds of protesters fought to oust President Hosni Mubarak. The U.S. Senate voted along party lines to reject a Republican-sponsored bill to repeal the healthcare reform law enacted in 2010.
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Quotes
“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.” – Robert Frost
“Few things are more satisfying than seeing your children have teenagers of their own.” – Doug Larson, columnist (b. 1926)
James Joyce (1882-1941) Irish Novelist:
“A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.”
“A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.”
“All things are inconstant except the faith in the soul, which changes all things and fills their inconstancy with light, but though I seem to be driven out of my country as a misbeliever I have found no man yet with a faith like mine.”
“And then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will yes.”
“Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.”
“Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honored by posterity because he was the last to discover America.”
“Come forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job.”
“I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.”
“I want to work with the top people, because only they have the courage and the confidence and the risk-seeking profile that you need.”
“Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.”
“Love (understood as the desire of good for another) is in fact so unnatural a phenomenon that it can scarcely repeat itself, the soul being unable to become virgin again and not having energy enough to cast itself out again into the ocean of another’s soul.”
pastiche
PRONUNCIATION: (pas-TEESH; pahs-)
MEANING: (noun)
1. A work of art that imitates the style of some previous work.
2. A musical, literary, or artistic composition consisting of selections from various works.
3. A hodgepodge; an incongruous combination of different styles and ingredients.
ETYMOLOGY: Pastiche comes from Italian pasticcio, “a paste,” hence “a hodgepodge, literary or musical,” ultimately from Latin pasta, “paste.”
USAGE: “Johnson’s work was a pastiche of dozens of styles and from the recent past and antiquity, put together in such a way to suggest something totally new and original.”
gradgrind
PRONUNCIATION: (GRAD-grynd)
http://wordsmith.org/words/gradgrind.mp3
MEANING: (noun), Someone who is solely interested in cold, hard facts.
ETYMOLOGY: After Thomas Gradgrind, the utilitarian mill-owner in Charles Dickens’s novel Hard Times. Gradgrind runs a school with the idea that hard facts and rules are more important than love, emotions, and feelings. Earliest documented use: 1855.
USAGE: “In truth, Colleen McCullough is very much a Gradgrind when it comes to facts: They are all that is needful, presented, it must be said, without color or animation to detract from their merit.” – Katherine A. Powers; Ancient Evenings; The Washington Post; Dec 15, 2002.
Explore “gradgrind” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=gradgrind