Today is November 13th. That means it is the International Day of Kindness.


2003: Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who had refused to remove a granite Ten Commandments monument from the state courthouse, was thrown off the bench by a judicial ethics panel for having "placed himself above the law."

2001: In the first such act since World War II, U.S. President George W. Bush signed an executive order allowing military tribunals against any foreigners suspected of having connections to terrorist acts or planned acts on the United States.

2001: Afghanistan's ruling Taliban relinquished the capital of Kabul without a fight, allowing the U.S.-backed northern alliance to take over the city.

1997: The Disney musical "The Lion King" opened on Broadway.

1990: The first known World Wide Web page was written.

1987: The first condom commercial was broadcast on BBC TV.

1985: Colombia's volcano Nevado del Ruiz, dormant since 1845, erupted and killed more than 22,000 people.

1982: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C.

1974: Nuclear activist Karen Silkwood's car was forced off the road while she was traveling to an interview with New York Times reporter David Burnham. Her files were missing from the car wreck. An FBI investigation later concluded it was an accident, but is not generally believed to have been impartial.

1956: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional.

1954: Great Britain defeated France to capture the first ever Rugby League World Cup in Paris in front of around 30,000 spectators.

1942: The minimum U.S. draft age was lowered to 18 from 21.

1940: "Fantasia," the Walt Disney animated movie, premiered in New York.

1913: Mary Phelps Jacob patented the first modern elastic brassiere.

1875: The National Bowling Association organized in NYC.

1851: Telegraph service between London and Paris started operations.

1843: Mt. Rainier in Washington State erupted.

1789: Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter to a friend, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

1775: U.S. forces under General Richard Montgomery captured Montreal in the American Revolution.

Births:
0354: Saint Augustine [Aurelius Augustinus, Augustine of Hippo] (Christian theologian/philosopher)

1312: Edward III (King of England/father of Edward the Black Prince and John of Gaunt)

1850: Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish novelist/poet/travel writer) [Treasure Island, Kidnapped, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, A Child's Garden of Verses]

1955: Whoopi Goldberg [Caryn Elaine Johnson] (American actress) [The Color Purple, Ghost, Sister Act, Star Trek: The Next Generation]

Deaths:
1093: Malcolm III (King of Scotland)

1952: Margaret Wise Brown (American children's author) [Goodnight, Moon; The Runaway Bunny]

1974: Karen Silkwood (American union activist)


Word of the day: perfervid \puhr-FUR-vid\
Etymology: From Latin per-, "through, thoroughly" + fervidus, "boiling," from fervere, "to boil."
(adjective)
1. Ardent; impassioned; marked by exaggerated or overwrought emotion.

Mistfox - who thinks the 's fan can get rather perfervid sometimes

Today is November 14th. That means Guinea-Bissau observes Re-Adjustment Movement's Day and India observes Children's Day.


2002: Nancy Pelosi of California was elected to succeed Richard Gephardt, who chose to step down, as leader of the Democratic Party in the U.S. House of Representatives. She was the first woman to be named leader of either party in either house of Congress.

1995: A budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress forced the federal government to temporarily close national parks and museums, and run most government offices with skeleton staffs.

1991: Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk returned to Phnom Penh after thirteen years of exile.

1987: "La Cage aux Folles" closed at the Palace Theater, in New York City, after 1761 performances.

1969: Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the moon, was launched, with astronauts Charles Conrad, Jr., Richard F. Gordon, Jr., and Alan L. Bean aboard.

1968: Yale University announced that it would become co-ed.

1960: OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) was formed.

1960: Ray Charles' "Georgia On My Mind" reached #1.

1943: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and all of America's top military brass, narrowly escaped disaster aboard the U.S. battleship Iowa, when a live torpedo was accidentally fired at them from the U.S. destroyer William D. Porter.

1940: German Luftwaffe bombers virtually destroyed the industrial town of Coventry, England.

1935: President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed the Philippines a free commonwealth.

1922: The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) began its first radio broadcasts.

1918: Czechoslovakia became a republic.

1908: Albert Einstein presented the quantum theory of light.

1889: Newspaper reporter Nellie Bly set off to attempt to break Jules Verne's imaginary hero Phileas Fogg's record of voyaging around the world in 80 days. She beat the record, needing just over 72 days for the trip.

1851: Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick was published in the U.S. by Harper & Brothers, New York, after Richard Bentley, London, first published it on October 18.

1832: The first streetcar -- a horse-drawn vehicle called the John Mason -- went into operation in New York City.

1732: The Library Company of Philadelphia, founded by Benjamin Franklin, signed a contract with its first librarian. The Library Company served as the de facto Library of Congress until 1800.

1666: Dr. Croone in England performed the first blood transfusion.

1501: Arthur Tudor of England married Katherine of Aragon.

Births:
1650: William III (King of England)

1840: Claude Monet (French Impressionist artist)

1889: Jawaharlal Nehru (India prime minister)

1896: Mamie Eisenhower (First Lady of U.S.)

1900: Aaron Copeland (American composer) [Fanfare for the Common Man, Billy the Kid, Rodeo]

1935: Hussein [Hussein bin Talal] (King of Jordan)

1948: Charles [Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor] (Prince of Wales)

1954: Condoleezza Rice (U.S. Secretary of State)

Deaths:
1716: Gottfried Leibniz (German philosopher/scientist/mathematician/diplomat/librarian/lawyer) Leibniz is generally, with Newton, jointly credited for the development of modern calculus.

1915: Booker T. Washington (African-American scientist/educator/reformer)


Word of the day: maven \MEY-vuhn\
Etymology: From Yiddish meyvn, from Hebrew mebîn, active participle of hebîn, to understand, derived stem of bîn, to discern.
(noun)
1. An expert or connoisseur.

Mistfox - who doesn't know if she could be considered a maven of anything (in the expert sense)

Today is November 15th. That means Brazil observes Republic Day, Japan observes Shichi-Go-San, and Belgium observes Dynasty Day.


2004: New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey left office, three months after resigning due to a gay extra-marital affair. State Senator Richard Codey took over as interim governor.

2005: Baseball players and owners agreed on a tougher steroids-testing policy.

2002: Hu Jintao replaced Jiang Zemin as China's Communist Party leader.

1997: The all-female English pop group the Spice Girls released the album Spiceworld.

1988: The Palestine National Council, the legislative body of the PLO, proclaimed the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

1969: Wendy's Hamburgers opened.

1969: A quarter of a million anti-Vietnam War demonstrators staged a peaceful march in Washington, D.C.

1968: RMS Queen Elizabeth, in its day the largest ocean liner ever built, retired from service.

1956: The first film starring Elvis Presley (Love Me Tender) opened.

1948: Louis Stephen St. Laurent succeeded William Lyon Mackenzie King as Prime Minister of Canada. King had the longest combined time (3 terms, 22 years in total) as Premier in British Commonwealth history.

1940: The first 75,000 men were called to armed forces duty in the United States under peacetime conscription.

1939: Social Security Administration approved the first unemployment check.

1926: National Broadcasting Company (NBC) debuted its 24-station radio network.

1889: Brazil was declared a republic by Marechal Deodoro da Fonseca and Emperor Pedro II was deposed in a military coup.

1881: The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was founded.

1837: Isaac Pitman's system of shorthand was published, under the title "Stenographic Sound-Hand."

1777: The Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation, a precursor to the Constitution of the United States of America, after 16 months of debate.

1763: Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon began surveying the Mason-Dixon Line between Pennsylvania and Maryland.

1492: Christopher Columbus noted the first recorded reference to tobacco.

Births:
1887: Georgia O'Keeffe (American artist)

1891: Erwin Rommel [The Desert Fox] (German field marshal)

Deaths:
1630: Johannes Kepler (German astrologer/astronomer/mathematician)

1958: Tyrone Power (American actor) [Witness for the Prosecution, The Black Swan, The Mark of Zorro]

1978: Margaret Mead (American anthropologist/author) [Coming of Age in Samoa]

1998: Kwame Ture [Stokely Carmichael] (American civil rights activist)


Word of the day: hector \HEK-tur\
Etymology: Derives from Greek Hektor, in Greek mythology the chief Trojan warrior and the eldest son of Priam, King of Troy.
(noun)
1. A bully.
(transitive verb)
2. To intimidate or harass in a blustering way; to bully.
(intransitive verb)
3. To play the bully; to bluster.

Mistfox - who is a bit of a zombie because she couldn't get to sleep last night

Today is November 16th. That means Oklahoma observes Admission Day, and it is the United Nations International Day for Tolerance.


2004: President George W. Bush picked National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to be his new secretary of state, succeeding Colin Powell.

2001: The first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was released, becoming the second highest grossing film around the world of all time.

1993: The Russian authorities closed Vladimir Lenin’s mausoleum.

1988: Benazir Bhutto, daughter of former leader Zulfikar Bhutto, was elected prime minister and first female head of state of Pakistan.

1977: Close Encounters of the Third Kind opened in theaters.

1973: Skylab 3, carrying three astronauts, launched from Cape Canaveral for an 84-day mission.

1973: U.S. President Richard Nixon signed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline.

1969: Lieutenant William Calley, Jr., faced a court martial for directing his platoon in the massacre of at least 400 unarmed peasants in the Vietnamese village of My Lai.

1966: Dr. Samuel H. Sheppard was acquitted in his second trial on charges of murdering his pregnant wife, Marilyn, in 1954.

1963: The touch-tone telephone was introduced.

1959: Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The Sound of Music" opened on Broadway.

1955: Johnny Cash made his first chart appearance with "Cry Cry Cry"

1933: The United States and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations. President Roosevelt sent a telegram to Soviet leader Maxim Litvinov, expressing hope that United States-Soviet relations would ``forever remain normal and friendly.''

1920: Metered mail was born in Stamford, Connecticut with the first Pitney-Bowes postage meter.

1920: The Russian Civil War ended; the Bolsheviks were victorious.

1907: Oklahoma became the 46th state of the Union.

1864: Union General William Sherman and his troops began their March to the Sea during the Civil War.

1824: Australian explorer Hamilton Hume discovered the Murray River, the longest river in Australia.

1676: The first U.S. prison was established, on Nantucket Island.

1532: The Incan empire fell to Spain when Francisco Pizarro and his men captured Inca Emperor Atahualpa.

1384: Hedwig was crowned King of Poland, although she was a woman.

0534: A second and final revision of the Codex Justinianus (a fundamental work in jurisprudence) was published.

Births:
42 BCE: Tiberius (Roman emperor)

1836: David Kalakaua of Hawaii (Last king of the Kingdom of Hawaii)

1977: Oksana Baiul (Ukrainian-American figure skater)

Deaths:
1272: Henry III (King of England)

1960: Clark Gable (American film actor) [It Happened One Night, Gone With the Wind, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Misfits]

2006: Milton Friedman (American economist)



Word of the day: evocative \i-VOK-uh-tiv, i-VOH-kuh-\
Etymology: From the Latin evocationem (nom. evocatio), from evocare "call out, rouse, summon," from ex- "out" + vocare "to call". Evoke is often more or less with a sense of "calling spirits," or being called by them.
(adjective)
1. Tending to call up or produce (memories, feelings, etc.)

Mistfox - who is really sore from aqua aerobics yesterday

Today is November 17th. That means it is International Students' Day.


2004: In a surprise move, Kmart acquired Sears for $11 billion.

2003: John Allen Muhammad was convicted of two counts of capital murder in the Washington-area sniper shootings. (He was later sentenced to death.)

2003: Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was sworn in as the 38th governor of California.

1979: Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini ordered the release of 13 female and minority hostages being held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis.

1970: Douglas Engelbart received the patent for the first computer mouse.

1968: NBC outraged football fans by cutting away from the final minutes of a game to air a TV special, "Heidi," on schedule. Viewers were deprived of seeing the Oakland Raiders come from behind to beat the New York Jets 43-32.

1962: President John F. Kennedy dedicated Washington’s Dulles International Airport.

1931: Charles Lindbergh inaugurated Pan Am service from Cuba to South America in the Sikorsky flying boat American Clipper.

1922: Kemal Atatürk deposed the last sultan of Turkey.

1913: The first ship sailed through the Panama Canal.

1871: The National Rifle Association was granted a charter by the state of New York.

1869: The Suez Canal, which had taken 10 years to build, opened to navigation. It stretched 101 miles across the Isthmus of Suez.

1839: Giuseppe Verdi's first opera, Oberto opened in Milan.

1820: Captain Nathaniel Palmer became the first American to see Antarctica (the Palmer Peninsula was later named after him).

1800: The U.S. Congress convened for the first time in Washington, D.C., in the partially completed Capitol building. It was the second session of the Sixth Congress.

1603: English explorer, writer and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh went on trial for treason.

1558: Elizabeth I ascended the English throne upon the death of Queen Mary I at 42, thus beginning the Elizabethan Age.

1534: The Act of Supremacy, which declared King Henry VIII as head of the Church of England, was passed by Parliament.

Births:
1790: August Moebius (German astronomer/mathematician/teacher/author)

1799: Titian Peale (American artist/naturalist.)

1925: Rock Hudson [Roy Scherer] (American actor) [Pillow Talk, Seconds, McMillan and Wife]

1938: Gordon Lightfoot (Canadian folk singer/composer/lyricist) ["Sundown", "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", "If You Could Read My Mind"]

Deaths:
1558: Mary I (Queen of England)

1917: Auguste Rodin (French sculptor)

2002: Abba Eban (Israeli statesman/foreign minister)


Word of the day: restive \RES-tiv\
Etymology: From Medieval French restif, from rester, "to remain," ultimately from Latin restare, "to stand back, to remain behind," from re-, "back" + stare, "to stand."
(adjective)
1. Impatient under restriction, delay, coercion, or opposition; resisting control.
2. Unwilling to go on; obstinate in refusing to move forward; stubborn.


Mistfox - who can be restive at times

Today is November 18th. That means that Haiti observes Army Day, Latvia observes Independence Day, Morocco observes Independence Day, and Oman observes a National Holiday.


2004: Britain outlawed fox hunting with hounds in England and Wales.

2003: The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled 4-3 that the state constitution guaranteed gay couples the right to marry.

2001: Phillips Petroleum Co. and Conoco Inc. announced they were merging in a deal that created the third-largest U.S. oil and gas company.

1991: The Shi'ite Muslim faction Islamic Jihad freed Church of England envoy Terry Waite and U.S. university professor Thomas Sutherland.

1985: Calvin and Hobbes, a comic strip by Bill Watterson, was first published.

1978: Members of the Peoples Temple killed California Congressman Leo Ryan and four other people in Jonestown, Guyana. They had gone there to investigate the religious sect of Jim Jones, a U.S. pastor. The next night there was mass murder and suicide by 912 cult members.

1976: Spain's parliament approved a bill to establish a democracy after 37 years of dictatorship.

1971: The hard rock band Led Zeppelin released an untitled album, often dubbed "Led Zeppelin IV," featuring "Rock & Roll," "Stairway to Heaven" and other classic songs.

1966: U.S. Roman Catholic bishops did away with the rule against eating meat on Fridays.

1959: William Wyler's film Ben-Hur premiered at Loew's Theater in New York City.

1929: Off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean, a Richter magnitude 7.2 submarine earthquake centered on Grand Banks, broke 12 submarine transatlantic telegraph cables and triggered a tsunami that destroyed many south coast communities in the Burin Peninsula area.

1928: The first animated talking picture, "Steamboat Willie," starring Mickey Mouse, was screened in the U.S.. This is also considered Mickey Mouse's birthday.

1926: George Bernard Shaw refused to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, "I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize."

1918: Latvia declared its independence from Russia.

1905: Prince Carl of Denmark became King Haakon VII of Norway.

1894: The first newspaper Sunday color comic section was published in the N.Y. World.

1883: The United States and Canada adopted the 4-zone Standard Time system.

1865: Mark Twain's story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was published in the New York Saturday Press.

1626: St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome was consecrated.

1477: William Caxton set "Dictes and Sayenges of the Phylosophers," the first book to be printed in England. Caxton went on to print almost 100 books in England, including the "Canterbury Tales."

1307: According to legend, William Tell shot an apple off his son's head.

Births:
0009: Vespasian (Roman Emperor)

1786: Carl Maria von Weber (German composer/conductor/pianist/guitarist/critic)

1789: Louis Daguerre (French theater scene painter/physicist/inventor of daguerreotype photography)

1836: Sir William Gilbert (British comic opera libretto writer) [H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance]

Deaths:
1886: Chester Alan Arthur (President of the U.S.A.)

1922: [Valentin Louis Georges Eugène] Marcel Proust (French novelist/essayist/critic) [Remembrance of Things Past]

1978: Leo Ryan (U.S. congressman)

1994: Cab [Cabell] Calloway (American band leader/singer/actor) [Porgy and Bess, The Cincinnati Kid, The Blues Brothers]


Word of the day: sybaritic \sib-uh-RIT-ik\
Etymology: From Latin Sybariticus from Greek Sybaritikós, equivalent to Sybart(és) Sybarite + -ikos -ic. Sybaris was an ancient Greek town in southern Italy, whose inhabitants were noted for their love of luxury.
(adjective)
1. (Usually lowercase) pertaining to or characteristic of a sybarite; characterized by or loving luxury or sensuous pleasure: to wallow in sybaritic splendor.
2. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Sybaris or its inhabitants.


Mistfox - who can also be sybaritic at times

Today is November 19th. That means that Monaco observes National Day, Burma observes Tazaungdaing, Belize observes Garifuna Day, and Puerto Rico observes Discovery Day.


2006: British authorities said they were investigating the apparent poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent who had been critical of the Russian government. (Litvinenko died in London four days later of polonium poisoning.)

2001: Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants became the first baseball player to win four Most Valuable Player awards.

1997: In Carlisle, Iowa, Bobbi McCaughey gave birth to septuplets in the second known case where all seven babies were born alive.

1996: A fire broke out in the Channel Tunnel, injuring 34 people and interrupting rail service.

1990: The pop duo Milli Vanilli was stripped of its Grammy Award because other singers sung the songs on their "Girl You Know It's True" album.

1977: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel when he met with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement. (Much of the Arab world was outraged by the visit).

1969: U.S. astronauts Charles Conrad, Jr. and Alan Bean became the third and fourth humans to walk on the surface of the Moon after their landing module, Intrepid, touched down as part of the Apollo 12 mission.

1965: Kellogg's Pop Tarts pastries were created.

1954: The first automatic toll collection machine went into effect at the Union Toll Plaza on New Jersey's Garden State Parkway.

1949: Monaco held a coronation for its new ruler, Prince Rainier III, the 30th monarch of Monaco.

1946: Afghanistan, Iceland and Sweden joined the United Nations.

1939: The first presidential library, that of Franklin D. Roosevelt, had its cornerstone laid at Hyde Park, New York.

1928: The first issue of Time magazine was published with Japanese Emperor Hirohito on the cover.

1916: Samuel Goldfish (later renamed Samuel Goldwyn) and Edgar Selwyn established Goldwyn Company. (The company later became one of the most successful independent filmmakers.)

1863: President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address and dedicated a Civil War battlefield cemetery in Pennsylvania.

1861: Julia Ward Howe wrote "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" while visiting Union troops near Washington.

1620: The Mayflower arrived off the coast of Cape Cod.

1493: Christopher Columbus discovered Puerto Rico on his second voyage to the New World.

Births:
1600: Charles I (King of England and Scotland)

1797: Sojourner Truth (American abolitionist/women's rights advocate)

1831: James Garfield (President of the U.S.A.)

1917: Indira Gandhi [Nehru] (Prime Minister of India)

1933: Larry King [Lawrence Harvey Zeiger] (American TV, radio host/columnist)

1938: Ted [Robert Edward] Turner (American cable TV mogul/philanthropist) [CNN, Turner Classic Movies]

1942: Calvin [Richard] Klein (American clothing designer)

1961: Meg Ryan [Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra] (American actress) [When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle , You've Got Mail, Kate and Leopold]

1962: Jodie [Alicia Christian] Foster (American actress/director) [Taxi Driver, The Silence of the Lambs, Anna and the King]

Deaths:
1798: [Theobald] Wolfe Tone (Irish patriot)

1828: Franz Schubert (Austrian composer)



Word of the day: perspicacious \pur-spi-KEY-shuhs\
Etymology: From Latin perspicax, perspicac-, from perspicere, to look through.
(adjective)
1. Having keen mental perception and understanding; discerning: to exhibit perspicacious judgment.
2. Archaic. Having keen vision.


Mistfox - who isn't always perspicacious and didn't realize she could have just pointed you all to last year's entry

Today is November 20th. That means that Mexico observes the Revolution Anniversary, Brazil observes Zumbi Day, and the United Nations observes Universal Children's Day.


2001: Federal health officials approved sale of the world's first contraceptive patch, Ortho-Evra.

2000: Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori resigned, ending a 10-year reign.

1984: McDonald's made its 50 billionth hamburger.

1974: The United States Department of Justice filed its final anti-trust suit against AT&T. This suit later led to the break up of AT&T and its Bell System.

1969: The Nixon administration announced a halt to residential use of the pesticide DDT.

1969: Militant Native Americans seized Alcatraz Island off San Francisco.

1966: The musical "Cabaret," with music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, opened on Broadway.

1959: The U.N. adopted the Universal Declaration of Children's Rights

1947: Britain's future queen, Princess Elizabeth II, married Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh, in a ceremony broadcast worldwide from Westminster Abbey.

1945: The Nuremberg Trials began for 24 top Nazis accused of war crimes and atrocities.

1923: Garrett Morgan invented and patented the traffic signal.

1919: The first municipally owned airport in the U.S. opened in Tucson, Arizona.

1910: Francisco I. Madero denounced President Porfirio Diaz, declared himself president, and called for a revolution to overthrow the government of Mexico.

1866: Howard University, the first university for African-American students, was founded in Washington, D.C. as the Howard Theological Seminary.

1820: An 80-ton sperm whale attacked the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick was in part inspired by this story). It was the first American vessel sunk by a whale.

1818: Simón Bolívar, declared Venezuela independent of Spain.

1789: New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights, approving 10 of the 12 amendments.

1616: Bishop Richelieu became the French minister of Foreign affairs/War.

1272: Following Henry III of England's death on November 16, his son Prince Edward became King of England.

Births:
1914: [Marchese Di Barsento] Emilio Pucci (Italian fashion designer)

1925: Robert F. Kennedy (American senator/attorney general/presidential candidate)

1946: Duane Allman (American guitarist) [Allman Brothers Band]

Deaths:
1910: Leo Tolstoy (Russian novelist) [War and Peace, Anna Karenina]

1975: Francisco Franco (Spanish general/dictator)

2006: Robert Altman (American director) [Gosford Park; Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean; Nashville; M*A*S*H]



Word of the day: flout \FLOWT\
Etymology: From Middle English flouten, "to play the flute," compared with Middle Dutch fluyten "to play the flute," also "to jeer".
(transitive verb)
1. To treat with contempt and disregard; to show contempt for.
2. To mock, to scoff.
3. Mockery, scoffing.

Mistfox - who could start linking to last year’s pages, but won’t until the new year when I’ll stop repeating stuff

That gave me my first giggle of the day, remembering Chevy Chase on the first season of Saturday Night Live leading off the Weekend Update with, "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead."

Today is November 21st. That means that North Carolina observes Ratification Day and it's World Television Day.


2005: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon broke away from the hard-line Likud with the intention of forming a new party.

2004: Donald Trump's casino empire filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

2002: NATO invited the seven former communist countries into its membership.

2001: Ottilie Lundgren, a 94-year-old resident of Oxford, Conn., died of inhalation anthrax. The source of the anthrax has never been determined.

1995: Toy Story was released as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery.

1989: The proceedings of Britain's House of Commons were televised live for the first time.

1980: Approximately 83 million people tuned in to find out "who shot J.R." on the TV show "Dallas."

1969: The first ARPANET link was established.

1942: The Alcan Highway, an overland military supply route to the U.S. territory of Alaska, linking Canada and Alaska, was opened. It is now called the Alaska Highway. Passing through the Yukon, the more than 1,500-mile roadway connected Dawson Creek, British Columbia with Fairbanks, Alaska

1941: The radio program King Biscuit Time was broadcast for the first time (it would later become the longest running daily radio broadcast in history and the most famous live blues radio program).

1922: Rebecca L. Felton of Georgia was sworn in as the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.

1877: Thomas Edison announced his invention of the phonograph.

1789: North Carolina ratified the United States Constitution and was admitted as the 12th U.S. state.

1783: François de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandres made the first human flight in a hot-air balloon, in Paris, in a balloon built by the Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier.

Births:
1694: Voltaire [Francois-Marie Arouet] (French philosopher/historian/poet/dramatist/novelist) [Candide, Mahomet, Dictionnaire philosophique]

1898: Rene Magritte (Belgian surrealist painter)

Deaths:
1695: Henry Purcell (English composer) [Te Deum and Jubilate, The Indian Queen, Dido and Aeneas]

1945: Robert Benchley (American humorist/critic/parodist.) [How to Sleep, Of All Things, Chips Off the Old Benchley]


Word of the day: besot \bi-SOT\
Etymology: From be- + sot, to stupefy, from late Old English sott "stupid person, fool," from Old French sot, from Gallo-Romance *sott- , of uncertain origin, with cognates from Portugal to Germany.
(transitive verb)
1. To intoxicate or stupefy with drink.
2. To make stupid or foolish.
3. To infatuate; obsess

Mistfox - who is besotted with her dh

Today is November 22nd. That means that Lebanon observes National Day/Independence Day and the U.S. celebrates Thanksgiving Day.


2005: Angela Merkel took power as Germany's first female chancellor.

2003: England beat Australia to win England's first rugby union world cup.

2003: In Tbilisi, Georgia, opponents of President Eduard Shevardnadze seized the parliament building and demanded the president's resignation.

2002: In Nigeria, more than 100 people are killed at an attack aimed at the contestants of the Miss World contest.

1990: Margaret Thatcher, the first female prime minister in British history, resigned after 11 years.

1988: The B-2 stealth bomber was revealed to Congress and the media.

1986: The U.S. Justice Department found a memo in Lt. Col. Oliver North's office on the transfer of $12 million to Contras of Nicaragua from Iranian arms sale.

1977: Passenger service between New York and Europe on the supersonic Concorde began.

1975: Juan Carlos I was sworn in as King of Spain, two days after the death of General Francisco Franco.

1968: The Beatles released The White Album.

1967: The BBC unofficially banned "I Am the Walrus" by the Beatles.

1967: The U.N. Security Council approved Resolution 242, which called for Israel to withdraw from territories it captured in 1967, and implicitly called on adversaries to recognize Israel's right to exist.

1963: In Dallas, Texas, U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Texas Governor John B. Connally was seriously wounded, and U.S. Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn-in as the 36th President of the United States.

1955: RCA Victor paid $25,000 to Sun Records and Sam Philips for rights to Elvis Presley, a truck driver from Tupelo, Mississippi.

1946: Biro ballpoint pens went on sale, invented by Hungarian journalist László Biro.

1943: Lebanon gained independence from France.

1938: The first coelacanth, a prehistoric fish thought extinct, was caught off the South African coast.

1928: "Bolero" by Maurice Ravel, was first performed publicly in Paris.

1927: The first snowmobile patent was granted to Carl Eliason of Sayner, Wisconsin.

1917: In Montreal, Canada, the National Hockey Association broke up. (On November 26 it was replaced with the National Hockey League).

1906: The SOS distress signal was adopted at the International Radio Telegraphic Convention.

1847: Astor Place Opera House, New York City's first operatic theater, was opened.

1842: Mount St. Helens in Washington, erupted.

1718: Off the coast of Virginia, English pirate Edward Teach (best known as "Blackbeard") was killed in battle when a British boarding party cornered and then shot and stabbed him more than 25 times.

1497: Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope in his search for a route to India.

Births:
1819: George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] (English novelist) [Middlemarch]

1889: Wiley Post (American airman) He was the first to fly solo around the world (in 1933).

1890: Charles de Gaulle (French president )

1940: Terry Gilliam (American director/animator/actor) [Monty Python, Brazil, Jabberwocky, Time Bandits]

Deaths:
1718: Edward Teach [Blackbeard] (English pirate)

1916: Jack London [John Griffith Chaney] (American author) [John Barleycorn, The Cruise of the Snark, The Call of the Wild, White Fang]

1963: John F. Kennedy (President of the U.S.)

1963: C. S. Lewis (Irish author) [The Chronicles of Narnia, Perelandra, The Screwtape Letters]

1980: Mae [Mary Jane] West (American actress) [Diamond Lil, She Done Him Wrong, My Little Chickadee]


Word of the day: deipnosophist \dyp-NOS-uh-fist\
Etymology: From the title of a work written by the Greek Athenaeus in about 228 AD, Deipnosophistai, in which a number of wise men sit at a dinner table and discuss a wide range of topics. It is derived from deipnon, "dinner" + sophistas, "a clever or wise man."
(noun)
1. Someone who is skilled in table talk.

Mistfox - who is definitely not a deipnosophist

Today is November 23rd. That means that Japan observes Labour Thanksgiving Day or Kinrokansha no Hi.


2006: Former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko died in London from radiation poisoning after making a deathbed statement blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin.

2004: Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko declared himself the winner of Ukraine's disputed presidential election and took a symbolic oath of office.

2003: Berkeley Breathed began the comic strip, Opus.

2003: Beleaguered Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze resigned following weeks of mass protests over flawed elections.

2001: The United Nations war crimes tribunal said it would put former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on trial for genocide in Bosnia.

1984: Boston College Quarterback Doug Flutie threw a game winning 48-yard Hail Mary pass to Gerard Phelan to defeat The University of Miami Hurricanes 45-41. It is one of the most famous plays in college football.

1964: Vatican abolished Latin as the official language of the Roman Catholic liturgy.

1963: "Doctor Who," the long-running British sci-fi series, debuted in England.

1945: Wartime rationing of food, particularly meat and butter, ended in the U.S.

1921: U.S. President Warren Harding signed the Willis Campell Act, better known as the anti-beer bill. It forbid doctors to prescribe beer or liquor for medicinal purposes, which was a loophole in Prohibition.

1919: The first play-by-play football game radio broadcast took place during the Texas A&M - Texas game.

1903: Singer Enrico Caruso made his U.S. debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, in "Rigoletto."

1897: J. L. Love patented the pencil sharpener.

1890: King William III of the Netherlands died without a male heir and a special law was passed to allow his daughter Princess Wilhelmina to become Queen.

1889: The first jukebox was played, in San Francisco at the Palais Royale Saloon.

1869: In Dumbarton, Scotland the clipper Cutty Sark was launched (it was one of the last clippers to be built, and the only one still surviving). Last year I told what a cutty sark is.

1863: The Civil War's Battle of Chattanooga began. Union forces drove the Confederates away and set the stage for Union General William Sherman's triumphant March to the Sea.

1785: John Hancock was elected president of the Continental Congress for the second time.

1783: Annapolis, Maryland became the U.S. capital (until June 1784).

Births:
1804: Franklin Pierce (President of the U.S.A.)

1859: Billy the Kid [Henry McCart, William Bonney] (American outlaw)

1887: Boris Karloff [William Henry Pratt] (British actor) [Frankenstein, The Lost Patrol, How the Grinch Stole Christmas]

1892: Erte [Romain de Tirtoff, Roman Petrovich Tyrtov] (French artist/fashion and stage designer)

Deaths:
1902: Walter Reed (American Army surgeon)

1990: Roald Dahl (British author) [Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, Kiss Kiss, Boy – Tales of Childhood]

2006: Alexander Litvinenko (Former KGB spy)


Word of the day: borborygmus \bawr-buh-RIG-muhs\
plural borborygmi \bawr-buh-RIG-mahy\
Etymology: From New Latin, from Greek borborugmos, of imitative origin.
(noun)
1. A rumbling or gurgling sound caused by the movement of gas in the intestines.

Mistfox - who had borborygmus before dinner yesterday

Today is November 24th. That means that the Democratic Republic of Congo observes National Day.


2003: A jury in Virginia Beach, Virginia, sentenced John Allen Muhammad to death for the series of Washington-area sniper shootings.

1996: Rusty Wallace won the Suzuka NASCAR Thunder 100 racing event at Suzuka Circuitland in Suzuka City (this was the first NASCAR competition held in Japan).

1993: The U.S. Congress passed the Brady handgun-control bill.

1993: In the United Kingdom, 11-year olds Robert Thompson and Jon Venables were convicted of the child murder of 2-year-old James Bulger of Liverpool (they were sentenced to "indefinite detention").

1979: The United States government admitted that thousands of troops in Vietnam were exposed to the toxic Agent Orange.

1977: Greece announced the discovery of the tomb of King Philip II, father of Alexander the Great.

1971: Hijacker D.B. Cooper parachuted from a Northwest Airlines 727 over Washington state with $200,000 in ransom. He was never found.

1969: Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the Moon, successfully returned to Earth.

1963: Jack Ruby shot and mortally wounded Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, in the Dallas police station in a scene captured on live television.

1951: The Broadway play “Gigi” opened starring little known actress Audrey Hepburn playing the lead character (the play ran for six months and led to Hepburn's film debut in Roman Holiday).

1950: The musical "Guys and Dolls," based on the writings of Damon Runyon and featuring songs by Frank Loesser, opened on Broadway.

1947: A group of writers, producers, and directors that became known as the "Hollywood Ten" was cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions about alleged Communist influence in the movie industry.

1932: In Washington, DC, the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opened.

1922: Popular author and Irish Republican Army member Robert Erskine Childers was executed by an Irish Free State firing squad for illegally carrying a revolver.

1904: The first successful caterpillar track was made (it would later revolutionize construction vehicles and land warfare).

1859: British naturalist Charles Darwin published "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection" which explained his groundbreaking theory of evolution.

1642: Dutch navigator Abel Tasman discovered Van Diemen's Land which he named after his captain; later it was renamed Tasmania.

380: Theodosius I made his adventus, or formal entry, into Constantinople.

Births:
1784: Zachary Taylor (President of the U.S.A.).

1864: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French painter)

1868: Scott Joplin (American ragtime music composer/pianist)

1946: Ted Bundy (American serial killer)

Deaths:
1922: Robert Erskine Childers (Irish nationalist/author) [The Form and Purpose of Home Rule, The Riddle of the Sands, War and the Arme Blanche]

1963: Lee Harvey Oswald (American accused assassin)

1991: Freddie Mercury [Farrokh Pluto Bulsara, Frederick Bulsara] (English rock singer/songwriter) [ Queen ]

1998: Flip Wilson (American comedian)

2005: Pat Morita (Japanese-American actor) [Happy Days, The Karate Kid]


Word of the day: glean \gleen\
Etymology: From Middle English glenen, from Old French glener, from Late Latin glennere, probably of Celtic origin.
(transitive verb)
1. To gather slowly and laboriously, bit by bit.
2. To gather (grain or the like) after the reapers or regular gatherers.
3. To learn, discover, or find out, usually little by little or slowly.
(intransitive verb)
4. To collect or gather anything little by little or slowly.
5. To gather what is left by reapers.

Mistfox - who didn't have leftovers to glean meals from

Today is November 25th. That means that Suriname observes Independence Day and it is the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women.


2003: Officials in Yemen arrested Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal, a top al-Qaida member suspected of masterminding the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker off Yemen's coast.

2002: U.S. President George W. Bush signs the Homeland Security Act into law.

1999: The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution designating November 25 as the annual International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women.

1986: President Ronald Reagan and Attorney General Edwin Meese divulged that profits from secret arms sales to Iran had been diverted to Nicaraguan rebels, revealing the Iran-Contra Affair.

1984: Thirty-six of Britain and Ireland's top pop musicians gathered in a Notting Hill studio as Band Aid to record the song "Do They Know It's Christmas" in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

1975: Suriname, formerly called Dutch Guiana, became an independent republic.

1974: The British government outlawed the IRA in all of Great Britain, including Northern Ireland, after IRA bombs hurt and killed many in Birmingham, England.

1973: Greek President George Papadopoulos was ousted in a bloodless military coup.

1952: Agatha Christie's play "The Mousetrap" opened at London's Ambassadors Theatre -- starting the longest continuous run of any theatrical show in the world.

1949: "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" appeared on music charts.

1947: New Zealand ratified the Statute of Westminster and thus became independent of legislative control by the United Kingdom.

1922: Archaeologist Howard Carter entered King Tut's tomb.

1884: John Mayenberg of St. Louis patented Evaporated milk.

1867: Alfred Nobel patented dynamite.

1792: The Farmer's Almanac was first published.

1783: The British evacuated New York City, their last military position of the Revolutionary War. George Washington entered the city in triumph. The British had captured the city in 1776 and held it for seven years.

1602: Explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno gave Santa Catalina Island its present name.

1491: The siege of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, began.

1034: Malcolm II of Scotland died. Duncan, the son of his second daughter, instead of Macbeth, the son of his eldest daughter, inherited the throne.

Births:
1835: Andrew Carnegie (Scottish-American industrialist, philanthropist)

1914: Joe DiMaggio (American baseball player)

1960: John F. Kennedy, Jr. (American attorney/cofounder of "George" magazine/son of President John F. Kennedy)

Deaths:
1034: Malcolm II (King of Scotland)

1968: Upton Sinclair (American novelist) [The Jungle]


Word of the day: recumbent \rih-KUM-bunt\
Etymology: From the present participle of Latin recumbere, "lie back, to recline," from re-, "back" + -cumbere "to lie."
(adjective)
1. Reclining; lying down.
2. Resting; inactive; idle.

Mistfox - who wishes she were recumbent and reading in front of the fire

Today is November 26th. That means that Mongolia observes Independence Day.


2002: WorldCom and the U.S. government settled a civil lawsuit over the company's $9 billion accounting scandal.

2000: Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified George W. Bush the winner over Al Gore in the state's presidential balloting by 537 votes.

1998: Tony Blair gave the first speech ever by a British prime minister to an Irish parliament.

1992: Queen Elizabeth II announced she would start paying taxes on her personal income and take her children off the national payroll.

1990: After 31 years, Lee Kuan Yew stepped down as Singapore's prime minister.

1976: Catholicism ceased to be the state religion of Italy.

1970: In Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, 1.5 inches (38.1mm) of rain falls in one minute, the heaviest rainfall ever on record.

1968: Cream played their farewell concert at London's Royal Albert Hall. (The band reunited for seven shows in 2005.)

1965: France successfully launched the Diamant-A rocket into space, becoming the world's third space power after the Soviet Union and the United States.

1962: The Fab Four had their first recording session under the name The Beatles.

1956: "The Price is Right" premiered on TV.

1952: The first modern 3-D movie "Bwana Devil," premiered in Hollywood.

1950: China entered the Korean conflict, launching a counter-offensive against troops from the United Nations, the United States, and South Korea.

1949: India adopted a constitution as a federal republic within the British Commonwealth.

1942: The film "Casablanca" premiered in New York City as Allied Expeditionary Forces landed in North Africa.

1941: President Franklin Roosevelt established the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.

1940: The half-million Jews of Warsaw, Poland, were forced by the Nazis to live within a walled ghetto.

1917: The National Hockey League is formed, with the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs, and Toronto Arenas as its first teams.

1862: Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll) sent the handwritten manuscript of Alice's Adventures Underground to 10-year-old Alice Liddell.

1825: The first college social fraternity, Kappa Alpha, was started at Union College in Schenectady, New York.

1789: A day of thanksgiving was set aside by President George Washington to observe the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. It was the first U.S. holiday by presidential proclamation. Abraham Lincoln changed it to the last Thursday in November and then Roosevelt moved it to the fourth Thursday in November.

1716: A lion was first exhibited in the U.S., in Boston.

Births:
1876: Willis Haviland Carrier (American inventor) Invented the first air conditioning system.

1922: Charles Schulz (American cartoonist) ["Peanuts"]

1939: Tina Turner [Anna Mae Bullock] (American singer/actress) ["Proud Mary", "What's Love Got to Do with It", Tommy]

Deaths:
1504 – Isabella (Queen of Castile and Aragon)

1883: Sojourner Truth (American abolitionist)

1956: Tommy Dorsey (American trombonist and bandleader)


Word of the day: foundling \FOWND-ling\
Etymology: From Old English foundling, fundling, from finden, "to find" + the suffix -ling.
(noun)
1. A deserted or abandoned infant; a child found without a parent or caretaker.

Mistfox - who can’t think of anything witty this morning

Today is November 27th. That means that it is Pins and Needles Day.


2003: President George W. Bush flew to Iraq under extraordinary secrecy and security to spend Thanksgiving with U.S. troops.

2002: United Nations investigators began a new round of weapons inspections in Iraq.

2001: The Hubble Space Telescope discovered a hydrogen atmosphere on the extrasolar planet Osiris, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.

1991: Both houses of the U.S. Congress approved legislation authorizing $70 billion in borrowing authority for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) because of the savings and loan failures.

1978: San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk, a gay-rights activist, were shot to death inside City Hall by former supervisor Dan White.

1973: The U.S. Senate voted 92-3 to confirm Gerald R. Ford as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew, who'd resigned.

1967: The Beatles released "The Magical Mystery Tour".

1926: In Williamsburg, Virginia, the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg began.

1924: In New York City the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was held.

1911: An audience threw vegetables at actors for the first recorded time in the U.S.

1910: New York City's Pennsylvania Station opened.

1895: At the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after he died.

1870: The NY Times dubbed baseball "The National Game".

1839: In Boston, Massachusetts, the American Statistical Association was founded.

1826: Jebediah Smith and his expedition reached San Diego, becoming the first Americans to cross the southwestern part of the U.S.

1779: The College of Philadelphia, considered a Royalist institution, was converted into the University of the State of Pennsylvania, thus creating both America's first state school and first official university. In 1791, the school became a privately endowed institution and took the name of the University of Pennsylvania.

1095: Pope Urban II called for the first crusade to free the Holy land from Islamic occupation.

0511: Clovis, king of the Franks, died and his kingdom was divided between his four sons.

43 B.C.E.: Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus formed the triumvirate of Rome.

Births:
1701: Anders Celsius (Swedish astronomer/thermometer inventor)

1917: "Buffalo" Bob Smith (American TV host) [Howdy Doody]

1940: Bruce Lee [Liu Yuen Kam, Li Xiaolong] (Chinese-American actor/martial arts expert) [Enter the Dragon, The Green Hornet]

1942: Jimi [James Marshall] Hendrix (American guitarist and singer)

1957: Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg (American journalist/author/daughter of President John F. Kennedy) [In Our Defense - The Bill of Rights In Action, The Right to Privacy]

Deaths:
8 BCE Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (Roman poet/satirist)

0511: Clovis I (King of the Franks)

1953: Eugene O'Neill (American dramatist) [Mourning Becomes Electra, The Iceman Cometh, Ah! Wilderness, Long Day's Journey Into Night]

1978: George Moscone (American politician/Mayor of San Francisco)

1978: Harvey Milk [Glimpy Milch] (American politician/gay rights activist)

1988: John [Richmond Reed] Carradine (American actor) [The Grapes of Wrath]. Father of David, Robert, Keith and Bruce Carradine.


Word of the day: thew \thyoo\
Etymology: From Middle English, "individual habit, virtue, strength" (sense influenced by sinew), from Old English theaw, "a custom, habit". Meaning "bodily powers or parts indicating strength, good physique" is attested from 1566, from notion of "good qualities." Acquired a sense of "muscular development" when it was revived by Scott (1818).
(noun)
1. Usually, thews. Muscle or sinew.
2. Thews, physical strength.

Mistfox - who's been reading about "manly thews"

Today is November 28th. That means that Albania observes Independence Day/Flag Day (Dit'e Flamurit), Mauritania observes Independence Day, Panama observes Independence Day, Hawaii observes Ka Lahui/Hawaiian Independence Day, and Scotland observes Martinmas Term Day


2001: Enron Corp., once the world's largest energy trader, collapsed after would-be rescuer Dynegy Inc. backed out of an $8.4 billion deal to take it over.

2000: Ukrainian politician Oleksander Moroz touched off the Cassette Scandal by publicly accusing President Leonid Kuchma of involvement in the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze.

1999: Hsing-Hsing, a giant panda who arrived at the National Zoo in 1972 as a symbol of U.S.-China detente, was euthanized at age 28 because of his deteriorating health.

1997: The final episode of "Beavis & Butt-head," aired on MTV.

1996: Algerians approved a new constitution and effectively banned Islamic-based parties.

1995: President Bill Clinton signed a bill that ended the federal 55-mph speed limit.

1994: A fellow inmate murdered serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in the Columbia Correctional Institute in Portage, Wisconsin.

1984: Over 250 years after their deaths, William Penn and his wife Hannah Callowhill Penn were made Honorary Citizens of the United States.

1975: As the World Turns and The Edge of Night, the final two American soap operas that had resisted going to pre-taped broadcasts, aired their last live episodes.

1964: Mariner 4 was launched, the first successful mission to Mars, taking photographs and instrument readings.

1963: Beatles "She Loves You" returned to #1 on the UK record chart.

1960: Mauritania gained independence from France.

1958: Chad, the Republic of the Congo, and Gabon became autonomous republics within the French Community.

1948: Edwin Land's first Polaroid cameras went on sale.

1942: President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin met in Tehran during World War II.

1925: The Grand Ole Opry made its radio debut from Nashville, then called WSM Barn Dance.

1920: The Mask of Zorro, starring Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. opened.

1912: Albania declared its independence after more than 400 years of Turkish rule.

1907: In Haverhill, Massachusetts, scrap-metal dealer Louis B. Mayer opened his first movie theater.

1905: Sinn Fein (Gaelic for "we ourselves"), a political party dedicated to independence for all of Ireland, was founded in Dublin by Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith.

1895: The first automobile race took place, 54 miles to Evanston, Illinois. The winner was James Franklin Duryea.

1868: Mt. Etna in Sicily violently erupted.

1843: The Kingdom of Hawai`i was officially recognized by the United Kingdom and France as an independent nation.

1520: Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reached the Pacific Ocean after passing through the South American strait at the tip of South America that is now named for him. He was the first European explorer to reach the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic Ocean.

Births:
1757: William Blake (English poet/painter/printmaker) [Poetical Sketches, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, The Last Judgment]

1820: Friedrich Engels (German Socialist philosopher) [The Communist Manifesto]

1962: Jon Stewart (American comedian/satirist/actor/author/producer) ["The Daily Show"]

Deaths:
1170: Owain ap Gwynedd (Prince of Gwynedd)

1859: Washington Irving (American author)["The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", "Rip Van Winkle"]

1954: Enrico Fermi (Italian-born American physicist)

1994: Jeffrey Dahmer (American serial killer)


Word of the day: apoplectic \ap-uh-PLEK-tik\
Etymology: From Late Latin apoplécticus from the Greek apopléktikós, "pertaining to a (paralytic) stroke", equivalent to apóplékt(os) "struck down" (verbid of apoplssein) + -ikos -ic
(adjective)
1. Of or pertaining to apoplexy (a neurological impairment or hemorrhage, a state of extreme rage).
2. Having or inclined to apoplexy.
3. Intense enough to threaten or cause apoplexy: an apoplectic rage.
(noun)
4. A person having or predisposed to apoplexy.

Mistfox - who doesn't think she's ever been apoplectic

Today is November 29th. That means that Albania observes National Day, the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia observed Republic Day, and it is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.


1999: Protestant and Catholic adversaries formed a Northern Ireland government.

1996: A U.N. court sentenced Bosnian Serb army soldier Drazen Erdemovic to 10 years in prison for his role in the massacre of 1,200 Muslims - the first international war crimes sentence since World War II.

1990: The United Nations Security Council passed UN Security Council Resolution 678, authorizing military intervention in Iraq if that nation did not withdraw its forces from Kuwait and free all foreign hostages by January 15, 1991.

1989: Czechoslovakia ended 41 years of one-party communist rule when the parliament voted unanimously to repeal the constitutional clauses giving the Community Party a guaranteed leading role in the country and promoting Marxism-Leninism as the state ideology.

1975: The name "Micro-soft" (for microcomputer software) was used by Bill Gates in a letter to Paul Allen for the first time.

1963: President Lyndon Johnson named a commission headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

1963: The Beatles released "I Want to Hold Your Hand".

1961: NASA launched a chimpanzee named Enos into orbit around the Earth in Mercury-Atlas 5.

1950: United Nations troops began a long, hard retreat out of North Korea under heavy fire from the Chinese. Chinese forces overran South Korea, and by the beginning of 1951 had captured Seoul, the capital.

1948: The children's television program Kukla, Fran and Ollie debuted.

1948: The first opera to be televised, "Othello," was broadcast from the Met in New York City.

1947: The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the partitioning of Palestine between Arabs and Jews and the creation of an independent Jewish state.

1945: Yugoslavia was proclaimed a Federal People's Republic under Josip Tito's rule.

1942: The U.S. rationed coffee.

1929: Commander Richard E. Byrd reported successfully flying over the South Pole. He had made headlines in 1926 by flying over the North Pole.

1915: Fire destroyed most of the buildings on Santa Catalina Island in California.

1890: The first Army-Navy football game was played, at West Point, New York, with Navy winning 24-0.

1887: The U.S. received rights to Pearl Harbor, on Oahu, Hawaii.

1877: Thomas Edison demonstrated his phonograph for the first time.

1864: Colorado volunteers led by Colonel John Chivington massacred at least 400 Cheyenne and Arapahoe noncombatants at Sand Creek, Colorado.

1825: The first Italian opera in the U.S., "The Barber of Seville", premiered in New York City.

1777: San Jose, California, was founded as el Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe. It was the first civilian settlement, or pueblo, in Alta California.

Births:
1803: Christian Johann Doppler (Austrian mathematician/physicist) ["the Doppler effect"]

1832: Louisa May Alcott (American author) (Little Women, Eight Cousins, Little Men).

1898: C.S. [Clive Staples] Lewis (Irish-born British author) [The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters]

1918: Madeleine L'Engle (American author) [A Wrinkle in Time, The Young Unicorns]

Deaths:
1924: Giacomo Puccini, (Italian operatic composer) [La Boheme, Tosca, Madame Butterfly, Turandot]

1981: Natalie Wood [Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko] (American actress) [Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the Grass, Love With the Proper Stranger, West Side Story, Brainstorm]

1986: Cary Grant [Archibald Alexander Leach] (British-born American actor) [Notorious, The Philadelphia Story, Father Goose]

2001: George Harrison (British songwriter/musician/film producer) [The Beatles]


Word of the day: amanuensis \uh-man-yoo-EN-sis\
Etymology: From Latin amanuensis, from servus a manu "secretary," literally "servant from the hand," from a "from" + manu, ablative of manus "hand".
(adjective)
1. A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another; secretary.


Mistfox - who may not be posting on time or much in the next couple of days, since her siblings are coming to town

Today is November 30th. That means that Scotland observes National Day, Barbados observes Independence Day, Philippines observes Bonifacio Day, and Benin observes National Day.


2004: The episode in which longtime Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings finally lost aired in syndication (he left with $2,520,700 as television's all-time biggest game show winner).

2001: Robert Tools, the first person to receive a fully self-contained artificial heart, died in Louisville, Ky., after living with the device for 151 days.

1993: U.S. President Bill Clinton signed the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (the Brady Bill) into law.

1979: Rock band Pink Floyd released the mega-selling rock opera, The Wall.

1967: The People's Republic of South Yemen became independent from the United Kingdom.

1966: Barbados became independent of Britain.

1962: U Thant of Burma was elected Secretary-General of the United Nations, succeeding the late Dag Hammarskjold.

1954: In Sylacauga, Alabama, an 8.5 pound sulfide meteorite crashed through a roof and hit Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges in her living room after bouncing off her radio, giving her a bad bruise (this is the only unequivocally known case of a human being hit by a space rock).

1939: The Russo-Finnish winter war began when Russia invaded Finland.

1940: Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were married in Greenwich, Connecticut.

1914: Charlie Chaplin made his film debut in "Making a Living," a one-reel film.

1886: The "Folies Bergere" featuring women in sensational costumes, debuted in Paris.

1872: The first international football (soccer) match was played, between Scotland and England in Glasgow. It ended with no score.

1803: At the Cabildo building in New Orleans, Spanish representatives Governor Manuel de Salcedo and the Marquis de Casa Calvo, officially transferred the Louisiana Territory to French representative Prefect Pierre Clement de Laussat (just 20 days later, France transferred the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase).

1786: Grand Duke Leopold II von Hausburg of Tuscany promulgated a penal reform making his country the first state to abolish death penalty.

1782: The United States and Britain signed preliminary peace articles in Paris, ending the Revolutionary War.

Births:
1667: Jonathan Swift (Anglo-Irish author/satirist) [Gulliver's Travels]

1810: Oliver Winchester (American businessman/politician) Developer of the Winchester rifle.

1835: Samuel Langhorne Clemens [Mark Twain] (American author) [The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Life on the Mississippi.]

1874: Sir Winston Churchill (British statesman/author)

1874: Lucy Maud Montgomery (Canadian writer) [Anne of Green Gables]

1929: Dick [Richard Wagstaff] Clark (TV producer and personality) ["American Bandstand"]

1978: Clay Aiken [Clayton Holmes Grissom] (American singer)

Deaths:
1016: Ethelred the Unready (King of England)

1900: Oscar [Fingal O'Flahertie Wills] Wilde (Irish poet/dramatist) [The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Happy Prince and Other Tales, The Importance of Being Earnest]


Word of the day: malapropos \mal-ap-ruh-POH\
Etymology: From French mal à propos, "badly to the purpose."
(adjective)
1. Unseasonable; unsuitable; inappropriate.
(adverb)
2. In an inappropriate or inopportune manner; unseasonably.


Mistfox - who snuck on the computer while her sister was in the shower

Today is December 2nd. That means that Laos observes Lao People's Democratic Republic National Day, the United Arab Emirates observes National Day, and it is Pan American Health Day.


2005: North Carolina inmate Kenneth Lee Boyd became the 1,000th person executed since the United States resumed capital punishment in 1977.

2001: Enron filed for Chapter 11 protection in one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in U.S. history.

1982: Doctors at the University of Utah Medical Center performed the first implant of a permanent artificial heart in a human. Barney Clark lived 112 days with the device.

1980: Denali National Monument and Mount McKinley National Park were combined and established as Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska. Also, Alaska's Glacier Bay National Monument, Katmai National Monument, Kenai Fjords National Park, Kobuk Valley National Park, Lake Clark National Park, and Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park and Preserve were established as national parks and preserves.

1970: U.S. Senate voted to give 48,000 acres of New Mexico back to the Taos Indians.

1970: The Environmental Protection Agency started operations.

1969: The first Boeing 747 jumbo jet flew from Seattle to New York City.

1954: The Senate voted to condemn Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, R Wis., for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute."

1942: The first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was achieved, at the University of Chicago.

1939: New York La Guardia Airport opened for business.

1918: Armenia proclaimed independence from Turkey.

1859: Militant abolitionist John Brown was hanged for his Oct. 16 raid on a federal armory at Harpers Ferry in present-day West Virginia. (Brown had hoped to start an anti-slavery rebellion.)

1816: The first U.S. savings bank, the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, opened.

1804: Napoleon was crowned the first emperor of France.

1763: In Newport, Rhode Island, the Touro Synagogue became the first synagogue in what was to become the United States.

Births:
1863: Charles Ringling (American showman) [Ringling Brothers circus)

1923: Maria Callas (American lyric soprano)

1946: Gianni Versace (Italian-American fashion designer)

Deaths:
1814: Marquis de Sade (French aristocrat/author)

1859: John Brown (American militant abolitionist)

1990: Aaron Copland (American composer)


Word of the day: cavalcade \kav-uhl-KAYD; KAV-uhl-kayd\
Etymology: Derives from Old Italian cavalcata, from cavalcare, "to go on horseback," from Late Latin caballicare, from Latin caballus, "horse."
(noun)
1. A procession of riders or horse-drawn carriages.
2. Any procession.
3. A sequence; a series.


Mistfox - who has been lax in continuing the cavalcade of posts because she's spending time with her siblings

Today is December 3rd. That means that the Central African Republic observes National Day.


2006: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez won re-election.

1999: After rowing for 81 days and 2,962 miles, Tori Murden became the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by rowboat alone when she reached Guadeloupe from the Canary Islands.

1999: Scientists failed to make contact with the Mars Polar Lander after it began its fiery descent toward the Red Planet; the spacecraft was presumed destroyed.

1997: In Ottawa, Canada, representatives from 121 countries signed a treaty prohibiting the manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel landmines. The United States, People's Republic of China, and Russia did not sign the treaty, however.

1984: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, killed more than 3,800 people outright and injured anywhere from 150,000 to 600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.

1979: In Cincinnati, Ohio, a stampede for seats at Riverfront Coliseum during a Who concert killed eleven fans (band members were not made aware of the deaths until after the show).

1967: In Cape Town, South Africa, Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the first human heart transplant, on Louis Washkanski. Washkanski lived 18 days with the new heart.

1964: "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" first aired on TV.

1964: Police arrested over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and massive sit-in at the administration building protesting the UC Regents' decision to forbid Vietnam War protests on UC property.

1961: At the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Henri Matisse's painting "Le Bateau," which had been hung upside-down for 46 days, was righted.

1961: Anton Geesink became the first non-Japanese judo world champion.

1960: "Camelot" opened on Broadway in New York City.

1948: The first female U.S. Army officer not in the medical corps was sworn in.

1947: Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire opened on Broadway.

1944: Civil war broke out in a newly liberated Greece, between Communists and royalists.

1931: Alka Seltzer went on sale.

1917: The Quebec Bridge, the world's longest cantilever, was opened over the St. Lawrence River.

1912: Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro signed an armistice with Turkey, ending the first Balkan War.

1910: Neon lights were first publicly seen at the Paris Auto Show.

1904: The Jovian moon Himalia was discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at Lick Observatory.

1854: More than twenty gold miners at Ballarat, Australia (Eureka Stockade) were killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licenses. This is claimed by many to be the birth of Australian democracy.

1833: Oberlin Collegiate Institute became the first coeducational college in the United States with an enrollment of 29 men and 15 women.

1818: Illinois entered the United States as the 21st state.

1586: Sir Thomas Herriot introduced potatoes to England, from Colombia.

Births:
1842: Charles Alfred Pillsbury (American flour miller/food products manufacturer)

1857: Joseph Conrad [Jozef Teodor Nalecz Konrad Korzeniowski] (Polish-born British novelist) [Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness]

1903: Carlos Montoya (Spanish-born guitarist/composer)

1948: "Ozzy" [John Michael] Osbourne, singer) [Black Sabbath]

1960: Daryl Hannah (American actress) [Splash, Roxanne, Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman, Steel Magnolias, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 & 2]

1968: Brendan Fraser (Canadian-American actor) [George of the Jungle, The Mummy, Dudley Do-Right]

Deaths:
1888: Carl Zeiss (German lens maker)

1894: Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish poet/author) [Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, A Child's Garden of Verses, Silverado Squatters, In the South Seas]

1919: Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French painter)

1999: Madeline Kahn (American actress/comedienne) [Paper Moon, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles]


Word of the day: gallivant \GAL-uh-vant, gal-uh-VANT\
Etymology: Probably a playful elaboration of gallant in an obsolete verbal sense of "play the gallant, flirt, gad about."
(intransitive verb)
1. To wander about, seeking pleasure or diversion; gad.
2. To go about with members of the opposite sex.


Mistfox - who is fighting another cold instead of gallivanting (because she's )

Today is December 4th. That means that it is International Hug Day.


2006: Lacking the Senate votes to keep his job, embattled U.N. Ambassador John Bolton offered his resignation to President George W. Bush, who accepted it.

2001: The United States froze the financial assets of organizations allegedly linked to the terrorist group Hamas ("Islamic Resistance Movement").

1998: The first international space station, named Unity, was launched.

1991: U.S. airline Pan Am ended operations.

1978: Dianne Feinstein was named to replace the assassinated George Moscone, becoming the first female mayor of San Francisco.

1958: Dahomey (present-day Benin) became a self-governing country within the French Community.

1952: A "killer fog" descended on London. ("Smog" for "smoke" and "fog" became a word.)

1945: The Senate approved United States participation in the United Nations.

1943: With unemployment figures falling fast due to World War II-related employment, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt closed the Works Progress Administration.

1918: President Woodrow Wilson departed Washington, D.C., on the first European trip by a U.S. president. He went to Versailles where he headed the American delegation to the peace conference seeking an official end to World War I.

1872: U.S. brigantine Mary Celeste was found adrift and deserted with its cargo intact, in the Atlantic Ocean between the Azores and Portugal.

1867: Former Minnesota farmer Oliver Hudson Kelley founded the Order of the Patrons of Husbandry (better known today as the Grange Movement).

1829: Under British rule, suttee (whereby a widow commits suicide by joining her husband's funeral pyre) was made illegal in India.

1791: The "Observer," Britain's oldest Sunday newspaper, was first published.

1674: French Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette founded a mission on the shores of Lake Michigan to minister to the Illinois Indians (the mission would later grow into the city of Chicago, Illinois)

1619: Thirty-eight colonists from Berkeley Parish in England disembarked in Virginia and gave thanks to God (this is considered to be the first Thanksgiving in the Americas).

1154: The only Englishman to become a pope, Nicholas Breakspear, became Adrian IV.

0771: Charlemagne became sole ruler of the Frankish Empire.

Births:
1892: Francisco Franco (Spanish dictator)

1944: Dennis Wilson (American pop musician) [The Beach Boys]

1949: Jeff Bridges (American actor) [Tron, Starman, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Seabiscuit]

Deaths:
1131: Omar Khayyam (Persian poet/astronomer/mathematician/philosopher)

1993: Frank Zappa (American composer/guitarist)


Word of the day: profuse \pruh-FYOOS; proh-\
Etymology: From Latin profusus, past participle of profundere, "to pour forth," from pro-, "forth" + fundere, "to pour."
(adjective)
1. Pouring forth with fullness or exuberance; giving or given liberally and abundantly; extravagant.
2. Exhibiting great abundance; plentiful; copious; bountiful.


Mistfox - who is profuse with coughing with this @#&* cold

Today is December 5th. That means that Austria observes Krampus, Thailand observes National Day and King's Birthday, Haiti observes Discovery Day, and it is International Volunteer Day.


2006: New York became the first city in the nation to ban artery-clogging trans fats at restaurants.

2002: At a 100th birthday celebration for Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-N.C., Senate Republican leader Trent Lott praised Thurmond's pro-segregation 1948 presidential campaign. The ensuing uproar led to Lott's resignation from the Senate leadership.

1996: U.S. President Bill Clinton nominated Madeleine Albright as secretary of state; she would become the highest-ranking woman ever in the federal government.

1992: Kent Conrad of North Dakota resigned his seat in the United States Senate and was sworn into the other seat from North Dakota, becoming the only U.S. Senator ever to have held two seats on the same day.

1988: The Reverend Jim Bakker, a popular television evangelist and founder of the PTL organization, was indicted by a federal grand jury in North Carolina on 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy.

1974: The last new episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus was broadcast on the BBC.

1955: American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged to form the AFL-CIO under its first president, George Meany.

1941: The nonfiction book Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck was published (Steinbeck used knowledge gained writing this book to develop the marine biologist character Doc in Cannery Row).

1933: Prohibition came to an end in the United States as Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, repealing the 18th Amendment.

1848: President James Polk triggered the Gold Rush of '49 by confirming that gold had been discovered in California.

1776: The first scholastic fraternity in America, Phi Beta Kappa, was organized at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

1492: Christopher Columbus became the first European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic).

1484: Pope Innocent VIII wrote a Papal Bull that set the inquisition into full swing and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people accused of being witches

Births:
1782: Martin Van Buren (President of the U.S.A.) He was the first U.S. president born of American parents (i.e. the first to have been born a U.S. citizen).

1901: Walt Disney (American cartoonist/movie producer)

Deaths:
1791: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Austrian composer)

1926: Claude Monet (French painter)

1999: Joseph Heller (American satirist) [Catch-22]


Word of the day: tarradiddle \tair-uh-DID-uhl\
Etymology: Of unknown origin.
(noun)
1. A petty falsehood; a fib.
2. Pretentious nonsense.


Mistfox - who likes saying "tarradiddle"

Today is December 6th. That means that Canada observes a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, Finland observes National Day, Spain observes Constitution Day, and in some parts of Europe observes St. Nicholas Day.


2006: The bipartisan Iraq Study Group concluded that President George W. Bush's war policies had failed in almost every regard, and said the situation in Iraq was "grave and deteriorating."

2001: The name of the Canadian province of Newfoundland was officially changed to Newfoundland and Labrador.

1994: The Maltese Falcon was auctioned for $398,590.

1992: Thousands of Hindu extremists destroyed a mosque in India, setting off two months of Hindu-Muslim rioting that claimed at least 2,000 lives.

1989: During the Ecole Polytechnique Massacre, a man killed 14 young women in Montreal, Quebec.

1973: House minority leader Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as Vice President, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew.

1947: President Harry Truman dedicated Everglades National Park in Florida.

1933: Federal judge John M. Woolsey ruled that the James Joyce novel Ulysses was not obscene

1923: The first presidential address to be broadcast on radio was given by President Calvin Coolidge to a joint session of Congress.

1921: The Irish Free State, composing four-fifths of Ireland, was declared part of an historic peace agreement with Great Britain.

1917: The Bolsheviks imprisoned Czar Nicholas II and his family in Tobolsk.

1917: Finland declared its independence from Russia.

1907: In Monongah, West Virginia 361 people were killed in America's worst mine disaster.

1884: Army engineers completed construction of the Washington Monument, placing the 3300-pound marble capstone atop it.

1877: Thomas Edison made the first sound recording, of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," on the phonograph he invented.

1790: The U.S. Congress moved from New York to the new capital in Philadelphia.

1774: Austria became the first nation to introduce a state education system.

1768: The first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica was published.

1534: The Spanish founded Quito, Ecuador.

1240: Kiev fell to the Mongols under Batu Khan.

Births:
1421: Henry VI (English King) He was the youngest King of England to accede to the throne.

1896: Ira Gershwin [Israel Gershowitz] ( American lyricist) ["I Got Rhythm," "Embraceable You," "The Man I Love," "Someone to Watch Over Me"]

Deaths:
1889: Jefferson Davis (American soldier/politician/Congressman/President of the Confederate States of America)

1988: Roy Orbison (American singer/songwriter)


Word of the day: toponymy \tuh-PON-uh-mee\
Etymology: Derived from the Greek topos "place" + onoma "name".
(noun)
1. The study of place names.
2. Anatomy. The nomenclature of the regions of the body.


Mistfox - who finds some toponymy fascinating

Today is December 7th. That means that the Ivory Coast Republic observes Independence Day, the United States observes Pearl Harbor Day, Delaware observes Delaware Day.


2004: Hamid Karzai was sworn in as Afghanistan's first popularly elected, post-Taliban president.

1972: America's last manned moon mission to date was launched as Apollo 17 blasted off from Cape Canaveral.

1963: Videotaped instant replay was used for the first time in a live sports telecast as CBS re-showed a touchdown run during the Army-Navy football game.

1941: Japanese forces attacked the home base of the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and other British and American territories and possessions in the Pacific. (Ten hours before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Americans intercepted a 14-part Japanese message. It was deciphered at 4:37 am, just hours before the attack, but it remained in the code room. Three hours later it was delivered to President Franklin Roosevelt. By the time the deciphered message was transmitted to the Pacific, the receiver was not working. The attack cost 3400 lives. The message was delivered to Pearl Harbor three hours after the attack.)

1842: The New York Philharmonic gave its first concert.

1787: Delaware became the first state to ratify the Constitution of the United States of America, also making it the first state of the modern United States.

1732: The Royal Opera House opened at Covent Garden, London.

43 BCE: Cicero of Rome was assassinated on the orders of Marcus Antonius.

Births:
1761: Marie Tussaud [Marie Grosholtz] (French-British museum proprietress/waxwork modeler)

1863: Richard Sears (American manager/businessman/department store founder)

1928: [Avram] Noam Chomsky (American linguist/political writer)

1942: Harry Chapin (American singer/songwriter) ["Cat's in the Cradle", "I Wonder What Would Happen to this World")

1956: Larry Bird (American basketball player)

Deaths:
43 BCE: [Marcus Tullius] Cicero (Roman orator/statesman/philosopher/author)

1817: William Bligh (English admiral) Admiral of the HMS Bounty during the mutiny of the ship.

1975: Thornton Wilder (American playwright and novelist) [Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth]


Word of the day: surly \SUR-lee\
Etymology: From Middle English sirly, "lordly," from sir, "lord," which eventually came to mean "arrogant or haughty," whence the more negative modern sense.
(adjective)
1. Ill-humored; churlish in manner or mood; sullen and gruff.
2. Menacing or threatening in appearance, as of weather conditions; ominous.


Mistfox - whose cold is making her surly