Wednesday, April 5, 2006

Spotlight
Oldtime heartthrob Gregory Peck was born 90 years ago today. Nominated for the Best Actor Oscar five times, Peck won in 1962 for his role as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. The American Film Institute voted Atticus Finch the greatest cinema hero of all time in their special feature, AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains. Peck usually played upstanding, honorable men, but forayed into darker territory with his acclaimed role as a sadistic Nazi doctor in The Boys From Brazil.

Quote
"You have to dream, you have to have a vision, and you have to set a goal for yourself that might even scare you a little because sometimes that seems far beyond your reach. Then I think you have to develop a kind of resistance to rejection, and to the disappointments that are sure to come your way. " – Gregory Peck

Word of the day
stalwart: physically and morally strong and steadfast; Gregory Peck often played a reliable and stalwart man. (© )

Today's News

• France: country snarled by massive demonstrations (story)
• bladder: regrown from patients' own cells (story)
• Sesame Street: new videos cater to six-month-olds, drawing criticism (story)

Today's History

• Pocahontas: Algonquian princess married English colonist John Rolfe in Virginia (1614)
• veto: was used by a US president for the first time – by George Washington (1792)
• Helen Keller: breakthrough occurred when tutor Anne Sullivan spelled out "water" in her hand using the manual alphabet (1887)

Today's Birthdays

• Thomas Hobbes: political philosopher who wrote Leviathan (1588-1679)
• Colin Powell: former US secretary of state (69)
• Agnetha Faltskog: one of the ABBA four (56)