| Today's Highlights: Saturday, July 26, 2008 |
| Saturday, July 26, 2008 |
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| Symbol of the FBI |
Spotlight: The FBI has been glorified and vilified. Its agents are admired and scorned, respected and ridiculed. And people have felt this way about them for 100 years. US president Theodore Roosevelt and his attorney general, Charles Bonaparte, created a force of special agents within the Department of Justice, and on this date in 1908, the new recruits reported for duty. At that time, the agency was called the Bureau of Investigation; it was only in 1935 that the "Federal" was added to the name. The new agency included lawyers, detectives, Secret Service agents and accountants who pledged to "protect and defend..."
Quote: "We are a fact-gathering organization only. We don't clear anybody. We don't condemn anybody."
Question of the Day: What education or training do you need to become an FBI agent?So you really want to become a real-life Dana Scully or Fox Mulder? You'll have to allow your past and present life to be dissected, then pass intensive entry exams and undergo rigorous training and testing. Finally, if you manage to become an official FBI special agent, prepare to set aside your personal life at a moment's notice. Amazingly, most special agents love their careers anyway.
Word of the day: newspeakn.
Deliberately ambiguous and contradictory language used to mislead and manipulate the public.
[From Newspeak, a language invented by George Orwell in the novel 1984.]
"Robot," which first appeared in the 1923 English translation of the Czech play R.U.R. by Karel Čapek, is perhaps the most famous example of a word that originated in science fiction literature and passed into common parlance. This week we'll take a look at other terms coined by sci-fi writers.
Today's History:
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Jimmy Hoffa Testifying in 1958 |
- Lionel Nathan Rothschild: became the first Jew to sit in the British Parliament, 11 years after he was elected; the House of Commons had to allow a special oath (1858)
- Unua Libro: the "First Book" of Esperanto was published, by Dr. L.L. Zamenhof (1887)
- Suez Canal: was nationalized by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, leading to an international crisis (1956)
- Jimmy Hoffa: Teamsters union head was convicted of fraud and conspiracy (1964)
Today's Birthdays:
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| Mick Jagger |
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950): Nobel Prize-winning author of Pygmalion; also, writers Pearl Buck (1892-1973) and Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)
- Carl Jung (1875-1961): father of analytical psychology
- Salvador Allende (1908-1973): Chilean president
- Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999): perfectionist director of A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey; also, directors Blake Edwards (86) and Peter Hyams (65)
- Mick Jagger (65): singer/songwriter, The Rolling Stones
- Dorothy Hamill (52): gold medal figure skater
- Jeremy Piven (43): Entourage's Ari Gold; also, actors Gracie Allen (1902-1964), Vivian Vance (1909-1979), Jason Robards (1922-2000), Helen Mirren (63), Kevin Spacey (49), Sandra Bullock (44) and Kate Beckinsale (35)
