| Thursday, January 1, 2009 |
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| J.D. Salinger, c. 1951 |
SpotlightHappy 90th birthday to J.D. Salinger, the reclusive author of Catcher in the Rye. The tale of alienated adolescent Holden Caulfield was published in 1951 and still reverberates today, remaining a must-read for high-school and college students. Before Catcher in the Rye was published, most of Salinger's works were short stories published in magazines. He wrote a series of stories about the Glass family, starting with "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," published in 1948. Salinger's novella-length story, "Hapworth 16, 1924," was printed in June 1965 in The New Yorker. He has not published anything since.
Question of the DayIn JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye what are some of Holden's complaints about Pencey Prep?
To begin with, Holden thinks the school is full of phonies. The principal is a phony because he only treats the wealthy-looking parents with respect. Lots of the students are phonies...
Word of the dayspace-time continuum
Single entity that relates space and time in a four-dimensional structure, postulated by Albert Einstein in his theories of relativity. In the Newtonian universe it was supposed that there was no connection between space and time. Space was thought to be a flat, three-dimensional arrangement of all possible point locations, which could be expressed by Cartesian coordinates; time was viewed as an independent one-dimensional concept. Einstein showed that a complete description of relative motion requires equations that include time as well as the three spatial dimensions....
The calendar undergoes a major change this week as the Western world celebrates New Year's Day. This week, we'll look at some words relating to time and how we tell one day from the next.
Today's History
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| The Euro |
- gladiators: last contest of fighters engaged in public mortal combat in Rome took place (404)
- The Times of London: first edition was published under this title; it was previously known as The Daily Universal Register (1788)
- New York City: was chartered with 4 boroughs — Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens; Staten Island followed a few weeks later (1898)
- euro: was launched, creating the Eurozone (2002)
Today's Birthdays
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Clint Eastwood Takes Flat Stanley To the Oscars |
- Lorenzo de' Medici (1449-1492): ruler of the Florentine Republic and patron of the arts
- Paul Revere (1735-1818): US Revolutionary War figure who took a midnight ride to warn colonists that the British were coming
- Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946): photographer and art exhibitor, pioneer of modern photography
- E. M. Forster (1879-1970): novelist, Room With a View
- J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972): controversial and intimidating director of the FBI
- Flat Stanley (45): globetrotting fictional character
