| Today's Highlights: Thursday, July 24, 2008 |
| Thursday, July 24, 2008 |
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| Simon Bolivar |
Spotlight: Simón Bolívar, known as "the Liberator" of much of South America, was born on this date in 1783. Bolívar envisioned an Andean empire the length of South America, and saw himself as the one who could lead the fight to achieve this. He eventually liberated the nations which became Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, and — the land named for him — Bolivia. Bolívar served as president of both Colombia (1821-1830) and Peru (1823-29); a better liberator than ruler, he was forced to resign in 1830. He died just a few months later.
Question of the Day: Why did Simon Bolivar get a country named after him?Simon Bolivar returned to the land of his birth, Venezuela, in 1807, and, when Napoleon made Joseph Bonaparte King of Spain and its colonies in 1808, he participated in the resistance juntas in South America. The Caracas junta declared its independence in 1810, and Bolivar was sent to Britain on a diplomatic mission.
Word of the day: space cadetn. Slang.
One who shows difficulty in grasping reality or in responding appropriately to it; a spacy person: "the screwups and the space cadets—in other words, the fringe element" (Linda Ellerbee).
Usage: The term space cadet comes from a 1948 novel of the same name by Robert Heinlein. In his work, the term is not disparaging or tongue in cheek but rather refers quite literally to a boy at officer school in space.
"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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| Great Salt Lake, circa 1880 |
- Detroit: La Ville d'Etroit, or "city of the strait," was founded by Antoine de la Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac, a French fur trader (1701)
- Brigham Young: seeking a safe haven, the Mormon leader and his followers arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, in what is now Utah (1847)
- Watergate: the US Supreme Court ordered President Richard Nixon to turn over incriminating subpoenaed White House recordings (1974)
Today's Birthdays:
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| Jennifer Lopez |
- Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870): writer of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo; Tanizaki Jun'ichiro (1886-1965)
- Amelia Earhart (1897-1937): female pilot who disappeared over the S. Pacific while attempting to circumnavigate the globe
- Bella Abzug (1920-1998): women's rights activist
- Pat Oliphant (73): award-winning political cartoonist
- Karl Malone (45): NBA hall-of-famer; slugger Barry Bonds (44) was also born on this date
- Jennifer Lopez (38): superstar singer/actress; other actors born today are Dan Hedaya (68), Chris Sarandon (66), Robert Hays (61), Michael Richards (59), Lynda Carter (57), Kristin Chenoweth (40), Eric Szmanda (33) and Anna Paquin (26)
