Friday, October 30, 2009

tenebrous \TEN-uh-bruhs\, adjective:

• Dark; gloomy.

Tenebrous derives from Latin tenebrosus, from tenebrae, "darkness."
mantrum

• when a grown man throws a tantrum when he can't have his way.

Rick had a mantrum when he found out he couldn't have McDonald's for dinner
Trivia
When it comes to animal life, what’s a pumpkinseed?

• A small, speckled freshwater fish with an orangish breast and belly. A member of the sunfish family, it’s found in the Great Lakes and throughout New York State.

Today in History

• War of the Worlds: Orson Welles' radio broadcast purported to deliver news of a fictional Martian invasion; outrage and panic ensued (1930)
• Tsar Bomba: the largest and most powerful nuclear weapon ever tested was detonated by the Soviet Union over the Arctic archipelago of Novaya Zemlya (1961)
• Quebec: voters opted to stay part of Canada by a hair's-breadth majority of 50.6% to 49.4% (1995)

Today's Birthdays

• John Adams (1735-1826): the first vice president of the US, and its second president
• Ezra Pound (1885-1972): modern imagist poet who was arrested in the US for treason
• Charles Atlas (1893-1972): Italian-born bodybuilder who ran a mail order course for "97-pound weaklings"
• Louis Malle (1932-1995): New Wave film director, My Dinner With André; broadcast news pioneer Fred Friendly (1915-1998) shared this birth date
• Grace Slick (70): rock singer, Jefferson Airplane
• Henry Winkler (64): The Fonz of Happy Days; other actors born on this date are Ruth Gordon (1896-1985), Dick Gautier(72), Harry Hamlin (58), Kevin Pollack (52), Nia Long (39) and Gael Garcia Bernal (31)
• Diego Maradona (49): Argentinian soccer great who led his country to the 1986 World Cup; also, gold-medal gymnast Nastia Liukin (20)
• Bobby "the Blue" Bax0jayz: master of the universe, genius.