Thursday, November 24, 2011

appetence \AP-i-tuhns\, noun:

1. Intense desire; strong natural craving; appetite.

2. Instinctive inclination or natural tendency.

3. Material or chemical attraction or affinity.

Appetence, from the same root as appetite, comes from the Latin appete meaning “to seek for or long for.”

thanksgiving

• Only in America do have a Federal holiday to remember what we are thankful for, immediately followed by the largest shopping day of the year to max out our credit cards for the next holiday, Christmas.

Thanksgiving is not just a holiday but should be a state of mind all year long.

Trivia

Which state produces more than half the U.S.’s cranberry crop?

• Wisconsin; Massachusetts is second, followed by New Jersey and Oregon. The rest of the nation’s crop is grown in Washington, Maine, Michigan, and Minnesota.

Today's Holiday

• Thanksgiving: U.S. holiday. It originated in the autumn of 1621 when Plymouth governor William Bradford invited neighbouring Indians to join the Pilgrims for a three-day festival of recreation and feasting in gratitude for the bounty of the season, which had been partly enabled by the Indians' advice. Neither the standard Thanksgiving meal of turkey, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie nor the family orientation of the day reflects the Plymouth event, however. Proclaimed a national holiday in 1863, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November (though it was moved back one week in 1939 – 41 to extend the Christmas shopping season). Canada adopted Thanksgiving as a national holiday in 1879; since 1957 it has been celebrated on the second Monday in October.

History

• Tasmania: southeast Australian island was first seen by Dutchman Abel Tasman, for whom it was later named (1642)
• The Origin of Species: naturalist Charles Darwin published his book explaining evolution (1859)
• Lee Harvey Oswald: JFK assassin was shot to death by Jack Ruby (1963)
• Lucy: Australopithecus skeleton was found in Ethiopia; she was about 3 foot 7 (109 cm.) and 3 million years old (1974)

Birthdays

• Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677): rationalist philosopher, Ethics
• Zachary Taylor (1784-1850): 12th US president; he died of a gastrointestinal disease 16 months into his term; also, Israel's second president Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (1884-1963)
• Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924): playwright and novelist, The Secret Garden; plus writers Laurence Sterne (1713-1768), Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) and William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925-2008)
• Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901): post-Impressionist painter, famous for his depictions of Montmartre life
• Scott Joplin (1868-1917): king of ragtime; also, rocker Pete Best (70)
• Katherine Heigl (33): Izzie on Grey's Anatomy; also, actors Billy Connolly (69), Ruben Santiago-Hudson (55), Brad Sherwood (48), Stephen Merchant (37), Colin Hanks (34) and Sarah Hyland (21)

Read more: http://www.answers.com/