Monday, May 21, 2012

oppugn \uh-PYOON\ verb

1. to fight against
2. to call in question

Deuce of Spades

• An unusually black and tarry load of feces. Extension of drop a deuce. Origination: Deuce = "#2"; Spades = a suit of 13 cards in a standard 52-card deck

Matt dropped a deuce of spades that was so black and sticky, the highway department could've paved over that pothole on Elm Street with it.

Trivia

What did former Russian president Boris Yeltsin say he was seeking when Secret Service agents found him—drunk, alone, and in his underwear—trying to hail a cab near the White House?

• A pizza. At the time (1995), Yeltsin was staying at Blair House, the president’s official guest house, across the street from the White House.

History

• Clara Barton: founded the American Red Cross (1881)
• Pagliacci: Leoncavallo's opera debuted in Milan (1892)
• Leopold and Loeb: two teenagers attempt to commit the perfect crime when they murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks (1924)
• The Spirit of St. Louis: one-seater plane touched down as Charles Lindbergh completed the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight (1927); Amelia Earhart became the first woman to perform the same feat (1932)
• Hydrogen bomb: first aerial detonation took place over Bikini atoll (1956)
• Rajiv Gandhi: former Indian prime minister was assassinated while running for reelection (1991)
• Susan Lucci: won her first Daytime Emmy award for Best Actress in the 19th consecutive year she was nominated (1999)

Birthdays

• Plato 427 B.C.
• Albrecht Durer 1471
• Philip II (Spain) 1527
• Alexander Pope 1688
• Glenn Hammond Curtiss 1878
• Armand Hammer 1898
• Horace Heidt 1901
• Fats Waller 1904
• Robert Montgomery 1904
• Sister Maria Innocentia Hummel 1909
• Harold Robbins 1916
• Dennis Day 1917
• Raymond Burr 1917
• Anthony Steel 1920
• Andrei Sakharov 1921 - Soviet physicist, he came to be regarded as the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, Soviet antiwar activist
• Ara Parseghian 1923
• Peggy Cass 1924
• Ed Fitz Gerald 1924
• Robert Creeley 1926
• Rick Jason 1926
• Tommy Bryant 1930
• David Groh 1939
• Heinz Holliger 1939
• Ronald Isley (The Isley Brothers) 1941
• Hilton Valentine (The Animals) 1943
• Janet Daily 1944
• Marcie Blane 1944
• Richard Hatch 1946
• Bill Champlin (Chicago) 1947
• Leo Sayer 1948
• Carol Potter 1948
• Mr. T (Lawrence Tero Tureaud) 1952
• Stan Lynch (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) 1955
• Judge Reinhold 1957
• Lisa Edelstein 1968 - Actress
• Christian McBride 1972
• Notiorious B.I.G. (Christopher George Latore Wallace) 1972
• Fairuza Balk 1974