Thursday, February 28, 2013

recant \ri-KANT\, verb:

1. to withdraw or disavow (a statement, opinion, etc.), especially formally; retract.
2. to withdraw or disavow a statement, opinion, etc., especially formally.

This Reformation era word entered the lexicon in the 1530s from the Latin cantāre meaning "to sing." Thus recant literally translates as "to sing again" or "to sing back."

Snipe

• To bid on an eBay auction minutes before it ends, hoping that others will not be able to place a higher bid in time.

Damn! I thought I won that item, but somebody sniped it!

Trivia

How many times has Otto Mann, the boozed-up, burned-out school bus driver on TV’s The Simpsons, crashed his bus?

• 15, but he proudly boasts that there were no fatalities.

History

• Methodism: Anglican clergyman and evangelist John Wesley chartered the first Methodist church (1784)
• Shanghai Communiqué: US President Nixon and Chinese Premier Chou En-lai issued a document advancing normalization between the two countries (1972)
• M*A*S*H: the final episode — "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" — aired; it was the top-rated TV episode in the US (1983)
• Olof Palme: the Swedish prime minister and his wife were shot in Stockholm; he was killed, she survived (1986)
• Waco siege: 51-day standoff began with a gun battle between federal agents and members of the cloistered Branch Davidian sect; the agents were attempting to arrest leader David Koresh on a weapons charge (1993)

Birthdays

• Mary Lyon 1797 - Educator, founder of Mount Holyoke Seminary (later Mt. Holyoke College)
• Sir John Tenniel 1820 - Cartoonist, illustrator
• Charles Blondin (Jean Francois Gravelet) 1824 - Acrobat, aerialist, first to walk across Niagra Falls on a tightrope.
• Ben Hecht 1894 - Novelist, scriptwriter, playwright
• Linus Pauling 1901 - Nobel prize for chemistry in 1954, Nobel peace prize winner in 1962
• Vincente Minnelli (Lester Anthony Minnelli) 1903 - Director, Liza Minelli's father
• Earl Scheib 1907
• Milton Caniff 1907 - Cartoonist
• Billie Bird 1908
• Zero (Samuel) Mostel (Samuel Joel Mostel) 1915 - Actor
• Lee Castle 1915 - Musician, bandleader (Jimmy Dorsey's band)
• Alf Kjellin 1920 - Actor, director
• Charles Durning 1923 - Actor ("Spy Hard", "Dick Tracy", "The Hindenburg")
• Chris Kraft 1924 - NASA flight director and voice of Mission Control for all Mercury and many Gemini missions
• Svetlana Allilueva 1926 - Author, daughter of Russian leader Joseph Stalin
• Stanley Baker 1927 - Actor ("The Guns of Navarone")
• Frank Malzone 1930 - Baseball player
• Gavin MacLeod 1931 - Actor ("Love Boat", "The Mary Tyler Moore Show")
• Don Francks 1932 - Actor
• Tommy Tune 1939 - Dancer, actor, choreographer
• Mario Andretti 1940 - Auto racer, twin of Aldo Andretti
• Aldo Andretti 1940 - Twin of Mario Andretti
• Joe South 1940 - Songwriter, singer
• Frank Bonner 1942 - Actor ("WKRP in Cincinnati")
• Brian Jones (Lewis Hopkin-Jones) 1942 - Musician (The Rolling Stones)
• Poul Popiel 1943
• Donnie Iris 1943
• Barbara Acklin 1944
• Kelly Bishop 1944 - Actress ("Gilmore Girls")
• Bubba Smith 1945 - Football player
• Stephanie Beacham 1947 - Actress
• Marty Perez 1947 - Baseball player
• Mercedes Ruehl 1948 - Actress ("Last Action Hero", "Married to the Mob")
• Bernadette Peters (Lazzara) 1948 - Actress ("The Jerk", "Pennies From Heaven"), singer
• Tom Riker 1950 - Basketball player
• Roland Harper 1953 - Football player
• Adrian Dantley 1955 - Basketball player
• Gilbert Gottfried 1955 - comedian
• John Turturro 1957 - Actor ("Girl 6", "The Color of Money", "Desperately Seeking Susan")
• Cindy Wilson 1957 Musician (B-52's)
• Phil Gould 1957 - Musician (Level 42)
• Rae Dawn Chong 1961 - Actress
• Robert Sean Leonard 1969 - Actor ("Manhattan Project", "House")
• Pat Monahan 1969 - Musician (Train)
• Maxine Bahns 1971 - Actress
• Eric Lindros 1973 - Hockey player
• FeFe Dobson 1985 - Singer
• Bobb'e J. Thompson 1996