Monday, November 18, 2013

animalcule \an-uh-MAL-kyool\, noun:

1. a minute or microscopic animal, nearly or quite invisible to the naked eye, as an infusorian or rotifer.
2. Archaic. a tiny animal, as a mouse or fly.

Animalcule comes directly from the Neo-Latin word animalculum meaning "a small animal."
anglo-klaxon

• A loud English person, typically american.

While traveling in Europe I was constantly surrounded by anglo-klaxons.

Trivia

What is the fastest speed any human has ever traveled?

• An incredible 24,816 miles per hour, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It’s the speed astronauts Gene Cernan, Tom Stafford, and John Young traveled aboard the Apollo 10command module when it reentered the earth’s atmosphere in 1969, on their return from a simulated moon landing.

History 

• William Tell: legendary Swiss archer shot an arrow through an apple on his son's head, his life depended on success in this challenge after he defied his canton's Austrian bailiff (1307)
• time zones: US and Canadian railroad companies implemented a system of five standard time zones so that train travelers would be able to keep time (1883)
• Steamboat Willie: Mickey Mouse made his big screen debut in the Walt Disney-directed feature (1928)
• Calvin and Hobbes: comic strip about a boy and his stuffed tiger (named for the French theologian and the English political philosopher) debuted (1985)
• Jonestown: over 900 people died from drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid — or through other means — in a murder/suicide pact led by preacher Jim Jones in Guyana (1978)

Birthdays

• Louis Daguerre 1789
• Cesare Lombroso 1836
• William Gilbert 1836
• Eugene Ormandy 1899
• Imogene Coca 1908
• Amelita Galli-Curci 1916
• Jocelyn Brando 1919
• Alan Shepard, Jr. 1923
• Dorothy Collins (Marjorie Chandler) 1926
• Brad Sullivan 1931
• Hank Ballard 1936
• Brenda Vaccaro 1939
• Margaret Atwood 1939
• Gary Bettenhausen 1941
• Linda Evans 1942
• Susan Sullivan 1944
• Jackie Ward 1946
• Andrea Marcovicci 1948
• Herman Rarebell (The Scorpions) 1949
• Graham Parker 1950
• Jameson Parker 1950
• Kevin Nealon 1953
• Warren Moon 1956
• Kim Wilde 1960
• Elizabeth Perkins 1960
• Kirk Hammett 1962 - Musician (Metallica)
• Tim DeLaughter (Tripping Daisy) 1965
• Owen Wilson 1968
• Duncan Sheik 1969
• Peta Wilson 1970
• Chloë Sevigny 1974
• Aneta Smrhová (aka Anetta Keys) 1983