Sunday, February 7, 2010

ignoramus \ig-nuh-RAY-mus\, noun:

• An ignorant person; a dunce.

Ignoramus was the name of a character in George Ruggle's 1615 play of the same name. The name was derived from the Latin, literally, "we are ignorant," from ignorare, "not to know," from ignarus, "not knowing," from ig- (for in-), "not" + gnarus, "knowing, acquainted with, expert in." It is related to ignorant and ignore.

LCD Trip

• When you watch too much football on your LCD big-screen. Can apply to other sports or programming in which you sit, staring at it for hours. Known to have negative effects on you health.

Joe Sixpack gets an LCD Trip every night watching ESPN.
Trivia

What professional boxer—the only man to fight both Rocky Marciano and Muhammad Ali—scored a record 141 knockouts during his 27-year career?

• Archie Moore, who won 194 of his 229 bouts, but lost to both Marciano and Ali.

History

• British invasion: The Beatles arrived in US for the first time and were mobbed at JFK International Airport(1964)
• suffrage: women were granted the right to vote in Switzerland (1971)
• Pluto: the dwarf planet moved closer to the Sun than Neptune for the first time since its discovery (1979)
• "Baby Doc" Duvalier: Haiti's "president for life" fled for France; five years later on the same date, the nation swore in its first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1986)
• Maastricht Treaty: was signed in the Netherlands; it created the European Union as a successor to the European Community, and established a central banking systen and a common currency — the euro (1992)

Berfdays, yo!

• Sir Thomas More (1478-1535): author of Utopia; he was beheaded for refusing to recognize King Henry VIII as head of the church
• Charles Dickens (1812-1870): author of Great Expectations and Oliver Twist; other authors born on this birth date include Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957), Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) and Gay Talese (78)
• Frederick Douglass (1817-1895): abolitionist
• An Wang (1920-1990): computer pioneer, Wang Laboratories; plus, inventor John Deere (1804-1886)
• James Spader (50): Alan Shore on Boston Legal; also, actors Miguel Ferrer (55), Eddie Izzard (48), Chris Rock and Jason Gedrick (both 45), Ashton Kutcher (32) and Tina Majorino (25)
• Garth Brooks (48): country singer/songwriter who, in 1992, had an unprecedented five albums at once on Billboard's pop top 50 chart; musicians Eubie Blake (1883-1983) and David Bryan (48) were also born on this date