Monday, November 1, 2010

enceinte \en-SEYNT\, adjective:

1. Pregnant; with child

noun:

1. A wall or enclosure, as of a fortified place.

Enceinte derives from the Latin cingere, "to belt, gird, or surround."

nontroversy

A controversy that does not exist until created for political gain. A contraction of non and controversy

Flag-burning is so rare that it is a nontroversy when used by Congress to appear to be protecting family-values

Trivia

What famous American helped prevent a panic when the Wall Street stock market crashed for the very first time?

• Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, in 1792. As the nation’s very first treasury secretary, Hamilton restored calm by having the Treasury buy federal securities to support the market and urging banks not to call in their loans.

History

• Othello: Shakespeare's tragedy was first performed in London (1604)
• Lisbon: was leveled by earthquake, fires and a tsunami; 70,000 died (1755)
• Stamp Act: the first direct tax on the American colonies went into effect (1765)
• Axis: term was coined by Benito Mussolini to refer to the alliance between Italy and Nazi Germany (1936)
• Seabiscuit: defeated favorite War Admiral at Pimlico (1938)
• Ivy Mike: the United States detonated its first hydrogen bomb on Enewetak, a Pacific atoll (1952)
• film-rating system: the Motion Picture Association of America began to rate films "G," "R" and "X" (1968)
• Maastricht Treaty: went into effect, creating the European Union (1993)

Birthdays

• Benjamin Guinness (1798-1868): brewer, politician and philanthropist who was Ireland's richest man
• Stephen Crane (1871-1900): novelist and short story writer who wrote The Red Badge of Courage
• Gary Player (75): champion golfer
• Bo Bice (35): American Idol runner-up; other musicians born on this date are Bill Anderson (73), Kinky Friedman (66), Dan Peek (60), Keith Stegall (56), Lyle Lovett (53), Anthony Kiedis (48), Rick Allen (47) and LaTavia Roberson (29)
• Penn Badgley (24): Gossip Girl's Dan Humphrey; also, actors Barbara Bosson (71), Robert Foxworth (69), Marcia Wallace (68), Rachel Ticotin (52), Toni Collette, Jenny McCarthy and David Berman (all 38) and Aishwarya Rai (36)