Tuesday, November 2, 2010

thwart \THWAWRT\, verb:

1. To oppose successfully; prevent from accomplishing a purpose.

adjective:

1. Passing or lying crosswise or across; transverse.

Thwart relates to the Old English theorgh, "cross," though the verb form didn't come into usage until the 1500s.

voting virginity

the first time you vote after turning 18.

yeah, i turned 18 las year, so this election i can lose my voting virginity

Trivia

What is the longest possible time that an individual can currently serve as president of the United States?

Ten years. Under Amendment 22 of the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1951, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”

History

• North Dakota : became the 39th state; South Dakota became No. 40 on the same day (1889)
• Balfour Declaration: British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour declared support for the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" (1917)
• Spruce Goose: made of birch, not spruce, the largest flying boat was flown on its first and only flight by its designer, billionaire Howard Hughes (1947)
• Levelland UFO sighting: several separate witnesses in Texas claimed to have seen, late at night, a bright egg-shaped object near which their car engines died (1957)
• Lady Chatterley's Lover: in Britain, publisher Penguin Books was found not guilty of obscenity for printing the D.H. Lawrence novel (1960)

Birthdays

• Daniel Boone (1734-1820): US explorer and frontiersman, who did not actually wear a coonskin cap
• Marie Antoinette (1755-1793): queen of France during the Revolution who met her end at the guillotine
• James K. Polk (1795-1849): POTUS who fulfilled America's Manifest Destiny; also, Teapot Dome Scandal POTUS Warren G. Harding (1865-1923)
• George Boole (1815-1864): mathematician, developer of Boolean algebra
• k.d. lang (49): pop and country singer/songwriter; plus, musicians Jay Black (72), Keith Emerson (66), Carter Beauford (53) and Nelly (36?) and Chris Walla (35)
• David Schwimmer (44): awkward paleontologist Ross on Friends; actor Burt Lancaster (1913-1994) shared this birth date