Saturday, April 1, 2023

gravitas \GRAV-uh-tahs\, noun:

• High seriousness (as in a person's bearing or in the treatment of a subject).

Gravitas is from the Latin gravitas, "heaviness, seriousness," from gravis, "heavy, serious."

 

wikiot

• An fool who believes all information found on Wikipedia is accurate and true.

Michael Scott, from NBC's "The Office", upon claiming "Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject, so you know you are getting the best possible information." solidified himself among the ranks of wikiots.

 

Trivia

What was the famous Swiss spaghetti hoax perpetrated in England on BBC on April Fool’s Day in 1957?

• It was a bogus news report that showed a Swiss family harvesting spaghetti from trees while a respected newscaster explained that Switzerland had a bumper crop of pasta thanks to a mild winter and the “virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil.”

April Fools paranoia 

• When someone is so obsessed by April Fools, they don't trust anyone and don't believe in anything on that day.

-Hey man, wanna go see a movie tomorrow? 
-Haha, I see what you did there, you almost had me! 
-Dude, stop with this April Fools paranoia, I'm serious!

Holiday

• April Fools' Day: is celebrated in many countries on April 1 every year. Sometimes referred to as All Fools' Day, April 1 is not a national holiday, but is widely recognized and celebrated as a day when people play practical jokes and hoaxes on each other.

  

History

• US House of Representatives: achieved a quorum for the first time and elected its first Speaker, Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania (1789)
• Royal Air Force: branch of the British Armed Forces was formed (1918)
• TIROS-1: the first weather satellite was launched; it took off from Cape Canaveral and was operational for 78 days (1960)
• Apple Inc.: was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (1976)
• Gmail: Google's web-based email service was launched (2004)

Birthdays

• William Harvey England 1578
• Otto Von Bismarck 1815
• Sergei Rachmaninoff 1873 - Composer, musician
• Lon Chaney 1883 - Actor ("The Phantom of the Opera")
• Wallace (Fitzgerald) Beery 1885 - Actor ("The Champ", "The Last of the Mohicans")
• Jagjivan Ram 1908
• Abraham Maslow 1908
• Art Lund 1920 - Singer
• Toshiro Mifune 1920 - Actor ("Midway", "Paper Tiger")
• William Manchester 1922 - Writer
• Anne McCaffrey 1926
• George Grizzard 1928 - Actor ("Bachelor Party", "False Witness")
• Jane Powell (Suzanne Burce) 1929 - Actress
• Grace Lee Whitney 1930 - Actress, singer
• Gordon Jump 1932 - Actor ("WKRP in Cincinnati")

  
• Debbie Reynolds (Mary Frances Reynolds) 1932 - Singer, Actress, mother of actress Carrie Fisher
• Don Hastings 1934 - Actor ("As The World Turns")
• James Edward Brown 1934 - Singer (The Browns)
• Ron (Ronald Peter) Perranoski 1936 - Baseball player, coach
• Eddie King 1938 - Blues singer
• Ali MacGraw 1938 - Actress
• Rudolf Isley 1939 - Singer (Isley Brothers)
• Phil (Philip Henry) Niekro 1939 - Baseball pitcher
• Guy Trottier 1941 - Hockey player
• Phil Margo 1942 - Singer (The Tokens)
• Alan Blakley 1942 - Musician (Brian Poole and The Tremeloes)
• Carol White 1944
• Rusty Staub 1944 - Baseball player
• Heather Young 1945
• John Barbata 1945 - Drummer (The Turtles)
• Ronnie Lane (Small Faces) 1946

  
• Norm Van Lier 1947 - Basketball player
• Jimmy Cliff 1948 - Reggae singer
• Doug Southerland 1948 - Football player
• Wilie (Guillermo Naranjo) Montanez 1948 - Baseball player
• Gil Scott-Heron 1949 - Jazz musician
• Samuel Alito 1950 - U.S. Supreme Court justice
• Billy Currie 1952 - Musician (Ultravox)
• Annette O'Toole 1953 - Actress
• Jeff Porcaro (Toto) 1954
• Stan Ridgway (Wall of Voodoo) 1955
• Libby Riddles 1956 - First woman to win the Iditarod dogsled race
• Mark White 1961 - Musician (ABC)
• Woody Lee 1968 - Country singer
• Sung-Hi Lee 1970 - actress, model
• Method Man 1971 - Rapper
• Rachel Maddow 1973 - Broadcast journalist
• Maradalena Maleeva 1975 - Tennis player
• Bijou Phillips 1980 - Singer
• Sam Huntington 1982 - Actor
• Hillary Scott (Lady Antebellum) 1984 - Country singer
• Josh Zuckerman 1985 - Actor