DIANE'S CORNER: Darwin Day - February 12, 2019

DIANE'S CORNER ... Celebrate Darwin Day

We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities… still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
Charles Darwin

There was a pivotal moment in history when we began to look at ourselves, and at life, in a new way. It changed not just how we perceived ourselves, but how we were related to all the other life and species on Earth. We came to realize, along the way, that we were kin, however distant, of every life-form on Earth, and that moment was both aggrandizing and humbling, all at once. That moment was when Charles Darwin brought the idea of Law of Natural Selection into the limelight of the scientific world, and we began to see with clear eyes how everything, absolutely everything, was connected.

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History of Darwin Day

Darwin was absolutely fundamental to the understanding of life and the species of the world as we know it today. Charles Robert Darwin was born in 1809, and grew to become a naturalist and geologist who would come to change the world. He was fascinated by the number and variety of fossils from around the world, and the species in their great diversity, and so set out on a five-year voyage on the Beagle to sail around the world to study life in all its forms.

While his theories were originally rejected by the science of his day, it came to be seen as incontrovertible fact as more and more data was collected and more species were discovered. DNA research pushed it even further, as we started to see the connections between species in the very genes that composed them. It was impossible not to see that some species originated from other species, and that even man itself had a shared ancestor with the primates. Science would never be the same.

Henry Wessel (1942 - 2018) was an American photographer known for his black-and-white images of the American West. Drawn to qualities of light and idiosyncratic forms, Wessel photographed shrubbery, beach-goers, and parking lots. “I don't go out looking for pictures. I go out, and if something catches my eye, that's reason enough to photograph it,” he once explained. Born on July 28, 1942 in Teaneck, NJ, he received his BA from Pennsylvania State University in 1966, and an MFA from the State University of New York in Buffalo in 1972. Moving to the San Francisco Bay Area after finishing graduate school, Wessel began travelling around the state in search of motifs to photograph.

Word of the Day

sodalist

MEANING:

noun: A member of a sodality (a fellowship or association).

USAGE:

“The single lamp still burned near Braethen, who watched the smacking lips of the sodalist who’d tried to swear him in.”
Peter Orullian; The Unremembered; Tor; 2011.

Idiom of the Day

Back to the Drawing Board

When a plan or action fails and you need to try something different to make it work.

Example Usage: "It looks like my plan to kill the weeds in the garden has failed... back to the drawing board!"

Did you know...? A drawing board is a multipurpose desk which can be used for drawing or sketching, often used by architects. It is an object where a designer can begin with an idea and build it into a plan. If your plan is not successful, then you have to go back to the drawing board to try again.

This Day in History

1733 - Savannah, GA, was founded by English colonist James Oglethorpe.

1870 - In the Utah Territory, women gained the right to vote.

1878 - Frederick W. Thayer patented the baseball catcher’s mask.

1879 - The first artificial ice rink opened in North America. It was at Madison Square Garden in New York City, NY.

1892 - In the U.S., President Lincoln's birthday was declared to be a national holiday.

1909 - The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded.

1915 - The cornerstone of the Lincoln Memorial was laid in Washington, DC.

1924 - U.S. President Calvin Coolidge made the first presidential political speech on radio.

1924 - "The Eveready Hour" became radio’s first sponsored network program. The National Carbon Company was the first sponsor of a network show.

1956 - Screamin' Jay Hawkins recorded "I Put a Spell On You."

1971 - James Cash (J.C.) Penney died at the age of 95. The company closed for business for one-half day as a memorial to the company's founder.

1989 - Tiny Tim declared himself a New York City mayoral candidate. He did not win in the election.

1997 - David Bowie received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2001 - The space probe NEAR landed on the asteroid Eros. It was the first time that any craft had landed on a small space rock.

2001 - The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Napster to stop its users from trading copyrighted material without charge.

2004 - Mattel announced that "Barbie" and "Ken" were breaking up. The dolls had met on the set of their first television commercial together in 1961.

DAILY SQU-EEK

If You Were Born Today, February 12

You are a strong-minded person who is not always tactful, even though you are gifted with expression, but generally very straightforward. You love a good competition, particularly on a mental level. Success is important to you, and you usually achieve what you set out to do. Impatience can be a problem that you gradually manage better as you mature in life. Your visual memory is excellent and artistic taste quite refined. Famous people born today:

1663 Cotton Mather, American Puritan minister (Salem witchcraft trials), born in Boston, Massachusetts (d. 1728)

1809 Abraham Lincoln, American politician (R) 16th President (1861-65), born in Hardin County, Kentucky (d. 1865)

1809 Charles Darwin, English naturalist (Origin of the Species) conceived the theory of evolution by natural selection, born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire (d. 1882)

1934 Bill Russell, American basketball star (Boston Celtics, Olympic-gold 1956), born in West Monroe, Louisiana

1948 Raymond Kurzweil, American inventor and author (Kurzweil reading machine, text-to-speech synthesis), born in NYC, New York

READERS INFO

1.

Corner reader, Ellen, loves to share worthy recipes for all to try!

Ellen's Edibles

2.
1809 -

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865)

Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth President of the United
States who led the country through the horrific American
Civil War. He also helped abolish slavery with the 13th
amendment.

3.1809 -

Charles Robert Darwin (February 12, 1809 – April 19, 1882)

Charles Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science
of evolution.

4.

1938 -

TODAY: Judy Bloom is born.

Pictures of the day

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the Civil War, its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. Born in Kentucky into a poor family, Lincoln educated himself and worked as a lawyer in Illinois before entering politics. A powerful orator and astute politician, Lincoln used his Gettysburg Address to promote nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. He has been consistently ranked as one of the greatest US presidents, by both scholars and the public.

Parral Night