Words! Words! Words!

We got great emails about last week’s post, all about acronyms and initialisms. Well, we’re going to do it again this week. List some more. Get you guessing. Answering your lifelong wonderments. LTIP (Last time, I promise).

On this day in 1953, Mt. Everest, the highest point on the surface of the earth, was conquered by Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa of Nepal. They were the first people to reach the top of the mountain. On this day in 1848, Wisconsin became the 30th state in the United States. On this day in 1917, future U.S. President John F. Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. And in 2005, Danica Patrick became the first woman to lead the Indianapolis 500. She did not win, but finished in fourth place. Let’s see what wordy heights you can climb today and at what speed, asking not what you can do for your vocabulary but what your vocabulary can do for you. (We hope that wasn’t too cheesy.)

On May 1, 1931, President Herbert Hoover officially dedicated New York City’s Empire State Building, pressing a button from the White House that turned on the building’s lights. Hoover’s gesture, of course, was symbolic; while the president remained in Washington, D.C., someone else flicked the switches in New York. On this day in 1960, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down while conducting espionage over the Soviet Union. The incident derailed an important summit meeting between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that was scheduled for later that month. Let’s see how high and how fast you can go with today’s word quiz. Be sure not to bail out before you finish!

According to tradition, on April 21, 753 B.C., Romulus and his twin brother, Remus, founded Rome on the site where they were suckled by a she-wolf as orphaned infants. Would you believe there is a coin in the Louvre dated April 21, 753 B.C., commemorating the founding? In 1918, in the skies above France, Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the notorious German flying ace known as the “Red Baron,” was killed by Allied fire (and not by Snoopy). In 1836, at the Battle of San Jacinto, the Texas militia under the leadership of Sam Houston routed Mexican forces led by General Santa Anna. And in 1980, Rosie Ruiz faked her win in the Boston Marathon. She actually jumped into the race about a mile before the finish line. Poor Rosie was crowned the winner, only to be shamed and disqualified a week later. See if you can get ALL the words in today’s quiz. Don’t start at #9 and think you can win.

The date April 15 is loaded with good and bad. The most recent good is that this year, it’s NOT Tax Day in the US, what with the COVID situation and all! And on this day in 1947, the great Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball. But also on this day, the Titanic sank in 1912, the so-called Boston Bombers killed three spectators at the Boston Marathon and injured many more in 2013, and President Abraham Lincoln died after being shot the night before by John Wilkes Booth in 1865. See if you can apply your vocabulary skills for better or worse today in our quiz.

On this day in 1871, flames sparked in the Chicago barn of Patrick and Catherine O’Leary, igniting a two-day blaze that killed between 200 and 300 people, destroyed 17,450 buildings, left 100,000 homeless and caused an estimated $200 million (in 1871 dollars; $3 billion in 2007 dollars) in damages. Legend has it that a cow kicked over a lantern in the O’Leary barn and started the fire, but other theories hold that humans or even a comet may have been responsible for the event that left four square miles of the Windy City, including its business district, in ruins. Dry weather and an abundance of wooden buildings, streets and sidewalks made Chicago vulnerable to fire. The city averaged two fires per day in 1870; there were 20 fires throughout Chicago the week before the Great Fire of 1871.

See if your word skills heat up with today’s quiz.

On September 26, 1957, West Side Story, composed by Leonard Bernstein, opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway. For the groundbreaking musical, Bernstein provided a propulsive and rhapsodic score that many celebrate as his greatest achievement as a composer. However, even without the triumph of West Side Story, Bernstein’s place in musical history was firmly established. In addition to his work as a composer, the “Renaissance man of music” excelled as a conductor, a concert pianist, and a teacher who brought classical music to the masses.

See if you wax rhapsodic in today’s word quiz.

On Sep. 3, 1783, the American Revolution officially came to an end when representatives of the United States, Great Britain, Spain and France signed the Treaty of Paris. The signing signified America’s status as a free nation, as Britain formally recognized the independence of its 13 former American colonies, and the boundaries of the new republic were agreed upon: Florida north to the Great Lakes and the Atlantic coast west to the Mississippi River.

Try your fighting and diplomatic skills with today’s word quiz. Select your answers and we'll show your score at the end. 

PLEASE NOTE:  If you are using an iPad, please click on this link to access the survey:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Sept-3-in-word-history.

On this day in 1988, Stella Nickell was convicted on two counts of murder. She was the first person to be found guilty of violating the Federal Anti-Tampering Act after putting cyanide in Excedrin capsules in an effort to kill her husband.

Stella and Bruce Nickell married in 1976, shortly after seven people were killed in Chicago, Illinois, from poisoned Tylenol pills. According to Stella’s daughter from a previous marriage, Stella had begun planning Bruce’s murder almost from the honeymoon. The Chicago Tylenol incident (which was never solved) had a lasting impact on Stella, who decided that cyanide would be a good method of murder.

On this day in 1792, Congress passed the second portion of the Militia Act, requiring that every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years be enrolled in the militia.

And on this day in 1963, with the release of Dr. No, moviegoers got their first look–down the barrel of a gun–at the super-spy James Bond (codename: 007), the immortal character created by Ian Fleming in his now-famous series of novels and portrayed onscreen by the relatively unknown Scottish actor Sean Connery.

On this day in 1970, with the world anxiously watching, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar spacecraft that suffered a severe malfunction on its journey to the moon, safely returned to Earth. The Ford Mustang, a two-seat, mid-engine sports car, was officially unveiled by Henry Ford II at the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York in 1964. That same day, the new car also debuted in Ford showrooms across America and almost 22,000 Mustangs were immediately snapped up by buyers. On this day in 1790, American statesman, printer, scientist, and writer Benjamin Franklin died in Philadelphia at age 84.

Let’s see how you’ll go down in vocabulary history today.