Words! Words! Words!

On this day in 1881, eighty days after a failed office seeker shot him in Washington, D.C., U.S. President James A. Garfield died of complications from his wounds. In 1827, Jim Bowie stabbed a Louisiana banker with his famous knife. And in 1959, in one of the more surreal moments in the history of the Cold War, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, while touring the United States, exploded with anger when he learned that for security reasons, he would not be allowed to visit Disneyland. The incident marked the climax of Khrushchev’s day in Los Angeles, one that was marked by both frivolity and tension.

Let’s see if you’re on the cutting edge of vocabulary knowledge or if, for security reasons, you’ll never be allowed to enjoy the advantages of a free day in your favorite theme park. Take today's quiz.

On this day in 1940, near Montignac, France, a collection of prehistoric cave paintings was discovered by four teenagers who stumbled upon the ancient artwork after following their dog down a narrow entrance into a cavern. The paintings, consisting mostly of animal representations, are among the finest examples of art from the Upper Paleolithic period. On this day in 1953, John F. Kennedy married Jacqueline Bouvier. And on this day in 1972, Hopalong Cassidy, aka the actor William Boyd, rode off into his last sunset.

Take this week's word quiz and let's see how you'll go down in history.

On this day in 1876, Charles Franklin Kettering, the American engineer and longtime director of research for General Motors Corp. (GM), was born in Loudonville, Ohio. Of the 140 patents Kettering obtained over the course of his lifetime, perhaps the most notable was his electric self-starter for the automobile, patented in 1915. He started Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (aka DELCO), which merged into General Motors. With GM head Alfred P. Sloan, he founded the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in New York. On this date in 1949, the Soviet Union detonated their first atomic bomb. In 1961, Hurricane Donna formed. And in 2005, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast of the US.

See if you’re a self-starter today with our vocabulary quiz. Do you glow in the dark or will you be blown away by the challenge?

On August 15, 1979, the movie Apocalypse Now, the acclaimed Vietnam War film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, opened in theaters around the United States. On this date in 1969, the Woodstock festival opened in Bethel, New York. And on August 15, 1914, the Panama Canal opened. The American-built waterway across the Isthmus of Panama, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, was inaugurated with the passage of the U.S. vessel Ancon, a cargo and passenger ship.

See if your vocab skills resemble “the horror… the horror” of failure or if they rock from ocean to ocean like nobody’s business.

On this day in 1974, President Richard M. Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate burglary scandal. He was the first president in American history to resign. On this day in 1918, 22-year-old poet John Keats returned from a strenuous walking tour of the Lake Districts and Scotland with friends. On this day in 1988, the Chicago Cubs hosted the first night game in the history of Wrigley Field.

Let’s shine a light on your vocabulary today, see if your skills are unimpeachable, and determine if beauty and truth are indeed all you need to know.

It’s Colorado Day! On August 1, 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant officially welcomed Colorado into the Union as the 38th state. On this day in 1774, Joseph Priestly discovered oxygen (one wonders what he had been breathing up until that day). In 1914, World War I, the so-called war to end all wars, erupted. And in 1943, the Navy’s PT-109 was sunk by the Japanese, leading to John F. Kennedy becoming a bona fide war hero, a U.S. senator, and the first Catholic president.

Time to get high (so to speak) on that fresh Colorado air and tackle today’s vocab quiz. How many do you know?

On this day in 1978, the world’s first test tube baby was born. In 1897, Jack London left for the Klondike to join the gold rush, where he would write his first successful stories, among them The Call of the Wild. In 1965, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan rocked the world of folk music when he performed at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island and abandoned his acoustic guitar for an electric one. By going electric, Dylan eventually moved rock and folk music closer together. He also infused rock and roll, known then for its mostly lightweight lyrics, with a more intellectual, poetic sensibility.

Take our vocab quiz and … see if it’s you, babe.

On this date in the year AD 64, the great fire of Rome broke out and destroyed much of the city. Despite the well-known stories, we really can’t say for sure that the Roman emperor, Nero, either started the fire (he was 35 miles away but probably ordered the arson) or played the fiddle while it burned (the fiddle hadn’t been invented, but Nero DID play a mean lyre). Nero at least used the disaster to further his political agenda, and as an excuse to torture and murder plenty of Christians.

Let’s see how you compare to the great Roman scholars of old. 

July 11 was a busy day over the years. In 1804, in a duel (aka “an affair of honor”) held in Weehawken, New Jersey, Vice President Aaron Burr fatally shot his long-time political antagonist Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, a leading Federalist and the chief architect of America’s political economy, died the following day. Burr, having endured murder charges, indictment for treason, and horrible public condemnation, would die in relative obscurity in 1836. Also on this date in 1914, George Herman “Babe” Ruth made his major league baseball debut. And in 1979, Skylab crashed to Earth, injuring no one. Preserve your honor, swing for the cheap seats, and maintain your high-altitude rating by taking today’s combination vocab/science/baseball quiz.

On this day in 1939, one of the most famous scenes in movie history was filmed–Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara parting in Gone With The Wind. Director Victor Fleming also shot the scene using the alternate line, “Frankly, my dear, I just don’t care,” in case the film censors objected to the word “damn.” The censors approved the movie but fined producer David O. Selznick $5,000 for including the curse. And as we say here at ProofreadNOW.com, the rest was history. Gone With The Wind went on to become one of the greatest movies (if not THE greatest movie) of all time.

Also on this date, in Genoa, Italy, English scientist James Smithson died after a long illness, leaving behind a will with a peculiar footnote. In the event that his only nephew died without any heirs, Smithson decreed that the whole of his estate would go to “the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” Smithson’s curious bequest to a country that he had never visited aroused significant attention on both sides of the Atlantic. 

Let's see if you give a.... er... if you care about the word quiz today.