Words! Words! Words!

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.

On June 20, 1975, just in time for the big summer vacation season, Jaws, a film directed by Steven Spielberg that made countless viewers afraid to go into the water, opened in theaters. The story of a great white shark that terrorizes a New England resort town became an instant blockbuster and the highest-grossing film in movie history until it was bested by 1977’s Star Wars. Jaws was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Picture category and took home three Oscars, for Best Film Editing, Best Original Score and Best Sound. The film, a breakthrough for director Spielberg, then 27 years old, spawned three sequels.

Although the term D-Day is used routinely as military lingo for the day an operation or event will take place, for many it is also synonymous with June 6, 1944, the day the Allied powers crossed the English Channel and landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, beginning the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi control during World War II. Within three months, the northern part of France would be freed and the invasion force would be preparing to enter Germany, where they would meet up with Soviet forces moving in from the east. Test your knowledge of certain military and combat terms and quotes in today’s word quiz.

On May 23, 1911, in a ceremony presided over by President William Howard Taft, the New York Public Library, the largest marble structure ever constructed in the United States, was dedicated in New York City. Occupying a two-block section of Fifth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets, the monumental beaux-arts structure took 14 years to complete at a cost of $9 million. The day after its dedication, the library opened its doors to the public, and some 40,000 citizens passed through to make use of a collection that already consisted of more than a million books.

On May 16, 1770, at Versailles, Louis, the French dauphin, married Marie Antoinette, the daughter of Austrian Archduchess Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I. France hoped their marriage would strengthen its alliance with Austria, its longtime enemy. In 1774, with the death of King Louis XV, Louis and Marie were crowned king and queen of France. Let’s see if your head for words makes you some new allies in the English department today.

On May 9, 1887, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show opened in London, giving Queen Victoria and her subjects their first look at real cowboys and Indians. A well-known scout for the army and a buffalo hunter for the railroads (which earned him his nickname), Cody had gained national prominence 15 years earlier thanks to a fanciful novel written by Edward Zane Carroll Judson. Writing under the pen name Ned Buntline, Judson made Cody the hero of his highly sensationalized dime novel The Scouts of the Plains; or, Red Deviltry As It Is. In 1872, Judson convinced Cody to travel to Chicago to star in a stage version of the book. Cody broke with Judson after a year, but he enjoyed the life of a performer and stayed on the stage for 11 seasons. Test your buffalo-huntin’ skills, pardner, and check out our vocab (and other knowledge) test today.

Although accounts of an aquatic beast living in Scotland’s Loch Ness date back 1,500 years, the modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster was born when a sighting made local news on May 2, 1933. The newspaper Inverness Courier related an account of a local couple who claimed to have seen “an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface.” The story of the “monster” (a moniker chosen by the Courier editor) became a media phenomenon, with London newspapers sending correspondents to Scotland and a circus offering a 20,000 pound sterling reward for capture of the beast. How are you at sighting today’s correct definitions?

Several momentous items to mention for today’s date: Daniel Defoe’s fictional work The Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe was published in 1719. The book, about a shipwrecked sailor who spends 28 years on a deserted island, is based on the experiences of shipwreck victims and of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor who spent four years on a small island off the coast of South America in the early 1700s. Ground was broken for the Suez Canal in 1859. And the beautiful Ginger Rogers died in 1995. Dance your way to fame and fortune, avoid disaster, and dig our vocabulary test today!

On this date in 1775, British troops marched out of Boston on a mission to confiscate the American arsenal at Concord and to capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, known to be hiding at Lexington. As the British departed, Boston Patriot William Dawes set out on horseback from the city to warn Adams and Hancock and rouse the Minutemen. While today’s words are seemingly unrelated to our subject, the discerning reader will get them all right nevertheless, as long as you had a competent fifth-grade teacher who boldly made you and your fellow students recite the classics!