Jots & Tittles: 2-1-14

Saturday, February 1, 2014

2-1-14

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ABORIGINES
noun
Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.
--Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary

(No Further Commentary Today)

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Did You Know . . .?

A German Shepherd guard dog in a Belgrade zoo once fought and defeated an escaped jaguar and in doing so saved the life of a zoo employee.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 2003, the space shuttle Columbia broke up while entering the atmosphere over Texas, killing all seven crew members on board. Columbia reentered the earth's atmosphere on the morning of February 1. It wasn't until 10 minutes later, at 8:53 a.m . -- as the shuttle was 231,000 feet above the California coastline traveling at 23 times the speed of sound -- that the first indications of trouble began. Because the heat-resistant tiles covering the left wing's leading edge had been damaged or were missing, wind and heat entered the wing and blew it apart.

In the aftermath of the Columbia disaster, the space shuttle program was grounded until July 16, 2005, when the space shuttle Discovery was put into orbit.

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WORD FOR TODAY

eidetic
adjective
- relating to or denoting mental images having unusual vividness and detail, as if actually visible.
noun
- a person able to form or recall eidetic images.

Eidetic memory is an inconclusively disputed ability to recall images, sounds or objects in memory with great precision, and is not acquired through mnemonics.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Lisa Marie Presley

(born February 1, 1968)