11 October 2013

corsair

[kawr-sair]

noun

1. a fast ship used for piracy.
2. a pirate, especially formerly of the Barbary Coast.
3. ( initial capital letter ) Military . a gull-winged, propeller-driven fighter plane built for the U.S. Navy in World War II and kept in service into the early 1950s.

Origin:
1540–50; < Middle French corsaire < Provençal corsar ( i ) < Upper Italian corsaro < Medieval Latin cursārius, equivalent to Latin curs ( us ) course + -ārius -ary

Today’s aphorism

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.

– Albert Einstein

On this day

11 October 1844 – birth of Henry John Heinz, founder of Heinz Company, responsible for canned baked beans. Died 14 May 1919.

11 October 1935 – death of Steele Rudd, Australian author, (pen-name for Arthur Hoey Davis). Wrote ‘On Our Selection‘, which introduced Australia to ‘Dad and Dave’. Born 14 November 1868.

11 October 1930 – Australian Rules football club, Collingwood, win the VFL premiership for the fourth consecutive year.

11 October 1939 – German theoretical physicist, Albert Einstein explains to the United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the possibility of building an atomic bomb.

11 October 1967 – premier of the childrens’ TV series, ‘Johnny Sokko and his flying robot‘.