12 December 2016
orrery
[awr-uh-ree, or-]
noun, plural orreries.
1. an apparatus for representing the positions, motions, and phases of the planets, satellites, etc., in the solar system.
2. any of certain similar machines, as a planetarium.
Origin of orrery
1705-1715; named after Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery (1676-1731), for whom it was first made
Dictionary.com
Examples from the Web for orrery
Historical Examples
His countenance, says orrery, could be terribly expressive of the sterner passions.
Swift
Leslie Stephen
He was the improver of that noble instrument the orrery, which, in honour of him, was called after his name.
Chelsea
George Bryan
And they constructed a government as they would have constructed an orrery,—to display the laws of nature.
The New Freedom
Woodrow Wilson
Today’s quote
Dark Side of the Moon was an expression of political, philosophical, humanitarian empathy that was desperate to get out.
– Roger Waters
On this day
12 December 1901 – Italian inventor, Guglielmo Marconi sends the world’s first wireless transmission over 2,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean from Poldhu, Cornwall, England to Newfoundland, Canada. The message he sent was the letter ‘s’ in morse code, represented by three dots …
12 December 1913 – the Mona Lisa is recovered in Florence, two years after being stolen from the Louvre in Paris.
12 December 1925 – the world’s first motel, the Milestone Mo-Tel, opens in San Luis Obispo, California. The motorists-hotel enabled visitors to park their cars outside their rooms.
12 December 1946 – John D. Rockefeller donates six blocks of Manhattan to the United Nations, which is now the site of UN Headquarters.
12 December 2003 – Keiko, the killer whale from the movie, ‘Free Willy’, dies in Norway.
12 December 2007 – International Chess Grand-Master, Garry Kasparov announces that he is withdrawing from running for the presidential election. Kasparov’s party, Other Russia, had faced difficulty in meeting the electoral requirements for supporters to meet in Moscow.