12 June 2013

sentient

[sen-shuhnt]
adjective
1. having the power of perception by the senses; conscious.
2. characterized by sensation and consciousness.
noun
3. a person or thing that is sentient.
4. Archaic. the conscious mind.
Origin:
1595–1605; < Latin sentient- (stem of sentiēns, present participle of sentīre to feel), equivalent to senti- verb stem + -ent- -ent

Related forms
sen·tient·ly, adverb
non·sen·tient, adjective
non·sen·tient·ly, adverb
un·sen·tient, adjective
un·sen·tient·ly, adverb

Today’s aphorism

If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.

– Bertrand Russell

On this day

12 June 1929 – birth of Anne Frank, author of the ‘Diary of Anne Frank’. On her 13th birthday (1942) she was given a diary which she kept while the family was in hiding from the German Army. The family hid for two years in a secret annex behind her father’s office. In 1944, the family was discovered and sent to concentration camps. She died on 12 March 1945 in Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The diary was published in 1947.

12 June 1967 – the US Supreme Court declares that inter-racial marriages are Constitutional and cannot be banned by the states.