13 December 2013

panache

[puh-nash, -nahsh]

noun

1. a grand or flamboyant manner; verve; style; flair: The actor who would play Cyrano must have panache.
2. an ornamental plume of feathers, tassels, or the like, especially one worn on a helmet or cap.
3. Architecture . the surface of a pendentive.

Origin:
1545–55; variant (after F) of pennache < Middle French < early Italian pennachio < Late Latin pinnāculum, diminutive of pinna wing; identical in form with pinnāculum pinnacle

Anagram

Ache nap

Today’s aphorism

You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.

– John Bunyan

On this day

13 December 1937 – Nanking, China, is captured by Japanese forces. The Japanese General Matsui orders the destruction of the city, resulting in the massacre of more than 200,000 people, and rape and mutilation of around 20,000 women and girls.

13 December 1939 – Premier of the classic movie, Gone With The Wind, starring Clark Gable and Vivienne Leigh.

13 December 1995 – Thousands of people riot in Brixton, England, ransacking shops and attacking police.

13 December 2003 – US forces capture Saddam Hussein at a compound near Tikrit. He was executed by hanging on 30 December 2006 after being found guilty of the 1982 murder of 148 Iraqi Shi’ites.

13 December 2006 – Belgians react angrily to the news that their country is to be divided in two, with the Dutch speaking component of the country declaring their independence. The news was a joke propagated by Belgian public television station, R.T.B.F.

13 December 2007 – Pakistani President, Pervez Musharaff, moves responsibility for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal from the Prime Minister to the President amid fears of it falling into the hands of Islamic extremists.