22 October 2016
astucity
[uh-stoos-i-tee]
noun
1. The quality of being astute. Astuteness.
(Astute: having or showing an ability to notice and understand things clearly : mentally sharp or clever)
Example
They had been fools (to put it mildly), while the M’gai had been devils of astucity and treachery — John Masefield.
(c) Meriam-Webster
Origin
1605-15; < Latin astūtus shrewd, sly, cunning, equivalent to astū- (stem of astus) cleverness + -tus adj. suffix
(Dictionary.com)
Anagram
I stay cut
Today’s quote
You’re only as young as the last time you changed your mind.
– Timothy Leary
On this day
22 October 1797 – Andre-Jacques Garnerin becomes the world’s first sky-diver after jumping out of a balloon above Paris.
22 October 1920 – birth of Timothy Leary, American psychologist and author. Leary was a major proponent of the use of pscyhedelic drugs, particularly LSD and psilocybin (mushrooms). He conducted numerous psychiatric experiments using psychedelics, particularly during the 1950s and and 1960s, when the drugs were legal. LSD was banned by the USA in 1966. Leary popularised 1960′s catch-phrases such as ‘turn on, tune in and drop out’, ‘set and setting’, and ‘think for yourself and question authority’. He was friends with beat generation poets, such as Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. Leary was arrested numerous times over his possession and use of drugs. He wrote a number of books on the benefits of psychedelic drugs. Leary became fascinated with computers, declaring that ‘the PC is the LSD of the 1990s’. He encouraged bohemians to ‘turn on, boot up, jack in’. Leary was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1995. He chose to stream his dying moments over the internet. Seven grams of Leary’s ashes were placed aboard a Pegasus rocket, launched on 21 April 1997. It remained in orbit around the Earth for six years until it burned up in atmosphere. Died 31 May 1996.
22 October 1934 – Notorious gangster, Pretty Boy Floyd, shot to death by FBI agents in Ohio. Born 3 February 1904.