23 December 2012

egress

[ee-gres; ih-gres]

noun

1. the act or an instance of going, especially from an enclosed place.
2. a means or place of going out; an exit.
3. the right or permission to go out.
4. Astronomy , emersion ( def 1 ) .

verb (used without object)

5.to go out; emerge.

Example sentence:

‘Should we dive right in? Or were finding Gabrielle’s egress to distracting?’

– Henry Sturges to Abraham Lincoln in ‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter‘.

Today’s aphorism

‘Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds!’

– Bob Marley

On this day

23 December 1947 – Bell demonstrates the world’s first transistor radio.

23 December 1972 – 16 survivors of a plane-crash in the Andes, Argentina are rescued. The plane had crashed on 13 October 1972, carrying 45 people. A number of passengers were killed in the crash and some died later from exposure to the cold. Eight died in an avalanche. The survivors lived on chocolate bars, cabin food and the bodies of those who had died.

23 December 2005 – an earthquake in South-East Asia kills around 87,000 people, followed by a chemical spill that poisons China’s Songhue River, contaminating the water supply of millions of people.