23 February 2014

horripilation

[haw-rip-uh-ley-shuhn, ho-]

noun

– a bristling of the hair on the skin from cold, fear, etc.; goose flesh. Example: ‘Suddenly he was swept by horripilation’. – Stephen King, The Dome.

Origin:
1615–25; < Late Latin horripilātiōn- (stem of horripilātiō ). See horripilate, -ion

Anagram

hairpin oil rot
phial iron riot

Today’s aphorism

Rebellion Against Tyrants Is Obedience To God.

– Benjamin Franklin

(Originally proposed by Franklin as the motto for the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States of America).

On this day

23 February 1836 – the Battle of the Alamo commences. It was a 13 day siege and a pivotal point in the Texas Revolution, in which Mexican forces attacked Texan forces stationed at the Alamo Mission. All 100 Texans were killed. Several months earlier, all Mexicans had been driven out of Mexican Texas.

23 February 1896 – the Tootsie Roll is invented.

23 February 1944 – the Soviet Union begins the forced deportation of Chechen and Ingush people from the North Caucasus to Central Asia.

23 February 1954 – Polio vaccines first become available.

23 February 1958 – Five time Formula 1 racing car driver, Juan Manuel Fangio, is kidnapped by Cuban rebels led by Fidel Castro. The Batista Dictatorship had established a non-Formula 1 race (the Cuban Grand Prix) in 1957, so the rebels were hoping to embarrass Batista by forcing him to cancel the race. The race went ahead and the captors let Fangio listen to it on the radio. Fangio was released unharmed. Castro’s forces overthrew Batista in January 1959 and cancelled the race that year.

23 February 1987 – the light from Supernova 1987A reaches Earth, 170,000 years after it exploded. The supernova was 1 million trillion miles away.

23 February 2010 – death of Cuban plumber and activist, Orlando Zapata. Zapata was arrested in 2002 by Cuban police for contempt. In 2003 he was arrested during a crackdown on dissidents, for undertaking a hunger strike aimed at securing the release of prisoners. He was sentenced to 36 years imprisonment. Amnesty International recognised him as a ‘prisoner of conscience’. In December 2009 he began a hunger strike which ultimately led to his death. Born 15 May 1967.