23 November 2014
debouch
[dih-boosh, -bouch]
verb (used without object)
1. to march out from a narrow or confined place into open country, as a body of troops:
The platoon debouched from the defile into the plain.
2. Physical Geography.
to emerge from a relatively narrow valley upon an open plain:
A river or glacier debouches on the plains.
to flow from a small valley into a larger one.
3. to come forth; emerge.
noun
4. débouché.
Origin
French
1655-1665; < French déboucher, equivalent to dé- dis-1+ -boucher, verbal derivative of bouche mouth < Latin bucca cheek, jaw
Can be confused
debauch, debouch.
Dictionary.com
Anagram
ouch bed
echo Bud
oh cubed
Today’s aphorism
The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own.
Aldous Huxley
On this day
23 November 534BC – Thespis of Icaria becomes the first recorded actor to portray a character on stage.
23 November 1859 – birth of William H. Bonney aka Billy ‘The Kid’. American outlaw. Legend has it that he killed 21 men, although historians believe it may have been between 4 and 9 men. He was shot dead by Sheriff Pat Garrett around 14 July 1881. Some conspiracy theorists believe that Bonney did not get shot that day, but that Garrett staged the shooting so that Billy ‘The Kid’ could escape.
23 November 1889 – the first jukebox commences operation at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco.
23 November 1963 – Dr Who premiers on BBC TV, starring William Hartnell. It has become the longest running science fiction series in the world.
23 November 1981 – US President Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National Security Directive 17 (NSDD-17), authorising the Central Intelligence Agency to recruit, train and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua, in order to wage guerilla warfare against the ruling leftist Sandanista regime. In 1982, the Boland Amendment was passed by Congress which banned US support of the Contras. The Reagan administration illegally continued funding the rebels. Part of the funding was obtained by illegally selling arms to Iran, which was the subject of an international arms boycott. The Reagan administration sold the arms in an effort to free seven US hostages being held by a group linked with Iran. The scandal became known as the Iran-Contra affair and was the subject of a Presidential Commission (the Tower Commission) as well as investigations by a number of Congressional Committees. As a result, a number of high ranking members of Reagan’s administration were indicted, including Caspar Weinberger (Secretary of Defence) – later pardoned by President H.W. Bush in 1991 before standing trial, William Casey (Head of the CIA), Robert C. MacFarlane (Assistant Secretary of State), Oliver North (National Security Council), Admiral John Poindexter, and numerous others. While Reagan knew of the operations, it was not definitively shown that he issued the orders.