Today’s WOTD – 28 October 2012

pernicious

[per-nish-uhs]

adjective

1. causing insidious harm or ruin; ruinous; injurious; hurtful: pernicious teachings; a pernicious lie.

2. deadly; fatal: a pernicious disease.

3. Obsolete . evil; wicked

For example:

Nothing has been more pernicious to the nation than increasing powers of monitoring, detention and even execution without accountability or openness, in the name of security.

Today’s aphorism

‘You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself.’

– Ernest Hemingway

On this day

28 October 1922 – Benito Mussolini, of the National Fascist Party, takes over the leadership of Italy’s government, after forcing Prime Minister Luigi Facta to resign following the ‘March on Rome’. Mussolini took the title ‘IL DUCE’ (The Leader).

28 October 1962 – end of the Cuban Missile Crisis, known in Cuba as the October Crisis and in Russia as Kарибский кризис (Caribbean Crisis), one of the major events of the Cold War as it brought the world to the brink of nuclear conflict. It started when a USAF U-2 plane photographed evidence of Soviet air bases being constructed in Cuba on 14 October 1962. The U.S. considered bombing the bases, but ended up blockading Cuba, preventing Soviet weapons being delivered. Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev wrote to U.S. President John F. Kennedy, stating the blockade constituted an act of war. For 13 days, the Americans and Soviets conducted talks to resolve the crisis. On 28 October 1962, Kennedy and UN Secretary General U. Thant reached a public and secret agreement with Khrushchev. Publicly, the Soviets agreed to dismantle their weapons in Cuba, while the U.S. gave an agreement to never invade Cuba. Secretly, the U.S. agreed to dismantle its ballistic missiles in Turkey.

28 October 1965 – Ernest Hemingway wins the Nobel Prize for Literature. Author of ‘The Old Man and the Sea‘.