Friday

Sep. 18, 1998

With Three Conversing

by John Milton

FRIDAY 9/18

Today's Reading: "With Thee Conversing" by John Milton from PARADISE LOST.

It's the birthday of legendary Hollywood star GRETA GARBO (GRAND HOTEL; NINOTCHKA), born in Stockholm, in 1905.

Physician and meteorologist JOHN AITKEN, who discovered the role that microscopic particles play in condensation of airborne water vapor into clouds and fog, was born in Falkirk, Scotland, in 1839.

It's the birthday of French physicist LÉON FOUCAULT in Paris, in 1819. He devised the Foucault pendulum, a heavy iron ball swinging from a long wire, which he used in 1851 to demonstrate that the Earth rotates about its axis, the pendulum's swing changing slowly as the Earth moves, at a rate and direction determined by its geographic site.

The CORNERSTONE OF THE UNITED STATES CAPITOL in Washington was laid by President George Washington on this day in 1793 in a Masonic ceremony.

It's the birthday of English writer SAMUEL JOHNSON, in Lichfield, Staffordshire, in 1709, who became the leading English literary figure of the late 18th century, now called the Age of Johnson. He was a journalist, poet, critic, playwright and essayist, and compiled A Dictionary of the English Language, the first to use historical quotations for illustration. He was also a renowned conversationalist, whose brilliance was preserved by his friend, James Boswell, in the Life of Samuel Johnson (1791).

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

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