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Today's Highlights
August 27, 2008 
Spotlight:
History's shortest war began and ended on this date in 1896. British ships began bombing the island of Zanzibar at 9 a.m., and Zanzibar surrendered at about 9:45 a.m., that same morning. The battle was prompted by the ascension to Zanzibar's throne of Khalid bin Barghash, second son to Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini, who had died two days before. The British, who had sovereignty over the island, opposed the new sultan. When he refused to step down, the British fired upon the island, quickly bringing the insurrection to an end.
Quote: "War, he sung, is toil and trouble; honour but an empty bubble." — John Dryden
Quote: "War, he sung, is toil and trouble; honour but an empty bubble."
Questions of the Day
Is Zanzibar a city in Tanzania?
Zanzibar is a group of islands off the coast of Tanzania. Unguja is the main island, often called Zanzibar, and is what most people are referring to when they say Zanzibar. More
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Today in History
Krakatoa
- Edwin Drake: the "Father of the Petroleum Industry" drilled the first successful US oil well, near Titusville, Pennsylvania (1859)
- Krakatoa: volcano erupted in the loudest explosion ever recorded; the resultant tsunami killed 36,000 (1883)
- Kellogg-Briand Pact: multinational treaty signed in Paris outlawed war — about 11 years before the same nations took part in WWII (1928)
Today's Birthdays
Sarah Chalke
- Georg Hegel (1770-1831): metaphysical philosopher
- Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945): novelist, Sister Carrie, An American Tragedy; writers C.S. Forester (1899-1966), Jeanette Winterson (49) and Dean Devlin (46) were also born on this date
- Man Ray (1890-1976): photographer and painter
- Sarah Chalke (32): Dr. Elliot Reid on Scrubs; also, actors Tommy Sands (71), Tuesday Weld (65), Barbara Bach (61), Paul Reubens (56), Diana Scarwid (53), Chandra Wilson (39) and Alexa Vega (20)
Word of the Day
Yellow
yellow journalism
In newspaper publishing, the use of lurid features and sensationalized news in newspaper publishing to attract readers and increase circulation. The phrase was coined in the 1890s to describe tactics employed in the furious competition between two New York papers, Joseph Pulitzer's World and William Randolph Hearst's Journal. When Hearst hired away from Pulitzer a cartoonist who had drawn the immensely popular comic strip "The Yellow Kid," another cartoonist was hired to draw the comic for the World; the rivalry excited so much attention that the competition was dubbed yellow journalism....
(© Britannica Concise Encyclopedia)
In newspaper publishing, the use of lurid features and sensationalized news in newspaper publishing to attract readers and increase circulation. The phrase was coined in the 1890s to describe tactics employed in the furious competition between two New York papers, Joseph Pulitzer's World and William Randolph Hearst's Journal. When Hearst hired away from Pulitzer a cartoonist who had drawn the immensely popular comic strip "The Yellow Kid," another cartoonist was hired to draw the comic for the World; the rivalry excited so much attention that the competition was dubbed yellow journalism....
There are so many colors in the rainbow, and many of them have been moonlighting as parts of phrases that give them a whole new meaning. This week we'll take a look at some of them.
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