Category: Today’s Birthday

Margarita Cansino began her show business career as a child, dancing flamenco with her well-known father, Eduardo. After taking acting lessons, changing her last name to Hayworth, and dying her hair its trademark red, she began her acting career. Her appearance in a series of musicals made her a star, and her role in Gilda confirmed her status as a Hollywood sex symbol, making her one of the most popular wartime pinups. Hayworth’s picture is rumored to have been placed on what weapon? Discuss

Webster was an American lexicographer. After serving in the American Revolution, he published The Elementary Spelling Book, or “Blue-Backed Speller,” which helped standardize American spelling and sold some 100 million copies. In 1807, he began work on his landmark American Dictionary of the English Language, which included definitions of 70,000 words—of which 12,000 had never appeared in a dictionary before. How many languages did he learn while compiling the dictionary? Discuss

Virgil was a Roman poet and the author of the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid, widely regarded as one of the greatest long poems in world literature. The Aeneid, Rome’s national epic, tells the legendary story of the Trojan hero Aeneas, whose descendants become the founders of Rome. What later poet portrayed Virgil as the guide to Hell in his great literary classic The Divine Comedy? Discuss

Mobutu was the president of Zaïre—now the Democratic Republic of the Congo—from 1965 to 1997. His repressive regime resulted in corruption and poverty, while he amassed one of the largest personal fortunes in the world. He was overthrown in 1997 and died in exile in Morocco. As part of his policies, he required Africanization of all European names, changing the Congo’s name to Zaïre and his own name, Joseph Désiré Mobutu, to Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga, which means what? Discuss

Simon is an American singer and songwriter who first gained fame as half of the duo Simon and Garfunkel. Simon first met Art Garfunkel in sixth grade at their public school in Queens, New York. The two began performing together in the 1950s, using the name Tom and Jerry. After a break, they reunited in 1964 as Simon and Garfunkel but split again in 1970, not long after their highly successful album Bridge over Troubled Water was released. What albums did Simon record as a solo artist? Discuss

MacDonald was the first Labour Party prime minister of Britain, serving in 1924, from 1929 to 1931, and again as part of a coalition government from 1931 to 1935. He joined the precursor of the Labour Party in 1894 and served as its first secretary. MacDonald was elected to Parliament in 1906 and was leader of the Labour party there from 1911 to 1914, until he was forced to resign for opposing participation in WWI. From what other organization was MacDonald expelled for his pacifist stance? Discuss

Eleanor Roosevelt, niece of US president Theodore Roosevelt, was an active worker in social causes before she married future US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1905. When her husband was stricken with polio in 1921, she took a more active interest in public issues in order to restore his links with the world of politics, playing a leading role in humanitarian causes such as child welfare, equal rights, and social reforms. How was she related to her husband? Discuss

Hayes was an American actress who began her stage career at the age of five and debuted on Broadway at nine. She went on to star in Broadway productions such as Caesar and Cleopatra and became known as “the First Lady of the American Theatre.” She won three Tony Awards, as well as two Academy Awards for her roles in The Sin of Madelon Claudet and Airport. Hayes is one of only a handful of people who have won a Tony, an Oscar, and what other two awards? Discuss

Del Toro is an Academy Award-nominated Mexican filmmaker whose films often explore the darker elements of fantasy and reflect his fascination with “insects, clockwork, monsters, dark places, and unborn things.” His most acclaimed films to date, Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone, both feature children living under authoritarian rule while facing frightening supernatural entities and have been compared with what film, considered to be the finest Spanish film of the 1970s? Discuss

Le Châtelier was a French chemist best known for devising Le Châtelier’s principle, which makes it possible to predict the effect that a change in conditions—such as temperature, pressure, or concentration of components—will have on a chemical reaction. The principle states that a system in equilibrium, when subjected to a perturbation, will respond in a way that tends to minimize its effect and restore equilibrium. In 1928, Le Châtelier published a book on what system of scientific management? Discuss