Richard Nixon (1913–1994) was the 37th President of the United States,
serving from 1969 to 1974. He graduated from Whittier College in 1934
and Duke University School of Law in 1937, returning to California to
practice law. He served in the United States Navy during World War II.
Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and to the
Senate in 1950. He served for eight years as vice president, from 1953
to 1961, and waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1960,
narrowly losing to John F. Kennedy. In 1968, Nixon ran again for
president and was elected. He initially escalated the Vietnam War, but
ended US involvement in 1973. Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of
China in 1972 opened diplomatic relations between the two nations.
Though he presided over Apollo 11, he scaled back manned space
exploration. He was re-elected by a landslide in 1972. A series of
revelations in the Watergate scandal cost Nixon much of his political
support in his second term, and on August 9, 1974, he resigned as
president. In retirement, Nixon's work as an elder statesman, authoring
several books and undertaking many foreign trips, helped to rehabilitate
his public image.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1816:
Inventor Humphry Davy first tested his Davy lamp (examples
pictured), a safety lamp containing a candle for use in coal mines.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_lamp>
1857:
A 7.9 Mw earthquake ruptured part of the San Andreas fault in
California and was felt as far east as Las Vegas.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1857_Fort_Tejon_earthquake>
1981:
U.S. Representative Raymond F. Lederer was convicted of bribery
and conspiracy for his role in the Abscam scandal, but continued to
serve his term for three more months.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_F._Lederer>
1991:
Representatives from the United States and Iraq met at the
Geneva Peace Conference to try to find a peaceful resolution to the
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Peace_Conference>
2004:
Twenty-eight illegal Albanian emigrants died when their
inflatable boat stalled near the Karaburun Peninsula while on the way to
Brindisi, Italy.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaburun_tragedy>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
carpe diem:
Seize the day, make the most of today, enjoy the present.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/carpe_diem>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Science condemns itself to failure when, yielding to the infatuation of
the serious, it aspires to attain being, to contain it, and to possess
it; but it finds its truth if it considers itself as a free engagement
of thought in the given, aiming, at each discovery, not at fusion with
the thing, but at the possibility of new discoveries; what the mind then
projects is the concrete accomplishment of its freedom.
--Simone de Beauvoir
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Simone_de_Beauvoir>