Learned Hand (1872–1961) was an influential United States judge and
judicial philosopher. He served on the Southern District Court of New
York and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Hand has reportedly been quoted more often than any other lower-court
judge by legal scholars and by the Supreme Court of the United States.
Born and raised in Albany, New York, Hand majored in philosophy at
Harvard College and graduated with honors from Harvard Law School.
After a short career as a lawyer in Albany and New York City, he was
appointed as a Federal District Judge in Manhattan in 1909 at the age
of 37. The profession suited his detached and open-minded temperament,
and his decisions soon won him a reputation for craftsmanship and
authority. He ran unsuccessfully as the Progressive Party's candidate
for Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals in 1913, but withdrew
from active politics shortly afterwards. In 1924, President Calvin
Coolidge promoted Hand to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,
which he went on to lead as the Senior Circuit Judge (later retitled
Chief Judge) from 1939 until his semi-retirement in 1951. Friends and
admirers often lobbied for Hand's promotion to the Supreme Court, but
circumstances and his political past conspired against his appointment.
Hand possessed a gift for language, and his writings are admired as
legal literature.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_Hand>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1800:
The Library of Congress , today the de facto national library of the
United States, was established as part of an act of Congress providing
for the transfer of the nation's capital from Philadelphia to
Washington, D.C.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Congress>
1877:
Unable to resolve a series of disputes over the Balkans in the
aftermath of the 1876 Bulgarian April Uprising, Russia declared war on
the Ottoman Empire, starting the Russo-Turkish War.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War_%281877%E2%80%931878%29>
1915:
The Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire began with the arrest and
deportation of hundreds of prominent Armenians in Constantinople.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide>
1916:
Irish republicans led by teacher and political activist Patrick Pearse
began the Easter Rising, a rebellion against British rule in Ireland,
and proclaimed the Irish Republic an independent state.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_of_the_Irish_Republic>
1990:
The Hubble Space Telescope was launched by the Space Shuttle Discovery
in mission STS-31.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
bromide (n):
1. (chemistry) A binary compound of bromine and some other element or
radical.
2. A dull person with conventional thoughts.
3. A platitude
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bromide>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The poem... is a little myth of man's capacity of making life
meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see — it is,
rather, a light by which we may see — and what we see is life.
--Robert Penn Warren
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Penn_Warren>