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October 18, 2025
Oct 18, 2025
Word
scission
noun
Definition
  1. a division or split in a group or union : schism
  2. an action or process of cutting, dividing, or splitting : the state of being cut, divided, or split
Example
Despite the bitter scissions that divided their party, the Republicans dominated the state's political scene throughout the 1990s.
Origin
You may suspect that a connection exists between "scission" and "scissors," but, actually, their etymologies are sharply divided. "Scission" traces to the Latin verb "scindere" ("to split" or "to cut"). "Scissors," on the other hand, comes from an entirely separate Latin verb that also means "to cut" -- "caedere." The Middle English word for the cutting instrument was "cisours" or "sisoures," which comes from Middle French "cisoires." An "sc" spelling appeared only in the 16th century when, apparently, the word for the cutting instrument was mistakenly taken to have derived, like "scission," from "scindere."
Webster's Dictionary
Fun facts
  1. One lemon tree will produce about 1,500 lemons a year.
  2. Fresh cranberries can be bounced like a rubber ball.
Snapple's under-the-cap 'Real Facts'
Artist
Gio Ponti
Nov 18, 1891 - Sep 16, 1979

Giovanni "Gio" Ponti was an Italian architect, industrial designer, furniture designer, artist, teacher, writer and publisher.

During his career, which spanned six decades, Ponti built more than a hundred buildings in Italy and in the rest of the world. He designed a considerable number of decorative art and design objects as well as furniture. Thanks to the magazine Domus, which he founded in 1928 and directed almost all his life, and thanks to his active participation in exhibitions such as the Milan Triennial, he was also an enthusiastic advocate of an Italian-style art of living and a major player in the renewal of Italian design after the Second World War. From 1936 to 1961, he taught at the Milan Polytechnic School and trained several generations of designers. Ponti also contributed to the creation in 1954 of one of the most important design awards: the Compasso d'Oro prize. Ponti died on 16 September 1979.

His most famous works are the Pirelli Tower, built from 1956 to 1960 in Milan in collaboration with the engineer Pier Luigi Nervi, the Villa Planchart in Caracas and the Superleggera chair, produced by Cassina in 1957.

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Wikipedia, Google Arts & Culture
Historical figure
Empress Dowager Cixi
Nov 29, 1835 - Nov 15, 1908

Empress Dowager Cixi, of the Manchu Yehe Nara clan, was a Chinese empress dowager and regent who effectively controlled the Chinese government in the late Qing dynasty for 47 years, from 1861 until her death in 1908.

Selected as a concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor in her adolescence, she gave birth to a son, Zaichun, in 1856. After the Xianfeng Emperor's death in 1861, the young boy became the Tongzhi Emperor, and she became the Empress Dowager. Cixi ousted a group of regents appointed by the late emperor and assumed regency, which she shared with Empress Dowager Ci'an. Cixi then consolidated control over the dynasty when she installed her nephew as the Guangxu Emperor at the death of the Tongzhi Emperor in 1875, contrary to the traditional rules of succession of the Qing dynasty that had ruled China since 1644.

Cixi supervised the Tongzhi Restoration, a series of moderate reforms that helped the regime survive until 1911. Although Cixi refused to adopt Western models of government, she supported technological and military reforms and the Self-Strengthening Movement.

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Wikipedia, Google Arts & Culture
Historic event
2001 Gujarat earthquake
Jan 26, 2001

The 2001 Gujarat earthquake, also known as the Bhuj earthquake, occurred on 26 January, India's 52nd Republic Day, at 08:46 am IST. The epicentre was about 9 km south-southwest of the village of Chobari in Bhachau Taluka of Kutch District of Gujarat, India.

The intraplate earthquake reached 7.7 on the moment magnitude scale and had a maximum felt intensity of X on the Mercalli intensity scale. The earthquake killed between 13,805 and 20,023 people, injured another 167,000 and destroyed nearly 340,000 buildings.

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