Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 1/15/2009

1/15/1990:
Big George Foreman, 41, wins the 20th consecutive bout of his comeback with a brisk knockout of 33-year-old Jerry Cooney at the Convention Hall in Atlantic City. At 253 pounds, the revitalized preacher from Texas mounts a furious attack, burying the 6'7" Irishman under an avalanche of blows until it's quickly over at 1:57 of the second round. Cooney will announce his retirement following the one-sided bout.

Birthdays:
Bobby Grich b. 1949
Ernie DiGregorio b. 1951
Delino DeShields b. 1969
Mary Pierce b. 1975
Drew Brees b. 1979

Packers Fact:
Safety Atari Bigby was a former practice-squad player who earned his first NFL start in the Packers' defensive backfield on Kickoff Weekend in 1007.

CITY OF SHADOW

In this secret history, we are shown a Paris of workers, artists, flaneurs, alchemists, bohemians, drunkards, and prostitutes. This is not the Paris of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, but of the Palais-Royal, where erotic pleasures were pursued during the revolution; and the cemetery of the Saints-Innocents, where the soil was once believed by necromancers to have magical properties. Exhilarating stuff and worthy of the city that inspired it.

PARIS: THE SECRET HISTORY, by Andrew Hussey (Bloomsbury USA, 2006)

MYTH-CONCEPTIONS

The Myth: Julius Caesar’s final words were “Et tu, Brute.”
The Facts: Those words have been mistranslated to roughly mean “Even you, Brutus.” The meaning: Caesar is shocked that his close adviser Brutus was among his murderers. But his last words were more akin to “And thou, Brutus, my child!” Caesar indeed was stunned that Brutus had conspired to murder him, but that was because he had always thought Brutus was his illegitimate son, the result of a long-ago affair with Brutus’s mother.

GOOD INVESTMENT: THE NIKE COMPANY WAS FOUNDED WITH $1,000.

BALI, INDONESIA

“A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.”—SAADI

MYTH-CONCEPTIONS

The Myth: Julius Caesar’s final words were “Et tu, Brute.”
The Facts: Those words have been mistranslated to roughly mean “Even you, Brutus.” The meaning: Caesar is shocked that his close adviser Brutus was among his murderers. But his last words were more akin to “And thou, Brutus, my child!” Caesar indeed was stunned that Brutus had conspired to murder him, but that was because he had always thought Brutus was his illegitimate son, the result of a long-ago affair with Brutus’s mother.

GOOD INVESTMENT: THE NIKE COMPANY WAS FOUNDED WITH $1,000.