Professor Klaus Schwab founded what was originally called the
European Management Forum, as a non-profit foundation based in Geneva,
Switzerland. It drew business leaders
from Europe, and beyond, to Davos for an Annual Meeting each January. Initially, Professor Schwab focused the
meetings on how European firms could catch up with US management
practices. He also developed and
promoted the ‘stakeholder’ management approach, which based corporate success
on managers taking account of all interests:
not merely shareholders, clients and customers, but employees and the
communities within which they operate, including government. Events in 1973, namely the collapse of the
Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate mechanism and the Arab-Israeli War, saw the
Annual Meeting expand its focus from management to economic and social issues. Political leaders were invited for the first
time to Davos in January 1974. Two years
later, the organization introduced a system of membership for ‘the 1,000
leading companies of the world’. The
European Management Forum was the first non-governmental institution to
initiate a partnership with China’s economic development commissions, spurring
economic reform policies in China. In
1987, the European Management Forum became the World Economic Forum and sought
to broaden its vision to include providing a platform for dialogue. World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
milestones during this time include the Davos Declaration signed in 1988 by
Greece and Turkey, which saw them turn back from the brink of war, while in
1989, North and South Korea held their first ministerial-level meetings in
Davos. At the same Meeting, East German
Prime Minister Hans Modrow and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl met to discuss
German reunification. In 1992, South
African President de Klerk met Nelson Mandela and Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi at
the Annual Meeting, their first joint appearance outside South Africa and a
milestone in the country’s political transition. In 2015, the Forum was formally recognised as
an international organisation. It is now
on the next phase of its journey as the global platform for public-private
cooperation.
In late May 2003, the Library of Congress completed the purchase of the only surviving copy of
the first image of the outline of the continents of the world as we know them
today—Martin Waldseemüller’s monumental
1507 world map. That map has been
referred to in various circles as America's birth certificate, and for
good reason—it is the first document on which the name America appears. It is also the first map to depict a separate
and full Western Hemisphere and the first map to represent the Pacific
Ocean as
a separate body of
water. Martin Waldseemüller, the primary cartographer of
the map, was a sixteenth-century scholar, humanist, cleric, and cartographer
who had joined the small intellectual circle, the Gymnasium Vosagense, organized in Saint-Dié,France. He was born near Freiburg, Germany,
sometime in the 1470s, and died in the canon house at Saint-Dié in 1522. During his lifetime, he devoted much of his
activities to cartographic ventures, including the famous world map, a set of
globe gores (for a globe with a 3 inch diameter) and, the Cosmographiae Introductio (a
book to accompany the map) in the spring of 1507; the 1513 edition of the
Ptolemy Geographiae; the Carta Marina, a large world map, in 1516; and a
smaller world map in the 1515 edition of Margarita Philosophica Nova among other items. Waldseemüller’s 1507
map was a bold statement that rationalized the modern world in light of the
exciting news arriving in Europe as a result of explorations sponsored by
Spain, Portugal, and others—not only across the Atlantic Ocean, but around the
African coast and into the Indian Ocean.
The map must have created quite a stir in Europe,
since its findings departed considerably from the accepted knowledge of the
world at that time, which was based on the second century A.D. work of the
Greek geographer, Claudius Ptolemy. To
us, the 1507 map appears remarkably accurate; but to the world of the early
sixteenth century it represented a considerable departure from accepted views
regarding the composition of the world. Its appearance undoubtedly ignited a
debate in Europe regarding its portrayal of an unknown continent (unknown to
Europe and others in the Eastern Hemisphere) between two huge bodies of water,
the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and separated from the classical world of
Ptolemy, which had been confined to the continents of Europe, Africa, and
Asia. By 1513, when Waldseemüller and
the Saint-Dié scholars
published the new edition of Ptolemy's Geographiae, and
by 1516, when his famous Carta Marina was printed, Waldseemüller had
removed the name America from his maps, perhaps suggesting that
even he had second thoughts in honoring Vespucci exclusively for his understanding of
the New
World. Instead, in the 1513 atlas the name America does
not appear anyplace in the volume, and the place of America is
referred to as Terra Incognita (Unknown land).
In the1516 Carta Marina,
South America is called Terra Nova (New World), and North America is named Cuba,
and is shown to be part of Asia.
No reference in either work is made to the name America. Yet, cartographic contributions by Johannes Schöner in
1515 and by Peter Apian in 1520 adopted the name America for
the Western
Hemisphere, and that name became part of accepted usage. John R. Hébert Read more at http://www.stonybrook.edu/libmap/coordinates/seriesb/no4/b4.htm
BookCon is an annual fan
convention established in
2014 in New
York City. Taking the name format
from other fan conventions such as Comic-Con, BookCon was
established to combine pop culture and the book industry. The second BookCon took place in May
2015. BookCon is run by ReedPOP, which
also organizes New York Comic Con, Chicago Comic & Entertainment
Expo, Star Wars Celebration, and other events. BookCon was created to boost the image and
attendance of long-running book fair BookExpo
America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BookCon The third BookCon will be held May 11, 12, and 13, 2016 at
McCormick Place in Chicago. http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/Show-Info/Event-At-A-Glance-Hours/#page=Event-Hours
A.Word.A.Day with
Anu Garg BLEND WORDS
clairaudience (kler-AW-dee-uhns) noun
The supposed ability to hear what is inaudible. A blend of clairvoyance + audience
(the act of hearing), from audire (to hear).
Ultimately from the Indo-European root au- (to perceive), which also
gave us audio, audit, obey, auditorium, anesthesia, aesthetic, and synesthesia. Earliest documented use: 1864.
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: Andrew
Pressburger Subject:
Blend words One portmanteau
coinage I am still inordinately proud of after some fifty years past its
creation is the name I gave to a late afternoon Christmas brunch I had in
Montreal. Adding to the already existing
blend of breakfast and lunch, I came up with brinner, i.e. brunch and dinner,
thus partaking of a Yule Brinner. I hope
fellow linguaphiles still remember the noted actor of such memorable
films and musicals as Anastasia and The King and I (in whose name
the -e is not only silent but invisible, too).
From: Jorge Del
Desierto Subject:
Blend words In French, the term
for blend words is mot-valise or suitcase words.
September 18, 2014 The
Royal and Ancient Golf Club at St. Andrews is no longer just for men. The R&A became the latest golf club to
end years of male-only exclusivity when its members voted overwhelmingly in
favor of inviting women. The vote was
effective immediately. "I can
confirm that The Royal & Ancient Golf of St. Andrews is now a mixed
membership club," R&A secretary Peter Dawson said in a statement. Dawson said more than three-quarters of the
club's 2,500 members worldwide voted, with 85 percent in favor. The members also voted to fast-track a
"significant" number of women to join in the next few months. Augusta National, home of the
Masters, decided two years ago to invite women to join. Unlike the R&A, Augusta National did not
have a written policy that banned women.
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier
Darla Moore were the first female members.
While the R&A members have access to the clubhouse behind the first
tee at the Old Course, they belong to a club, not a golf course. The seven golf courses at St. Andrews are
open to the public. The Royal &
Ancient governs golf everywhere in the world except for the United States and
Mexico. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/royal-and-ancient-golf-club-votes-to-admit-female-members/
Millennials have
surpassed Baby Boomers as the nation’s largest living generation, according to population estimates released
this month by the U.S. Census Bureau. Millennials,
whom we define as those ages 18-34 in 2015, now number 75.4 million, surpassing
the 74.9 million Baby Boomers (ages 51-69). And Generation X (ages 35-50 in 2015) is
projected to pass the Boomers in population by 2028. Generations are analytical constructs, and
developing a popular and expert consensus on what marks the boundaries between
one generation and the next takes time. Pew
Research Center has established that the oldest “Millennial” was born in 1981. To distill the implications of the census
numbers for generational heft, this analysis assumes that the youngest
Millennial was born in 1997. With
immigration adding more numbers to its group than any other, the Millennial
population is projected to peak in 2036 at 81.1 million. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/25/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers/
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1463
April 29, 2016 On this date in
1899, Duke
Ellington,
American pianist, composer, and bandleader, was born. On this date in 1945, Catherine Lara, French singer-songwriter
and violinist, was born.
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