The Graf Zeppelin was a German, hydrogen-filled, passenger airship—the largest built up to that time. It inaugurated transatlantic flight service in 1928, making its first crossing in 111 hours. During its years of service, it completed 590 flights, including 64 to South America, two to the Middle East, and one around-the-world tour. It was retired from service in 1937, when the Hindenburg disaster brought an end to commercial zeppelin travel. Why was the airship destroyed during WWII? Discuss
Evangelista Torricelli (1608)
An Italian physicist and mathematician, Torricelli served as secretary to Galileo during the last three months of Galileo’s life. Two years later, pursuing a suggestion by Galileo, he filled a glass tube with mercury and inverted the tube into a dish. He noted that some of the mercury did not flow out and that the space above the mercury was a vacuum. He concluded that the variation of the height of the mercury from day to day was caused by changes in atmospheric pressure. What had he invented? Discuss
Psychoactive Toads
The subjects of rumor and urban legend since the 1970s, psychoactive toads are toads from which hallucinogenic, mind-altering substances such as 5-MeO-DMT and bufotenin can be derived. The presence of such substances may produce psychoactive effects in persons who smoke the toad skin or venom. However, contrary to popular myth, there is no evidence that hallucinatory effects can be achieved by licking the toads. In what country have dogs begun to pursue the toads? Discuss
cagey
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890)
Eisenhower was the 34th president of the US. During WWII, he successfully commanded US forces in the invasions of Sicily and Italy. He was then appointed supreme commander of Allied forces and planned the Normandy Campaign and the war in Europe until the German surrender. After the war, both Democrats and Republicans courted him as a presidential candidate. He was elected as a Republican in landslide elections in 1952 and 1956. What famous warning did he issue in his final presidential address? Discuss
Edgar Allan Poe's "Eureka"
Famed poet and writer Edgar Allan Poe considered his 1848 essay “Eureka” to be his career masterpiece. Though described as a “prose poem” by Poe, who wished it to be viewed as art, the work is also a notable scientific and mystical essay unlike any of his other works and includes a cosmological theory that touches on black holes and the big bang theory about 80 years before the 2 subjects gained widespread recognition. Poe claimed “Eureka” was more important than what major scientific discovery? Discuss
cogitation
Ankara Replaces Istanbul as Capital of Turkey (1923)
Ankara was an important commercial center for millennia, but in the late 19th century it experienced a decline. By the early 20th century, it was just a small town known primarily for its mohair production. After WWI, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk made Ankara the seat of his provisional nationalist government. In 1923, it replaced Istanbul as Turkey’s capital, partly to break with tradition and partly because of its central location. Who, according to Phrygian lore, founded the city in about 1000 BCE? Discuss
Lillie Langtry (1853)
Born on the Isle of Jersey, Emilie Charlotte Le Breton married diplomat Edward Langtry in 1874. A famous beauty, she caused a sensation when she became the first society woman to go on the stage, making her debut at the Haymarket theater in 1881 after her husband failed financially. “Jersey Lily,” as she became known, played to enthusiastic audiences in England and the US and later remodeled and managed London’s Imperial Theatre. With what future monarch was Langtry once romantically involved? Discuss
Catharism
The Cathars were members of a Christian sect that flourished in France in the 12th and 13th centuries. Because most adherents believed in reincarnation—as opposed to resurrection—as a way of reaching the pure spirit realm, the Roman Catholic Church regarded the sect as heretical and launched the Albigensian Crusade to crush the movement. In one account of a massacre of some 20,000 Cathars, one of the crusade’s commanders is asked how to tell Cathars from Catholics. What was his famous reply? Discuss