Considered the oldest trade day in the US, Tater Days is now a celebration of the sweet potato in Benton, Kentucky. The event started in 1843 when sweet potatoes were a staple crop of the area. Today, the “tater” is honored with a parade, flea market, gospel music, arts and crafts exhibits, and a Miss Tater Day contest. Most of the food served is some kind of sweet potato concoction. Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
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Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher and political theorist whose famous 1651 book Leviathan profoundly affected political-legal theory in general and influenced the early formation of US law in particular. In Leviathan, Hobbes argues that man is by nature a selfishly individualistic animal and advocates absolutist government as the only means of securing civil society. A lack of such authority, he postulated, would lead to bellum omnium contra omnes, which means what? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
In the US and Canada, an AMBER Alert notifies the general public through a variety of media, including radio and television, that a confirmed abduction of a child has taken place. It is named after Amber Hagerman, a 1996 kidnap victim who might have been quickly located had the means to distribute critical information been available at the time. To avoid false alarms, the criteria for issuing an alert are rather strict. What percentage of alerts meets these criteria? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
Elegance is inferior to virtue. Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
Definition: (adjective) Having or causing a whirling sensation.
Synonyms: whirling, dizzy.
Usage: At the end of the trail, they still faced a vertiginous climb up the face of the cliff.
Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistan Peoples Party, served as president of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973 and as prime minister from 1973 to 1977. In the 1970 parliamentary elections, Bhutto’s party won a majority of seats in West Pakistan, but East Pakistan’s Mujibur Rahman won an overall majority. The power struggle that followed led to a civil war in which East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, gained its independence and Bhutto rose to become president of Pakistan. Why was he executed in 1979? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
For many years, Senegal was controlled by various European powers, and France gradually began gaining control over the area in the 17th century. On April 4, 1960, Senegal won its independence from France. Today, April 4 is a national holiday celebrated all over the country, but festivities are particularly grand in the capital city of Dakar. Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
Antoine Galland was a French scholar famed as the first European translator of The Thousand and One Nights. After translating The Tale of Sindbad the Sailor into French in 1701, he embarked on a translation of a 14th-century Syrian manuscript of the tales, filling 12 volumes. Still, mystery surrounds the origins of some of the most famous tales. No Arabic manuscripts of Aladdin and Ali Baba pre-date Galland’s translations, leading some scholars to conclude what? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
A cicada is an insect with a stout body, a wide, blunt head, protruding eyes, and two pairs of membranous wings. Male cicadas have platelike membranes on the thorax, which they vibrate like drum heads, producing a loud, shrill sound. The Magicicada species have the longest known life cycles of any insect–17 years. They live only one week as winged adults, however, spending the rest of the time in the form of larvae, burrowed underground. To what are their long life cycles an adaptation? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
Definition: (adjective) Hanging down; projecting.
Synonyms: dangling, overhanging, suspended.
Usage: An examination of the cave revealed nothing but hundreds of sleeping bats pendent from the ceiling.
Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary