Month: May 2015

Soviet Union Lifts Blockade of Berlin (1949)

One of the first major crises of the Cold War, the Berlin blockade began in June 1948 during the multinational occupation of post-WWII Germany. In an attempt to force its former wartime allies—the US, the UK, and France—out of Berlin, the USSR began a blockade of all rail, road, and water traffic through East Germany to West Berlin. Rather than withdraw, the Western powers bypassed the blockade by airlifting thousands of tons of supplies into the city each day. What was Operation Little Vittles? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Boston Pops

Henry Lee Higginson, who established the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1881, believed that “concerts of a lighter kind of music” should be presented in the summer. People began to refer fondly to these summer concerts as “the Pops,” a name which became official in 1900. The Boston Pops tailors its programs around American music and musicians, medleys of popular songs, and familiar movements of classical works. Outside of its official concert season at Symphony Hall, where it performs through May and June, the Pops also tours the United States. Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828)

Rossetti was a British painter, poet, and founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, an association of painters who aimed to combat the shallow conventionalism of academic painting and revive the fidelity to nature and the vivid realistic color that they considered typical of Italian painting before Raphael. Although Rossetti found some financial success as a painter, his lasting reputation rests upon his poetry. What did he have buried with his wife—and later exhumed? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

The Burqa

The burqa is a loose, opaque, and all-enveloping outer garment worn by women in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northern India. Similar garments in the Middle East are known as the hijab or chador. The burqa covers the wearer’s entire face except for a small region around the eyes. Because a full burqa conceals the entire body and includes a net panel that hides the wearer’s eyes, some governments have passed legislation prohibiting it. In 2010, how much was a woman fined for wearing a burqa? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Dust Bowl: Dust Storm Hits Great Plains (1934)

In the 1930s, severe drought conditions in the Great Plains region of the US and decades of farming without crop rotation led to a series of devastating dust storms. The storms, called “dusters” or “black blizzards,” caused widespread ecological and agricultural damage. In May 1934, one of the worst storms to hit the Dust Bowl blew massive amounts of Great Plains topsoil all the way to the East Coast and dumped the equivalent of how many pounds of debris on Chicago, Illinois? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Frost Saints’ Days

These three consecutive days in May mark the feasts of St. Mammertus, St. Pancras, and St. Servatus. In the wine-growing districts of France, a severe cold spell occasionally strikes at this time of year, inflicting serious damage on the grapevines; some in rural France have believed that it is the result of their having offended one of the three saints, who for this reason are called the “frost saints.” French farmers have been known to show their displeasure over a cold snap at this time of year by flogging the statues and defacing the pictures of Mammertus, Pancras, and Servatus. Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Frederick Russell Burnham (1861)

Burnham was an American adventurer whose outdoorsmanship helped inspire the founding of the international scout movement. He was born on an Indian reservation to a missionary family and became a horseback messenger for Western Union Telegraph Company at age 13 and soon after a scout and tracker. After two decades of ranging in the Southwest and Mexico, he moved to Africa to become the British army’s chief of scouts during the Boer War. His tracking skills earned him what nickname in Africa? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary