Month: April 2018

Chinese Submarine Suffers Mysterious Accident that Kills 70 (2003)

A week and a half after a mysterious event left the entire 70-man crew of the Chinese Ming-class submarine No. 361 dead at their posts, the stricken vessel was spotted by fishermen and towed to shore. The official explanation for the disaster is that the crew suffocated when diesel engines failed to shut down while the vessel was submerged. What had allowed the crippled submarine to drift for over a week without raising concern? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Sir John Franklin (1786)

Franklin was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer who also served as governor of Tasmania. He is best remembered for presiding over a doomed expedition in the 1840s to chart the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic. He and his crew fell prey to a host of ills, including starvation, disease, and lead poisoning. Of the entire expedition of nearly 130 men, not one is known to have survived. What evidence suggests that some of the crew members may have resorted to cannibalism? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Exquisite Corpse

Exquisite corpse is an exercise in which a collection of words or images is assembled by several participants, each of whom adds to a composition by either following a predetermined sequence—such as adjective-noun-adverb-verb-article-adjective-noun—or by looking at the end of the previous entry. The name of the game is derived from the phrase that French Surrealists created when they first played it in 1925: “Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau,” which means what? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

The Battle of Formigny (1450)

One of the first battles in which cannons played a pivotal, if not decisive, role, the Battle of Formigny was a major French victory toward the end of the Hundred Years’ War. The English were dealt a significant blow—thousands of troops were killed, injured, or captured—and, as there were no other significant English forces in Normandy, the entire region quickly fell to the French. The battle had raged for several hours before the tides turned in favor of the French. What brought this about? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Bessie Smith (1894)

When Smith was just a teen, she became the protégée of Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, one of the earliest blues singers. After making recordings, she quickly became the favorite singer of the jazz public. The power and somber beauty of her voice, coupled with songs representing every variety of the blues, earned her the title “Empress of the Blues.” Numerous critics have regarded her as the greatest of all jazz artists, and her fame increased enormously after her death in what tragic accident? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Sensory Illusions in Flight

Because human senses are adapted for use on the ground, relying on sensory input alone to navigate during flight can be dangerous. Since the senses do not always accurately reflect the movement of an aircraft, they can cause a number of sensory illusions, including those affected by vision and fluid in the inner ear. Some illusions result in false sensations of rotation, while others can cause misconceptions about the orientation of one’s aircraft. What is the black-hole approach illusion? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary