Internet Addiction Disorder

Internet addiction disorder is a maladaptive pattern of Internet use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress. Like drug addiction, Internet addiction is typically characterized by symptoms of tolerance—including the need for markedly increased amounts of time online to achieve satisfaction—and withdrawal, including anxiety, fantasies, or dreams about the Internet, and even involuntary typing movements. Why is the disorder’s classification as an addiction controversial? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Behold the mighty elephant bird, blindly crashing through the Madagascan forest

Islands breed strange animals. Isolated from the rest of the world, these ecosystems often produce creatures uniquely adapted to their idiosyncratic environments. Nations like Madagascar and New Zealand can thus support strikingly similar life despite … Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Great Lakes Storm Reaches Peak Ferocity (1913)

The deadliest and most destructive natural disaster ever to hit the Great Lakes region, the “Big Blow,” “Freshwater Fury,” or “White Hurricane,” as it is variously known, was a blizzard with hurricane-force winds that battered parts of the US and Canada for several days in November 1913. Approximately 250 people died in the violent storm—all of them sailors who perished when their ships were wrecked or sunk on the lakes. How tall were the swells that vessels had to contend with during the storm? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Oglebay Winter Festival of Lights

A premier light show in Wheeling, West Virginia, the Winter Festival of Lights started in 1985 and is now considered a rival of the light show at Niagara Falls. More than a million people visit each year to see two million lights on the downtown Victorian buildings, with architectural and landscape lighting designed by world-famous lighting designers. Some 300 acres of the city’s Oglebay Park are covered with animated light displays that depict symbols of Hanukkah and Christmas and general winter scenes. There are also nighttime parades and storefront animations. Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Benjamin Banneker (1731)

Banneker was a free African American who was largely self-educated in astronomy and mathematics. In 1761, he drew attention by building a wooden clock that kept precise time for some 50 years. He accurately predicted a solar eclipse in 1789 and began publishing annually the Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanac and Ephemeris, sending an early copy to Thomas Jefferson to counter the belief that African Americans were intellectually inferior. How did Jefferson respond? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Hanno the Elephant

Hanno was the pet white elephant of Pope Leo X, a member of the wealthy and powerful Medici family and one of the most extravagant Renaissance pontiffs. Hanno was given to Leo as a gift by King Manuel I of Portugal to commemorate the pope’s coronation. A favorite of the papal court, Hanno was featured in processions in Rome. He contracted an illness after just two years there, however, and died in 1516. Hanno was the subject of a satirical pamphlet that helped launch the career of what author? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

The Beer Hall Putsch (1923)

Years before Adolf Hitler rose to power, he led an unsuccessful insurrection against the Weimar Republic. It began when he and his men stormed a right-wing political meeting in a Munich beer hall and coerced its leaders to join in his “revolution.” The next day, some 3,000 Nazis marched in Munich. When police responded with deadly force, the putsch was abandoned. Hitler’s treason earned him a 5-year prison sentence, of which he served only 8 months. How did he pass the time while incarcerated? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary