Month: February 2019

Bhangra

Bhangra is a form of Punjabi dance and music. The dance is traditionally performed in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent during harvest festivals and weddings and is characterized by the beating of a dhol, a large, two-headed drum. Though the dance began as a folk dance, bhangra music developed in the UK in the 1980s and combines traditional bhangra drumming with modern Western instruments and rhythms. What well known hip hop artists have incorporated bhangra elements into their songs? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Adlai Ewing Stevenson (1900)

Stevenson was an American politician and lawyer. After serving as assistant to the Secretary of the Navy during WWII and as a member of the US mission to the UN, he was elected governor of Illinois in 1949. Later in his career, he served as ambassador to the UN. Noted for his eloquence and wit, he was the Democratic candidate for president in 1952 and 1956 but lost to Eisenhower both times by a large margin. His grandfather of the same name served as vice president during whose administration? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Entropy

In popular, nontechnical use, entropy is regarded as a measure of the chaos or randomness of a system. In thermodynamics, it is the measure of a system’s energy that is unavailable for work or of the degree of a system’s disorder. Entropy increases during irreversible processes, such as the spontaneous mixing of hot and cold gases. The concept, first proposed in 1850 by the German physicist Rudolf Clausius, is sometimes presented as the second law of thermodynamics, which states what? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

The Venera Program

The Venera Program consisted of a series of unmanned Soviet planetary probes sent to Venus between 1965 and 1983. Venera 2 flew to within 15,000 miles (24,000 km) of Venus in 1966. A few days later, Venera 3 crash-landed on its surface, becoming the first spacecraft to strike another planet. Later missions analyzed Venus’s atmosphere, made soft landings, and mapped and sent back the first close-up photographs of some of the planet’s surface. What does Venera mean in Russian? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Setsubun (Bean-Throwing Festival)

Setsubun is a ceremony observed in all major temples throughout Japan to mark the last day of winter according to the lunar calendar. People throng temple grounds where the priests or stars such as actors and sumo wrestlers throw dried beans to the crowd who shout, “Fortune in, goblins out!” Some people also decorate their doorways with sardine heads, because the evil spirits don’t like their smell. Beans caught at the temple are brought home to drive out evil there. Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

The Alevi

Numbering in the tens of millions, Alevis are members of a religious, sub-ethnic, and cultural community found primarily in Turkey. Alevism is classified as a branch of Shi’a Islam, but there are significant differences between Alevi beliefs, traditions, and rituals and those of other orthodox sects. For example, Alevi worship takes place in assembly houses—cemevi—rather than mosques, and it features music and dance in which both women and men participate. What are some other differences? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary