Month: April 2022

heard

phoneme – A word for a hallucination in which voices are heard. More…

pig’s whisper – A loud whisper, meant to be heard. More…

noises off – Sounds created offstage to be heard during a play’s production; the term has been extended to mean distracting or intrusive background noise. More…

pink noise – Random white noise that has been adjusted so there is equal energy per octave and an equal amount of each signal can be heard. More…

Washington Becomes First Elected US President (1789)

Washington, who served as commander-in-chief of the Continental army in the American Revolution, was elected the first President of the US after the adoption of the Constitution. His two-term administration was marked by the establishment of a number of key American institutions that continue to operate today. Because of his central role in the founding of the US, Washington is often called the “Father of His Country.” What are five places or institutions that are named after him? Discuss

Walpurgis Night

People who lived in the Harz Mountains of Germany believed for many centuries that witches rode across the sky on the eve of St. Walpurga’s Day to hold a coven on Brocken Mountain. To frighten them off, people rang church bells, banged pots and pans, and lit torches topped with hemlock, rosemary, and juniper. The legend of Walpurgis Night is still celebrated in Germany, Austria, and Scandinavia with bonfires and other festivities designed to welcome spring by warding off demons, disaster, and darkness. St. Walpurga is the patron saint associated with protection against magic. Discuss

Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893)

Ribbentrop was Nazi Germany’s foreign minister from 1938 until 1945, during which time he helped negotiate the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939, which set the stage for Germany’s attack on Poland that touched off World War II. He, like so many other Nazi officials, was an active participant in the “Final Solution” and various other atrocities and was one of the few who paid with his life at Nuremberg, where he was tried, convicted, and hanged for his war crimes. What were his last words? Discuss

The Corset

A corset is a garment worn to mold the torso into a certain shape for orthopedic reasons or, more commonly, to shrink the waist and exaggerate the bust for aesthetic reasons. It dates to at least 2000 BCE, when it was worn as an outer garment in Minoan Crete. By the 16th century, it had become a tight inner bodice stiffened with whalebone, wood, or steel. After some 4,000 years of use, corsets largely fell out of fashion in the 1920s. What is the record for smallest corseted waist size? Discuss

rules

lect – A regional or social variety within a language, a form of speech defined by a homogenous set of rules. More…

precisian – An overly precise person, a strict observer of rules and procedures. More…

ring – Boxing started off in circles, and when the Marquess of Queensbury introduced a set of rules in 1867, he also introduced the roped-off square, which continued to be called the “ring.” More…

mistress – First meant “a woman who rules or has control,” or a “woman who employs others, as servants.” More…

Dachau Concentration Camp Liberated by US Troops (1945)

Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp and served as a model for others that followed. Built just miles from Munich, Germany, where the Nazi Party was headquartered, it was the site of unimaginable horrors. Dachau’s prisoners were used as forced laborers and as test subjects in grotesque medical experiments. Records indicate that at least 32,000 inmates died at Dachau, and countless more were transported to extermination camps. What was the camp used for after American troops liberated it? Discuss