Month: April 2022

Nuclear Reactor at Chernobyl Plant Explodes (1986)

The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is regarded as the worst nuclear accident in history. Radioactive debris from the disaster drifted across parts of the western Soviet Union and Europe. Large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated, resulting in the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of people and a disputed number of deaths. The incident set off an international outcry over the dangers posed by radioactive emissions. What caused the accident? Discuss

John Audubon Day

John James Audubon (1785-1851) was America’s foremost ornithological illustrator. After his death in 1851, Audubon’s wife Lucy returned to teaching to support herself. One of her students, George Bird Grinnell, in 1886 organized the Audubon Society for the study and protection of birds. Today there are many branches of this organization, known as the National Audubon Society, and its members honor Audubon on his birthday, April 26. In some states, Audubon Day and Arbor Day are celebrated together by planting trees in bird sanctuaries. Discuss

Charles Richter (1900)

Richter was an American seismologist best known for creating the Richter scale, which quantifies the magnitude of earthquakes by assigning each quake a single number based on the measurement of seismic waves. The scale is logarithmic, meaning that each increase of one unit represents a 10-fold increase in the amplitude of the waves. Though the scale has no theoretical upper limit, the most severe quakes have not exceeded a scale value of 9. What earthquake measurement method succeeded Richter’s? Discuss

What a Relief!

In sculpture, the term “relief” refers to any work in which the figures project from a flat background. In alto-relievo, or high relief, the protrusion is great. Basso-relievo, or bas-relief, protrudes only slightly. Mezzo-relievo is intermediate between the two. Ancient Egyptian and Etruscan art also features cavo-relievo, literally “hollow relief,” in which the design is incised deeper than the background. What commonplace item found in many of our pockets features bas-relief? Discuss

insignificant

piff – Something insignificant. More…

bee’s knees – Used from 1797 for “something insignificant.” More…

floccinaucinihilipilification, floccipend – Floccinaucinihilipilification is estimating or categorizing something as worthless, and floccipend means “regard as insignificant” (from Latin flocci pendere, “hold at little value”). More…

piteous, pitiable, pitiful – Piteous is generally not used when speaking of people, pitiable means “able to be pitied,” and pitiful most often means “insignificant; below contempt.” More…

Robinson Crusoe Is Published (1719)

Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is a fictional autobiography of the eponymous English castaway marooned on a desert island for 28 years. During this time, Crusoe encounters cannibals, captives, and mutineers and endures endless hardships while preserving his human integrity. The first volume of Defoe’s Crusoe story was published in 1719 and garnered immediate acclaim. It is considered by some critics to be the first true English novel. What is the book’s full title? Discuss

Oliver Cromwell (1599)

A controversial figure in English history, Cromwell was a leader of the parliamentary forces that battled the royalists in the English Civil War. After the execution of Charles I in 1649, Cromwell became lord protector and virtual dictator of England and raised his country’s status once more to that of a leading European power by means of a strict military administration and the enforcement of the Puritan moral code. What did the royalists do to his corpse when they returned to power in 1660? Discuss