Month: September 2022

Mexico Festival of Independence

At 11 o’clock on the night of September 15 in Mexico City, the president appears on the balcony of the National Palace and proclaims the famous Grito de Dolores (“cry of Dolores”)—the “call to freedom” that the priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla used to rouse the peasant population to fight for their independence in 1810. The people respond by cheering Viva México! and shooting off fireworks. The following day is Independence Day, which is celebrated with fireworks, the ringing of cathedral bells, and a huge military parade. Discuss

Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov (1745)

Kutuzov was a Russian field marshal who commanded the Russian army during major engagements with Napoleon between 1805 and 1812, including the battles of Austerlitz and Borodino. Though his forces suffered great losses in both of these engagements, Kutuzov nevertheless managed to rout the French, forcing them to leave along the path they had devastated when they entered the country. For Napoleon, this was the beginning of the end. In what epic novel does Kutuzov appear as a major character? Discuss

Gioacchino Rossini

Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote more than 30 operas as well as sacred music and piano pieces. The son of musicians, he began composing at age 12 and entered Bologna’s conservatory just two years later. Into the genteel atmosphere of lingering 18th-century operatic manners, Rossini brought genuine originality marked by rude wit and humor and a willingness to sacrifice all “rules” of musical and operatic decorum. For what two masterpiece operas is he best known? Discuss

pyrite

Definition: (noun) A brass-colored mineral, FeS2, occurring widely and used as an iron ore and in producing sulfur dioxide for sulfuric acid.

Synonyms: fool’s gold.

Usage: The children thought the gleaming bits of metal they had found were gold, and their nurse refrained from telling them they were simply flecks of pyrite.
Discuss

USA Today Founded (1982)

USA Today was founded as an alternative to the typical newspaper. Initially considered gimmicky, it gradually improved its reputation and increased its circulation and advertising revenues, a particularly impressive feat as few papers were experiencing growth at the time. The features that originally set it apart—colorful graphics, brief stories, and a focus on sports and celebrity—have been adopted by various other papers. With what newspaper does it vie for widest circulation in the US? Discuss

Guatemala Independence Day

This is the day on which Guatemala won its independence from Spain in 1821. It is a public holiday during which the buildings in Guatemala City are draped in blue-and-white bunting, and there are parades with schoolchildren marching to the music of military bands. A popular holiday pastime is watching La Conquista (The Conquest), a traditional dance where the dancers, in wooden masks and red wigs, reenact the conquest of the Mayan Indians by the Spanish soldier Pedro de Alvarado. Discuss

James Fenimore Cooper (1789)

Raised in a prosperous family in his father’s frontier settlement of Cooperstown, New York, Cooper was the first important American writer to create a vivid myth of frontier life by drawing on the subjects and landscape of his native land. His best-known novels, the Leatherstocking Tales books, feature the frontier adventures of Natty Bumppo and skillfully portray the clash between the frontier wilderness and the encroaching civilization. A bet with whom led Cooper to pen his first novel? Discuss

D.W. Griffith

Griffith was an American film director best known for his controversial film The Birth of a Nation. Initially an actor, he sold film scenarios to the Biograph Company, which hired him as a director in 1908. In over 400 films for Biograph, he developed filmmaking as an art form with techniques such as the close-up and the scenic long shot, and he collaborated with cinematographer Billy Bitzer to create fade-out, fade-in, and soft-focus shots. In 1919, Griffith co-founded what film company? Discuss