Month: March 2023

Archie Comics

Archie Comics is an American comic-book publisher that started out as MLJ Comics in 1939. Its early titles featured generic superheroes that were innovative but failed to find popularity. In 1941, a teenage humor strip called Archie became a hit with the emerging youth culture, prompting the name change to Archie Comics. The comic varies with regard to character details and settings, but Archie is perpetually mired in a love triangle with Betty and Veronica. What is Archie’s full name? Discuss

Beware the Ides of March (44 BCE)

Now used as a metaphor for impending doom, the “Ides of March” was originally simply a name for March 15th. In the ancient Roman calendar, the term “ides” referred to the 15th day of the months of March, May, July, and October and the 13th of all other months. The Ides of March was a festive day dedicated to the god of Mars and often marked with a military parade. However, when Julius Caesar was assassinated on that day in 44 BCE, the phrase took on an entirely new meaning. Who killed Caesar? Discuss

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933)

Nicknamed the “Thurgood Marshall of women’s rights,” Ruth Bader Ginsburg graduated at the top of her class at Columbia Law School in 1959. During the 1970s, she became the first tenured female professor at Columbia, led the Women’s Rights Project, and won several important Supreme Court cases before she was appointed to the US Court of Appeals in 1980. Confirmed as a justice of the Supreme Court in 1993, she was the second woman to sit on the nation’s highest bench. Who was the first? Discuss

Seamus Heaney

Heaney was an Irish poet, writer, and lecturer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. His carefully crafted poetry has been praised for its powerful imagery, meaningful content, musical phrasing, and compelling rhythms. Focused on “the local,” he often writes about the disappearing world of unspoiled rural Ireland and hints at the sectarian violence of the north where he was born. In 1999, he published a highly regarded verse translation of what epic poem? Discuss

First Patient Successfully Treated with Penicillin (1942)

Penicillin was the first antibiotic agent successfully used to treat bacterial infections in humans. Penicillin’s effect on bacteria was first observed by biologist Alexander Fleming in 1928, but it was not until 1941 that scientists purified the substance and established that it was both effective in fighting infectious organisms and not toxic to humans. The first successful treatment occurred the next year. Where did scientists find the mold that allowed them to mass produce the drug? Discuss

Albert Einstein (1879)

Einstein was an intellectual giant of the 20th century whose name has become synonymous with genius. Recognized as one of the greatest physicists of all time, Einstein made countless important contributions to physics, including his theories of relativity, which profoundly revolutionized scientific and philosophical inquiry. In 1921, he received the Nobel Prize for his work on theoretical physics. Though he sought it for decades, Einstein never discovered a unified field theory, which is what? Discuss