Month: November 2023

Montezuma Welcomes Cortés upon His Arrival in Tenochtitlán (1519)

Montezuma was the ruler of the Aztecs at the beginning of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, which began in earnest in 1519, when Hernán Cortés scuttled his ships on the Mexican coast and committed himself and his 508 men to conquest. After accumulating thousands of Indian allies who resented Aztec domination, Cortés forged ahead to Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital. There, Montezuma welcomed him, possibly because he believed Cortés to be the reincarnation of whom? Discuss

Margaret Mitchell (1900)

After working as a journalist, Mitchell spent 10 years writing her only novel: Gone with the Wind, a romantic, panoramic portrait of the American Civil War and Reconstruction periods from the white Southern point of view. The book, which earned Mitchell the Pulitzer Prize, is one of the most popular novels in the history of American publishing, and its film adaptation was also extraordinarily successful. Whose stories gave Mitchell insight into the Civil War-era South? Discuss

The Jonesboro School Massacre

On March 24, 1998, Mitchell Johnson, age 13, and Andrew Golden, age 11, opened fire on students and teachers at their Arkansas middle school. Johnson hid in a wooded area and waited while Golden set off the school’s fire alarm. Then, as the building was being evacuated, the two boys shot and killed four students and a teacher; another 10 people were wounded in the shooting. Both boys were apprehended, tried, and convicted. When were they released from custody? Discuss

London Gazette, Oldest Surviving Journal, First Published (1665)

The London Gazette is one of the British government’s official journals of record in which statutory notices are required to be published. Originally called the Oxford Gazette, it was first published in 1665, making it the oldest surviving English newspaper and the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United Kingdom. The first publication of the Gazette coincided with King Charles II’s movement of his court to Oxford, which he did to escape what? Discuss

Marie Curie (1867)

Marie Curie was a Polish-born French physical chemist. She married fellow physicist Pierre Curie in 1895, and together they discovered the elements radium and polonium—which Marie named after her native Poland. They also distinguished alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. For their work on radioactivity—a term she coined—the Curies shared the 1903 Nobel Prize for Physics with Henri Becquerel. This made Marie the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize. In 1911, she became the first person to win what? Discuss

Isolation Tanks

In 1954, John C. Lilly developed the isolation tank to test the effects of sensory deprivation. Such tanks are intended to completely deprive the brain of any external stimulation; they are lightless, soundproof, and filled with warm saltwater to promote flotation and reduce skin sensation. Isolation tanks are now used for meditation, relaxation, and in alternative medicine. A therapeutic session typically lasts an hour, and it is reportedly common to experience what during the first 40 minutes? Discuss