Month: December 2023

Klaus Barbie

Barbie, nicknamed the Butcher of Lyon for his brutality, was a high-ranking German Nazi official. The SS commander personally tortured prisoners and ordered the deportation of 44 Jewish orphans to Auschwitz. Following the end of WWII, Barbie was employed by the US intelligence services in Germany before fleeing to Bolivia in 1951. He was located there by Nazi hunters in 1971, and was convicted of crimes against humanity in France in 1987. Barbie is blamed for the deaths of how many people? Discuss

First Transatlantic Radio Signal Received (1901)

Marconi was the Nobel Prize-winning Italian creator of the radio telegraph system. At 21, while experimenting with a homemade apparatus, he successfully sent signals across a distance of more than a mile and set off to London with his mother to find support for his work. He patented his system, organized a company to develop its commercial applications, and, in 1901, transmitted the first transatlantic wireless signal. During what disaster did his invention play a key role in saving lives? Discuss

Gustave Flaubert (1821)

Flaubert was a French writer considered one of the supreme masters of the realistic novel. At 22, he abandoned law studies to pursue a career as an author. In 1856, after five years of work, he published his masterpiece, Madame Bovary, about the frustrations and love affairs of a romantic young woman married to a dull provincial doctor. A sharply realistic portrayal of bourgeois boredom and adultery, the novel led to his prosecution on moral grounds. What was the verdict? Discuss

The Cliffs of Insanity

The Namurian shale and sandstone Cliffs of Moher are a major tourist attraction in Ireland, where they are noted for the spectacular views they provide of the Aran Islands and Connemara. Even in the early 19th century, tourists flocked to the site; and in 1835, O’Brien’s Tower, a round stone observation tower located approximately at the midpoint of the cliffs, was built to accommodate the visitors. The cliffs were featured in what popular 1987 cult film as the “Cliffs of Insanity”? Discuss

Adolf Eichmann Found Guilty of War Crimes (1961)

Adolf Eichmann was a high-ranking Nazi official who oversaw the maltreatment, deportation, and murder of millions of Jews during World War II. He promoted the use of gas chambers for the mass extermination of Jews in concentration camps and is considered to be largely responsible for the logistics of the Final Solution, which was the Nazi policy to exterminate millions of people. At the end of World War II, Eichmann went into hiding. How was he captured? Discuss

Annie Jump Cannon (1863)

Cannon was an American astronomer whose cataloging work is still in use and serves as the basis for modern theoretical understanding of stellar evolution. In 1897, she became an assistant in the Harvard College Observatory, where she later served as astronomer and curator of astronomical photographs. Recognizing that the spectra of many stars had been photographed in the second half of the 19th century, Cannon classified more than 500,000 stars. What celestial feature is named for her? Discuss