Month: March 2024

Bobby Fischer (1943)

Fischer was a chess legend who, at the age of 15, became the youngest grandmaster in history at that time. In 1970 and 1971, he won an unprecedented 20 straight games to qualify to challenge Boris Spassky for the world championship. He then beat Spassky, becoming the only American world titlist and winning the lion’s share of the $250,000 prize fund that was then the largest purse offered in any sport outside boxing. Afterward, Fischer did not publicly play another game of chess until what year? Discuss

Jinggangshan

Located in the remote, mountainous border region between the Jiangxi and Hunan provinces of China, Jinggangshan is known as the birthplace of the Chinese Red Army and the “cradle of the Chinese revolution.” In 1927, after an unsuccessful uprising against the Kuomintang, Mao Zedong’s army retreated to Jinggangshan and established a military base there. During the 1960s, the area became a place of pilgrimage for young Red Guards. Why did the government begin discouraging such pilgrimages? Discuss

US President Ronald Reagan Dubs the USSR an "Evil Empire" (1983)

Reagan’s strong anti-communist position, evident from the time he began his presidential career, was highlighted in a 1983 speech in which he referred to the USSR as an “evil empire.” The phrase became common in Cold War rhetoric and has since entered popular culture, taking on a nearly iconic status. It has been used in a variety of contexts to refer to entities as varied as Wal-Mart and the British Empire. Before what group was Reagan speaking the first time he used the phrase “evil empire”? Discuss

André Michaux (1746)

Michaux was a French botanist who traveled extensively in Europe, Asia, and North America. In 1785, the French government sent him to the US to spearhead the first organized investigation of North American plants that could be of use in France. His botanical journeys through the US lasted until 1796, and he recorded his studies in two books on North American botany—one of which is devoted to oaks. He also traveled to the Middle East, where he acquired what Babylonian artifact found near Baghdad? Discuss

Proto-Sinaitic Script

Despite a century of study, researchers can agree on the decipherment of only a single phrase of Proto-Sinaitic script, a Middle Bronze Age alphabet dating to 1500 BCE. The Proto-Sinaitic script is one of two similar undeciphered scripts dated to that period and believed to be ancestral to nearly all modern alphabets. Many experts believe the language of Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions is Semitic, and cite the one phrase that was interpreted as proof of this hypothesis. What is the phrase? Discuss

Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. (1994)

Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. was a landmark US Supreme Court case on intellectual property in which the court reviewed whether a parody of Roy Orbison’s song, “Oh, Pretty Woman,” by a rap group violated the Copyright Act of 1976. The court of appeals held that the parody did not constitute fair use, but the Supreme Court disagreed, holding that the commercial character of the song did not create a presumption that the parody violated fair use. What rap group recorded the parody? Discuss