Month: June 2024

George Mallory (1886)

Mallory was an English mountain climber who participated in the Everest expeditions of 1921, 1922, and 1924. The 1924 expedition culminated in a bold and possibly successful drive toward the summit by Mallory and Andrew Irvine, from which they did not return. Mallory’s body was discovered on Everest in 1999. His achievements and the mystery surrounding his final effort have made him a mountaineering legend. What “three most famous words in mountaineering” are attributed to Mallory? Discuss

The Night Attack (1462)

The Night Attack was a battle fought between the forces of Wallachian Prince Vlad III, known as Vlad the Impaler, and the forces of Mehmed II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire. After Vlad raided Bulgaria and killed more than 20,000 Turks and Bulgarians, Mehmed marched on Wallachia, and the two powers fought a series of skirmishes. In the Night Attack, Vlad attacked the Turkish camp in an attempt to assassinate Mehmed. The attempt failed, but Mehmed retreated anyway. Why? Discuss

John Hersey (1914)

Born in China to missionary parents, Hersey worked as a journalist in East Asia, Italy, and the Soviet Union from 1937 to 1946, including as a war correspondent during WWII. In 1944, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel A Bell for Adano, which depicts the Allied occupation of a Sicilian town. He later combined fact and fiction in his most famous work, Hiroshima, about the experiences of atomic-blast survivors. How did Hersey inspire Dr. Seuss to write The Cat in the Hat? Discuss

Seizure Response Dogs

When their epileptic handlers experience seizures, these response dogs come to the rescue by pulling away dangerous objects, attempting to rouse them if they lose consciousness, and even summoning aid by finding another person or activating a medical alert or pre-programmed phone. Because epilepsy is such a wide-ranging condition, each dog is trained for a specific individual’s needs. Studies in which dogs were trained to anticipate their owners’ impending seizures have shown what? Discuss

Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova Becomes First Woman in Space (1963)

Tereshkova was a Soviet cosmonaut who became the first woman to fly in space. In 1963, she was the solo pilot of a three-day flight aboard Vostok 6, orbiting the Earth 48 times. Her flight was her only experience in space, and she left the Soviet space program soon after and married cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev. Their daughter, Elena, born a year later, was the first child of parents who had both been in space. What was Tereshkova’s job before she was recruited as a cosmonaut? Discuss

George Gaylord Simpson (1902)

Simpson, an American paleontologist, helped develop the modern biological theory of evolution, drawing on paleontology, genetics, ecology, and natural selection. His contributions to evolutionary theory include a detailed classification of mammals, which is still the standard, and the discovery of the migratory and evolutionary patterns of the prehistoric fauna of the Americas, from which he deduced that species reached adaptive peaks and suffered accidental dispersal. What word did he coin? Discuss

Mountaintop Removal Mining

More than half of the electricity generated in the United States is produced by coal-fired power plants. Generally, only a small percentage of the coal used in those plants comes from the controversial practice of mountaintop removal mining, or MTR, which involves the use of heavy explosives to blast away up to 1,000 vertical feet of a mountain after its surface has been cleared of timber. What 1970s crises first sparked an increase in the demand for coal and triggered the widespread use of MTR? Discuss