In the early 1970s, various insurgent groups controlled about one third of Burma. Economic strife and ethnic tensions throughout the 1970s and 80s led to antigovernment riots that began on August 8, 1988—08-08-88—and led to the resignation of President Ne Win. Succeeding governments failed to restore order, and the military seized control under the name of the State Law and Order Restoration Council. Burma was renamed Myanmar three years later. What 1995 film is set during the 8888 uprising? Discuss
Month: August 2024
Esther Hobart Morris (1814)
Morris was the first female justice of the peace in the US. A mother of three, she began her tenure as justice in 1870, after the previous justice resigned in protest of Wyoming’s passage of the women’s suffrage amendment. She attracted national attention and tried some 70 cases, becoming a legendary figure in the suffrage movement. The state of Wyoming officially commemorated her role as a leading suffragist in 1890. Why then is the extent of her contribution to the suffrage movement debated? Discuss
Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley
In 1885, after attaching a bellows camera to a compound microscope, Bentley became the first known snowflake photographer. He went on to develop a highly successful method of photographing the ephemeral snow crystals on a black velvet backing before they melted. Bentley also collaborated on the article that proposed the idea that no two snowflakes are alike. In 1931, some 2,000 of Bentley’s 5,000 snowflake photographs were published in a book titled what? Discuss
corporeal
United States Embassy Bombings (1998)
On August 7, 1998, hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the US embassies in the major East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. The attacks, linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, brought Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to American attention and resulted in the US Federal Bureau of Investigation placing bin Laden on its Ten Most Wanted list. The bombings took place on the eighth anniversary of what? Discuss
Ralph Bunche (1904)
Bunche was a US diplomat who in 1950 became the first person of color awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which he earned for mediating the 1949 Arab-Israeli truce. During WWII, he worked in the US War and State Departments. After the war, he helped establish the UN and spent the remainder of his career in a variety of UN positions, including principal secretary of the UN Palestine Commission and Under-Secretary General. In what unusual way did he conduct many of the Arab-Israeli peace negotiations? Discuss
Escape from Stalag Luft III
Stalag Luft III was a German prisoner-of-war camp in Poland during WWII that at one time housed some 10,000 allied airmen. It is best known for the 1944 tunneling escape immortalized in the book and film The Great Escape, which recount the true story of a group of prisoners who dug three escape shafts using ventilation ducts, air pumps, electric lights, and even a rail car system to move the dirt. How many of the 76 men who emerged from the one finished tunnel ultimately reached safety? Discuss
avaricious
Cosmonaut Gherman Titov Becomes First Man to Spend a Day in Space (1961)
Titov was a Soviet cosmonaut and the second man to orbit the Earth, preceded just months earlier by Yuri Gagarin, with whom he had trained. At 25 years old, Titov was selected to fly the Vostok 2 mission and spent 25 hours in space, completing 17 Earth orbits. The mission brought him several impressive designations: youngest person to fly in space, first person to experience space sickness, and first person to sleep in space. Though he overslept, what strange occurrence initially kept him up? Discuss
Nicolas Malebranche (1638)
Malebranche was a French priest, theologian, and philosopher who developed a synthesis of Cartesian and Augustinian thought with the purpose of reconciling the new science with Christian theology. Beginning with Descartes’s dualism between mind and body, Malebranche developed his doctrine of occasionalism, which denies any interaction between the two realms. He summarized his beliefs in his famous assertion that we see all things in God, which led to an extended controversy with what theologian? Discuss