Author: Ian

Whaling Ship Essex Rammed by Whale (1820)

In 1819, the whaling ship Essex left Massachusetts for the South Pacific to hunt sperm whales. On November 20, 1820, in an incident that would inspire Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, the Essex was rammed multiple times by a sperm whale and sank 2,000 miles (3,700 km) off the coast of South America. The crew took three small boats to a nearby island, but many soon set out again. Conditions in the boats worsened, and the sailors had to resort to cannibalism. How many survived? Discuss

Howard Baskerville

Baskerville was an American teacher and Presbyterian missionary who led a group of student soldiers against Mohammad Ali Shah during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution in the early 20th century. He is thus often referred to as the “American Lafayette in Iran”—a reference to the French military officer who participated in the American Revolution. He was shot and killed 9 days after his 24th birthday in 1909. What did Persian artisans create in recognition of his courage and sacrifice? Discuss

Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1866)

Landis was a US federal judge and the first commissioner of professional baseball. Named for a Georgia mountain where his father had been wounded during the Civil War, he practiced law in Illinois before serving as a US district judge. In 1907, he presided over a famous case in which the Standard Oil Company was found guilty of granting unlawful freight rebates and fined $29 million, but his decision was later reversed. He was named baseball commissioner in 1920 in the aftermath of what scandal? Discuss

Anna Seghers (1900)

Born Netty Reiling, Seghers was a German novelist. She won fame with her first novel of social protest, The Revolt of the Fishermen, but in 1933 she was forced to leave Germany. In Mexico, she wrote The Seventh Cross, a poignant story of escape from a concentration camp. Other works include Transit and a study of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. After World War II she settled in East Berlin. Who starred in the film version of The Seventh Cross in 1944? Discuss

The Garrote

Macabre enough to earn an appearance in two James Bond films, the garrote, a weapon used for strangulation, was used in Rome as early as the first century. The device takes many forms and can be made from a variety of materials, including chain, rope, fabric, wire, or fishing line. Used throughout history and as recently as 1974 in Spain, garrotes were also developed as execution devices. What nation became the last country in the world to abolish the death penalty by garroting in 1990? Discuss

Apollo 12 Lands on the Moon (1969)

In 1969, four months after the Apollo 11 mission culminated with the first moonwalk, Apollo 12 returned to the Moon with astronauts Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, and Richard Gordon. The craft touched down on the Ocean of Storms near the Surveyor 3 probe, which had landed there in 1967, and Conrad and Bean walked to the probe to remove some of its instruments to take back to Earth for study. What were Conrad’s first words when he set foot on the lunar surface? Discuss

William Tell Shoots an Apple Off His Son's Head (1307)

Tell is a famous Swiss folk hero who is remembered in a 15th-century chronicle as an expert marksman who assassinated a tyrannical Austrian governor. According to the legend, the governor of Tell’s Swiss canton hung his hat on a stake and ordered all the townsfolk to bow to it whenever they passed. When Tell refused, he was ordered to shoot an apple off his son’s head with a crossbow as punishment. He succeeded and later escaped imprisonment to kill the governor—an event that led to what? Discuss