Cuba Leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States (1903)

The city of Guantánamo is located in southeast Cuba. Founded in the early 19th century by French colonists from Haiti, it is well known today as the home of the US Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, which has installations covering roughly 45 sq mi (116 sq km). The site was leased to the US in 1903, but the Cuban government has refused since 1960 to accept the token annual rent of $5,000 from the US and has pressured for the surrender of the base. What was established at the base in 2002? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

The Great Gatsby

Written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, an American novelist of the Jazz Age, The Great Gatsby is today considered standard reading in high school courses on American literature. It tells the story of a bootlegger whose obsessive dream of wealth and lost love is destroyed by a corrupt reality. Cynical yet poignant, the novel is a devastating portrait of the so-called American Dream, which measures success and love in terms of money. What other titles did Fitzgerald consider for this novel? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

George Washington (1732)

Washington is often called the “Father of his Country” because of the central role he played in the founding of the United States. As commander of the Continental Army, he led colonial forces to victory over the British and served as the new nation’s first president. He then relinquished that power and retired after two terms, thereby setting a key precedent for republican democracy. What other precedent of the US presidency did Washington set? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Johns Hopkins University Opens (1876)

Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University is named for philanthropist Johns Hopkins. Poorly educated and aware of Baltimore’s lack of medical facilities, Hopkins donated $7 million for the foundation of Johns Hopkins University and Hospital. The university was modeled after European universities and emphasized graduate research rather than collegiate instruction—two groundbreaking and successful decisions that influenced many other US universities. How did Hopkins get his unusual first name? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Cricket

Cricket is a sport played by two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped grass field, in the center of which is a flat strip of ground 66 feet (20.1 m) long, called a “pitch.” At each end of the pitch stands a wicket—or arrangement of wooden stumps—and a batsman whose goal is to protect it from the opposing bowler’s ball and, if he can, exchange places with his teammate at the other end of the pitch, thereby scoring a run. What are possible explanations for the origin of the name “cricket”? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Robert Mugabe (1924)

Mugabe has served as the head of the government of Zimbabwe since 1980, after rising to prominence in the 1970s as leader of a Marxist-inspired guerrilla war against the government of Rhodesia. Though he remains a hero to some for his role in the independence movement, his administration now faces accusations of corruption, suppression of political opposition, mishandling of land reform, and human rights abuses. What 2005 movie was banned by his office amid claims that it is CIA propaganda? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary