Author: Ian

Bicycles

The first bicycle, probably created by the German Baron Karl de Drais de Sauerbrun in the early 1800s, was a form of hobby-horse that was propelled by the rider’s feet pushing against the ground. The first treadle-propelled cycle was designed by the Scottish blacksmith Kirkpatrick Macmillan around 1839. By the end of the 19th century, bicycles had wire wheels, metal frames, and pneumatic tires. What did 19th-century suffragists and feminists call the bicycle? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Boris Yeltsin (1931)

Yeltsin became Russia’s first democratically elected president in 1991. A populist advocate of radical reform, he embarked on a program of “shock therapy” just days after the dissolution of the USSR, converting the world’s largest socialist planned economy into a market-oriented capitalist one. The skyrocketing prices, heavy taxes, and credit crunch that followed produced a protracted depression that devastated Russia. How, then, did Yeltsin manage to win a second term in 1996? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Yaya Matsuri

The Yaya Matsuri, held in Owase, Japan, during the first week in February, features mikoshi (portable shrines) carried through the streets by groups of young men who meet and deliberately crash into each other. The festival takes its name from their shouts—”Yaya! Yaya!”—as they run into one another. Several special events, including dances, are held during the five-day festival. On the last night, there is a ceremony at the Owase Shrine to determine who will participate in the festival the next year. Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Director Skips Bail and Flees to France (1978)

The films of renowned director Roman Polanski are marked by dramatic situations presented with irony and a cool lack of sentimentality. Born in Paris and educated in Poland, he moved to Hollywood in 1968 to pursue his filmmaking career. His pregnant wife was murdered by the Manson “family” shortly thereafter. In 1978, he fled to France to avoid sentencing after pleading guilty to statutory rape. A survivor of the Holocaust, he recently received an Academy Award for what World War II film? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Jauhar

Jauhar refers to the ancient Hindu tradition of honorable self-immolation of women. It originally described the voluntary death on a funeral pyre of India’s queens and royal women, who would kill themselves to avoid capture when their castles were defeated. Jauhar also refers to the practice of mass suicide carried out in medieval times by besieged women and children, after which men would ride out to the battlefield to face certain death. What is the most famous historical example of Jauhar? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Norman Mailer (1923)

American writer Norman Mailer was catapulted to fame at 25 with the publication of The Naked and the Dead, a partially autobiographical novel based on his World War II service. He pioneered the use of novelistic techniques in nonfiction works, a style known as New Journalism, and won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for The Armies of the Night. He won his second Pulitzer in 1980 with The Executioner’s Song, a novel depicting the events surrounding whose execution? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary