Author: Ian

Electron Microscopes

Producing images of specimens magnified to about 2 million times their natural size—compared to just 2,000 for common light microscopes—electron microscopes use electron beams to resolve the minute structural details present in samples. An integral part of many laboratories, electron microscopes are used by researchers to examine biological materials, such as microorganisms, cells, and medical biopsy samples. Why are samples sometimes coated with gold before they are magnified? Discuss

Joshua Lockwood Logan III (1908)

Logan was an American stage and film director and writer. He studied in Moscow under Constantin Stanislavsky and began to direct and act on Broadway and work on Hollywood films in the 1930s. He served as an intelligence officer in WWII, after which he directed a series of hit plays and musicals, including South Pacific, which he cowrote with Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Why, when it won a Pulitzer Prize in 1950, were only Rodgers and Hammerstein initially listed as awardees? Discuss

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822)

After fighting in the Union army in the American Civil War, Hayes served in the US House of Representatives and then as governor of Ohio. In 1876, he won the Republican nomination for president. His opponent, Samuel Tilden, won a larger popular vote, but the election was so close that a special commission had to decide the issue. It eventually ruled in Hayes’s favor. What concessions did Hayes make as part of a secret compromise reached with Southerners during the electoral dispute? Discuss

Music of the Trecento

Considered by some art historians to be the beginning of the Renaissance, the Trecento was a 14th-century period in Italy that saw renewed focus on the arts, including painting, architecture, literature, and, especially, music. Influenced by troubadours and a type of polyphonic sacred music called the conductus, composers throughout the period pioneered new forms of expression, especially in secular songs written in the Italian vernacular. Who was the period’s most famous composer? Discuss

Sputnik 1 Launch Begins the Space Race (1957)

The first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, was launched by the USSR in 1957 and spurred the dormant US space program into action, leading to an international competition popularly known as the “space race.” Explorer I, the first American satellite, was launched just months later, in January 1958. In the decade that followed, the US and the USSR launched approximately 50 space probes between them to explore the Moon. What project is said to have marked the end of the space race? Discuss

Vladimir Mayakovsky

Mayakovsky, a Russian poet and playwright, was one of the foremost representatives of early 20th century Russian Futurism. A leader of the Futurist school in 1912, he went on to become the poetic voice of the Russian Revolution. His poetry is unique in its rhythm, rhyme, and imagery. Written almost entirely in metaphors, his 1915 poem The Cloud in Trousers describes the agony of unrequited love. Mayakovsky was one of the few Soviet writers allowed by the state to do what? Discuss

"The Shot Heard 'Round the World" (1951)

Late in the 1951 baseball season, the New York Giants trailed far behind their crosstown rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers, in the standings. However, the Giants went on a winning streak, and the two teams finished the regular season with identical 96-58 records. In the first two games of a three-game playoff series, the teams traded wins. In the bottom of game three’s ninth inning, the Giants were trailing 4-2 with two men on base when Bobby Thomson came to bat. What happened next? Discuss