Category: This day in History

In the final year of his life, prolific composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart produced the opera Die Zauberflöte—The Magic Flute—featuring a libretto by the actor Emmanuel Schikaneder. The work is considered a singspiel—an opera in German that contains spoken dialogue and is usually comic in tone. Mozart brought this form of light musical entertainment to a height of lyrical and symbolic art. How much longer did Mozart live after The Magic Flute debuted? Discuss

Abbreviated as CERN after the original French name, the European Organization for Nuclear Research is the world’s largest particle physics laboratory. CERN’s activities are sponsored by 20 European countries. It was there that the World Wide Web—developed to promote scientific collaboration by facilitating information sharing—was invented in the 1990s. CERN’s latest project, the Large Hadron Collider, is, among other things, being used to discover the hypothesized Higgs boson, which is what? Discuss

Urban VII was chosen to succeed Sixtus V as pope on September 15, 1590. His death from malaria 13 days later made his the shortest papal reign in history. His very short time as pope nevertheless gave rise to the world’s first known public smoking ban when he threatened to excommunicate anyone who “took tobacco in the porchway of or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe, or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose.” Who succeeded him? Discuss

Built in the 5th century BCE on the Acropolis of Athens, the Parthenon was the chief temple of Athena in ancient Greece and the finest example of Doric architecture. In 1687, during the Venetian attack on Athens, the Turks used it for storing gunpowder. The stores were ignited during the bombardment, causing an explosion that partly destroyed the building. Still, its basic structure remains intact and reconstruction efforts are underway. What does the word “Parthenon” mean in Greek? Discuss

O’Connor is a lawyer and jurist who was the first female associate justice of the US Supreme Court. She served as an assistant state attorney general in her home state of Arizona in the late 1960s and, in 1969, was appointed to the state senate, where she became the country’s first female majority leader. She was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to the Supreme Court in 1981, becoming the first female justice. Who took O’Connor’s Supreme Court seat when she retired in 2006? Discuss

In 1946, Japanese mechanic, race car driver, and self-taught engineer Soichiro Honda founded a company that made small, efficient engines. It was incorporated as Honda Motor Co. two years later and originally produced only motorcycles. Its clean-burning CVCC engine created an automotive revolution, and its cars won a large share of the US market after they went on sale in 1963. Today, Honda is one of the world’s leading automakers. What else besides cars and motorcycles does Honda manufacture? Discuss

In September 1975, Ford was the target of two assassination attempts. Just 17 days after Manson Family member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme unsuccessfully attempted to shoot Ford, Moore shot at him outside a San Francisco, California, hotel. The bullet just missed the president, and Moore was then subdued by a bystander, who likely saved Ford’s life. Moore was sentenced to life in prison but was paroled in 2007. What has she since said about the assassination attempt? Discuss

The Hobbit is a fantasy novel written by J.R.R. Tolkien, a professor of Anglo-Saxon and of English language and literature at Oxford University. Adapted from stories Tolkien told his kids, The Hobbit is recognized as a classic in children’s literature but also attracts adult readers. Its sequel, The Lord of the Rings, is one of the 20th century’s most popular and influential works of fantasy literature. What is the The Hobbit‘s full title? Discuss

Jerusalem was conquered by the Crusaders in 1099 during the First Crusade and served as the capital of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem for most of the 12th century, but it was besieged and captured by Saladin, the Kurdish Muslim warrior and Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt, after his decisive victory at Hattin in 1187. The Crusaders negotiated a surrender, and the two parties agreed to a peaceful handover of the city to Saladin, preventing the sort of massacre that had occurred when? Discuss

ICANN is a nonprofit corporation that manages domain name systems, the assignment of IP addresses and protocol parameters, and root server systems. The original mandate for ICANN came from a US government proposal to privatize the management of Internet names and addresses to allow for the development of competition and to facilitate global participation in Internet management. Its functions are now performed under US Government contract. What are some criticisms of the organization? Discuss