There are many rituals associated with the growing of rice in Japanese farming communities. In many rural celebrations, young women in costume perform rituals including planting seedlings while singing rice-planting songs to the accompaniment of pipes and drums. On June 14 in Osaka, thousands congregate to observe a group of young kimono-clad women plant rice and sing in the sacred fields near the Sumiyoshi Shrine. Working rhythmically to the music, the young women appear to be participating in a dance rather than the hard work of planting. Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
A prolific writer whose works fill more than a dozen volumes, Stowe was an American novelist and humanitarian. Spurred to action by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, she began writing an antislavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which became an instant and controversial best-seller. Its impact on Northerners’ attitudes toward slavery was significant, swaying much of the public to support, or at least sympathize with, the abolitionist cause. What else did Stowe write? 
Also known as the “The Main Street of America,” Route 66 was established in 1926 and ran from Chicago, Illinois, in a south-westerly direction to Los Angeles, California, for a total of 2,448 miles (3,939 km). It was a major path of the migrants who went west, especially during the 1930s, and it supported the economies of the communities through which it passed. More direct routes and increasingly sophisticated engineering techniques led to its being decommissioned in what year? 
Eight years after he issued his 95 Theses and sparked the Protestant Reformation, Luther married former Catholic nun Katherina von Bora, with whom he raised six children. Though little is known about her, she is considered an important figure of the Reformation due to her role in helping to define Protestant family life and setting the precedent for clergy marriages. Von Bora was one of 12 nuns Luther helped escape from a convent in 1523. How was he said to have smuggled them out? 
Sayers, an English writer, is considered one of the masters of the detective story. In 1915, she became one of the first women to graduate from Oxford University. In her first major work, Whose Body?, she created the witty and dashing detective Lord Peter Wimsey, who would be featured in several later novels and short story collections. She later concentrated on theological works and scholarly translations. Which of Sayers’s previous jobs provided a setting for one of her novels? 
The Great Toronto Fire of 1904 began in a factory in downtown Toronto, the capital city of Ontario, Canada, and spread to more than 100 other buildings before it was extinguished. For nine hours, Toronto’s firefighters—as well as firefighters from Hamilton, Ontario, and Buffalo, New York, that had come to help—braved strong winds and sub-zero temperatures as they fought to bring the blaze under control. What was the total estimated value of the property damaged by the fire? 
After Spain’s defeat at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War, Filipino revolutionary forces under General Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed the sovereignty and independence of the Philippine Islands. However, neither the US nor Spain recognized Philippine independence. Instead, the Spanish government ceded the islands to the US in the 1898 Treaty of Paris, sparking a period of hostilities between US and Filipino forces. When did the US finally recognize the islands’ independence?