The Kuwana Ishidori Matsuri, or Collect Stones Festival, commemorates the days when many stones had to be transported by cart to build a shrine. There is a procession of floats, adorned with beautiful cloth, tapestries, and lanterns, through the town of Kuwana, Japan, on the first Saturday of August. On Sunday, there is a presentation of stones at the shrine, followed by a series of processions that lasts till nightime the following day. Then people assemble near the floats, watch the lighting of the float lanterns, and listen to the crashing drum music that fills the air. Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
After the burning of Washington, DC, by the British in the War of 1812, Key, an American lawyer, was sent to secure the release of a friend from a British ship in Chesapeake Bay. That night, while temporarily detained on a British vessel, Key witnessed the British shelling of Fort McHenry. When he saw the American flag still flying the next morning, he was inspired to write “Defense of Fort M’Henry,” a poem that was adopted as the US national anthem in 1931. To what melody was the poem set? 
Merman was a Tony Award winning star of film and stage. Her precise enunciation, wide vocal range, and accurate pitch garnered her much acclaim. She began singing while working as a secretary and eventually became a full time vaudeville performer. Her powerful alto voice afforded her great advantages at a time when stage singers performed without microphones. She made her theater debut in Girl Crazy (1930). According to Broadway lore, what did George Gershwin advise her never to do? 
Signed five months before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was a result of negotiations aimed at reducing the nuclear arsenals of the US and the USSR. In 1991, at the conclusion of two sets of talks, US President George H.W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to a reduction of the Soviet Union stockpile from 11,000 to 8,000 nuclear weapons and of the US arsenal from 12,000 to 10,000. How many warheads is each country estimated to have today? 
Two years after earning a degree in chemistry, Levi, an Italian Jew, was captured by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz. He later recounted the atrocities he witnessed in autobiographical novels including If This Is a Man, which has been described as one of the most important works of the 20th century. His best known work, The Periodic Table, is a collection of 21 meditations, each named for a chemical element. What entertainer has Levi’s concentration camp number tattooed on his arm? 
The Hells Angels outlaw motorcycle club was formed in Fontana, CA, in 1948; the local chapter remains active, but the club’s popularity and membership has since expanded worldwide. The name, taken from the movie Hell’s Angels, has come to represent the epitome of 1960s biker counterculture. Members have been known to engage in illegal activities, but the club rejects any criminal responsibility. What unlikely company was recently sued by the club for copyright infringement? 
In 1419, a mob of Czech Hussites stormed the town hall of Prague and killed several members of the town council by throwing them out of a window—an act known as “defenestration.” Spurred by discontent at the inequality between the peasants and the Church and nobility, the First Defenestration of Prague led to the prolonged Hussite Wars, which broke out shortly afterward and continued until 1436. What was the Second Defenestration of Prague?