A huge carnival and ball, Bal du Rat Mort is concentrated in the casino of Ostende, Belgium, but also spread out all over the town. The carnival began at the end of the 19th century, launched by members of the Oostende Art and Philanthropic Circle (Circle Coecilia) who named the affair for a café on Montmartre (a hilly part of northern Paris, home to many artists) where they had whiled away pleasant hours. People are masked at the ball, and there’s a competition for the best costume. Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary
Before becoming the first woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500, race car driver Janet Guthrie worked as an aerospace engineer. She began racing in 1963. By the end of 1977, she had competed in two of racing’s most prestigious events—the Daytona 500 and Indy 500. She has since been inducted into both the Women’s Sports Hall of Fame and the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, and her race suit and helmet are in the Smithsonian Institution. What record does she hold? 
The Addams Family is a group of eccentric characters representing a satirical inversion of the ideal American nuclear family. A creation of American cartoonist Charles Addams, the group first appeared in a comic strip in The New Yorker, and has since been featured in TV shows, movies, and video games. In Charles Addams’ original cartoons, the characters were not named. When the TV show was developed, Addams was asked to contribute names. All his suggestions were used except for what? 
When their existing president resigned in 1987, students at Gallaudet University, a liberal arts university for the deaf in Washington, DC, began campaigning for a deaf successor to the post, which had never been held by a deaf person. When the school’s board selected a hearing candidate on March 6, 1988, students began to protest and issued four demands, including the immediate naming of a new deaf president and the resignation of the chair of the board. How many of their demands were met? 
Known as Gyeongchip in Korea and as Ching Che in China, the Feast of Excited Insects marks the transition from winter to spring. It is the day when the insects are said to come back to life after hibernating all winter. In China, it is the day when “the 
Among the world’s most celebrated artists, Michelangelo was one of the foremost figures of the Renaissance. The marble David, completed before his 30th birthday, is a sculptural masterpiece, and his paintings in the Sistine Chapel are among the most influential frescoes in the history of Western art. A true “Renaissance man,” he also was an architect and poet and wrote hundreds of sonnets and madrigals. Where in the Sistine Chapel is there a disguised self-portrait of Michelangelo? 
“Freedom fries” was a short-lived name used by some in the US for French fries after France resisted condoning the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In March, 2003, all references to French fries and French toast on the menus of restaurants run by the House of Representatives were removed. By July 2006, however, the move had been reversed. Politically-motivated renamings were also seen during World War I, when anti-German sentiment led some to refer to sauerkraut as what? 
Many Bostonians resented the heavy British military presence in their city during the late 1700s, and the soldiers’ enforcement of the unpopular Townshend Acts merely exacerbated the tense situation. On March 5, 1770, soldiers opened fire on an aggressive, rioting civilian mob, killing five men. The Boston Massacre, as it became known, fueled the anti-British sentiment that culminated in the American Revolutionary War. Which future US president served as the troops’ defense lawyer?