Gone with the Wind, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novel by Margaret Mitchell, tells the story of a rebellious Georgia woman named Scarlett O'Hara. It presents a detailed view of her complex relationships with family and friends and her struggle to survive in the American South before, during, and after the Civil War. Many regard the book as having a strong ideological commitment to the cause of the Confederacy. Why was Mitchell's book the subject of a 2001 court case?
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By the 1970s, Leonardo da Vinci's 15th-century mural masterpiece, The Last Supper, was badly deteriorated. Italian officials then undertook a major restoration project to permanently stabilize the painting and reverse the damage. The painting's original form was determined using original sketches and scientific tests, including infrared reflectoscopy and microscopic core-samples. The restoration took 21 years, and the painting was put back on display in 1999. Where is it located? Discuss
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Los Niños Héroes—the "Boy Heroes"—were six teenage Mexican army cadets who died defending Mexico City's Chapultepec Castle from invading US forces during the Mexican-American War. Ignoring orders to fall back, the young cadets fought until the end. According to many accounts, the last survivor leapt from the castle roof wrapped in the Mexican flag to prevent it from being taken. What US President visited the monument honoring the cadets a few months before the battle's 100th anniversary?
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English novelist Charles Dickens wrote many books and stories about Christmas. His first, the now-beloved A Christmas Carol, was written in just weeks, reputedly to meet the expenses of his wife's fifth pregnancy. An instant success, it has since been adapted countless times for theater and film. The last name of the story's protagonist, Ebenezer Scrooge, has even entered the English lexicon as a word meaning a mean-spirited, miserly person. Who is thought to have inspired the character?
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Launched in 1972, Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to travel through the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and to make up-close observations of Jupiter, capturing images that were later sent back to Earth. It passed the orbit of Neptune in 1983 and became by some definitions the first artificial object to leave our solar system. By February 1998, the probe was over 7.5 billion miles from Earth but lost its title as the most distant man-made object to what craft?
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By the 1870s, the plantation culture of northeast Brazil was already crumbling, and the growth of the movement to abolish slavery threatened it even more. The slave trade had been abolished in 1850, and a law for gradual emancipation was passed in 1871. In 1888, while Pedro II was in Europe and his daughter Isabel was governing, slavery was completely abolished—making Brazil the last Western nation to do so. The law that officially abolished slavery was called Lei Áurea, which means what?
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Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an international organization dedicated to helping alcoholics stop drinking and maintain their sobriety. It functions through local groups that meet regularly and emphasizes a 12-step recovery program that includes acknowledgment of the problem, faith in a "higher power," and a desire to change for the better and to help others recover. Founded in 1935 by two alcoholics, today AA has more than ninety thousand local groups around the globe and how many members?
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Signed by Czar Alexander II of Russia, the 1861 Edict of Emancipation granted liberty to more than 23 million serfs, about one-third of the Russian population. The edict extended to the serfs the full rights of citizens, in particular, the right to own property—which they were to receive from the landlords and pay off over time. However, the process by which they were to acquire this land was slow, complex, and expensive, and the discontent it generated eventually helped what revolution succeed?
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Hardin was an American desperado who claimed to have killed 42 men, one of them allegedly for snoring. He became a gambler and a gunman very early in life, but his friends and gunfighting skills helped him evade the authorities until 1877, when he was sentenced to 25 years for killing a sheriff. He studied law in prison and was released after serving 16 years. Pardoned in 1894, he passed the bar exam and began to practice law, but a local constable shot him to death a year later for what reason?
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Johnson became president following Abraham Lincoln's assassination. When he attempted to dismiss his Secretary of War without senatorial consent, congressional leaders—for the first time in US history—sought to remove the president from office. Their first attempt failed, but in 1868, the House passed a resolution of impeachment against him. During the trial, the charges proved weak, and the two-thirds vote needed for conviction failed by one vote. Which senators voted against their party?
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