William Makepeace Thackeray

Those who forgets their friends to follow those of a higher status are truly snobs.

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William Makepeace Thackeray

Cluster Bomb Ban Accepted Internationally

Cluster bombs have been used in military campaigns around the world with devastating results. These bombs are particularly dangerous to civilians because they release a number of smaller submunitions over a wide area and consistently leave behind unexploded bomblets that remain dangerous decades after the military conflict has ended. On Friday, more than 100 nations formally agreed to ban the use of cluster bombs and destroy their stockpiles of the weapon. However, the biggest makers and users of the devices, the US, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan, were noticeably absent from the talks.

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Cluster Bomb Ban Accepted Internationally

Ancash Earthquake

The 1970 Ancash earthquake was an undersea earthquake that affected the Peruvian regions of Ancash and La Libertad. Combined with a subsequent landslide, it killed 47,194 people and was the most catastrophic natural disaster ever recorded in the history of Peru. The 45-second quake destabilized the northern wall of Mount Huascarán and triggered a rock and snow avalanche that buried the towns of Yungay and Ranrahirca. What did the earthquake register on the Richter scale?

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Ancash Earthquake

The Lotus Eaters

In Greek mythology, the Lotophagi, or lotus-eaters, were a race of people from an island near N Africa. Lotus fruits and flowers were the dominant plant life on the island and the primary source of food for its inhabitants, a peaceful, apathetic people calmed by the plant’s narcotic effects. The Lotophagi are mentioned in Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey as well as by the Greek historian Herodotus. In modern usage, the term “lotus-eater” is used to describe a person who frequently does what?

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The Lotus Eaters

ungainly

DEFINITION: (adjective) Lacking grace or ease of movement or form.
SYNONYMS: clumsy, clunky, gawky, unwieldy.
USAGE: He was a gawky lad with long ungainly legs, but she thought he was the most handsome boy she had ever seen.

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ungainly

Suicide among US Soldiers on the Rise

Despite bolstered suicide prevention programs and mental health education classes, a report investigating suicides among members of the US Army has uncovered a disturbing trend—more soldiers took their lives in 2007 than at any time since the Gulf War. Since 2003, when the Iraq War began, the number of soldiers committing suicide has steadily increased. Nearly half of the 115 soldiers who committed suicide last year did so after returning from overseas deployment. There were also an additional 935 unsuccessful suicide attempts among US Army soldiers, 166 of which were carried out by troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Suicide among US Soldiers on the Rise

Lewis Carroll

In some ways, you know, people that don’t exist, are much nicer than people that do.

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Lewis Carroll

John Milton

Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her birth.

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John Milton

Lincoln Memorial Dedicated

The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, has been the site of many historic events, including the 1963 March on Washington during which Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his legendary “I Have a Dream” speech. The building, designed by Henry Bacon and …

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Lincoln Memorial Dedicated

Julius Axelrod

Axelrod was an influential American biochemist. In 1970, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Bernard Katz and Ulf von Euler. He was also honored for his work on the release and reuptake of catecholamine neurotransmitters, a class of chemicals in the brain that relay, amplify, and modulate electrical signals between a neuron and another cell. Axelrod made major contributions to the understanding of the pineal gland and how it regulates what daily biological cycle?

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Julius Axelrod

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