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DEFINITION: (adjective) Thrown into a state of intense fear or desperation.
SYNONYMS: panicky, terrified, frightened.
USAGE: Thousands of panic-stricken refugees fled the city.
Discuss

In the 1840s, a group of young Irish idealists began to promote Irish cultural nationalism. Known as Young Irelanders, they eventually sought revolution and, in 1848, organized a disastrous rebellion in Tipperary led by William Smith O'Brien and Thomas Meagher. Sometimes called the Famine Rebellion of 1848—since it took place during the Great Irish Famine—the Young Irelander Rebellion led to the ultimate failure of the movement. What events likely inspired the Young Irelanders to revolt? Discuss

DEFINITION: (adjective) Shaped like a kidney.
SYNONYMS: kidney-shaped.
USAGE: While hiking through the rainforest, I came upon an unusual reniform leaf and picked it up to study it more closely.

On a foggy Saturday morning in July 1945, a B-25 Mitchell bomber accidentally crashed into the north side of the Empire State Building between the 79th and 80th floors. One of the plane's engines shot through the building and out the other side, and the other plummeted down an elevator shaft. Though 14 people died in the incident, the building was largely open for business on the following Monday. What Guinness World Record was set by elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver during the accident?

DEFINITION: (noun) An earthquake originating under the sea floor.
SYNONYMS: submarine earthquake.
USAGE: The scientist developed a mathematical formula which helps understand how seaquakes result in tsunami waves.

Fought between Scottish highland clans supporting James II and VII and the government troops of William of Orange, the Battle of Killiecrankie occurred in Scotland during the first Jacobite uprising in 1689. Outnumbered, barefoot, and armed mostly with claymores—large, double-edged broadswords—the highlanders, led by John Graham of Claverhouse, used their position on the steep Pass of Killiecrankie to force a retreat. Despite the victory, Claverhouse was killed. What became of the revolt?

DEFINITION: (adjective) Inferior in size or quality.
SYNONYMS: stunted, scrawny.
USAGE: A forest of pale, scrubby ferns ran down almost to the beach.

Loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival—the medieval epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail—Parsifal is a three-act opera by German composer Richard Wagner. The opera was first conceived in 1857 but not completed until 25 years later. It premiered in 1882 at the second Bayreuth Festival, where it was performed exclusively until 1903. What tradition has arisen among the audience at performances of Parsifal at Bayreuth?

DEFINITION: (noun) Latticework used to support climbing plants.
SYNONYMS: trellis.
USAGE: The greenery that wove itself in, around, and through the treillage could be seen from her window and lifted her spirits on the days she could not go outdoors.

Cerro Maravilla, one of the highest peaks in Puerto Rico, is perhaps best known for being the site of a police ambush in 1978 in which two pro-independence activists were killed. Though initial inquiries by local authorities, the US Justice Department, and the FBI concluded that there was no wrongdoing on the part of the police, subsequent investigations resulted in four second-degree murder convictions. How many Puerto Rican Secretaries of Justice resigned following the incident?

DEFINITION: (adjective) Giving freely and generously; liberal.
SYNONYMS: bighearted, bounteous, giving, openhanded, handsome, freehanded, big.
USAGE: Their bountiful host was bringing brandy, whisky, and liqueurs.

The Kitchen Debate was an impromptu debate—conducted through interpreters—between US Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959. Centering on a discussion of the merits of capitalism versus communism, it took place in the kitchen of a model suburban American house designed to showcase American household appliances, which Nixon touted as examples of American innovation. How did the debate end?

DEFINITION: (verb) Pretend to be someone you are not; sometimes with fraudulent intentions.
SYNONYMS: impersonate, pose.
USAGE: It had been agreed that, in their escape, she was to personate the character of a Creole lady, and Emmeline that of her servant.

In 1967, racial tensions spurred by high unemployment rates and poor housing conditions in Detroit exploded when police officers raided a speakeasy on the corner of 12th Street and Clairmount. The confrontation with the patrons developed into one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in modern US history, lasting five days and resulting in 43 deaths, 467 injuries, more than 7,200 arrests, and the destruction of more than 2,000 buildings. How was the rioting finally brought under control?

DEFINITION: (verb) Be or provide a memorial to a person or an event.
SYNONYMS: immortalize, commemorate, record.
USAGE: This sculpture memorializes the victims of the concentration camps.

In 1931, American aviator Wiley Post flew around the world with navigator Harold Gatty in 8 days, 15 hours, and 51 minutes, breaking the previous record of 21 days. They published an account of their trip in Around the World in Eight Days. Two years later, Post became the first person to fly around the world alone, a feat he completed in just 7 days and 19 hours. Post died in 1935 when his plane crashed in Alaska with what famous entertainer on board?

DEFINITION: (verb) Confer a trust upon.
SYNONYMS: confide, commit, trust.
USAGE: The messenger was entrusted with the general's secret.

After her husband's assassination in 1959, Bandaranaike became the first woman in the world to serve as a nation's prime minister. She led two coalition governments, from 1960–65 and from 1970–77, and promoted a new constitution that proclaimed a republic and changed the country's name from Ceylon to Sri Lanka. She was later stripped of her civil rights because of abuses as prime minister but reentered politics in the late 1980s. In the 1990s, she was again appointed prime minister by whom?

DEFINITION: (noun) A final touch; a crowning achievement; a culmination.
SYNONYMS: capstone, finishing touch.
USAGE: Two hairy monsters flew at my throat, bearing me down...while a mingled guffaw from Heathcliff and Hareton put the copestone on my rage and humiliation.

In the spring of 1864 during the American Civil War, Union General William T. Sherman began preparing his troops for their first major attack on the defenses of Atlanta, Georgia. Just days after taking command of a Confederate army in that area, General John Bell Hood unsuccessfully attacked Sherman's troops as they crossed the nearby Peachtree Creek. Considered a grave error by most historians, the attack is estimated to have cost Hood nearly 5,000 men, compared to how many from Sherman's army?