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In the end, the scientist who invented the oxygen destroyer uses it to defeat Godzilla, committing suicide in the process so that no one else can ever use his creation. The nobility and heroism of his sacrifice was diminished somewhat by the fact that Godzilla became a franchise, rising again and again to menace Japan ( and later to defend it from other giant monsters).

The coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth was -94 degrees F. in Siberia.
Ten per cent of the salt mined in the world each year is used to de-ice the roads in America.
Dirty snow melts quicker than clean snow.

As a little girl in England in the 1930s, Jane Goodall loved animals. When she was just a year old, her father gave her a stuffed chimpanzee named Jubilee in honor of the baby chimp born at the London Zoo... Jane loved it.

"Want to hear my new song?" he asked.
"Yessuh."
He cleared his throat and sang:
I wish I was in da land o' cotton,
Old times dare are not forgotten,
Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land.

Hunkering around the tiny pond, we gazed into its dark depths, detecting wavering weeds and tiny silver minnows...
We gasped when we spotted her-- the Maiden sleeping at the bottom of the pool, pale as a ghost salamander...

The Kulles first stayed....in Forest Park, a white working-class suburb a few miles west of Chicago. Much of the land that became Forest Park had been purchased shortly before the Civil War by Ferdinand Haase, a German immigrant; and the village's first major businesses were Waldheim German Cemetery, the Frauenverein des Deutschen Altenheims ( Women's Society of the German Old People's Home)....

... the proliferation of monks and hermits and nuns , whatever their moral influence for good, tended to splinter a profoundly divided society still further...So the assertion of Alexander Pope that "the monks finished what the Goths began" contains a measure of truth. They had dropped out of the world, because they found society more than they could endure.

... Valentinian (I) himself was a poor advertisement for judicial balance. For even if we do not believe Ammianus' assurance that he fed victims to pet bears, he was evidently liable to terrible fits of anger, one of which caused his death. And the ferocity with which he ordered summary executions was notorious.

"...It's manna. Manna, Mr. Lomax."
"Manna? That I don't get."
...."Like the Lord sent down to the Israelites, Mr. Lomax. The manna in the desert. That kind of manna." He was continuing to eat while he talked. "It sure has a heavenly taste, and it came right down out of the sky."
----"Manna" by John Christopher

"Saturday, the twelfth of June, 2064. Well, the deed is done. I'm a man, I guess. It's a lot more complicated than I imagined , but I can't exactly go back now..."

Hannibal had the battlefield ( at Lake Trasimene) searched for the Roman commander's body to give him an honorable burial, but no one could find it. The Insubres were one of the Gallic tribes that kept their enemies' heads as trophies. It is possible that Flaminius's body was stripped of its armor and his head cut off, later to hang from the belt of the Gaul who had killed him.

...his ( Hannibal's) army had an overland route from Spain to Italy that made the cumbersome and expensive task of mounting an invasion by sea unnecessary. Moreover, the harsh terrain over which the route rambled would make it difficult for the Romans to intercept and stop his progress.

I returned to my room, sat in my chair by the window, and tried to rejoin Frodo and Sam on the road to Mount Doom. I couldn't do it. I closed the book and stared out through the rain-wavery glass at the empty beach and the gray ocean beyond.

Truman then moved to the central message of his speech...: "I believe it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." This sentence, one of the most sweeping and consequential in the era in which it was delivered by an American president, was greeted with silence.

....the Neanderthals were extremely varied and widely dispersed. They had an elaborate culture...They were more muscular, more barrel-chested, and shorter than modern humans, but if they cleaned up, shaved, and dressed in business suits, they could probably pass for television evangelists.

Imam Yutubi was very clear. Those who are against God have no right to live. We have the right to end them.
But most people on Earth do not follow your God. If they are for other gods, or no god, do you have the right to end them too? Two billion people following your God. Six billion others. What do you think about them?
It depends.
On what?
On how they behave.

....U.S. policy makers were wise to oppose the spread of totalitarian communism, and to hope that this fundamentally flawed form of social organization, once contained, would eventually die out and be replaced by political and economic institutions that permitted the free flowering of human potential.

What stood out for him ( William Russell of The London Times ) was Lincoln's face. "....... the eyes dark, full, and deeply set, are penetrating, but full of an expression which almost amounts to tenderness."

....he ( Emperor Nero) never lost the affection of the populace and was respected in the provinces...He accepted and discharged the then traditional basic duties of an Emperor to provide bread, water, and circuses... In his foreign policy Nero was effective, choosing governors and procurators wisely...

"We've won!" he ( Frederickson) exulted to Sharpe. "The damn thing's over!"
"When did Boney abdicate?" Sharpe asked.
"Christ knows. Last week? Two weeks ago?"
"Before the battle?" Sharpe insisted.
Frederickson shrugged. "Before, the battle, yes."
"Jesus."

While the idea of the Anthropocene as our current geologic era is common, some scholars have pointed out several problems with this framing, including:...the humanity responsible for the planetary impacts-generally harmful ones-represents a very few powerful people and nations , so humanity as a whole shouldn't take the blame...

"You must find what I should have had the courage to look for," she said, " what we should all have the courage to look for."
"What is that?" I said.
Her answer was this: "Your own Katmandu."

As Napoleon advanced, he found the Russians had denuded his path of the supplies so vital to his vast army. Victory at Borodino, 40 miles from Moscow, cost Napoleon tens of thousands of soldiers and many of his best marshals. The emperor occupied Moscow, which was deserted...and waited for Alexander to seek terms. No Tsar was forthcoming. Winter was, however...

Even the U.S.S. Augusta, the flagship of the American Asiatic Fleet, which was anchored in Shanghai Harbor, felt the sting of war when a stray 37 mm anti-aircraft shell dropped among off-duty seamen who were watching a movie on the well deck, wounding 18 and killing a 20-year- old Louisianan named Freddie John Falgout...

The First Resistance fought the elder gods themselves. But how does a B-2 fly against something that can warp the very fabric of the stars with the power of its mind?
---from "Such Bright and Risen Madness in Our Names" by Jay Lake

The economic pie of 2014 is far larger than the pie of 1500, but it is distributed so unevenly that many African peasants and Indonesian labourers return home after a hard day's work with less food than did their ancestors 500 years ago.... The human species and the global economy may well keep growing, but many more individuals may live in hunger and want.

Raping a woman who did not belong to any man was not considered a crime at all, just as picking up a lost coin on a busy street is not considered theft. And if a husband raped his own wife, he had committed no crime... As of 2006, there were still fifty-three countries where a husband could not be prosecuted for the rape of his wife.

The roar from the caldera had built up even more, and the sky had darkened somewhat, clouds lower than the top of Mauna Loa.
"I've never heard it like this!" Jenny had to shout even though she was inches from Mac's ear.
He was about to tell her that neither had he when he suddenly felt like his feet were on fire.

The figure stared straight ahead, hands fingering a book in his lap.
It said, "I am Hari Seldon!" The voice was old and soft.

Following Sarajevo the Czarina sent a stream of telegrams to Rasputin asking his advice on the serious international situation. Rasputin replied by sending a telegram to the Czar telling him to prevent Russia being enticed into the war. If it were, he predicted, "it will be the finish of all things."