Word: 18th
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Since April, the coverage of the 72-year-old billionaire mogul turned politico has read like something between an airport romance novel and soft porn. On April 26, Berlusconi showed up at the 18th birthday party of leggy Neapolitan blond Noemi Letizia with the gift of a diamond necklace. Within two days, Berlusconi's wife of 20 years, Veronica Lario, announced she wanted a divorce, claiming that her husband "frequents underage females." (See Berlusconi's Worst Gaffes...
...blue laws," which outlaw certain "secular" activities on Sunday (like enjoying a pint of ale). The term, according to some historians, comes from the color of the paper used to print the first decrees, in New Haven, Conn. Others believe it refers to blue's use as an 18th century slang term for "rigidly moral." If you were a settler in the 1700s, Sunday was a day to rest and honor the Sabbath, nothing less and (definitely) nothing more. It wasn't just alcoholic beverages that were forbidden; if you cut your hair, picked up a broom or even kissed...
...most celebrated monks, while Islam arrived in the tenth century and became dominant in the subsequent centuries. Most Uighurs today practice a brand of Islam that is peaceful and tolerant and mixed with the mystical strains of Sufism. One of their holiest sites is the tomb of an 18th century concubine who, according to legend, naturally exuded an overwhelming and intoxicating musk. (Read "Palau: Next Stop After Gitmo...
Shonibare is best known for making headless mannequins like the ones in his How to Blow Up Two Heads at Once (Ladies). They come outfitted in 18th or 19th century dress, but in a wild-style fabric that's from another time and place altogether. It looks at first like "traditional" African patterned cloth--and it is--but the tradition turns out to be complicated. As Shonibare discovered years ago, those "African" wax-print textiles are actually produced by the Dutch, who borrowed them from the batik cloth of their Indonesian colony, then started selling them in Africa, where they...
...scandal began when it was reported that the prime minister attended the high school student’s 18th birthday party and gave her a $10,000 necklace. A few days later Veronica Laria, Berlusconi’s wife of 19 years, told the Italian press that she was filing for divorce because of her husband’s dalliances with young women, citing in particular his bizarre relationship with Letizia. Earlier this month, the scandal really took off: Photographs came out in the Spanish newspaper, El Pais, which depicted nude guests (including Mirek Toplanek, the former Czech prime minister...