Word: 19th
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Antipodes' sake, G.O.P. stands for Grand Old Party. The initials, referring to the Republican party, first came into use in the late 19th century. They have been variously attributed to an American adaptation of "Grand Old Man," affectionate nickname for Prime Minister Gladstone, political cartoonists' use of the abbreviation for convenience' sake (see cut*), and a Cincinnati Gazette printer who was short of space...
...Ehrich Weiss, son of scholarly Rabbi Mayer Weiss, was not for him. So he studied the memoirs of French Magician Robert Houdin, changed his own name to Houdini, learned a little clumsy sleight of hand, and started to play the dime museums and carnivals that flourished in the late 19th century. He was a flop, and he had to break out of that situation, too. He concentrated on the art of escape itself. Handcuffs, prison cells, the wet-sheet packs of insane asylums, coffins, giant milk cans bolted shut-he beat them all. Said his mother: "From this you should...
...17th century a French consul dug down into the dunes, sent hundreds of ornate columns to Louis XIV. At the start of the 19th century an English sea captain sent home a second load of marble loot. It now ornaments the grounds at Windsor Castle. The winds blew and the dunes again covered what was left, until digging began in earnest in modern times...
...blame were the aftermath of Spain's ruinous Civil War, the international war that followed, and the long years of political isolation. But the rest lay in Franco's inept administering, in Spain's archaic economic system, and perhaps in those national qualities described by a 19th century Spanish statesman: "I do not know where we are going, but I do know this-that wherever it is, we shall lose...
...19th lap, University of Southern California's Bob Soth was second, running the race of his life when the pace suddenly hit him. He staggered like a sidewalk drunk, feet reaching blindly, body jerking from side to side, arms flopping in grotesque rhythm. For three laps, he kept on, then fell. Before anyone could reach him, he was up again, shambling forward, dazed. He fell again, and was carried from the field on a stretcher. In quick succession, Russia's Hubert Pyarnakivi and the U.S.'s Max Truex managed to finish, and then they too went into...