Word: ancient
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Unconnected Saucers. A slight intramural argument broke out within the Air Force after two weird and ancient flying machines were found in a tobacco barn eleven miles from Baltimore. An unofficial spokesman who announced happily that they were probably prototypes of the flying saucer was hastily reversed by another spokesman who snapped: "Absolutely no connection...
...Western year 1949, in China's ancient lunar calendar, is a leap year, with two seventh months or a double July. The superstitious say a double July means a month more of rain and so a great flood...
Twin Motors. In selling its product to Italians-and thus providing a refreshing example of how to do business abroad- Coca-Cola has given U.S. methods a Mediterranean twist. Billboards plug "la sosta piacevole" (freely: The Pause That Refreshes), a fleet of 200 yellow trucks pound along ancient Roman routes from the bottling centers, and deliverymen dressed in uniforms emblazoned with Coca-Cola's red patch trundle boxes into caffe bars and wineshops. In Venice, two motor launches (see cut) chug along the Grand Canal on delivery routes...
...ancient town of Mell, in Poland, where the travelers elect to stay, is a faultless work of pure imagination, a distillation of all European cathedral towns and watering places, with a few touches of South Africa and Greenwich Village thrown in. Medieval houses and cobbled streets fill young Morgan with wonder on his first sunny morning...
Levelheaded readers will grin at these and other ancient beliefs, which London Daily Mirror Columnists Edwin and Mona Radford have catalogued in their Encyclopaedia of Superstitions. Anyone who touches wood to forestall bad luck, or avoids walking under ladders, or refuses to light three cigarettes on a match, is not permitted, however, to grin too widely. He should read on. Some authorities hold that "touching wood" signifies touching the Holy Cross for protection; others look still further back into the past and see it as an invocation of tree spirits. A ladder leaning against a wall forms a triangle, which...