Word: ancient
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February 22, 2006 was when it all went to hell. At least, that's how many Iraqis- Sunnis and Shi'ites alike - remember it. That was the day a powerful bomb set by Sunni extremists ripped through the golden dome of the ancient al-Askari Shrine, one of the holiest sites of Shi'ism, located in the predominantly Sunni city of Samarra, 65 miles north of Baghdad. The blast triggered a round of sectarian bombings, massacres and kidnappings so horrifying that for the next year and a half, many Iraqis would wonder if life would ever return to normal...
...General Ra'ad Jassim Mohammed, one of the lead Iraqi National Police commanders in Samarra. Today, the city is witnessing a slow but shaky revival. Two months ago, the central market re-opened; a university - the city's first - is now under construction; and even the rubble of the ancient shrine, which was bombed again in 2007, is being prepared for a momentous rehabilitation. A city that had come to symbolize Iraq's sectarian schism may yet play a key role in national reconciliation. That's if its leaders heed the lingering warning signs...
...trench where the main drill will bore to the bottom of the ice. Here the cores will be pure ice, inside which gas will be trapped in tiny bubbles - air from over 100,000 years ago. Pulling up those cores will take three years, longer to fully analyze the ancient gases found inside them...
...ancient China, the Emperor Han (Li) means to secure the secret of eternal life from priestess Zi Juan (Yeoh), who loves the Emperor's second-in-command Ming Guo (Amer-Asian hunk Russell Wong; he battled Li in the Hollywood actioner Romeo Must Die). But the priestess has placed a curse on the Emperor: his eyes start bleeding a brown syrup and, in no time, he turns into a chocolate soldier. He and his thousands of soldiers are encased in terracotta - until 1946, when a modern Chinese general (Anthony Wong) sets Emperor Han free to wreak havoc on his homeland...
Pirates have plagued seafarers for millenniums. Homer and Cicero noted incidents involving ancient Greek and Roman mariners, and West Europeans weathered Viking onslaughts during the Middle Ages. In the 16th and 17th centuries, monarchs frustrated by Spain's dominance of the Caribbean commissioned privateers to harass the Spanish fleet--helping to usher in piracy's golden age, when swashbuckling marauders like Edward (Blackbeard) Teach roamed the sun-splashed islands, plundering gold and silver...