Word: aztecs
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...regions where the rains had not yet started, Indians slipped into church to pray before the images of their favorite saints, and in the plazas they danced to the ancient Tlaloc, Aztec god of rain. They prayed that the rains might be plentiful, that the brown land might grow green and that this might be the one year in five when crops would be so good that Mexico could feed itself...
Revolution and a new national consciousness made Mexicans defensive about their language. They did not put their street signs in Aztec (the Irish went back to Gaelic), but they became sensitive about encroachments on their Spanish. In 1924, rugged old President Plutarco Elías Calles forbade use of any other language on storefronts, on signs or in advertising. All over Mexico municipalities put his decrees into local law. So Blue Bars became Cantinas Azules, Fashion Shops became Salones de Modas. After a postmaster refused to deliver mail to Chapultepec Heights, Mexico City's fashionable suburb came...
...nine years as dean of the Harvard Law School, Aztec-faced James M. Landis acquired a certain ponderosity of language. As director of the Office of Civilian Defense in 1942, Landis ordered federal buildings to obtain "obscuration . . . either by blackout construction or by termination of the illumination." President Roosevelt laughingly rewrote this as ". . . put something across the window ... or turn out the lights...
With the momentous decision on Greece settled at the top level (see The Nation), Harry Truman took off on a long-planned trip. Once before he had been in Mexico City, as a U.S. Senator in 1939. This week as the Sacred Cow dipped down over the ancient Aztec capital he came as the first U.S. President the city had ever seen...
...romantic Chapultepec Castle, above the cypress-shaded park where Aztec Emperors once strolled, the Mexican Society of Anthropology met last week for its fourth annual "round table." The Mexicans and gringos who sat down together were, in an archeological sense, wealthy men. Around them extended a diggers' dream empire, hardly touched, which 100 expeditions with 100 fat budgets could not hope to explore completely in 100 years...