Word: first
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...apart than small ones, since it takes a much longer time to accumulate sufficient stress. While scientists cannot say exactly where or when the next Big One will hit, they are not without hunches. Southern California, which has not had a Big One since 1857, is every seismologist's first...
...ancient city now called Nimrud, located in what is present-day Iraq, was once the military capital of one of history's fiercest empires. When word first leaked out this summer that Iraqi archaeologists had discovered a major find at the site, scientists around the world were immediately intrigued. The reports told of remarkable archaeological treasures, including royal tombs heaped with gold jewelry of exquisite quality. But reliable information about the site was virtually impossible to obtain. The Iraqis refused to grant visas to the press or let any outsiders photograph the jewelry...
...Assyrians, who first rose to power about 17 centuries after the unification of Egypt, swept out of the fertile valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to conquer much of the Middle East, from roughly 900 B.C. to 612 B.C. They were known for their ferocious cruelty. In addition to their biblical role as the oppressors of Israel, there was the testimony of Ashurnasirpal II, an Assyrian king of the 9th century B.C. who boasted in cuneiform inscriptions of having rebellious chieftains impaled on stakes, dismembered and skinned alive. Ashurnasirpal made Nimrud, known in the Bible as Calah, his capital...
...first close-up look at a recently discovered trove of exquisite Assyrian jewelry that experts are calling the most significant archaeological find since King...
...terror lies first in the surprise. An earthquake is hidden from one moment to the next, as the future is hidden, as God is hidden. The event does not announce itself as most other disasters do, as a hurricane does, or a flood, or even an erupting volcano, which is after all hard to miss as dangerous geography. A plague too arrives more slowly. That is no consolation, but at least the mind and nerves are prepared. The event proceeds in a logical continuum of developing bad news...