Word: gunpoint
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Near the end of A Handful of Dust ( 1934), Evelyn Waugh sentenced one of his characters to a bizarre fate. Tony Last was trapped forever in the backwaters of the Amazon, held prisoner by an illiterate half-breed who demanded, at gunpoint, that Tony read aloud to him the collected works of Charles Dickens. Waugh's barbed tribute to Dickens' universal popularity hilariously summed up an attitude then prevalent among the literati: Dickens was fine for soothing savage breasts, but he was not a writer with whom educated gents would care to spend much time...
...After considerable argument, he convinced the terrorists that he should leave the plane to examine the nosewheel, which had been slightly damaged during the landing. When he climbed back aboard, Mahmud confronted him in a towering rage. "Are you guilty or not guilty?" he yelled, forcing the pilot at gunpoint to kneel at the head of the cabin aisle. Then Mahmud placed a pistol in Schumann's face and killed him with one bullet. After that, one passenger said later, "we didn't have any hope left...
...Attempted breakout from a courthouse in St. Louis, Dec. 15, 1959, as he was about to go on trial for a $120 holdup. Ray pushed an escort deputy violently away, fled through the building until a policeman stopped him at gunpoint...
...comrades imprisoned for earlier plots and a 747 jet to take them all to safety. The Moluccans warned of "many deaths" if their demands were not met within two days, but that deadline passed without murder. At one point, however, terrified children were herded to schoolroom windows at gunpoint and forced to chant "Van Agt, we want to live...
...thin-lipped blonde. Asked for his identity papers, the man led the policemen into a nearby parking area. Reaching into his rucksack, he pulled out a sawed-off submachine gun, shot one of the officers in the chest and wounded the other in the arm. Commandeering an Opel at gunpoint from a passing motorist, he and his companion sped off in the direction of the highway to Stuttgart. As three carloads of Singen police gave chase, the pair took a wrong turn that brought them to a dead-end barrier near a brook. In the ensuing battle, a policeman grabbed...