Word: half
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...empire is only a part of the world's largest desert; by usual geographers' reckoning, the Sahara runs from the Atlas Mountains south to the Niger and from Africa's Atlantic Coast east to the Red Sea. But even the French Community's half of the Sahara is awesome in size (1,600,000 sq. mi. v. 213,000 for France) and bewildering in its diversity. Barely a seventh of it is the movie desert of The Sheik-the vast expanses of sand wind-blown into golden dunes. The rest is mostly rock: gravelly plains...
France took on this unpromising territory largely by happenstance. When Britain in 1890 agreed to concede France a free hand in the Sahara, Lord Salisbury commented: "Let the Gallic cock sharpen his spurs in the desert sand." But for nearly half a century virtually the only Frenchmen to show much interest in the desert sands were adventurers and eccentrics. Tindouf, now one of the French army's most important Sahara outposts, was not occupied until 1934, and the last of the marauding desert bands was not brought under control until...
...current rate of more than $200 million a year, foreign oilmen at first looked on with skepticism. They questioned French estimates of reserves; they observed that the Sahara's sweet crude (more than 40 degree gravity) yields far more gasoline than Kuwait crude-but less than half as much heavy fuel oil. France most needs heavy fuel oil for its industry, said Petroleum Week, warning of the danger that "France would soon have gasoline running out its ears...
...refugees' suspicion that it is a plot to divert them from their right to recover their lost homeland in Israel. Last week, standing slim, straight and small in his field marshal's uniform on the balcony at Tulkarm, Hussein could see the broad, fertile fields of Israel half a mile away, fields once worked by Arabs. The crowds below were shouting: "King Hussein, our leader, our leader." But mingled in their shouts was the fiercer cry: "Give us back our homes, give us back our homes...
...world's fastest racing boats are the unlimited hydroplanes. As much airplane as boat, they are bellowing giants powered by World War II fighter-plane engines, ride on two hand-size patches of hull and the submerged half of a whirling propeller, skip along the water like a flat stone thrown from shore, tossing spray with the sting of buckshot. No one knows how fast the top boats will go because no one has ever had them wide open, and for good reason: at speeds around 180 m.p.h., the slightest swell can send them hurtling into the air. Last...