Word: lording
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...hours after the explosion came the dreaded confirmation of what many already suspected. "The I.R.A. claim responsibility for the execution of Lord Louis Mountbatten," said a statement issued by the Provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army in Belfast. "This operation is one of the discriminate ways we can bring to the attention of the English people the continuing occupation of our country." The assassination of Lord Mountbatten, a patriarchal figure who seemed as much a part of the public life of Britain as Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, sent shock waves of anguish and indignation through Britain and Ireland...
...want to be a leader of a largeI number of men," Lord Mountbatten once observed, "you can't go around like a shrinking violet hiding yourself: you've got to put on a bit of an act. It must be sincere, it's no good having a bogus act. You've got to play up any qualities you have and blow them up larger than life...
Throughout a remarkable lifetime as an influential member of the royal family, as an acclaimed combat hero and strategic planner in World War II, Lord Mountbatten's considerable qualities indeed seemed larger than life. He appeared to embody, if anyone could, the very model of what Englishmen cherish as their national character. As French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing eulogized after the assassination last week: "He personified British courage, dignity and elegance...
...Fleet, Earl Mountbatten of Burma was born at Frogmore House, Windsor, in 1900, just as the sun was passing over the yardarm of Empire. His father was Prince Louis of Battenberg, a German kinsman of Czar Nicholas II of Russia and later Britain's First Sea Lord. Queen Victoria held him in her arms as he was christened Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas. The Battenbergs called their baby son Nickie, but its Russian connotation at that time prompted them to change the nickname to Dickie, much as the family name was later anglicized to Mountbatten...
...rigorous officer-training academy on the Isle of Wight. He was soon seared by an event that is thought to have directed the course of his life: as World War I broke out his father was hounded by anti-German hysteria and forced to resign as First Sea Lord. The tears that ran down the cadet's face, according to a biographer, instilled a burning ambition to rise in the military establishment and avenge Prince Louis' humiliation...