Word: lunar
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...proved to be a bit of a joke because the calendar change was actually gradual and no one was quite caught off guard. Various other festivals have been cited as inspirations, including the east Asian festival of the burning of the scholars on the new moon of the fourth lunar month (the equivalent of April 1 in the western calendar). The holiday began to evolve (or devolve) 2,200 years ago after Qin Shihuangdi, the unifier of China, infamously set fire to books and gazettes that he disagreed with; today it is celebrated by "sacrificing" jokey messages to the gods...
...analysis, he identified 165 separate points on the monument, and linked them to astrological phenomenon like the two solstices and equinoxes and lunar and solar eclipses. It's a difficult theory to disprove completely and some evidence is persuasive - at dawn on the summer solstice, for example, the center of the Stonehenge ring, two nearby stones (The Slaughter and Heel Stones) and the sun all seem to align. Still, critics of Hawkins' theory say he gives the ancient builders too much credit, arguing they wouldn't have had the sophistication or precision necessary to predict all the astrological events Hawkins...
...continue down Oxford Street, you will see two of Harvard’s most famous landmarks. Farthest away, you will find Northwest Labs, the inspiration for “2001: A Space Odyssey.” On the first Tuesday after the second Monday after the lunar equinox, the massive basement becomes an underground roller derby arena and home of human sacrifice...
...monastery's walls, Dorje enumerated the wrongs visited on ordinary Tibetans by the Chinese authorities: beatings, arbitrary arrests and lengthy jail sentences, extortion, forced attendance at public vilifications of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. The list went on, culminating in attempts to make Tibetans celebrate the Lunar New Year, something Dorje and others told me they had refused to do out of respect for Tibetans killed in Lhasa last March when anti-Chinese protests turned violent. (See pictures of the Dalai Lama...
Even though it was just before Lunar New Year--the most important family holiday on the Chinese calendar--Wang Hongxia was forcing her son out of the house. The 45-year-old accountant had decided to take her 12-year-old from their home in the northwestern city of Xian to a secluded military compound in Beijing, more than 700 miles (1,125 km) away. Like many Chinese parents, Wang felt she had no choice. "Things have absolutely gone out of control," she said, almost in tears. "My son just beat and bit me again this morning after I wouldn...