Word: magdeburg
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...hand it to Gerhard Schr?der; he really knows how to put on a show. At a campaign rally in Magdeburg in eastern Germany last week, he greeted the crowd with a big thumbs-up sign, gave a pugnacious and impassioned speech about his government's record, then exited to loud applause with his hands clasped over his head like a boxer who's delivered a knockout blow. From this bravura performance, you'd think Schr?der and his Social Democratic Party (SPD) were coasting to victory in the Sept. 18 elections. In fact, the SPD trails the Christian Democrats...
...tell that to Holger Peters, 24, who was cheering the Chancellor on in Magdeburg. "Schr?der has achieved a lot for Germany," he says. "[CDU candidate] Angela Merkel and the others don't have any arguments for improving the situation." Peters even likes the "one-euro jobs" that Schr?der introduced last year as part of his controversial economic reforms. Intended to reintegrate long-term unemployed into the labor market, the jobs are structured so that employers pay only ?1 per hour, with the rest of the employee's income covered by unemployment benefits. Skeptics say the system encourages wage dumping...
...France, health-care reforms are getting people out onto the streets; in Germany, it's planned cutbacks in unemployment benefits. In cities such as Leipzig and Magdeburg in the eastern part of the country last week, around 30,000 took part in protest marches against the proposed cuts. Eastern Germany, with its 18.5% unemployment rate, is especially incensed about Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's plan to replace income-indexed benefits with flat-rate payments for the long-term unemployed. Schröder's Social Democratic Party (SPD) is bracing for a major setback when state elections are held next...
Sometimes innovators don't even recognize the true import of their findings. In 1660s Germany, Magdeburg Mayor Otto von Guericke tries to solve the riddle of a compass needle that doesn't always point (as people thought it should) at the Pole Star. He rubs a model of the earth made of sulfur in order to attract his experimental compass needle. The rubbing produces a noise and a spark (which Guericke mentions in a casual footnote) that turns out to have been electricity...