Word: millennium
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Ancient records indicate that the Chinese spotted five more supernovas in the next millennium, all in the Milky Way galaxy, and some of these starbursts were also noted by other cultures. The brilliant supernova of A.D. 1006 was seen and described by an Egyptian scribe named Ali ibn Ridwan and by European monks. The exploding star of 1181 was noted by the Japanese. But it is the supernova of July 4, 1054, which suddenly blazed in the constellation Taurus, near Orion, that is perhaps most significant to present-day astronomers. It exploded only about 6,000 light-years away...
...getting on toward 1 o'clock, and still the essayist, who is given to idly wondering, idly wondered: Is it really acceptable to go to lunch at the Millennium Club? He casually asked a colleague whether he was a member, and the colleague said he had been but had resigned. That seemed very high- toned and impressive, but the essayist is not a member, and it would seem excessive to join an organization solely to resign from it in protest. The colleague then explained that his wife had given him no peace on the subject, and he valued peace...
These are small things, to be sure, and not a single sick or hungry child will feel better because the Millennium Club opens its doors to women. On the other hand, is life not made up of small things? Lots and lots of small things? And isn't there considerable truth in that old banality of Edmund Burke's about the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil being for good men to do nothing (he presumably meant good people or good individuals, but never mind -- the creation of aphorisms was simpler in Burke...
...down with the Millennium Club and all its partners in crime! Far from having lunch there, let us march against it and wave our banners before its marble portals. Down with all discrimination! Equality for all! We demand justice...
...matter of fact," said the colleague who had resigned from the Millennium Club, "I'm enough of a libertarian to think that as long as a club is really private, it ought to be free to exclude anybody it wants, women or blacks or Greeks or people with red hair or whatever. Let them all start their own clubs...