Word: moment
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...course, impossible to predict the future. . . . You are, I believe, the most enlightened and the best-informed people in all the world at this moment. You are subjected to no censorship of news, and I want to add that your Government has no information which it has any thought of withholding from...
Significance. For the moment Stalin's interest is to keep the Red Army sitting on Russia's western marches until Hitler smashes Poland thoroughly. When that happens, if Hitler restores Germany's 1914 borders, Stalin might get some fat slices of pre-War Russia just for sitting still. And best of all, Stalin might achieve the Tsarist dream of owning Constantinople and the Dardanelles...
Roots. Historical events do not have exact beginnings; no one could fix the moment of conception of the Bolshevik-Nazi deal. That it came naturally from long-standing desires for a German-Russian understanding was too vague, that it was a spur-of-the-moment deal was impossible. But January 12 of this year may have been the turning point. At a New Year's party in his glittering new Chancellery, Adolf Hitler surprised diplomats by having a long, amiable talk with Russian Ambassador Alexei Fedorovich Mere-kalov. Hitler speaks no Russian, the Ambassador little German, but they understood...
...showed up. Marksman Peskin, his trigger-finger tensed, his eyes seeking the quarry, scrambled up the liner's Jacob's ladder, followed by the two guardsmen. By this time the lion, bored and weary, had curled up behind a divan, was peacefully snoozing. It was not the moment for the niceties of hunting etiquette. Marksman Peskin was taking aim, when the Amazone's Captain Nyhoff nervously reminded him that a luckless shot in the gunpowder magazine might blast them all to kingdom-come. Swallowing his professional pride, Marksman Peskin inched closer, then fired. The bullet pinked...
Meantime, in Washington, President Roosevelt worried plenty. World War II threatened to trap not only his own family, but 69,000 other U. S. citizens junketing or living in Europe. Not a moment too soon did the Washington clear port. Next morning many a U. S. citizen, his war jitters sharpened by the grim warnings of U. S. embassies, was wildly storming steamship lines only to learn that every vessel was jampacked to the gunwales. During such squalling hours as shipping had not seen since World...