Word: radar
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Kosovo began glowing on the radar screen of Clinton's foreign policy at the start of 1998. The province has a complicated genealogy: it is populated mostly by Albanians, but for 600 years it has been a lantern of Serbian passion. Serbs venerate the land because it is home to several important monasteries, and in 1389 their ancestors lost a decisive battle with the Ottoman Empire there, setting off 500 years of Turkish rule. The day of the battle is a national holiday--something that last week caused observers to note that understanding the Serb outlook meant understanding a country...
...quick rescue of the pilot gladdened Pentagon hearts, but the downing remained a reminder that air power, despite its omnipotent, high-tech gloss, does have stark limits. Whether it was the sleek $2 billion radar-eluding B-2 Stealth bomber or the hulking, duct-taped $74 million B-52 pulverizing Serbian targets last week, the essential character of air warfare didn't change: air power, old or new, can always punish a foe but can rarely force him to change his mind. And like any kind of combat, it has mortal risks...
...bounced off almost any object. In 1925 physicists took advantage of this, firing signals at the ionosphere and using the reflection to measure its altitude. By World War II, British scientists had refined the technology, and the government began to dot the coast of England with civil-defense radar stations. As the hardware got simpler, radar found its way into airplanes, boats and air-traffic-control towers, improving navigation and ensuring that even a cow-pasture airport could operate safely. By the end of the century, the same basic technology was being used to steer spacecraft, track storms and help...
Fruit flies and biplanes. Pap smears and CAT scans. Radar and lasers. Insulin, penicillin, LSD and ESP. Artificial hearts. Artificial intelligence. A few of the advances that powered this extraordinary century...
...Teams in Germany and Britain independently invent radar...