Word: size
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...plane yanked the metal seat off his rump, left Marine Rankin above 40,000 feet with his jet helmet, oxygen mask and his parachute, preset to open automatically-at the safe-breathing level of 10,000 feet. "I had a terrible feeling like my abdomen was bloated twice its size. My nose seemed to explode. For 30 seconds I thought the decompression had me," recounts Rankin. "It was a shocking cold all over. My ankles and wrists began to burn as though somebody had put Dry Ice on my skin. My left hand went numb. I had lost that glove...
...world's largest desert; by usual geographers' reckoning, the Sahara runs from the Atlas Mountains south to the Niger and from Africa's Atlantic Coast east to the Red Sea. But even the French Community's half of the Sahara is awesome in size (1,600,000 sq. mi. v. 213,000 for France) and bewildering in its diversity. Barely a seventh of it is the movie desert of The Sheik-the vast expanses of sand wind-blown into golden dunes. The rest is mostly rock: gravelly plains, dry river beds, lunar landscapes whose peaks soar...
...launch, the two aluminum arms were folded against the satellite's side. As the solid-fueled third stage was about to fire some 150 miles above the earth, they snapped out into position. Each arm branched in two directions and each branch carried a flat paddle about the size of a checkerboard, covered with 2,000 silicon-based solar cells mounted on a thin plastic honeycomb (an elaboration of the light-collecting window in Vanguard I, which still draws in enough energy to keep the tiny satellite busily broadcasting 17 months after it was launched). At 22,000 m.p.h...
...world's fastest racing boats are the unlimited hydroplanes. As much airplane as boat, they are bellowing giants powered by World War II fighter-plane engines, ride on two hand-size patches of hull and the submerged half of a whirling propeller, skip along the water like a flat stone thrown from shore, tossing spray with the sting of buckshot. No one knows how fast the top boats will go because no one has ever had them wide open, and for good reason: at speeds around 180 m.p.h., the slightest swell can send them hurtling into the air. Last...
...looking girls who could skate was no trouble; finding skaters who would work seminude was somewhat more difficult; finding strippers who could also skate was next to impossible. The artistic integrity of the performance (if any) is saved by Leny Eversong, a Brazilian woman of indeterminate age but unavoidable size (5 ft. 5 in., 284 Ibs.). From somewhere between her strawberry blonde hair and her flashing silver gown, she produces a rich, round voice with a rhythmic finesse reminiscent of Mildred Bailey. All by herself she is worth the price of admission...