Word: tanked
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Some shook the world by arriving: Gandhi at the sea to make salt, Lenin at the Finland Station. Others by refusing to depart: Rosa Parks from her seat on the bus, that kid from the path of the tank near Tiananmen Square. There were magical folks who could make freedom radiate through the walls of a Birmingham jail, a South African prison or a Gdansk shipyard...
...stop. Four people are standing around a white, early-'70s Volvo. They're out of gas; can we help? Yes, yes, we say, of course. They want to siphon from our tank. They have an actual siphon right there. We don't have enough, we say, noticing that we're almost out ourselves. We'll take them to the next town. Another man, Esteban, about 19, gets in the back seat, as does Marisa, 24, petite, in silk blouse and black jeans. They hold the gas container on their laps. It's 15 minutes to tiny-town Roda...
Just before 11 a.m. they hauled two duffel bags containing propane-tank bombs into the cafeteria. Then they returned to their cars, strapped on their weapons and ammunition, pulled on their black trench coats and settled in to wait...
Russia has denied reports of the botched tank raid, accusing Western news agencies of fabricating a deliberate propaganda effort. "Now everyone's waiting for the video, because the Chechens usually record these things," says TIME Moscow correspondent Andrew Meier. "After Moscow's denials, a video showing the ambush did occur could prove embarrassing to Russia's generals." It would prove even more embarrassing to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has built his political reputation almost exclusively on the Chechnya campaign. "The plan may have been for Putin to fly down and raise the Russian flag over Grozny...
...Chechnya war that propelled him to the top could also drag him down. Russian public support for the campaign is premised on the fact of Russia's suffering minimal casualties. A videotape to back Western news reports of more than 100 Russian soldiers lying in the wreckage of a tank column ambushed in Grozny could seriously affect his poll ratings...