Adam Canfield of the Slash:
How much do you know about Archimedes? He was born in about 287 B.C. in Syracuse, Italy. His father, Phidias, was an astronomer but not much is known about him.
Archimedes was a brilliant mathematician who discovered the principle of buoyancy. It was said that became so excited that he exited the public baths stark naked and ran down the street exclaiming Eureka!
At one point in his life, he delved into the principle of levers and is supposed to have said,"Give me but one firm spot on which to stand and I will move the earth. What he really was saying was: Magnitudes are in equilibrium at distance reciprocally proportional to their weights. If you do understand the previous sentence, please explain it to me.
glaucoma: a disease of the eye marked by increased pressure within the eyeball that can result in damage to the optic disk and gradual loss of vision.
Virgil: 70 B.C. - 19 B.C. He was a classical Roman poet best known for three major worksL the Eclogues, the Georgics and the Aeneid. Virigl worked on the Aeneid during the last ten years of his life. The first six books tell how the Trojan hero Aeneas escapes from the sacking of Troy. The six books were modelled on Homer's Odyssey.
Watergate: one of the most embarrassing political scandals in U.S, history. The chicanery included campaign fraud, political espionage and sabotage, illegal break-ins and wiretapping. On August 9, 1974, President Nixon resigned. However if it hadn't been for the footwork of two reporters for the Washington Pos: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, none of the chicanery would have come to light.
chicanery: a piece of sharp practice at law
Plato's Academy: founded in about 387 B. C. in Athens and persisted throughout the Helleniistic period as a skeptical school.
circa: at, in or approximately often abbreviated as: ca.
Justinian I
Tora Bora: a cave comlex situated in the White Mountains of Eastern Afghanistan. In Arabic, Tora Bora translates as black dust.
Tel Aviv: second largest city in Israel.
Ufa: a city of just over one million people located in the Russian Republic of Bashkortostan.
Thomas Dewey: Governor of New York state 1943-1954
byline: In the newspaper business a byline gives credit to the reporter who wrote the piece.
Brutus: took a leading role in the assasination conspiracy against Julius Caesar.