During the Battle
of Britain, the German Luftwaffe launched a heavy nighttime air raid
on London. The dome of St. Paul's
Cathedral was pierced by a Nazi bomb, leaving the high altar in ruin. It was one of the few occasions that the
17th-century cathedral suffered significant damage during Germany's nearly
ceaseless bombing raids on London in the fall of 1940. In 604 A.D., King Aethelberht I dedicated the
first Christian cathedral there to St. Paul.
That cathedral burned, and its replacement was destroyed by Vikings in
962. A third cathedral was destroyed by
fire in 1087 and was replaced by a grand Norman structure that was completed in
the 13th century. In the 16th century,
the fourth cathedral fell into disrepair and was damaged by fire, and further
harm was done during the English civil wars of the 17th century. In the 1660s, the English architect Sir
Christopher Wren was enlisted to repair the cathedral, but the Great Fire of
London intervened, destroying Old St. Paul's Cathedral in 1666. In the aftermath of the fire, Wren designed a
new St. Paul's Cathedral, with dozens of smaller new churches ranged around it
like satellites. St. Paul's Cathedral
became an inspiration to the British people during World
War II. In the Battle of
Britain, the Luftwaffe attempted to bomb Britain into submission by pounding
London and other major cities, but St. Paul's miraculously escaped major bomb
damage, even as historic buildings nearby were reduced to rubble. Images
of St. Paul's framed by smoke and fire became a symbol of Britain's indomitable
spirit. Civilian defense brigades,
including the St. Paul's Fire Watch, protected the structure from fire, and at
one point an unexploded bomb was removed at great risk from the roof of the
cathedral. Despite the damage caused on
the night of October 9, 1940, the cathedral survived the Blitz largely intact. In 1944, St. Paul's bells rang out to
celebrate the liberation of Paris, and in 1945 services marking the end of the
war in Europe were attended by 35,000 people.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/st-pauls-cathedral-bombed
By 1830 GMT
on December 29, 1940, the 114th night of the London Blitz, the Square Mile was
in flames. Banks, offices, churches and homes were under threat. A US war reporter based in the city cabled his
office: "The second Great Fire of
London has begun." Prime Minister
Winston Churchill sent word that St. Paul's Cathedral should be protected at all
costs - it would boost morale to save Christopher Wren's masterpiece. But there was a hitch - a major one. Water was in short supply. The mains were being bombed, and although
hoses could be filled from the nearby Thames, it was at an unusually low ebb -
and unexploded bombs lay in the mud.
Bombs rained down on the cathedral. Volunteer firewatchers patrolled its
myriad corridors, armed with sandbags and water pumps to douse the flames. At about 2100 GMT, an incendiary device
lodged on the roof. As it burned, the
lead of the iconic dome began to melt. But luck was on the side of the
firewatchers. The bomb dislodged, fell
to the floor of the Stone Gallery, and was smothered with a sandbag. St. Paul's was saved. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-12016916
London
Wall was the defensive wall first built by the Romans around Londinium,
their strategically important port town on the River Thames in what is now the United Kingdom, and subsequently
maintained until the 18th century. In
the late third century, Londinium was raided on several occasions by Saxon pirates. This led, from around 280 onwards, to the construction of an additional
riverside wall. The wall remained in
active use as a fortification for more than 1,000 years afterwards. It was used to defend London against raiding Saxons in 457, and was redeveloped in the
medieval period with the addition of crenellations,
more gates and further bastions. It was
not until as late as the 18th and 19th centuries that the wall underwent
substantial demolition, although even then large portions of it survived by
being incorporated into other structures.
Amid the devastation of the Blitz,
some of the tallest ruins in the bomb-damaged City were remnants of the Roman
wall. Today all that remains of the wall
are a few (albeit substantial) fragments, some of which can be seen in the
grounds of the Museum
of London, in the Barbican
Estate and around Tower Hill.
A section near the Museum
of London was revealed at
Noble Street, after the devastation of an air raid on 29 December 1940 at the
height of the Blitz. Another visible section is at St Alphage Gardens, and other sections form
part of the walls or foundations of modern buildings and are only visible from
inside those buildings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Wall Read of how close London came to drowning
during World War II. The river wall was
hit 121 times between 1940 and 1945, 84 of them during the Blitz of September
1940 to May 1941. The number of bomb
strikes on the river was suppressed at the time so as not to alarm Londoners or
alert Nazi Germany to the city's vulnerability.
Major sentences
are often said to be grammatically productive -
meaning that their structural pattern can generate an indefinite number of real
sentences: (The dog saw a cat, A cat
chased a dog, A man saw a horse . . .) Common examples of minor
sentences are the greetings and reaction signals in conversation: good morning, hi, hello, cheers,
cheerio, bye-bye, good night, yes, yeah, mhm, OK, sure, right, quite, no, nope, etc. Not all
irregular sentences are minor sentences.
For example, many elliptical sentences are unusual, in that they omit an
element of structure normally present (Sorry about that). http://www.davidcrystal.community.librios.com/?id=3553
The next time you start to toss an “expired” carton of milk, consider this: Dates on packages don’t actually have
anything to do with food safety or FDA regulations. Instead, the dates are a somewhat arbitrary
indication of when a manufacturer thinks food might be freshest, and most food
will likely be fine for days or weeks afterward. Misleading labels are one reason that
consumers waste nearly 40 percent of the food they buy — and
one of the inspirations behind Bump Mark, a new bio-based food label made
with gelatin. As the food in a package
starts to decay, so does the gelatin; when it finally expires, the gelatin
reveals a layer of bumps. If the label
is still smooth, a consumer finally knows unequivocally that food is still safe
to eat. Adele Peters See picture of label at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/10/28/landfills-are-overflowing-with-food-heres-a-gelatin-label-that-could-limit-the-waste/
antimetabole (AN-ti-muh-TAB-uh-lee)
noun A repetition of words or an
idea in a reverse order. Example:
"To fail to plan is to plan to fail."
From Greek antimetabole, from anti- (opposite) + metabole (change), from
meta- (after, along) + bole (a throw).
Earliest documented use: 1589.
zeugma (ZOOG-muh)
noun The use of a word to refer
to two or more words, especially in different senses. Examples:
"He caught a fish and a cold" or "She lost her ring and
her temper." From Latin zeugma,
from Greek zeugma (a joining).
Ultimately from the Indo-European root yeug- (to join), which is also
the ancestor of junction, yoke, yoga, adjust, juxtapose, junta, junto, syzygy, jugular, and rejoinder. Earliest documented use: 1589.
synecdoche (si-NEK-duh-kee) noun A
figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole or vice versa. Examples: "head count" to refer to
the count of people or "the police" to refer to a policeman From Latin synekdoche, from Greek synekdokhe,
from syn- (together) + ekdokhe (interpretation). Earliest documented use: 1397.
epanalepsis (ep-uh-nuh-LEP-sis) noun A
figure of speech in which a word or phrase is repeated after intervening text. Example:
"The king is dead, long live the king!" From Greek epanalepsis, from epi- (upon) +
ana- (back) + lepsis (taking hold).
Earliest documented use: 1584.
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1213
November 5, 2014 On this date in
1872, Women's
suffrage in the United States: In defiance of the law, suffragist Susan
B. Anthony voted for the
first time, and was later fined $100.
On this date in 1895, George
B. Selden was granted the
first U.S. patent for an automobile.
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