In geography, antipodes are two places precisely opposite one another on the earth, such as Barfleur in Normandy and Antipodes Island, south-east of New Zealand. At antipodes the hours and seasons are reversed, so that when it is midnight in summer in Barfleur it is noon in winter on Antipodes. Research Antipodes
Ave Maria ('Hail, Mary'), are the first two words of the angel Gabriel's salutation according to Luke I 28, and the beginning of the very common Latin prayer to the Virgin in the Roman Catholic Church. Its lay use was sanctioned at the end of the twelfth century, and a papal edict of 1326 ordains the repetition of the prayer thrice each morning, noon, and evening, the hour being indicated by sound of bells called the Ave Maria or Angelus Domini. The prayers are counted upon the small beads of the rosary, as the Paternosters are upon the large ones. Research Ave Maria
A day is either the interval of time during which the sun is continuously above the horizon, or the time occupied by a revolution of the earth on its axis, embracing this interval (the period of light) as well as the interval of darkness. The day in the latter sense may be measured in more than one way. If we measure it by the apparent movement of the stars, caused by the rotation of the earth on its axis, we must call day the period between the time when a star is on the meridian and when it again returns to the meridian: this is a sidereal day. It is uniformly equal to 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.098 seconds. But more important than this is the solar day, or the interval between two passages of the sun across the meridian of any place. The latter is about 4 minutes longer than the former, owing to the revolution of the earth round the sun, and it is not of uniform length, owing to the varying speed at which the earth moves in its orbit and to the obliquity of the ecliptic. For convenience an average of the solar day is taken, and this gives us the mean solar or civil day of 24 hours, the difference between which the actual solar day at any time is the equation of time.
The length of the days and nights at any place varies with the latitude and season of the year, owing to the inclination of the earth's axis. In the first place, the days and nights are equal (twelve hours each) all over the world on the 21st of March and the 21st of September, which dates are called the vernal (spring) and autumnal equinoxes. Again, the days and nights are always of equal length at the equator, which, for this reason, is sometimes called the equinoctial line. With these exceptions, we find the difference between the duration of the day and the night varying more and more as we recede from the equator, and at the poles the year consists of one day of six months' duration, and one night of the same.
The Babylonians began the day at sun-rising; theJews at sun-setting; the Egyptians and Romans at midnight, as do most modern peoples. The civil day in most countries is divided into two portions of twelve hours each. The abbreviations PM. and AM. (the first signifying post meridiem, Latin for afternoon; the latter ante meridiem, forenoon) are requisite, in consequence of this division of the day. The Italians in some places reckon the day from sunset to sunset, and enumerate the hours up to twenty-four; the Chinese divide it into twelve parts of two hours each.
For astronomical purposes the day is divided into twenty-four hours instead of two parts of twelve hours. Formerly it began at noon, but since the 1st of January 1885, the day of twenty-four hours begins at midnight at Greenwich Observatory; and this reckoning is now generally adopted for astronomical purposes elsewhere than at Greenwich. The Greenwich day practically determines the date for all the world. At mid-day at Greenwich the date (day of the week and month) is everywhere the same, though there are all possible differences in naming the hour of the day. But mid-day at Greenwich is the only instant at which we ever have the same date all over the world. The meridian of midnight, which is then at 180 degrees east or west, goes on revolving, gradually bringing a new date to every place to the west of that line, but obviously not bringing that new date to the places immediately to the east of that line until twenty-four hours after. From this it follows that whereas places on the one side of the globe never have a different date except when midnight lies between them, places on the opposite side of the globe, and on different sides of the meridian of 180 degrees east Or west never have the same date except when midnight lies between them. The actual difference of time between Wellington in New Zealand and Honolulu in Hawaii is only about two hours; yet a person at Wellington may date a letter 9 o'clock AM 26th June, while another writing at the same instant at Honolulu dates his 11 o'clock AM 25th June.
In geography a meridian is an imaginary circle on the earth's surface passing through the two poles; on it all places have noon at the same Research Meridian
The Tropics are the region between 23 degrees 30 minutes north and 23 degrees 30 minutes south of the equator at which the sun's rays are vertical at noon. Research The Tropics
Dean Gooderham Acheson was an American lawyer and politician. He was born in 1893 at Middletown, Connecticut and died in 1971. Educated at Yale and Harvard, he joined the department of state in 1941, where he was Under-Secretary from 1945 until 1947 and Secretary of State in the Truman administration from 1949 until 1953. He developed US policy for the containment of Communism, helped to formulate the Marshall Plan of 1947 and participated in the establishment of NATO in 1949. His works include Power and Diplomacy, published in 1958, Morning and Noon, published in 1965, and Present at the Creation published in 1969, for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Research Dean Acheson
George Gordon Meade was an American general. He was born in 1815 and died in 1872. A Federal general in the American Civil War, he graduated from West Point in 1835, fought in the Mexican War and against the Seminoles, and was busy in the surveying department. Soon after the Rebellion had commenced, he was assigned to a brigade in the Army of the Potomac, was wounded in the Seven Days' battles, and fought at the second battle of Bull Run. At Antietam and Fredericksburg he commanded a division, and at Chancellorsville a corps. At the end of June, 1863, Mcade was appointed to supersede Hooker in command of the Army of the, Potomac; Lee's great invasion of the North was in progress, and George Meade was near Frederick. Almost immediately afterward occurred the Battle of Gettysburg. The chief credit for this decisive Union victory is variously claimed for the commander-in-chief, for Hancock, Howard, Reynolds and other corps commanders; George Meade arrived on the battlefield about noon of the second day. He was made brigadier-general in the regular army, and the next year major-general. Under Grant in 1864-1865 he was in immediate charge of the Army of the Potomac, and after the war held command of different departments. Research George Meade
Gary Cooper was an American actor. He was born Frank James Cooper in 1901 at Helena, Montana and died in 1961. The son of a Montana state supreme court justice, he received his elementary schooling in England, later attending Wesleyan College, an agricultural school, in Montana and Grinnell College in Iowa. After graduation, he worked briefly as a guide at Yellowstone National Park and began submitting political cartoons to his hometownnewspaper, the Helena Independent. In 1924, Cooper set out for California, hoping to become a cartoonist for a Los Angeles newspaper. Instead he found himself a door-to-door salesman for a photographer and space salesman for theatre curtain advertising. In 1925 he was introduced by friends to Hollywoodcasting directors and began playing cowboy extras in Westerns. During 1925 and early 1926 he appeared briefly in many films, including The Thundering Herd, Wild HorseMesa, The Vanishing American, The Eagle, and The Enchanted Hill. He also played heavies in several two-reelers.
His big break came in 1926, when he was cast as a last-minute replacement for the second lead in Goldwyn's 'The Winning of Barbara Worth', starring Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky. The film was a big box-office hit and it started Cooper on his way to becoming one of Hollywood's all-time great stars. Tall, handsome, and laconic, with a shy smile and a hesitant delivery, he had an immediate appeal to both male and female audiences and steadily moved to the top. In the eyes of millions the world over he came to personify the strong, silent American, a man of action and few words. At first taken lightly by the critics, he received more press coverage for his romantic escapades (with Clara Bow, Lupe Velez, Evelyn Brent, etc.) than for his acting in films. But he soon settled down, married socialite Veronica Balfe, who had briefly appeared in films as Sandra Shaw, and gradually developed a natural aptitude for screen acting. By the mid-30s he was generally accepted as a capable performer.
His physique and nonchalant manner had been effective from the start in romantic and adventure films. Now his slightly awkward mannerisms and delayed reactions also proved to be perfect assets for screen comedy, under the guidance of such directors as Lubitsch and Capra. But above all, he remained most closely identified with his roles as a man of the American West. The diversity of his roles was reflected in two of his Oscar nominations: the 1946 'Mr Deeds Goes to Town', and the 1942 'The Pride of the Yankees'. He won his first Academy Award, as well as the New York Film Critics Award, for the 1941 'Sergeant York'. Cooper received another Oscar in 1952 for High Noon, perhaps his most memorable film, and received a Special Academy Award in the 1960 ceremony, held in April of 1961, for his many memorable screen performances and the international recognition he, as an individual, has gained for the motion picture industry. His close friend, James Stewart, accepted this last award in Cooper's behalf with tears in his eyes. He had just learned, along with a few other Cooper intimates, that the belovedstar was suffering from incurable cancer. On May the 13th, 1961, about one month later, Gary Cooper died at 60. Research Gary Cooper
Lee Van Cleef was an American actor. He was born in 1925 at Somerville, New Jersey and died in 1989 of a heartattack. A former accountant, he became interested in amateur dramatics in his spare time, and was thus spotted by Stanley Kramer who cast him as the henchman 'Jack Colby' in the 1952 film 'High Noon'. Research Lee Van Cleef
Consumption, or Phthisis was a name formerly given for various diseases known by emaciation (serious loss of weight), debility, cough, hectic fever, and purulent expectoration, particularly tuberculosis which was unknown at the time. The predisposing causes were believed to be very variable, and around 1900 were reliably listed as: hereditary taint, scrofulous diathesis, syphilis, small-pox, etc; exposure to fumes and dusty air in certain trades; violent passions and excess of various kinds, sudden lowering of the temperature of the body, etc. The more immediate or occasional causes were thought to be pneumonic inflammation proceeding to suppuration, catarrh, asthma, and tubercles in the lungs, the last of which is was by far the most general.
The incipient symptoms usually varied with the cause of the disease; but when it arose from tubercles it was usually marked by a short dry cough that became habitual, but from which nothing was spat up for some time except a frothy mucus. The breathing was at the same time somewhat impeded, the body became gradually leaner, and great languor, with indolence, dejection, and loss of appetite prevailed. At a later stage the cough became more troublesome, particularly by night, and was attended with an expectoration, the matter of which assumed a greenish colour and purulent appearance, being on many occasions streaked with blood. In some cases a more severe degree of blood-spitting attended, and the patient spat up a considerable quantity of florid, frothy blood. At a more advanced period of the disease a pain was sometimes felt on one side in so high a degree as to prevent the person from lying easily on that side; but it more frequently happened that it was felt only on making a full inspiration, or coughing.
At the first commencement of the disease the pulse was often natural, but it afterwards became full, hard, and frequent. At the same time the face flushed, particularly after eating, the palms of the hands and soles of the feet were affected with burning heat; the respiration was difficult and laborious; evening exacerbations became obvious, and by degrees the fever assumed the hectic form with remittent exacerbations twice every day, at noon and evening. From the first appearance of the hectic symptoms the urine was high coloured, and deposited a copious branny red sediment. At this time the patient was usually costive; but in the more advanced stages a diarrhoea often came on, colliquative sweats likewise broke out, and these alternated with each other, and induced great debility.
Some days before death the extremities became cold. In some cases a delirium preceded that event. The morbid appearance most frequently to be met with on the dissection of those who had died of phthisis was the existence of tubercles in the cellular substance of the lungs, most usually at the upper and back part, or occupying the outer part, and forming adhesions to the pleura.
By about 1905 the tubercles were generally attributed to a special bacillus, and this was correctly being regarded as the originating cause of the disease, which could be conveyed from one person to another, that is, it was infectious. In fact, what had been discovered was Tuberculosis, but as it was not yet identified, various diseases were being blamed and the whole grouped under the popular term 'consumption'.
The treatment for consumption at the end of the Victorian era in Britain was based around healthy diet and fresh air, one source quoting: 'The diet should be nutritious, but not heating, or difficult of digestion. Milk, especially that of the ass; farinaceous vegetables; acescent fruits; animal soups; and, above all, cod-liver oil, etc, are usually given. It is also of the utmost importance to see that the digestive organs are in proper working order. As much open air as possible, combined with abundance of nutritious food, is at present the treatment in vogue. With regard to urgent symptoms requiring palliation, the cough may be allayed by demulcents, but especially mild opiates swallowed slowly; colliquative sweats by acids, particularly the mineral; diarrhoea by chalk and other astringents, or by small doses of opium.' Research Consumption
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Abbreviations
Research Antipodes
