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THE WORLD STANDARD IN KNOWLEDGE SINCE 1768

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Today in context, January 15, 2022
See Week in Review


FAMOUS LINES FROM SHAKESPEARE

With all the buzz about Joel Coen’s adaptation of Macbeth, we decided to test
your knowledge of the Bard of Avon. Can you name the plays in which these
notable lines appear?
“To be, or not to be: that is the question”

“All the world’s a stage”

“Parting is such sweet sorrow”

“Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death
but once”

“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown”

“All that glitters is not gold”

“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes”



UNUSUAL DEATHS

The history books are filled with stories of people who have died in odd ways.
Some are most likely fiction, such as the rather ludicrous claim that Aeschylus
was killed when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his bald head, believing it was a
rock. However, others are very true—or at least worth considering. We take a
look at a few of them.
Killed by Molasses
article / World History
Globe Newspaper Co./Boston Public Library
The Dance of Death?
article
Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Widener Collection;
accession no. 1942.9.81)
Executed by Snakes?
article / World History
© 2016 World 2000 Entertainment/History Channel

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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THE WORK OF GREG TATE

Hip-hop

Journalist and critic Greg Tate died in December 2021. The longtime Village
Voice columnist chronicled Black music and culture, and he was an eyewitness to
New York’s exploding hip-hop scene in the 1980s. Tate wrote this survey of
hip-hop for Britannica.

Gangsta rap

The emergence of gangsta rap in the late 1980s signaled the shift of hip-hop’s
epicenter from New York to the West Coast. Early gangsta rap crews like the Geto
Boys and N.W.A. addressed inner-city violence with shocking frankness, and
lyrics that often included generous dollops of misogyny and homophobia. Tate
explores gangsta rap’s journey from the streets of Oakland and Compton to the
bedrooms of suburbia.

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Entertainment & Pop Culture
Entertainment and leisure activities have been a part of culture in one form or
another since the ancient times. Dance performances, live music, and
storytelling have a long tradition throughout history, even as the styles and
available methods of delivery have shifted dramatically.
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Geography & Travel
Planet Earth contains some extraordinarily diverse environments, some of which
are easily habitable and some not so much. In different areas of Earth, one
might find sweltering deserts, dense tropical rainforests, or bone-chilling
tundras. Each biome and habitat comes with its own selection of flora and fauna,
and it may include physical features such as canyons, volcanoes, rivers, or
caves. Human beings have built homes in many different environments, settling
the area and organizing it into units such as cities, states, regions, and
countries, each with its own points of interest. Shifting trends in human
migration have resulted in a human geography that is profoundly different from
that of centuries ago.
Featured
 * Dravidian languages
   
 * Cry Me a River: Fact or Fiction?
   Is the Ganga River in southern India? Does the Mississippi...
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Health & Medicine
The study of the human mind and body, how these function, and how they
interact—not only with each other but also with their environment—has been of
utmost importance in ensuring human well-being. Research on potential treatments
and preventive medicine has expanded greatly with the development of modern
medicine, and a network of disciplines, including such fields as genetics,
psychology, and nutrition, aims to facilitate the betterment of our health.
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Lifestyles & Social Issues
It's easy enough to agree that human beings all around the world have certain
basic requirements that must be fulfilled in order to ensure their individual
and collective well-being. History has shown us, however, that it's not so easy
to form societies or communities that fulfill these requirements for all
members. The fight for human and civil rights has persisted for hundreds of
years and remains alive today, both within the borders of nations and on an
international scale. It has led to large-scale social movements and reforms
concerning issues such as suffrage, slavery, women's rights, racism,
environmentalism, gay rights, and much more.
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   opposite – erasing American Indians and sanitizing history instead
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   By rejecting their own association with Columbus, contemporary...

Literature
With the development of language, the human imagination has found a way to
create and communicate through the written word. A literary work can transport
us into a fictional, fantastic new world, describe a fleeting feeling, or simply
give us a picture of the past through novels, poems, tragedies, epic works, and
other genres. Through literature, communication becomes an art, and it can
bridge and bond people and cultures of different languages and backgrounds.
Featured
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Philosophy & Religion
Humans have long pondered not only how we came to be but also why we came to be.
The earliest Greek philosophers focused their attention upon the origin and
nature of the physical world; later philosophers have theorized about the nature
of knowledge, truth, good and evil, love, friendship, and much more. Philosophy
involves a methodical assessment of any and all aspects of human existence and
experience. The realms of philosophy and religion have sometimes intersected in
conducting such inquiries as these. As with philosophy, the study of religion
underscores how humankind has long speculated about its origins. The possibility
of a higher being (or beings) to which livings things owe their existence has
long captived human thought. Many religions also offer their own views on the
nature of good and evil, and they may prescribe guidelines and judgment on
different kinds of human behavior.
Featured
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 * Ancient Greek Gods, Demigods, and More
   Ancient Greek mythology describes a world of chaos,...

Politics, Law & Government
The world today is divided territorially into more than 190 countries, each of
which possesses a national government that claims to exercise sovereignty and
seeks to compel obedience to its will by its citizens. Governments can be
classified in any number of ways. For example, they might be classified by the
number of rulers, thus distinguishing government by one (as in a monarchy or a
tyranny) from government by the few (in an aristocracy or oligarchy) and from
government by the many (as in a democracy). Governments can also be classified
by mode of succession; for example, ascension to governmental leadership may
follow the rules of hereditary succession, or it may be determined through
elections or by force. Governments also vary in terms of the laws and rules of
conduct that each political entity follows.
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   20 amazing young leaders changing the world.
 * Quiz: How Well Do You Understand Copyright?
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Science
How can the sky be blue one day and stormy the next? Why do heavy objects tend
to fall downwards when dropped? How are birds able to fly (and why can’t I do
the same?)? Human beings have long been curious about the world in which we
live, striving to identify connections among the phenomenons we witness and to
understand how it all works. The field of science has developed over many
centuries as a way of studying and understanding the world, beginning with the
primitive stage of simply noting important regularities in nature and continuing
through the rise of modern science. The modern-day sciences cover a vast range
of fields, including biology, chemistry, meteorology, astronomy, physics, and
much more.
Featured
 * Gedankenexperiment
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 * What’s a 100-year flood? A hydrologist explains
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 * An ant colony has memories that its individual members don’t have
   The collective memory of an older and larger ant colony,...

Sports & Recreation
Physical contests and recreational games have long played a part in human
society. In both team and solo sports, the human body has been pushed to its
limits in the name of improving athletic performance and in order to break
record upon record. The ancient Olympic Games are an early example of the
contests in which humans have engaged to showcase physical prowess. In modern
times, sports and games have evolved into a lucrative and competitive industry,
while other leisure activities, such as card and video games, can be competitive
or just serve as a way to unwind or socialize.
Featured
 * athletics
   
 * Famous Board (and Other) Games
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   How much do you know about NBA postseason history?...

Technology
Humankind has long striven to improve its living conditions through the
development of tools, instruments, and transportation and communications
systems, all with the goal of making our lives easier, more productive and—why
not?—more fun, too. Thanks to human curiosity and technological research, many
significant inventions have been made throughout history that in turn made a
difference in our daily lives.
Featured
 * material culture
   
 * Tech Companies
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   What’s the magic behind the machine?

Visual Arts
These are the arts that meet the eye and evoke an emotion through an expression
of skill and imagination. They include the most ancient forms, such as painting
and drawing, and the arts that were born thanks to the development of
technology, like sculpture, printmaking, photography, and installation art.
Though beauty is in the eye of the beholder, different eras in art history have
had their own principles to define beauty, from the richly ornamented taste of
the Baroque to the simple utilitarian style of the Prairie School.
Featured
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   art
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   Do you think you know Fabergé, Monet, and Jackson Pollock?...
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   From symbolism to sculpture, this quiz will put you...

World History
Does history really repeat itself, or can we learn from the mistakes of those
who came before us? History provides a chronological, statistical, and cultural
record of the events, people, and movements that have made an impact on
humankind and the world at large throughout the ages.
Featured
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