06 May 2024
04 May 2024
Chile's Torres del Paine National Park
Managing falls at assisted living facilities
Some senior-care homes say they don’t have the ability to lift fallen residents. Many have adopted “no lift” policies to avoid the risk of back injuries for staff and other potential liabilities...A nurse wo worked at an assisted-living facility in Greensboro, N.C., who requested anonymity because she was not authorized to speak with the media, said her company required caretakers to call 911 even if a resident had just slid harmlessly out of a chair.“If you’re on the floor, period, you’d have to call,” said the nurse, who left her position last year. She said residents were often embarrassed by the lift-assist calls. Some begged her not to dial 911. She said she had no choice.Fire officials point out they bring no special skill to such situations — it’s just a matter of who’s doing the work...Lift assists are now the seventh most common type of 911 call, with an average of 1,800 lift-assist calls every day nationwide, according to an analysis of the National Fire Incident Reporting System, which collects emergency calls from more than 23,000 fire departments...A growing number of cities and towns — from Rocklin, Calif., to Naples, Fla., to Lincoln, Neb. — have started pushing back with special fees of $100 to $800 for senior lift-assist calls... In Mequon, Wis., the fee is billed directly to the facility to emphasize that it’s the company’s responsibility, said Deputy Fire Chief Kurt Zellmann.“We tell them they can’t pass that onto the patient,” he said. But they can’t prohibit it...Assisted-living facilities appear to make far more 911 calls for lift assists than nursing homes, which have higher staffing requirements, according to Ron Nunziato, senior policy director at the Health Care Council of Illinois, which represents nursing homes. Nunziato said he rarely called 911 for a lift assist at a nursing home during the three decades that he ran a company that included both nursing homes and assisted-living facilities.“We had enough staff and equipment to get someone off the floor, out of the tub, whatever the case may be,” Nunziato said, adding: “We don’t believe that skilled nursing facilities are causing the concern.”
"Florida is filled with trash"
BOCA RATON, Fla. – While many people have expressed outrage over a viral video showing teenagers dumping garbage into the waters off South Florida over the weekend, one of their classmates is sticking up for them.A Boca Raton Community High School student who didn’t want to give his name said he was on the boat next to the perpetrators during Sunday’s Boca Bash. That classmate said his fellow students’ actions are being unfairly scrutinized.“Trash happens everywhere, all over the world,” that classmate said. “We are terrorizing 15-year-old kids ‘cause of trash. Yes, I know they are dumb, but at the same time, we all (have) to realize that Florida is filled with trash.”
"Cavernous space" (5): ABYS-
I learn things while doing crossword puzzles. The April 24 NYT puzzle asked for a five-letter word meaning "bottomless pit." The answer was ABYSM, not ABYSS.
"All four terms descend from the Late Latin word abyssus, which is in turn derived from the Greek abyssos ("bottomless"). Abyss and abysm are synonymous (both can refer to the mythical bottomless pit in old accounts of the universe or can be used more broadly in reference to any immeasurably deep gulf), but the adjectives abyssal and abysmal are not used identically.
29 April 2024
Two interesting faces
Rare and valuable plastic octopus
A 13-year-old boy has discovered a “holy grail” Lego octopus which spilled into the sea from a shipping container in the 1990s.The octopus is one of nearly 5m Lego pieces that fell into the sea in 1997 when a storm hit a cargo ship 20 miles off Land’s End, Cornwall. While 352,000 pairs of flippers, 97,500 scuba tanks, and 92,400 swords went overboard, the octopuses are considered the most prized finds as only 4,200 were onboard.
New Hampshire GOP opposes polio vaccine
"New Hampshire could soon beat Florida—known for its anti-vaccine Surgeon General—when it comes to loosening vaccine requirements. A first-in-the-nation bill that’s already passed New Hampshire’s state House, sponsored only by Republican legislators, would end the requirement for parents enrolling kids in child care to provide documentation of polio and measles vaccination. New Hampshire would be the only state in the US to have such a law, although many states allow religious exemptions to vaccine requirements."
(Comment thread now closed)
26 April 2024
"The whole world is watching"
In August of 1968 the Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago, where a large group of young (mostly white) people gathered to protest the ongoing Vietnam War. The Presidential nomination was as yet undecided, because Robert Kennedy had been assassinated and his delegates were thus uncommitted re the choice between Hubert Humphrey (forboding a continuation of the Johnson policies) and the anti-war Senator Eugene McCarthy.
The protest chant of "Peace Now" elicited a Chicago police response which changed the chant to "The whole world is watching." The world did watch via live network television coverage, and many of us remember it vividly.
Reposted from 2020 because there are two national political conventions coming up this year, student protests are spreading around the country, and once again the whole world will be watching...
25 April 2024
Doublecheck your old books for poisons
France’s national library has removed four 19th-century books from its shelves whose emerald green covers are believed to be laced with arsenic. The library said on Thursday that handling the books, which were printed in Britain, would probably cause only minor harm, but it was taking them away for further analysis...The Paris institution identified the offending copies after US researchers discovered publishers in the Victorian era had used the chemical to colour book bindings. The arsenic-containing green pigments were called Paris green, emerald green or Scheele’s green after a German-born chemist.Testing hundreds of book covers for heavy metals since 2019, researchers at the University of Delaware have drawn up a list of potentially dangerous volumes as part of the Poison Book Project.
"Composite image showing color variation of emerald green bookcloth on book spines, likely a result of air pollution. Even when the color on the spine has oxidized and browned, the green cloth on the front and back covers remains vividly green." Courtesy, Winterthur Library, Printed Book and Periodical Collection.
The Poison Book Project has identified the toxic pigment chrome yellow (lead chromate) in 19th-century cloth-case bookbindings. Lead and chromium were detected using X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) and the compound lead chromate was confirmed using Raman spectroscopy. Preliminary friability testing indicates that chrome yellow remains tightly adhered to the bookcloth and does not offset heavy metals onto the hands.Victorian-era bookcloth colored with chrome yellow pigment may range from deep, bright, or olive greens (achieved by mixing chrome yellow with various percentages of Prussian blue) to yellows, oranges, and browns. Smaller percentages of chrome yellow mixed with Prussian blue were used to color chrome green bookcloth throughout the 19th century. Chrome yellow was used in larger quantities to color yellow and orange bookcloths predominantly in the 1880s-1890s, a time period that correlates with more affordable pricing for the pigment than earlier in the century.
"Nearshoring" explained
The reclining armchairs and plush leather sofas coming off the production line at Man Wah Furniture's factory in Monterrey are 100% "Made in Mexico".They're destined for large retailers in the US, like Costco and Walmart. But the company is from China, its Mexican manufacturing plant built with Chinese capital. The triangular relationship between the US, China and Mexico is behind the buzzword in Mexican business: nearshoring.Man Wah is one of scores of Chinese companies to relocate to industrial parks in northern Mexico in recent years, to bring production closer to the US market. As well as saving on shipping, their final product is considered completely Mexican - meaning Chinese firms can avoid the US tariffs and sanctions imposed on Chinese goods amid the continuing trade war between the two countries..."While the Chinese origin of the capital coming into Mexico may be uncomfortable for the policies of some countries," he says, "according to international trade legislation, those products are, to all intents and purposes, Mexican".That has given Mexico an obvious strategic foothold between the two superpowers: Mexico recently replaced China as the US's main trading partner, a significant and symbolic change...When an American family buys it at a Walmart store near them, they may have little idea of the complex geopolitics underpinning its production.
There are no ends or beginnings - there are only middles
A short time ago I found on a London bookstall an odd number of The Poetry Review, with examples of and comments on “Modern American Poets,”—examples which whetted my curiosity...a literary friend chanced to place in my hands a slim green volume, North of Boston, by Robert Frost. I read it, and reread it. It seemed to me that this poet was destined to take a permanent place in American literature. I asked myself why this book was issued by an English and not by an American publisher. And to this question I have found no answer. I may add here, in parenthesis, that I know nothing of Mr. Robert Frost save the three or four particulars I gleaned from the English friend who sent me North of Boston... He is a master of his exacting medium, blank verse,—a new master.”
"Ends and beginnings - there are no such things.There are only middles.""In the Home Stretch"
"Something there is that doesn't love a wall,That sends the frozen-ground-swell under itAnd spills the upper boulders in the sun,And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.""Mending Wall""Home is the place where, when you have to go there,They have to take you in.""The Death of the Hired Man""It's rest I want - there, I have said it out -From cooking meals for hungry hired menAnd washing dishes after them - from doingThings over and over that just won't stay done.""A Servant to Servants"For, dear me, why abandon a beliefMerely because it ceases to be true.Cling to it long enough, and not a doubtIt will turn true again, for so it goes.Most of the change we think we see in lifeIs due to truths being in and out of favor.""The Black Cottage""If one by one we counted people outFor the least sin, it wouldn't take us longTo get so we had no one left to live with.For to be social is to be forgiving.""The Star Splitter"
21 April 2024
Bicycles storming the beaches of Normandy on D-Day
Politics-driven internal migration in the United States
The in-migration has fueled a yearslong real estate boom across South Carolina, where Republicans have controlled the governor’s mansion and legislature for more than two decades. Real estate agents like Ms. Hubbell say many of their clients are religious conservatives whose reasons for moving include opposition to policies like abortion access, support for transgender rights and vaccine mandates during the pandemic.Paul Chabot, the founder and president of Conservative Move, which works with about 500 agents across the country, said that when he started his company in 2017, there were not a lot of people asking to go to South Carolina.In the last two years, however, it has joined Texas and Florida among the top three states that the company’s clients are buying homes in, Mr. Chabot said. About 5,000 people in its clientele database have expressed interest in moving to South Carolina soon...Last year, about 15,500 New Yorkers, 15,000 Californians and 36,000 North Carolinians moved to the state, which has a population of more than 5.3 million. There is no data that breaks down those demographics by political party, but few believe that the growth will do much to shift the state politically. The same cannot be said for Texas, Georgia and North Carolina, which are becoming somewhat more blue as young, liberal-leaning people flock to some of their cities, said Mark Owens, a political science professor at the Citadel in Charleston...Ms. Gomes, who described herself as Christian and anti-abortion, said she felt compelled to leave [Minnesota] because she was getting yelled at in grocery stores for not wearing a mask during the pandemic, and because abortion remains legal, with no restrictions, in Minnesota. She said she was also worried about how, in her view, “transgenderism infiltrates all aspects of education, public life, when you’re out and about” in Minnesota.
Charles Schultz, axe-murderer ?
Charlotte's life in the strip was very short-lived. She made only 10 appearances, the last of which was on February 1, 1955; a victim of being an under-used supporting character with limited comic potential. Her bossy, loudmouthed traits survived, however, in the form of Lucy, who gained much storyline potential after her personality was changed in the mid-1950s (until that time Lucy had functioned as a wide-eyed child of wonder)......two months after Schulz died, a Peanuts fan named Elizabeth Swaim informed the Library of Congress that she would be donating a letter to the library, which was revealed that she had written to Schulz in 1955, requesting him to remove Charlotte Braun from the strip. Schulz replied that he would be willing to do so but said that the person who wrote to him would be responsible for "the death of an innocent child". Schulz concluded the letter with a picture of Charlotte Braun with an ax in her head. The letter is now in the United States Library of Congress.
Via Neatorama.
A "contaminated ink" error dollar bill
Use the solidus, not the obelus, to indicate division
The word "obelus" comes from áœÎ²ÎµÎ»ÏÏ (obelós), the Ancient Greek word for a sharpened stick, spit, or pointed pillar. This is the same root as that of the word 'obelisk'...The form of the obelus as a horizontal line with a dot above and a dot below, ÷, was first used as a symbol for division by the Swiss mathematician Johann Rahn in his book Teutsche Algebra in 1659. This gave rise to the modern mathematical symbol ÷, used in anglophone countries as a division sign. This usage, though widespread in Anglophone countries, is neither universal nor recommended: the ISO 80000-2 standard for mathematical notation recommends only the solidus / or fraction bar for division, or the colon : for ratios; it says that ÷ "should not be used" for division.
You learn something every day.
20 April 2024
Recipe for gooey pot brownies
Dark chocolate, a sprinkle of sea salt and cannabis-infused butter (cannabutter) come together for the ultimate take on the iconic edible.According to cookbook author Diana Isaiou, based on cannabis with 15 percent THC, 1/4 cup of this cannabutter should have 263 milligrams THC total, which means each 2-inch brownie square has about 11 milligrams THC.
19 April 2024
A jaw on the floor
"My parents just got their home renovated with travertin stone. This looks like a section of mandible. Could it be a hominid? Is it usual?"
Travertine is a limestone that forms near natural springs. Spring water that emerges from lime-rich bedrock often carries a high concentration of dissolved calcium carbonate. When the water evaporates or cools—especially near hot springs—this calcium carbonate precipitates as rock and may form very large deposits around the spring. Travertine has an interesting internal texture when polished, and often has color bands and inclusions of calcite crystals, which make it an appealing choice for decorative flooring or wall covering.Travertine also commonly includes fossils. Many are fossil inclusions of algae, plants, and small animals—especially molluscs and crustaceans—that live within the spring water. Much larger animals may be found and humans are no exceptions: Several well-known hominin fossil discoveries are from travertine deposits. Most of these discoveries have happened because of quarrying of the travertine deposits for use in construction.For example, the Steinrinne site is on a terrace of the Wipper River near Bilzingsleben, Germany. The site was quarried from the Middle Ages onward into the twentieth century. Naturalists took notice of the fossils there in the nineteenth century, and straight-tusked elephants, woolly rhinos, and macaques all occur in great numbers, dating to an interglacial period sometime between 470,000 and 280,000 years ago...Quarries rough-cut travertine and other decorative stone into large panels, doing basic quality checks for gaps and large defects on the rough stone before polishing. Small defects and inclusions are the reason why people want travertine in the first place, so they don't merit special attention. Consumers who buy travertine usually browse samples in a showroom to choose the type of rock, and they don't see the actual panels or tile until installation. Tile or panels that are polished by machine and stacked in a workshop or factory for shipping are handled pretty quickly.What this means is that there may be lots more hominin bones in people's floors and showers...It isn't a crime scene. But depending on your state or nation of residence, laws governing discovery of human remains on your property may be complicated and having the paperwork in order with the police, sheriff, or coroner is the first step for most investigations...
Fiendishly difficult cryptic puzzle - updated
12: "Unlikely flier takes a long time to become one!"
A grandmother's tattoo explained
16 April 2024
A college student expresses some stark realities
I was surprised to find I spend far, far less time on my classes than on my extracurricular activities... It turns out that I’m not alone in my meager coursework. Although the average college student spent around 25 hours a week studying in 1960, the average was closer to 15 hours in 2015...This fall, one of my friends did not attend a single lecture or class section until more than a month into the semester. Another spent 40 to 80 hours a week on her preprofessional club, leaving barely any time for school. A third launched a startup while enrolled, leaving studying by the wayside... These extreme examples are outliers. But still, for many students, instead of being the core part of college, class is simply another item on their to-do list, no different from their consulting club presentation or their student newspaper article...Half of the blame can be assigned to grade inflation, which has fundamentally changed students’ incentives during the past several decades. Rising grades permit mediocre work to be scored highly, and students have reacted by scaling back academic effort...And therein lies the second reinforcing effect of grade inflation, which not only fails to punish substandard schoolwork but actively incentivizes it, as students often rely on extracurriculars to get ahead. Amanda Claybaugh, dean of undergraduate education, made this point in a recent New York Times interview, saying that “Students feel the need to distinguish themselves outside the classroom because they are essentially indistinguishable inside the classroom.”..One of my classmates last semester, who is one of the more academically oriented people I know, told me that to get the best grade on an important essay, he simply “regurgitated the readings” without thinking critically about the material...This utilitarian approach to schoolwork requires a cultural explanation beyond grade inflation, and some of the blame must be placed on the newly meritocratic nature of college admissions. Although the partial shift away from the monied legacy networks that dominated Ivy League spots has been beneficial overall, the change also initiated a résumé arms race... nationwide surveys of incoming freshman confirm this narrative, as an increasingly large share of first-years view college as preparation for financial success rather than a site of learning per se...This attitude is one manifestation of what Fischman and Gardner call a “transactional model” of college. According to their book, a so-called transactional student “goes to college and does what (and only what) is required to get a degree and then secure placement in graduate school and/or a job; college is viewed principally, perhaps entirely, as a springboard for future-oriented ambitions.”..In contrast, a professor who is also a College alumnus recently told me that he spent most of his time at Harvard taking five or six classes a semester without doing extracurriculars. Hearing that made me think I’ve probably approached this place in the wrong way. I was discussing the professor’s comments with my roommate the other day, and we both agreed that if we were to go back and redo our undergraduate education, we would basically drop all our extraneous clubs and take as many classes as possible.
Jon Stewart on "victimless" financial crimes
"He's commiting bank fraud where there is no victim""No victim. The ruling is blatantly unfair.""That didn't go over well with the investment community, because we're asking each other "who's next"?""Every [crime] you've just listed is done by every real estate developer..."
What's wrong with people these days??? Updated.
How quickly can a chicken cross the road? Updated.
15 April 2024
If your rotissserie chicken is green on the inside...
"There is no evidence that Green muscle disease is caused by a pathogen, so technically it would be considered safe to consume a bird with it. However, it may not be aesthetically pleasing to eat green meat. The green discoloration of the meat is similar to a bruise that is trying to heal."
Green muscle disease — which is also called ischemic myopathy, deep pectoral myopathy, or green breast — is a condition that develops in larger chickens or turkeys when their pectoral muscles are overdeveloped, becoming too large for the blood supply to reach that region. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), when birds use those muscles to repeatedly flap their wings, the exertion causes the muscles to swell, further restricting the blood supply to that area. Without adequate circulation, those muscles die, turning green in the process.
The comparison to a bruise evolving from reddish-blue to green is accurate. The green color arises from the breakdown of hemoglobin or myoglobin in the dead muscle. This is way different from the green color in wounds that arises from the presence of bacteria like Pseudomonas aeruginosa, whose presence should be detectable by a foul and nauseating odor.* So in the case presented, there would be no disease risk in eating the normal parts of that chicken.
13 April 2024
Interesting album page from a stamp collection
Before you complain about the postal service...
The office compared the U.S. to 30 other nations that were selected by country size and postal service revenue, as well as the ability to source reliable data. The list includes much of the European Union, along with countries such as Canada, Japan, Brazil and Russia.In raw numbers, only four countries had cheaper stamps than the U.S. And while many postal services have raised prices in recent years, the U.S. increases were moderate compared to most nations in the sample."The price of a [USPS] stamp increased by 26 percent from June 2018 to June 2023 ($0.50 to $0.63)," the inspector general report states, "which is less than half of the average increase for our sample size (55 percent) during that period."When the OIG adjusted its analysis for purchasing power parity — a currency conversion rate used to compare the relative affordability of goods in different countries — the U.S. had the lowest stamp price of the 31 postal services.
11 April 2024
Finding "dark skies" - updated
Those who wish to see the skies as their grandparents did and appreciate the magnificience of the Milky Way would do best to find a "dark sky" away from the contamination of urban lighting. I made the screencap above from a world map at DarkSiteFinder.
It's zoomable to tell you which way to drive from Salt Lake or Park City for stargazing -
- and it covers the entire world -
?why the hot spot in subSiberian Russia? Perhaps burning natural gas from oil fields?
Found via an article at FiveThirtyEight about The Darkest Town in America, which discusses the environmental and health effects of nocturnal light pollution.
And this is related: an aerial view of a community in the process of switching from conventional sodium lights to LEDs:
Discussed at the Mildly Interesting subreddit.
10 April 2024
Goodbye to one of my favorite comics
No word on why the cartoonists are retiring, although the strip has been going for 32 years, and writer Lance Aldrich has turned 78, and there are only four newspapers left in the United States that even run comics, so it’s easy to make up a plausible story.
A memorial to the World Central Kitchen heroes
The significance of airport runway numbers
Runways are named by a number between 01 and 36, which is generally the magnetic azimuth of the runway's heading in decadegrees. This heading differs from true north by the local magnetic declination. A runway numbered 09 points east (90°), runway 18 is south (180°), runway 27 points west (270°) and runway 36 points to the north (360° rather than 0°)... A runway can normally be used in both directions, and is named for each direction separately: e.g., "runway 15" in one direction is "runway 33" when used in the other. The two numbers differ by 18 (= 180°).
Additional details (including the letter designations) at pilotinstitute.
08 April 2024
Three types of eclipses
07 April 2024
What is this food ?
"Liberals are sadder than conservatives"
Numerous studies and surveys—Americans are obsessed with this subject—show that some groups tend to lag behind others in the pursuit of happiness: bankers are said to be sadder than lumberjacks, the unmarried sadder than the married, teenage girls sadder than teenage boys.One distinction that holds true today has persisted for decades: liberals are sadder than conservatives. This is a global symptom of political difference, but it is particularly strong in America. Of whatever age group or whichever sex, liberals are also far more likely than conservatives to report having been diagnosed with a mental illness...In a study in 2021 called “The Politics of Depression”, a group of scholars zeroed in on the possible link between political ideology and unhappiness among teenagers... Liberal boys reported higher rates of depression than conservative boys or girls, and liberal girls reported the highest rates of all...Conservatives tend to be healthier, more patriotic and more religious, and to report finding higher levels of meaning in their lives. These characteristics correlate with happiness...Another hypothesis, advanced by Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, and Greg Lukianoff, a lawyer, is that liberals are performing a reverse cognitive behavioural therapy on themselves: promoting not resilience and optimism about incrementally improving the world but catastrophic rumination about problems such as climate change and fearfulness of disagreement even on university campuses. Such habits of mind can deepen depression...“One of the fundamental traits of the conservative attitude is a fear of change, a timid distrust of the new as such,” wrote Friedrich Hayek in “The Constitution of Liberty” in 1960, “while the liberal position is based on courage and confidence, on a preparedness to let change run its course.”.. Donald Trump has robbed liberalism of its transgressive glamour and made conservatism mean its opposite: disruption, subversion, challenge to fuddy-duddies and the status quo—all that cool stuff. It’s kind of depressing.
05 April 2024
Why it's called a "menu"
Inherited from Middle French menu, from Old French menu, from Latin minÅ«tus (“minute, tiny”)...
In French, menu has several meanings, including "small" and "detailed". The use of menu as a noun meaning "a list of food" probably came from the "detailed" sense of the adjective, since a menu is most often a detailed list.
04 April 2024
Fluid dynamics
"Billowing turbulence, mushroom-like Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities, and spreading flows abound in Vadim Sherbakov’s “Origin.” The short film takes a macro looks at fluids — inks, alcohols, soaps, and other household liquids."
"Forcibly fitted with IUDs"
The Danish health minister should “get on a plane and visit” some of the thousands of women thought to be living with the consequences of being forcibly fitted with the contraceptive coil as children, Greenland’s gender equality minister has said.In an attempt to reduce the population of the former Danish colony, at least 4,500 women and girls are believed to have undergone the medical procedure, usually without their consent or knowledge, at the hands of Danish doctors between 1966 and 1970 alone...“For us this story plays into the story about children being adopted without parental consent, about children being sent to Denmark, forgetting their language and their culture. It’s about stories of Danish men coming to Greenland and fathering children that they then did not assume responsibility for,” she added...She said writing off Denmark’s contraceptive practices on girls as young as 12 as the product of another time was “a very white way of thinking”, “because yes, that’s just easy to say when you’re not directly affected”. For those who know people who were “cut off from the possibility of becoming mothers”, it’s an entirely different perspective, she added.Although the coil is now a safe and highly effective form of birth control, lawyers for the Greenlandic women say that for many the forcible fitting of unsophisticated devices that were often too big for the girls’ young bodies went on to cause a lifetime of medical difficulties.
The Taliban’s announcement that it is resuming publicly stoning women to death has been enabled by the international community’s silence, human rights groups have said...In an audio broadcast on the Taliban-controlled Radio Television Afghanistan last Saturday, Akhundzada said: “We will flog the women … we will stone them to death in public [for adultery]...“You may call it a violation of women’s rights when we publicly stone or flog them for committing adultery because they conflict with your democratic principles,” he said, adding: “[But] I represent Allah, and you represent Satan.”..Most recently, in February, the Taliban executed people in public at stadiums in Jawzjan and Ghazni provinces. The militant group has urged people to attend executions and punishments as a “lesson” but banned filming or photography.
Pondering the remarkable history of Afghanistan
Last night I had a pleasant evening watching four of the hour-long segments of Michael Palin's documentary Himalaya (BBC, 2004). He begins the journey and the narrative quite logically at the Khyber Pass, noting that many of the worlds greatest armies have followed this route, since it is the only passage through the mountain chain. He mentions Alexander the Great, Darius the Persian, and Tamerlane the Great. Then this...
"And in 1842 the lone survivor of the British Army's attempt to pacify Afghanistan came staggering up this road to announce the annihilation of 17,000 of his comrades..."That got my attention, since it referred to an event not covered in any of my (few) history courses. Searched the web today, and found the First Anglo-Afghan War, and then the catastrophe under the heading Massacre of Elphinstone's Army. Details at the link, but these excerpts give the flavor:
The remnants dragged on and made a last stand near the village of Gandamack on 13 January. The force was down to fewer than forty men and almost out of food and ammunition. They were surrounded on a hillock and when a surrender was offered by the Afghans, one British sergeant gave the famous answer "Not bloody likely!" All but two were slain.The paintings above: Remnants of an Army and Last Stand
Only one soldier managed to reach Jalalabad. On January 13 William Brydon, an assistant surgeon, rode through the gate on his exhausted horse. Part of his skull was sheared off by a sword. An Afghan shepherd had granted him refuge and, when the shooting was over, put him on his horse. It is said that he was asked upon arrival what happened to the army, and answered "I am the army."
"Amir is a young Afghani from a well-to-do Kabul family; his best friend Hassan is the son of a family servant. Together the two boys form a bond of friendship that breaks tragically on one fateful day, when Amir fails to save his friend from brutal neighborhood bullies. Amir and Hassan become separated, and as first the Soviets and then the Taliban seize control of Afghanistan, Amir and his father escape to the United States to pursue a new life. Years later, Amir -- now an accomplished author living in San Francisco -- is called back to Kabul to right the wrongs he and his father committed years ago."