In 1986, three men volunteered to die in order to save hundreds of thousands of people, but most of us have never heard of these unsung heroes. When a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine began releasing deadly radioactive material, workers didn’t know what to do.
Idiom: Between A Rock And A Hard Place
When the rugby team from Uruguay boarded the plane, they never imagined that weeks later they’d be eating their teammates to survive. Flying over the Andes Mountains, the pilot’s voice came over the intercom. “Fasten your seatbelts, we are going to enter some turbulence.”
Idiom – It’s Raining Cats And Dogs
If you look out the window and see a heavy rainstorm, you should not be surprised if you hear an English speaker say, “It’s raining cats and dogs!” This expression is used to describe heavy rain. Some other ways to say this include a ‘torrential rain’, a ‘downpour’, or a ‘cloudburst’.
Fighting For The Amazon
More than twenty men hired by an oil company hacked through the Ecuadorean jungle. Suddenly, they found themselves surrounded by a large group of indigenous people called the Cofan. The newcomers were clearly outnumbered. In the last five years, several oilmen had been beaten or killed by various tribes inside the jungle.
A Man For All Seasons
Throughout his life, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus wore many hats. He was a humble farmer, an aristocrat, and a member of the patrician class. He was given absolute power over the people of ancient Rome on two occasions and voluntarily gave it up each time. What made Cincinnatus famous in his time – and a legend in ours – is the fact that he was an honorable man.
Hubris
In the 1950’s China was working to transform from an agricultural society to a communist industrial society. Their leader, Mao Ze Dong, wanted to completely reshape society, and his efforts didn’t stop with humans. One of the strangest reforms of this period was an order to exterminate sparrows and other pests.
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