Tag: United Christendom movement crossword clue

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Bill’s time: 16m 09s

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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Ibsen heroine : NORA

“A Doll’s House” is probably the most famous play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The play deals with the feminist awakening of the lead character, Nora Helmer. “A Doll’s House” is sometimes referred to as the “first true feminist play”.

5 Nickname in early jazz piano : FATHA

Earl “Fatha” Hines is considered one of the greats in the history of jazz. Hines played his piano twice at the White House, and once even played solo for the Pope.

10 Mining target : DATA

The process of data mining is used to extract information from a database and present it in a form that facilitates further use.

21 Flat screen? : TELLY

“Telly” is a term commonly used in the UK and Ireland that is short for “television”.

22 John ___, secret identity of the Lone Ranger : REID

The Green Hornet is a fictional crime fighter who made his debut on the radio in the thirties. The Green Hornet’s alter ego of newspaper publisher Brett Reid. The radio show was a companion to the successful series “The Lone Ranger”, and there were some links in the storylines. The Lone Ranger’s real name is John Reid, and his nephew is Dan Reid. Dan is Brett Reid’s father, making the Green Hornet the great-nephew of the Lone Ranger.

24 Assembly : DIET

A diet was a general assembly of the estates of the former Holy Roman Empire. The most famous of these assemblies was the Diet of Worms, a 16th-century meeting that took place in the small town of Worms on the Rhine River in Germany. The main item on the agenda was discussion of the 95 theses of Martin Luther. Luther was summoned to the meeting, and there found to be guilty of heresy and so was subsequently excommunicated by the Pope.

25 Outline in the Arby’s logo : HAT

The Arby’s chain of fast food restaurants was founded in 1964 by two brothers, Forrest and Leroy Raffel. The name “Arby’s” is a homonym of “RB’s”, standing for “Raffel Brothers”. There is a rumor out there that the initials “RB” were chosen for “roast beef”, but that’s not true.

41 Wife of Albert Einstein : ELSA

Elsa Einstein was Albert Einstein’s second wife. “Einstein” was Elsa’s family name after she married Einstein, and also beforehand. Elsa and Albert were first cousins.

44 Western city that shares its name with a tree : ASPEN

Aspen, Colorado used to be known as Ute City, with the name change taking place in 1880. Like many communities in the area, Aspen was a mining town, and in 1891 and 1892 it was at the center of the highest production of silver in the US. Nowadays, it’s all about skiing and movie stars.

48 Kind of replication : RNA

The two most common nucleic acids are deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), both of which play crucial roles in genetics. The DNA contains the genetic instructions used to keep living organisms functioning, and RNA is used to transcribe that information from the DNA to protein “generators” called ribosomes.

49 One of the friends on “Friends” : ROSS

Ross Geller is the character on “Friends” played by David Schwimmer. The role was actually written with Schwimmer in mind, and so Ross was the first of the “Friends” to be cast.

51 Kotb on morning TV : HODA

Hoda Kotb is an Egyptian-American television journalist who is perhaps best known as co-host of the NBC morning show “Today”. She is also the author of a bestselling autobiography “Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer, and Kathie Lee”.

54 Baseball’s Buck : O’NEIL

Buck O’Neil was a first baseman and manager with the Kansas City Monarchs, a team in the Negro American League.

57 Dr. Seuss’s “And to Think That ___ It on Mulberry Street” : I SAW

“Dr. Seuss” was the pen name of Theodor Seuss Geisel. Geisel first used the pen name while studying at Dartmouth College and at the University of Oxford. Back then, he pronounced “Seuss” as it would be in German, i.e. rhyming with “voice”. After his books found success in the US, he went with the pronunciation being used widely by the public, quite happy to have a name that rhymes with “Mother Goose”.

60 Popular assistant : SIRI

Siri is a software application that works with Apple’s iOS operating system. “Siri” is an acronym standing for Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface. Voice-over artist Susan Bennett revealed herself as the female American voice of Siri a few years ago. The British version of Siri is called Daniel, and the Australian version is called Karen. Also, “Siri” is a Norwegian name meaning “beautiful woman who leads you to victory”, and was the name the developer had chosen for his first child.

63 Sleep ___ : APNEA

Sleep apnea (“apnoea” in British English) can be caused by an obstruction in the airways, possibly due to obesity or enlarged tonsils.

64 “Boy Meets World” boy : CORY

“Boy Meets World” is a comedy-drama series that originally aired from 1993 to 2000. The main character was Cory Matthews, played by child star Ben Savage. Ben is the younger brother of another child star, Fred Savage of “Wonder Years” fame.

Down

1 Depths : NADIRS

The nadir is the direction pointing immediately below a particular location (through to the other side of the Earth for example). The opposite direction, that pointing immediately above, is called the zenith. We use the terms “nadir” and “zenith” figuratively to mean the low and high points in a person’s fortunes.

2 Famous play call? : O ROMEO

In William Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet”, the lovers discuss the sad fact that they have been born into two feuding families in the famous balcony scene. Juliet says:

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Romeo’s reply includes the famous lines:

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

3 One side in the Brexit vote : REMAIN

The UK held a referendum in June 2016 in which 52% of voters chose to leave the European Union (EU). The term “Brexit” was used for the vote, a portmanteau of “Britain” and “exit”. The vote has led to some debate about the future of the UK. The Scottish electorate voted for the UK to stay in the EU, and so that revived speculation about Scotland leaving the UK. There has also some discussion about Northern Ireland’s future in the UK, as the Northern Irish electorate also voted to stay in the EU.

7 Early Nahuatl speaker : TOLTEC

The Aztecs viewed the Toltec people as their cultural ancestors. In the “Aztec” language, the term “Toltec” came to mean “artisan”.

Nahuatl is a group of languages spoken mainly in Central Mexico. Historically, Nahuatl was known as “Aztec”.

13 Entente member : ALLY

An entente cordiale (sometimes just “entente”) is a friendly understanding, usually between two nations. The term, which translates from French as “cordial agreement”, was first used to describe a set of agreements between the UK and France that were put in place 1904.

21 May in England : THERESA

Theresa May won a leadership election to become UK prime minister in 2016, following the resignation of David Cameron immediately after the nation decided to withdraw from the EU (“Brexit”). As such, May became only the second female prime minister in the UK, after Margaret Thatcher.

29 ___ of America : MALL

The Mall of America (MoA) is a huge shopping center located in a suburb of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. The MoA receives over 40 million visitors each year since opening in 1992, and that’s more visitors than any other shopping mall on the planet.

31 Questionnaire check box option : MRS

Mr. is an abbreviation for “mister”, and Mrs. is an abbreviation for “mistress”.

35 Bush in Florida : JEB

Jeb Bush is the son of President George H. W. Bush, and the brother of President George W. Bush. I always thought that Jeb was an American nickname for James or Joseph but I must be wrong, because George and Barbara’s son John Ellis Bush is called “Jeb”. A kind blog reader has suggested the the name “Jeb” may have been chosen as JEB are the initials of John Ellis Bush.

36 Game with a discard pile : UNO

UNO is a card game that was developed in the early seventies and that has been sold by Mattel since 1992. UNO falls into the “shedding” family of card games, in that the goal is to get rid of all your cards while preventing opponents from doing the same.

37 Something that might build character over time? : STORY ARC

A story arc is a continuing storyline in say a television show that runs through a number of episodes. Story arcs are also found in comics, books, video games, and other forms of media.

40 Ace of Base genre : EUROPOP

Ace of Base is a pop group from Sweden. The band had several names before settling on “Ace of Base”, which was inspired by the Motörhead song “Ace of Spades”.

50 The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” vis-à-vis “Revolution” : SIDE A

“Hey Jude” was originally a song called “Hey Jules”, written by Paul McCartney. He wrote the original song for John Lennon’s son Julian, in an attempt to comfort the boy during his parents’ divorce. There’s a phenomenal coda in “Hey Jude” after the fourth verse that lasts for over four minutes.

The recording and release of the Beatles song “Revolution” was very much driven by John Lennon. Lennon was then in a committed relationship with Yoko Ono, and well into the “revolutionary” phase of his life. One interesting thing to note about the original recording is the “scream” right at the start of the song. This had to come from Paul rather than John, because John couldn’t catch his breath after the scream in time to start into the song’s lyrics.

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world

53 Land east of the Suez Canal : ASIA

The Suez Canal connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. The canal took ten years to construct, and opened in 1869. The northern terminus of the waterway is Port Said, and the southern is Port Tewfik in the city of Suez, which gives the canal its name. There are no locks on the Suez Canal, and there is only “one-lane” navigation available. There are two spots in the canal where ships travelling in opposing directions can pass each other. A second canal is now under construction that will cover half the route of the existing canal. When completed, the Suez Canal will be able to handle 97 ships a day, up from the current capacity of 49 ships per day.

55 Verdant expanse : LEA

Back in the late 1500s, “verdant” simply meant “green”, but we now tend to use the term to mean “green and lush with vegetation”. “Viridis” is the Latin for “green”.

59 Include surreptitiously, in a way : BCC

A blind carbon copy (bcc) is a copy of a document or message that is sent to someone without other recipients of the message knowing about that extra copy.