HOT TOPICS
Quiz
1 What are the pearls in boba, or pearl milk tea, most commonly made of?
2 More often referred to by another name, the renminbi is the official currency of what country?
3 We Used to Be Friends by The Dandy Warhols was the theme song to what 2000s teen show?
4 Cameron Crowe directed what 1996 film starring Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger?
5 What kind of duck names the train that holds the world speed record for steam locomotives?
History
1917 Denmark ceded the Virgin Islands to the United States for $25 million.
1944 During World War II, Allied forces launched the first of four battles for Monte Cassino in Italy; the Allies were ultimately successful.
1950 The Great Brink’s Robbery took place as seven masked men held up a Brink’s garage in Boston, stealing $1.2 million in cash and $1.5 million in checks and money orders. (Although the entire gang was caught, only part of the loot was recovered.)
1955 The submarine USS Nautilus made its first nuclear-powered test run from its berth in Groton, Connecticut.
1966 The Simon & Garfunkel album
Sounds of Silence was released by Columbia Records.
1977 Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, 36, was shot by a firing squad at Utah State Prison in the first US execution in a decade.
1994 The 6.7 magnitude Northridge earthquake struck Southern California, killing at least 60 people, according to the US Geological Survey.
1995 More than 6000 people were killed when an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 devastated the city of Kobe, Japan.
1997 A court in Ireland granted the first divorce in the Roman Catholic country’s history.
2016 Iran released three Americans, former US Marine Amir Hekmati,
Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and pastor Saeed Abedini, as part of a prisoner swap that also netted Tehran some $100 billion in sanctions relief.
2020 US health officials announced that they would begin screening airline passengers from central China for the new coronavirus; people travelling from Wuhan,
China, would have their temperature checked and be asked about symptoms.