Old Chronograph

Churchill and adjectives

Winston Churchill was sitting at his desk, working on his epic about World War II, when his private secretary entered the room. Churchill had reached the Blitz – the German air strikes against London. His staff of researchers had earlier produced a 150-page brief on the raids. The secretary had been asked to cut it down to about two and a half pages and, after having “worked like stink,” he could now proudly hand over the condensed version.

Churchill took out his red pen and started to edit. “All my sloppy sentences were tightened up and all my useless adjectives obliterated,” the secretary tells us in a documentary made about 50 years later.

In the midst of it all, Churchill said gently, “I hope you don’t mind me doing this?” The secretary answered, “Thank you, Sir – you are giving me a free lesson in writing plain English.”

Bennet, S. 1992. Churchill [documentary]. London: British Broadcasting Corporation

Apollo 15 preflight press conference

Apollo 15 preflight press conference in Houston, June 1971.

Antichrist riding Leviathan - miniature

Miniature "Antichrist riding Leviathan" from Lambert of St. Omer, Liber Floridus, Lille and Ninove; 1460. - The Hague, KB.

Monsters from Ethiopia by Robinet Testard

Miniature from the book "Ethiopia. Secrets de l’histoire naturelle" (France, c. 1480-1485). Artist: Robinet Testard. - Bibliothèque nationale de France

Monsters from Ethiopia by Robinet Testard

Great Auroral Storm

In New York City, San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago, thousands of sky gazers wandered about the midnight streets, astounded at what they could see. "Crowds of people gathered at the street corners, admiring and commenting upon the singular spectacle," observed the New Orleans Daily Picayune. When the September 1 aurora "was at its greatest brilliancy, the northern heavens were perfectly illuminated," wrote a reporter for The New York Times. He continued:

At that time almost the whole southern heavens were in a livid red flame, brightest still in the southeast and southwest. Streamers of yellow and orange shot up and met and crossed each other, like the bayonets upon a stack of guns, in the open space between the constellations Aries, Taurus and the Head of Medusa—about 15 degrees south of the zenith. In this manner—alternating great pillars, rolling cumuli shooting streamers, curdled and wisped and fleecy waves—rapidly changing its hue from red to orange, orange to yellow, and yellow to white, and back in the same order to brilliant red, the magnificent auroral glory continued its grand and inexplicable movements until the light of morning overpowered to radiance and it was lost in the beams of the rising sun.

Frederic Edwin Church's 1865 painting "Aurora Borealis." Some speculate that Church took his inspiration from the Great Auroral Storm of 1859.- Wikipedia

More details in Source Read more >>