- a blind with adjustable horizontal slats for admitting light and air while excluding direct sun and rain
- a window made of adjustable glass louvers that control ventilation
- Before mercury, brandy was used to fill thermometers.
- The quartz crystal in your wristwatch vibrates 32,768 times a second.
Orazio Lomi Gentileschi was an Italian painter. Born in Tuscany, he began his career in Rome, painting in a Mannerist style, much of his work consisting of painting the figures within the decorative schemes of other artists. After 1600, he came under the influence of the more naturalistic style of Caravaggio. He received important commissions in Fabriano and Genoa before moving to Paris to the court of Marie de Medici. He spent the last part of his life at the court of Charles I of England. He was the father of the painter Artemisia Gentileschi.
Fra' Jean "Parisot" de la Valette was a French nobleman and 49th Grand Master of the Order of Malta, from 21 August 1557 to his death in 1568. As a Knight Hospitaller, joining the order in the Langue de Provence, he fought with distinction against the Turks at Rhodes. As Grand Master, Valette became the Order's hero and most illustrious leader, commanding the resistance against the Ottomans at the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, sometimes regarded as one of the greatest sieges of all time.
The foundation stone of Valletta was laid by Grandmaster La Valette in 1566. He did not live to see Valletta completed, as he died in 1568 and was succeeded by Grandmaster Pierre de Monte.
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal in the United States involving the administration of U.S. President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continuous attempts to cover up its involvement in the June 17, 1972 failed break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Washington, D.C. Watergate Office Building. After the five perpetrators were arrested, the press and the U.S. Justice Department connected the cash found on them at the time to the Nixon re-election campaign committee. Further investigations, along with revelations during subsequent trials of the burglars, led the U.S. House of Representatives to grant its judiciary committee additional investigation authority to probe into "certain matters within its jurisdiction", and the U.S. Senate to create a special investigative committee. The resultant Senate Watergate hearings commenced were broadcast "gavel-to-gavel" nationwide by PBS and aroused public interest.