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August 29, 2026
Aug 29, 2026
Word
heliolatry
noun
Definition
sun worship
Example
The Egyptians, who personified the sun as the god Ra, were one of numerous ancient cultures that practiced heliolatry.
Origin
The first half of "heliolatry" derives from "hēlios," the Greek word for "sun." In Greek mythology, Hēlios was the god of the sun, imagined as "driving" the sun as a chariot across the sky. From "hēlios" we also get the word "helium," referring to the very light gas that is found in balloons and airships, and "heliocentric," meaning "having or relating to the sun as center," as in "a heliocentric orbit." The suffix "-latry," meaning "worship," derives via Late Latin and French from the Greek "latreia," and can be found in such words as "bardolatry" ("worship of Shakespeare") and "zoolatry" ("animal worship"). A person who worships the sun is called a heliolater.
Webster's Dictionary
Idiom
star-chamber proceedings
An unfair, secret judicial action. The term alludes to an inquisitorial English court that sat without a jury and was famous for its harsh judgments and sentences. Called the Court of the Star Chamber because of the stars gilded on its ceiling, it was abolished in 1641. The name, however, has persisted to the present day.
The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms
Fun facts
  1. If there are two full moons in a month, the second one is called a blue moon.
  2. Holland is the only country with a national dog.
Snapple's under-the-cap 'Real Facts'
Artist
Max Klinger
Feb 18, 1857 - Jul 5, 1920

Max Klinger was a German symbolist painter, sculptor, printmaker, and writer.

Klinger was born in Leipzig and studied in Karlsruhe. An admirer of the etchings of Menzel and Goya, he shortly became a skilled and imaginative engraver in his own right. He began creating sculptures in the early 1880s. From 1883–1893 he lived in Rome, and became increasingly influenced by the Italian Renaissance and antiquity.

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Wikipedia, Google Arts & Culture
Historical figure
Giovanni Gronchi
Sep 10, 1887 - Oct 17, 1978

Giovanni Gronchi OMCA was a Christian Democratic Italian politician who served as the third President of Italy from 1955 to 1962 and was marked by a controversial and failed attempt to bring about an "opening to the left" in Italian politics.

He was reputed the real holder of the executive power in Italy from 1955 to 1962, backward the various Prime Ministers of this time.

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Wikipedia, Google Arts & Culture
Historic event
Austro-Prussian War
1866 - Aug 23, 1866

The Austro-Prussian War or Seven Weeks' War was a war fought in 1866 between the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia, with each also being aided by various allies within the German Confederation. Prussia had also allied with the Kingdom of Italy, linking this conflict to the Third Independence War of Italian unification. The Austro-Prussian War was part of the wider rivalry between Austria and Prussia, and resulted in Prussian dominance over the German states.

The major result of the war was a shift in power among the German states away from Austrian and towards Prussian hegemony. It resulted in the abolition of the German Confederation and its partial replacement by the unification of all of the northern German states in the North German Confederation that excluded Austria and the other Southern German states, a Kleindeutsches Reich. The war also resulted in the Italian annexation of the Austrian province of Venetia.

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