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July 18, 2025
Jul 18, 2025
Word
aphelion
noun
Definition
the point in the path of a celestial body (such as a planet) that is farthest from the sun
Example
The comet is predicted to reach aphelion a mere 22 years from now.
Origin
Aphelion and perihelion are troublesome terms. Which one means a planet is nearest to the sun and which means it is farthest away? An etymology lesson may help you keep those words straight. Just remember that the "ap" of aphelion derives from a Latin prefix that means "away from" (the mnemonic "'A' for 'away'" can help too); peri-, on the other hand, means "near." And how are aphelion and perihelion related to the similar-looking astronomical pair, apogee and perigee? Etymology explains again. The "helion" of aphelion and perihelion is based on the Greek word hēlios, meaning "sun," while the "gee" of apogee and perigee is based on gaia, meaning "earth." The first pair describes distance in relation to the sun, the second in relation to the earth.
Webster's Dictionary
Idiom
bright-eyed and bushy-tailed
Eager and alert, as in Here is my new kindergarten class, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. The allusion here is to the appearance of a squirrel, which with its beady eyes and bushy tail looks ready for anything. [1930s]
The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms
Fun facts
  1. Cows do not have upper front teeth.
  2. In ancient Rome, lemons were used as an antidote to all poisons.
Snapple's under-the-cap 'Real Facts'
Artist
Eastman Johnson
Jul 29, 1824 - May 5, 1906

Jonathan Eastman Johnson was an American painter and co-founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, with his name inscribed at its entrance. He was best known for his genre paintings, paintings of scenes from everyday life, and his portraits both of everyday people and prominent Americans such as Abraham Lincoln, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His later works often show the influence of the 17th-century Dutch masters, whom he studied in The Hague in the 1850s; he was known as The American Rembrandt in his day.

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Wikipedia, Google Arts & Culture
Historical figure
Pál Maléter
Sep 4, 1917 - Jun 16, 1958

Pál Maléter was the military leader of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.

Maléter was born to Hungarian parents in Eperjes, a city in Sáros County, in the northern part of Historical Hungary, today Prešov, Slovakia. He studied medicine at the Charles University, Prague, before moving to Budapest in 1938, going to the military academy there. He fought on the Eastern Front of World War II for Axis, until captured by the Red Army. He became a Communist, trained in sabotage, fought against the Germans in Transylvania and was sent back to Hungary, where he was noted for his courage and daring.

In 1956 he was a colonel and the commander of an armoured division stationed in Budapest when he was sent to suppress the Hungarian Uprising, but on making contact with the insurgents he decided to join them, helping to defend the Kilian Barracks. He was the most prominent member of the Hungarian military to change sides, allying himself with the insurgents rather than with Gerő's communist government.

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Wikipedia, Google Arts & Culture
Historic event
Chernobyl disaster
Apr 25, 1986 - Apr 25, 1986

The Chernobyl disaster was caused by a nuclear accident that occurred on Saturday 26 April 1986, at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR. It is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history and was caused by one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven—the maximum severity—on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan.

The accident started during a safety test on an RBMK-type nuclear reactor, which was commonly used throughout the Soviet Union. The test was a simulation of an electrical power outage to aid the development of a safety procedure for maintaining reactor cooling water circulation until the back-up electrical generators could provide power. This gap was about one minute and had been identified as a potential safety problem that could cause the nuclear reactor core to overheat. It was hoped to prove that the residual rotational energy in a turbine generator could provide enough power to cover the gap. Three such tests had been conducted since 1982, but they had failed to provide a solution.

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Wikipedia, Google Arts & Culture