Word: first
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...entirely. For the specific historical events the film narrates -- the formation, training and terrible blooding in battle of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the first black fighting unit enlisted in the Union cause -- are little known yet resonant with high symbolic significance. The 54th, led by an idealistic 25-year-old white man, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick skillfully blending shyness and tenacity), had to fight to fight. Their white comrades-in-arms were full of contemptuous prejudice against them, and the high command was afraid to arm black men who had their own bitter racial grievances (many were runaway...
Critics scoffed when computers were first enlisted to help restore Michelangelo's magnificent frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. What could an electronic filing system in some Vatican basement contribute to the painstaking, labor-intensive task of liberating one of the world's largest and most famous paintings from nearly 500 years of accumulated grime and murky glue? But the computer -- an Apollo workstation programmed to map every curve and crack down to the last millimeter -- proved so indispensable that it was installed 20 meters (65 ft.) above the ground, on the main scaffold, where it put a wealth of data...
...surprises that history deals up in this strange world. "The changes are so monumental. So different. But it did not seem overwhelming when we sat down. Two reasonable people sat down with their staffs. Even the contentious matters were brought up without rancor. When I first met him in Moscow when I was Vice President and brought up human rights, he grew very heated. This time he talked very rationally, not rancorously...
...down any lingering rumors of seasickness or distress on Malta's surging waves, Bush waxed eloquent about the night in the driving storm. "I loved it on the ship. We ate a wonderful dinner and had a good bottle of white wine. I went out on the fantail first, and for a couple of hours I watched those young boys working the anchor chains so skillfully in the high seas, and it was thrilling." That story undoubtedly will be enlarged and enriched as the years go on. Old sailors are just that...
...First, we need to discuss with all the parties concerned the implications of change in Central Europe, and also of change in Germany, because the two are related. We cannot end the division of Europe without also, in some fashion, ending the division of Germany. We are past the day when the future of Europe could be shaped either by us or by the Soviets alone, or even by us with the West Europeans. We now need to talk in equal depth with the Russians, with our allies, the West Europeans, and with our friends, the Central Europeans...