Word: foothold
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...country's first antidrug law, adopted in the 1880s, prescribed zanshu, decapitation with a samurai sword, for those trafficking in narcotics. Opium eating, a major problem in 19th century China, never caught on in Japan. After World War II, however, heroin began to gain a foothold. Rival gangs pushed the drug among prostitutes and in the underworld generally bringing Japan to what Tokyo Social Worker Michmari Sugahara called "the verge of hell...
...Baptists and the similar Evangelical Christians, who collectively number at least 3,000,000* gained a foothold in Russia a century ago, when Western proselytizers converted pious Christians who were dissatisfied with the Orthodox Church. These groups have since spread all across the Soviet Union, drawing mainly farmers and laborers. Like Baptists in Western Europe and the U.S., they do not baptize infants but immerse persons who decide individually to become Christians. They enjoy biblical preaching and robust singing as much as they abhor drinking and smoking. They differ from Western Baptists by observing traditional church feast days like Trinity...
...Chief Rabbi, perhaps some time this year. He is carefully attuned to Jewish law, but at the same time practical, eager to solve such modern problems as how to maintain a Sabbath police force without violating the strictures of Halakhah. Meantime, other branches of religious Judaism are gaining a foothold there. An increasing number of conversions performed by U.S. Conservative rabbis are now recognized by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate. Conservatives have eight synagogues in Israel, Reform has eight, and even Reconstructionism...
...Portugese navigator Diego Cao discovered the mouth of the Congo River, went ashore, and made envoys to the largest kingdom of West Central Africa: the Kongo. Relations with the Kongolese were friendly at first, and the African lords permitted the Portugese to gain a foothold for their slave trading with colonies across the Atlantic. But soon the Kongolese came to have misgivings about the Portugese designs, and open warfare broke out. In 1665 the Portugese Army crushed the Kongolese army in a decisive battle at Mbwila...
...letting their allies, West Pakistan, crush a popular rebellion. As China saw the alternative, a split Pakistan would have meant an Indian advance, pushing for an All-Bengalese state. With India so closely allied to Russia, China could not allow their "number one threat" to gain such a foothold. The Chinese have also been forced to adopt such a stand against popular rebels in Ceylon...