Word: overran
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Spanish Father. Sociologists contend that machismo is a hangover from the days when bloodthirsty Spanish conquistadors, ruthless and brave against greater forces, overran the region in the 16th century. The social system the conquerors brought with them was rigid and shot through with the sort of caste prejudice that obsessive inferiority feeds on. As they colonized, the conquistadors fathered the first generation of mestizos, part Indian and part Spanish. The mestizo grew up insecure, second-class, and prone to imitate the manliness of the powerful Spaniard who conquered his Indian forebears and sired his class...
...neighbors, the angry populace poured from homes and raced to defend the city's temples. At Tu Dam Pagoda, monks tried to burn the coffin of a priest who had burned himself alive in the Buddhist suicide protest wave. But government soldiers, firing M1 rifles as they advanced, overran the temple, snatched the smoldering coffin away, and smashed a statue of Gautama Buddha. From the temple's treasury they took an estimated $30,000 and left the pagoda a gutted ruin...
...peasant neighbors. Diem himself left politics before World War II rather than work with the French. In that tradition, Nhu, his wife and family were opposed both to the Red Viet Minh "army of liberation" and to the French with their puppet Emperor, Bao Dai. When the Viet Minh overran Hué, they shot Diem's oldest brother and the brother's only son, for months held Diem himself captive before turning him loose. Nhu and Can both escaped from the Reds, but Mme. Nhu, her infant daughter and her aged mother-in-law were taken prisoner in December...
...loan from their wealthy father, a textile tycoon and onetime store-chain owner himself. Mexico City's department stores banded together to drive out the upstart that dared to offer brassieres at 13% under list, kitchenware at 15% and refrigerators at 20% under. But Mexican shoppers nearly overran the store, sometimes scooping up goods so fast that the brothers had to lock the doors before closing hours. Borrowing a spy-movie technique, department stores staked out a cameraman in a room across from the store to photograph unloading trucks, then threatened wholesalers with the loss of bigger business...
...predawn darkness, the ragtag irregulars set up roadblocks, sabotaged communications lines, and overran police stations all over the country. In the town of Seria, Shell Oil's Brunei headquarters, the rebels rounded up 55 hostages, formed them into a human shield, and marched them to a nearby police barracks. But when the police fired on the shield, both prisoners and rebels broke...