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Academic Insights for the Thinking World
While everyone is wondering which of the Elite Eight will make it to the Final Four, Mexico and Indonesia are battling it out for the title of “Country of the Year.” It’s time for the finals of March Madness: Atlas Edition! While players battle it out on the court, countries in our tournament are competing for the coveted title of “Country of the Year” based on statistics drawn at random from Oxford’s Atlas of the World: 19th Edition.
It’s been six months since we at Oral History Review (OHR) started blogging regularly at the OUPblog, so we think now is a good time to look back on the last few months. We’ve discussed everything from the historiography of oral history to the challenges of recording interviews on recent history, and we’ve approached these issues with essays, q&as, timelines, quizzes, and podcasts.
Oklahoma State and Georgetown are out, but Madagascar, Indonesia, Turkey, and Mexico are still in the running. Confused? It’s time for the Final Four of March Madness: Atlas Edition! While players battle it out on the court, countries in our tournament are competing for the coveted title of “Country of the Year” based on statistics drawn at random from Oxford’s Atlas of the World: 19th Edition.
It’s time for Round Two of March Madness: Atlas Edition, right on the heels of the first round of the March Madness basketball playoffs beginning tomorrow, Tuesday, 19 March 2013. While players battle it out on the court, countries in our tournament are competing for the coveted title of “Country of the Year” based on statistics drawn at random from Oxford’s Atlas of the World: 19th Edition.
He goes by many names: Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke, David Robert Jones… yes, it’s David Bowie. This British musician, actor, and artist is known for his many metamorphoses and accomplishments, from his surprise hit single “Space Oddity” in 1969 to a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 11th Annual Webby Awards in 2011. In celebration of the new Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition, we’ve pulled together a brief quiz from information in the Oxford Index on this eclectic artist who has also just released his first album in over a decade.
On 19 March 2013, 64 college basketball teams will meet on the court for the battle of the year. In the United States, college basketball season ends when elite teams compete in March Madness over the course of four weeks. Teams compete based on their placement in a regional bracket, and either go home or move forward after a single game. Four teams will make the “Final Four” on 6 April, and on 8 April, the NCAA will have its college basketball champion.
In the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography you’ll currently find biographies of 6340 women who’ve shaped British history and culture between the 1st and 21st century — making it one of the most extensive accounts of women’s contribution to national life. Who are these women?
February marks a month of remembrance for Black History in the United States. It is a time to reflect on the events that have enabled freedom and equality for African Americans, and a time to celebrate the achievements and contributions they have made to the nation.
In his acceptance speech at the 1981 Oscars (best original screenplay, Chariots of Fire), Colin Welland offered the now famous prediction that ‘The British are coming!’ There have since been some notable British Oscar successes: Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy (1989); director Anthony Minghella for The English Patient (1996); Helen Mirren (in The Queen, 2006).
How much do you know about the era of Prohibition, when gangsters rose to power and bathtub gin became a staple? 2013 marks the 80th anniversary of the repeal of the wildly unpopular 18th amendment, initiated on 17 February 1933 when the Blaine Act passed the United States Senate. To celebrate, test your knowledge with this quiz below, filled with tidbits of 1920s trivia gleaned from The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America: Second Edition.
By Caitlin Tyler-Richards
This week, in the spirit of our upcoming special issue on oral history’s evolving technologies, we want to (re)introduce everyone to the website Oral History in the Digital Age, a substantial collaboration between several institutions to “put museums, libraries, and oral historians in a position to address collectively issues of video, digitization, preservation, and intellectual property.
It’s that time of the year again where the greeting cards, roses and chocolates fly off the shelves. What is it about Valentine’s Day that inspires us (and many of the great literary authors) to partake in all kinds of romantic gestures? This month Oxford Reference, the American National Biography Online, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and Who’s Who have joined together to create a quiz to see how knowledgeable you are in Valentine traditions. Do you know who grows some of the sweetest roses or hand-dips the sweetest treats? Find out with our quiz.
Did you know that ‘croissant’ literally means ‘crescent’ or that oranges are native to China? Do you realize that the word ‘pie’ has been around for seven hundred years in English or that ‘toast’ comes from the Latin word for ‘scorch’? John Ayto explores the word origins of food and drink in The Diner’s Dictionary. We’ve made a little quiz based on the book. Are you hungry for it?
In the last fifty years, public international law has undergone a radical transformation, moving from a discipline which ‘the great majority of lawyers of all states [knew] little or nothing’ about (Oppenheim) to the fastest growing legal discipline. To celebrate the recent update to the Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Law, we present this quiz.
Do you know for how long Boris Johnson held his first job, or which music video The IT Crowd’s Richard Ayoade has produced? Who’s Who has become a phrase incorporated into our everyday language. With the iconic red-covered book or its online counterpart, you can get the lowdown of Who’s Who in politics, Who’s Who at the Oscars, even the Who’s Who of the cooking world. Written by the entrants themselves, the biographies not only walk you through their career and education but also, in some cases, reveal some interesting and unusual recreations! Take our quiz to see if you really know Who’s Who.
Are you an Athena when it comes to literary allusions, or are they your kryptonite? Either way, the Oxford Dictionary of Reference and Allusion can be your Henry Higgins, providing fascinating information on the literary and pop culture references that make reading and entertainment so rich. Take this quiz, Zorro, and leave your calling card.