Save the date
June 28, 1914
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
“Dinner Party” / “Threat Level Midnight” / “The Injury”
The office
A condition or political territory / the flavor of food as detected by your tongue
STATE/TASTE
Alexander Fleming returned to find mold contaminating a bacterial culture—and a clear zone where bacteria wouldn’t grow.
Penicillin
112 Mercer Street, Princeton, New Jersey — A physicist spent the final decades of his life at this address.
Albert Einstein
April 15, 1912
“Ozymandias” / “Fly” / “Face Off”
Breaking Bad
Feeling uninterested because nothing is happening / dressed in a long loose garment
BORED/ROBED
Harry Coover rejected this substance because it stuck to practically everything; years later, that became its selling point.
Super Glue
Bonngasse 20, Bonn, Germany — This birthplace belonged to a composer whose career would eventually continue despite profound hearing loss.
Ludwig van Beethoven
December 31, 2019
Reports of a mysterious pneumonia cluster in Wuhan reached the World Health Organization
“Defiant Jazz” / “The You You Are” / “In Perpetuity”
Severance
A heavenly being with wings / to collect something gradually
ANGEL/GLEAN
A chemist’s adhesive was considered too weak to be useful—until a colleague needed bookmarks that would stay put without damaging pages
Post-it Notes
Prinsengracht 263, Amsterdam — A hidden annex at this address became one of the best-known sites of World War II memory.
Anne Frank
June 18, 1815
Battle of Waterloo
“The Parking Garage” / “The Contest” / “The Chinese Restaurant”
Seinfeld
Transferred to whoever offered the most / the process by which knowledge and skills are formally developed
AUCTIONED / EDUCATION
A medication being tested for angina had a much more noticeable effect elsewhere in the body.
Viagra
20 Northmoor Road, Oxford — An Oxford professor lived and worked here from 1930 to 1947. An unexpected party and a journey involving thirteen dwarves emerged from his study.
J.R.R. Tolkien
October 12, 1492
Columbus’s first voyage reaching the Americas
“A Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving” / “You Jump, I Jump, Jack” / “Friday Night’s Alright for Fighting”
Gilmore Girls
People who gain an advantage by breaking the rules / units of land area equal to 10,000 square meters each
CHEATERS / HECTARES
A pharmacist created this drink in the 1880s while experimenting as a medicinal tonic
Coca Cola
20 Maresfield Gardens, London — Its refugee resident arrived from Vienna in 1938, bringing along a couch that became nearly as famous as he was.
Sigmund Freud