July 6th Through History

Explanation: The patient was Joseph Meister, a 9-year-old boy bitten by a rabid dog. Pasteur, a biologist and not a physician, took a huge risk by testing his vaccine on a human for the very first time. Joseph Meister survived and later became a caretaker at the Pasteur Institute.

Explanation: Jan Hus, rector of the University of Prague, criticized the corruption of the Catholic Church long before Luther. His condemnation as a heretic and his execution triggered the Hussite Wars in Bohemia, which lasted until 1436 and foreshadowed the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.

Explanation: The Piper Alpha oil platform, operated by Occidental Petroleum, remains to this day the worst offshore oil disaster in history in terms of human lives. The initial explosion, caused by a gas leak, was amplified by neighboring pipelines that kept feeding the fire. It radically transformed offshore safety regulations in Europe.

Explanation: Vanoise National Park, bordering Gran Paradiso National Park on the Italian side, together with it forms the largest protected area in Western Europe. It was created notably to protect the Alpine ibex, then on the brink of extinction in France. Its area is 528 km² between the Tarentaise and the Maurienne valleys.

Explanation: Sylvester Stallone, born in New York, wrote the screenplay for Rocky himself in 1976, drawing inspiration from the fight between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner. Before his breakthrough, he lived in dire poverty. Rocky won three Oscars, including Best Picture, turning Stallone into a global icon of action cinema.

Explanation: The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster, in the Estrie region, is the worst in Canadian history in terms of casualties. A train of 72 crude oil tank cars belonging to the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway derailed in the middle of downtown. The ensuing fire destroyed much of the town's historic center.

Explanation: Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his nonviolent struggle for the liberation of Tibet. He lives in exile in Dharamsala, India, where he leads the Tibetan government in exile. Although he stepped down from his political role in 2011, he remains the central spiritual figure of Tibetan Buddhism.

Explanation: This meeting took place at a Woolton church fête in Liverpool. Paul McCartney impressed Lennon by playing Twenty Flight Rock from memory. A few weeks later, Lennon invited him to join his band, The Quarrymen, which became the Beatles in 1960, forever changing the history of popular music worldwide.

Explanation: Thebes's victory at Leuctra, won thanks to the strategist Epaminondas and his Sacred Band formation, ended Spartan hegemony over Greece. The oblique phalanx used by Epaminondas revolutionized ancient warfare and was later studied by Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great.

Explanation: Malawi, formerly Nyasaland under British rule, takes its name from Lake Malawi (formerly Lake Nyasa), the third largest in Africa. Its first president, Hastings Banda, ruled the country in an authoritarian manner until 1994. The country is today one of the most densely populated on the African continent.