Season 258

Originally written as a poem by a Jewish communist schoolteacher in the Bronx, which 1939 jazz recording became an early, vital anthem of the civil rights movement? The haunting title serves as a grim botanical metaphor for the bodies of Black Americans lynched from trees in the Southern United States.

Governed by an evolving Code of Points, competitors in this athletic discipline apply magnesium carbonate chalk to their hands to maintain friction during sequences of kips, giants, and release maneuvers.
Requiring athletes to rotate through multiple apparatuses and master high-velocity entries like the Tsukahara and the Yurchenko before coming to a dead stop, by what name is this sport known?

Officially recorded in Medieval Latin as the Liber de Wintonia, this massive 1086 survey assessed the landholdings, livestock, and resources of a newly conquered kingdom.
Earning its popular moniker from native inhabitants because its property rulings were considered as final and beyond appeal as the Last Judgment, by what name is this historical record known?

Expelled from Pencey Prep in a celebrated 1951 novel, this disillusioned teenager spends several days wandering New York City in a distinctive red hunting hat while wondering where Central Park's ducks go in winter.
Deeply protective of his younger sister Phoebe and still grieving his late brother Allie, whose poetry-covered baseball mitt he carries, by what name is this fictional narrator known?

First developed in a simple form by Renaissance polymath Leon Battista Alberti in the 1450s, this meteorological instrument was refined into its classic rotating-cup design by Irish astronomer John Thomas Romney Robinson in 1846.
Taking its scientific title from the Greek word for wind and now frequently utilizing ultrasonic sensors to measure the velocity of moving air, by what name is this device known?

Directed by Fritz Lang and released in 1931, this groundbreaking German thriller stars Peter Lorre as a serial child murderer whose eerie habit of whistling Edvard Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King betrays his presence.
By what title is this film known?

Which successful anti-slavery and anti-colonial insurrection, beginning in 1791, ultimately resulted in the establishment of the first free Black republic in the world? The rebellion was initially led by a self-educated former slave named Toussaint Louverture, who navigated military conflicts against both French colonizers and British expeditionary forces on this island territory.

Caused by an autoimmune attack on pigment-producing melanocytes, this chronic condition produces symmetrical patches of milky-white skin, particularly on the face and hands.
Thrust into the public spotlight by the "King of Pop" during a 1993 interview with Oprah Winfrey and championed today by supermodel Winnie Harlow, by what name is this dermatological condition known?

Originally suggested by media theorist Marshall McLuhan as a catchy way to promote psychedelic research, this six-word imperative was popularized by Timothy Leary during a speech at the 1967 Human Be-In in San Francisco.
Encouraging the youth of the era to detach from conventional societal expectations through inner exploration, by what rhythmic three-part phrase is this countercultural slogan known?

Two of the world's most iconic luxury handbags bear the names of actresses Grace Kelly and Jane Birkin, the former after a photograph of the Princess of Monaco shielding her pregnancy with it, and the latter following a chance conversation on an airplane about designing the perfect travel bag.
Which French luxury fashion house created both?

Responsible for the loss of over 95 percent of the water absorbed by a plant's roots, this physiological process occurs when moisture evaporates through microscopic leaf pores called stomata.
Generating the negative pressure that pulls dissolved minerals upward through the xylem, which botanical process does this describe?

Terrorizing New York City between 1976 and 1977, serial killer David Berkowitz murdered six people and wounded several others in a series of random shootings carried out with a .44-caliber revolver.
After sending taunting letters to police and journalists signed with a notorious three-word moniker, by what pseudonym did he become infamous?

Constructed under the Yongle Emperor and completed in 1420, this vast imperial palace complex in central Beijing served as the political heart of China's Ming and Qing dynasties for nearly five centuries.
Encompassing some 980 surviving buildings centered around the Hall of Supreme Harmony and historically off-limits to commoners without imperial permission, by what name is this historic complex known?

Premiered in Vienna in 1791, this Mozart opera follows Prince Tamino and the bird-catcher Papageno through a fantastical world of enchanted trials, mysterious temples, and a captive princess.
Featuring the Queen of the Night's notoriously demanding aria "Der Hölle Rache," in which she orders her daughter to murder Sarastro, by what title is this opera known?