Page 60 - 2000

Jose Goitia/AP

A six-year-old Cuban boy became the focus of an
international tug-of-war after fishermen found him
clinging to an inner tube two miles off the Florida
coast. Little Elian Gonzalez was caught in the middle
of a custody fight between U .S. relatives in Miami's
politically powerful Cuban community and his father
and grandmothers living in Cuba. The fight escalated
far beyond a family feud and was the latest chapter
in a decades-long battle between anti-Castro Cubans
and Cuban President Fidel Castro. W hile the Cuba
Foreign M inistry demanded the boy's return, lawyers
in the United States filed a petition for political asylum.

Domenico Stinellis/AP

Damian Dovarganes/AP
A six-story apartment
building in Foggia, a
province in the southern
Puglia region of Italy,
collapsecTin November
while residents were
sleeping. More than 30
people died and dozens
more were injured in the
disaster. Speculation on the
cause of the collapse ranged
from use of faulty building
materials to infiltration of
underground water into
supporting columns at the N ASA's continued efforts to probe the meteorological mysteries of Mars
ground level. were dashed in December when, for the second time in three months, a
space mission to M ars was lost. First, the Mars Climate Orbiter, a robotic
satellite, was lost when scientists mixed up English and metric measurements.
Then, the M ars Polar Lander and its two surface probes vanished without a
trace. The two missions were poised to search for water on Mars, vitally
important to determine if life might have once existed there. In the end,
losses totaled $265 million, capping one of NASA's most embarrassing
moments in history.

TURY

Filippo Brunelleschi was credited with German goldsmith Johann Gutenberg printed
sparking the 15th Century Renaissance the first complete book in the West and the first
with his painting of a Baptistery in Florence, book printed from movable type in 1455 by
Italy, which revolutionized art with its use of adapting a wine press for new uses. Gutenberg's
perspective. Many artists followed, including n e w p rin tin g p re ss, featuring lead type and
Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. oil-based ink, was used almost exclusively for
The Renaissance, driven by the idea of the next 350 years, triggering an information
"many-sided" humanism, featured a renewed revolution and creating a literate middle class.
zeal for classical study and the continued rise
of independent, secular thinking.
Jo a n o f A rc led French forces to decisive
victories in 1453 to help end the Hundred
Years War. The conclusion of the war ended
English claims to the French throne and fur­
thered English expansionism on the continent,
as well as assuring France's future as a nation.