In 1911 John Mahoney, a freight handler at Chicago’s South Walker Street terminal, was overcome by heat prostration. That isn’t in itself unusual, heat stroke is not uncommon in Chicago’s hot and humid summers. What was unique about Mr. Mahoney is that he was overcome while working on November 11. His was, newspapers reported, the first incidence of heat prostration ever recorded in Chicago in the month of November. What is, perhaps, even more bizarre, the very next day two men were found in the city frozen to death.
A ‘collective noun’ is a noun used to refer to a group of things as a whole–simple ones include a “group”, a “flock”, or a “pack”. The English language especially, however, has a tradition of whimsical, comical, or absurd names for specific groups of things.
In August of 1944 the allies were rushing to "cork the bottle" of the Falaise pocket. For the men of the First Polish Armored Division, Normandy was not merely a campaign to liberate France; it was a personal reckoning with the regime that had shattered their homeland.