When I visited Moscow for the first time in 1998, I wandered into the historic Metropol Hotel as a curious tourist simply to ogle the giant painted glass ceiling that hangs over the grand restaurant off the lobby. It was the memory of that short visit that prompted me, some years later, to set 'A Gentleman in Moscow' in the hotel.

Many people talk about me entering the history books as the first female in 22 years and what a big moment it was. And I'm very flattered that I managed to do something historic, but in all honesty I was out there for me as a racing driver and to show everybody what Susie Wolff is capable of not to put my name in the history books.

The Paris Agreement is, in fact, a historic one because it marks the culmination of a phase of very long, drawn-out negotiations involving more than 190 countries. Why is it historic? Because it shows the way for our societies to change from the ground up, to create an economy that only depends on fossil fuels to a very slight degree.

Of all the places I've been while talking to audiences about the U.S. Army's 5th Special Forces Group and their story in Afghanistan, one of the most rewarding was an appearance before the 5th Group soldiers themselves at Ft. Campbell, their home, and the place from which they had launched their historic mission in Afghanistan in 2001.

The Obama administration's Clean Power Plan was stayed by the Supreme Court. That was an historic stay. They had never stepped in at that stage in litigation and actually issued a stay for a Clean Air Act regulation. They did that because I believe the Clean Power Plan was outside of the Clean Air Act. It was outside the bounds of the law.

I have learned that being a politician is not an easy job. My father was trying to make progress in the peace treaty with the Soviet Union. At that time, he was suffering from last-stage cancer, but he visited Moscow in the bitter cold. I learned from my father that you may have to risk your own life to make such a historic accomplishment.

In America, many marginally competent or flatly incompetent whites are hired every day -some because their white skin suits the conscious or unconscious racial preference of their employers. The white children of alumni are often grandfathered into elite universities in what can only be seen as a residual benefit of historic white privilege.

When the U.S. team went on its historic run to the World Cup quarter-finals in 2002, I was thirteen years old. Each game in that run - the astonishing victory against Portugal, the resilient win over Mexico, even the gutsy but unlucky effort against the Germans - propelled me to push my other athletic interests aside and focus only on soccer.

Women have been trained in our culture and society to ask for what we want instead of taking what we want. We've been really indoctrinated with this culture of permission. I think it's true for women, and I think it's true for people of color. It's historic, and it's unfortunate and has somehow become part of our DNA. But that time has passed.

In 2008, I started the election season as a critic of Hillary Clinton, a fan of Barack Obama, and a supporter of John Edwards. But by the end of Clinton's historic drive toward nomination, the gendered rhetoric used against her - as well as the way so many men in my own party diminished the value of electing a female president - had radicalized me.

Cuba continues to be a source of instability in the region. For example, historic numbers of people are fleeing the island of Cuba, putting migratory pressure on the United States. Number two, this Cuban government is anti-American. They sponsor - they allow the Chinese and the Russians to conduct espionage, electronic espionage and others from the island of Cuba.

Mikhail Gorbachev's historic leadership, which transformed Russia and international relations, cannot be fully understood without the diary-memoir of Anatoly Chernyaev, one of his most important advisers and closest confidants. Splendidly translated, edited, and introduced by Robert English and Elizabeth Tucker, his Six Years with Gorbachev is now available to everyone who wants to comprehend those final momentous events of the twentieth century.

For any economy, there are two basic factors determining how many jobs are available at any given time. The first is the overall level of activity - with GDP as a rough, if inadequate measure of overall activity - and the second is what share of GDP goes to hiring people into jobs. In terms of our current situation, after the Great Recession hit in full in 2008, US GDP has grown at an anemic average rate of 1.3 percent per year, as opposed to the historic average rate from 1950 until 2007 of 3.3 percent.

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