Problem: The Birth of a Nation (originally called The Clansman) is a 1915 American silent epic drama film directed and co-produced by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. The screenplay is adapted from the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon Jr., as well as Dixon's novel The Leopard's Spots. Griffith co-wrote the screenplay with Frank E. Woods, and co-produced the film with Harry Aitken. It was released on February 8, 1915.

Thomas Dixon, Jr. was a former classmate of then-president Woodrow Wilson at Johns Hopkins University. Dixon arranged a screening of The Birth of a Nation at the White House for Wilson, members of his cabinet, and their families, in one of the first ever screenings at the White House. Wilson was falsely reported to have said of the film, "It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true". Wilson's aide, Joseph Tumulty, denied the claims and said that "the President was entirely unaware of the nature of the play before it was presented and at no time has expressed his approbation of it." Historians believe the quote attributed to Wilson originated with Dixon, who was relentless in publicizing the film. After controversy over the film had grown, Wilson wrote that he disapproved of the "unfortunate production".  Besides having the film screened at the White House, Dixon persuaded all nine justices of the Supreme Count to attend a screening of The Birth of a Nation as well as many members of Congress. With the help of the Navy Secretary, Josephus Daniels, Dixon was able to meet the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Edward Douglass White. Initially Justice White was not interested in seeing the film, but when Dixon told him it was the "true story" of Reconstruction and the Klan's role in "saving the South", White, recalling his youth in Louisiana, jumped to attention and said: "I was a member of the Klan, sir". With White agreeing to see the film, the rest of the Supreme Court followed. Dixon was clearly rattled and upset by criticism by African-Americans that the film version of his books was projecting hatred against them, and wanted the endorsement of many powerful men as possible to offset such criticism. Dixon always vehemently denied having anti-black prejudices--despite the way his books promoted white supremacy--and stated: "My books are hard reading for a Negro, and yet the Negroes, in denouncing them, are unwittingly denouncing one of their greatest friends".  In a letter sent on May 1, 1915, to Joseph P. Tumulty, the press secretary to President Wilson, Dixon wrote: "The real purpose of my film was to revolutionize Northern sentiments by a presentation of history that would transform every man in the audience into a good Democrat...Every man who comes out of the theater is a Southern partisan for life!" In a letter to President Wilson sent on September 5, 1915, Dixon boasted: "This play is transforming the entire population of the North and the West into sympathetic Southern voters. There will never be an issue of your segregation policy". Dixon was alluding to the fact that Wilson upon becoming president in 1913 had imposed segregation on federal workplaces in Washington D.C. while reducing the number of black employees through demotion or dismissal.

What happened during the special screenings?

Answer with quotes: Dixon persuaded all nine justices of the Supreme Count to attend a screening of The Birth of a Nation


Problem: The Etruscan civilization () is the modern name given to a powerful and wealthy civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany, western Umbria and northern Lazio. As distinguished by its unique language, this civilization endured from before the time of the earliest Etruscan inscriptions (c. 700 BC) until its assimilation into the Roman Republic, beginning in the late 4th century BC with the Roman-Etruscan Wars. Culture that is identifiably Etruscan developed in Italy after about 800 BC, approximately over the range of the preceding Iron Age Villanovan culture. The latter gave way in the 7th century BC to a culture that was influenced by Ancient Greek culture.

The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tusci or Etrusci. Their Roman name is the origin of the terms "Tuscany", which refers to their heartland, and "Etruria", which can refer to their wider region. In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians (Turrenoi, Turrhenoi, earlier Tursenoi Tursenoi), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrheni, Tyrrhenia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhenum (Tyrrhenian Sea), prompting some to associate them with the Teresh (Sea Peoples). The word may also be related to the Hittite Taruisa. The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Rasna.  The origins of the Etruscans are mostly lost in prehistory, although Greek historians as early as the 5th century BC repeatedly associated the Tyrrhenians (Turrhenoi/Turrenoi, Tursenoi/Tursenoi) with Pelasgians. Thucydides, Herodotus and Strabo all denote Lemnos as settled by Pelasgians whom Thucydides identifies as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" (to de pleiston Pelasgikon, ton kai Lemnon pote kai Athenas Tursenon), and although both Strabo and Herodotus agree that Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos, son of Atys, king of Lydia, led the migration, Strabo specifies that it was the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros who followed Tyrrhenus/Tyrsenos to the Italian Peninsula. The Lemnian-Pelasgian link was further manifested by the discovery of the Lemnos Stele, whose inscriptions were written in a language which shows strong structural resemblances to the language of the Tyrrhenians (Etruscans). Dionysius of Halicarnassus records a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly to the Italian peninsula, noting that "the Pelasgi made themselves masters of some of the lands belonging to the Umbri"; Herodotus describes how the Tyrrheni migrated from Lydia to the lands of the Umbri (Ombrikoi).  Strabo as well as the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus make mention of the Tyrrhenians as pirates. Pliny the Elder put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79):  Adjoining these the (Alpine) Noricans are the Raeti and Vindelici. All are divided into a number of states. The Raeti are believed to be people of Tuscan race driven out by the Gauls, their leader was named Raetus.

Were they pirates

Answer with quotes: