Problem: Background: Lucy Stone (August 13, 1818 - October 18, 1893) was a prominent U.S. orator, abolitionist, and suffragist, and a vocal advocate and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women's rights and against slavery at a time when women were discouraged and prevented from public speaking. Stone was known for using her birth name after marriage, the custom at the time being for women to take their husband's surname.
Context: In 1887, eighteen years after the rift formed in the American women's rights movement, Stone proposed a merger of the two groups. Plans were drawn up, and, at their annual meetings, propositions were heard and voted on, then passed to the other group for evaluation. By 1890, the organizations resolved their differences and merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Stone was too weak with heart problems and respiratory illness to attend its first convention but was elected chair of the executive committee. Stanton was president of the new organization, but Anthony, who had the title of vice president, was its leader in practice.  Starting early in January, 1891, Carrie Chapman Catt visited Stone repeatedly at Pope's Hill, for the purpose of learning from Stone about the ways of political organizing. Stone had previously met Catt at an Iowa state woman's suffrage convention in October, 1889, and had been impressed at her ambition and sense of presence, saying "Mrs. Chapman will be heard from yet in this movement." Stone mentored Catt the rest of that winter, giving her a wealth of information about lobbying techniques and fund-raising. Catt later used the teaching to good effect in leading the final drive to gain women the vote in 1920.  Catt, Stone and Blackwell went together to the January, 1892 NAWSA convention in Washington, DC. Along with Isabella Beecher Hooker, Stone, Stanton and Anthony, the "triumvirate" of women's suffrage, were called away from the convention's opening hours by an unexpected woman suffrage hearing before the United States House Committee on the Judiciary. Stone told the assembled congressmen "I come before this committee with the sense which I always feel, that we are handicapped as women in what we try to do for ourselves by the single fact that we have no vote. This cheapens us. You do not care so much for us as if we had votes..." Stone argued that men should work to pass laws for equality in property rights between the sexes. Stone demanded an eradication of coverture, the folding of a wife's property into that of her husband. Stone's impromptu speech paled in comparison to Stanton's brilliant outpouring which preceded hers. Stone later published Stanton's speech in its entirety in the Woman's Journal as "Solitude of Self". Back at the NAWSA convention, Anthony was elected president, with Stanton and Stone becoming honorary presidents.
Question: What year did Stanton become President?
Answer: 1890,

Background: Shen Kuo (Chinese: Chen Gua ; 1031-1095), courtesy name Cunzhong (Cun Zhong ) and pseudonym Mengqi (now usually given as Mengxi) Weng (Meng Xi Weng ), was a Han Chinese polymathic scientist and statesman of the Song dynasty (960-1279). Excelling in many fields of study and statecraft, he was a mathematician, astronomer, meteorologist, geologist, zoologist, botanist, pharmacologist, agronomist, archaeologist, ethnographer, cartographer, encyclopedist, general, diplomat, hydraulic engineer, inventor, academy chancellor, finance minister, governmental state inspector, poet, and musician.
Context: Since the time of the engineer and inventor Ma Jun (c. 200-265), the Chinese had used the south-pointing chariot, which did not employ magnetism, as a compass. In 1044 the Collection of the Most Important Military Techniques (Wu Jing Zong Yao ; Wujing Zongyao) recorded that fish-shaped objects cut from sheet iron, magnetized by thermoremanence (essentially, heating that produced weak magnetic force), and placed in a water-filled bowl enclosed by a box were used for directional pathfinding alongside the south-pointing chariot.  However, it was not until the time of Shen Kuo that the earliest magnetic compasses would be used for navigation. In his written work, Shen Kuo made the first known explicit reference to the magnetic compass-needle and the concept of true north. He wrote that steel needles were magnetized once they were rubbed with lodestone, and that they were put in floating position or in mountings; he described the suspended compass as the best form to be used, and noted that the magnetic needle of compasses pointed either south or north. Shen Kuo asserted that the needle will point south but with a deviation, stating "[the magnetic needles] are always displaced slightly east rather than pointing due south."  Shen Kuo wrote that it was preferable to use the twenty-four-point rose instead of the old eight compass cardinal points -- and the former was recorded in use for navigation shortly after Shen's death. The preference of use for the twenty-four-point-rose compass may have arisen from Shen's finding of a more accurate astronomical meridian, determined by his measurement between the pole star and true north; however, it could also have been inspired by geomantic beliefs and practices. The book of the author Zhu Yu, the Pingzhou Table Talks published in 1119 (written from 1111 to 1117), was the first record of use of a compass for seafaring navigation. However, Zhu Yu's book recounts events back to 1086, when Shen Kuo was writing the Dream Pool Essays; this meant that in Shen's time the compass might have already been in navigational use. In any case, Shen Kuo's writing on magnetic compasses has proved invaluable for understanding China's earliest use of the compass for seafaring navigation.
Question: What is important about his reference to the compass during that time?
Answer:
when Shen Kuo was writing the Dream Pool Essays; this meant that in Shen's time the compass might have already been in navigational use.