QUES: Since the middle of the 19th century, Masonic historians have sought the origins of the movement in a series of similar documents known as the Old Charges, dating from the Regius Poem in about 1425 to the beginning of the 18th century. Alluding to the membership of a lodge of operative masons, they relate a mythologised history of the craft, the duties of its grades, and the manner in which oaths of fidelity are to be taken on joining. The fifteenth century also sees the first evidence of ceremonial regalia.

The fifteenth century also shows evidence of what in Masonic history?
What is the answer?
ANS: ceremonial regalia.
QUES: Glass has the ability to refract, reflect, and transmit light following geometrical optics, without scattering it. It is used in the manufacture of lenses and windows. Common glass has a refraction index around 1.5. This may be modified by adding low-density materials such as boron, which lowers the index of refraction (see crown glass), or increased (to as much as 1.8) with high-density materials such as (classically) lead oxide (see flint glass and lead glass), or in modern uses, less toxic oxides of zirconium, titanium, or barium. These high-index glasses (inaccurately known as "crystal" when used in glass vessels) cause more chromatic dispersion of light, and are prized for their diamond-like optical properties.

Why are high-index glasses valued?
What is the answer?
ANS: for their diamond-like optical properties
QUES: From mid-May to September 1989, Ukrainian Greek-Catholic hunger strikers staged protests on Moscow's Arbat to call attention to the plight of their Church. They were especially active during the July session of the World Council of Churches held in Moscow. The protest ended with the arrests of the group on September 18. On May 27, 1989, the founding conference of the Lviv regional Memorial Society was held. On June 18, 1989, an estimated 100,000 faithful participated in public religious services in Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine, responding to Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky's call for an international day of prayer.

What were the hunger strikers hoping to draw attention to?
What is the answer?
ANS:
plight of their Church.