It represents the apogee of a decade of hard and often inglorious fighting by American troops, and a reorientation of the world's most formidable war machine.
Petrarch celebrated their greatness in conquering fortune and rising to the top. This was the biographical tradition which Niccolò Machiavelli turned on its head.
Marie Curie, now at the highest point of her fame and, from 1922, a member of the Academy of Medicine, researched the chemistry of radioactive substances and their medical applications.
Although the solstices represent the pinnacles of summer and winter with respect to the intensity of the sun's rays, they do not represent the warmest or coldest days.
Davida Herzl, Aclima's boss, says they have revealed pollution highs on days when San Francisco's transit workers went on strike and the city's inhabitants were forced to use their cars.