How did the Yelnats family believe they were cursed, and how was the curse broken?

The
Yelnats' family curse was originally placed
on their
"no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather" by
Madame Zeroni. The
curse is a bad luck curse. The Yelnats family consistently
has bad luck and finds themselves in
the wrong place at the wrong time. This
is why Stanley winds up being blamed and punished for a
crime he did not
commit and is sent to Camp Green Lake. Madame Zeroni placed the curse on

Stanley's great-great-grandfather for failing to carry out his promise to carry her up
a
specific mountain. The curse is finally broken when Stanley saves Zero's
life (as well as his
own) and carries him up that particular mountain. The
reason that this action broke the family
curse is because Zero is Madame
Zeroni's descendant. His real name is Hector Zeroni, and chapter
50 shows
readers evidence of the curse being broken by having the Yelnats family end up
with
great wealth.

In "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," how do the fantastic elements help provide insights into the way human beings actually think and behave?

What this story reveals
above all else through the fantastical elements is the ceaseless human need to derive meaning
from events, even when meaning itself is very hard to come by. Marquez uses the fantastical
appearance of a figure who is, to all intents and purposes, an angel, who literally drops into a
community. He then records the different theories and ways in which the villagers try to explain
his presence and what this might mean. Note how the villagers have different interpretations of
the angel and his sudden appearance:

The simplest among
them thought that he should be named mayor of the world. Others of sterner mind felt that he
should be promoted to the rank of five-star general in order to win all wars. Some visionaries
hoped that he could be put to stud in order to implant the earth a race of winged wise men who
could take charge of the universe.

All of them come up
with some different interpretation, no matter how erroneous, and even learned men such as Father
Gonzalo are shown to be none the wiser as they seek to impose a very narrow, rigid understanding
of the angel and his significance. This could be viewed as Marquez very gently playing with his
audience. He deliberately drops in an element to his story that clearly demands some symbolic
interpretation, but then he goes on to deny any clear signals as to what that symbolic
interpretation may be. The reader is placed in the same position as the villagers and as a
result is left to be mocked by his or her own desire to come up with a solution as to what the
angel might represent. Marquez therefore presents human beings as needing to find
meaning in things that happen, no matter whether there is any meaning to be found or
not.

How can I figure out the number of neutrons without knowing the mass number?

An
atom contains protons, neutrons and electrons. Out of these particles, only protons and neutrons
add to the mass of the atom, since electrons are relatively massless (they have very little mass
as compared to protons and neutrons). We can determine the number of neutrons by knowing the
mass number and atomic number (which is equal to the number of protons) of an
element. 

Mass number = number of neutrons + number of protons 

= number of neutrons + atomic number

Thus, number of neutrons = mass
number - atomic number

The atomic number of an element is available from the
periodic table of elements. 

If the mass number is not given to us, we can
still calculate the number of neutrons by determining the atomic mass of the element. This value
is also available from the periodic table of elements. All the elements are listed in the
periodic table with two numbers. The number on the top is the atomic number, while the number
near the bottom is the atomic mass. 

The atomic mass is the weighted average
mass of all the isotopes of an element. If we round off the atomic mass to the nearest whole
number and subtract the atomic number from it, we get the number of neutrons.

That is, number of neutrons = atomic mass (rounded to nearest whole number) - atomic
number.

For example, Carbon has an atomic number of 6 and an atomic mass of
12.0107. 

Thus, the number of neutrons in a carbon atom is:

12 (rounded off to nearest whole number) - 6 =
6.

Hope this helps. 

What were Howard Zinn's main ideas in chapters 4 and 5 of A People's History of the United States?

In
chapters 4 and 5 of ,describes how the American Revolutionary War was essentially a struggle for
power between two political elite groups. The colonial elite and the British monarchy engaged in
a war over control of the American colonies. However, the American revolutionary war leaders
used the anger and discontent of the lower classes of the colonies to fuel the fight against the
British crown. The political elite in the American colonies used politicalof a people's war to
engage the dissatisfied lower classes in the colonies to fight against the British. However, as
the lower classes, and particularly black folks enslaved in the colonies soon
found,...

All seven commandments are erased. What is the new commandment, and how has it been true from the beginning?

Afteris
banished from the farm, all the seven rules are edited. This change is first identified by
Clover who asks Benjamin to confirm it. The single rule on the wall runs, "ALL ANIMALS ARE
EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS." This significant evolution of the seven
commandments allows the pigs extra privileges and justifies all their questionable
decisions.

From the beginning of the text, it is clear that some animals
are more equal than others. And by the end of the novel, the pigs are sleeping in beds,
consuming alcohol, eating apples, and trading with humans, which is contrary to the initial
principles of Animalism. Unlike other animals, the pigs now walk on their hind legs and dress
like humans.

and his fellow pigs practice a behavior they once despised. In
the end, the difference between the pigs and humans is not quite clear. Asputs it, The
creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again:
but...

What factors led to the rise of right wing authoritarian regime in Europe in 1919-1939?

To add to
what was already stated, and an important fact that is almost always overlooked when looking at
20th century Germany is that the United States kept the Weimar Republic afloat during the
1920s.  The US was able to do this because they never actually signed the Treat of Versailles.
By the mid 1920s the nation was well on the way to recovery.  This was one of the major reasons
that Hitler was not able to get a foothold during his Beer Hall Putsch.

However, when our economy crashed along with the stock market, we could no longer send
money over to Germany.  Without the American money, the Weimar quickly crumbled and Hitler was
able to gain his foothold, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Comparing the Governor's garden with gardens in Old England, what is significant about the difference in The Scarlet Letter?

In Chapter VII
of asawaits her audience with the governor,looks along a garden walk
and sees, not the ornamental gardening of the English, but a more practical one.  For, cabbages
and pumpkin vines are present, along with a few rose-bushes and several apple trees, which the
narrator believes may have been planted by the first settler, the Reverend Mr.
Blackstone.

Much like the Puritan faith that rejected, among doctines, the
ornamentation of the Anglican Church, the lives of Puritans are strict and simplified, stripped
of frivolity, like the governor's garden.  In Chapter XXI, "The New England Holiday,"
Hawthorne reflects,

But we perhaps exaggerate the grey or
sable tinge, which undoubtedly characterised the mood and manners of the age.

The "grey gloom" of the Puritans on this day is replaced
with a "dim reflection of a remembered splendor."  Similar to the plain and functional
garden of the governor that Pearl observes in Chapter VII, the decorative beauty of the old
country from which the Massachusetts colony people have come is all but forgotten and in its
place is the strict and colorless practicality of life.