On a busy Friday morning in Manhattan, nine pedestrians suffered bullet or fragment wounds after police unleashed a hail of gunfire at a man wielding a .45 caliber pistol who had just killed a former co-worker. The officers unloaded 16 rounds in the shadow of the Empire State Building at a disgruntled former apparel designer, killing him after he engaged in a gunbattle with police, authorities said. Three passersby sustained direct gunshot wounds, while the remaining six were hit by fragments, according to New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. All injuries were caused by police, he said Saturday. One officer shot nine rounds and another shot seven. Police identified the gunman as Jeffrey Johnson, 58, who was apparently laid off from his job as a designer of women's accessories at Hazan Import Co. last year. Johnson, who served in the U.S. Coast Guard in the mid-1970s, had two rounds left in his pistol. It holds eight, Kelly said. Police identified the slain co-worker as Steven Ercolino, 41, who had apparently filed a prior complaint against his assailant, claiming that he thought Johnson would eventually try to kill him. Both men had filed harassment complaints against each other in April 2011, Kelly added. Ercolino was listed as a vice president of sales at Hazan Import Corp., according to his LinkedIn profile. "It's not something that should happen to a loving person like that," said his brother, Paul. "He's going to be so missed by everybody. He was a light of so many lives." 

Who was interviewed about Ercolino's death?


At 8:38, Ong told Gonzalez that the plane was flying erratically again. Around this time Sweeney told Woodward that the hijackers were Middle Easterners, naming three of their seat numbers. One spoke very little English and one spoke excellent English. The hijackers had gained entry to the cockpit, and she did not know how. The aircraft was in a rapid descent. At 8:41, Sweeney told Woodward that passengers in coach were under the impression that there was a routine medical emergency in first class. Other flight attendants were busy at duties such as getting medical supplies while Ong and Sweeney were reporting the events. At 8:41, in American's operations center, a colleague told Marquis that the air traffic controllers declared Flight 11 a hijacking and "think he's [American 11] headed toward Kennedy [airport in New York City]. They're moving everybody out of the way. They seem to have him on a primary radar. They seem to think that he is descending." At 8:44, Gonzalez reported losing phone contact with Ong. About this same time Sweeney reported to Woodward, "Something is wrong. We are in a rapid descent . we are all over the place." Woodward asked Sweeney to look out the window to see if she could determine where they were. 

How did Sweeney know who the hijackers were and where they were from.


Hundreds of thousands of years before China was to become the world's longest-running civilization, the prologue was enacted by means of the flicker of a carefully tended fire. Peking Man, a forebear of Homo sapiens, achieved a mastery of fire. We might call it the first Chinese invention. Not that he devised flint and steel, matches, or any other way of creating fire. Peking Man simply learned how to capture flame, perhaps from a forest fire, and keep it alight. He thus enjoyed two revolutionary luxuries: light and heat. Technologically and sociologically, it was a phenomenal breakthrough: with fire, communities could live year 'round in one cave, in which cooking and even smelting could be pursued. And so, by 600,000 b.c., about 50 km (31 miles) southwest of present-day Beijing, the ancestors of mankind were ready to settle down. Several hundred thousand years later, when Marco Polo reached the capital of China, he was astonished by a further development in fire technology. The Chinese, he announced, used black stones dug out of mountains as fuel. Europeans did not yet have a word for "coal," nor had they discovered a use for it. The First Dynasty The confluence of mythology and history in China took place around 4,000 years ago during what is referred to as the Xia (Hsia) Dynasty. This was still the Stone Age, but the people are thought to have made silk from thread produced by the worms they cultivated on the leaves of their mulberry trees. And written language (which evolved as early as 4,500 to 5,000 years ago) was already in use, originally by oracles and then by official scribes — China's first scholars. During the second of the quasi-legendary dynasties, the Shang (from about the 16th to 11th centuries b.c.), the Chinese developed an interest in art. Careful geometric designs as well as dragon and bird motifs adorned bowls and implements. And with the arrival of the Bronze Age, the Chinese created bronze vessels of such beauty and originality that, until modern times, archaeologists refused to believe they were cast 3,000 years ago. The Shang Dynasty gave rise to the concept of one Chinese nation under one government. 


What period was the Xia (Hsia) Dynasty during?