There was a time when a C meant average. The average GPA at four-year colleges and universities has risen from 2.52 in the 1950s to 3.11 in 2006. And according to Stuart Rojstaczer, a former Duke University professor and founder of GradeInflation.com, GPAs only keep rising. At some colleges, Rojstaczer says, over 50% of the grades given are A's.
Trench warfare was caused by an advance in defensive weaponry. The machine gun was too heavy to be used as a mobile weapon, and therefore was placed into a fixed position. Barbed and concertina wire was also heavily used.
Trenches are formed by subduction, a geophysical process in which two or more of Earth's tectonic plates converge and the older, denser plate is pushed beneath the lighter plate and deep into the mantle, causing the seafloor and outermost crust (the lithosphere) to bend and form a steep, V-shaped depression.