Notes :
strike ～を襲う;
prediction 予言;
devastation 荒らすこと，荒廃（状態）;
day off 休日;
city［the city 集合的に］その市の（全）市民，住民;

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In 1923 Raffaele Bendandi predicted that on January 2, 1924, a major earthquake would strike Italy. He was wrong – by two days. It struck on January 4, killing 30,000 people.
Bendandi died in 1979 leaving many other predictions. One such prediction was for the 11th of May 2011, in Italy, in which he predicted total devastation. Because of this many Italians took a day off. On that day, however, no earthquake occurred and the city slept peacefully. In Spain on the same day however an earthquake hit a small town killing 9 people – it was the worst earthquake in forty years. (by Prof. Simon Smith)
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Notes：
plagiarism：盗用，剽窃;
academia: 学究的な世界;
be thrown out of a course :授業に落第する，不合格になる;
exclude …を追放する;
offender : 犯罪者，違反者;
rename: …に新しい名前を付ける;
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Plagiarism is a major problem in academia and there are many computer programmes available to teachers to check students’ work. Anyone caught plagiarising can be thrown out of a course and excluded from a university. One of the most recent famous offenders has been the German Defence Minister – Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg – who was found to have copied a large part of his Doctoral Thesis from the Internet. He has now been renamed “Baron zu Googleberg” – the minister for cut and paste. (by Prof. Simon Smith)
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