Um, what?

“I don’t feel that I or Canada has to prove anything through big, loud, overt acts.”–Justin Trudeau

Exactly 218 years ago today, on July 19, 1799, French troops in Rosetta, Egypt, uncovered a striking black stone carved with three ancient texts: two Egyptian texts and a Greek one.

The stone, now known as the Rosetta Stone, would be the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. It would also land a place in the English language: Today, a search in a scientific journal database for “Rosetta Stone” yields many more metaphorical uses of the term than actual research on the Egyptian artifact. Topics ranging from medical imaging, to black holes, to “intensional dynamic programming” (it’s an algorithm thing) have been described as a “Rosetta Stone” by hopeful researchers looking for a breakthrough.