21.   But when the invasion of Milan began, the stockpile of metal was quickly appropriated to make cannons in a vain attempt to hold the city.

22.   Cast changes are often the last gasps of dying shows, sometimes vain attempts at survival.

23.   Cole goes way over the top in his sniveling fool of a Roderigo, in what seems a vain attempt to energize his exchanges with Canada.

24.   Dwight Thompson crouched in the bathroom in a vain attempt to avoid arrest, which will probably lead to little or no jail time anyway.

25.   Edward Chamberlin and Joan Robinson were caught up in a vain attempt to persuade other economists of the significance of imperfect competition.

26.   Every time you get a tan, you have damaged the skin, triggering a repair mechanism that produces melanin in a vain attempt to protect the skin.

27.   Fortress Europe could well reinforce its defenses against outsiders, analysts say, in a probably vain attempt to keep immigrants at bay.

28.   He even confesses in a vain attempt to save himself.

29.   His name was Sammy Sosa, and he was traded for Harold Baines in a vain attempt to stay in the pennant race.

30.   In the second grade, Miss Kaufman kept me after school in a vain attempt to teach me to add columns of numbers without moving my fingers.