Aarushhh/wikipedia-simple-splitted huggingface dataset:
Roosevelt also signed an order allowing Japanese Americans to be sent to internment camps against their will. While still president, he died on April 12, 1945. Vice President Harry Truman became president. World War II continued for almost four more months, but Allied victory was already assured.

For overcoming the difficult challenges of a severe depression and another world war, historians consider him to be one of the three best U.S. presidents. Indeed, his presidency has been said to have redefined the role of the presidency, inspiring Truman's Fair Deal, Kennedy's New Frontier, and Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society.

Gallery

Related pages
 Roerich Pact
 New Deal

References

Other websites 

FDR's White House biography
1882 births
1945 deaths
Lawyers from New York (state)
American people of World War II
Deaths from cerebral hemorrhage
 
Governors of New York (state)
National Radio Hall of Fame inductees
Presidents of the United States
Time People of the Year
Democratic Party (United States) politicians
World War II political leaders
20th-century American politicians
Roosevelt family
Venezuela is a country in northern South America. Its official name is República Bolivariana de Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela). The official language is Spanish, and the capital is Caracas.

The country has a wide range of geography including islands in the Caribbean Sea, coastal areas, highlands, and parts of the Andes Mountains. Venezuela is famous for being the home of Angel Falls, the world's tallest waterfall, in the Bolivar state.

Venezuela produces a large amount of oil every year, and it has one of the largest oil supplies in the world. The country has a very large supply of fossil fuels, gasoline, and minerals. Venezuela's economy is based on oil, cotton, cocoa, sugar, coffee, and tobacco.

Some other languages spoken in Venezuela are Carib, Guahibo, Warao, Wayuu, Pemon, and Piaroa. Most people are Roman Catholic at 96%, and a small minority is Protestant at 2%.
People and History 
Ancient Venezuelans came from the east, west, south, and north. Christopher Columbus was the first European to enter Venezuela, but there were already people living there for a long time. The Spaniards first conquered Venezuela. Slaves were brought from Africa.

Venezuela's inhabitants are very racially mixed. This comes from the colonial period. When whites (the British, Spaniards, French, etc.) conquered America's territory, they took their black African slaves to America to work. During Venezuela's colonial time, black people did not have any rights. They just worked for food. The native people were taught Roman Catholicism. For a long time, society was headed by white creoles, people in Venezuela who were descended from Spaniards but considered Venezuela home. The other Venezuelan people did not like that, and they started thinking about independence. On July 24, 1823, Venezuela won its independence, led by Simón Bolívar.
Venezuela's modern history was shaped by a number of people, including President Romulo Betancourt, who replaced a military dictatorship with a democracy. By the 1970s, Venezuela had become rich off of oil revenue, but it had problems in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1999 Hugo Chávez became president and tried to remake Venezuela as a socialist state. While popular at first, the economic changes Chavez and the next president, Maduro, passed caused a massive economic depression in the mid-2010s. The current president is disputed.

Demographics 
The population of Venezuela is about 28,000,000 people. The ethnic groups of the population are:
 65%: multiracial.
 21%: European.
 10%: African.
 3%: Amerindian.

Map

Gallery

References

 
Spanish-speaking countries
Current dictatorships
1845 establishments
1840s establishments in South America
Saudi Arabia, officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is a country in Western Asia including most of the Arabian Peninsula. The land area is approximately , so Saudi Arabia is geographically the 5th-largest state in Asia and 2nd-largest state in the Arab world after Algeria. Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast, and Yemen to the south. It is separated from Israel and Egypt by the Gulf of Aqaba.  It is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast, and most of its land is dry and barren.  Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Arabs and Islam  and sometimes called "the Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam. Arabic is the exclusive official language in Saudi Arabia.
Sunni Islam is the state religion.  The practice of non-Islamic religions  is forbidden in public but not in private. The Hanbali school of faith has a big influence, and the ultra-conservative Wahhabism religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called "the predominant feature of Saudi culture".

Saudi Arabia is the largest state in western Asia by land area (most of the Arabian Peninsula) and the second-largest in the Arab World. It has an estimated population of 27 million, of which 8.8 million are registered foreign expatriates and an estimated 1.5 million are illegal immigrants. Saudi nationals comprise an estimated 16 million people.
Saudi Arabia has the world's largest petroleum reserves and is the world's largest oil exporter. Oil accounts for more than 90% of exports and nearly 75% of government revenues, facilitating the creation of a welfare state. However, human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have expressed concern about the state of human rights in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia has cities that are important to the Muslim religion.  Many Muslims from around the world visit Mecca in Saudi Arabia to make a pilgrimage.  The pilgrimage is one of the "pillars of Islam".  Other big cities are Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam.  The pilgrimage is called hajj in the Arabic language. Somebody who makes a pilgrimage to Mecca is called a hajj in the Arabic language. People who are not Muslim are not allowed to enter Mecca.

Most people speak the Arabic language.

The currency of Saudi Arabia is referred to as the Saudi Riyal.

History
History 

The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of four distinct regions: Hejaz, Najd, and parts of Eastern Arabia (Al-Ahsa) and Southern Arabia ('Asir). The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud. He united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. The country has since been an absolute monarchy,  governed along Islamic lines.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded by Abdul-Aziz bin Saud (known for most of his career as Ibn Saud) in 1932. The conquests which eventually led to the creation of the Kingdom began in 1902 when he captured Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. The Saudi Arabian government, which is an absolute monarchy, refers to its system of government as being Islamic. It has a strong basis in  Wahhabism, a minority school of thought in Islam. The kingdom is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Masjid al-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam.

Politics
Politics 

Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy. However, according to the Basic Law of Saudi Arabia adopted by royal decree in 1992, the king must comply with Sharia (Islamic law) and the Quran, while the Quran and the Sunnah (the traditions of Muhammad) are declared to be the country's constitution. The primary source of law is the Islamic Sharia derived from the teachings of the Qur'an and the Sunnah (the traditions of the Prophet). Saudi Arabia is unique among modern Muslim states in that Sharia is not codified and there is no system of judicial precedent, giving judges the power to use independent legal reasoning to make a decision. Saudi judges tend to follow the principles of the Hanbali school of jurisprudence (or fiqh) found in pre-modern texts and noted for its literalist interpretation of the Qur'an and hadith.
Because the judge is empowered to disregard previous judgments (either his own or of other judges) and may apply his personal interpretation of Sharia to any particular case, divergent judgements arise even in apparently identical cases, making predictability of legal interpretation difficult. The Sharia court system constitutes the basic judiciary of Saudi Arabia and its judges (qadi) and lawyers form part of the ulema, the country's Islamic scholars.

Royal decrees are the other main source of law; but are referred to as regulations rather than laws because they are subordinate to the Sharia. Royal decrees supplement Sharia in areas such as labor, commercial and corporate law. Additionally, traditional tribal law and custom remain significant. Extra-Sharia government tribunals usually handle disputes relating to specific royal decrees. Final appeal from both Sharia courts and government tribunals is to the King and all courts and tribunals follow Sharia rules of evidence and procedure.

Women
Women 

A hijab is a traditional Islamic norm whereby women are required "to draw their outer garments around them (when they go out or are among men)" and dress in a modest manner.  Saudi Arabia is different from many Islamic societies in the extent of the covering that it considers Islamically correct hijab (everything except the hands and eyes) and the fact that covering is enforced by Mutaween or religious police.

Among unrelated men, women must cover the parts of the body that are awrah (private). In much of Islam, a women's face is not considered awrah. In Saudi Arabia and some other Arab states, all of the body is considered awrah except the hands and eyes. Accordingly, most women are expected to wear the hijab (head covering), a full black cloak called an abaya, and a face-veil called niqab.  Many historians and Islamic scholars argue that the Quran was interpreted to require the veil as part of adapting it to tribal  traditions.

Geography
Geography

Saudi Arabia is home to the largest mass of sand on earth, known as the Rub-al Khali desert (Rub-al Khali means "empty quarter"). The temperature is very hot. There are almost no rivers or lakes in the country.  There are many wadis.

The countries of Yemen and Oman are south of Saudi Arabia.  Saudi Arabia is west of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iraq, and Jordan. All of these countries, except Jordan and Iraq, make the Arabian Peninsula.
Animal life includes wolves, hyenas, mongooses, baboons, hares, sand rats, and jerboas. There used to be many larger animals such as gazelles, oryx, and leopards.  By the 1950s hunting from motor vehicles made these animals almost extinct. Birds include falcons (which are caught and trained for hunting), eagles, hawks, vultures, sand grouse and bulbuls. There are several species of snakes, many of which are venomous, and numerous types of lizards. There is a wide variety of marine life in the Persian Gulf. Domesticated animals include camels, sheep, goats, donkeys, and chickens.

Because it is mostly a desert Saudi Arabia’s plant life is mostly small herbs and shrubs that need little water. There are a few small areas of grass and trees in southern Asir. The date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) is widespread.

Provinces
Saudi Arabia is divided into 13 provinces. The provinces are divided into 118 governorates.

Cities
These are the largest cities in Saudi Arabia.

Notes

References

Other websites
Other websites

 Saudi Arabia official government website
 Saudi TV channels (live streams)
 
 Saudi Arabia profile from the BBC News
 Saudi Arabia -Citizendium
 

 
Current monarchies
Monarchies of Asia
Members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
Colombia (; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a tropical equatorial country in northern South America. It is in the northwest part of the continent, and it has an area of 1,141,748 kilometres² (440,839 sq mi).

It is the only South American country with coasts on the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.

The countries that have borders on the continent with Colombia are: Venezuela (east), Brazil (southeast), Peru (south), Ecuador (southwest) and Panama (west). The countries that have borders with Colombia on the sea are: Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Haiti and Dominican Republic.

More than 51 million people live in Colombia. It is the third most populated country in Latin America after Mexico and Brazil.
The capital of Colombia is Bogotá. The second city is Medellín, a large industrial center. The third largest city is Cali, home to many multinational companies. The most important city of the country on the Caribbean coast is Barranquilla. It was also the first national port. Cartagena de Indias has a great Spanish wall from the 17th Century and an old town with 500-year-old buildings. After these cities comes Bucaramanga, a large city near the Venezuelan border, and the center of the textile industry in Colombia.

Meaning 
The word "Colombia" is named after Christopher Columbus, the explorer who began the European colonization of the Americas.
In 1819, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama declared independence from Spain, and formed a country called "Gran Colombia". Venezuela and Ecuador separated in 1830. Panama continued to be part of Colombia until 1903, at which point it proclaimed independence. The official language is Spanish, but there are many languages spoken by minorities that are official in local jurisdictions.

History
The land where Colombia now stands has been home to people for more than 20,000 years. The first people had many groups, cultures, and languages. There are many tools, caves, and things of those peoples. In Colombia, the peoples were similar to those of Asia, because scientists say that the first people came to America from Siberia or southeast Asia more than 50,000 years ago. The peoples of Colombia were called Arawak, Caribe, and Chibcha, but there were many other groups. The most famous were the Muiscas. legend of El Dorado comes from the Muiscas. The king of the Muiscas used to bathe in Lake Guatavita and he used a lot of gold for his bath. The Spanish heard about this, and the people told them that there was a great golden city somewhere. They started to look for El Dorado. The International Airport of Bogotá is called El Dorado International Airport, because the legend was born in Colombia. The descendants of the first peoples of Colombia live integrated with others
. Some groups live in the forest, but many live in the countryside and in the cities.
The colony 
The Spanish, led by Christopher Columbus, first came to the Americas in 1492. Columbus saw the coasts of Venezuela, Colombia and Panama and he gave them his own name. But Alonso de Ojeda was the first colonist to explore the area of the Gulf of Darién. After that, the Spanish founded the first European cities on the American continent: Santa Marta in 1525 and Cartagena de Indias in 1533. It was from Colombia that the Spanish conquered the Incas of Peru.

Spain would enslave the indigenous peoples who were already living there, but they also used the port they built at Cartagena to bring many black slaves from Africa into the area. The Spanish captured many, many people from Africa and forced them to work on plantations and ranches, in mines, and as personal servants.
While this was happening, they founded the city of Popayán in 1536 and they conquered the Confederation of the Muiscas. In Bacatá, the capital of the Muiscas, the Spanish founded the city of Santa Fe in 1538. In 1550 the Spanish declared the territory as a colony and its capital was Santa Fe de Bogotá, but in the first decades it depended on Peru. Soon after, it was declared a Viceroyalty.
Independence 
On November 11, 1810, the city of Cartagena de Indias declared its independence from Spain. The whole region would fight a war to become independent, led by people like Antonio Nariño and Simón Bolívar. Nariño was one of the most important leaders in the war for the independence of Colombia. He was a politician, journalist and soldier. Bolivar was another important leader, and he was a president and a colonel. Bolivar had promised Alexandre Pétion, the president of Haiti, that he would abolish slavery during his independence war. But he only agreed because he was afraid the slaves would revolt against the slaveowners, like they did in Haiti, and only freed slaves if they agreed to fight in his army. He never freed all the slaves, and slavery was not abolished in Colombia until 1851.
Geography
The geography of Colombia has six main natural regions, Each has its own unique characteristics. The Andes mountain region shares borders with Ecuador and Venezuela. The Pacific Coast region shares borders with Panama and Ecuador. The Caribbean coastal region shares borders with Venezuela and Panama. The Llanos (plains) shares a border with Venezuela. The Amazon Rainforest region shares a border with Venezuela, Brazil, Peru and Ecuador. The insular region includes all the islands of the country.

The main rivers of Colombia are Magdalena, Cauca, Guaviare, Atrato, Meta, Putumayo and Caquetá. Colombia has four main drainage systems: the Pacific drain, the Caribbean drain, the Orinoco Basin and the Amazon Basin.

Most of the population lives in the Andes region. But the plains make over half the land. Only about 6% of the people live in the plains. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range includes the country's tallest peaks (Pico Cristóbal Colón and Pico Simón Bolívar).

Climate
Climate 

Colombia's temperature changes with the altitude, and the temperature is different by region. The regions around the Andes are colder than the coast, which is lower.

Because of the many altitudes, Colombia has many different fruits, vegetables and kinds of animals. It has many valleys, beaches, plains, mountains and forests like the Amazon rainforest.

The top of some of the mountains in Colombia are so cold that people can ski over the equator. The lower mountains have warmer climates. The sea shores are cooled by ocean breezes. At sea level near the equator it is hot.
Rivers are important as waterways in the land for shipping things. One of the most important rivers in Colombia is the Magdalena-Cauca. The Magdelena River divides the eastern and center mountains. It makes a fertile valley. The Cauca River divides the center mountain range and the western ridge, making another great valley. The Cauca is really a part of the Magdalena. However, the two do not meet until a few miles before the Magdalena goes into the Caribbean Sea.

Biodiversity 
Colombia is a megadiverse country. This means the country is home to a majority of Earth's species. There are also a high number of endemic species.

Colombia has 1,900 species of bird, more than any other country. There are about 2,000 species of marine fish. It is the second most diverse country in freshwater fish. As for plants, the country has between 40,000 and 45,000 species. Colombia is second in the number of amphibian species and is the third most diverse country in reptiles. There are about 2,900 species of mollusk.
Politics 
In May 2006, President Álvaro Uribe was re-elected. His term lasted until 2010. Uribe was the first President in Colombia to win a second election in over 100 years.

In August 2010, Juan Manuel Santos became Colombia's president. Santos won the election on June 20 by a landslide. He promised to "preside over a government of national unity that will bring social prosperity for all Colombians"

Eight years later, conservative Senator Iván Duque Márquez was elected president. He won the election by 2 million votes against his rival liberal Senator Gustavo Petro.

The actual president is Gustavo Petro, former senator and guerrilla in M-19 who won with 11 million votes and the second place was Rodolfo Hernandez, a polemic former mayor and entrepreneur.
Departments
Colombia is divided into 32 departments and one capital district. The capital district is treated as a department. Departments are divided into municipalities. Municipalities are divided into corregimientos. Each department has a local government with a governor and assembly directly elected to four-year terms. Each municipality is headed by a mayor and council. Each corregimiento by an elected corregidor, or local leader.

Demographics 
The population of Colombia was approximately 47 million as of 2016. The ethnic groups of the population are:
 48% Mestizo
 23% Mulatto
 20% White
 6% Black
 2% Amerindian
 1% Zambo

Economy 
Up to 49.6% of the population is living below the poverty line.
Security 
There are several guerilla groups in Colombia, the FARC being the most powerful, a guerilla group responsible for kidnappings, murders, attacks, and drug-dealing. Drug dealing is a problem the government has been trying to fight. This creates violence in the cities. With Operation: Jaque, Ingrid Betancourt, three Americans, and 11 soldiers were rescued from the FARC.
Transport 
Most parts of Colombia are modern and the country has many roads. All major Colombian cities have airports and there are many ports on both oceans (Pacific and Atlantic). Because Colombia is a huge country and there are many mountains, airports are very important in the country. There are some regions like the Amazon Forest and Dariend, where the most important way of transportation is by the rivers.
 Roads: The Pan American Highway in South America begins in Colombia. You can go as far as Tierra de Fuego in Chile using that road. Most of the Colombian cities are connected by road in Colombia. The most important roads are the Bogotá-Medellín Highway, the Bogotá-Cali Highway, the Bogotá-Cucuta Highway, the Bogotá-Barranquilla Highway and many others connecting big cities like Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla and Cartagena de Indias with other important centers. You can go by road from Bogotá to Caracas, Venezuela and Quito, Ecuador. The major cities have bus stations.
Airports: They are very important in Colombia and all the main cities have their own airports. The El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá is the most important. The Palmaseca International Airport in Cali is the second most important. Other important airports are the ones of Medellín, Barranquilla, San Andrés and Cartagena de Indias. The Colombian airports have international connections with most of the South American capitals, North America and Europe. The main Colombian airline is Avianca and it is the second oldest world airline and one of the most important in Latin America.
Ports: Colombia has coasts on both oceans - Atlantic and Pacific - and it is one of the first world water reserve because it has many rivers and lakes. The longest rivers are the Amazon, Magdalena, Cauca, and the Atrato. The main ports on the Atlantic coast are Barranquilla, which was the first Colombian port, Cartagena de Indias and Santa Marta. There are other ones like Rioacha and Turbo. The ports on the Pacific coast are Buenaventura and Tumaco. The port of the San Andres Island is also one of the most important for the country in the Caribbean and Antillean Sea. The city of Leticia is a very important river port on the Amazon river.
 Train: The National Train was very important to Colombia during the 20th century, but it was forgotten when roads and airports were developed. Today the railways in Colombia are used more for tour visits, and they are not modern.
Transportation in the cities: The major Colombian cities have a very good system of transportation. There are public buses that connect the suburbs to the center of the cities. There are many taxi companies in Colombia. There are also very modern urban transports in the main cities like Transmilenio in Bogotá, the Metro in Medellín, and similar proposals in Cali, Barranquilla, Cartagena de Indias and many others that are being developed.
Colombia also has some very well known cities.
 Bogotá is the second largest capital city of South America after Buenos Aires and the third largest city after Buenos Aires and São Paulo. It is also one of the highest capital cities of the world, 2640 meters above sea level. It has a very active cultural, political, industrial and commercial life. Bogotá also has many international meetings, seminars, NGOs, organizations, universities, telecommunication centers and conventions. It is in the Andes. Many famous Colombians come from Bogotá like Rafael Pombo, José Asunción Silva and Juan Pablo Montoya.
Medellín is the second largest city of Colombia. At the end of the 20th Century it was known as the "most violent city of the world" because it was the hometown of Pablo Escobar, the leader of the Colombian Mafia. Now Medellín is safer and has become a very beautiful city. It is a very important industrial center, the first commercial area of the country and a leader in health care and medicine. Many foreigners come to Medellín for health services. It is in the Andes and it is known as the "City of the Eternal Spring" because it has nice weather. Many famous Colombians come from Medellín like the singer Juanes, the soccer player René Higuita, the artist Fernando Botero and many others.
Cali is the third largest city. It is very famous for its plantations of sugar cane. Cali is known as the "World Capital of Salsa". In Cali there are many skillful salsa dancers and very important Salsa groups. Cali is also a very modern city. It is an industrial city and its airport is the second in Colombia. Near Cali is the port city of Buenaventura in the Pacific Ocean. Cali is in a valley of the Andes. The name of the Valley is Cauca because it is crossed by the Cauca River.
 Barranquilla is the fourth largest city and it was the first city in Colombia on the Caribbean Sea. Barranquilla is famous for its trade and international connections because it has a big port. The Colombian singer Shakira is from Barranquilla.
 Cartagena de Indias is the most important tourist center in Colombia on the Caribbean Sea. It is also a very beautiful city. Many tourist come to visit the city.
Bucaramanga is near the Colombian border with Venezuela. This city is a great destination for travelers due to its Spanish history and its technological & urban development; it is a very popular city.
 Eje Cafetero (Coffee Growing Axis) is the name of the region where coffee is grown in Colombia. There are three important cities: Pereira, Manizales and Armenia.
Science 
Colombia has made many advances in medicine. Many foreigners come to the country to get health services, such as organ transplants or plastic surgery. Doctor Manuel Elkin Patarroyo of Colombia discovered a medicine against malaria. He donated his discovery to be used in Africa and Latin America. He did not want to make business of it, instead he wanted to use it to help people.

Resources 
Colombia is known for its coffee, coal, and emeralds. It is also the biggest supplier of plantains to the United States. There are a few armed conflicts in Colombia. Most rebel groups finance their operations with the trade of illegal drugs (mostly cocaine).

Related pages 
 Colombia at the Olympics
 Colombia national football team
 List of rivers of Colombia

References

Bibliography 
 RODAS-LMASO

Other websites
 
 

 
Spanish-speaking countries
1810 establishments
1810s establishments in South America
Abel Janszoon Tasman (1603–1659) was a Dutch sea explorer. He found Tasmania and New Zealand while on voyages in 1642 and 1644, in the service of the VOC (Dutch East India Company). He also made the first historical sightings of large parts of Australia.

He was born in Lutjegast, Netherlands. He went to Batavia (now called Jakarta) to work for the VOC in 1633. He went back to Holland in 1636. He went back to Batavia with his wife, Jannetie Tjaerss, two years later. He went north to Japan in 1640. In 1642 Tasman went south to Palembang.

Tasmania and New Zealand 1642-4 
Tasman set Governor General of the Dutch East Indies. This man sailed around to the east coast of Van Diemen's Land and claimed the land for the Dutch on December 3, 1642. The ships then sailed west and found New Zealand. His ships were attacked by Maori in large war canoes (boats) and four sailors died. Tasman then sailed north-east to Tonga and Fiji. He then sailed north west to New Guinea and got back to Batavia in June 1643.
Western Australia 1644 
In 1644 Tasman sailed from Batavia with the ships Limmen, Zeemeeuw and Bracq. He sailed along the west coast of New Guinea, and then the coast of Australia from Cape York to North West Cape. He went back to Batavia in August 1644. He showed that Western Australia and Queensland were part of the same country. He was not able to get through Torres Strait, but his maps were used for the next 200 years. Tasman made more trips including to Sumatra in 1646, Siam in 1647, and Manila in 1648. He purchased a lot of land in Batavia where he died in October 1659.

Several places have been named after him, including Tasmania, the Tasman Peninsula, Tasman Island and the Tasman Sea.

References 

1603 births
1659 deaths
Dutch explorers
Exploration of Australia
People from Groningen (province)
Hard science is science that uses systematic observation, experiments and sometimes mathematics to get knowledge. In hard science, experiments have to be reproducible (if the experiment is done a second time, it will have to produce the same results as the first time). Also, in hard sciences there is usually good agreement as to what is known for sure. This is not true of soft sciences. Also, in hard science there is a world-view or theory which is widely agreed.

Hard science subjects include the natural sciences, which are about the natural world. These include physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy, and botany. Soft science is any of the social sciences, including history, sociology, and political science. Those sciences are soft because something could be done more than once, and produce a very different result each time. Also, there are radical disagreements between various schools of thought. Some aspects of psychology are hard science, especially relating to perception.

References 

Science
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer program or a machine to think and learn. It is a field of study which tries to make computers "smart". They work on their own without being encoded with commands. John McCarthy came up with the name, "Artificial Intelligence" in 1955.
The term intelligence is misleading, here. Alan Turing wrote in 1950 "I propose to consider the question 'can machines think'?" He proposed the question should be changed, from whether a machine "thinks", to "whether or not it is possible for machinery to show intelligent behaviour". Alain Turing also created the Turing test. This is a very general test. If a human cannot tell if at the other end of the line, there is a machine or a human answering questions, the machine is intelligent. Russell and Norvig agree with Turing that AI must be defined in terms of "acting" and not "thinking". However, they are critical that the test compares machines to people. "Aeronautical engineering texts," they wrote, "do not define the goal of their field as making 'machines that fly so exactly like pigeons that they can fool other pigeons. AI founder John McCarthy agreed, writing that "Artificial intelligence is not, by definition, simulation of human intelligence".
In general use, the term "artificial intelligence" means a programme which mimics human cognition. At least some of the things we associate with other minds, such as learning and problem solving can be done by computers, though not in the same way as we do. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define AI as a system’s ability to correctly interpret external data, to learn from such data, and to use those learnings to achieve specific goals and tasks through flexible adaptation.

An ideal (perfect) intelligent machine is a flexible agent which perceives its environment and takes actions to maximize its chance of success at some goal or objective. As machines become increasingly capable, mental faculties once thought to require intelligence are removed from the definition. For example, optical character recognition is no longer perceived as an example of "artificial intelligence": it is just a routine technology.
At present we use the term AI for successfully understanding human speech, competing at a high level in strategic game systems (such as chess and Go), self-driving cars, and interpreting complex data. Some people also consider AI a danger to humanity if it continues to progress at its current pace.

An extreme goal of AI research is to create computer programs that can learn, solve problems, and think logically. In practice, however, most applications have picked on problems which computers can do well. Searching databases and doing calculations are things computers do better than people. On the other hand, "perceiving its environment" in any real sense is way beyond present-day computing.
History 
AI research really started with a conference at Dartmouth College in 1956. It was a month-long brainstorming session attended by many people with interests in AI. At the conference they wrote programs that were amazing at the time, beating people at checkers or solving word problems. The Department of Defense started giving a lot of money to AI research and labs were created all over the world.

Unfortunately, researchers seriously undervalued how challenging several issues were. They still couldn't offer computers things like emotions or common sense using the techniques they had employed. In a paper on AI, mathematician James Lighthill stated that "no aspect of the discipline has so far seen discoveries generated the huge influence that was previously anticipated." The governments of the US and UK desired to support more profitable initiatives. An "AI winter" in which little research was conducted was brought on by cuts.
AI revived again in the 90s and early 2000s with its use in data mining and medical diagnosis. This was possible because of faster computers and focusing on solving more specific problems. In 1997, the chess computer Deep Blue became the first computer program to beat chess world champion Garry Kasparov. Faster computers, advances in deep learning, and access to more data have made AI popular throughout the world. In 2011 IBM Watson beat the top two Jeopardy! players Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings, and in 2016 Google's AlphaGo beat top Go player Lee Sedol 4 out of 5 times.

Related pages
 Artificial neural network
 Neural networks
 Expert systems
 Machine learning
 ChatGPT

References
A computer programmer is a person who makes computer programs using a programming language. Programmers are also called software developers, coders.

A programmer's main jobs are writing program source code, testing if it works, and debugging (fixing) the program if there are problems. Programmers often use software tools such as text editors and IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) to help them work.

Computer programming is a profession that can be done from a computer anywhere in the world. This is called telecommuting - doing work on the Internet instead of in an office.

Some programmers are famous because their software is used by many people. One example is Linus Torvalds, who created an important part of the Linux operating system.

Programming can be done in many different languages and can look very different but do the same thing.  An example of this is the Hello world program.

Related pages 
 Software engineering

Computer science
Occupations
Computer programs must be written very carefully. If a programmer makes mistakes, then the program might then stop working, which is called "crashing". When a program has a problem because of how the code was written, this is called a "bug". A very small mistake can cause very serious bugs.

Types of programming languages 
There are many types of programming languages. Most programming languages do not follow one type alone, so it is difficult to assign a type for each language. The examples of each type are given in each section below because they are the best well-known examples of that type.

High-level vs. low-level
High-level programming languages require less knowledge about the hardware compared to low-level programming languages. This is because high-level programming languages abstract away the hardware the program is running on. Many high-level languages require an interpreter to run the source code on the hardware in real time. On the other hand, low-level languages usually convert the whole source code to machine code before running, because the source code is so close to the hardware that it is easy to do so.

Declarative vs. Imperative programming 
Declarative programming languages describe a "problem" but they usually do not say how the problem should be solved. The problem description uses logic, and "solving" the problem often looks like automatically proving a system of logical axioms. Examples for such programming languages are Prolog, XSLT, LISP and SQL.
Imperative programming languages describe a system of state changes. At the start, the program is in a certain state, and the computer is given steps to follow, in order to perform an action. Following the steps causes the program to "change state".

In general, declarative programming languages are safer and shorter. Imperative programming languages are more common, because they are easier to use.

Functional vs. Procedural 
Functional programming looks at programming like a function in mathematics. The program receives input, together with some information, and uses this information to create output. It will not have a state in between, and it will also not change things that are not related to the computation.

Procedural programs specify or describe sets of steps or state changes.
Stack-based 
Stack-based languages look at some of the program's memory like a stack of cards. There are very few things that can be done with a stack. A data item can be put on the top of the stack. This operation is generally called "push". A data item can be removed from the top of the stack.  This is called a "pop".  You can look at the item at the top of the stack without removing it.  This is called a "peek".

If a program is written as "push 5; push 3; add; pop;" it will put 5 on the top of the stack, put 3 on top of the 5, add the top two values (3 + 5 = 8), replace the 3 and 5 with the 8, and print the top (8). Examples for programming languages that are stack-based are the languages Postscript and Forth.

Object-oriented
Object-oriented 

Object-oriented programming languages place data and functions that change data into a single unit. This unit is called an "object". Objects can interact with each other and change another object's data. This is usually called encapsulation or information hiding. Most modern programming languages are object-oriented, or at least allow this style of programming. Examples of this are Java, Python, Ruby, C++, C# and other C languages.

Flow-oriented 
Flow-oriented programming sees programming as connecting different components. These components send messages back and forth. A single component can be part of different "programs", without the need to be changed internally.

Scientific computing 

Some of the languages above can be used for scientific computing. For example, C++ and Python are also used in this way. On the other hand, there are some languages that has scientific computing as their main purpose. The following are some examples:
MATLAB - made by MathWorks
 GNU Octave, Scilab - open source versions of MATLAB
 R (programming language) - widely used in the field of statistics
 Wolfram Mathematica - made by Wolfram Research

Document creation 
LaTeX and SATySFi are programming languages which helps document creation.

Rules 
Every programming language has rules about what it can and can not do. These include:

 Correct numbers (types of numbers, and how large or small the numbers can be)
 Words (reserved words, case-sensitivity)
 Limits on what the programming language can do

Most languages have official standards that define the rules of how to write the source code. Some programming languages have two or more standards. This can happen when a new standard replaces an old one. For example, the Perl 5 standard replaced Perl 4 in 1993. It can happen because two people made two standards at the same time. For example, there are several standards for APL.
Object-Oriented Programming 
Object-Oriented Programming (sometimes shortened to OOP) is a form of programming where all parts of the program are objects. Objects are pieces of memory with the same structure that can be used again and again. A bank account, bitmap, or hero from a video game could all be objects within a program. Objects are made up of properties (pieces of information the object stores) and methods which are things the object can do. A Dog object might have properties like height and hairColor. Its methods might include bark() and wagTail().

All objects are created from templates called classes. You can think of a class as a mold from which objects are made. The class defines all the properties and methods that its objects will have. Objects created from a class are called instances of the class. A class can extend another class, which means that it takes all the properties and methods of the class but can add its own.
Here is an example of what a class might look like in a programming language:

class Dog extends Mammal {

  // These are properties:
  String breed = "Collie"
  String type = "Herding Dog"

  // These are methods
  void wagTail() {
    //Do some wagging
  }

  void bark() {
    // Do the barking here
  }

}

Notice that the Dog class extends the Mammal class, so all dogs will have the properties of a mammal, like hairLength, and methods, like eat() or sleep().

Object-oriented programming is used in many of today's most popular programming languages, such as Java, C#, Objective-C, C++, Python, Ruby, Javascript, and ActionScript.

Examples

Example of Visual Basic 
Here is a simple program written in Visual Basic (a language made by Microsoft):
Dim Input
 Input = InputBox("How old are you?? - Code")
 If Not IsNumeric(Input) Then
   MsgBox & Input & "That's not a number!"
 ElseIf Input < 0 Then
   MsgBox "You cannot be less than zero years old!"
 ElseIf Input > 100 Then
   MsgBox "That's old!"
 Else
   MsgBox "You're " & Input & " years old."
 End If

This program asks the user his or her age and responds based on what the user typed. If the user typed something that is not a number, the program says so. If the user typed a number less than zero, the program says so. If the user says he or she is older than 100 years old, the program says "That's old!". If the user typed a correct age, the program says back to the user how old he or she is.

Example of Python 
Here is a program that does the same thing as the program above, but in Python:
try:
     age = int(raw_input("How old are you? "))
 except ValueError:
     print ("That's not a number!")
 else:
     if age < 0:
         print ("You cannot be less than zero years old!")
     elif age > 100:
         print ("That's old!")
     else:
         print("You're %s years old." % age)

Example of C# 
The same thing as the program above, but in C#:

using System;

public class Hello
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("What is your age?");
        int age;
        if (!int.TryParse(Console.ReadLine(), out age))
            Console.WriteLine("That's not a number!");
        else if (age < 0)
            Console.WriteLine("You cannot be less than zero years old!");
        else if (age > 100)
            Console.WriteLine("That's old!");
        else
            Console.WriteLine("You're {0} years old.", age);
    }
}

Example of Haskell 
The same thing again, but in Haskell:
import Text.Read
main = do
  putStrLn "What is your age?"
  input <- fmap readMaybe getLine
  putStrLn $ case input of                   
    Just age | age < 0 ->   "You cannot be less than zero years old!"
             | age > 100 -> "That's old!"
             | otherwise -> "You're " ++ show age ++ " years old."
    Nothing -> "That's not a number!"

References

Related pages 
 Algorithm
 Formal language
 List of programming languages
 Programmer
 Compiler
 Computer programming
 Programming paradigm
 Pseudocode
Visual Basic (VB) is a programming language developed by Microsoft for their operating system Windows. The BASIC language is said to be easier to read than other languages. 

Visual Basic is a widely understood high-level programming language, written using simple English-like words and syntax. It is an interpreted language, code can be run immediately after being written.
Having an interpreter makes it simpler to use, as there is no need for the computer to compile the code, possibly finding errors to fix, before the compiled version can be run. Once the code is working, it can be compiled into an .exe file so that it will run on all modern Windows computers, whether VB is installed or not. The language allows a beginning programmer to produce professional-looking Windows applications, as it includes drawing tools to create normal Windows forms. VB also includes advanced features - concepts and structures which allow programs to be adapted for use with the Internet. Visual Basic will not run on operating systems other than Windows and on machines with non-Intel compatible processors.

Though the program has received criticism for its faults, Visual Basic was a runaway commercial success since its release for version 3 in the summer of 1993. Many companies offered third party controls greatly extending its functionality.
Examples 
Dim MyInput
MyInput = InputBox("How old are you?")
If Not IsNumeric(MyInput) Then
   MsgBox "That's not a number!"
ElseIf MyInput < 0 Then
   MsgBox "You cannot be less than zero!"
ElseIf MyInput > 100 Then
   MsgBox "That's old!"
Else
   MsgBox "You're " & MyInput & " years old."
End If

Private Sub Form_Load()
   MsgBox "Hello, World"
End Sub
History
VB 1.0 was introduced in 1991. The drag and drop design for creating the user interface is derived from a prototype form generator developed by Alan Cooper and his company called Tripod. Microsoft contracted with Cooper and his associates to develop Tripod into a programmable form system for Windows 3.0, under the code name Ruby (no relation to the Ruby programming language). Tripod did not include a programming language at all. Microsoft decided to combine Ruby with the Basic language to create Visual Basic. The Ruby interface generator provided the "visual" part of Visual Basic and this was combined with the "EB" Embedded BASIC engine designed for Microsoft's abandoned "Omega" database system. Ruby also provided the ability to load dynamic link libraries containing additional controls (then called "gizmos"), which later became the Visual Basic Extension (VBX) interface. Versions of Visual Basic are listed below:

Visual Basic .NET
Visual Basic .NET 

Visual Basic .NET is the next series of products in Microsoft's successful Visual Basic range of products. It makes creating programs easier because it is possible to drag-and-drop controls into the program. It runs on the .NET Framework and features another long line of programs (see Visual Basic .NET#Editions).

Visual Basic for Applications 
This is a scripting language used in Microsoft Office and a few other programs.  It is based on Visual Basic 6.0, and can change data in an office application, write it to a file, and do other actions.
Support
All versions of the Visual Basic development environment from 1.0 to 6.0 have been retired and are now unsupported by Microsoft.  The associated runtime environments are unsupported too. This is except for the Visual Basic 6 core runtime environment, which will be officially supported by Microsoft until support of Windows 10 and Windows Server 2012 ends.  Third party components that shipped with Visual Studio 6.0 are not included in this support statement.  Some legacy Visual Basic components may still work on newer platforms. This is despite being unsupported by Microsoft and other vendors.