Aarushhh/wikipedia-simple-splitted huggingface dataset:
Ammunition 
The ammunition fired by mortars are properly called "bombs". One possible reason for this is that the fins that stabilise the round when it is flying, and the shape of the round makes it look like a bomb dropped from aircraft.

Mortars can fire many different bombs. Some of these are:
 High explosive. This is a normal round which explodes when it hits the ground.
Smoke round. This creates thick smoke, it can be various colours. It is fired on enemy positions or in open areas to block visibility, so friendly forces can move without being visible.
 White phosphorus. This makes a thick smoke screen to blind and burn the enemy, causing second and third degree burns from the explosion.
 Illumination round. This is a flare which hangs underneath a parachute. It lights up the battlefield at night.

Special features of mortars

Mortars are usually smaller and lighter than howitzers and field guns. When the mortar bomb is launched, it descends at a very steep angle (almost straight down).
Mortars can be very helpful if they are used in hidden places. It can be even more helpful if there are people around the battlefield that help tell the mortar where to fire (forward observers).

History 

Mortars have existed for hundreds of years. They were first used in sieges. A European description of the Siege of Belgrade (1456) by Giovanni da Tagliacozzo says that the Ottoman Turks used seven mortars that fired "stone shots one Italian mile high". The speed of these was said to be very slow. It was also said that men could be prevented from being injured by putting observers out who warned the troops of what angle the mortars were firing at.
Early mortars like the Pumhart von Steyr were big and heavy. They were also difficult to move around.  An early mortar that could be moved easily was invented by Baron Menno van Coehoorn  (Siege of Grave, 1673).  At the Siege of Vicksburg, General Ulysses S. Grant reported making mortars "by taking logs of the toughest wood that could be found, boring them out for six or twelve-pound shells and binding them with strong iron bands.  These answered as coehorns, and shells were successfully thrown from them into the trenches of the enemy."

Mortars were very useful in the muddy trenches of the Western Front. A mortar round could be aimed to fall straight into a trench because of the deep angle that the bombs fell at.

During the Battle of Iwo Jima, the Imperial Japanese Army used twelve 320 mm mortars against the American forces.
Biggest mortars
The biggest mortars ever made were the French "Monster Mortar" (36 French inches; 975 mm; developed by Henri-Joseph Paixhans in 1832), Mallet's Mortar (36 inches; 910 mm; designed by Robert Mallet and tested by the Woolwich Arsenal, London, in 1857) and the "Little David" (36 inches; 914.4 mm; developed in the United States for use in World War II). All three mortars had a caliber of 36 "inches". However, only the "Monster Mortar" was used (at the Battle of Antwerp in 1832).

"Home-made" mortars

"Home-made" mortars have been used by insurgent groups. They are usually used to attack well defended military bases or to scare civilians. An early example was the Davidka. This was used during the Israeli War of Independence in 1948. The Provisional Irish Republican Army used some of the best-known examples during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The biggest types came to be known as "barracks busters". They were usually made of heavy steel piping put onto a steel frame.
Well-known events using "home-made" mortars include the 1985 Newry mortar attack. This was when nine members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary were killed. Another well-known event is the Downing Street mortar attack in 1991. In this, the IRA mortared 10 Downing Street during a meeting. Three bombs were launched but only one exploded. It landed in the back garden of the British Prime Minister's house. It only broke the windows at the back of the house. Prime Minister John Major had to move to Admiralty House while the windows were being fixed.

Gallery

Related pages
 List of heavy mortars

References

Notes

More reading
 FM 3-22.90 Mortars - 7 Dec 2007(US Army)
 FM 3-22.91 Mortar Fire Direction Procedures - 17 July 2008 (US Army)

Other websites 

 Mallet's Mortar, the biggest British mortar ever made. 
 Mortars during World War I

Artillery
The  was a field gun used by the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA).  It became a standard field gun of the IJA after the end of the Russo-Japanese War.

History
Japan had experience with artillery in its war with Russia in 1904-05.

In 1905 (Meiji 38), the Imperial Japanese Army selected Krupp's artillery design.  At first, the field guns were imported.

Over 2000 guns were produced under license at the Army’s Osaka Arsenal.

After World War I, the weapon was re-designed in Japan.

Plans to replace the Type 38s with Type 90 75 mm field guns went forward in 1931.   However, Type 38s continued to be used.

Combat record
Type 38s were used in the Second Sino-Japanese War and in World War II.

Related pages 
 Artillery of Japan
 List of field guns

Notes

Other websites

 Type 38 on Taki's Imperial Japanese Army page
 US Technical Manual E 30-480

Japanese weapons
Artillery
The Himalayan is a cat breed that was created in 1950 by crossing the Siamese and the Persian. It has point markings and blue eyes like a Siamese, and long fur like a Persian. Sometimes it is considered to be a color variation of the Persian, and not a separate breed.

Colorpoint cat breeds
1950 establishments
A bombard is a large-caliber, muzzle-loading, medieval cannon or mortar. It was used in sieges for throwing heavy stone balls. The name bombarde was used in a French historical text around 1380. The modern term bombardment comes from this.

Bombards were usually used during sieges to hurl various things into enemy forts. Items such as stone or metal balls, burning materials and weighted cloth soaked in quicklime or Greek fire are have been written about.

The name comes from medieval Latin and French words from an earlier Greek word meaning the making of a humming noise.
Famous examples 
A famous example of a bombard is Mons Meg, a large weapon built around 1449 and used by King James II of Scotland. It was very powerful and used for bringing down castle walls. Mons Meg could fire  shots and was one of the largest bombards in its time.  It is now on public display at Edinburgh Castle. Other known bombards include two wrought iron weapons, the Pumhart von Steyr and Dulle Griet. There were also weapons cast in bronze, the Faule Mette, Faule Grete, and Grose Bochse. The Tsar Cannon is a late 16th century show-piece.

The Dardanelles Gun was built in the Ottoman Empire in 1464 by Munir Ali. It weighed 18.6 t and was 518cm long. It could  fire stone balls of up to 63cm diameter.

Bombards were replaced by weapons using smaller calibre iron shells with more powerful gunpowder.

Gallery

References

Further reading 

Artillery
A bombardment is an attack by artillery weapons against fortifications, troops or towns and buildings. It word came from the name of the medieval artillery weapon, the bombard, which was used to fire heavy stones during a siege.

Before World War I the word bombardment was only used for the attack of defenceless or undefended objects, houses, public buildings. Since then it has come to mean any mass attack delivered by artillery or short range  missiles, and also as aerial bombardment if delivered by bomber aircraft or long range missiles.

It now is also used to describe activities in science, such as firing high energy particles like electrons into atoms in the study of nuclear reactions. The word can also be used informally, for example, a person could be "bombarded" with questions.
History
In its old strict sense the term was only applied to the bombardment of defenceless or undefended objects, houses, public buildings. The purpose is to destroy the courage of your enemies. Civilians in a besieged town would put pressure on their military leaders to surrender before the place was destroyed. The practice of using artillery to do this was especially common up until World War I. Since then long range artillery bombardment has been joined by aerial bombardment delivered by aircraft and missiles.

References 

Artillery
Rapier is a British surface-to-air missile. It was developed for the British Army and Royal Air Force. It began being used in 1971 and eventually replaced all other anti-aircraft weapons in the British Army. It replaced both guns for targets that were flying low down, and the English Electric Thunderbird which was used against targets that were higher up and further away. 

Rapier defends against fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aircraft and cruise missiles. It is also able to fire two missiles at once.

Rapier can be moved around by ground and air.

History
Rapier started being developed in 1961. It was done privately at the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Then, the missile was known as "Sightline". The project was to fight supersonic, low-flying aircrat.
At the time the British Army was going to buy the American MIM-46 Mauler for air-defense. Mauler ran into problems in 1963, so the Ministry of Defence started giving money to Sightline. Sightline was supposed to be a backup in case Mauler failed. This eventually happened, and Sightline was eventually developed as "Rapier". The missile was 1966 for testing. Full versions of Rapier were tested in 1968. A contract was given in 1969 for the missile to begin being made. Rapier began being used in 1971 with the British Army, and 1974 with the Royal Air Force Regiment.

Use
The first Rapier was a launcher on wheels. It had four missiles. The launcher is a large cylinder. It has two missiles on each side.

Blindfire Radar
Blindfire Radar

The first Rapier was accurate and simple to use. However, it could not be used in all types of weather. To fix this, BAC started working on a different radar unit. This led to the Marconi DN 181 "Blindfire" radar in 1970. The first Blindfires were sold to the Iranian Army in 1973. The British Army did not buy the Blindfire system until 1979.

Tracked Rapier

It soon became noticed that a version of Rapier that could be moved around was needed.  BAC decided to change Rapier to fit onto  the M548, a version of the M113 armored personnel carrier. In 1974, this weapon was developed as "Tracked Rapier". The vehicles were bought by the British Army.  The first Tracked Rapiers were used with 11 (Sphinx) Air Defence Battery, of 22 Air Defence Regiment, Royal Artillery in 1982-83.
Moving to firing takes only 30 seconds. This was a very big improvement to Towed Rapier. The biggest difference between towed and tracked Rapier was that the tracked Rapier launcher has eight missiles. The towed Rapier only has four.

There was no room for Blindfire on a single M548. Because of this, it is towed or put onto a different M548.  

After Tracked Rapier entered service, it was upgraded many times to follow the upgrades being made to all Rapiers. 

Tracked Rapier has been replaced by Starstreak missile launchers. These are put onto the Alvis Stormer.

FSB
The "Field Standard B" (FSB) added some basic upgrades to Rapier. Also, the radar which searches for enemy aircrat was upgraded so that it could be easily shut down.

Laserfire
Because of all the new upgrades, the first, cheap Rapier was gone. To make Rapier cheaper, BAC began developing the "Rapier Laserfire" in 1982.
Tracking and firing is similar to the first Rapier. However, the Laserfire lights up the target and automatically tracks it with a powerful YAG:Nd laser.

Missile upgrades
In 1988, a better missile started being tested. This missile exploded before it hit the target. This allowed Rapier to hit smaller, faster targets.

In 1992 the Army decided to upgrade Rapier to higher-quality versions.

The missile has two versions, the Mk. 2A to shoot down aircraft, and the Mk. 2B, which can be used against light tanks and other armoured vehicles.

History in combat
In April 1982, the first Rapier was used during the Falklands War. Early reports about Rapier were good. They said Rapier got 14 kills and probably killed another 6 more. However, later reports said that around four enemy aircraft were shot down by Rapier. Only one Argentine aircraft, a Dagger A, was definitely a Rapier kill. The pilot was killed.
"Within the total only five Argentine aircraft might have been shot down by Rapier, and, as originally noted by Ethell and Price, only one of these was certain, with two probables and two possibles. Similar discrepancies arose over other weapons systems, notably Blowpipe (one confirmed kill as against nine confirmed and two probables in the White Paper) and Sea Cat (zero to one against eight confirmed and two probables in the White Paper). […] This confirmation that MoD had exaggerated, however unwittingly, the capabilities of Rapier was deemed to be political dynamite. It was observed that if this assessment became publicly known it 'could have a serious adverse effects on sales' prospects for Rapier, which is the staple revenue-earner for BAe's Dynamic Group."

The main problems were that Rapier could not fire very far, and that there was no proximity fuse. This meant that the gunner had to hit the aircrat with the missile directly. There were also problems with Rapier's IFF system.
Possible replacement
It has been announced the UK Ministry of Defence was giving money to a company to find a replacement for Rapier. The Common Anti-Air Modular Missile (CAMM) would have some components the same as the ASRAAM missile which is in service with the RAF.

Museums
An example of Rapier can be seen in a hangar in IWM Duxford.

Users

Imperial Iranian Air Force
Imperial Iranian Army
Islamic Republic of Iran Army

Kenyan Air Force

Indonesian Army

Republic of Singapore Air Force

Turkish Air Force - 86 launchers. They were made more modern in Turkey.

Swiss Air Force

United Arab Emirates Army

British Army - Royal Artillery

References

Other websites 

Rapier missile information on BAe website
Rapier missile information on MBDA company website 

British Army equipment
Missiles
Step Up is a 2006 American romantic musical teen drama movie set in Maryland. This movie is similar to "Bring It On" (which was released in 2000), except there is hip hop involved. This movie was released August 11, 2006 in the United States. The reviews were mixed to negative, though the movie had a high box office intake.

Sequels
The sequel, Step Up 2: The Streets, was released February 14, 2008. It stars Briana Evigan, Robert Hoffman, and Cassie and directed by Jon Chu. A second sequel called Step Up 3D was released on August 6, 2010. A third sequel called Step Up Revolution was released in 2012 and the fifth and final movie, Step Up: All In, was released in 2014.

References

Other websites

2006 movies
American teen drama movies
English-language movies
Movies set in Maryland
was a field gun of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA).  It was used during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. 

This artillery piece was planned to replace the Type 38 75 mm field gun in front line combat units.  However, Type 38s continued to be used.

History
Before World War I, the Imperial Japanese Army mainly had Krupp cannons from Germany. After the Versailles Treaty, the Japanese considered other options including field guns designed by Schneider et Cie from France. 

In 1931, IJA began to use the "Type 90" which was based on Schneider designs.

The Type 90 was not considered successful.

Combat record
The Type 90 75 mm field gun was used in Manchukuo. It was used against the Soviet Red Army at the Battle of Nomonhan.

Related pages 
 Artillery of Japan
 List of field guns

References

Other websites

 Type 90 on Taki's Imperial Japanese Army page
 U.S. Technical Manual TM-E 30-480

Japanese weapons
Artillery
Step Up 2: The Streets is a 2008 American musical teen drama movie. It is the sequel to Step Up. This sequel is set in the Baltimore region and was released in February 2008. The movie got substandard reviews, though it received almost $151 million throughout the world.
Plot
The movie tells of teenager Andrea "Andie" West whose mother died from cancer when Andie was 16. Andie now lives with Sarah (her guardian and her mother's best friend), though actually Andie always feels like she does not really belong anywhere. She loves dancing, although she is performing very poorly during school. One day, Andie, who is with Maryland School of Arts, is expelled from there by the MSA school director after the dance studio at her school is vandalized by students from 410 (four-one-oh), a competing [hip hop] dancing crew. She is also expelled from MSA due to her connection with a hip hop crew known as The Streets, at which point Sarah has had enough of Andie's behavior and threatens to send Andie to Texas to live with her aunt. Andie then receives a text from her best friend Missy.

Other websites
Other websites 

2008 drama movies
2000s musical movies
2000s teen drama movies
American musical movies
American teen drama movies
English-language movies
Movies set in Maryland
Sequel movies
Movies directed by Jon M. Chu
Phobias are irrational fears of things and situations which can be a danger but most are not harmful. There are many kinds of phobias. Here are listed more than 200 of them.
Phobias are most known to cause panic attacks and shock and epileptic fits, with phobias that have loneliness, spiders, fumes, and maybe heights.

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T 

Thalassophobia - fear of deep bodies of water
Trypophobia - fear of clustered holes
Turophobia - fear of cheese
Transphobia - fear of　transgender and transsexual people 
Trypanophobia - fear of needles/ injections
Trudoculphobia - fear of a sharp object piercing the eye

U

V

W

X

Z

Funny and fictional phobias 
 Anatidaephobia - fear that a duck, somewhere, is watching you
 Arachibutyrophobia - fear of peanut butter stuck to the roof of the mouth
 Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia - fear of long words
 Venustraphobia - fear of pretty women

References

Other websites 

Lists
A railway gun, also called a railroad gun, is a large artillery weapon, built on, transported by, and fired from a specially designed railway wagon. Many countries have built railway guns, but the best known were made by Krupp and used by Germany in World War I and World War II. Smaller guns were often part of an armoured train.

Railway guns are no longer used. Their large size and limited movement made them easy targets. They have been replaced by  aircraft, rockets, and missiles.

History
The idea of railway guns was first suggested in the 1860s by a Mr Anderson. He published a pamphlet in the United Kingdom titled National Defence in which he proposed a plan of ironclad railway carriages. A Russian, Lebedew, claimed to have first invented the idea in 1860 when he is reported to have mounted a mortar on a railway car.
The first railway gun used in battle was a banded 32-pounder Brooke naval rifle. In the American Civil War it was mounted on a flat rail car and protected with sheets of iron. On 29 June 1862, Robert E. Lee had the gun pushed by a locomotive over the Richmond and York River line (later part of the Southern Railway) and used at the Battle of Savage's Station. There is also a photo of a Union 13-inch siege mortar mounted on a rail car during the Siege of Petersburg, Virginia. It was nicknamed the Dictator or the Petersburg Express.

Railway guns were used by France during the Siege of Paris in 1870, and by the British during the Siege of Ladysmith during the Second Boer War.
World War I
Germany already had a few Big Bertha guns at the start of the First World War but the French had a shortage of heavy field artillery. Large coastal defense guns and naval guns were moved to the front. These were usually unsuitable for field use and needed some kind of mounting. The railway gun was an obvious solution. By 1916, both sides were using railway guns.

Baldwin Locomotive Works made five 14"/50 caliber railway guns on trains for the United States Navy during April and May 1918.  Each train carried a Mk 4 14"/50 caliber gun. These were a  naval rifle used on New Mexico and Tennessee class battleships, mounted on a rail carriage with four 6-wheel bogies. One of these guns is on display outside the museum at the Washington Navy Yard.

World War II
World War II

The Second World War saw the final use of railway guns. The Germans used the massive  Schwerer Gustav gun, the largest artillery piece to be used in battle. The rise of the aeroplane effectively ended the use of the railway guns. Like battleships, they were big, expensive, and easily destroyed from the air.

Surviving railway guns
A 12 inch railway gun is at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, Dahlgren, Virginia (see this link  for an image and brief description).

A US Navy 14"/50 caliber railway gun from World War I is at Washington Navy Yard, DC.

A German Krupp K5 gun ("Anzio Annie") is on show at the  United States Army Ordnance Museum. It was made using parts from two German guns that shelled the Anzio beachhead. They were partly destroyed by their crews before being captured by the Allies. A second K5 can be seen at the Battery Todt museum, near Audinghen in northern France.
Soviet era 305mm MK-3-12 guns are on show at the Krasnaya Gorka fort near Lomonosov, Russia, and the Museum of Railway Technology, Saint Petersburg. Soviet ТМ-1-180 180mm guns may be seen at Krasnaya Gorka fort,  the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Moscow and at Sevastopol Railway Station in the Ukraine.
 
The last surviving American-made Bethlehem 177 coastal railway gun is on show at Museu Militar Conde de Linhares in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

References

Books
 
 
 
 
 Hall, D Major.  Military History Journal The South African Military History Society. - Vol 2 No 3 June 1972. Guns in South Africa 1899-1902 Part V and VI
 
 
 
 
 Miller, H. W., Lt. Col. Railway Artillery: A Report on the Characteristics, Scope of Utility, Etc., of Railway Artillery, Volume I Washington: Government Print Office, 1921

Other websites
Other websites

"When Artillery First "Took to the Rails"
"Railwaygun Web Museum" . Retrieved April 21, 2005.
Railway Gun Museum
K5 Eisenbahngeschutze
United States Navy Railway Batteries
"Gun Train Guards Ends of Panama Canal -- Rolling Fort Crosses Isthmus in Two Hours" Popular Mechanics, December 1934 pp.844-845 excellent drawings in article on the 14-inch M1920 railway gun

Artillery
In science fiction, an ion cannon is a  beam weapon. It shoots beams of ions (atoms or molecules  with an electrical charge). Because of its power, it is usually said to be a superweapon. An ion cannon is a type of particle cannon. The particles it shoots are ionized. Because of their electrical charges, they can cause electronic devices, vehicles, and anything else that has an electrical or similar power source to stop working. Ion cannons are used in many  science-fiction movies and television series. Ion cannons are also used in many video games.

Real-world connections

The science fiction idea for these weapons comes from the particle cannon created by Nikola Tesla. Tesla's cannon shot ions into the ionosphere. This caused them to be charged more. Research of this idea is still being done with directed-energy weapons.

Media references
In the Star Wars universe, Ion weapons are common. They range from handheld pistols to star ship cannons. Ion weapons are mainly used to stop electronic systems from working. They can stop vehicles, droids and starships without doing any damage. In Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, the Rebel Alliance uses a large ion cannon on the planet Hoth to disable Imperial Star Destroyers near the planet. This is done to stop them from firing on Rebel ships trying to leave the planet. The Jawas used ion blasters to disable R2-D2.
 In StarCraft, Raynor's faction is stopped from leaving because of Tarsonis' ion cannon. The weapon is destroyed as part of a mission.
 In the computer game Conquest: Frontier Wars, huge Ion Cannon space stations can be built.
 In Master of Orion 2, Ion cannons are used to damage ship's internal systems. They are not stopped by armor.
 In the Pixar movie WALL-E, the robot EVE has an ion cannon in her right arm.
Destroy All Humans! and its sequels has a weapon called the Ion Detonator.
 In the Command & Conquer franchise the Global Defense Initiative (GDI) uses an orbital ion cannon as that faction superweapon.
 In Microsoft Urban Assault, a technologically-advanced alien faction Mykonians possess weapon systems that are entirely comprised of various types of ion cannons for their armament.
Other websites
 Watch the C&C Ion Cannon in action. (Created by Tiberian Dawn Mod team)

Science fiction technology
Weapons
Lumsden is a town in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The population of Lumsden was 1,523 in 2006. The mayor of Lumsden is Bryan Matheson. The town was originally known as Happy Hollow in 1881 and was changed to Lumsden in 1889 after Hugh Lumsden, a senior engineer with the Qu'Appelle, Long Lake and Saskatchewan Railway.

References

Other websites
Official website

Cities in Saskatchewan
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is a children's story. It was written by Dr. Seuss. It is  written in rhymed verse. Dr. Seuss drew the pictures. It was published in 1957 as a book by Random House. It was also published in a magazine called Redbook. The book criticizes the commercialization of Christmas. It also makes fun of those who profit from exploiting the holiday. An animated television program of the story was made in 1966. Boris Karloff narrated the How the Grinch Stole Christmas (TV Special). The character then appeared in the television specials Halloween is Grinch Night and The Grinch Grinches The Cat in the Hat. He also was a recurring villain in The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss, an educational show for kids, and had a small part in the Broadway play Seussical. In 2000 a movie was made based on the book. Jim Carrey played the Grinch. And in 2018, another movie based on the book was made, which was The Grinch. Benedict Cumberbatch plays the Grinch in that one.
Story 
The Grinch is a nasty creature who lives high on a mountain with his dog Max. He hates the happy people of Whoville and their Christmas celebrations and goes to Whoville to steal all the presents, decorations, and food. He doesn't think Christmas will come because he has been so mean, but Christmas comes all the same. He realizes that Christmas is more than just presents and decorations. His heart grows three sizes larger. He reforms and returns all the presents and trimmings. The people of Whoville welcome him.

References

1957 books
Books by Dr. Seuss
English-language picture books
The Mortier de 12 pouces Gribeauval (Gribeauval 12-inch mortar) was a French mortar. It was made using the Gribeauval system developed by Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval. It was part of the siege artillery. The measurement of the mortar is given by the diameter of the ball. It is measured using the French ancient system of measurement, in which 1 pouce (1 inch) is equal to 2.707 cm. The Gribeauval system was a new way of making artillery as a single piece of metal and then drilling a bore hole. This meant they could be made much lighter and more accurate.
 
The Mortier de 12 pouces Gribeauval was first used during the American Revolutionary War from 1780-82. It was used during the Siege of Yorktown in 1781. It was later used in by the French army during the wars that followed the French Revolution and during the Napoleonic Wars.
The Mortier de 12 pouces used a cylindrical chamber. Although this was quite efficient, it used to wear easily. This shape was later replaced by the Gomer system using a conical chamber.

Some of the Mortier de 12 pouces were used for coastal defense, in which case they were fixed on solid metal platforms.

Related pages

References

Artillery
Aerospace Valley is a French group of aerospace engineering companies and research centres. It is in the regions of Occitanie and Nouvelle-Aquitaine in the southwest of France and is mainly concentrated in and around the city of Toulouse.

There are over 500 companies, including Airbus, Dassault Aviation, EADS and Air France Industries. About 120,000 people work there in the aviation and space flight industries.

The headquarters of Aerospace Valley is in Toulouse. The chairman of the group is Agnès Paillard.

References

Other websites 
 Website of Aerospace Valley

2005 establishments in France
Aerospace engineering
Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Aviation in France
Toulouse
Technology companies of France
Ivry-sur-Seine is a town and commune in the southeast suburb of Paris, France. It is in the Île-de-France region and the Val-de-Marne department. About 56,000 people lived there in 2006.

Education 
The engineering schools École spéciale de mécanique et électricité, École supérieure d'informatique, électronique, automatique and Institut polytechnique des sciences avancées are located at Ivry-sur-Seine.
The schools École des technologies numériques appliquées and IONIS School of Technology and Management are also located in the commune.

Communes in Val-de-Marne
Doubochinski's pendulum is an experiment with an oscillator and a magnet. The most simple case is that of a pendulum that interacts with an oscillator. The pendulum (with a magnet at the end) will swing at a frequency of one swing per period of 1-2 seconds. A stationary electromagnet is placed under the equilibrium point of the pendulum. The electromagnet is then supplied with an alternating current of a fixed frequency, of between 10 and 10.000 Hz. 
When the pendulum is released at any location, its movement will then evolve to stop at a height which depends on the frequency of the current of the electromagnet. This phenomenon was first discovered by the brothers Danil and Yakov Doubochinski in 1968–69.

References 

Pendulums
Don Pasquale is an Italian comic opera in three acts. Gaetano Donizetti wrote the music. Giovanni Ruffini wrote the libretto (story and words).

Don Pasquale was the 64th of the 66 operas Donizetti wrote. It is about an old bachelor who wants to marry. The opera was first performed on January 3, 1843 at the Comédie-Italienne in Paris, France.

It was first performed in Italy at La Scala in Milan on April 17, 1843. In London, England, it was first performed on June 29, 1843, and in the United States on January 7, 1845 in New Orleans.

Characters 
 Don Pasquale, an old bachelor (bass)
 Dr Malatesta, his doctor (baritone)
 Ernesto, Don Pasquale's nephew (tenor)
 Norina, a young widow (soprano)
 Carlino, a notary (bass)

Notes

References 
Holden, Amanda (Ed.) 2001. The New Penguin Opera Guide. Penguin Putnam.

Other websites 

 
 Longer synopsis of Don Pasquale  from English Touring Opera
 Discography from Stanford website
 
 
 

Compositions by Gaetano Donizetti
1840s operas
Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago at the southern tip of South America. The Magellan Strait sepearates it from the South American Mainland. The archipelago consists of a big island, Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego and a number of smaller islands. The land area of the archipelago is 73,746 square kilometers. With about 47,000 square kilometers, Isla Grande  takes roughly half of the total land mass.  About 127,000 people live in the part belonging to Argentina. The Argentine part is called Tierra del Fuego Province, the Chilean part has the name Magallanes and Antártica Region. The biggest cities on the main island are Rio Grande with 57,000 people and Ushuaia in the Argentine part, and Porvenir with 5700 inhabitants and Puerto Williams with 2300 people in the Chile part.

Atlantic islands
Pacific islands
Islands of South America
Islands of Chile
Geography of Argentina
Archipelagos
Mons Meg is a mediaeval bombard made in 1449. It is now at Edinburgh Castle, Scotland. In contrast to modern shells, which are explosive, these older cannons fired solid balls. Mons Meg fired balls of iron.

It seems, from the accounts of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, that it was made to his order around 1449 and sent as a gift eight years later to King James II of Scotland, with other artillery supplies. Mons Meg weighs , is  in length, and has a calibre of . The final cost of the gun was £1,536. 2s.

History
History

Manufacture 
The bombard was made from long bars of iron, hooped with rings and fused into one mass. The Duke's artillery maker constructed it, and it was tested at Mons, Wallonia, in June 1449. The Duke did not take delivery until 1453. The Duke decided to help the Scots against the English, and sent it to James II. James imported a lot of artillery from continental Europe during his reign. He used it against his enemies in Scotland, such as the Earl of Douglas. James died as a result of an exploding cannon used in the siege of Roxburgh Castle in 1460.

Another story suggests Mons Meg was made in order to help James II in the 1452 siege of Threave Castle in Kirkcudbright, when the Clan MacLellan used it to batter the castle. This version has little support.
In action 
The  calibre cannon accepted balls that weighed about . It could only be fired 8-10 times a day due to the tremendous heat generated by the huge powder charge. In early years the gun, like the other royal cannon, was painted with red-lead to keep it from rusting. This cost 30 shillings in June 1539. 

From the 1540s Meg was retired from active service and was fired only on ceremonial occasions from Edinburgh Castle, from where shot could be found up to two miles away. When Mons was fired on 3 July 1558, workmen were paid to find and retrieve the shot from Wardie Mure, near the River Forth. The salute marked the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots to the French Dauphin.
The gun was fired in 1680 to celebrate the arrival of James, Duke of Albany and York, later King James II of England and VII of Scotland. The barrel burst. An English cannoneer had loaded the charge and many Scots believed that the damage was done on purpose, since the English had no cannon as big as this. The incident was also seen as a bad omen for the future King.

The cannon was left outside Foog's Gate at Edinburgh Castle. It was next taken, with other disused ordnance, to the Tower of London in 1754, but was returned to the Castle in 1829, after a campaign by the author Sir Walter Scott. It was restored, and now sits outside St. Margaret's Chapel.

References 

Artillery
Edinburgh
Castelnaudary () is a commune in the Aude department in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France.

A campus of the École nationale de l'aviation civile (French civil aviation university) is located at Castelnaudary.

Communes in Aude
Schwerer Gustav (English: Heavy Gustaf, or Great Gustaf) and Dora were the names of two huge World War II German 80 cm K (E) railway siege guns. 

The two guns were developed in the late 1930s by Krupp, the famous German arms manufacturer. Their purpose was to destroy heavy fortifications, especially in the French Maginot Line. The guns weighed nearly 1,350 tonnes, and could fire shells weighing seven tonnes to a range of .
Although they were intended for World War II, they were not ready for action when the Wehrmacht outflanked the Maginot line by sweeping through the low country (Belgium) to start the Battle of France. However, they were ready in Autumn 1941, after the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa). Gustav was used at the siege of Sevastopol in the summer of 1942. By the end of the siege on 4 July the city of Sevastopol lay in ruins, and 30,000 tons of artillery ammunition had been fired. Gustav had fired 48 rounds and worn out its original barrel, which had already fired around 250 rounds during testing and development. The gun was fitted with the spare barrel and the original was sent back to Krupp's factory in Essen for relining.

Both Gustav and Dora were moved to Leningrad, and may have been intended for Warsaw. Gustav was eventually captured by US troops and cut up, whilst Dora was destroyed near the end of the war to avoid capture by the Red Army.
The Schwerer Gustav was the largest calibre rifled weapon in the history of artillery to see actual combat. It fired the heaviest shells of any artillery piece. A few other huge guns were never fired in anger: the French Monster Mortar (36 French inches; 975mm), the  British Mallet's Mortar (36 inch; 914 mm) and the American Little David mortar (36 inch; 910 mm).

Notes 

Artillery
Nazi Germany
World War II
The Dominion of Newfoundland was a British Dominion from 1907 to 1949. It was in northeastern North America along the Atlantic coast. It was made up of the island of Newfoundland and Labrador on the mainland. 

The territory was a British colony until 1907, when it was made a dominion. The Statute of Westminster of 11 December 1931 said that the Dominion of Newfoundland was independent within the British Commonwealth, along with Canada, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. But on 16 February 1934 the Newfoundland parliament gave up its self-government, and governance of the dominion went back to being controlled from London. Though governed from overseas, Newfoundland stayed legally a dominion, until it joined Canada in 1949 to become Canada's tenth province.

References
References

Historical territories of Canada
Former countries in North America
1907 establishments in North America
1949 disestablishments
1900s establishments in the United Kingdom
1940s disestablishments in the United Kingdom
20th-century disestablishments in North America
The  was a field gun of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA).  It was used during World War II.  

This artillery piece was planned to replace the Type 38 75 mm field gun and the Type 41 75 mm cavalry gun in front line combat.  However, Type 38s continued to be used.

History
Before World War I, the Imperial Japanese Army mainly had Krupp cannons from Germany. After the Versailles Treaty, the Japanese considered other options including field guns designed by Schneider et Cie from France. 

In 1931, IJA began to use the "Type 90" which was based on Schneider designs; however, the Type 90 was not considered successful.

The Type 95s were simpler and more sturdy than the Type 90s.

Combat record
Type 95s were used in the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Related pages 
 Artillery of Japan
 List of field guns

Notes

Other websites

 Type 95 on Taki's Imperial Japanese Army page
 US Technical Manual E 30-480

Japanese weapons
Artillery
Douglas can refer to:
a given name of a person
a family name of a person
a name of a Scottish clan
a Scottish title, the Lord, Earl, Marquess or Duke

Places
Douglas, Isle of Man
Hamitic theory is a theory that claims that so called  hamitic race is superior to the negroid races on the African continent. John Hanning Speke started the theory. Karl Richard Lepsius and Carl Meinhof extended the theory: they used languages to classify people into hamitic or non-hamitic; this is no longer done today.
Another way they classified people into hamitic or non-hamitic is by ethnic roots. Negroid people are perceived as Shemetic as opposed to the Hamitic Ethiopian, Sudanese, and some other West African ethnic groups as attested by the genealogy of ancient ethnic lineages.  For example, a person who has ancestry from Rome would be considered closer to a Hamite than a person whose ancestry is in Africa. Ironically, the Hamites include some of the darkest sub-Saharan African groups like the Nilotes that were considered closest to Europeans as opposed to the Chadic sub saharan Africans who share a common RB1 lineage. 
This theory also included giving classes to those members of the negroid races of Africa upon colonization. This, in part, contributed to the Rwandan Genocide, which pinned the members of the Tutsi ethnicity or tribe against the members of the Hutu people, although the tension between them was over small differences.

Race
History of Africa
Muret (Occitan gascon: Murèth) is a commune in the Haute-Garonne department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the Occitanie region of southwestern France.

Geography
Muret is at about  to the south of Toulouse and has an area of , and its average altitude is ; at the city hall, the altitude is .

The communes that are around Muret are Seysses, Roques, Saubens, Villate, Eaunes , Le Fauga, Beaumont-sur-Lèze, Saint-Hilaire, Lherm, Lamasquère, Saint-Clar-de-Rivière and Labastidette.

Muret is on the Garonne river at its confluence with the Louge, which flows northeast through the commune. The Garonne flows north through the commune and forms part of its northern border.

Muret has an oceanic climate with relatively hot summers, mild winters and abundant rainfall, Cfb in the Köppen climate classification.

Population
The inhabitants of Muret are known, in French, as Murétains (women: Murétaines).

The commune of Muret has a population, in 2014, of 24,975; its population density is of  inhabitants/km2.
Evolution of the population in Muret

Administration 
Muret is a subprefecture of the Haute-Garonne department, the capital of the arrondissement of Muret and the administrative centre () of the canton of Muret.

It is part of the intercommunality Le Muretain ().

Sister city 
Muret is twinned with:
  Monzón, Spain

Education
A campus of the École nationale de l'aviation civile (French civil aviation university) is in Muret.

Gallery

Related pages
 Arrondissement of Muret
 Communes of the Haute-Garonne department

References

Other websites

 City Council website 

Subprefectures in France
Communes in Haute-Garonne
Biscarosse is a commune of 12,487 people (2007). It is in the region Aquitaine in the Landes department in the southwest of France.

Education 
A campus of the École nationale de l'aviation civile (French civil aviation university) is located at Biscarosse.

Communes in Landes
Saint-Yan is a commune in eastern France. It lies in the region of Burgundy. Today, about 1.141 people live in the city.

Education 
A campus of the École nationale de l'aviation civile (French civil aviation university) is located at Saint-Yan.

Transports 
 Saint-Yan Airport

Communes in Saône-et-Loire
Vices & Virtues is the third full-length studio album from Panic! at the Disco. It was released on March 18, 2011 under Fueled By Ramen and Decaydance Records. The album was produced and mixed by music engineers Butch Walker and John Feldmann. The album peaked at number seven on the Billboard 200 albums chart and number five on the Billboard Digital Albums chart. The lead single off the album, "The Ballad of Mona Lisa", was released on February 1, 2011. The single peaked at number 84 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The second single off the album, titled "Ready to Go (Get Me Out of My Mind)", was released on June 6, 2011. It peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart.
The album has a different sound than their previous two studio album releases A Fever You Can't Sweat Out (2005) and Pretty. Odd. (2008). That is because two group members had left, and because of the amount of time between the releases of Vices and Pretty. Odd. The album has elements from the band's debut album. It has heavy use of synthesizers and guitars. The track "Mona Lisa" returns to the idea of the band's first single "I Write Sins, Not Tragedies", which had heavier guitar and rock influences.

The song "Let's Kill Tonight" was released in the United Kingdom for the band's 2012 Spring Vices & Virtues Tour. A music video was uploaded on February 10, 2012 on the Fueled By Ramen official YouTube channel with a minute and ten seconds of the band performing the song live in London.
Release
Vices & Virtues was released March 22, 2011 in the United States, Brazil, and Canada. It was released on other dates in other countries. The record debuted at number seven on the US Billboard 200 albums chart, with first-week sales of 56,000 copies in the United States. This is very different from the group's previous effort, Pretty. Odd., which debuted without much commercial attention in 2008, with first-week sales of 139,000. The album also came in at #2 on Neilson SoundScan Alternative Albums chart and #5 on the Digital Albums ranking.

Track listing

 "The Ballad of Mona Lisa"
 "Let's Kill Tonight"
 "Hurricane"
 "Memories"
 "Trade Mistakes"
 "Ready to Go (Get Me Out of My Mind)"
 "Always"
 "The Calendar"
 "Sarah Smiles"
 "Nearly Witches (Ever Since We Met...)"
 "New Perspective" (bonus track from the soundtrack of the 2009 horror film Jennifer's Body)

Bonus tracks
Bonus tracks

 "Oh Glory" (demo version)
 "Stall Me"
 "I Wanna Be Free"
 "Bittersweet"
 "Turn Off The Lights"
 "Kaleidoscope Eyes"
 "The Ballad of Mona Lisa" (radio edit)

References

2011 albums
Panic! at the Disco albums
The , also known as a "10-cm" gun, was a cannon used by the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). It was used during for long-range fire.

This artillery piece was the first medium caliber cannon which was Japanese designed.  It the first with a split trail carriage. It was used Imperial Japanese Army but was not considered successful. It was replaced by the Type 92 105 mm cannon.

History
Before World War I, the Imperial Japanese Army mainly had Krupp cannons from Germany. After the Versailles Treaty, the Japanese considered other options including cannon designed by Schneider et Cie from France.

In 1925, IJA began to use the "Type 14" which was based on Schneider designs; however, the Type 14 was not considered successful.

Combat record
Type 14s were used for training units in the Japanese home islands.

Related pages 
 Artillery of Japan
 List of field guns

References

Other websites

 Type 14 on Taki's Imperial Japanese Army page
 US Technical Manual E 30-480

Japanese weapons
Artillery
The Ballad of Mona Lisa (shortened as Mona Lisa) is the lead single off the Panic! at the Disco album Vices & Virtues released on February 1, 2011 under Fueled By Ramen. The single was produced by Butch Walker and John Feldmann and written by band members frontman Brendon Urie and drummer Spencer Smith. The song peaked at number 84 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 single's chart. The song has received positive critical reviews upon its release.

Track listing

Charts

References

2011 songs
Panic! at the Disco songs
"Ready to Go (Get Me Out of My Mind)" (also known as "Ready to Go") the second single off the album Vices & Virtues by American pop rock band Panic! at the Disco. The single is the follow up to the band's previously released single "The Ballad of Mona Lisa". The single was produced by Butch Walker, who produced the majority of the band's Vices & Virtues album, and written by frontman Brendon Urie and percussionist Spencer Smith along with co-producer John Feldmann. The single is a branch out statement relative to the group's other well-known songs as this song contains less rock elements and is lacking the group's sound from their previous two albums A Fever You Can't Sweat Out and Pretty. Odd. The single peaked at number fourteen on the U.S. Billboard Alternative Songs chart in July of 2011. 

The song was chosen as the opening act for the band's headlining Vices & Virtues U.S. Tour in 2011 duo to its rev-up sound and pop elements.
Music video
The single's music video premiered on YouTube and VEVO on May 2, 2011 on the official Fueled By Ramen YouTube channel. As of February 1, 2012 the video itself, on YouTube, has a round-up tally of 6,000,000 views.

Track list
 "Ready to Go (Get Me Out of My Mind)" - 3:37 (Album version)
 "Ready to Go (Get Me Out of My Mind)" - 3:20 (live tour performance)

2011 songs
Panic! at the Disco songs
The Producers is a 1967 American satirical dark comedy cult classic movie written and directed by Mel Brooks. The movie tells the story of a theatrical producer and an accountant who want to produce a Broadway musical, but they want it to fail. They take more money from investors than they need and plan to abscond to Brazil as soon as the play closes, only to see the show turn out to be a hit.

The Producers was the first movie directed by Mel Brooks. He won an Academy Award for his screenplay. Decades later, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry and placed 11th on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs list. The movie was later remade by Brooks as a successful Broadway stage musical. The musical itself was adapted as a movie in 2005.

Cast
Zero Mostel as Max Bialystock, the producer and the deuteragonist
Gene Wilder as Leo Bloom, the accountant and the main protagonist
Dick Shawn as L.S.D.
Kenneth Mars as former Nazi soldier and playwright, Franz Liebkind

Other websites