Aarushhh/wikipedia-simple-splitted huggingface dataset:
Van () is a province in eastern Turkey, between Lake Van and the Iranian border. It is 19,069 km2 in area and has a population of 1,035,418 at the end of 2010. Kurds form the majority.

History 
In the 9th century BC, the Van area was the center of the Urartian kingdom. For centuries after that, the area was a major Armenian population center. After World War I Armenian population was forced to leave and was cleansed during the Armenian Genocide.

Related pages
 Van Resistance

Sources

Other websites 

 Pictures of the capital of this province

Provinces of Turkey
Kurdistan
Eastern Anatolia Region
Urartian is the name for the language spoken by the people of the ancient kingdom of Urartu in northeast Anatolia (present-day Turkey), in the region of Lake Van.

Urartian was a language isolate, which was neither Semitic nor Indo-European, but a member of the Hurro-Urartian family.

There is a hypothesis that suggests that besides the cuneiform inscriptions of the Urartian language, Urartu had a native hieroglyphic writing system. Armenian scientist Artak Movsisyan published a partial attempt deciphering of Urartian hieroglyphs, saying that they were written in an early form of Armenian.

Related pages
Urartu
More reading 
C. B. F. Walker: section Cuneiform in Reading the Past. Published by British Museum Press, 1996, .
J. Friedrich: Urartäisch, in Handbuch der Orientalistik I, ii, 1-2, pp. 31–53. Leiden, 1969.
Gernot Wilhelm: Urartian, in R. Woodard (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages. Cambridge, 2004.
Mirjo Salvini: Geschichte und Kultur der Urartäer. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1995.

Other websites 
Urartian hieroglyphs hypothesis

Urartu
Yamaha is a Japanese multinational company that makes different products, including musical instruments such as keyboards.

Yamaha was founded in 1887 by Torakusu Yamaha. Yamaha started when the founder Torasku Yamaha when he successfully completed the first reed organ It was named Nippon Gakki Company, Limited and produced pianos and reed organs at that time. In October 1987, on the 100th anniversary, its name was changed to The Yamaha Corporation. Yamaha produces several musical instruments including keyboards, flutes, guitars and things in a band. Yamaha also produces motorbikes, as well as the voice synthesizer Vocaloid. Yamaha is a big corporation and was founded 125 years ago.

In 1989, Yamaha shipped the world's first CD recorder.

References 

1887 establishments
Manufacturing companies of Japan
Musical instrument companies
1880s establishments in Japan
Conglomerate companies
Companies based in Tokyo
Grease is a 1978 American romantic comedy musical movie directed by Randal Kleiser and produced by Robert Stigwood. The movie tells the story of high-schoolers Rizzo (Stockard Channing), Kenickie (Jeff Conaway), Danny (John Travolta), Frenchy (Didi Conn) and Sandy (Olivia Newton-John).

Release dates

Plot 
Danny Zuko (John Travolta) and Sandy Olsson (Olivia Newton-John) meet in Los Angeles, California in summer 1959, and they fall in love. When Sandy has to leave to go back to Australia, they believe it is the end of their romance. However, Sandy gets transferred to his school and they meet again. When Danny sees Sandy again, he acts as if he does not care about her. He does this to keep up his reputation, but Sandy does not know this and wishes she has never met him. She and Danny date on and off, but Sandy becomes frustrated with him because of the way he treats her. At the end of the movie, Sandy transforms herself into the kind of woman Danny could truly love forever, and they get back together.
Other websites 

1978 comedy movies
1970s musical movies
1978 romance movies
1970s teen movies
American high school movies
American musical comedy movies
American romantic comedy movies
American teen comedy movies
American teen romance movies
English-language movies
Movies set in Los Angeles
Movies set in the 1950s
United States National Film Registry movies
Movies directed by Randal Kleiser
Eastern Time Zone (ET) is the time zone for the eastern part of the Americas including the United States, Canada and parts of South America and the Caribbean. ET is five hours behind UTC in winter, which is called Eastern Standard Time (EST). It is four hours behind UTC during summer Daylight saving time, when it is called Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).

The largest city in the Eastern Time Zone is New York City, which is the largest city in the United States. The New York metropolitan area is the largest in the zone.

Usage

North America

Canada
In Canada, the following provinces and territories are part of the Eastern Time Zone:
 Ontario (except areas west of Thunder Bay but including Atikokan)
 Quebec (except far eastern Côte-Nord and the Magdalen Is.)
 East-central Nunavut (including part of Melville Pen. and most of Ellesmere and Baffin Is., including Iqaluit; Southampton Island does not observe Daylight saving time)
United States
In the United States, the following states are part of the Eastern Time Zone:

Parts of several other states use Eastern Time as well:
 nearly all of Florida except for the west border with Alabama 
 most of Indiana (all except the Evansville area and the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois)
 eastern half of Kentucky
 all of Michigan except the four counties that border Wisconsin (Gogebic, Iron, Dickinson, Menominee).
 the eastern third of Tennessee
 some towns in eastern Alabama, including Phenix City, Smiths Station, Lanett, and Valley, observe Eastern Time, although they are officially in the Central Time Zone. The main reason for this is because they are close to Columbus, Georgia, which is in the Eastern Time Zone.

Other countries
The following countries that use Eastern Time Zone include:
Mexico - the eastern state of Quintana Roo also followed EST for a brief period in the 1990s
 Panama
 Jamaica
 Haiti
The Dominican Republic
 Cuba
 the Bahamas
 Not all Caribbean countries observe Daylight saving time.

South America
In South America this time zone is observed in: 
 Ecuador (except Galápagos)
 Peru
 Parts of Brazil:
 the state of Acre
 Amazonas - the southwestern region of the state.

Major Metropolitan areas

References

Time zones in the United States
Time in Canada
The Armenian Legion () or Armenische Legion was the name given to the 812th Armenian Battalion which was a foreign unit comprised of several thousand men.

Leaders Kanayan and Garegin Njdeh counted the support of over 18,000 Armenians.

In addition to this exclusively Armenian unit, Nazi Armenians also served in the thirty eight other SS divisions, including the elite Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler.

Related pages
French Armenian Legion

Military of Armenia
Nazi Germany
20th century in Armenia
1944
Garegin Njdeh (, real name: Garegin Ter-Harutiunian, 1 January 1886 - late 1955) was an Armenian statesman, military, and political thinker. He was a native of Nakhchivan.

Death 
Njdeh fled Armenia after the triumph of Bolsheviks, and was involved in patriotic activities in Iran, Bulgaria and the United States. A controversial person, he was expelled from Dashnak party. Njdeh was very much against communism. He worked with Nazi Germans during the World War II. He was arrested in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1944 and sent to Moscow, then to Yerevan. He spent the rest of his life in prison in the Russian city of Vladimir, where he dide in 1955.

Armenian politicians
1886 births
1955 deaths
The Wehrmacht was the name of the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. The Wehrmacht consisted of the Heer (army), the Kriegsmarine (navy) and the Luftwaffe (air force).

The Waffen-SS, an initially small armed section of Heinrich Himmler's Allgemeine SS that grew to nearly a million strong during World War II, was not part of the Wehrmacht, but subject to its Supreme Command.
Origin and use of the terms 
Before the rise of the NSDAP, the term Wehrmacht was used in a generic sense to describe armed forces of any nation, being utilized as the "home defence" version of the more general Streitmacht. For example, the term Britische Wehrmacht would identify the British armed forces. Article 47 of the Weimar Constitution of 1919 declared "Der Reichspräsident hat den Oberbefehl über die gesamte Wehrmacht des Reiches" (meaning: "The Reichspräsident holds supreme command of all armed forces of the Reich"). To make a distinction, the term Reichswehr was commonly used to identify the German armed forces.

In 1935, the Reichswehr was renamed Wehrmacht. After World War II and under the Allied occupation of Germany, the Wehrmacht was abolished.
Today the term Wehrmacht refers to Germany's armed forces during the Nazi Germany era and World War II, both in German and English. Note: The Wehrmacht was not only the army (Wehrmacht Heer). Wehrmacht vehicles used by Heer, Luftwaffe or Kriegsmarine had license plates with WH, WL or WM.

History 
World War I ended with the armistice (ceasefire) of 11 November 1918. The armed forces were called Friedensheer (peace army) in January 1919. In March 1919, the national assemby passed a law founding a 420,000 strong preliminary army as Vorläufige Reichswehr. The terms of the Treaty of Versailles were announced in May and, in June, Germany was forced to sign the contract. Among other terms, the army was limited to one hundred thousand men with fifteen thousand more in the navy. Tanks and heavy artillery were forbidden and the air force was dissolved. A new post-war military (the Reichswehr) was established on 23 March 1921.
Germany immediately found ways not to keep to these conditions. A secret collaboration with the Soviet Union began after the treaty of Rapallo. Germany helped the Soviet Union with industrialisation and Soviet officers were to be trained in Germany. German tank and air force specialists could exercise in the Soviet Union. German chemical weapons research and manufacture would be done there, plus other projects. Around three hundred German pilots received training at Lipetsk, some tank training took place near Kazan and toxic gas was developed at Saratov for the German army.

After the death of President Paul von Hindenburg on 2 August 1934, Hitler assumed the office of Reichspräsident, and thus became commander in chief. All officers and soldiers of the German armed forces had to swear a personal oath of loyalty to the Führer, as  Adolf Hitler now was called. By 1935, Germany was openly breaking the military restrictions of the Versailles Treaty, and conscription was reintroduced on 16 March 1935.
The size of the standing army remained at about the 100,000-man mark decreed by the treaty, but a new group of conscripts equal to this size would receive training each year. The conscription law formalized the name Wehrmacht.  The existence of the Wehrmacht was officially announced on 15 October 1935 under Nazi authority. The insignia was a simpler version of the Iron Cross (the straight-armed so-called Balkenkreuz or beamed cross). This had been used as an aircraft and tank marking late in World War I.

War years
War years

Army 
The German Army (Wehrmacht) entered the war with a minority of its formations motorized; infantry remained approximately 90% foot-borne throughout the war, and artillery primarily horse-drawn. The motorized formations received much attention in the world press in the opening years of the war, and were cited as the reason for the success of the German invasions of Poland (September 1939), Norway (April 1940), Denmark, Belgium, France and Netherlands (May 1940), Yugoslavia (April 1941) and the early campaigns in the Soviet Union (June 1941).

With the entry of the United States in December 1941, the Wehrmacht found itself engaged in ground campaigns against two major industrial powers. At this critical juncture, Hitler assumed personal control of the Wehrmacht high command, and his personal failings as a military commander arguably contributed to major defeats in the spring of 1943, at Stalingrad and Tunis in North Africa.
Air Force 
The German Air Force (Luftwaffe), led by Hermann Göring, contributed many units of ground forces to the war in Russia as well as the Normandy front. In 1940, the Fallschirmjäger paratroops conquered the Belgian Fort Eben-Emael and took part in the airborne invasion of Norway, but after suffering heavy losses in the Battle of Crete, large scale airdrops were discontinued. Operating as ordinary infantry, the 1st Fallschirmjäger Division took part in the Battle of Monte Cassino.
Navy 
The German Navy (Kriegsmarine) played a major role in the Second World War as control over the commerce routes in the Atlantic was crucial for Germany, Britain and later the Soviet Union. In the Battle of the Atlantic, the initially successful German U-boat fleet arm was eventually defeated due to Allied technological advances like sonar, radar, and the breaking of the Enigma code. Large surface vessels were few in number due to construction limitations by international treaties prior to 1935. The "pocket battleships" Admiral Graf Spee and Admiral Scheer were important as commerce raiders only in the opening year of the war. No aircraft carrier was operational as German leadership lost interest in the Graf Zeppelin which had been launched in 1938. Following the loss of Bismarck in 1941, with Allied air superiority threatening the remaining battlecruisers in French Atlantic harbours, the ships were ordered to go back to German ports.
Waffen-SS 
Although the Waffen-SS was not technically a part of the Wehrmacht, they were under the control of the Wehrmacht High Command during World War 2. They were considered as elite troops, and suffered heavy losses (more than the normal army).

War crimes
Related pages
 Afrika Korps
 Waffen-SS
 World War II

References 

 Max Hastings, Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy 1944, 1985, reissued 1999, Pan, 
 Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1945, 2004, Macmillan, 
 Anthony A Evans, World War II: An Illustrated Miscellany, 2005, Worth Press, 
 Geoffrey P. Megargee, "War of Annihilation. Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941", 2006, Rowman & Littelefield, 
 W.J.K. Davies, German Army Handbook, 1973, Ian Allen Ltd., Shepperton, Surrey, 
 Fest, Joachim; Plotting Hitler's Death—The Story of the German Resistance, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1996.

Other websites 

 Extensive history and information about German armed forces from 1919 to 1945
 Archives of the German military manuals including secret manuals of Enigma and Cryptography
 The Wehrmacht, the Holocaust, and War Crimes 
 The Wehrmacht: A Criminal Organization? A review of Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann work on the subject

Nazi Germany
German military organizations
General Drastamat Kanayan (May 31, 1884 – March 8, 1956) was an Armenian  politician, revolutionary, and general. He was the commander of the Armenian Legion of the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of Nazi Germany and part of Armenian national liberation movement.

Drastamat Kanayan was born in Iğdır, Surmalu, Russian Empire (present-day Turkey) in 1884.

Armenian politicians
1884 births
1956 deaths
Armenian Genocide
Armenian military people
Assassins
Disease-related deaths in Massachusetts
German people of World War II
Terrorists
John Anthony Gillis (born July 9, 1975), known as Jack White,
is an American singer, guitarist, composer and actor. He is best known as one half of The White Stripes with his ex-wife Meg White.

Because of his successful career with The White Stripes, he has gotten the chance to work many other famous musicians, including Bob Dylan and Loretta Lynn. He has performed many different genres of music, including blues music, folk music, alternative rock, garage rock, and indie music, among other music, in his songs. 

He married model Karen Elson in 2005. They currently have two children, Scarlett Teresa White and Henry Lee White. As of today, they live in Nashville, Tennessee.

Other websites 

1975 births
Living people
American guitarists
American songwriters
American composers
American movie actors
Actors from Detroit
Singers from Detroit
Meg White (born December 10, 1974) is an American former musician and singer. She is known as the drummer for The White Stripes.

Meg's simple style of drumming has caused a lot of debate. Meg called it "my strength. A lot of drummers would feel weird about being that simplistic."

1974 births
Living people
Singers from Michigan
American drummers
Musicians from Michigan
American rock musicians
American blues musicians
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water and is a part of the Mediterranean Sea. The Italian Peninsula from the Balkan Peninsula was separated by the sea. Countries that have a coastline in the Adriatic Sea are Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania.

The average width of the sea is about 160 km. The Strait of Otranto joins the Adriatic Sea and the Ionian Sea and is only 85 to 100 km wide. The sea is very shallow. Its average depth is 240 m (133 fathoms). The sea is deepest east of Monte Gargano and south of Dubrovnik where it dips below 1,460 m (800 fathoms).

Other websites

Mediterranean Sea
Mainland Australia has three official time zones. The full names of the time zones are usually shortened by dropping the Australian.  Most Australian external territories are in different time zones.  Many parts of Australia have daylight saving time.

History
The three official standard time zones were set up in February 1895.

Originally South Australia was nine hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) but in May 1899 they added another thirty minutes to that.  Some people have disliked having this non-whole number of hours difference.  In 1986 and 1994 they tried to take the thirty minutes away again or add another thirty minutes but they failed.

When the Australian Capital Territory separated from New South Wales they kept using Eastern Standard Time.  When the Northern Territory separated from South Australia they kept using Central Standard Time.
Changes
There have been some other changes.
Broken Hill in far-western New South Wales uses Central Standard Time.
Lord Howe Island sets its clocks 10:30 ahead of GMT. 
Some towns on the Eyre Highway in the south-east corner of Western Australia, between  the South Australian border almost as far as Caiguna, use Central Western Standard Time.  This is an unofficial time zone 45 minutes ahead of the official Western Australian time.
The Indian Pacific train has its own time zone when travelling between Kalgoorlie and Port Augusta.  They call it "train time".

Outside territories

Australia's many outside territories follow their own time zones.  None follow daylight saving time.
Daylight saving time
South Australia, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and Tasmania use daylight saving time every year.  In these regions daylight saving time begins on the first Sunday in October at 2:00 am local standard time, and ends on the first Sunday in April at 3:00 am local daylight saving time.  The starting and finishing times are sometimes changed when there are special events, such as the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, in Australia.

The Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia do not have daylight saving time.  People living in the northern parts of Australia tend not to be in favour of daylight saving.

References 
 The Australian National Time System National Standards Commission Leaflet No. 8, January 2003. Linked via Wayback machine
  NSW Legislative Council Hansard, 2 March 2005 
 Daylight Saving Petitions 
 Daylight Saving Time History of daylight saving time implementation dates at the Bureau of Meteorology website.
Other websites
Time Zones in Australia 

Time zones
Australia
Human sacrifice is the act of killing a human being as an offering to a deity or other, normally supernatural power.

It was practiced in many ancient cultures. The practice was different in different cultures.
Some like the Mayans and Aztecs were notorious for their ritual killings, while other cultures have condemned the practice as barbaric.

Victims were ritually killed in a manner that was supposed to please or appease gods or spirits. Victims ranged from slaves or prisoners to aristocrats, and from infants to the elderly. In Ancient Rome, Vestal Virgins who broke their vow of chastity, were ritually killed with their stomach's cut open, with a sharp stone or knife and their hearts were burned. But most often, they were buried alive.
Over time human sacrifice has become less common around the world, and sacrifices are now very rare. Most religions condemn the practice and present-day laws generally treat it as murder. Nonetheless, it is still occasionally seen today, especially in the least developed areas of the world where traditional beliefs persist.

Methods
Human sacrifice has been done through numerous methods including the following:
 Burning
 Decapitation
 Drowning
 Live burial
 Immurement
 Dismemberment

Phoenicia
The ancient Middle Eastern kingdom of Phoenicia practiced sacrifice of children to their god Moloch. It was believed to be evil by the Jewish authors of the Bible.
Aztec
The Aztecs were particularly noted for practicing human sacrifice on a large scale; an offering to Huitzilopochtli would be made to restore the blood he lost, as the sun was engaged in a daily battle. Human sacrifices would prevent the end of the world that could happen on each cycle of 52 years. In the 1487 re-consecration of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan many prisoners were sacrificed.

Tlaloc
Tlaloc would require weeping boys in the first months of the Aztec calendar to be ritually murdered.

Inca empire
A number of mummies of sacrificed children have been recovered in the Inca regions of South America.

References

Articles
 “Indian cult kills children for goddess: Holy men blamed for inciting dozens of deaths”, The Observer (United Kingdom newspaper) Dan McDougall in Khurja, India, Sunday March 5, 2006
 Heinsohn, Gunnar: “The Rise of Blood Sacrifice and Priest Kingship in Mesopotamia: A Cosmic Decree?” (also published in Religion, Vol. 22, 1992)
Books
 Dying for the Gods, Miranda Aldhouse Green; Trafalgar Square; 2001, 
 Cenote of Sacrifices, Clemency Coggins and Orrin C. Shane III ; 1984 The university of Texas Press; 
 Violence and the Sacred, Rene Girard, translated by P. Gregory; Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979, 
 I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, René Girard, Translated by James G. Williams; Orbis Books; 2001, 
 The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy Ronald Hutton, 1991, 
 Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece Dennis D. Hughes 1991 Routledge 
 City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization, David Carrasco, Moughton Mifflin, 2000,

Related pages
 Cannibalism
 Crucifixion of Jesus
 Sacrifice

References

Other websites

 TIME Asia Magazine: Killing for “Mother” Kali 
 Indian temple revives “human sacrifice”
 Witch Burning and Human Sacrifice in India, PDF
 “Priest makes human sacrifice”
 Human sacrifice of children 

Superstitions
Religion
Murders
Tomomi Kahala, sometimes spelled Kahara ( Kahara Tomomi born August 17, 1974 in Tokyo) is a Japanese female singer. Her nickname is "Tomochan", and special skill is Horse riding. Her most famous song is "I'm Proud", "I Believe".

Albums

Awards

Other websites 
 Tomomi Kahara - Universal Music official site 
 Kahala Tomomi Website - Warner Music official site 

1974 births
Living people
Singers from Tokyo
The observer effect, or observer bias, means several things in different situations, although there are similarities.

Use in science
In science, the term observer effect means that the act of observing will influence the phenomenon being observed.

For example, for us to "see" an electron, a photon must first interact with it, and this interaction will change the path of that electron. It is also theoretically possible for other, less direct means of measurement to affect the electron; even if the electron is simply put into a position where observing it is possible, without actual observation taking place, it will still (theoretically) alter its position.
Some state a misunderstanding of the term refers to quantum mechanics, where, if the outcome of an event has not been observed, it exists in a state of 'superposition', which is something like being in all possible states at once. In the famous thought experiment known as Schrödinger's cat, the cat is empirically neither alive nor dead until observed – until that time, the cat is theoretically both alive and dead (technically half-alive and half-dead in probability terms). However, most quantum physicists, in resolving Schrödinger's seeming paradox, now understand that the acts of 'observation' and 'measurement' must also be defined in quantum terms before the question makes sense. From this point of view, there is no 'observer effect', only one vastly entangled quantum system
. A significant minority still find the equations point to an observer; John Archibald Wheeler, who probably worked more deeply on this subject than any physicist thus far, devised a graphic in which the universe was represented by a "U" with an eye on one end, turned around and viewing itself, to describe his understanding.
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is also frequently, confused with the "observer effect". The uncertainty principle actually describes how precisely we may measure the position and momentum of a particle at the same time – if we increase the precision in measuring one quantity, we are forced to lose precision in measuring the other. Thus, the uncertainty principle deals with measurement, and not observation. The idea that the Uncertainty Principle is caused by disturbance (and hence by observation) is not considered to be valid by some, although it was discussed in the early years of quantum mechanics, and is often repeated in popular treatments.
Use in Information technology 
In information technology, the observer effect refers to potential impact of the act of observing a process output while the process is running.  For example, if a process records its progress in a log file, the act of viewing the file while the process is running could cause an I/O error in the process, which could, in turn, cause it to stop.

Another example would be observing the performance of a CPU by running both the observed and observing programs on the same CPU.  This will lead to inaccurate results because the observer program itself affects the CPU performance (modern, heavily cached and pipelined CPUs are particularly affected by this kind of observation).
Observing (or rather, debugging) a running program by modifying its source code (such as adding extra output or generating log files) or by running it in a debugger may sometimes cause certain bugs to diminish or change their behavior.  This makes more difficulty for the person trying to isolate the so-called "Heisenbug".

Use in the social sciences
In the social sciences and general usage, the effect refers to how people change their behavior when aware of being watched (see Hawthorne effect). For instance, in the armed forces, an announced inspection is used to see how well soldiers can do when they put their minds to it, while a surprise inspection is used to see how well prepared they generally are.
Observer bias
The related social-science term observer bias is error introduced into measurement when observers overemphasize behavior they expect to find and fail to notice behavior they do not expect.  This is why medical trials are normally organized as double-blind tests.  Observer bias can also be introduced because researchers see a subject doing something, and interpret it according to what it means to them, whereas it may mean something else to the subject.

References

 Observer Effect  in the social sciences (Association for Qualitative Research)
 The observer effect  (usage of the term in the computer industry)

Quantum mechanics
Canton, Michigan is a township in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 census, the township had a population of 98,659. The FBI decided that it is the 20th safest city in the United States. The average household in Canton earns $84,000 dollars.

References 

Townships in Michigan
1834 establishments in Michigan Territory
Probability theory is the part of mathematics that studies random situations. Probability theory usually studies random events, random variables, stochastic processes, and non-deterministic events (events that do not follow a simple pattern).   

Tossing a coin, winning the lottery, or rolling a die are random events. However, random events have certain patterns, which can be studied and predicted, using probability theory. 

Scientists can use probability theory to obtain information about things that would be too complex to deal with, like statistical mechanics. Also, scientists discovered (in the 20th century) that atoms, and everything that we know, obeys something called quantum mechanics, which uses lots of probability theory.

History 
The theory of probability was created by Gerolamo Cardano, a medical doctor and gambler who tried to calculate his luck. Years later, Pierre de Fermat and Blaise Pascal helped develop Cardano's theory.
Today, probability theory is used in statistics, which is useful to all kinds of areas: like medicine, economy, Science, Mathematics...

Related pages 
 Fuzzy logic
 Variance
 Law of large numbers
 Central limit theorem 
 Statistics

Bibliography 

 
 The first major treatise blending calculus with probability theory, originally in French: Théorie Analytique des Probabilités.

 
 The modern measure-theoretic foundation of probability theory; the original German version (Grundbegriffe der Wahrscheinlichkeitrechnung) appeared in 1933.

 

 
 A lively introduction to probability theory for the beginner.

References
"The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published on January 29, 1845. It tells the story of a mysterious talking raven who visits a lover; it shows how the lover is slowly going insane. It is often called Poe's most famous poem, its publication made him famous in his day, and today it is still one of the most recognized and respected poems in American literature.

Other websites 

19th-century American poems
Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
1840s poems
The Maya civilization  and Mayan religion. They lived there for a long time and some of the Maya people live there even today.

The Mayans lived there 4,000 years ago (about 2000 BC). At that date  complex societies were living in the Mayan region. The staple foods of the Maya diet were cultivated. Their food included maize, beans, squashes, and chili peppers. The first Maya cities developed around 750 BC.

The Mayan people used a written language and a numeral system. They were good at art, building, and their priests studied stars and planets, which helped them make calendars.
The Mayan civilisation was biggest between the years of 420 AD and 900 AD. The Mayan civilisation spread all the way from central Mexico to Honduras, Guatemala, and northern El Salvador. It is estimated that at its maximum, the civilization had at least ten million people. The Maya people traded with other people in the Americas. Their art and buildings have many different styles. This shows they traded a lot. They made changes to their buildings to make them even better. The Maya civilization started getting smaller after 900 AD.

The Conquistadors arrived in the 15th century and took over Mexico and later Central America, even in the Mayann areas. However, the Maya people still live there today. They live in the same areas the Mayan civilization used to live in. They keep the old Mayan traditions and beliefs.
There are many Mayan languages still spoken today, including one called the Achi language. A play called Rabinal Achi is considered important.
Location 
The people of the Maya civilization lived in three different areas: the southern Maya highlands, the central lowlands, and the northern lowlands. They had many different types of land, including mountains and dry plains. People living in the low plains by the sea were affected by hurricanes and tropical storms from the Caribbean.

The area covered what we now call the southern Mexican states of Chiapas and Tabasco, and the Yucatán Peninsula states of Quintana Roo, Campeche and Yucatán. They also included where we now call Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and western Honduras.

History
History

The pre-classical period 
The first Maya settlements started about 1800 BC. They lived in the Soconusco region, now the state of Chiapas in Mexico, on the Pacific Ocean. This is called the "early pre-classic period" in Mayan history'. People in Central America had been nomads who went from place to place to find food and shelter. Around this time they began to settle down.They started to farm animals and make pottery and small clay figures. They buried their dead in simple burial mounds. Later they started to make these mounds into step pyramids.

There were other people around at the time, especially in the north. The Olmec, the Mixe-Zoque, and Zapotec civilizations mostly lived in the area we now call Oaxaca. We don't know exactly where the borders of the Maya civilization were. Many of the most important early examples of writing and buildings appeared in north, so these cultures probably affected the Maya civilization.

The classical period
From about 250 to 909, the Maya civilization built many monuments and cities, and made many important carvings. The "southern lowlands" were an important place at the time. The Maya civilization made many discoveries about art and thinking there.

Like Ancient Greece, their civilization was made up of numerous cities, which all worked in different ways. People gathered around these cities to farm. Well-known cities were Tikal, Palenque, Copán and Calakmul.  Lesser-known cities were Dos Pilas, Uaxactun, Altun Ha, and Bonampak, among others.  In general, we know more about where the cities were in the south than we do in the north. Some northern cities we do know about were Oxkintok, Chunchucmil, and Uxmal.
Their most famous monuments are the pyramids they built as part of their religious centers, and the palaces. The palace at Cancuén is the largest we know about in the Maya area. The Maya also made carved stone slabs which they called tetun, or "tree-stones". These slabs show rulers along with hieroglyphic writing describing their family, military victories, and other things that they did well.

Trade with other civilizations 
The Maya had trade routes that ran over long distances.  They traded with many other Mesoamerican cultures, such as Teotihuacan, the Zapotec, and other groups in central and gulf-coast Mexico. They also traded with groups that were farther away.  For example, people who study the Maya civilization found gold from Panama in the Sacred well at Chichen Itza.

Some important things they traded were cacao, salt, sea shells, jade and obsidian.
Sudden collapse 
Between 900 AD and 1000 AD, the cities in the southern lowlands had more and more problems until all the people left. The Maya civilization there stopped making big monuments and carvings. People who study the Maya civilization are not sure why this happened. They have many different ideas - some people think there was a big environmental disaster, or a disease affected a lot of people, or there were just too many people for the amount of food they could grow.
Post-classical period and decline 
In the north, the Maya civilization kept going. Other cultures started mixing with Mayan culture much more. Some of the important sites in this time were Chichen Itza, Uxmal, Edzná, and Coba. At some point, the families who ruled over Chichen and Uxmal got weaker and the rulers in the city of Mayapan ruled all of the Mayan civilization in the Yucatán peninsula until there was a revolt in 1450. After the revolt, the whole area broke up into different cities who fought against each other,  until the Spanish conquest of Yucatán.
The Itza Maya, Ko'woj, and Yalain groups around what is now Guatamela were still around, but there were not very many of them. By 1520, they had built themselves back up again and started to build cities. The Itza had their capital at Tayasal (also known as Noh Petén), and people who study the Maya civlisation think what's left of this city is below the modern city of Flores, Guatemala on Lake Petén Itzá.  The Ko'woj had their capital at Zacpeten.  Some Mayan cultures were still living in the southern highlands.

The Quiché kingdom produced the most famous Mayan work, the Popol Vuh. It talks about the creation of the world, the Mayan gods and goddesses, how humans and animals were created and why the Quiché kingdom was the best one in the Maya civilization.
The Spanish started to conquer Maya lands. It took them a long time (170 years) to finish doing this because the Mayans had no capital city and each city had a different culture. The last Mayan states, the Itza city of Tayasal and the Ko'woj city of Zacpeten, still had people living in them late into the 17th century.  They were finally conquered in 1697.

There are still about 6 million Maya people living in Central America.

References 

Coggins, Clemency (ed) 1992. Artifacts from the Cenote of Sacrifice, Chichen Itza, Yucatan. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum. Harvard University Press. 
Drew, David 2004. The lost chronicles of the Maya Kings. New ed, London: Phoenix Press.

Other websites
Other websites 

 Mayan Tools, Weapons & Artifacts 
 Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya at the National Gallery of Art 
 Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies
 Maya articles by Genry Joil.
 Mesoweb by Joel Skidmore.
 Guatemala, Cradle of the Maya Civilization 
 Mayacaves.org  A mesoamerican cave archaeology community forum, field notes, and report site.  The site is run by the Vanderbilt Upper Pasion Archaeological Cave Survey and is intended to be a resource for students and researchers in Guatemala and working in caves in Mesoamerica.

Maya civilization
Looking at the history of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica one can see some rather different periods  between the first humans and the early Colonial period (which followed the Spanish colonization of the Americas) in the end.

Overview

Paleo-Indian period 

The Paleo-Indian (not so often Lithic) period or era is that which begins with the first signs of human presence in the region and leads to agriculture and other practices (e.g. pottery, permanent settlements) characteristic of proto-civilizations. In Mesoamerica, the end of this phase was at ca. 8,000 BC. It was a period of hunter-gatherers.

Archaic Era 
c. 8,000 BCE - 2,000 BCE

In this time agriculture and permanent villages developed in the region. Late in this era, people used pottery and started weaving with a .

Preclassic Era or Formative Period
c. 2,000 BCE - 200 CE
Nation-states developed and with them the first large scale ceremonial architecture and cities. That were the Olmec civilization, the early Zapotec, Monte Alto Culture in Guatemala's pacifc lowlands, and Maya civilization.

Classic Era 
c. mid  2nd century - early 10th century

Teotihuacan grows to a metropolis and its empire dominates Mesoamerica.  During this time the cities of the Maya southern lowlands, such as Tikal, Palenque, and Copán have their greatest era.

The Classic Era ended earlier in Central Mexico, with the fall of Teotihuacan around the 7th century, than it did in the Maya area, which continued for centuries more. Around this time, many southern lowland sites (most notably in Tikal) experienced a short period of limited decline, called the Middle Classic Hiatus. The later period of Maya's continued growth is sometimes known as the Florescent Era.
In the early 20th century, the term Old Empire was sometimes given to this era of Maya civilization in an analogy to Ancient Egypt; the term is now considered inaccurate and has long been out of use by serious writers on the subject.

Postclassic Era 
10th century - 16th century.

Many of the great nations and cities of the Classic Era collapsed, but some continue, such as in Oaxaca, Cholula, and the Maya of Yucatán, such as at Chichen Itza and Uxmal. This is sometimes seen as a period of increased chaos and warfare.  The Toltec for a time dominate central Mexico in the 11th - 13th century, then collapse.  The northern Maya are for a time united under Mayapan. The Aztec Empire rises in the early 15th century and seems on the path to gain a dominance over the whole region not seen since Teotihuacan, when Mesoamerica is discovered by Spain and conquered by the Conquistadores.
The late florescence of the northern Maya was sometimes called the New Empire in the early 20th century, but this term is no longer considered appropriate and is no longer used.

Arguably, the Post-Classic continued until the conquest of the last independent native state of Mesoamerica, Tayasal, in 1697.

Bibliography

Duverger, Christian (1999): Mesoamérica, arte y antropología. CONACULTA-Landucci Editores. Paris. .
Miller, Mary Ellen. (2001). El arte de mesoamérica. "Colecciones El mundo del arte". Ediciones Destino. Barcelona, España. .
 Several Authors. (1996)  "Historia General de Guatemala"  .

Other websites
Mesoweb Research Center
FAMSI, Foundation for Mesoamerican Study
European Mayanist
The Mirador Basin Project
Guatemala Cradle of the Maya Civilization 

History of Mesoamerica
Beck Hansen (better known as simply Beck) (born Bek David Campbell, July 8, 1970 in Los Angeles, California) is an American singer, musician, and multi-instrumentalist. He is known for folky rock music, unusual lyrics, and post-modern arrangements, which has made him one of the most outstanding in 1990s alternative rock.

He became extremely popular with his hit song "Loser" in 1994. Beck is known for including various styles of music into his songs, including folk music, electronica, indie music, techno, rock music, and alternative music, among others.

Hansen married actress Marissa Ribisi in 2004. They currently have two children: a son, Cosimo Henri, and a daughter, Tuesday.

References

1970 births
Living people
American rock guitarists
American songwriters
20th-century American composers
Singers from Los Angeles
American electronic musicians
Multi-instrumentalists
21st-century American composers
The Prime Meridian is the meridian (line of longitude) that goes through the Royal Observatory, Greenwich in London it is also known as the International Meridian or Greenwich Meridian. Other longitudes are given as east or west of the Prime Meridian.

Lines like this are not actually lines on the ground, but are ways of saying where a place is on the globe. The ones that run horizontal (east to west) are called latitude. They tell us how far a location is from the equator. The other lines are vertical and are known as longitudes. 

Such is the Meridian's fame that each year, hundreds of thousands of visitors from all around the world make their way to the Observatory to stand astride the Line. But its position is marked in hundreds of other places too. On its path from pole to pole, the Meridian passes through England, France, Spain, Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Ghana and Antarctica.

Related pages 
 Meridian
 International Date Line

Lines of longitude
Retirement is when people stop working. People may retire when they reach a certain age, or if they get sick or have an accident, or even for their own choice. People cannot generally retire unless they have a pension. Some people may semi-retire and keep some sort of job. People typically do this after working for so many years and growing tired of it. 

People who become less able to look after themselves may move to retirement villages, sheltered housing, or nursing homes.  They may have to pay for care,or their family may care for them.

Retirement in other uses
The term may also be used when it's not related to people. This can maybe used for when something is out of service, like an old model vehicle.

References

Other websites
 Wiktionary term about this word

Old age
Sophia and sofia may mean:

Spiritual
 Sophia (gnosticism), gnostic deity
 Pistis Sophia, gnostic text
 In the Ben Sirach, wisdom from the Torah.

Music
 Sophia (indie rock band)
 SOPHIA, Japanese band
 Sophia (EP) by The Crüxshadows
 Sophia (song) by Nerina Pallot

Buildings
 Hagia Sophia or Saint Sophia, Istanbul
 Sophia Cathedral in Russia
 Sophia University in Tokyo

Geographic locations
 Sofia
 Sophia Antipolis, France
 Sophia, West Virginia

Science
 Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy
 251 Sophia, asteroid

Other
 Sophia (name)
 Sophia (vehicle), from the Blaster Master video-game series

Related pages
 Sofia (disambiguation)
Trdat the Architect (c. 950-1020) (Armenian: Տրդատ ճարտարապետ), known in Latin as Tiridates, was chief architect of the Bagratuni Dynasty of Armenia.

After a great earthquake in 989 destroyed the dome of Hagia Sophia, the Byzantine officials sent Trdat to Byzantium to organize repairs. The restored dome was completed by 994.

Other websites
 The Ani cathedral
 Cities and sites in Armenia 

Byzantine Empire
950s births
1020 deaths
Byzantium () was an ancient Greek city. The name "Byzantium" is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion.

The city became the center of the Byzantine Empire, (the Greek-speaking Roman Empire of late Antiquity and the Middle Ages), but at that time it was already called Constantinople.

History
History

Legend
The origins of Byzantium are not clear. There is only a legend. It tells that a certain Byzas from Megara (a town near Athens), founded Byzantium, when he sailed northeast across the Aegean Sea. He had asked the Oracle at Delphi where he should found his new city. The Oracle told him to find it "opposite the blind." At the time, he did not know what this meant. But when he came upon the Bosporus he realized what it meant: on the Asiatic shore was a Greek city, Chalcedon. It was they who must have been blind because they had not seen that obviously superior land was just a half mile away on the other side of the Bosporus. Byzas founded his city here in this "superior" land and named it Byzantion after himself.

History before Constantine I
Byzantion was mainly a trading city due to its strategic location at the Black Sea's only entrance. Byzantion later conquered Chalcedon, across the Bosporus.
When it fought with Pescennius Niger against the victorious Septimius Severus, the city was besieged by Roman forces and suffered extensive damage in 196 AD. Byzantium was rebuilt by Septimius Severus, when he had become emperor, and quickly regained its earlier prosperity.

Center of the Eastern Roman Empire
When Roman Emperor Constantine I decided to move his capital to the Eastern part of the Roman Empire he chose the place of Byzantion because of its strategical value. He refounded it, in 330 AD, as Nova Roma.  After his death the city was called Constantinople ('city of Constantine'). It remained the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, which was later called the Byzantine Empire by historians.
Emblem
Following the legend the citizens of Byzantium claimed the crescent moon as their state symbol, after an important victory in 340 BC.  However, the origin of the crescent and star as a symbol dates back much earlier - to ancient Babylon and ancient Egypt. But Byzantium was the first city that used the crescent moon as its symbol. In 330 AD Constantine I added the Virgin Mary's star to the flag.

Related pages
 Constantinople details the history of the city before the Turkish conquest of 1453
 Istanbul, describes the modern city

Notes

References
Jeffreys, Elizabeth and Michael, and Moffatt, Ann. 1981. Byzantine Papers: Proceedings of the First Australian Byzantine Studies Conference, Canberra, 17-19 May 1978. Australian National University, Canberra.
 Istanbul Historical Information - Istanbul Informative Guide To The City .  Retrieved Jan. 6, 2005.
 The Useful Information about Istanbul . Retrieved Jan. 6, 2005.
Other websites
 Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies : www.byzantium.ac.uk
 Description of Byzantine monetary system - fifth Century BC : History of money FAQs 
Ancient Greek cities
Constantinople
The national coat of arms of Armenia consists of an eagle and a lion supporting a shield. The coat of arms combines new and old symbols. The eagle and lion are ancient Armenian symbols dating from the first Armenian kingdoms that existed prior to Christ.

The current coat of arms was adopted on 19 April 1992 by the Armenian Supreme Council decision. On 15 June 2006, the law on the state coat of arms of Armenia was passed by the Armenian Parliament.

Symbolism