Aarushhh/wikipedia-simple-splitted huggingface dataset:
In the 1930s, Bell Labs developed vocoder, a machine that used a keyboard to synthesize speech. People said it generated speedch that was understandable.  Homer Dudley improved the design to the Voder, and presented it at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Voder used electronic oscillators to create formanr frequencies. 

In the late 1950s, computers were first used to generate speech. The first complete text-to-sppech system using computers was completed in 1968.John Larry Kelly Jr. worked at Bell Labs at the time. He used an IBM 704 to make it sing the song Daisy Bell. Stanley Kubrick was so impressed that he integrated it into his movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Present 

Up until about the millennium, the result of electronic speech synthesis was robot-like, and hard to understand, at times. Since then they are better to understand: the focus shiften from generating speech itself to recongizing the text, and putting together pre-recorded high-quality samples.

Other websites
Other websites

Physics-based voice synthesis, at University of Brasilia.

References 

Software
Language
Aristarchus (310 BC – about 230 BC), was an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician. His is the first known model that put the Sun at the center of the known universe with the Earth revolving around it (see Solar system).

Aristarchus was influenced by Philolaus of Croton, but he identified the "central fire" with the Sun, and put the other planets in their correct order of distance around the Sun.  His astronomical ideas were often rejected in favour of the geocentric theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy.

Personal information 
His name is Ἀρίσταρχος in Greek letters, which transliterates to Aristarchos. He was born on the island of Samos, in the eastern Aegean Sea.

Heliocentrism 
Heliocentrism is the idea of the Sun at the centre. Though the original text has been lost, a reference in Archimedes' book The Sand Reckoner describes another work by Aristarchus in which he advanced the heliocentric model as an alternative hypothesis.  Archimedes wrote:
So Aristarchus believed the stars were very far away, which is an important step. Therefore, there was no observable parallax, that is, a movement of the stars relative to each other while the Earth moves around the Sun. The stars are much farther away than was generally assumed in ancient times; and the tiny amount of stellar parallax is only detectable with telescopes.

The old geocentric model explained planetary parallax, and was assumed to be the reason why no stellar parallax was observed. Rejection of the heliocentric view was common, as the following passage from Plutarch suggests (On the apparent face in the orb of the Moon):

The only other astronomer of antiquity who is known by name and who is known to have supported Aristarchus' heliocentric model was Seleucus, a Hellenistic astronomer who lived a century after Aristarchus.
The heliocentric theory was successfully revived nearly 1800 years later by Copernicus, after which Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton gave the theoretical explanation based on laws of physics, namely Kepler's laws for the motion of planets and Newton's laws on gravitational attraction and dynamics.

Precession 

The Vatican library has preserved two ancient manuscripts with estimates of the length of the year. The only ancient scientist listed for two different values is Aristarchus. Both are close to the values later used by Hipparchus and Ptolemy, and the precession indicated is almost precisely 1 degree per century, a value which is too low. 1 degree per century precession was used by all later astronomers until  the Arabs. The correct value in Aristarchus's time was about 1.38 degrees per century.

References

Further reading
Further reading

Other websites 
 Biography: JRASC, 75 (1981) 29
 First estimate of the Moon's distance and First estimate of the Sun's distance from educational website   From Stargazers to Starships
 Gomez A.G. (2011)  Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath [online], http://www.jscimath.org/uploads/J2011173AG.pdf 
 Heath T.L. (1913) Aristarchus of Samos, the Ancient Copernicus: A history of Greek astronomy to Aristarchus together with Aristarchus' treatise on the sizes and distances of the sun and moon, a new Greek text with translation and notes, Oxford, Clarendon Press (PDF).
Online Galleries, History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries  High resolution images of works by Aristarchus of Samos in .jpg and .tiff format.

310 BC births
3rd-century BC deaths
Ancient Greek astronomers
Ancient Greek writers
The Abergavenny fireworks display is an annual organized fireworks display. It is held each year on Guy Fawkes Night (November 5) in Abergavenny, Wales.

The event takes place in Belgrave Park. It has been running each year since about 1968.

The event is run and organized by the local social networking group Abergavenny and District Round Table, which is one of the hundreds of branches in the UK of the Round Table (club). It is a non profit event with all proceeds being distributed to charity’s and good courses, primarily in and around the Abergavenny area. Some of the those to have benefited from monies raised from the Abergavenny fireworks display include:  Abergavenny Scouts, Crickhowell Scouts, Jigsaw community project, Llanbedr Village Thai Boxing, Mardy Juniors Football, RTB Ebbw Vale Junior AFC Club, a fuller list is on the Abergavenny and District web site.

History
History

The Abergavenny fireworks display was originally started to provide a display for the children’s home in c1965 it moved to its current location of Belgrave park in c1968 as the fireworks could be seen from the nearby Nevill hall hospital, the fireworks display has been put on every year since, up to the present.

Poster competition

A competition is held with the help of the local schools to design a poster for the Abergavenny fireworks display. The posters are used as part of the advertising of the event. The 2011 winners were unveiled on the front page on the Abergavenny Chronicle. With the winners and their class mates receiving child entrance tickets to the fireworks display, and the school receiving a donation.

References

Other websites
Abergavenny fireworks website 
Abergavenny and District Round Table website

Welsh culture
Pyrotechnics
Leszek Melchior Drogosz (January 6, 1933 – September 7, 2012) was a Polish boxer and actor. He won a bronze medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics.

Other websites 

Polish boxers
Medalists at the 1960 Summer Olympics
Polish Olympic bronze medalists
Polish movie actors
1933 births
2012 deaths
The Saigon River () is a river in Vietnam. It begins at Lake Dau Tieng (in its water-catchment area) near the country of Cambodia.

The river flows south and south-southeast for about . Most of the rivers in the Mekong Delta region have a water-table and canal connection. The system of rivers and canals for southern Vietnam help with water transport for commercial activities. The water supplies many businesses and agricultural (farm) operations.

The Saigon River has a river port at Ho Chi Minh City. It ends just after the Phu My Bridge (). The Saigon River ends by meeting another two rivers, the Nha Be and Dong Nai rivers. The lower end of the river is on the flood plain, and is therefore subject to tide change from the sea and delta. Ho Chi Minh City regularly floods (in  areas that get a lot of floods) with either tidewater or rainwater.

The river system has many fish. Recently the government released native fish to improve the population. Fish, shrimp, and snails are popular for farming.

References
References

Rivers of Vietnam
Avemetatarsalia (meaning "bird toes") is a clade name established in 1999 for all crown group archosaurs that are closer to birds than to crocodiles. An alternate name is Panaves, or "all birds", meaning all animals, living or extinct, which are more closely related to birds than to crocodiles.

Members of this group are basically the dinosaurs (including birds), the pterosaurs, and some earlier animals which are a bit difficult to place. They are one wing of the Archosaurs, the other being the Crurotarsi.
Origin
Bird-line archosaurs appear in the fossil record early in the Middle Triassic about 245 million years ago (mya), with the dinosaur-like Asilisaurus. However, Lower Triassic fossil footprints reported in 2010 from Poland may belong to a still more primitive type. If so, the origin of avemetatarsalians would be pushed back to around 249 mya. The oldest Polish footprints were made by an unknown small quadrupedal animal, but slightly later footprints show that moderately large bipedal dinosauromorphs had appeared by 246 mya.

The Permian-Triassic extinction event is dated at about 250 mya. The TriassicJurassic junction is about 200 mya. The age of the footprints suggests that the rise of the dinosaurs was slow and drawn out across much of the Triassic.
Archosaur clades:
 Avemetatarsalia
 †Pterosauria
 Dinosauria
 Crurotarsi: The crocodile line of crown-group Archosauria
 †Phytosauria: semi-aquatic long-snouted types
 †Aetosauria: quadrupedal armoured herbivores
 †Ornithosuchidae: look rather like dinosaurs
 Crocodylomorpha (Crocodilia and their ancestors)
 †Rauisuchia ? uncertain group, includes some large-bodied quadrupedal predators

References

Archosaurs
Sphyrna is one of the two genera in the Hammerhead shark group, and is the largest genera out of the two, with eight members in it. The word Sphyrna is a Greek word meaning "hammer", which refers to the shape of the shark's head.

Description
Members in the Sphyrna group measure in size from the Scoophead,  which is 100 centimeters (1 meter) long, to the Great hammerhead shark, which is 610 centimeters (6.1 meters) long. The Smalleye Hammerhead Shark weighs around 9 kg, and the Great hammerhead shark weighs about 230 kg. Members of this group are usually light grey or brownish grey in colour with a tint of green, and have a white belly.

Feeding
Members of the Sphyrna group's favourite type of food are stingrays. But they also eat crustaceans like blue crabs and shrimp, molluscs like octopuses and squids, many types of fish like sardines and herrings, and other types of sharks. When they can not find food they start eating each other, but the Great hammerhead shark is known to eat its own young.
Reproduction
Members of this group are mainly viviparous, but in 2007, a bonnethead was found to be capable of asexual reproduction. They give birth to around 12-40 young at a time. Once they are born, young ones come together in groups, and swim towards warmer waters. They then stay together in groups until they are older and big enough to live on their own. They live for around 20–30 years.

Species
 Scalloped Bonnethead, Sphyrna corona
 Whitefin Hammerhead Shark, Sphyrna couardi
 Scalloped Hammerhead Shark, Sphyrna lewini
 Scoophead, Sphyrna media
 Great hammerhead shark, Sphyrna mokarran
 Bonnethead, Sphyrna tiburo
 Smalleye Hammerhead Shark, Sphyrna tudes
 Smooth Hammerhead Shark, Sphyrna zygaena

References
  Species of Sphyrna
  Sphyrna media
  FLMNH- Great hammerhead shark 
  Golden Hammerhead

Sharks
is the capital city of Ibaraki Prefecture in Japan.

It has been recognized as a special city since 2001.

History
Mito was a major center of historical and philosophical studies during the Edo period.

References

Other websites

 Mito City website 

Cities in Ibaraki Prefecture
Michael Tolan (born Seymour Tuchow; November 27, 1925 – January 31, 2011) was an American movie, stage, and television actor. His first role was in The Enforcer. He appeared in Fort Worth, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Presumed Innocent, and Decoy. 

Tolan was born in Detroit, Michigan on November 27, 1925. He was educated at Wayne State University and at Staford University. He was married to Carol Hume until they divorced. He was married to Rosemary Forsyth from 1966 until they divorced in 1975. He was partners with Donna Peck until his death. He had two children with Hume and one with Forsyth. 

He died on January 31, 2011 in Hudson, New York from kidney failure. He was 85 years old.

References

Other websites

1925 births
2011 deaths
Deaths from renal failure
American movie actors
American television actors
American stage actors
Actors from Detroit
is a Japanese city in Tochigi Prefecture on the island of Honshu. It is the capital city of the prefecture. It has been recognized as a core city since 1996.

References

Other websites
 
 Utsunomiya City website 

Cities in Tochigi Prefecture
Frances Bay (Frances Goffman January 23, 1919 – September 15, 2011) was a Canadian movie, television, and stage actress who started her career when she was 50 and is known for her role as Grandma Gilmore in Happy Gilmore.

She was born in Mannville, Alberta, Canada on January 23, 1919. Her father was a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant. She was raised in Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada. She was married to Charles Bay from 1946 until his death in 2002. They had a son Eli Joshua Bay who died before them. Bay was in a car crash and had a leg amputated in 2002, after her husband's death.

Bay died on September 15, 2011 in Tarzana, California by her home in Los Angeles, California from pneumonia, she was 92 years old.

References

Other websites
 

1919 births
2011 deaths
Actors from Alberta
Actors from Manitoba
Canadian movie actors
Canadian stage actors
Canadian television actors
Deaths from pneumonia
Infectious disease deaths in Los Angeles
Jack Mercer (January 13, 1910 – December 4, 1984) was an American movie, television, voice, and stage actor, storyman, and animator who is known for his voice role as Popeye.

He was born in Worthington, Indiana on January 31, 1910. He was married to Margie Hines from 1939 to 1942. Then to Virginia Mercer until his death in 1984, he had no children.

He died in Queens, New York from stomach cancer on December 4, 1984, he was 74 years old.

References

Other websites
  
 
 Biography --"He Am What He Am!--Jack Mercer, the Voice of Popeye" by Fred M. Grandinetti
 1939 publicity photo of Mercer and Hines announcing their marriage

1910 births
1984 deaths
Deaths from stomach cancer
American movie actors
American television actors
American stage actors
American voice actors
Actors from New York City
Margie Hines (Margret Hines October 1, 1909 – 1985) was an American movie, stage, voice, and television actress. She is known for her voice role as Olive Oyl in Popeye and as Betty Boop. She was born in New York City, New York on October 1, 1909. She was married to Jack Mercer from 1939 until they divorced in 1942.

References

Other websites
 

1909 births
1985 deaths
American centenarians
American movie actors
American television actors
American stage actors
American voice actors
Actors from New York City
is one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, Japan. The administration center of the government of Tokyo Prefecture is in Shinjuku. Also in Shinjuku is the biggest railway station in the world, Shinjuku Station.

History
On 15 March 1947, the ward of Shinjuku was formed by combining the wards of Ushigome, Yodobashi, and Yotsuya.

In 1991, the Tokyo Government moved from the Marunouchi district of Chiyoda to the current building in Shinjuku.

Geography
Surrounding Shinjuku are six other wards: Chiyoda to the east; Bunkyo and Toshima to the north; Nakano to the west, and Shibuya and Minato to the south.

References

Other websites

 http://www.city.shinjuku.tokyo.jp/foreign/english/ ; 

Wards of Tokyo
Settlements in Tokyo Prefecture
1947 establishments in Japan
Mae Questel (born Mae Kwestel, September 13, 1908 – January 4, 1998) was an American film, television, stage, and voice actress, who was most famous for her voice role as Betty Boop (1931–1939, 1988). She was also known for voicing the animated character Olive Oyl between 1933 and 1983, and for her role as Aunt Bethany in the Comedy/Slapstick show National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989).

She was born in New York City, New York and was educated at Columbia University. She was married to Leo Balkin from 1930 until they divorced. Then she married Jack E. Shelby from 1970 until his death. She had 2 children. She died in Manhattan, New York City, from Alzheimer's disease, she was 89 years old.

References

Other websites

1908 births
1998 deaths
Actors from New York City
American movie actors
American stage actors
American television actors
American voice actors
Deaths from Alzheimer's disease
Disease-related deaths in New York (state)
is a Japanese city in the mountains of Tochigi Prefecture.

History 
The Shinto shrine of Nikkō Tōshō-gū was completed in 1617. It is the burial place of Tokugawa Ieyasu.   

The shrines and temples of Nikkō have been recongized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Related pages 
 List of World Heritage Sites in Japan

References

Other websites 

 Nikkō City website  in English
 Shrines and Temples of Nikkō  

Cities in Tochigi Prefecture
World Heritage Sites in Japan
Methyl benzoate is an organic compound.  It has the chemical formula C6H5CO2CH3.  It is a colorless liquid that is poorly soluble in water, but miscible with organic solvents.

Esters
Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German mathematician and philosopher. Today, he is remembered for the work he did in mathematical logic and the foundations of first order logic and mathematics. He is generally considered to be the father of analytic philosophy, for his writings on the philosophy of language and mathematics.  When he published his works, they were mostly ignored by others of his time.  Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932) and Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) introduced his work to later generations of logicians and philosophers.

Writings
An overview of Frege's writings  including  English translations, at the university of Berkeley.

1848 births
1925 deaths
German mathematicians
German philosophers
The Quad Cities is a group of five cities along the Mississippi River in the states of Iowa and Illinois. The five cities are Davenport, Iowa, Bettendorf, Iowa, Moline, Illinois, East Moline, Illinois, and Rock Island, Illinois. The largest of these cities is Davenport. Nearly 400,000 people live in the area.

The name "Quad Cities"
The name "Quad Cities" can be confusing because "quad" means four. People began calling the area the Quad Cities in the 1960s, before Bettendorf was large enough to be considered a "city". By the time Bettendorf was large enough, people were so used to the name "Quad Cities" that they decided to keep it. (Even earlier, the area had been called the "Tri-Cities", before East Moline became large enough to be considered a city.)

Economy
The manufacturing, or making, of goods is a big part of the economy in the Quad Cities. Military equipment, such as weapons and armor, are made at the Rock Island Arsenal. John Deere & Company, which makes farm equipment, is in Moline.

References
References

Cities in Iowa
Cities in Illinois
Park Jae-Sang (Hangul: 박재상; born December 31, 1977) is a South Korean rapper. He is mainly known by his stage name, Psy (Hangul: 싸이). His 2012 single "Gangnam Style" was a surprise viral hit. Before its popularity he was little known outside South Korea. Psy performed "Gangnam Style" on the American show Saturday Night Live.

Discography

Albums

Singles

Other websites 

 Official website

1977 births
Living people
Pop musicians
Rappers
Singers from Seoul
Electropop singers
The Night Riviera is a sleeper train operated by First Great Western. It is one of only two sleeper trains on the railway in Great Britain (the other being the Caledonian Sleeper). It runs two trains per night, six days a week (Sun-Fri) between London Paddington and Penzance, with one train departing in each direction.

Rail transport in England
John Nolan (born May 22, 1938) is a British movie and television actor who is known for his role as a Wayne Enterprises board member Douglas Fredericks in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises. He was born in London, England and is married to Kim Hartman since 1975. He has two sons and a daughter. He is the uncle to Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan.

References

Other websites
 

1938 births
Living people
English movie actors
English television actors
Christopher Nolan
Actors from London
Mark Boone Junior (born Mark Heidrich March 17, 1956) is an American television and movie actor. He is known for his roles in Memento and in Batman Begins as Detective Flass. He played Bobby Munson in Sons of Anarchy. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was raised in Chicago, Illinois.

References

Other websites

1955 births
Living people
American movie actors
American television actors
American voice actors
Actors from Ohio
Actors from Chicago
Eric Anthony Roberts (born April 18, 1956) is an American movie, television, stage, and voice actor. He is known for his roles in King of the Gypsies and Paul's Case. He is also known for playing a Gotham Gangster Salvator Maroni in The Dark Knight. He was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards and one Academy Award.
Early life
Roberts was born in Biloxi, Mississippi. His parents, Betty Lou (née Bredemus) and Walter Grady Roberts, one-time actors and playwrights, met while performing theatrical productions for the armed forces. They later co-founded the Atlanta Actors and Writers Workshop in Atlanta, Georgia off of Juniper Street in Midtown. Roberts' mother filed for divorce in 1971 and it was finalized early in 1972. His younger siblings, Julia Roberts (from whom he was estranged until 2004) and Lisa Roberts Gillan, are also actors. His mother married Michael Motes and had daughter Nancy Motes in 1976. Roberts is of English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, German, and Swedish ancestry. Roberts was raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He studied at Henry W. Grady High School.

Personal life
He was sued two times, one for drug related problems and the other for slamming his wife into a wall. All charges were later dropped.

He is a vegan and supporter of animal rights.
Marriage and family
Roberts is currently married to Eliza Garret since 1992; they have a son and a daughter. He also has a daughter from an earlier relationship with Kelly Cunningham, Emma Roberts. He is the brother of Julia Roberts and Lisa Roberts Gillan.

References

Other websites
 
 
 

1956 births
Living people
American movie actors
American television actors
American stage actors
American voice actors
Actors from Mississippi
Actors from Atlanta
People from Biloxi, Mississippi
Lisa Roberts Gillan (born Lisa Roberts; January 1, 1965) is an American actress. She is the sister of actors Eric Roberts and Julia Roberts, and the aunt of actress Emma Roberts.
She is married to Tony Gillan.

Early life
Roberts was born in Decatur, Georgia. Her mother, Betty Lou Motes (nee Bredemus), was a one-time church secretary and real estate agent, and her father, Walter Grady Roberts, was a vacuum cleaner salesman. Roberts's parents, one-time actors and playwrights, met while performing theatrical productions for the armed forces and later co-founded the Atlanta Actors and Writers Workshop in Atlanta, Georgia off Juniper Street in Midtown; the two divorced in 1971. Her mother later married Michael Motes and had a daughter, named Nancy Motes, who was born in 1976. Roberts's father died of cancer when she was ten.

References

Other websites

1965 births
Living people
American movie actors
American movie producers
Actors from Atlanta
People from Decatur, Georgia
Charles Cyphers (born July 28, 1939) is an American movie, television, and stage actor who is known for his role as Sheriff Leigh Brackett in Halloween (1978) and Halloween Kills (2021). He was born Niagara Falls, New York on July 28, 1939. His career started in the 1970s.

Other websites

1939 births
Living people
American movie actors
American television actors
American stage actors
Actors from New York (state)
Bradford Claude Thomas Dourif (; born March 18, 1950) is an American character actor. He was nominated for an Oscar, and won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for his supporting role as Billy Bibbit in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). He is also known for his roles as Charles Lee Ray and the voice of Chucky in the Child's Play franchise (1988–2017), and Gríma Wormtongue in The Lord of the Rings series (2002–2003).

Dourif's other film roles include Wise Blood (1979), Dune (1984), Blue Velvet (1986), Mississippi Burning (1988), The Exorcist III (1990) and Alien Resurrection (1997). He also appeared in many television series, notably Deadwood (2004–2006, 2019), for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.

Personal Life
Dourif has three children, two daughters: Kristina / Christina Dourif, born c. 1976, actress Fiona Dourif, born c. 1981, and one son: Thomas, born c. 1984 with his late wife Jonina Dourif,whose name sometimes appears in media as Janet.

References

Other websites
Other websites

 
 
 

1950 births
Living people
Child's Play (franchise)
American movie actors
American television actors
American stage actors
American voice actors
Actors from West Virginia
BAFTA Award winning actors
Guillermo del Toro (born October 9, 1964) is a Mexican movie director, screenwriter, author, and producer who is known for directing Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy II: The Golden Army and The Shape of Water. He known for his fiction or fantasy movies. He is also known for his monster movies. He won a Golden Globe, BAFTA Award, Satellite Award and an Academy Award in 2018.

He is also close friends with fellow Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, collectively known as "The Three Amigos of Cinema".

He was born on October 9, 1964 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.  He was married to Lorenza Newton from 1986 until they divorced in 2017 and they have two children. He lives in Agoura Hills, California. He has won a British Academy Film Award and a Saturn Award.
Guillermo del Toro's filmmaking style is marked by a blend of genres, meticulous attention to detail, practical effects for creatures, exploration of deep themes, the creation of unique atmospheres through genre conventions, challenging stereotypes, a personal penchant for the macabre and Gothic themes, and a strong atmosphere that immerses viewers.

References

Other websites

 
 

Academy Award winning directors
Golden Globe Award winning directors
BAFTA Award winning directors
Satellite Award winners
1964 births
Living people
People from Guadalajara
Mexican screenwriters
Mexican movie directors
Mexican movie producers
Saturn Award winners
Crain Communications Building, formerly known as Smurfit-Stone Building and Stone Container Building, is a small skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois constructed in 1983 and finished in 1984. The building is 582 feet (177 meters) and 41 stories tall. It is well known for the diamond shape upon the top of the building. The diamond shaped facade is also known to occasionally sport worded slogans at night, such as "GO BEARS" or "GO CUBS."

The design of the south east corner of the building features a prominent vertical slit from the ground, through the diamond shaped facade, and to the top of the building. It is because of this that some theorize the building was deliberately designed this way (resembling a woman's vulva) to antithesize the often "male-featured" inspiration behind most skyscrapers. This, however, was later debunked by the architect to be a mere coincidence.

References

Other websites

Skyscrapers in Chicago
1984 establishments in the United States
1980s establishments in Illinois
The James R. Thompson Center is a dome shaped building that is about 93 meters to the top of the building. It is a building of house offices of the state of Illinois. The center was named after Governor James R. Thompson in 1993. It opened in 1985. It is located in Chicago, Illinois. 

In 2015, and again in 2017, Governor Bruce Rauner also proposed selling the property, and a legislative committee to explore his request was announced by Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan in February 2017.

On February 13, 2018, Chicago Police Commander Paul Bauer was shot and killed by Shomari Legghetti, while Bauer was perusing a suspected outside of the Thompson Center.

References

Other websites
 Commerce, Culture, & State Offices Under Glass
 Commerce, Culture, & State Offices Under Glass
 James R. Thompson Center
 New York Times Travel Guide Chicago James R. Thompson Center
 Emporis.com page
 Google Maps page
Buildings and structures in Chicago
1985 establishments in the United States
1980s establishments in Illinois
The Richard J. Daley Center or The Daley Center is a civic center in the city of Chicago, Illinois. The center is named after Mayor Richard J. Daley. The building is 648 feet (198 meters) 30 store building. The Daley Center was opened in 1965. The center has a sculpture, Chicago Picasso made by Pablo Picasso.

References

Other websites
 City of Chicago 
 Cook County
 Richard J. Daley Center on Emporis
 Daley Plaza Eternal Flame

Skyscrapers in Chicago
1965 establishments in the United States
1960s establishments in Illinois
Richard Hamilton (December 31, 1920 – December 21, 2004) was an American movie, television, and stage actor who is known for his role as Agent D in Men in Black (1997). 

Hamilton was born on December 31, 1920 in Chicago, Illinois. He was married to Marilyn Morgan Hamilton until his death in 2004. Hamilton died on December 21, 2004 in New York City, New York from natural causes, he was 83 years old.

References

Other websites

1920 births
2004 deaths
American movie actors
American stage actors
American television actors
Actors from Chicago
Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft (February 6, 1914 – May 22, 2005) was an American movie, television, stage, and voice actor, and singer who is known for his voice roles as Kirby in The Brave Little Toaster Movie Series and as Tony the Tiger. 

He was born on February 6, 1914 in Norfolk, Nebraska. Ravenscroft was educated at Otis College of Art and Design. He was married to June Ravenscroft from 1946 until her death in 1999, they had two chidren. Ravenscroft died on May 22, 2005 in Fullerton, California from prostate cancer, he was 91 years old.

References

Other websites

1914 births
2005 deaths
Deaths from prostate cancer
American movie actors
American television actors
American stage actors
American voice actors
singers from Nebraska
Actors from Nebraska
Northeast Greenland National Park is a national park in Greenland, Denmark. It is the largest national park in the world, with an area of . This makes the park larger than most countries. It would place 31st if it were a country, just behind Egypt. It is the only national park in Greenland, and the most northerly national park in the world. Its most northerly point reaches slightly further than the most northerly point in Quttinirpaaq National Park in Canada.

History

The park was first created on 22 May 1974.  It came from the northern, practically uninhabited part of the former Ittoqqortoormiit Municipality in Tunu (East Greenland). In 1988 the park was expanded by another  to its present size.  This was by adding the northeastern part of the former county of Avannaa (North Greenland). In January 1977 it was made an international biosphere reserve.

Fauna
Fauna

An estimated 5,000 to 15,000 musk oxen, as well as many polar bears and walrus, can be found near the coastal regions of the park. This is claimed to be 40% of the world population of musk ox. Other mammals include arctic fox, stoat, collared lemming and arctic hare. Other marine mammals include ringed seal, bearded seal, harp seal and hooded seal as well as narwhal and Beluga whale.

Species of birds which breed in the park include great northern diver, barnacle goose, pink-footed goose, common eider, king eider, gyrfalcon, snowy owl, sanderling, ptarmigan and raven.

References

National parks in North America
Biosphere reserves
Geography of Greenland
The bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus), also called the square flipper seal, is a medium-sized pinniped.  It is found in and near to the Arctic Ocean.

Fossils indicate that, during the Pleistocene epoch, bearded seals went as far south as South Carolina.

Description
Features of this earless seal include square front flippers and thick bristles on its muzzle. Adults are greyish-brown in colour, darker on the back. Occasionally the face and neck are reddish-brown. Bearded seal pups are born with a greyish-brown fur with scattered patches of white on the back and head. The bearded seal is unique in the subfamily Phocinae in having two pairs of teats.  This is a feature it shares with monk seals.

Bearded seals are about  to  in nose-to-tail length.  They are  to  in weight. Both sexes are about the same size.

Bearded seals are a main food source for polar bears and for the Inuit of the Arctic coast. The body fat content of a bearded seal is 30–40%.
Hunting and Diet
Bearded seals feed on a variety of small prey found along the ocean floor, including clams, squid, and fish. Their whiskers serve as feelers in the soft bottom sediments. Adults tend not to dive very deep.  They like shallow coastal areas no more than  deep. Pups up to one year old will venture much deeper, diving as deep as .

Reproduction and Lifecycle

Bearded seals give birth in the spring. In the Canadian Arctic, seal pupping is in May. Further south, in Alaska, most pups are born in late April. Pups are born on small drifting ice floes in shallow waters. They usual weigh around 30–40 kg. They enter the water only hours after they are born, and quickly become very good divers. Mothers care for the pups for 18–24 days.  During this time the pups grow at an average rate of 3.3 kg per day. Pups consume an average of eight liters of milk a day. By the time they are weaned, the pups have grown to about one hundred kilograms.
Just before the pups are weaned, a new mating cycle takes place. Females ovulate at the end of their lactation period, but stay close to their pups, ready to defend them if necessary. During the mating season, male seals will "sing". This sound may attract females, or may be used by the males to say what territory is theirs or their readiness for breeding. Males live in the same areas from one year to the next.

References

Pinnipeds
Mammals of Great Britain
The hooded seal (Cystophora cristata) is an arctic pinniped.  It is found only in the central and western North Atlantic.  It ranges from Svalbard in the east to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the west.

The male has a peculiar inflatable bladder on the head.  This bladder hangs between his eyes and down over his upper lip in the deflated state. In addition, he can inflate a large balloon-like sac from one of his nostrils. The bulge develops when the seal is four years old. The male can blow up this bulge, so that it is the size of its head.

The hooded seal can live to about age 30 to 35.

Size
Adult males are  long on average, and weigh . Females are much smaller:  long and weighing . The colour is silvery; the body is scattered with dark, irregular marks. The head is darker than the rest of the body, and without marks.

Offspring
Offspring

Pups are about  long at birth and weigh about . They are born on the ice from mid-March to early April. They are born with a slate blue-grey coat with a pale cream color on the belly.  They moult after about 14 months. Nursing of the pup lasts for an average of only 4 days.  This is the shortest lactation period of any mammal.  During the 4 days the pup doubles in size, gaining around 7 kg/day. This is possible because the milk that they drink has a fat content of 60%. The female pup will mature between ages 3 and 6.  The male pup will mature between ages 5 and 7.

References

Pinnipeds
Mammals of Great Britain
The barnacle goose (Branta leucopsis) belongs to the genus Branta of black geese. This genus has species with largely black plumage, setting them apart from the grey Anser species.

Description 
The barnacle goose is a medium-sized goose,  long. Its wingspan is  and the body mass is . It has a white face and black head, neck, and upper breast. Its belly is white. The wings and its back are silver-gray with black-and-white bars that look like they are shining when the light reflects on it. During flight a V-shaped white rump patch and the silver-gray underwing linings can be seen.

Ecology, behaviour and life history 

Barnacle geese often build their nests high on mountain cliffs and in dark, damp caves.  This keeps them away from predators (mostly Arctic foxes and polar bears) but also away from food. Like all geese, the goslings are not fed by the adults.
Instead of bringing food to the newly hatched goslings, the goslings are brought to the ground. Unable to fly, the three day old goslings jump off the cliff and fall. Their small size, feathery down, and very light weight helps to protect most of them from serious injury when they hit the rocks below. Some do die from the fall. Arctic foxes are attracted by the noise made by the parent geese during this time. They eat dead or injured goslings. The foxes also stalk the young as they are led by the parents to wetland feeding areas.

References 

Geese
Goose, Barnacle
Goose, Barnacle
The pink-footed goose (Anser brachyrhynchus) is a goose which breeds in eastern Greenland, Iceland and Svalbard. It is migratory.  It winters in northwest Europe, especially Great Britain, the Netherlands, and western Denmark.

It is a medium-sized goose, 60–75 cm (24–30 in) long.  The wingspan is 135–170  (53–67 in) cm.  It weighs 1.8–3.4 kg (4–7.5 lbs). It has a short bill, bright pink in the middle with a black base and tip, and pink feet. The body is grey-brown, the head and neck a richer, darker brown, the rump white, and the tail grey with a broad white tip.

Ecology
Nesting is often on cliffs close to glaciers.  This gives protection from mammalian predators (mainly Arctic Fox). Three to six eggs are laid in early to mid May in Iceland, late May in Svalbard. Incubation lasts 26–27 days. On hatching, the goslings go with the parents on foot to the nearest lake.  They fledge after about 56 days. Southbound migration is from mid September to early October, and northbound from mid April to early May.
The diet is almost entirely vegetarian. In summer, they feed on a wide range of tundra plants, both on land and in water. In winter, they graze mostly on oilseed rape, sugar beet, potato, and various grasses.  Damage to crops can be large.

References

Geese
Birds of Europe
Birds of Turkey
The common eider (Somateria mollissima) is a large sea-duck.  They live on the northern coasts of Europe, North America and eastern Siberia. It breeds in Arctic and some northern temperate regions.  They winter farther south in temperate zones.  There it can form large flocks on coastal waters. It can fly at speeds up to 113 km/h (70 mph).

Description 
The common eider is both the largest of the four eider species and the largest duck found in Europe and in North America.  It measures  in length, weighs  and spans  across the wings. It has a bulky shape and large, wedge-shaped bill. The male is unmistakable, with its black and white plumage and green nape. The female is a brown bird. It can be told apart from all ducks, except other eider species, because of size and head shape. This duck's call is a pleasant "ah-ooo".  The species is often readily approachable.
This species dives for crustaceans and molluscs, with mussels being a favoured food.  The eider will eat mussels by swallowing them whole; the shells are then crushed in their gizzard and excreted.  When eating a crab, the Eider will remove all of its claws and legs, and then eat the body in a similar fashion.

Social behaviour 

Eiders are colonial breeders. They nest on coastal islands in colonies ranging in size of less than 100 to upwards of 10,000-15,000 individuals. Female eiders often return to breed on the same island where they were hatched. This can lead to a high degree of relatedness between individuals nesting on the same island.

References 

Ducks
Birds of Europe
Birds of Turkey
Birds of North America
The king eider (Somateria spectabilis) is a large sea duck.  It breeds along Northern Hemisphere Arctic coasts of northeast Europe, North America and Asia. The birds spend most of the year in coastal marine ecosystems at high latitudes.  They migrate to the Arctic tundra to breed in June and July. They lay four to seven eggs in a scrape on the ground lined with grass and down.

The king eider winters in arctic and subarctic marine areas, most notably in the Bering Sea, the west coast of Greenland, eastern Canada and northern Norway. It also happens yearly off the northeastern United States, Scotland and Kamchatka. Breeding areas include the Arctic coastal tundra of the north coast of Alaska. This species dives for benthic invertebrates, such as crustaceans, polychaete worms, and molluscs, with mussels being a favoured food. Wintering birds can form large flocks on suitable coastal waters, with some flocks bigger than 100,000 birds.
This species is smaller than the common eider. The male is unmistakable with its black body, white breast and multicoloured head. The drake's call is a deep cooing. 

The female is a brown bird.  They can still be told apart from all ducks except other eider species on size and structure. The head is shorter than in the common eider, and the feathering onto the bill is rounded, not triangular in shape.

An immature drake is typically all dark with a white breast and a yellow bill patch.

Traditional Uses

The king eider is a regular source of fresh meat in the spring.  They begin their migration past the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in late April and are hunted in great numbers. In May, several hundred thousand eiders pass Point Barrow in northern Alaska on their way to Alaskan and Canadian breeding grounds.

References

Ducks
Joyce Randolph (born Joyce Sirola October 21, 1924) is an American actress. She played Trixie Norton on The Honeymooners. Randolph was born on October 21, 1924 in Detroit, Michigan. She was married to Richard Lincoln Charles from 1955 until his death in 1997. They had a son. She is the last living Honeymooners cast member.

References

Other websites

1924 births
Living people
American movie actors
American television actors
American stage actors
American radio actors
Actors from Detroit
"Colonel" Harland David Sanders (September 9, 1890 – December 16, 1980) was an American entrepreneur. He started the company Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Sanders was born in Henryville, Indiana on September 9, 1890. He studied at Southern University. He was married to Josephine King until they divorced. He later married Claudia Price. Sanders had 3 children. Sanders died at age 90 on December 16, 1980 in Louisville, Kentucky from leukemia and pneumonia.

References

Other websites

Kentucky Fried Chicken

1890 births
1980 deaths
People with foods named after them
American chief executives
Businesspeople from Indiana
Businesspeople from Kentucky
KFC
The Ziegler polar expedition of 1903–1905 was a failed attempt to reach the North Pole. The party was stranded north of the Arctic Circle for two years before being rescued.  All but one of its members survived. The expedition was paid for by William Ziegler and led by Anthony Fiala.  They left from Tromsø, Norway, on June 14, 1903, aboard America.

Planning 
Ziegler chose Anthony Fiala, who was a photographer on an earlier mission, to lead his second polar trip. Fiala calculated that the food for an eight dog team and driver would be at least 1100 pounds. This was an issue, as the most a sled could hold was 600 pounds. He planned to use ponies to carry the extra supplies.  Then to feed the dogs on horse meat when the supplies were low.

Isolation and rescue 

In November 1903 severe weather started.  The ship broke up, destroying the provisions and coal.
The following spring, more tries were made to reach the pole by traveling both east and west.  The conditions were too severe, and open water caused difficulties. Supplies ran low, and the expedition headed south.  They reached depots at Cape Flora, Cape Dillion, and Camp Ziegler.

William Peters, who was second in command, took this time to lead the crew in survey work.  This helped to make maps and charts better.

With the knowledge that rescue ships would be sent to them, the expedition stayed hopeful.  A rescue party, led by William S. Champ aboard the Terra Nova, sailed direct to the ice fields. On July 24, they encountered thick ice.  This made the crew doubt they could reach their destination. However the ship reached Palmi Island on July 28 and Cape Dillion the following day. 6 expedition members were found there. More members were found at Cape Flora, and the Terra Nova returned to Cape Dillion. A sled party was organized, which brought back the crew.

References 

Arctic
Tromsø
1900s
Chan's megastick (Phobaeticus chani) is a species of stick insect. It is the longest insect in the world. One specimen in the London Natural History Museum  measures . This is with the front legs fully extended. The body is  long.

Named after amateur Malaysian naturalist, Datuk Chan Chew Lun, only six specimens are known, all from the state of Sabah in Borneo. Very little is known about its biology, but it may live in the canopy of the rainforest, making it especially hard to find. However, there is no evidence, and the related Phobaeticus kirbyi is found on low growing vegetation alongside rainforest paths.

Phobaeticus chani was selected as one of "The Top 10 New Species" described in 2008 by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and an international committee of taxonomists.  The species was also listed as one of the top ten discoveries of the decade in a BBC television documentary (broadcast in either 2010 or 2011).

References
References

Other websites
 Phasmid Study Group: Phobaeticus chani
 Image of insect

Phasmids
The Universität Mainz (; abbreviation: JGU) is a university in Mainz, Germany. It was founded in the year 1477. In 2012, there were more than 36,000 students.

The University of Mainz has ten faculties:
 Theology
 Social sciences, Media and Sport
 Jurisprudence and Economics
 Medicine
 Philosophy
 Linguistics
 History
 Physics, Mathematics and Computer science
 Chemistry, Pharmacy and Earth sciences
 Biology

Other websites 
 Website of the University of Mainz

1477 establishments
Mainz, University
Mainz
1470s establishments in Europe
is a Japanese city in Tochigi Prefecture.

History 
In the Edo period. Tochigi was a significant city.

In the early Meiji period, the city of Tochigi was the Prefectural capital of the old Tochigi Prefecture.  After the old Utsunomiya Prefecture and Tochigi Prefecture merged, Tochigi City was briefly the prefectural capital.  The capital was moved to Utsunomiya soon after.

References

Other websites
 http://www.city.tochigi.tochigi.jp/hp/menu000001000/hpg000000364.htm ; http://www.city.tochigi.tochigi.jp/ 

Cities in Tochigi Prefecture
A photographic memory, or eidetic memory, is the ability to remember images or objects in great detail after seeing them for only a short time. The existence of this ability is disputed.

The claims made differ somewhat, but stress the recall of visual information. Examples of the information include: pages from books, magazines, and license plate numbers. It is claimed that those with a photographic memory tend to have higher IQs than those without it.<ref name=brit>[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/180955/eidetic-image "Eidetic image", Encyclopaedia Britannica]</ref> A person with this ability does not use mnemonics. 

The ability is said to occur in the early childhood of a small number of children (between 2 percent and 10 percent) and generally is not found in adults. 

 Sceptics 
Some do not believe this skill exists. The American cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky, in his book The Society of Mind'' (1988), thought that reports of photographic memory were an “unfounded myth”.
Around 1970, Charles Stromeyer studied his future wife, Elizabeth. He claimed that she could recall poetry written in a foreign language which she did not understand. She could remember the poetry years after she had first seen the poem. She also could, apparently, recall random dot patterns so as to combine two patterns into a stereoscopic image. She is the only person who is known to have passed such a test. The methods used in the testing procedures were not clear. Additionally, the tests have never been repeated (Elizabeth has consistently refused to repeat them). This raised further concerns, and increased skepticism about whether photographic memories were real.

References 

Memory
Experiments