Aarushhh/wikipedia-simple-splitted huggingface dataset:
In the early Pleistocene, 1.5–1 mya, in Africa, Asia, and Europe, presumably, some populations of  Homo habilis evolved larger brains and made more elaborate stone tools; these differences and others are sufficient for anthropologists to classify them as a new species, H. erectus. In addition H. erectus was the first human ancestor to walk truly upright. This was made possible by the evolution of locking knees and a different location of the foramen magnum (the hole in the skull where the spine enters). They may have used fire to cook their meat.

A famous example of Homo erectus is Peking Man; others were found in Asia (notably in Indonesia), Africa, and Europe. Many paleoanthropologists are now using the term Homo ergaster for the non-Asian forms of this group. They reserve H. erectus only for those fossils found in the Asian region that meet certain requirements (as to skeleton and skull) which differ slightly from ergaster.
Neanderthal man 
Homo neaderthalensis (usually called Neanderthal man) lived from about 250,000 to about 30,000 years ago. Also, less usual, as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis: there is still some discussion if it was a separate species Homo neanderthalensis, or a subspecies of H. sapiens. While the debate remains unsettled, evidence from mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomal DNA sequencing indicates that little or no gene flow occurred between H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens, and, therefore, the two were separate species. In 1997, Dr. Mark Stoneking, then an associate professor of anthropology at Pennsylvania State University, stated: 
"These results [based on mitochondrial DNA extracted from Neanderthal bone] indicate that Neanderthals did not contribute mitochondrial DNA to modern humans… Neanderthals are not our ancestors".
More investigation of a second source of Neanderthal DNA supported these findings.
Denisovan man 
A genetic analysis of a piece of finger bone found in Siberia has produced a surprise result. It dates to about 40,000 years ago, at a time when Neanderthals and modern man were living in the area. German researchers found its mitochondrial DNA did not match either that of our species or that of Neanderthals. If this result is correct, the bone belongs to a previously unknown species. The degree of difference in the DNA suggests this species split off from our family tree about a million years ago, well before the split between our species and Neanderthals.
Homo floresiensis 
Homo floresiensis, which lived about 100,000–12,000 years ago has been nicknamed hobbit for its small size. Its size may be a result of island dwarfism, the tendency for large mammals to evolve smaller forms on islands. H. floresiensis is intriguing both for its size and its age. It is a concrete example of a recent species of the genus Homo that shows derived traits not shared with modern humans. In other words, H. floresiensis share a common ancestor with modern humans, but split from the modern human lineage and followed a different evolutionary path. The main find was a skeleton believed to be a woman of about 30 years of age. Found in 2003 it has been dated to approximately 18,000 years old. The living woman was estimated to be one meter in height, with a brain volume of just 380 cm3 This is small for a chimpanzee and less than a third of the H. sapiens average of 1400 cm3.
There is an ongoing debate over whether H. floresiensis is indeed a separate species. Some scientists believe that H. floresiensis was a modern H. sapiens suffering from pathological dwarfism. Modern humans who live on Flores, the island where the skeleton was found, are pygmies. This fact is consistent with either theory. One line of attack on H. floresiensis is that it was found with tools only associated with H. sapiens.

Stone artifacts have been found on Flores which can be dated to a million years ago.  These artifacts are proxies; which means there were no skeletons of humans, but only a species of Homo could have made them.  The artifacts are flakes and other implements, 48 in all, some of which show signs of being worked to produce a cutting edge.  This means that humans were present on Flores by that date, but it does not tell us which species that was.
Homo sapiens 
Homo sapiens has lived from about 300,000 years ago to the present. Between 400,000 years ago and the second warm period in the Middle Pleistocene, about 250,000 years ago, the human skull grew more like its present shape. Our species developed more sophisticated technologies based on stone tools. One possibility is that a transition between H. erectus to H. sapiens occurred. The evidence of Java Man suggests there was an initial migration of H. erectus out of Africa. Then, much later, a further development of H. sapiens from H. erectus in Africa. Then a subsequent migration within and out of Africa eventually replaced the earlier H. erectus.

Out of Africa
Out of Africa 

Studies of the human genome, especially the Y-chromosome DNA and mitochondrial DNA, support a relatively recent African origin. Evidence from DNA also supports the recent African origin. The details of this great saga are not fully established yet, but by about 90,000 years ago modern humans had moved into Eurasia and the Middle East. This was the area where Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, had been living for a long time (at least 500,000 years in western Europe).

By about 42 to 44,000 years ago Homo sapiens had reached western Europe, including Britain. In Europe and western Asia, Homo sapiens replaced the Neanderthals by about 35,000 years ago. The details of how this happened are not known.

At roughly the same time Homo sapiens arrived in Australia. Their arrival in the Americas was much later, about 15,000 years ago. All these earlier groups of modern man were hunter-gatherers.
Research has shown that human beings are genetically rather similar. The DNA of individuals is more alike than usual in most species. This may have resulted from their relatively recent evolution or from the Toba catastrophe. Skin colour is an adaptation to differing climates. These traits are a very small component of the Homo sapiens genome and include such outward characteristics as skin color and nose shape, and internal characteristics such as the ability to breathe more efficiently at high altitudes.

H. sapiens idaltu, from Ethiopia, about 160,000 years ago, is a proposed subspecies. It is the oldest known anatomically modern human.

Species list 
This list is in chronological order by genus.
Sahelanthropus
 Sahelanthropus tchadensis
 Orrorin
 Orrorin tugenensis
 Ardipithecus
 Ardipithecus kadabba
 Ardipithecus ramidus
 Australopithecus
 Australopithecus anamensis
 Australopithecus afarensis
 Australopithecus bahrelghazali
 Australopithecus africanus
 Australopithecus garhi
 Paranthropus
 Paranthropus aethiopicus
 Paranthropus boisei
 Paranthropus robustus
 Kenyanthropus
 Kenyanthropus platyops
 Homo
 Homo habilis
 Homo rudolfensis
 Homo ergaster
 Homo georgicus
 Homo erectus
 Homo cepranensis
 Homo antecessor
 Homo heidelbergensis
 Homo rhodesiensis
 Homo neanderthalensis
 Homo sapiens idaltu
 Homo sapiens (Cro-magnon)
 Homo sapiens sapiens
 Homo floresiensis

Related pages 
ENCODE: the complete analysis of the human genome
Paleoanthropology

References 

Evolution
Anthropology
Ancient Rome was a civilization that started in the city of Rome on the Italian Peninsula. Roman civilization was the most important civilization in the Mediterranean region, Europe and the Near East from the late 3rd century BC. Roman civilization existed throughout Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and the Middle Ages. However, "Ancient Rome" means the ancient history of Roman civilization before the Middle Ages. Traditionally, the fall of the western Roman Empire during the 5th century AD is the start of the Middle Ages in Western Europe.

In Classical Antiquity, the Roman Empire controlled a large area of land. It stretched from Great Britain to the Arabian Peninsula. Ancient Rome has been important to the history of Europe, North Africa and Western Asia, where the Romans controlled many lands. Ancient Rome's culture took ideas from other civilizations, especially Ancient Greece and the Greek kingdoms of the Hellenistic period. Ancient Roman ideas have been very influential for later civilizations.
The Romans' Latin language became the most common language in the western Mediterranean and Western Europe and is the ancestor of Romance languages. The Roman emperors were responsible for making Christianity Rome's state religion, and the Romans spread Christianity across the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity. Roman Christianity replaced the Roman religion and other traditional religions.

The Romans made many improvements to warfare, writing, engineering, architecture, irrigation and transport.
History 
Rome began as a small farming community in the 8th century BC. The city of Rome was founded, according to legend, on 21 April 753 BC. It became a city and a state and had the , which Roman mythology said came from the first king, Romulus. Rome was first a kingdom, but its last king, Tarquinius Superbus, was sent away in a revolution started by Lucius Junius Brutus. Rome became a republic. The city-state grew to control the Italian Peninsula during the Hellenistic period, and it fought the Punic Wars against the Carthaginian Republic. After overcoming Carthage, the Roman Republic became the most powerful state in the western Mediterranean.

The Romans became the most powerful state in the eastern Mediterranean after wars against Macedonia, and the Mithridatic Wars against the Kingdom of Pontus. The Hellenistic period and the Roman Republic ended after Julius Caesar was assassinated. The Romans fought long civil wars.
At the end of the wars, Augustus overcame his Roman enemies and the Ptolemaic dynasty, which controlled the Kingdom of Egypt. Augustus became the first Roman emperor, and Roman civilization controlled all lands around the Mediterranean Sea.

Almost three centuries later, in 293 AD, Diocletian split the government of the empire into two parts, East and West. From Diocletian's time there was usually more than one emperor at a time, each of whom controlled part of the empire. 

In the 5th century AD, the lands of the Western Roman Empire split up into different kingdoms. After Romulus Augustulus, there were no more emperors in the Western Roman Empire, whose government ended in 476 AD. In Western Europe, that is the end of Antiquity and the start of the Early Middle Ages.
The Romans lost control of Rome and most of the Italian Peninsula. The later Roman Empire during the Middle Ages is sometimes named the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire. Historians now use the latter name because the Romans' capital city was Constantinople (once called Byzantium), and its emperors controlled the eastern half of the Mediterranean Basin. The Eastern Roman Empire existed until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, when it was defeated by the Ottoman Empire.

Culture 

Roman culture spread to Western Europe and the area around the Mediterranean Sea. Its history still has a big influence on the world today. For example, Roman ideas about laws, government, art, literature, and language are important to European culture. The Romans' language, Latin, slowly evolved to become modern French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian and many other languages. Latin also indirectly influenced many other languages such as English.

Religion
Religion

Graeco-Roman polytheism 
The most common religion of ancient Rome in its first centuries was Graeco-Roman polytheism (many gods). The traditional religion of the city of Rome was polytheist. The most important gods were the Capitoline triad, three gods that were worshipped on the Capitoline Hill, Jupiter (the father and king of the gods), Juno (the queen of the gods) and Minerva (the goddess of wisdom). The goddess Minerva was born without a mother from the body of Jupiter. Roman mythology said that among the Romans' ancestors were Venus (the goddess of love) and Mars (the god of war and the son of Jupiter and Juno). The gods Apollo and Bacchus were taken by the Romans from Greek mythology, and many of the Romans' religious practices were the same as those of the ancient Greeks. The Romans also worshipped the goddesses Cybele and Isis, whose cults they took from Hellenistic Anatolia and Egypt.
Judaeo-Christian monotheism 
Judaism was common in the ancient Roman world, and there was a Jewish diaspora in many cities like Rome from the Hellenistic period. Christianity started in the east in Hellenistic Judaea. In Classical Antiquity, the Roman government did not like Christianity. Sometimes, Roman governors or emperors ordered the persecution of Christians. Under Emperor Diocletian, the persecution became the strongest. Christianity became an officially-supported religion in the Roman Empire under Constantine I. With the signing of the Edict of Milan by Licinius and Constantine in 313, it became the most powerful religion, and the Christian Church began the persecution of Christians with whom the official ("orthodox" and "catholic") disagreed. Then, in 391 AD, an edict of Theodosius I made Christianity Rome's official religion. The state church of the Roman Empire became the state religion in the empire. (The state church later split into the modern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.)
People practising traditional non-Christian religions were common in Late Antiquity. The Christians called those people "pagans". There was persecution of Graeco-Roman polytheism by the Roman emperors. In the 5th century, non-Christian religions' property began to be taken away, and many Roman temples started to be made into churches.

Eastern Roman Empire 

The Byzantines were threatened by the rise of Islam, whose followers took over the territories of Syria, Armenia and Egypt and soon threatened to take over Constantinople. In the next century, the Arabs also captured southern Italy and Sicily.
The Byzantines survived during the 8th century and in the 9th century began to take back parts of the conquered lands. In 1000 AD, the Byzantine Empire was at its largest point, and culture and trade flourished. However, the expansion was suddenly stopped in 1071 at the Battle of Manzikert, which finally made the empire start becoming obviously weaker. After centuries of fighting and Turkic invasions, Emperor Alexios I Komnenos called for help from the West in 1095.

The West responded with the Crusades, which eventually resulted in the Fourth Crusade, which conquered Constantinople in 1204. Several Roman states took pieces of the now-smaller empire. After the recapture of Constantinople by the Romans, the empire was little more than a Greek-speaking state confined to the coast of the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara. The empire came to an end by Mehmed II conquering Constantinople on 29 May 1453.
Archaeology 
Remains of Roman work and architecture have been found in the late empire's furthest corners.
Frontiers of the Roman Empire
Roman houses
Roman roads in Britain

Related pages
 Roman Kingdom
 Roman Republic
 Roman Empire
 Western Roman Empire
 Byzantine Empire
 Culture of ancient Rome

References

Other websites 

 The Roman Law Library  By Yves Lassard and Alexandr Koptev
 Links for Middle School students from the Courtenay Middle School Library Collection
Globalization is the spread of products, technology, information, and jobs across nations.

Definition 

It is a term which may be used broadly to mean doing things as distant people do them, or more narrowly to mean complying to global standards in economy, politics, culture, education, environment or other matters. It describes the way countries and people of the world interact and integrate. Many things have become globalized as people come into contact.
Economic globalization is how countries are coming together as one big global economy, This is all making international trade easier. In the late 20th century, many people agreed to lower tariffs, or taxes on goods that are imported from other countries. Telegraphy and bull other communication technologies have helped people to buy and sell products from around the world, thus bringing globalization. Herman E. Daly has said that there is an important difference between internationalization and globalization. Internationalization is about nations working together for the same goals. These are things like treaties, alliances, and other international agreements.  Globalization is about international trade that are 
being less blocked by national borders.
Political globalization is how institutions and countries can influence the whole world. The United Nations are an example of globalization because most countries of the world are members of its General Assembly. This international organization can make countries follow rules and apply economic sanctions to a country that doesn't. This means the countries in the U.N will punish them by not talking or trading with them, so they don't benefit from globalization.

Cultural globalization is how culture is becoming homogeneous, which means that people from all over the world act in similar way. For example, many people around the world write with the Latin alphabet, wear T-shirts and jeans and watch Hollywood movies and other media.
Criticism 
Some people, like Noam Chomsky, do not like globalization because they feel it only helps rich people get richer by making poor people poorer. Offshore outsourcing, such as a company hiring workers in a developing country, is often a part of globalization. This sometimes means that some people in a developed country lose their jobs. Joseph Stiglitz said that international groups like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have made it harder for poorer nations to get richer.  Globalization also means that problems from other countries will affect your country. For example, the Great Depression of the 1930s started in the United States but affected the entire world.
Many countries also dislike it when international organizations such as the United Nations tell them what to do. However they obey to avoid sanctions. Many people also criticize the fact that globalization means that fewer people are deciding what  brands, like Coca-Cola and McDonald's, taking over smaller, local shops and businesses.  They criticize the fact that powerful countries have bigger influence on world culture than others. For example, the United States is the biggest cultural exporter, which means that countries around the world are becoming like the United States. However, this hurts local cultures. Jean Baudrillard believes that globalization hurts local cultures and is the cause of most terrorism.  He also believes that most supporters of globalization just want to stay in power.
Support 
Others, like Thomas Friedman, believe that globalization can bring people together and make everyone richer without getting rid of local cultures.  People who support globalization also believe that it makes war less likely because it is bad for business. Francis Fukuyama also argued that globalization would eventually lead to a system of world governance which would cause wars to end.

Many believe that globalization helps out poorer nations by bringing them business.  A report by the World Bank said that poverty in India and Indonesia was cut in half because of globalization.  The report also said that people in poorer nations are living longer and better because they were making more money.

Related pages 
 Antiglobalization
 North American Free Trade Agreement
 Overpopulation

References

More Reading 
 Peter Berger, Four Faces of Global Culture (The National Interest, Fall 1997).
 
 
 
 
 
 
International relations
Economic systems
North Holland is a province (area with a local government) of the Netherlands. It is in the northwest. The capital is called Haarlem. Other cities in the province are Amsterdam, Hilversum, Alkmaar, Zaandam, and Hoorn. About 2,888,000 people are living in North Holland (2021).

Other websites
Folk music is music that represents the tradition or culture of the area/place/state. It is traditional music that people learn by listening to other people playing it and then copying them. We say that the tradition is “orally transmitted” or “handed down orally”, meaning that the music is not written down but taught by speaking (“oral” means “belonging to the mouth”). Every country has its own traditional music. Folk song is part of folk music. A folksinger is a person who sings folk songs.

There are three categories of Folk Music -

 Folk Singing 
 Folk Dance 
 Folk instruments

In the 1960s a new type of music was started by Bob Dylan who mixed traditional folk song with rock and roll. This music is sometimes called “folk rock” .
Folk music is music for everybody to play and listen to. In this way it is different from classical music which is mainly developed by professional musicians for a smaller group of people. Folk music is part of a popular culture, although the term “popular music” or “pop music” today refers to a kind of music which people can hear through television, radio and other means of recording.

In many parts of the world nearly all music is folk music. The term “folk music” is usually used for European and American music which is part of an oral tradition. Folk music as an oral tradition, is much less important than before, in part because of new technology (radio, television etc, and recordings of music ). Folk tunes are now often written down, and they have influenced other kinds of music, so that the differences between various types of music are harder to see.

The traditional origins
In older times folk music was part of “communal recreation”. This means that small communities such as villages or families would relax by playing and singing music together. People would often make up a new song or new piece of music, or make changes to music that they already knew. In this way music was always changing. People would get musical ideas from other groups nearby. This is why folk music from neighbouring countries often sound similar.

Ballads were a popular kind of folk music. These were folk songs which told a story (they were “narrative”). Sometimes they had a refrain after each verse so that everybody could join in. Ballads told stories of love, myths or folklore. This is how stories were handed down from one generation to another.
Instrumental folk music was used for dancing. Some of the instruments may have been very simple, such as a pair of sticks, rattle or a simple drum. Other instruments may include fiddle (the folk word for “violin”), bagpipes, harp, zither, or various wind instruments, depending on the time of history and the country.

Some singing was polyphonic, i.e. there were two or more parts (voices). Very often two voices would sing in parallel (going up and down together). In countries such as Russia persons sings in three or four parts, e.g. in the tradition of “podgolosnaya” (“underneath the voice”). In countries such as Britain this polyphonic tradition did not exist. Folk songs there were sung by one singer, unaccompanied.
Folk music used different scales. These are called modes. The Ionian mode (like our major scale) was the most common in Western Europe. In some parts of Eastern Europe modes with several semitones were used, but for the most part, half steps were avoided. This results is the tunes being described as tetratonic (four notes per octave) or pentatonic (five notes per octave).

Folk music also includes simple children’s songs and lullabies.

Folk music was sung by people as they worked. In the early days of European immigration in America the pioneers sang as they travelled, cowboys sang as they worked, slaves sang in the cottonfields.

Influence on classical music

In the 18th century folk music started to have an influence on classical music (or “art music”). People from the higher classes started to be interested in folk music because they were conscious of being part of a tradition. Composers such as Mozart and Schubert wrote folk dances for orchestras or small groups of instruments.
Folk music was used by many composers in the Romantic period. Gustav Mahler used folk song in a lot of his music. In the early twentieth century some composers travelled around collecting folk music which was being played or sung by people in the country. They often used some of these ideas in their music. Bartok did this in Hungary as well as in Bulgaria and in the United States, and people such as Cecil Sharp and the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams collected folk music in England. In the United States the influence of jazz on classical music is all part of the story of folk music.

References
Abraham (originally Abram) is a man in the Book of Genesis and the Qur'an. There, he is said to be the father of all Jews. This is because he is their ancestor. Abraham is part of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions. Abraham is considered the father of these three religions, which are called Abrahamic religions.

Abraham is the father of Isaac with his wife Sarah. He also has Ishmael with Hagar, Sarah's handmaid, and he has other children with Keturah, whom he marries after Sarah's death. He is the grandfather of Jacob and Esau. Abraham is believed to be the founding patriarch of the Israelites, Ishmaelites and Edomites. Abraham was the son of Terah and the grandson of Nahor (son of Serug). Abraham's older brothers were named Nahor (son of Terah) and Haran.
The Covenant of Abraham
In the Book of Genesis, Abraham leaves his home in Mesopotamia for Canaan because the Almighty told him to go there and become the ancestor of a great nation. At the time, his name was Abram but then the Almighty told him to circumcise himself and all his sons and that “the uncircumcised male who dwells among you, his soul shall be cut off, for he has rejected my covenant” and after his circumcision Abram changed his name to Abraham.

The Binding of Isaac
When Abraham was circumcised, the Almighty told him that his wife Sarah would give birth to a son but Abraham laughed because of how old he was and asked the Almighty to give a blessing to Ishmael. The Almighty told Abraham that he would bless Ishmael and that Sarah would give birth to a son whose children would inherit what the Almighty promised Abraham.
After Abraham’s circumcision three angels pretending to be humans came to him and told him that in one year his wife Sarah would give birth to a son but she laughed since Abraham was 100 years old (and she was 90) but the angels said that nothing is impossible for the Almighty. One year later, Sarah gave birth to a son. Abraham circumcised him and named him Isaac because of the laughter. Years after Hagar and Ishmael were sent away, the Almighty told Abraham “take your son, your only one, whom you love Isaac and sacrifice him” and Abraham took Isaac to a mountain to be a human sacrifice but then the Almighty sent an angel to Abraham to stop him from killing Isaac and said that “I have seen that you are indeed a God fearing man since you have not withheld your son, your only one from me” so Abraham sacrificed a ram instead of Isaac. And Abraham named the place Yireh.
Later life
After Abraham’s wife Sarah died when she was 127 years old, Abraham bought the Cave of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite for 400 shekels and buried Sarah there. He then sent his servant to find a wife for Isaac. Then Abraham married Keturah and became the father of many children. Abraham died when he was 175 years old and Isaac and Ishmael buried him next to Sarah in the Cave of Machpelah.
Abraham and the Idol Shop
According to a midrash in the Talmud, when Abraham was young, his father Terah told him to take care of his store selling idols but instead Abraham destroyed them except the biggest one and told Terah that it had destroyed the rest and Terah told him that idols are mindless statues and not deities so they couldn’t have done that. Then Abraham asked Terah why he worshipped them so Terah took him to King Nimrod who tried to kill him by burning him in a furnace but a miracle saved Abraham. So Nimrod asked Abraham’s brother Haran what he believed and Haran said he believed in the deity of Abraham because He would save him with a miracle. Then Nimrod threw Haran to the furnace and he died and Nimrod sent away Terah and his family. And then the Almighty told Abraham to go to Canaan.

Other websites
"Journey and Life of the Patriarch Abraham" is an old map from 1590 that is about Abraham

Old Testament people
Tao Te Ching ( []) is the Chinese name of a book by a man named Laozi (or Lao Tzu, which literally means "old master"). Laozi was a sage (a wise man) and he was a record-keeper. The title can mean "The Book of the Way and its Virtue." People believe the book was written around 600 BC.

It is an important text to Chinese culture. It is very important in Chinese philosophy (way of thinking) and religion. It is the main book for Taoism, which is both a philosophy and part of Chinese folk religion. It also influenced other philosophies in and around China.

The title 

There are many ways to translate the book's title, because each Chinese word has a few meanings:
Dào/Tao 道 means "way", "road", "path", or "route," but was given the extra meaning "path ahead", "way forward", "method", "principle", or simply "the Way". This word was also used in different ways by other Chinese philosophers (including Confucius, Mencius, Mozi, and Hanfeizi). It has special meaning in Taoism, where it means the basic way of the universe (that can not really be explained).
 Dé/Te 德 means "virtue" as in "personal character" or "inner strength". People who followed the teachings of Confucius used it to mean "morality". A long time ago in English, "virtue" could mean "power" (as in the phrase "healing virtue of a drug"). The same thing was true in Chinese: the word meant "power" a long time ago but now means "virtue".
 Jīng/Ching 經 originally meant "norm", "rule", or "plan", was given the extra meaning "scripture", "great book", or "classic".
The three words together gives the meaning "Virtue Way Rules".
The book is constructed of a series of poems, each  containing a rule, way or belief to becoming successful.

Structure of the book 

The Tao Te Ching is a short book of about 5,000 Chinese characters. It has 81 short chapters. It has two parts: Part One is the Tao Ching (道經) "Way Rules", which is chapters 1–37; Part Two is the Te Ching (德經) "Virtue Rules", which is chapters 38–81.

Translations 

The Tao Te Ching is one of the most translated books in history, alongside the Bible and the Quran. Why are there thousands of translations? The text is short, the meaning is difficult. There are many interpretations, or ways to understand what the book says.
Online English versions 
 老子 Lǎozǐ 道德經 Dàodéjīng verbatim + analogous + poetic; deep analysis: Chinese + English + German
 Tao Te Ching, James Legge
 Tao Te Ching, John H. McDonald
 Tao Te Ching , Stephen Mitchell
 Daode jing , Charles Muller
 Lao Tsu's Tao Te Ching Online, Elyxr
 Tao Te Ching , Stan Rosenthal
 Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, 3 translations: James Legge, D.T. Suzuki, and Dwight Goddard
 Dao De Jing (Way Power Book) by Lao-zi, Sanderson Beck
 Tao Te Ching – The Way of Life, Raymond B. Blakney
 The Daode Jing (Tao Te Ching) of Laozi (Lao Tzu) , Chad Hansen
 The Dynamic Tao and Its Manifestation. Wayne L. Wang
 The Tao Te Ching, Frederic H. Balfour
 The Tao Te Ching, Ron Hogan (in several formats, including iPod )
 The Tao Te Ching, Lin Yutang
 The Tao Te Ching , Stan Rosenthal
 Tao Te Ching audio edition , narrated by Michael Scott
 The Tao Teh King, Aleister Crowley
 Jade Purity: Dao De Jing , Siji Tzu (far from a word-for-word translation)
Online multilingual versions 
 Das Tao Te King von Lao Tse  28 Chinese versions (Wang Bi, Heshang Gong, Fu Yi, Mawang Dui, Guodian), translations in 24 languages (84 in English), including side-by-side comparison of two or four translations, Lao Zi Projekt
老子 Lǎozĭ - 道 德 經 Dàodéjīng  Romanian Version, Serban TOADER PhD, PDF black and white and colour
 老子 Lǎozĭ - 道 德 經 Dàodéjīng Chinese-English-German, Hilmar KLAUS, The Tao of Wisdom. verbatim + analogous + poetic, 2009, 600 p.
 Dao De Jing, comparison of Chinese versions (Pinyin, Wang Bi, Heshang Gong, and Mawangdui), Nina Correa
 Laozi Daodejing , English and German translations, Chinese in seal script
 The Tao by Lao-tse, Rick Harbaugh
 The Way and Its Power - Dao De Jing Chinese, English (Waley, Lau), French (Julien), and German (Wilhelm), Association Française des Professeurs de Chinois

Religious texts
Taoism
7th-century BC books
Bacon is a type of meat that comes from pigs. It is taken from the sides, back, or belly of the pig. It is often cut in thin slices, unlike other cured or smoked pork products. It is usually fried or grilled. It can also be microwaved.

In the U.S., back bacon and smoked ham is sometimes called Canadian bacon.

Bacon has lots of fat. Because bacon comes from pigs, people of some religions will not eat it. In some cultures and religions (such as Islam and Judaism), eating pork may be considered "unclean." Because of this, other varieties of bacon are also made out of turkey or chicken instead. Turkey bacon and chicken bacon usually contain half of the fat of pork-based bacon.

Cuts

The type of bacon is different depending on the primal cut of pork it is made of.
Side bacon, sometimes called "streaky bacon", comes from the pork belly. It has long layers of fat and muscle running next to the rind. This is the most common form of bacon in the United States.
Pancetta is an Italian type of side bacon, sold smoked or unsmoked (aqua). It is generally rolled into cylinders after it is cured. Pancetta is known for having a strong flavour.
 Back bacon is made of meat from the loin in the middle of the back of the pig. It is a leaner cut, with less fat than side bacon. Most bacon in the United Kingdom and Ireland is back bacon.
 Collar bacon is taken from the back of a pig near the head.
 Cottage bacon is made from the lean meat from a boneless pork shoulder. It is typically tied into an oval shape.
 Jowl bacon is cured and smoked pork cheeks.

The inclusion of skin with a cut of bacon is called the 'bacon rind'.
History 
Salted pork belly first appeared in China. In Middle English the term bacon or bacoun meant pork in general.  Before the Industrial Revolution, bacon was mostly made on local farms and in home kitchens. The world's first bacon processing plant was opened in Wiltshire in the 1770s.

References

Pork
Breakfast foods
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, otherwise known as the Nazi-Soviet Pact, was signed by Vyacheslav Molotov (Stalin's Soviet foreign minister) and Joachim von Ribbentrop (Hitler's German foreign minister) on 23 August 1939. The agreement promised that neither the Soviet Union nor Nazi Germany would attack each other.

A secret part established spheres of interest in Eastern Europe, and a border between both countries existed after they had invaded and divided Poland.

Only nine days later, on 1 September 1939, the German invasion of Poland began. On 17 September, the Soviet invasion of Poland began.
About 250,000 to 454,700 Polish soldiers and policemen were captured and interned by the Soviet authorities. About 125,000 were imprisoned in camps run by the NKVD, and 43,000 soldiers born in western Poland, which was under German control, were transferred to the Germans. In turn, the Soviets received 13,575 Polish prisoners from the Germans, which showed how close the co-operation was between the Germans and the Soviets. 

On 3 September, France and the United Kingdom declared war soon because both had promised to defend Poland if it was attacked. Since neither of them was ready for war, they did nothing to help Poland for some time, but the Second World War clearly had started on that day.

Hitler later broke the pact in June 1941 by invading the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. The war would end by the Soviet victory in 1945.

References 

1930s treaties
World War II
Nazi Germany
1930s in the Soviet Union
Treaties of Germany
1930s in Germany
Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov (;  in Kukarka – November 8, 1986 in Moscow) was a Soviet politician and diplomat who served as the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1941. He was a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he came to power.  He worked for Joseph Stalin from 1924 to 1953 when Stalin died, and for Georgy Malenkov from March-September 1953.  He worked for Nikita Khrushchev until Khrushchev dismissed him from office in 1956.

Molotov was the main Soviet signatory of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. The pact was signed between Germany and the Soviet Union, and both countries promised not to attack each other. The pact lasted about two years until Germany started the invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.

The Molotov Cocktail, which was invented by Finns fighting in the Winter War against the Soviet invasion of Finland, is named after him.
1890 births
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Babylonia was a city state in Mesopotamia in the 2nd millennium BC, over 3000 years ago. Its capital city was Babylon, which meant The Gate of the Gods. They built an empire out of the lands of the former Akkadian empire.

Mesopotamia is the region of the two rivers, Euphrates and Tigris. At that time the region also included the city states of Assyria to the north, and Elam to the south-east. It is part of the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East. It was there people first lived together in a civilization, with farming, cities and writing.

Old Babylonia 

The Babylonians had a written language that they used for trade and communication. They got it from the Sumerians, who invented it. The Babylonians used the same cuneiform system of pressing triangular shapes into soft clay. They wrote in two different languages: Sumerian for religious purposes and Akkadian language for official purposes.
Laws 
Hammurabi was a king of Babylon who fought wars. He made Babylonia into an empire by putting Assyria under a vassal (puppet) king. He made the earliest written set of laws, the Code of Hammurabi. It has 280 judgments. It can be seen today in the Louvre, in Paris. The earlier Sumerian punishments had not been harsh, but Babylonian law was quite severe. The death penalty was given for theft, murder, and other crimes.

Buildings 
The houses in Babylon had open roofs, so that on hot nights, the family could sleep there. The living rooms, dining rooms, and the kitchens were, of course, downstairs. Lamps burned with olive oil, and every house had a chapel for burial and worship ceremonies. Since Mesopotamia had only clay for use in building, the strong wooden supports for the houses were imported from Lebanon. Eventually, people began baking their bricks and improved the strength of their buildings.
Sack of Babylon 
Later, Babylon was sacked by the Hittite king Musilis I, which led to the so-called 'Dark Ages' of the Bronze Age, where there is little evidence in writing. The date of the sacking of Babylon is debated by archaeologists, who have proposed no fewer than four chronologies. Possible dates for the sack of Babylon are:
ultra-short chronology: 1499 BC
short chronology: 1531 BC
middle chronology: 1595 BC
long chronology: 1651 BC
The difficulty is to line up the Mesopotamian dates with the Ancient Egyptian dates.

Later dynasties 

After the Hittite destruction, Babylon was ruled by Kassites for 576 years. Next it was ruled by Elam, and then regained its independence for about three centuries. They were then conquered by the Neo-Assyrians. A century later they again became free, to form the Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean Empire. This constant conquest and re-conquest is partly due to geography. There are no natural boundaries except the rivers, and it is easy to get at the cities from north or south.
The king Nebuchadnezzar II reigned for 43 years. He conquered Phoenicia in 585 BC.

Cyrus the Great 
The Babylonian empire was finally brought to an end by Cyrus the Great of Persia. 

It was in 549 BC that Cyrus put an end to the empire of the Medes. Three years later Cyrus had become king of the Achaemenid Empire (Persia), and was engaged in a campaign in northern Mesopotamia. 

In 539 BC Cyrus invaded Babylonia. A battle was fought at Opis in the month of June, where the Babylonians were defeated; and immediately afterwards Sippara surrendered to the invader. Two days after the capture of Sippara, "the soldiers of Cyrus entered Babylon without fighting". Cyrus did not arrive until the 3rd of Marchesvan (October), Gobryas having acted for him in his absence. Gobryas was now made governor of the province of Babylon.
Cyrus now claimed to be the legitimate successor of the ancient Babylonian kings and the avenger of their god Bel-Marduk. The invasion of Babylonia by Cyrus was doubtless helped by the presence of foreign forced exiles like the Jews, who had been planted in the midst of the country.

One of the first acts of Cyrus was to allow these exiles to return to their own homes, carrying with them the images of their god and their sacred vessels. The permission to do so was embodied in a proclamation, whereby the conqueror endeavored to justify his claim to the Babylonian throne. The feeling was still strong that none had a right to rule over western Asia until he had been consecrated to the office by Bel and his priests; and accordingly, Cyrus henceforth assumed the imperial title of "King of Babylon."

Food
Like the Sumerians, the Babylonians ate vegetables, fruits, meat, and fish. They also ate bread and enjoyed toasting and eating the pesky but crunchy locusts which destroyed their precious crops.
Art and science
The Babylonians loved art. Beautiful vessels ornamented with sparkling gold were buried with the kings. In those days books dealt with floods which were thought to be caused by sin, or about the journey of Abraham. 
Science, too, improved well: they invented the first calendar, the 60-minute hour, and the advance multiplication table.

Life was rich, full, and usually peaceful. People rarely thought about war or how to protect the city. As a result, Babylon was conquered in 730 BC by the Assyrians and Kassites. This great civilization then ended.

Related pages
Neo-Babylonian Empire

References 

Mesopotamia
Former countries in the Middle East
Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop ("von" was added only later) (30 April 1893 in Wesel,Rhine Province,Prussia,Germany/16 October 1946 in Nuremberg,Bavaria, Germany) was the foreign minister of Germany from 1938 to 1945. He was executed by hanging for war crimes after the Nuremberg trials.

Drom 1936 to 1938, before the Second World War, he had been the ambassador to the United Kingdom.

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Noise is another word for sound. It usually means it is not wanted. Noise is perceived by our ears. They can be damaged by noise. Noise is created through any object, which produces vibration unnecessarily. 

Noise can also mean data (information) that typically does not have a meaning, like white noise. Loudspeaker measurements can use white noise for measuring loudspeakers frequency response.

Noise can also refer to some math that makes random numbers. Click here to learn about it.

In electronics, heat produces noise in resistors. Depending on the type of resistor, the amount of noise may differ. Most audio devices are designed not to produce noise.

Related pages 
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Karma is a word meaning the result of a person's actions as well as the actions themselves. It is a term about the cycle of cause and effect. According to the theory of Karma, what happens to a person, happens because they caused it with their actions. It is an important part of many religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism. In Shinto (a religion often syncretised with Buddhism), Karma is interpreted as Musubi (むすび), a view of karma is recognized in Shinto as a means of enriching, empowering and life affirming.

In terms of spiritual development, Karma is about all that a person has done, is doing and will do. Karma is logically about punishment or reward. It makes a person responsible for their own life, and how they treat other people.

The "Theory of Karma" is a major belief in Hinduism, Ayyavazhi, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. All living creatures are responsible for their karma - their actions and the effects of their actions.
Definition
 Karma is often misconstrued as the universal principle of cause and effect. Our actions, both good and bad, come back to us in the future, helping us to learn from life’s lessons and become better people. In religions that include reincarnation, karma extends through one's present life and all past and future lives as well.

Karma is basically energy. One person throws out energy through thoughts, words and actions, and it comes back, in time, through other people. Karma is the best teacher, forcing people to face the consequences of their own actions and thus improve and refine their behavior, or suffer if they do not. Even harsh karma, when faced in wisdom, can be the greatest spark for spiritual growth. The conquest of karma lies in intelligent action and unemotional response.
Supporting any action, with the claim, "I am doing it," is karma. Claiming doership of any action, binds karma. To support the action with the belief 'I am the doer' is called binding the karma. It is this support of the belief of 'doership' that binds karma. If you know that you are not the doer and are aware of who the true doer is, 'I am not the doer' and 'who is the doer' then the action will not have any support and the karma will be shed.

Examples of karma
The process of action and reaction on all levels—physical, mental and spiritual—is karma. One must pay attention to thoughts, because thought can make karmas—good, bad and mixed.

“I say kind words to you, and you feel peaceful and happy. I say harsh words to you, and you become ruffled and upset. The kindness and the harshness will return to me, through others, at a later time. Finally, what I give is what I get back.”
“An architect thinks creative, productive thoughts while drawing plans for a new building. But were he to think destructive, unproductive thoughts, he would soon not be able to accomplish any kind of positive task even if he desired to do so.”

Karma in Hinduism

Hindus look at time as a circle, as things cycle around again. Karma is a very just law which, like gravity, treats everyone the same. The law of karma puts man at the center of responsibility for everything he does and everything that is done to him. Understanding the way karma works, Hindus try to live a virtuous life. This is called dharma.

There are three types of karma in Hinduism:
 sanchita karma, the sum total of past karmas yet to be resolved; 
 prarabdha karma, that portion of sanchita karma that is to be experienced in this life; and 
 kriyamana karma, the karma that humans are currently creating, which will bear fruit in future.
The role of divine forces
Karma is considered one of the natural laws of the mind, just as gravity is a law of matter. Just as God created gravity to bring order to the physical world, He created karma as a divine system of justice that is self-governing and infinitely fair. It automatically creates the appropriate future experience in response to the current action.

Several different views exist in Hinduism regarding the role of divine beings. In Hinduism, many see the deities or devas as playing some kind of role. Other Hindus, such as the Mimamsakas, reject such notions and see karma as acting independently, considering the natural laws of causation sufficient to explain the effects of karma.