Aarushhh/wikipedia-simple-splitted huggingface dataset:
Changes from source material
The Debtors Act of 1869 abolished putting people in prison for debt they could not pay.  The series makes much of Mrs Arless', played by Dawn French, imprisonment for debt. In the novels the events are played out in the 1880s and later. So imprisonment for debt would therefore be a mistake in the chronology of time.

References

Other websites
Lark Rise to Candleford at bbc.co.uk

Lark Rise Visited   The Soundtrack from the TV show.

2008 British television series debuts
2011 British television series endings
2000s British drama television series
2010s British drama television series
BBC Television programmes
Oxfordshire
Period television series
Cinnabar is a mineral. It is the main ore of mercury and is made up of the chemical mercuric sulphide (HgS). Cinnabar exists in two crystal forms. Red cinnabar is used for the pigment vermilion. It is poisonous, and may go black with age. The other crystal form is black, and does not react chemically to anything except strong acids. Cinnabar has a Mohs hardness of 2-2.5. 

Cinnabar has been mined since the Neolithic age. It is a cool metal.

References

Minerals
Ores
The rattlesnake is a kind of snake, a reptile. About 50 species of rattlesnakes are known: they are a kind of pit viper. 

There are two groups of rattlesnakes: the genera Crotalus and Sistrurus. All  have a venomous bite, and some are much more dangerous than others. Pit vipers  have a set of heat-sensing "pits" on their heads which help them find prey and move towards it, even in the dark.

The name rattlesnake is used because they have a special tail with several parts on the end that can make a loud bzzzz sound, or rattle. This defends them against predators and large animals. It acts as a warning signal. 

Rattlesnakes are native to the Americas from southwest Canada to central Argentina. They usually live in dry areas.  They eat small animals such as birds and rodents.

When they are young, many are eaten by birds. When they are adult, they have a particular enemy: the common kingsnake, Lampropeltis getula, a colubrid snake.

Vipers
12 Rounds is a 2009 movie. It is directed by Renny Harlin and produced by WWE Films. The actors include John Cena, Steve Harris, Aidan Gillen, and Brian J. White. Filming took place in New Orleans between February 25 and May 12, 2008. It was released in the United States on March 27, 2009.

The Story 
The movie follows Danny Baxter (Cena), a New Orleans police detective, as he begins a 12-round battle of wits to recover his kidnapped girlfriend, Janine, from criminal master Miles Jackson III.

References

Other websites 
 

12 Rounds
American movies
English-language movies
Movies directed by Renny Harlin
The Miami Seaquarium is an aquarium on Virginia Key, in Miami, Florida. The park has animals such as dolphins, whales, snakes, crocodiles, alligators, sharks, fish, parrots, turtles or sea turtles, etc. It has been open since 1955.

The main attraction is Lolita, the world's oldest captive orca. She is now the park's only orca. Animal rights activists have long argued that the tank does not meet federal minimum requirements (Animal Welfare Act). The USDA has recently made statements in support of the activists' argument. However, Lolita is a special case.

References 

Aquariums
Buildings and structures in Miami
1955 establishments in the United States
1950s establishments in Florida
For the northern hemisphere, the Winter solstice is around 21 December. This means that the sun is at the southern tropic. For the southern Hemisphere, the winter solstice is around 21 June. This means that the sun is at the northern tropic.

The word solstice comes from Latin Sol (sun) and sistere (to not move), winter solstice meaning Sun standstill in winter.

The earth prone and moves in an elliptic way around the sun. Because of this, the point from where the sun is shining moves between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer.

The winter solstice is celebrated around 21 December since 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar.

References

Astronomical phenomena
Sergio Castillo (13 May 1925 – 19 August 2010 in Santiago, Chile) was a sculptor.

He began as an architect. In 1948 he travelled to Paris and took painting courses. After returning to Chile he attended the Faculty of Arts of the University of Chile, where he studied with two known teachers, Lily Garafulic and Marta Colvin. In 1956 he studied at the Art Student League of New York. From 1967 he taught at the University of Chile. He lived and worked for many years at San Lorenzo del Escorial, Spain. In 1985 he joined the faculty of Boston University, in the US. He built several large pieces on the campus of Boston University.

He won the National Award in Art (1997). “50 años creando mis animales en acero” (50 years making my steel animals) is his recent exposition, including things that look a little like animals.

Other websites 
Some of his works 

1925 births
2010 deaths
Chilean sculptors
Boston University faculty
The summer solstice is when the Sun is at its highest point in the sky during a year. The solstice itself is one moment, but many use the word to mean the day when the solstice happens. The summer solstice does not always happen on exactly the same day.

The word solstice comes from Latin and means that "the Sun stands still".  

For the northern hemisphere, the summer solstice is around 21 June (20, 21 or 22 of June). This means that the sun is at the northern tropic. For the southern hemisphere, the summer solstice is around 21 December. This means that the sun is at the southern tropic.

References 

Astronomical phenomena
Bearded dragons are agamid lizards in the genus Pogona.

The central bearded dragon is the common name for Pogona vitticeps, which lives in dry areas of Australia The name "bearded dragon" refers to the fringes around and under the head. The underside of the throat turns black if they are stressed or see a potential rival.

Description 
Central bearded dragons can grow to about 2 feet long. Half of the length of a bearded dragon's body is its tail. Females are usually smaller than males. If a bearded dragon is scared, it will flatten its body against the ground, puff out its spiky throat, and open its jaws to make itself look larger. Bearded dragons sometimes open their mouths wide to allow hot air to warm them better when they are lying in the sun. They also open their mouths to help them cool down; the warm air and heat escapes through their mouths. This behavior is similar to panting.
Diet 
Central bearded dragons eat small and large insects, such as grasshoppers and worms. They also eat  leaves, fruit, vegetables and flowers. They get most of their water from the food they eat, but they also need to drink sometimes. You can also give them horn worms (tomato worms) as a treat once or twice a every two months as a treat.

Other Websites 

Bearded dragon advice page
Bearded Dragons as Pets
Bearded Dragons Important Charts & Lists

Reptiles of Australia
Iguania
Mensa International (or just Mensa) is the largest, oldest and most famous high-IQ group of people in the world. The non-profit organization only has members with high IQs. They must score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardized, supervised intelligence test. In many cases the IQ you have to have to join is 130.

Related pages 
 List of Mensans
 Intertel
 Triple Nine Society

References

Other websites 
 Mensa Education and Research Foundation
 Mensa for Kids
 Example of tests similar to Mensa tests

Intelligence
Non-profit organisations of the United Kingdom
Mensa, meaning table in Latin, could mean:

Mensa International, an organization for people with a high IQ
Mensa (constellation), a southern star constellation
Mensa (geology), a term used by geologists to refer to an extraterrestrial mesa
Mensa, a nightclub promoter known for Saturday night raves at Sterns Nightclub
Mensa Records, a record label
mensa, the German and Dutch term for "cafeteria"
mensa, the Spanish term for "stupid"
mensa, the table top of an altar

When a plural exists, it is often Mensae, such as Cydonia Mensae.
Intertel is the second oldest and third largest high IQ society. Members must score in the top one percentile on a standardized, supervised IQ test.

The name was originally "The International Legion of Intelligence" and members are called ILIans.

Related pages 
 Mensa International
 Triple Nine Society

Other websites 
 

Intelligence
Coweta can mean:

 Coweta, Oklahoma, United States
 Coweta County, Georgia, United States
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (, also called the DJIA, Dow 30, The Dow Jones or The Dow) is a stock market index. It was created by Charles Dow, who worked for the Wall Street Journal newspaper and later made a new company named Dow Jones & Company.

The stock prices of 30 companies are used to calculate the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The 30 companies are picked by experts who work for Dow Jones. These people pick companies so that the calculated number will represent the general economy of the United States. The rules to pick companies say that all the companies must be from the USA. The rules also say the companies' stocks must be traded on either the NYSE or the Nasdaq Exchange. 

In the past the companies were all heavy industries companies and made things like steel, oil, autos, and appliances. Now the DJIA has many different kinds of companies including some that offer products and services like medicine or software.

Since 2020, these are the companies that currently make up the Dow Jones:
For a list of companies that have once been a part on the Dow Jones but are no longer part of it today, see this list.

1896 establishments in the United States
Old Major is a character in the book Animal Farm.  He is an award winning elderly Middle White boar. He is twelve years of age, and had 400 piglets. Old Major has a wise and benevolent look but his tushes are never cut. He had given inspiration to the other pigs about the fair rules on the farm once the farmers were gone, before Old Major died. Old Major is based on Marx and Lenin of the Russian Revolution, whose ideas changed into Communism.

Role in the Story
One evening, Old Major said that he had a dream the night before. Because of the dream, a meeting was to be held in the big barn at night. At the meeting, he talked with the other animals about the cause of their suffering, Man. He gave them the way to end their problem, rebellion. Later, he told the farm animals about his dream. In the dream he saw the Earth after Man was no longer on it. He also remembered a song sung by the animals of old, "Beasts of England", which the animals learned very fast.
While the animals were singing "Beasts of England", the sound woke their owner Mr. Jones. He fired his gun six times. This ended the meeting immediately.  Old Major died peacefully in his sleep 3 days later.

Animal Farm characters
Fictional pigs
The Yanomami (also spelled Yąnomamö or Yanomama) is a local tribe living in southern Venezuela (Amazonas department) and northern Brazil (Amazonas state and Roraima). There are approximately 35,000 Yanomami people who live in some 200–250 villages. They live in shabonos, which are villages made with wood, straw and palm leaves.
They are also called Yanomamo and Yanam.
The word "Yanomami" means "human being".

The Yanomami tribe have lived in the rain forests of South America for centuries.
They live in small groups, and shelter in one huge house and it is called a Yanos which can hold up to 250 Yanomami.
The Yanomami tribe is also known as the Yanomamo. There is an average of 20,000 Yanomami. 
About 12,000 of them are Yanomamo. They eat plantains which is the most important food. The Yanomami love to hunt. Most of the child     
raising is done by the females of the family. Yanomami tribe villages sometimes have different languages so people from one may not understand the others. Rituals are a very important part of being a Yanomami. There are about 200-250 Yanomami villages in the area between the tropic of cancer to Capricorn. 

Ethnic groups in South America
Glamis Castle is one of the most famous castles in the United Kingdom. It is near the village of Glamis, in Angus, Scotland. It is the home of the Earl and Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne. Glamis Castle was the childhood home of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, best known as the Queen Mother. Her daughter, Princess Margaret, was born there. A picture of the castle is featured on the Royal Bank of Scotland ten pound note. 

Parts of the castle and its gardens are open to the public. There is also a tea room for visitors.

There are many famous stories and legends about Glamis Castle.

Setting 
Glamis Castle is set in the wide valley of Strathmore, near Forfar, the capital of Angus. It is between the Sidlaw Hills to the south and the Grampian Mountains to the north, about 12 miles (20 kilometres) from the North Sea.
The estate (the castle's land) covers more than 14,000 acres (57 km²). There are gardens and walking trails, as well as a farm which produces beef and a plantation (planted forest) which produces timber. There are two streams run through the estate. Near one stream, called the Glamis Burn is an arboretum (a tree garden) which has trees from all over the world, many of them rare and several hundred years old. Birds and other small wildlife can often be seen in the grounds.

History, legends and tales
People have lived in the area of Glamis Castle since Prehistoric times, and signs of these people can sometimes be found.
 A stone with richly carved decoration was found in a creek-bed nearby. It is known as the Eassie Stone and it is believed to date from about 600 AD.
 In 1034, Malcolm II of Scotland was murdered at Glamis. On the official website of Glamis castle, it says that in 1034 King Malcolm II was wounded in a battle and was taken to a Royal Hunting Lodge, where he died. Later, the castle was built where the Hunting Lodge had been.
 Since 1372 Glamis Castle was home to the Lords of Glamis.
 The most famous legend is that of the Monster of Glamis. The Monster was a very ugly disabled child who was kept hidden in the castle all his life. It is said that his rooms were bricked up after his death.
 A different version of the legend is that in every generation of the family, a vampire child is born. The vampire children are walled up in that room.
The legend of the monster may have come from the true story of the Ogilvie family. The Ogilvie family hid at Glamis Castle when they were trying to escape from their enemies, the Lindsays. But they were found, and put into a small room in the walls, which are 16 feet thick. The door was bricked up and the family were left to die of starvation.
 There is a story that some visitors who were staying at the Castle tried to find the hidden rooms. They hung towels from the windows of every room that they could find. Then they went outside and looked up. They could see some windows that had no towels. They thought that these must be the windows of the hidden rooms.
 Another legend tells that the monster is in Loch Calder near the castle.
 There is a small chapel in the castle, with seating for 46 people. One seat in the chapel is always kept empty for a ghost called the "Grey Lady". The "Grey Lady" is thought to be Janet Douglas, Lady Glamis. No one is allowed to sit in that seat.
The legend of Earl Beardie tells about how he played cards with the Devil. The Earl was a guest in Glamis Castle. One night he was drunk and wanted to play cards. It was the Sunday, and no-one else wanted to play because it was a Holy Day. Lord Beardie was so angry that he said that he would play with the Devil himself. A stranger knocked at the castle door and asked if Lord Beardie would play cards with him. They began to play in one of the rooms. Later, the servants heard yelling and swearing coming from the room. One peeped through the keyhole, but there was a flash of light through the keyhole that blinded him. The stranger had disappeared, and had taken the Earl's soul with him. Many people say that they have heard the shouting and the sound of dice rolling, as the Earl is still playing cards with the Devil.
Glamis in fiction 
In William Shakespeare's play Macbeth, Macbeth murders King Duncan at Glamis Castle. The historical ruler Macbeth of Scotland did not really live at Glamis Castle.
Glamis Castle is also in Kelley Armstrong's fantasy novel Haunted.
The legendary "Horror of Glamis" in an issue of Grant Morrison's comic book series, The Invisibles...

Related pages
 Scotland
 Castle

References

Other websites 

 Glamis Castle web site
 Ghosts and Hauntings in Glamis Castle

Castles in Scotland
Angus
11th-century buildings and structures
In geography, an oasis is an isolated place in the desert where there is vegetation. Most often, this occurs around a source of water. Oases provide a habitat for animals and are used as a source of water for humans.

The knowledge of the location of oases has been important for trade and transportation routes in desert areas. Caravans must travel via oases so that supplies of water and food can be refilled. Thus, political or military control of an oasis has in many cases meant control of trade on a particular route. For example, the oases of Awjila, Ghadames and Kufra, in modern-day Libya, have at various times been vital to both North-South and East-West trade in the Sahara desert. The word oasis came into English via Greek ὄασις , which was borrowed from Egyptian wḥ3t or Demotic wḥỉ. It was not borrowed from Coptic ouaḥe (*/waħe/), as is sometimes suggested; the Greek word is attested several centuries before Coptic existed as a written language.

References

Deserts
The Ancient Near East is the name given to early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and Syria), Persia (modern Iran), Anatolia (modern Turkey), the Levant (modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan), and Ancient Egypt, from the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BCE until the region's conquest by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE, or covering both the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in the region. As such, it is a term widely used in the fields of Near Eastern archaeology, ancient history and Egyptology.
Some would exclude Egypt from the ancient Near East as a geographically and culturally distinct area. However, because of Egypt's intimate involvement with the region, especially from the 2nd millennium BCE, this exclusion is rare.
The ancient Near East is considered the cradle of civilization. It was the first to practice intensive year-round agriculture; it gave the rest of the world the first writing system, invented the potter's wheel and then the vehicular- and mill wheel, created the first centralized governments, law codes and empires, as well as introducing social stratification, slavery and organized warfare, and it laid the foundation for the fields of astronomy and mathematics.

Ancient history
Boxer is a character from the book Animal Farm by George Orwell.  He is a horse, and is nearly eighteen hands high. In the book he is as strong as two horses put together. He has a white stripe down his nose, and that gives him a strange appearance. But still he was respected for his great power in work and his good character. He works as a cart-horse, as does Clover. Benjamin likes him in secret. 

In the book Boxer falls into the quarry when he was pulling a cart full of rock and is sent to a veterinarian on another farm by Napoleon. Squealer, Napoleon's spokesman, then claims he died peacefully, but Benjamin realises he has actually gone to the knacker's (slang for slaughterhouse, where animals are killed). Boxer was the most hard-working animal in the farm and was respected by all. When Boxer tried to support Snowball against Squealer, Napoleon tries to attack Boxer with his dogs but Boxer easily crushes the dog. Boxer is an ideal character showing loyalty along with his great hard work.
His slogans are: 
"I will always work harder."
"Napoleon's always right." 

He is a very loyal, caring character, but he is flawed in his lack of intelligence and does not see the real truth behind situations.

Boxer represents the loyal communist working class.
Him being slaughtered represents Stalin getting rid of the workers that are too old or too ill to participate in labour. 
The windmill represents them building the Industries and Boxer getting up early represents the working class working extremely hard. 
His gullibility represents the working class being gullible and doing what they are told for promises in the future.
His slogan “I will work harder” represents the working class's belief in Communism. “Napoleon is always right” represents their trust in the political system. 

Animal Farm characters
Fictional animals
In the fictional story Animal Farm, Benjamin is the oldest animal on Manor Farm, and very cool-tempered. He seldom speaks, except to make some cynical remark. He is the only animal on the farm that never laughs, saying that there was nothing to laugh at when asked about it. Without admitting it, Benjamin is devoted to Boxer, grazing with him in a small paddock near the orchard on Sundays.  He was not changed by the rebellion that took place towards the beginning of the novel.

Animal Farm characters
The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in the United States in October 1977. The Atari 2600 was originally called the Atari Video Computer System (or VCS). The Atari 2600 uses game cartridges which can be swapped in and out to change games, which was a new idea in video games at the time. Over 30 million Atari 2600 consoles were sold.

Name
While Atari designed their console, they code-named it Stella. When released in 1977, they called it the Video Computer System (VCS for short). There was also a version that was sold at Sears called the Sears Video Arcade. It was not called the Atari 2600 until the Atari 5200 released in 1982. The 2600 is called this because that is the part number the company used to tell the difference in versions.
Launch
When the Atari 2600 came out, it usually came with two joystick controllers, a pair of paddle controllers, and a game cartridge. There were initially nine games available at launch, featuring Combat (packaged with the console), Air-Sea Battle, Basic Math, Blackjack, Indy 500, Star Ship, Street Racer, Surround, and Video Olympics. The 2600 originally sold for $199.

Colors and graphics
The Atari 2600 uses different sets of colors depending on the television used with it:
 In North America, the NTSC format is used, which has 128 colors.
 In many parts of Europe, the PAL format is used, which has 104 colors.
 A third format, called SECAM, was used in France; it only has 8 colors: black, blue, pink, mauve, neon green, sea-foam, yellow and white.
Games
When the Atari 2600 was released nine games were available. Those games were Combat (which came with the console), Air-Sea Battle, Basic Math, Blackjack, Indy 500, Star Ship, Street Racer, Surround, and Video Olympics. Later more games came out, including Pac-Man, Missile Command and Space Invaders. The best-selling Atari 2600 game was Pac-Man, which sold 7 million copies.

Combat
Combat was chosen to be included in the box with the Atari 2600. It contained 27 games in one cartridge. Each game involved tanks, bi-planes, or jets.

Space Invaders
Space Invaders began  as an intensely popular Japanese arcade game. In 1980 a version of the game was released for the Atari 2600. The pixelated aliens from this game are still used as a popular symbol for video games today.
Pac-Man
Pac-Man began as an arcade game developed by Namco. In 1982 a version was released for the Atari 2600. It sold the most copies of any game released for the Atari 2600 (7 million copies). Despite this, the game was not popular with critics and consumers, because of the major differences in gameplay between the 2600 version and the arcade version.

See List of Atari 2600 Games for a bigger list of games.

Third-party game development
In 1980 the Atari 2600 was at the middle of an important development in video games, the beginning of third-party developers for console video games. In 1980 a group of four dissatisfied Atari employees founded the company Activision, who then released four games: Dragster, Fishing Derby, Checkers, and Boxing. This was an important moment in video game history as now every video game console on the market depends on some third-party game support.
Atari emulators
Today those who want to play the games designed for the 2600 do not have to try to find the original console and cartridge as many of the games have been recreated in video game emulators. One such emulator, Stella, will function on most any operating system. After downloading this emulator users can download games from other websites and use this program to play them.

Atari Junior

In 1986, a cheaper version of the Atari 2600 was released. Some people called this the Atari 2600 Junior. It was smaller than the original version. This system cost $50.
References
http://www.atariage.com/2600/index.html?SystemID=2600
http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/200109/msg00285.html
http://www.toyhalloffame.org/toys/atari-2600-game-system 
http://www.ign.com/top-25-consoles/2.html
http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/2600/atari2600.html 
http://www.britannica.com.proxy2.ulib.iupui.edu/EBchecked/topic/183800/electronic-game/233728/Early-home-video-consoles
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3551/a_history_of_gaming_platforms_.php
http://www.atari2600.com/news.php 
http://videogamecritic.net/cont/2600_c.htm 
http://stella.sourceforge.net/

Video game consoles
Atari 2600
The  is a home video game console made in 1985. It was not very popular in North America and Japan but was very popular in Brazil. One of the most popular games of the Master System was Sonic the Hedgehog.

, the Master System was still in production in Brazil by Tectoy. This would make it the world's longest-lived console.

Background

Launch
In October 1985, the Sega Mark III was released in Japan for ¥15,000.

The console was redesigned as the "Master System", and it was released in North America in 1986 at a price of $200 (). It included a multicart of the games Hang-On and Safari Hunt. By the end of 1986, 125,000 Master System consoles had been sold. This was more than the Atari 7800's 100,000, but it was less than the NES's 1.1 million.

The console was re-released as the Master System in Japan in October 1987 for ¥16,800. It still sold poorly as did the Mark III.  Neither model posed a serious challenge to Nintendo in Japan.
Transition to Genesis and decline
Sega released the Mega Drive, a 16-bit video game console, in Japan on October 29, 1988. The last game released for the Mark III/Master System in Japan was Bomber Raid in 1989.

By early 1992, Master System production stopped in North America. By that time, between 1.5 million and 2 million units had been sold in the United States.

The Master System later became a success in Europe. In Europe, it sold more than the NES by a lot. As late as 1993, the Master System's active installed user base in Europe was 6.25 million units. That was larger than that of the Mega Drive's 5.73 million base that year.  Combined with the Mega Drive, Sega had the majority of the console user base in Europe that year.
Continued success in Brazil 
The Master System has had the most success in Brazil. In Brazil, new versions have continued to be released. Tectoy has been manufacturing Master Systems since 1989. These versions include the Master System Compact and the Master System 3. In 2015, it was reported that the Master System sells around 150,000 units per year in Brazil. By 2016, the Master System had sold 8 million units in Brazil. Because Tectoy continued to produce the Master System years for so long, the Master System is considered the longest-lived in the history of video game consoles.

Reception and legacy
It is estimated that 13 million Master Systems were sold. This does not include recent Brazil sales.

Notes

References

Sega video game consoles
A remote control is a device used to issue commands (controlling it) from a distance to televisions, DVD players, doorbells  and so on. 

A remote controller does not have a wire and can be held by hand. It has buttons for volume, changing television channels and more.

Infrared or radio signals are used to communicate with the devices. Batteries make remote controls and controllers work. Mostly AAA, AA or coin battery size batteries are used.

Electronics
Spacewar! is one of the first known video games. It was released in 1962. It was made by Steve Russell and others. In this game, the player has to shoot the other spaceships while flying around a star. The ships shoot missiles (rockets) which were unaffected (nothing happened) by the gravity. Each ship had only a few missiles and only a little bit of fuel. The hyperspace could be used to avoid being hit by a missile but the ship would reappear at a random place. The more the player used hyperspace, the bigger the chance that the spaceship would explode.

Arcade games
Giotto di Bondone (c.1267–8 January 1337), usually known as Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence. He is generally thought of as the first in a line of great artists of the Italian Renaissance.

Giovanni Villani, who lived at the same time as Giotto, wrote that he was the king of painters, who drew all his figures as if they were alive. Villani says that, because he was so clever, the city of Florence gave him a salary.

In the 16th century, the biographer Giorgio Vasari says that Giotto changed painting from the Byzantine style of other artists of his day, and brought to life the great art of painting as it was made by the later Renaissance painters like Leonardo da Vinci. This was because Giotto drew his figures from life, rather than copying the style them from old well-known pictures in the way that the Byzantine artists like Cimabue and Duccio did.
Giotto's greatest work is the decoration of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, finished around 1305. The building is sometimes called the "Arena Chapel" because it is on the site of an Ancient Roman arena. This fresco series shows the life of the Virgin and the life of Christ. It is thought of as one of the greatest masterpieces of the Early Renaissance.

Although Vasari wrote about Giotto's life, it is not known how many of the stories are true, because Vasari was writing more than 200 years after Giotto died. Only two things are known for certain. It is known that in 1334 Giotto was chosen by the "commune" (town council) of Florence to design the bell tower next to Florence Cathedral which was being built at that time. It is also known for certain that Giotto painted the "Arena Chapel". But no-one can be certain where he was born, who his teacher was, what he looked like, whether he really painted the famous frescos at Assisi or where he was buried when he died.

Biography
Biography

Early years 
Giotto was probably born in a hilltop farmhouse, perhaps at Colle di Romagnano or Romignano. He was the son of a well-respected man named Bondone. His name Giotto might have been a nickname from Ambrogiotto (little Ambrose) or Angelotto (little Angelo).
The year of his death is 1337, but the year of his birth (1267) is based on a poem by Antonio Pucci, the town crier of Florence, who said that Giotto was seventy when he died. Some people think that Pucci just used seventy because it fitted the rhyme of his poem, and that perhaps Giotto was a quite different age when he died.
In his Lives of the Artists, Giorgio Vasari tells the story of how Giotto was a shepherd boy, a merry and intelligent child who was loved by all who knew him. One day the great Florentine painter Cimabue passed by and saw him drawing pictures of his sheep on a rock. They were so lifelike that Cimabue asked Bondone if he could take the boy as an apprentice. Many art historians think this story is just a legend. They think that Giotto's family was quite rich, and they moved to Florence where Giotto was sent to Cimabue's workshop as an apprentice.

Vasari tells several stories to show how clever Giotto was, and what a sense of humour he had. Vasari writes that when Cimabue was away from the workshop, Giotto painted a fly on the face of the painting that his master was working on. When Cimabue came back, he tried several times to brush the fly off.
Vasari also tells the story that the Pope wanted to see if Giotto would be a good artists to paint some important pictures. The Pope sent a messenger asking Giotto to send him back a small picture. Instead of doing a painting, which would take many days, Giotto drew, in red paint, a circle that was so perfect that it seemed as though it was drawn using a pair of compasses. Giotto told the messenger to give that to the Pope.

Early career
Early career 

Giotto's master, Cimabue, was one of the two most famous painters of Tuscany. He worked in Florence, while the other famous painter, Duccio, worked mainly in Siena. Around 1280, Giotto and Cimabue went to Rome, where there were several fresco painters. The most famous painter in Rome was Pietro Cavallini. The famous sculptor and architect from Florence, Arnolfo di Cambio, was also working in Rome. Giotto would have seen the paintings and sculpture by these different artists. Pietro Cavallini's paintings and Arnolfo's sculpture was far more realistic and three-dimensional than the paintings by Giotto's teacher Cimabue.
Vasari wrote that Giotto's earliest works were for the Dominican Friars at the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. These paintings include a fresco of the Annunciation and the enormous suspended Crucifix which is about 5 metres high painted in about 1290 In 1312, a rich Florentine gentleman called Ricuccio Pucci left money in his will so that a lamp could be kept burning before the crucifix "by the illustrious painter Giotto".

In 1287, when he was about 20, Giotto married Ricevuta di Lapo del Pela, known as "Ciuta". The couple had many children, perhaps eight. One of the sons, Francesco, became a painter. Giotto's fame as a painter spread. He was called to work in Rome, Padua, and Rimini, where his Crucifix can be seen in the Church of St Francis.(See right) Giotto became rich enough to buy land in the wealthy city of Florence. This probably means that he was the master of a large workshop.
The Scrovegni Chapel 
Giotto's most famous works are the fresco paintings in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. These were painted sometime between 1303 and 1310. The Scrovegni Chapel is often called the Arena Chapel because it is on the site of an Roman arena.

Giotto was "commissioned" (given the work) by a rich Paduan man called Enrico degli Scrovegni. Enrico built the chapel and had it painted as a place to pray for the soul of his dead father. It was next to a very old palace that Enrico was restoring to live in. The palace has gone now, but the chapel is still standing. The outside of the building is very plain, pinkish-red bricks.

The inside of the chapel is also very simple. It is long, with a chancel at one end where a priest can say the mass, an arched roof and windows down one side. The walls have been painted with three tiers (layers) of pictures. The "theme" (the main idea) in the pictures is God's Salvation of people through Jesus Christ.
In the usual way for churches of that date, the wall above the main door has a large painting of the Last Judgement. At the other end of the building, on either side of the chancel archway are paintings of the Annunciation. One side shows the Virgin Mary and the other side show the Angel Gabriel who is bringing her the message that she will have a son, Jesus.

Around the walls, starting at the top layer, are scenes which tell the life of the Virgin Mary. Under them, in two layers, are the stories of the life of Jesus. There are 37 scenes altogether.
About the paintings 
Giotto's master Cimabue painted in a Medieval style. But Giotto's paintings look quite different. The writer Giorgio Vasari says that Giotto brought about a complete change in painting, with a more natural style. Giotto would have seen the paintings of Pietro Cavallini and some Ancient Roman sculpture, on his visit to Rome. He also saw the sculpture of Arnolfo di Cambio who worked in Florence. The style of these sculptured figures was solid and natural, not "elongated" (made longer) like most Medieval sculptured and painted figures.
The figures that Giotto painted are solid and three-dimensional. They have anatomy, faces and actions that look very natural, because they have been drawn from looking at real people. The clothes of the figures are not arranged to form a beautiful pattern, like the clothes in Cimabue's paintings. They fit the figures and hang in a natural way like real clothes. This more natural way of showing people was started by Pietro Cavallini, but Giotto took the new ideas much further.

In the paintings around the walls of the Scrovegni Chapel, each scene looks like a shallow stage with actors on it. There are always some buildings or landscape such as a rocky hill, so that the viewer can see where the action is happening. The figures in each scene are carefully arranged so that the viewer can imagine that they are right there, taking part in the action.
The figures are not just shown with natural bodies, clothing and action. Giotto is a brilliant story-teller, because he shows the emotions of the characters in each painting, in both their faces and their "gestures" (body movement).
 One picture shows old Joachim returning to the hillsides, looking sad because he can have no children. Two young shepherds look sideways at each other.
 Another picture, shows the dreadful scene of the murder of the babies of Bethlehem. There is a soldier who has his head hunched down, and a look of shame as he pulls a baby away from its screaming mother.
 In the picture of Mary and Joseph on the way to Egypt, the people who are walking behind them are gossiping about them, as they go.
The most famous of the paintings, the "Lamentation over the Body of Christ", is shown the deep sadness of Jesus' mother and friends, as they get His body ready to be buried. On Earth, the people crying and moaning, while in Heaven, the angels are roaring and shrieking and tearing their hair in grief.
A famous English critic of the 1800s, John Ruskin, said that while Giotto painted the Madonna and St. Joseph and the Christ Child, he also painted them to look like an ordinary "Mamma, Papa and Baby."

Giotto had pupils who copied his style. Many other artists were influence by him. These painters include Guariento, Giusto de' Menabuoi, Jacopo Avanzi, and Altichiero. In the next hundred years, there were many churches and chapels painted with scenes like the ones that Gitto painted. The Scrovegni Chapel paintings were so famous that many other artists, such as Michelangelo, who lived 200 years later, made drawing or copies of them.

Mature works 
From 1306 to 1311 Giotto was in Assisi, painting frescoes in the Lower Church. The paintings are about The Life of Christ, the Teachings of the Franciscan Friars and The Lives of the Saints.
In 1311 Giotto returned to Florence. In 1313 He went to Rome to design a mosaic for the façade (front) of the old St. Peter's Basilica. This was destroyed when the building was demolished.

From 1314 until 1327 Giotto lived in Florence. At this time he pianted the famous altarpiece for the Ognissanti Church (Church of All Saints). This large tempera painting is called the Ognissanti Madonna. It is now in the Uffizi where it is exhibited beside Cimabue's Santa Trinita Madonna and Duccio's Rucellai Madonna. Giotto also painted a very large Crucifix to hang in Ognissanti Church.
The sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti wrote that in 1318 Giotto began to paint four Chapels at the Church of Santa Croce. The chapels were paid for by four different rich families and were given their names. Giotto painted the Life of St. Francis in the Bardi Chapel. He painted the Life of St. John the Baptist and the Life of St. John the Evangelist in the Peruzzi Chapel. He painted Stories of the Virgin Mary in the Tosinghi Spinelli Chapel and Stories of the Apostles in the Giugni Chapel. The Giugni Chapel has been destroyed. The Peruzzi Chapel was very famous during Renaissance times. More than 150 years later, Michelangelo came to studied Giotto's paintings.

Later life
Later life 

In the 1320s Giotto painted two large altarpieces. The first was the Stefaneschi Triptych, which is now in the Vatican Museum. (A triptych is a painting on three panels. Some triptychs are very small and can be folded up and carried around, but this triptych is a large altarpiece.) The second altarpiece is called the Baroncelli Polyptych. (A polyptych has lots of parts, big and small. They are usually made as great big altarpieces for important churches, and have big, carved gold frames.)

Giotto travelled around and did paintings in Rome, Naples and Bologna. He always took a group of students with him. Nowadays, many of the frescos that he painted in these cities have been destroyed by damp, by earthquakes, by war and by people demolishing the church to build a new one. Because Giotto was very famous, people always liked to believe that he painted the fresco in their church. Many frescos are probably by Giotto's students.
In 1334 Giotto was in Florence where the magnificent new Florence Cathedral was being built. Giotto was made the chief architect and was given the job of designing a huge tower to hold the cathedral bells. It is called Giotto's Bell Tower and was designed and begun by him on July 18 1334, but it was not completed to his design.

As he grew old, Giotto became friends with two writers, Giovanni Boccaccio and Sacchetti, who both thought that he was such an entertaining and famous person that they wrote about him in their stories. The most famous writer of that time, Dante, also wrote about him in his book The Divine Comedy. Dante said that Giotto was the greatest painter in the world, even greater than his famous master, Cimabue.
Giotto's bones 
Giotto died in January 1337. Vasari wrote that Giotto was buried in Santa Maria del Fiore, the Cathedral of Florence, on the left of the entrance and with the spot marked by a white marble plaque.
In the 1970s, some bones were discovered underneath the paving near at a spot described by Vasari. In 2000 the bones were examined by experts.

The bones were those of a very short man, just over four feet tall. In a fresco in the Church of Santa Croce, there is a figure of a man who is a dwarf (a person who is very short). People at that church have always said that the dwarf was Giotto himself. The bones that were found at the cathedral support this story. Also, the bones had lots of unusual chemicals in them, such as arsenic and lead, which were found in the artist's paints. After the bones had been examined, they were buried with great honour, because many people believed that they were the remains of the great artist. Not everybody believes this.

Gallery
Gallery

Related pages
 List of Italian painters

References 
 G.Previtali, Giotto e la sua bottega (1993)
 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architetti (1568)
 Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, trans. George Bull, Penguin Classics, (1965) 
 Sarel Eimerl, The World of Giotto, Time-Life Books, (1967),

Other reading 
 Norman Land, Giotto as an Ugly Genius: A Study in Self-Portrayal, in Andrew Ladis, ed., Giotto as a Historical and Literary Figure: Miscellaneous Studies, 4 vols. (Vol. 1: Giotto and the World of Early Italian Art), Garland Publishing, New York, 1998: 183 – 196.

Footnotes 

1267 births
1337 deaths
13th-century Italian painters
Italian architects
People from Florence
14th-century Italian painters
Gaius or Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius or Caius Plinius Caecilius (61/63 in Como - ca. 113), better known as Pliny the Younger, was a lawyer, a remarkable writer, an author, and natural philosopher of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educate him and they were both witnesses to the eruption of Vesuvius on August 24th, 79 AD.

Other websites 
 Pliny's first Letter to Tacitus  Describes how his uncle sailed across the bay to save some people
 Pliny's second letter to Tacitus  Tells how Pliny himself barely escaped.
 First letter, latin original (Letters, Book 6, Letter 16), in  Wikisource
 Second letter, Latin Original (Letters, Book 6, Letter 20), in Wikisource

61 births
110s deaths
Lawyers
Ancient Roman writers
People from Como
The Moura Photovoltaic Power Station is in the municipality of Moura, in the interior region of Alentejo, Portugal. It has an installed capacity of 62 MWp. The first stage of construction was finished in 2008 and the second and final stage was finished in 2010. Together with the construction of the power station, a solar panel factory is currently being built and there are plans for a research lab dedicated to solar energy.

The brainchild of Prof Mario Baptista Coelho, the founding partner of Renatura and a Professor of Geostrategy of Natural Resources at the Faculty of Sciences of Lisbon, Moura was the first step in proving the feasibility of Very-Large Scale Photovoltaic Plants.

Originally conceptualized in 1999, Moura is a stepping stone in addressing the issue of carbon dioxide by way of solar energy.

Moura is currently operated by Acciona, which purchased the project in 2007.
Coped with Moura is the Sunflower Sustainability Project, as in integrated package of the paradigm of sustainability and Zero-Carbon Communities (www.sunflower-project.net).

References 

Solar power plants
Buildings and structures in Portugal
Jérémie (Kréyòl: Jeremi) is a city in southwest Haiti. It is the capital city of the Grand'Anse Département.

Jérémie is also called the City of Poets because of the many writers, poets, and historians that were born or live there, such as Etzer Vilaire and Émile Roumer. The father of the French writer Alexandre Dumas, père, General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, was born at Madère, near Jérémie.

History 
The town was founded in 1756 when the country was the French colony of Saint-Domingue. It was built where there was a small fishing town called Trou-Jérémie.

Geography 
The city is on the north coast of the Southern Peninsula, on a small bay. It is among low mountains (Bordes, Rochasse and Caracol) and almost isolated from the rest of the country, about 280 km south of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince. To the southeast of the city is the River Grande-Anse.
It is also the chief town of an arrondissement (a part of a department) with the same name. The arrondissement has five communes (a commune is like a municipality): Jérémie, Abricots, Bonbon, Chambellan and Moron.

Economy 
Jeremie is an important Haitian port; bananas are send to other countries from this port.

Places to visit 
There are several interesting places to visit and see in Jérémie and near the city. Some of them are:
 Fort Télémaque or Fort Marfrac. It was built after the Haitian independence to defend the area.
 Église Saint-Louis (Saint Louis Church), built during the 19th century.
 The Anse-d'Azur' beach. There are other interesting beaches such as those of Gommier and Guinaudée.
 L'Habitation Latibolière where the General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, father of the French writer Alexandre Dumas, was born. It was a farm where coffee was grown; its old name was Habitation Davy de La Pailleterie''.

Media
Media

Radio 
 Radio Grand-Anse FM
 Radio Imagine FM (Corail)
 Radio Lanbi FM (Rue Stenio Vincent)
 Radio Orbite (Rue De la Paix)
 Radio Tèt Ansanm (Rue Abbe Huet)
 Radio Pipirite Nouvelle (Rue Alexandre Petion)
 Radio Jérémie Nouvelle (Rue Dr Hypolytte)
 Radio Echo Celeste (Calas)
 Radio ABC FM (Caracolie)
 Radio Xaragua FM (Rue Mgn Beauger)
 Radio Power Mix (Gragramora)
 Zantray (Dame Marie)
 Radio Dame Marie FM (Dame Marie)
 Radio pirite (Anse D´ainault)
 Radio Mega FM (Beaumont)
 Radio Rebel (Anse D´ainault)
 Radio trompette Evangelique (Caracolie)
 Radio Makandal FM (Caracolie)

References 

Cities in Haiti
1756 establishments
18th-century establishments in Haiti
1750s establishments in North America