AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
Very little is known about Beethoven’s childhood. He was baptized on December 17, 1770 and was probably born a few days before that. Beethoven's parents were Johann van Beethoven (1740 in Bonn – December 18, 1792) and Maria Magdalena Keverich (1744 in Ehrenbreitstein – July 17, 1787). Magdalena's father, Johann Heinrich Keverich, had been Chief at the court of the Archbishopric of Trier at Festung Ehrenbreitstein fortress opposite to Koblenz. His father was a fairly unimportant musician who worked at the court of the Elector of Cologne. This court was in Bonn and it was here that he lived until he was a young man. His father gave him his first lessons in piano and violin. Beethoven was a child prodigy like Mozart, but while Mozart as a little boy was taken all over Europe by his father, Beethoven never traveled until he was 17. By that time, his piano teacher was a man called Neefe who had learned the piano from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the son of Johann Sebastian Bach. Neefe said to the Elector that the young Beethoven should be given the chance to travel, so he was allowed to go to Vienna. There, he might have had one or two lessons from Mozart, but then Beethoven got a letter saying that his mother was dying, so he hurried back to Bonn. Soon his mother died, and Beethoven had to help to look after the family because his father had become an alcoholic. Beethoven played the viola in the orchestra of the Elector, he started to compose, and made many friends. Some of these friends were musicians and others were very important people, many of them were aristocrats who would be able to help him in his career.
In 1792, the Elector let Beethoven travel to Vienna again. They expected him to return after a while. However, Beethoven never left Vienna. He stayed there for the rest of his life. He would have loved to have had some more composition lessons from Mozart, but Mozart had just died, so he had lessons from Haydn instead. Haydn was a good teacher, but a year later, he went off to England. Therefore, Beethoven took lessons from a man called Albrechtsberger who was not famous like Haydn. He was a good teacher too, and he made him write lots of technical exercises. He showed him how to write advanced counterpoint and fugues. This helped him to be a great composer.
Beethoven wanted to become famous as a pianist and composer, so he started to get to know important, aristocratic people. Some of these people had already heard him in Bonn when they had traveled there, so his name was becoming known in Vienna. It also helped that he could say he was the pupil of the famous Joseph Haydn. There were a lot of aristocratic people in Vienna who liked music, and many had their own private orchestras. Some of them started to give Beethoven places to live when the Elector of Bonn stopped sending him money in 1794. Beethoven started to perform in private houses, and he became known for his improvisations. In 1795 he performed one of his piano concertos at a concert. He also had his first publication (his opus 1). This was a group of three Piano Trios. Haydn had heard them at a private concert a year before and had advised Beethoven not to publish the third one. However, he did publish it, and that was the one which became the most successful. His opus 2 was a group of three piano sonatas which he played at the court of his friend Prince Lichnowsky. When he published them, he dedicated them to Haydn.
Beethoven was starting to become famous, travelling to places like Prague and Pressburg. He wrote much chamber music. He was, perhaps, a little jealous of the success that Haydn had with his latest symphonies he had written for London. In 1800 he gave his first public concert with his own music. He conducted his First Symphony as well as the Septet. By now several publishers were trying to persuade him to let them publish his new works. Beethoven was becoming famous as a composer. And during this period Beethoven produced his most famous piano sonata: No. 14, in C sharp minor, nicknamed, "Moonlight". This was written for his girlfriend, 16-year-old Giulietta Guicciardi. However, he was far from happy because he realized that he was starting to become deaf. And when he asked for Giulietta's marriage, her parents refused and married her to another 20-year-old man instead.
Beethoven seems to have tried to forget these bad thoughts by working very hard. He composed a lot more music, including his Third Symphony, called the "Eroica". Originally he gave it the title "Bonaparte" in honour of Napoleon whom he admired. But when Napoleon crowned himself emperor in 1804, Beethoven began to think that he was just a tyrant who wanted a lot of power. He went to the table where the score of the symphony was lying and tore up the title page. Beethoven stayed in Vienna that year, working hard at an opera and giving piano lessons to Josephine von Brunsvik to whom he wrote passionate letters. She was a young widow with four children. It is impossible to know quite what her feelings were for Beethoven, but socially she belonged in higher society and probably thought that a wild musician was not a suitable husband. In the end she married a Baron, but this marriage, like her first one, was not happy either.
In 1805 Beethoven wrote his only opera. The next spring it had two performances but was then not performed again for another eight years. Beethoven had made several changes to the opera which became known as "Fidelio". The overture that he had written for the 1806 performance is now known as "Leonore 3" and is usually performed separately at concerts. The opera is a “rescue” opera, a typical French kind of opera describing a man who is imprisoned and rescued by his lover who disguises herself as a man and manages to get into the prison.
Beethoven continued to write compositions: a Violin Concerto, symphonies, piano concertos, string quartets and chamber music. Two of his greatest symphonies were produced in 1806: "Symphony No. 5" and "Symphony No. 6 "Pastorale"". The first one was known for its dark and deep tone, especially in its first movement. The second was famous for its depiction of the countryside. He also wrote "Piano Concerto No. 4" and "Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor"". He earned money by pleasing the aristocrats, dedicating works to them in return for fees, and by selling his music to publishers. Occasionally he earned money from concerts. It was not a regular income. He would have liked the job of Kapellmeister to the emperor. He was not able to get this, but in 1809 three rich aristocrats: the Archduke Rodolph, Prince Lobkowitz and Prince Kinsky gave him an income for the rest of his life on condition that he stayed in Vienna. This meant that Beethoven did not have to worry so much about money. He was asked to write music for "Egmont", a play by Goethe. The overture is very often performed as a concert piece. Beethoven very much wanted to meet Goethe. The two great men met in Teplitz. Goethe later described Beethoven as a rather wild-mannered man who made life difficult for himself by his cross attitude to the world. Beethoven admired several women, including one to whom he wrote a passionate letter. She is known as the “Immortal Beloved”, but no one knows who she was. Beethoven seems pølle to have become deeply depressed because he never found true happiness in love.
In a letter dated June 29, 1801, Beethoven told a friend in Bonn about a terrible secret he had for some time. He knew that he was becoming deaf. For some time, he had spells of fever and stomach pains. A young man does not expect to become deaf, but now he was starting to admit it to himself. He was finding it hard to hear what people were saying. Just at the moment when he was starting to become known as one of the greatest of all composers, it was a terrible blow to realize that he was losing his hearing. In 1802, he stayed for a time in Heiligenstadt which is now a suburb of Vienna but at that time it was outside the city. There he wrote a famous letter which is known as the "Heiligenstadt Testament". It is dated October 6 and told about his rising frustration at his deafness. He asks people to forgive him if he cannot hear what they are saying. He said that he had often thought of suicide, but that he had so much music in his head which had to be written down that he decided to continue his life. This very emotional letter was found amongst his papers after his death. He never sent it to anyone.
By 1814, Beethoven had reached the height of his fame. The Viennese people thought of him as the greatest living composer, and he was often invited by royal people to their palaces. It was the year in which he played his famous Piano Trio Op. 97 "The Archduke". That was the last time he played the piano in public. His deafness was making it impossible to continue.
Beethoven had many problems when his brother Caspar Carl died, leaving a 9-year-old son. The boy’s mother may have been incapable of looking after him, but Beethoven had to prove this in a court of law. For several years he looked after his nephew, but it was a difficult relationship and it involved a lot of legal letters and quarrels with people. In 1826, Karl tried to shoot himself. He survived, but people persuaded Beethoven to stop being his guardian. Karl went into the army.
The last years were unhappy years for Beethoven. During this time he composed very little. Then, in 1817, he recovered and wrote his last two symphonies, a mass called "Missa Solemnis", his last five piano sonatas, and a group of string quartets which were so modern and difficult that very few people at the time understood the music. Nowadays, people think they are the greatest works ever written for string quartet.
His Ninth Symphony is called the "Choral" Symphony because there is a choir and soloists in the last movement. At the time people did not understand this either, because a symphony is normally a work for orchestra, not a work with singers. Beethoven chose the words of a poem by the German poet Friedrich Schiller: "An die Freude" ("Ode to Joy"). It is all about living together in peace and harmony, so that it sends an important message to people. This is why it has been chosen in recent years as the National Anthem for the European Union. The Ninth Symphony was performed at a concert on May 7, 1824. After the scherzo movement the audience applauded enthusiastically, but Beethoven could not hear the applause and one of the singers had to turn him round so that he could see that people were clapping.
Beethoven died on March 26, 1827. About 20,000 people came onto the streets for his funeral. The famous poet Franz Grillparzer wrote the funeral speech. One of the torchbearers was Franz Schubert. Schubert died the next year. In 1888 Beethoven’s and Schubert’s remains were moved to another cemetery in Vienna and were placed side by side.
Beethoven’s music is usually divided into three periods: Early, Middle and Late. Most composers who live a long time develop as they get older and change their way of composing. Of course, these changes in style are not sudden, but they are quite a good way of understanding the different periods of his composing life.
His first period includes the works he wrote in his youth in Bonn, and his early days in Vienna up to about 1803. His middle period starts with the Eroica Symphony and includes most of his orchestral works. His last period includes the Ninth Symphony and the late string quartets.
Beethoven is probably the most famous of all composers, and the most written about. He had a wild personality and this was something that the Romantics in the 19th century always expected from great artists. The Romantics thought that the artist was somehow a person with exaggerated qualities who was not like normal people. Beethoven had a very strong personality. He lived in the time of the French Revolution and had strong views on independence and ways of living free from tyranny. This made him a hero in many people’s eyes.
His music was so famous that many composers in the 19th century found it quite hard to compose because they thought they would be compared to him. For example, Johannes Brahms, took a long time to write his First Symphony. He thought that everyone was expecting him to be the next Beethoven. It was only towards the end of the 19th century that Gustav Mahler wrote several symphonies which include singing, although he does this very differently to Beethoven.
Roald Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer who focused on the poles. He led the first expedition to reach the South Pole and the first that could prove it made it to the North Pole. Amundsen was also the first man known to travel the Northwest Passage.
When Amundsen was young, he decided he would use his life to explore the wilderness. He was inspired by the lives of Fridtjof Nansen and John Franklin. While his mother was alive he did not go to sea, to keep a promise to her. After her death, he quit university to begin exploring the world at 21 years old.
In 1897, he went on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition as first mate. This was the first expedition to stay over winter at Antartica, since their ship got stuck in the ice preventing them from leaving.
In 1903, Amundsen led the first expedition to make it through the Northwest Passage.
In October 1911, he began his expedition to Antarctica with four other men in attempt to be the first man to reach the South Pole. Robert Falcon Scott, an explorer from Britain, arrived in Antarctica with his own team only days after Amundsen. Both explorers raced to the South Pole, but Amundsen and his men used skis and dog sleds for transportation. This was more efficient. On 14 December 1911, Amundsen successfully became the first man to reach the South Pole.
In 1926, Amundsen and his men made it to the North Pole. Three other expeditions claimed to make it before then, but their claims have not been verified. Two of them have been considered fraud. This may make Amundsen and his men the first to reach the North Pole.
He disappeared in June 1928 while taking part in a rescue mission.
Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) was a Genoese trader, explorer, and navigator. He was born in Genoa, Italy, in the year 1451. "Christopher Columbus" is the English version of Columbus's name. His real name in Italian was Cristoforo Colombo
In 1492 Columbus landed on an island of the Bahamas, the first European to do so. His initial goal was to find a quicker route to Asia from Europe. He is credited with the discovery of the New World because his voyage started the era of European colonialism in the Americas. This was an important moment in European history. While Leif Erikson was the first European to land on the soils of America it was not well documented and did not lead to the later contact between Europe and the New World. The effects was the bringing over of livestock, disease, crops and slaves
When the Spanish learned that Columbus had found a New World, many other people, called conquistadors, went there too. This led to the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
Columbus died on 20 May 1506, in Valladolid, Spain.
Columbus was not the first European person to have discovered America. At the time of his voyage, Europeans did not know that the Americas existed. However, Leif Erikson, around 1000 AD had landed in present-day Canada. This discovery had no impact on European history and was not well documented. Columbus discovered America in the sense that he was the first person to create repeated exploration and contact with the New World. Another point is that Native Americans had been living there for thousands of years before he arrived. However, Native Americans did not record or contribute to the European record of history for obvious reasons. Columbus, therefore, "discovered" America in context of European history.
Many people in Western Europe wanted to find a shorter way to get to Asia. Columbus thought he could get to Asia by sailing west. He did not know about the Western Hemisphere, so he did not realize it would block him from getting to Asia.
However, Columbus did not have enough money to pay for this voyage on his own. After defeating the Emirate of Granada, the rulers of Spain, Ferdinand II and Isabella I of Castile, agreed to pay for the voyage. He promised to bring back gold and spices for them.
In August 1492, Columbus and his sailors left Spain in three ships: the "Santa María" (the Holy Mary), the "Pinta" (the Painted), and the "Santa Clara" (nicknamed the "Niña": the Little Girl).
The three ships were very small. Historians think that the largest ship, the "Santa María", was only about long, and about 16 to 19 feet (4.8 to 5.8 metres) wide.
Columbus's other ships were even smaller. Historians think they were about long.
On October 12, 1492, after sailing for about four months, Columbus landed on a small island in the Bahamas. The natives called it Guanahani; Columbus renamed it San Salvador Island ("Holy Savior"). He met Arawek and Taíno Native Americans who lived on the island. They were friendly and peaceful towards Columbus and his crew. Not knowing where he was, and thinking that he had reached Asia, the "Indies," he called them "Indians." He claimed their land as Spain's.
Columbus then sailed to what is now Cuba, then to Hispaniola. On Hispaniola, Columbus built a fort. This was one of the first European military bases in the Western Hemisphere. He called it Navidad (Spanish for "Christmas"). He left thirty-nine crew members there, and ordered them to find and store the gold.
On the day he landed in the Bahamas, Columbus wrote about the Arawaks and Taíno:
Columbus noticed that some of the Arawaks had gold earrings. He took some of them as prisoners and ordered them to lead him to the gold. However, they could not.
According to Encyclopædia Britannica:
On September 24, 1493, Columbus left Spain with enough ships, supplies, and men to invade and make Spanish colonies in the New World. He had 17 ships and 1,200 men. These men included soldiers and farmers. There were also priests, whose job was to convert the natives to Christianity.
On this voyage, Columbus explored some of the islands of the Lesser Antilles. He also sailed around most of Hispaniola and explored the sides of Jamaica and Cuba he had not seen on his first voyage.
Then he went back to the Navidad fort. He found the fort burned down. Eleven of the 37 soldiers Columbus left at the fort were buried there. The rest had disappeared. Historians think this happened because of disease and fights with the Arawak people.
While Columbus was away from Navidad exploring Jamaica and Cuba, his soldiers stopped working on building a new fort and farms. They made the Arawaks give them food. They also stole things from the Arawaks and raped Arawak women. This made the Arawaks decide to fight back against the Spaniards. However, Spain had many weapons that the Arawaks had never seen, including steel swords, pikes, crossbows, dogs, and horses. This made it much easier for Spain to win fights against the Arawaks.
Columbus also took revenge against the Arawaks for killing his soldiers at Navidad. He made every native older than 14 give him a certain amount of gold every three months. If a person did not do this, Columbus's men would cut off their hands, and they would bleed to death. Historian Carl Lehrburger says that about 10,000 natives died this way. Columbus also led his soldiers to many different villages in Hispaniola to take them over and make them pay him gold also. If they could not pay the gold, people would be made into slaves or killed.
There was not much gold on the parts of the island Columbus took over. To avoid getting their hands cut off, many Arawaks tried to run away from Columbus and his men. However, Columbus's soldiers used dogs to hunt them down and kill them. Bartolomé de las Casas said that the Spanish killed two out of every three native people in the area (though he may have been exaggerating).
In February 1495, Columbus started the transatlantic slave trade. He and his soldiers captured about 1,500 Taíno. Only 500 could fit on Columbus's ships, so Columbus told his men they could take any of the rest as slaves. They took 600 and let 400 go. Of the 500 natives that Columbus shipped to Spain as slaves, about 200 died on the trip. Half of the rest were very sick when they arrived. This was the first time people had ever been shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to be sold as slaves.
Michele da Cuneo, a friend of Columbus's, helped capture natives as slaves. In a letter, da Cuneo later wrote that Columbus gave him a captured native woman to rape:
Columbus went on another voyage in 1498. King John II of Portugal had said there was a continent to the south-west of the Cape Verde islands. On his third voyage, Columbus wanted to find this continent. Before the voyage, Queen Isabella reminded Columbus that he should treat all of the native people well and make them into Christians.
On this voyage, Columbus sent three ships straight to the West Indies (the Caribbean). He led another three ships: first to two Portuguese islands, then to the Canary Islands, then Cape Verde. From Cape Verde, they sailed to the northern coast of South America and landed in Trinidad. He also explored part of South America and the islands now called Tobago and Grenada.
On August 19, 1498, Columbus returned to Hispaniola. He found that many of the Spanish settlers there were unhappy. They thought there would be more gold in the New World. Some of them had rebelled while he was gone. Columbus had five of the rebellion's leaders hanged. He also tried to make the rest of the settlers happy by giving them land in Hispaniola. However, the settlers kept sending complaints to Spain. In 1499, Queen Isabella sent a man named Francisco de Bobadilla to Hispaniola. She gave him the power to do whatever he thought he should do. When he arrived in 1500, the first thing he did was to have Columbus arrested and sent back to Spain in chains.
When he was trying to make Spanish settlers happy, Columbus started the "Encomienda" system in Hispaniola. Under this system, Columbus would give a piece of land in Hispaniola to an individual Spanish settler. Sometimes, he would give away a whole native village. Any natives that lived in that area had to work for that Spanish settler. Natives had lived on this land for centuries. Columbus was giving their land away, "and" then forcing them to work on that land.
On August 23, 1500 Columbus was arrested in Hispañola, now called Santo Domingo, for cruelty to natives and Spaniards. He was sent to Spain in chains in October 1500. He was released on December 25, 1500, and taken to court. Columbus had important friends, and the King restored his freedom. He was not made governor again, but eventually he was allowed to lead another voyage.
Columbus died of heart failure and arthritis in Valladolid, Spain, at the possible age of 54.
Columbus's relatives said that Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy. Today, no historian can say for sure where Columbus was born. Most experts think the best evidence says he was born in Genoa. However, other historians think Columbus was born somewhere else, like Spain or Portugal. Some think he was originally a Jew who converted to Christianity.
Columbus wrote that he first went to sea when he was 14 years old.
In 1477, Columbus married Felipa Moniz Perestrelo. She was from a semi-noble family with connections to sailing. She died around 1479 or 1480 while giving birth to their son, Diego.
In 1485, while in Córdoba, Spain, Columbus met Beatriz Enríquez de Trasierra. They lived together for a while. They had one child named Fernando.
Columbus had a few different goals for his journeys to the New World. First, he believed he could find a shorter and easier route to Asia, which made things Europe did not. He believed he could find a shorter route to China. Other people had called this belief absurd. Columbus wanted to prove these people wrong.
Second, Columbus wanted to find gold. Gold was the main kind of money used in Columbus's times. In his letter to Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Columbus wrote: “Gold is most excellent; gold is treasure, and [the person] who [has] it does all he wishes to in this world." This means that someone with gold can do anything he wants to do. Many historians believe that Columbus wanted to become a powerful person and in order to become powerful, he needed to find gold.
When the Spanish learned about the New World, many conquistadors, or conquerors, went there. This led to the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
The Spanish conquistadors first settled on the islands of Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic and Haiti), Cuba, and Puerto Rico. They grabbed as much gold as they could. The Spanish also brought priests and forced the Native Americans to convert to Christianity.
In the United States, Columbus Day is a holiday that celebrates Columbus's arrival in the New World on October 12, 1492.
The World's Columbian Exposition, which happened in 1893 in Chicago, Illinois, was held to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus visiting the Americas.
The GNU General Public License (GPL) is a computer software copyleft license. This license lets the user of the software use a program in many of the same ways as if it were public domain. They can use it, change it, and copy it. They can also sell or give away copies of the program with or without any changes they made to it. The license lets them do this as long as they agree to follow the terms of the license. The GPL was created by Richard Stallman. The current version is version 3, created in 2007, although some software still uses version 2, created in 1991.
There are two main terms to the license. Both apply to giving the program away or selling it.
If the user does not agree to follow the GPL, they can still use the software under copyright laws. They can use it and make copies or changes to it for themselves, but they cannot give it away or sell it. They also can not change the license.
Triangle (disambiguation)
In geometry, a triangle is the flat shape formed by joining three points (not in a straight line) with straight line segments. A triangle is a three sided polygon.
In music, a triangle is a musical instrument that is made from a metal tube. It is in the shape of a triangle. It is open at one corner, and when it is hit with a metal stick, it makes a sound.
A square is a shape with four equal sides and four corners that are all right angles (90 degrees). The diagonals of a square also cross at right angles. The angle between any diagonal and a side of a square is 45 degrees. A square has rotational symmetry of four. It has four lines of regular symmetry. A square with vertices "A", "B", "C" and "D" can be written as formula_1.
A square is a type of rectangle with all sides of equal length. However, while a square is a type of rectangle and rhombus, the opposite does not need to be true.
A square is also the 2-dimensional analogue of a cube.
If the length of side "a" is known, then we have that:
If the length of diagonal "d" is known, then we have that:
Computer hardware
Computer hardware or hardware means the physical parts that make up a computer.
Some examples are:
Hardware needs software to tell it what to do. Without software, the hardware cannot be used.
Meat is animal tissue used as food. Most often is used to describe skeletal muscle and fat that is found with it. Types of meat include beef and veal from cattle, pork, ham and bacon from pigs, mutton from sheep, "venison" from deer, fish, insects, and poultry from chickens, ducks and turkeys. The word meat is also used for sausages and for non-muscle organs which are used for food, for example liver, brain, and kidneys.
In the meat processing industry, (in some countries) the word "meat" is to mean only the flesh of mammalian species such as pigs, cattle, etc. but does not include fish, insects and poultry.
Animals such as members of the cat family that mainly eat animals are called carnivores.
Meat is an important part of the diet of many people because it has protein. Protein helps the growth and healing of a body and gives energy. Meat is a "high-protein" food, but costs more than other foods like bread and vegetables. Meat is also a source of B vitamins. People who cannot afford meat, or who do not like to eat it need to find other ways to get enough protein in their diet. Beans and certain nuts are also high in protein. People that choose not to eat meat are called vegetarians, and those who do not eat any animal products are known as vegans.
Red meat is darker-coloured meat, different from white meat such as chicken or fish. Most raw meat can make people sick or even cause death.
Due to religious dietary law, Halal (حلال) meaning permissible in Arabic is used as a visual marker for Muslims on shops and on products.
Anders Celsius
Anders Celsius (27 November 1701 – 25 April 1744) was a Swedish astronomer. Celsius was born in Uppsala in Sweden. Much of his work was in what was later called Geodesy.
He is more famous for developing the Celsius temperature scale when he worked on meteorology (a science about weather conditions). It later became an the international standard. One of his good friends Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the Fahrenheit scale for the thermometer.
Tuvalu is a small island country in the Pacific Ocean. In the past, it was the Ellice Islands. It was part of Gilbert and Ellice Islands. It is a monarchy.
Tuvalu is getting smaller. If the sea level keeps rising at the same rate, this country will be covered by water in about 50 years.
The most important language spoken in Tuvalu is Tuvaluan, although Nuian is spoken on the island of Nui.
The United States and Tuvalu signed a treaty of friendship in 1979, when the US gave up their claim to Tuvalu for the islands of Funafuti, Nukefetau, Nukulaelae, and Nurakita.
Tuvalu is made up of 9 islands:
Internet Domain name .tv
Following Tuvalu being allocated two-letter top-level Internet domain suffix, .tv, the Government of Tuvalu worked with the International Telecommunications Union and established a process to select a management partner for the domain suffix.
On 6 August 1998 a licensing agreement was signed with Information.CA of Toronto under which it agreed to pay an up-front payment of US$50 million for exclusive marketing rights to Tuvalu's domain until 2048, with the country manager/delegee of the Government of Tuvalu for the .tv extension being The .tv Corporation International, which was established in 1998. Subsequent negotiations with Information.CA followed from the delays in payment of US$50 million. Idealab, a Californian company, became involved in 1999 and assumed the $50 million obligation to be paid over 10 years. With the first $1 million payment, Tuvalu was finally able to afford to join the United Nations. Lou Kerner became the first employee of .tv when he joined as CEO in January 2000. .tv grew to over 100 employees, with offices in Los Angeles, London, and Hong Kong, before being acquired in a nine figure transaction in December, 2001.
Tuvalu has four reef islands and five true atolls. The atolls have only 26 km of land. Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world. The land is very low lying and the coral atolls are narrow. Funafuti is the largest atoll of the islands and atolls. It has many islets around a central lagoon. This is about 25.1 kilometres (15.6 mi) (N–S) by 18.4 kilometres (11.4 mi) (W-E), centered on 179°7’E and 8°30’S. A
The highest height is above sea level, which gives Tuvalu the second-lowest highest elevation of any country (after the Maldives). Because of this, the islands that make up Tuvalu are threatened by any sea level rise. If this happens, the people will have to go to New Zealand, Niue or the Fijian island of Kioa. Tuvalu is also affected by what is known as a king tide, which can raise the sea level higher than a normal high tide.
Java () is one of the islands of Indonesia.
The area is 132,000 square km. It is the world's 13th largest island. Around 140 million people live there, which is half the people in Indonesia and more than on any other island in the world. Most of them speak the Javanese language and many also speak other languages.
The Java Sea is to the north, the Indian Ocean south. The capital city of Indonesia, Jakarta, is in Java.
Most of Java has a tropical monsoon climate (Am in the Koeppen climate classification). The northern coast of the island is low-lying. The soil is fertile, because the island was made by volcanoes. It is an important area for growing crops in Indonesia.
James Watt (19 January 1736 19 August 1819) was a Scottish mathematician and engineer. He did not invent the first steam engine, but he did modify it to work better. There were other patented steam engines (such as the Savery and Newcomen steam engines) in use by the time Watt started his work on them. His major contribution is in developing the modern form of the steam engine. The Watt steam engine is credited for driving the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. James Watt was a brilliant engineer and he also transformed the Newcomen engine.
Today, most people honor him by naming a unit of power, the watt, after him.
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie. His mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, taught mathematics and was a baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not go to school every day. At first, he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great skill with his hands and a natural ability for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him. He also absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
One of Watt's many improvements was the invention of a "centrifugal governor" to regulate automatically the speed of the engine. This is most obvious on steam engines where it regulates the admission of steam into the cylinder(s). It is also found on internal combustion engines and variously fueled turbines, and in some modern striking clocks.
A centrifugal governor is a homeostatic device which controls the speed of an engine by regulating the amount of "intermediate substance" (steam) which drives the machine. This keeps a near constant speed whatever the load or fuel supply conditions. It uses the principle of proportional control: this means the stopping of (in this case) steam varies according to the speed of the machine.
On Watt's fly-ball device, as the machine speeds up, the balls fly round faster. As they fly round faster, they move out from the central post. As they move out from the central post, they close the steam supply more firmly. As they do so, the machine slows down and the balls spin more slowly, and allow more steam into the cylinders. In addition, the system has a safety release valve to allow excess steam to escape without driving the wheels. 500 Boulton & Watt engines were built by the firm between 1775 and 1800.
Later, this kind of feedback loop became an important tool of cybernetics.
Watt went into partnership with a fellow member of the Midlands Lunar Society, Matthew Boulton. The firm of Boulton & Watt designed and built steam engines, and was very important in the Industrial Revolution.
At first the partnership made the drawing and specifications for the engines, and supervised the work to erect it on the customer's property. They produced almost none of the parts themselves. Watt did most of his work at his home in Harper’s Hill in Birmingham, while Boulton worked at the Soho Manufactory.
Gradually the partners began to actually make more and more of the parts, and by 1795 they purchased a property about a mile away from the Soho manufactory, on the banks of the Birmingham Canal. There they built a new foundry for making the engines. The Soho Foundry opened in 1796 at a time when Watt’s sons, Gregory and James Jr. were heavily involved in the management of the enterprise. In 1800, the year of Watt’s retirement, the firm made a total of forty-one engines.
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was soon made a partner and the firm prospered.
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer. Along with Leonardo da Vinci, he is often called a "Renaissance Man" which means that he had great talent in many areas.
Michelangelo lived an extremely busy life, creating a great number of artworks. Some of Michelangelo's works are among the most famous that have ever been made. They include two very famous marble statues, "the Pieta" in Saint Peter's Basilica and "David" which once stood in a plazza in Florence but is now in the Accademia Gallery. His most famous paintings are huge frescos, the Sistine Chapel Ceiling and the "Last Judgement". His most famous work of architecture is the east end and dome of Saint Peter's Basilica.
A lot is known about Michelangelo's life because he left many letters, poems and journals. Because he was so famous, he became the very first artist to have his biography (story of his life) published while he was still living. His biographer, Giorgio Vasari, said that he was the greatest artist of the Renaissance. He was sometimes called "Il Divino" ("the divine one").
Other artists said that he had "terribilità", (his works were so grand and full of strong emotion that they were scary). Many other artists who saw his work tried to have the same emotional quality. From this idea of "terribilità" came a style of art called Mannerism.
Michelangelo was born on 6 March 1475 in Caprese near Arezzo, Tuscany. His father was Lodovico di Leonardo di Buonarroti di Simoni, and his mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena. The Buonarrottis were a banking family from Florence. They claimed they were descended from the noble Countess Matilda of Canossa. Michelangelo's father had lost most of the bank’s money, so he worked for the local government in the town of Chiusi. When Michelangelo was a baby, the family moved back to Florence. As he was sickly, Michelangelo was sent to live on a small farm with a stonecutter and his wife and family. The stonecutter worked at a marble quarry owned by Michelangelo's father. Many years later Michelangelo said that the two things that had helped him to be a good artist were being born in the gentle countryside of Arezzo and being raised in a house where, along with his nurse's milk, he was given the training to use a chisel and hammer. His mother died when he was only six.
Michelangelo’s father then brought him back to Florence and sent him to study with a tutor, Francesco da Urbino. Michelangelo was not interested in his school lessons. He explored the great churches of the city and drew copies of the frescos that he saw there. When he was thirteen, he was apprenticed to the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio. Ghirlandaio had a large busy studio. He had rich patrons who worked for the Medici. He painted frescos in their family chapels. Michelangelo was able to learn the art of fresco painting very well, from Ghirlandaio. In a large workshop such as Ghirlandaio’s, artists would have been working in all sorts of different media, including sculpture, metalwork and painting altarpieces. Michelangelo would have learned about all these things. When Michelangelo was only fourteen, his father persuaded Ghirlandaio to pay his apprentice as an artist, which was highly unusual at the time.
The richest, most powerful family in Florence were the Medici. They had an academy where some of the most famous philosophers, poets, and artists met to share their ideas. The Medici family were important patrons of the arts. In 1489, Lorenzo de' Medici, the head of the family, asked Ghirlandaio to send his two best pupils to the academy. Michelangelo was one of the students chosen and he attended the academy from 1490 to 1492. He heard the teaching and discussion of Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola and Angelo Poliziano. The philosophy that they taught was called Humanism. It was based on the philosophy of the ancient Greek Plato. Michelangelo’s ideas and his art were influenced by these teachings.
Michelangelo and another young sculptor called Pietro Torrigiano studied sculpture under Bertoldo di Giovanni. Michelangelo had an argument with Torrigiano, who punched him on the nose so that it was badly broken and spoilt his appearance for the rest of his life. Michelangelo sculpted some reliefs (flat panels with raised figures on them). One was ‘’the Battle of the Centaurs’’ which was made for Lorenzo de Medici.
In 1492, Michelangelo’s patron, Lorenzo de' Medici died. This brought about a big change in Michelangelo’s life. He went back to live at his father’s house. Michelangelo asked the prior at the Church of Santo Spirito to allow him to study the anatomy of the bodies of people who had died at the church’s hospital. In 1493, as a “thank-you” gift to the prior, Michelangelo carved a large wooden Crucifix which still hangs in the church. In January 1494, there were very heavy snowfalls. Lorenzo de’ Medici’s son, Piero de Medici commissioned Michelangelo to make a snow statue. So Michelangelo began to work for the Medici again.
In 1494, a new leader rose up in Florence. He was a Dominican friar called Savonarola. His strong preaching caused people to burn their books, throw away their jewellery and chase the rich families out of the city. The Medici had to go. For Michelangelo, it was a good time to travel. He stayed for a while in Venice, then moved to Bologna. In Bologna he soon got work sculpting three figures for the big marble Shrine of Saint Dominic. When things calmed down in Florence, Michelangelo returned and worked for another member of the Medici family, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici.
Michelangelo made a marble statue of Cupid asleep. Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco told Michelangelo that it looked just like a real Ancient Roman statue and said that if he made it dirty and knocked a few chips off, someone would pay a lot of money for it. Lorenzo sold it to a Cardinal who discovered that it was a fraud. He thought that Michelangelo’s work was so good that he told the pope about it. The pope then invited Michelangelo to go to Rome and work for him.
Michelangelo arrived in Rome 25 June 1496 at the age of 21. He lived near the Church of Santa Maria di Loreto on the Gianicolo hill.
In 1496 he got an important “commission” (he was given a paid job) from Cardinal Raffaele Riario. The Cardinal wanted Michelangelo to make a marble statue, larger than life-size, of Bacchus, the Ancient Roman God of wine. Michelangelo worked hard at the statue. He carved Bacchus as a young man who was quite drunk and looked as if he was staggering as he raised his cup to make a toast. The cardinal did not like the drunken Bacchus and would not pay for it. A banker called Jacopo Galli bought it for his garden.
Michelangelo’s next important commission was from the French Ambassador who asked him to make a statue of the Virgin Mary mourning over the dead body of her son Jesus. This type of artwork, either a painting or a statue, is called by the Italian name “Pieta” (say: “Pe-ay-ta”). Michelangelo’s Pieta is the most famous Pieta that has ever been made. It is now in Saint Peter's Basilica and is visited by thousands of people every day. Giorgio Vasari wrote: "It is a miracle that a shapeless block of stone could have been carved away to make something so perfect that even nature could hardly have made it better, using real human flesh."
In 1499 Michelangelo returned to Florence. The priest Savonarola had made so many people angry that he had been put to death in 1498. Life in Florence started to return to normal. Many years earlier the Guild of Woolworkers had commissioned some artists to make statues of the heroes of the city. A sculptor called Agostino di Duccio had started carving a huge statue of David, the hero of the Bible story of David and Goliath. For 40 years the Guild of Woolworkers owned the huge block of marble, with the statue hardly begun. In 1501 they commissioned the young Michelangelo to carve it. It took him three years to complete.
Once again Michelangelo made a statue that became world-famous. The statue shows a young man, naked in the way that statues of ancient gods were made, just pausing for a moment and looking with fierce eyes at the huge soldier Goliath that he is about to kill. The statue is 5.17 meter (17 ft) tall. It was placed in the piazza (public square) outside the Palazzo Vecchio where the town council met. After many years, the statue was put into an art gallery, the Accademia. A copy now stands in the piazza. People still go great distances to see the statue that he made.
In 1505 Michelangelo was invited to Rome by the newly elected Pope Julius II. Pope Julius was an old man. He wanted Michelangelo to design a grand tomb. It was to stand inside a church and have many carved figures which were to include several slaves to hold up part of the tomb and Old Testament prophets to sit in niches (openings in the walls). Michelangelo started work. He made a magnificent statue of Moses which is now in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains) in Rome. Many people go to look at this statue. The slaves were only partly carved. Four of them are now in the Accademia in Florence. The rest of the great plan was unfinished.
The main reason that Pope Julius' tomb was not finished was that the Pope had an idea for another artwork. The Sistine Chapel near St. Peter's Basilica had its walls painted by some famous artists from Florence. The Pope decided that Michelangelo should paint the ceiling. Michelangelo did not want to. He said that he was not a painter. But the Pope bullied Michelangelo until he agreed to do it. He told the Pope that he would do it "for God" and that he would only do it if the Pope let him paint it "in his own way".
The chapel was long and wide. Its curved ceiling was held up by twelve fan-shaped pieces of wall called "pendentives". Pope Julius told Michelangelo to paint one of the twelve apostles of Jesus on each pendentive. Michelangelo started to do this. Then he got a different idea and scraped off the work that he had done. Instead of apostles, he painted twelve prophets. Seven of them were men from the Old Testament but the other five were women and did not come from the Bible. They were five prophets from the Classical world. Like the prophets in the Bible, they had all told people about the birth of Jesus.
On the middle of the ceiling, instead of painting a starry sky, Michelangelo painted scenes from the Bible telling the story of Creation and the downfall of humanity. The most famous scene is the picture of God creating Adam. The ceiling was so famous that many artists tried to copy the way that Michelangelo had arranged and painted the figures.
In 1513 Pope Julius II died. The next pope was Pope Leo X, a member of the Medici family. He gave Michelangelo several jobs in Florence, including designing the Medici Chapel to hold the tombs of his family members. Although not all the tombs were built, Michelangelo finished seven large statues including a "Madonna and Child". His pupils later completed the chapel.
In 1527, the people of Florence became angry at the Medici for acting like princes. That was not the right way for a family to act, in a city that was a republic. The people threw the Medici out, but the Medici came back with an army and took over the city. Michelangelo was so upset at the behaviour of the Medici that he left his beloved city and never went back.
Pope Clement VII called Michelangelo back to the Sistine Chapel to paint the wall behind the altar with a huge scene of "The Last Judgement". He worked on it from 1534 to 1541. At the centre it shows Jesus, surrounded by saints, sitting in judgement over the people of the Earth. To the left, people are rising from their graves and many are welcomed into Heaven. To the right, other people are being sent to Hell where they are dragged down by demons. It is a huge painting with many figures in it.