AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
The following three codes were also under exceptional reservation, until the update from 2006-03-29 included them in the standard:
The following alpha-3 codes are subject to a transitional reservation:
The following alpha-3 codes are subject to an indeterminate reservation, having been notified to the United Nations Secretary-General under the 1949 and/or 1968 Road Traffic Conventions:
The following code has been reassigned:
For the time being, ISO 3166/MA has agreed not to use the following codes, taken from ISO/IEC 7501-1 (machine readable travel documents), as alpha-3 country codes:
Besides the codes currently transitionally reserved and FXX (now exceptionally reserved), these alpha-3 codes have also been withdrawn since the first edition of ISO 3166 in 1974:
Bellows
A bellows is something that blows air into a small opening in order to make something work. The bellows will have a kind of sack which has air in it. When the sack is squeezed the air is pushed out. Bellows can be quite small and operated by hand, for example for stoking a fire in an open fireplace. They can also be very large, such as bellows that produce air for a large pipe organ to be played. Such bellows used to be pumped by hand (sometimes by several people), but nowadays electricity is used. Bellows are used by blacksmiths or metalworkers for smelting and welding. They are also used in small musical instruments such as bagpipes, accordions and concertinas. The harmonium has bellows which the player operates by pumping with the his feet.
1999 Jiji earthquake
Chi-Chi earthquake, also known as the 921 earthquake, was an earthquake in central Taiwan. The earthquake happened on September 21, 1999 at 1:47 am local time (September 20 17:47 GMT). It measured 7.3 on the Richter scale. The epicentre of the earthquake was at in Chichi Township of Nantou County, about 12.5 km west of the Sun Moon Lake. The depth of the epicenter was 7.0 km.
The earthquake caused much damage, according to the National Fire Agency, Ministry of the Interior R.O.C. This damage included:
The earthquake continued to shake Taiwan throughout the night. People tell stories about a house that was not destroyed but moved by the earthquake from one county to another. The story says that because of this, the owners of the house had to change their address.
The epicenter of the earthquake was Chichi Township. The 921 Earthquake happened along the Chelungpu fault line in western part of the island of Taiwan. The fault is located along the foothills of the Central Mountains in Nantou and Taichung counties. Some sections of land near the fault were changed in elevation by as much as 7 meters (23 feet). Near the northern end of the fault line, a 7-meter tall waterfall was created by the earthquake. In the middle-western part of the island, bridges were destroyed. This stopped traffic for weeks.
In Wufeng, a village in southern Taichung County, the damage was very bad. The village's Guangfu High School was located on the fault line. It was badly damaged by the quake. Today the high school is the site of the National Museum of Natural Science's 921 Earthquake Museum of Taiwan.
landslides where caused causing impromptu formation of lakes
"Visibility" is a word used in meteorology. It is used to talk about how far a normal person can see depending on the weather. If there is low visibility, such as in a blizzard, a person will not be able to see far. If there is high visibility, such as on a bright, sunny day, a person will be able to see a long way.
Visibility less than is often called zero. When it is this low, roads may be closed, or lights and signs are turned on to warn drivers. These are put in areas that often have very low visibility. Warning lights help stop accidents. Automobile crashes with many cars happen often in places like this if the warning lights and signs are not put up.
Visibility is said to be good when a person can see farther than about 10 kilometers.
An advisory is put out by meteorologists to warn of low visibility, such as a dense fog advisory from the U.S. National Weather Service. These tell drivers to not travel until the fog leaves. Airport travel sometimes is delayed, or slowed down, by low visibility.
Lothar Bisky (17 August 1941 – 13 August 2013) was a German politician. He was the chairman of the Left Party.PDS, a socialist political party with its base in the east of Germany. In June 2007 he became of the leaders of The Left, formed by a merger of Left Party.PDS and Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative.
Bisky was born in Zollbrueck, Pomerania. As a child he was very poor, so when he was 18 he moved from northern West Germany to GDR. He was allowed to join the Socialist Unity Party in 1963, but did not became a leader of the party until just after the fall of communism and the old "hardliners" were thrown out of the party.
He was rector of the University of Film and Television (Potsdam-Babelsberg) from 1986 to 1990. In 1991 he became a member of the board of directors of regional television channel ORB (now part of RBB.)
In 1990 he was a member of the Volkskammer and since 1990 he has been a member of the state parliament in Brandenburg.
He was chairman of the PDS from 1993 until his resignation in 2000. He was re-elected chairman in 2003. Bisky was seen to be on the moderate, social democratic wing of the party and he was a long-time close ally of the party's most prominent figure, Gregor Gysi.
The party returned strongly to the Bundestag in the 2005 election. Bisky, one of 54 Left MPs, was going to become one of the six vice presidents of the Bundestag. When the new Bundestag met on October 18, however, he failed three times to be elected. Some MPs explained this with allegations (denied by Bisky) that he was an informant of the Stasi. Later, he failed a fourth time, and gave up his bid to be elected.
Lothar Bisky was married and the father of three sons. The oldest son, Jens Bisky, is a journalist and writer and the middle, Norbert Bisky, is a painter. The youngest died in 2008 in Edinburgh.
Bisky died in Leipzig, Saxony, on 13 August 2013.
Louis-Nicolas Clérambault
Louis-Nicolas Clérambault (born Paris, 19 December 1676; died Paris, 26 October 1749) was a French organist and composer.
Clérambault (pronounce “CLAY-ram-bow”) came from a musical family. He learned to play the violin and harpsichord when he was young, and also learned the organ, composition and singing. He became the organist at the church of the Grands-Augustins and then at Saint-Sulpice. He worked for Madame de Maintenon who arranged concerts for King Louis XIV. He also had a job at the royal house of Saint-Cyr, which was a school for young girls from the poor nobility. He directed the music there, played the organ and trained the choir.
Clérambault was the first important French composer of cantatas. They were often about Greek and Roman myths. He also composed for the organ, harpsichord and violin. He was thought of as France’s greatest organist. Two of his sons took over jobs held by their father after his death.
A blizzard is a severe snowstorm. It brings low temperatures, strong winds, and a lot of blowing snow. Blizzards start when a high pressure system touches as low pressure system. The word "blizzard" is sometimes used incorrectly by news media to talk about big winter storms, even if the storm is not a blizzard.
Some areas are more likely to be hit by blizzards than others, but a blizzard can occur in any place where snow falls. In North America, blizzards happen often in the northern-east states, and in the provinces of Canada. In this region, blizzards can happen more than twice each winter. They also occur often in the mountain ranges of western North America. Because these regions have low populations, blizzards sometimes are not reported.
A very dangerous type of blizzard is a whiteout. In a whiteout, downdrafts and snowfall are so thick that people cannot tell the ground and sky apart. People caught in a whiteout lose their sense of direction very fast. This is a large danger to pilots when they are flying airplanes, because they cannot tell how close they are to the ground, and may crash.
The community cleans up after a snowstorm/blizzard occurs. Blizzards only usually go for 3 hours so everything won't be too damaged, meaning it won't be as hard as an earthquake or tsunami to clean.
These horrible blizzards can achieve up to 25-30 feet deep. A basketball hoop is 10 ft high, so a blizzard can get snow as deep as the height of two or three hoops.
Firstly you need cold enough air to cause snow to fall in the clouds and ground level water and moisture is needed to form clouds and precipitation. The moisture is called water vapour to make the clouds a source of water vapour is cold air blowing across large lakes or the sea but the cold air doesn't actually make too much snow, its a combination of cold and warm air that does it. The warm air normally meets the cold air if the wind is being pulled towards the equator when they are brought together a front is formed and precipitation is formed and the warm air can go up to the clouds and the blizzard forms from there.
There is sustained wind or frequent gusts of 35 miles per hour or greater.
Blizzards can get down to -12 degrees or lower. This makes it fairly easy to get hypothermia in a blizzard. Mostly freezing electrics and machinery making life very hard in the Hypothermic temperatures.
The Great Blizzard of 1888 was very damaging for the Northeastern United States. In that blizzard, 400 people died, 200 ships sunk, and snowdrifts were 10 or 15 feet high. In the Great Plains, states were hit by the Schoolhouse Blizzard that trapped children in schools and killed 235 people.
In 1880–1881 there was a winter that people in the Dakotas called the "Hard Winter". The author Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote her book "The Long Winter" about that winter's story. It talks about one blizzard after another, and how it changed Laura's family and everybody around her. The book is almost all true. Her story of two men from the town of DeSmet, South Dakota, going after some wheat stored some miles south of DeSmet in February 1881 is true, and Ingalls later married one of the men, Almanzo Wilder. If the two men had not found and brought back the wheat, the people would have starved. The snow and ice thawed in April, and the railroads could start again. The train picture above was photographed on March 29, 1881, not far from DeSmet.
34 people died during a 3-day spring blizzard on March 1920 in North Dakota. One of the people who died was Hazel Miner, a teenage girl who died of freezing to death when she got lost on her way home from her one-room-school.
The Armistice Day Blizzard in 1940 surprised many people with how fast the temperature dropped. It was in the morning, but by noon, it was snowing. Some of the people froze to death in the snow. 154 people died in the Armistice Day Blizzard.
105 years after the Great Blizzard of 1888, a giant blizzard, named the Storm of the Century, hit the U.S in 1993. It dropped snow on 26 states and reached as far north as Canada and as far south as Mexico. In many southern U.S. areas, such as parts of Alabama, more snow fell in this storm than ever fell in an entire winter. Highways and airports closed across the U.S. The blizzard also made 15 tornadoes in Florida. When the storm was over, 270 people died and 48 were reported missing.
Nord Department
Nord (English: "North") is one of the ten departments (French: "départments", singular "départment") of Haiti. After the Haitian Revolution, the country was divided into only three departments: Nord, Ouest and Sud. The Nord-Est and Nord-Ouest departments were part of the Nord department.
Its capital and largest city is Cap-Haïtien, founded in 1670 by Bertrand d'Orgeron and the old capital city of "Saint-Domingue". It had the nickname of "Paris of Saint-Domingue".
The "Départment du Nord" has an area of 2,106 km². It is bordered to the northwest by the Nord-Ouest Department, to the east by the Nord-Est Department, to the southeast by the Centre Department and to the west by the Artibonite Department. The Atlantic Ocean is to the north.
The main rivers of the department are Grande Rivière du Nord, Haut du Cap and Limbé. The rivers Trois-Rivières and Bouyaha have their sources in this department. All these rivers, except Bouyaha that is a tributary of the river Artibonite, flow to the north, into the Atlantic Ocean.
The "Massif du Nord" mountain range, known in the Dominican Republic as "Cordillera Central", runs from the northwest to the southeast along the southern half of the department. This Massif du Nord is formed by several chains and the most important, in this department, are the "Chaine de la Grande Rivière du Nord" and the 'Chaine de Saint Raphael".
The "Pleine du Nord" (in English, "Northern Plain") is in the northern half of the department.
The department had, in the 2003 census, a population of 823,043 persons: 393,547 men and 429,496 women, with 325,318 (39.53%) living in cities and towns.
The department is divided into seven "arrondissements" (like districts) and 19 "communes" (like municipalities). The "arrondissements" and their "communes" are:
Nord-Est Department
Nord-Est (English: "North-East") is one of the ten departments (French: "départments", singular "départment") of Haiti. It is in the northeastern corner of the country, along the border with the Dominican Republic. Its capital is Fort-Liberté.
After the Haitian Revolution, the country was divided into only three departments: Nord, Ouest and Sud. The "Nord-Est" department was part of the "Nord" department.
The "Départment du Nord-Est", with an area of 1,805 km², is the second smallest department of Haiti; only the Nippes department is smaller.
The department is bordered to the north by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west by the Nord Department and to the south by the Centre Department. It borders the Dominican Republic to the east.
The only important river in the province is the Dajabón River, known also as "Massacre". This river marks the Dominican-Haitian border from the Dominican city of Dajabón to its mouth.
The "Massif du Nord" mountain range, known in the Dominican Republic as "Cordillera Central", runs from the northwest to the southeast along the southern half of the department.
The "Pleine du Nord" (in English, "Northern Plain"), with several savannas, is in the northern half of the department.
The department had, in the 2003 census, a population of 308,385 persons: 150,525 men and 157,860 women, with 117,872 (38.22%) living in cities and towns. The population density was, in that year, of 171 persons/km².
The main cities are Fort-Liberté (the capital) and Ouanaminthe.
The department is divided into four "arrondissements" (like districts) and 13 "communes" (like municipalities). The "arrondissements" and their "communes" are:
The main economic activity in the department is agriculture, with many very small farms where beans, peanut, maize and other things are grown. In the mountains, coffee is grown.
Fishing is an important activity along the coast, and commerce is the main activity in Ouanaminthe.
Samuel Wesley
Samuel Wesley (born Bristol, 24 February 1766; died London, 11 October 1837) was an English organist and composer
Samuel Wesley was the son of Methodist hymn-writer Charles Wesley, the grandson of the poet Samuel Wesley and the nephew of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church. His illegitimate son Samuel Sebastian Wesley was the greatest English composer of church music of the 19th century.
Samuel played the violin as well as the organ, and worked as a conductor as well as a music lecturer. He lived at a time when most English composers were writing sentimental music which was not very important. Wesley was one of the best composers of his time.
Nord-Ouest (department)
Nord-Ouest (English: "North-West") is one of the ten departments (French: "départments", singular "départment") of Haiti. It is in the northwestern part of the country. Its capital is Port-de-Paix.
After the Haitian Revolution, the country was divided into only three departments: Nord, Ouest and Sud. The "Nord-Ouest" department was part of the "Nord" department.
The "Départment du Nord-Ouest" has an area of 2,176 km². The Tortuga Island is part of this department. The department is in the Northern, or Northwestern, Peninsula. It is a very dry region, except for the Tortuga Island and the area around Port-de-Paix.
The department is bordered to the north by the Atlantic Ocean, to the east by the Nord Department and to the south by the Artibonite Department and the Gulf of Gonâve. To the east is the Windward Passage that separates the islands of Hispaniola and Cuba. On clear nights, it is possible to see the Guantánamo Province of Cuba.
The "Massif du Nord-Ouest" (in English, "Northwestern mountain range"), with several smaller mountain chains, covers most of the department. Its western end is almost flat and is called the "Plateau de Bombardopolis" ("Bombardopolis Plateau").
Low lands are found only close to the coast and the most important are the "Jean Rabel Valley" and the "Valley of the Trois-Rivières" on the northern part, and the "Plain of L'Arbre" on the southern part of the department.
The river "Trois-Rivières", one of the most important river in Haiti, is in this department. Other smaller rivers are "Jean Rabel" and "du Mole".
The northern coast of the "Départment du Nord-Ouest" was the area that European people first visited in the Hispaniola island during the first visit of Christopher Columbus to the Americas in 1492.
On the night of 5 December 1492 he saw the Cape Saint-Nicolas and the next day he went into the Bay of the Môle-Saint-Nicolas and to the land where now is the town "Môle-Saint-Nicolas".
On 7 December, he visited the bays "Port-à-l'Écu" and "Moustique"; he named the Moustique Bay ("Mosquito Bay") as "Puerto de la Concepción" and he stayed there till 13 December. Then he went to the bay of Port-de-Paix and named it "Valle del Paraíso" or "Valparaiso" (Spanish for "Paradise Valley") on 15 December.
The department had, in the 2003 census, a population of 531,198 persons: 256,238 men and 274,960 women, with 118,798 (22.36%) living in cities and towns. The population density was, in that year, of 244 persons/km².
The department is divided into three "arrondissements" (like districts) and 10 "communes" (like municipalities). The "arrondissements" and their "communes" are:
The main economic activity in the department is agriculture, with many very small farms where different crops are grown. On the mountains, coffee is grown.
Fishing is an important activity along the coast.
Apache is the name for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States. They hunted deer and they also ate berries and lots of fruit.They were nomadic which meant that they followed food and never stayed in one place for a long period of time. They are from the second migration of Native Americans which were the Na Dene which also includes the Chipewyan and the Cheyenne of Canada. Evidence proves that the Na Dene came from the Ket people of Siberia.oi
Samuel Sebastian Wesley
Samuel Sebastian Wesley (born London, 14 August 1810; died 19 April 1876) was an English organist and composer. He was the greatest English composer of church music of his day. He lived at a time when the standard of music in England had become very bad. He did a lot to improve it, especially church music. He had a hard life earning enough money. This was largely his own fault: he was a difficult man with a bad temper and often argued with his employers.
He was born in London, the illegitimate son of the composer Samuel Wesley and his partner Sarah Suter. He was given the name of his father (Samuel) and the name Sebastian after the composer Johann Sebastian Bach.
As a boy he sang in the choir of the Chapel Royal. The Chapel Royal was not nearly as good as it had been in the 16th and 17th centuries when it had been associated with many famous composers. When choirboys made mistakes the music teacher William Hawes would hit them with a riding whip. Samuel Sebastian was an excellent choirboy, and he and another boy were sent to Brighton to sing to King George IV who had gone there for his holiday. He also sang at St. Paul's Cathedral.
When he was a young man he played the organ in several churches in London and started to compose. He wrote some music for melodramas in theatres. When he was 22 he became organist of Hereford Cathedral. This changed his life, because his career now focussed on church music. The choir at Hereford was not very good. The organ was broken, and his lodgings were not nice. However, he was able to perform in the Three Choirs Festival and he composed some church music, including the popular anthem "Blessed be the God and Father", written for an Easter Day service when the choir only had boys and one male singer. He married the sister of the dean of the cathedral. Her family did not approve and did not go to the wedding.
In 1835 he moved to Exeter Cathedral. He improved the choir there and persuaded the authorities to renovate the organ. He had a good salary there, but soon got fed up because he argued with his employers. He often went fishing instead of going to work, sending one of his choir boys to play the organ instead. One day, when Wesley was supposed to play “God Save the King” he played “Rule Britannia”. This sort of behaviour did not do his reputation much good. He wanted to get a doctorate degree from Oxford University so he wrote an anthem "O Lord thou art my God". The professor at Oxford, William Crotch, wanted him to make some changes in the music, but he refused. In the end he was given the degree anyway.
The next job he had was at Leeds Parish Church. This was the only job he had in his life which was not at a cathedral, but his choir at Leeds was probably better than any of the cathedral choirs he had. The services there were very good, and he improved the choir singing. Leeds was not a nice town in those days. It was very badly polluted through industry. Wesley earned extra money by giving music lessons. He was also in demand for giving organ recitals in different churches. He gave the choir more modern music to sing, including his own compositions. He wrote an introduction to a book of psalm tunes in which he criticized the state of the church in England. He did it in a very personal way and it made his employers angry.
One day he went fishing when he should have been at choir practice. He fell when climbing over a stile and broke his leg. After that he always walked with a limp. While he was in hospital he wrote an anthem "Cast me not away" to words from Psalm 51. When the music gets to the words “the bones which thou hast broken” he set them to strange, crunching chords.
In spite of his awkward behaviour the people in Leeds were sorry when he left. He conducted a performance of the "Messiah" and he was given a portrait of himself.
He went to Winchester Cathedral. At first he got on very well with the clergy. He performed and composed new music. He spent a lot of time collecting and publishing all the anthems he had written. He composed hymn tunes. He persuaded his employers to spend money on improving the organ.
Although he was being paid a good salary (£80 a year) Wesley did less and less work. He performed less and left a lot of the playing to his pupils so that he could go fishing and sailing. He did not like the new precentor who was appointed in 1858.
In 1863 he composed an anthem "Give the King thy Judgement" for the marriage of the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII and Princess Alexandra of Denmark). He did not like Winchester. He said there were no other good musicians to talk to.
When the job of organist at Gloucester Cathedral became available he took it and left Winchester very quicky. Once again he found himself in a cathedral with a bad choir and an organ in a bad state of repair, but this time he seemed to make little effort to do anything about it. He spent a lot of time editing other people’s music. Once more, after a gap of 30 years, he was able to perform in the Three Choirs Festival. He conducted the music of Louis Spohr, his father Samuel Wesley and also some music by the young Hubert Parry who was not yet well-known. When he conducted he often did not think about what he was doing and got muddled. In 1871 he conducted Bach’s St Matthew Passion, the first time it had been performed in England outside London.
He was offered a knighthood but chose to be given money instead. He started to become ill. He had a kidney disease. The last time he played the organ was at Christmas in 1875. He died on 19th April 1876 and was buried next to his daughter in Devon. There was no music at all at his funeral.
Wesley is remembered for his music composed for the Church of England. He wrote many anthems, including "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace", "Blessed be the God and Father", "The Wilderness" and "Ascribe unto the Lord". The last two of these are verse anthems (anthem which contrast sections for the full choir with sections for a few soloists). The popular short anthem "Lead me Lord" is part of "Praise the Lord, O my soul".
He wrote a number of organ works. One of his most charming pieces is "Holsworthy Church Bells" (1874). He also wrote chamber and orchestral music.
Wesley had an important influence on organ building. He went to the Great Exhibition in 1851 and saw organs with pedals that, instead of being exactly parallel, spread out at the top like a fan. He liked these radiating pedal boards and persuaded the great organ builder Henry Willis to put pedal boards like that in the organs he built.
Samuel Sebastian Wesley was a very famous performer and throughout his life he was often asked to play the first concerts on new organs (“inaugural concerts”). His music is still very popular today, and some of his short anthems are not too difficult for the average church choir to sing.
Quickborn
Quickborn is a town in the district of Pinneberg, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is about 17 km east of Elmshorn, and 20 km north of Hamburg.
Quickborn is twinned with Uckfield, East Sussex.
Quickborn, Dithmarschen
Iguana is a type of lizard that lives in tropical areas of Central and South America and the Caribbean. There are only two species of Iguana": the Green Iguana and the Lesser Antillean Iguana"
The two species of lizard both have a dewlap, a row of spines running down their back to their tail, and a third eye on their head. This eye is known as the parietal eye, which looks just like a pale scale on the top of their head. Behind their neck are small scales which look like spikes, and are called tuberculate scales. They also have a large round scale on their cheek called a subtympanic shield.
Iguanas have excellent vision and can see long distances, shapes, shadows, color and movement. An iguana uses its eyes to navigate through trees and forests, as well as for finding food. They also use their eyes to communicate with members of the same species. An iguana's ear is called a tympanum. It is the iguana's ear drum and is found right above the subtympanic shield and behind the eye. This is a very thin, delicate part of the iguana, and is very important to its hearing.
La bohème
La bohème (pronounced, "La bo-EM") is an Italian opera in four acts. The music was written by Giacomo Puccini. The libretto was written by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.
The opera tells the story of a love affair between a poor poet and an equally poor seamstress in 19th century Paris. The opera is based on a book by Henri Murger called "Scenes from Bohemian Life" ().
Arturo Toscanini conducted the first performance of "La bohème" on February 1, 1896 at the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy. The opera was adapted to a movie in 1965 and the 1996 Broadway musical, "Rent".
Henri Murger was born in 1822 to an immigrant German tailor in Paris. He worked as a secretary until 1841 when he became a journalist and joined the poor artists and writers who called themselves Bohemians.
From 1845 to 1848, Murger's stories about Bohemian life in Paris were serialized (published in parts) in a French magazine. The book brought Murger little income. Playwright Théodore Barrière suggested making a play of the book, and Murger accepted. The play appeared in 1849. It was a success.
Almost every chapter of Murger's book mentions an incident or event which found its way into Puccini's opera. However, the love affair between the poet and the seamstress appears only as a little tale in the book about a sculptor named Jacques and a seamstress named Francine.
After the publication of the play, adaptations appeared. In 1877, an operetta was staged in Paris. In 1897, an opera by Ruggero Leoncavallo was staged in Venice. Another play based on the book was performed in New York in 1896. The first movie was released in 1916, and other movies were released in the following years.
Puccini wrote most of "La bohème" at Torre del Lago, a village in Tuscany he had just made his home. Most decisions about the opera were made through letters sent back and forth between Ricordi (Puccini's publisher), the two librettists, and the composer. This arrangement was not the best for getting the work done in a timely manner.
Puccini began toying with the idea of writing another work called "La lupa" ("The She-Wolf"). The librettists were furious. Puccini was dividing his time between two projects while taking them to task for their slowness on the present one. Giacosa complained that he used more paper and time on "La bohéme" that he had on any of his other dramas.
Whole scenes were rewritten, revised, and even discarded before going through the cycle again. Despite the turmoil, Puccini was considering the David Belasco play "Tosca" as yet another project. He briefly interrupted work on "La bohème" to travel to Florence to see Sarah Bernhardt perform the play.
Puccini and Ruggero Leoncavallo (composer of the 1892 opera "I pagliacci") both chose to set Mürger's book to music. Each claimed he was the first to make this decision. Leoncavallo's "La Bohème" was first performed in 1897, the year after Puccini's opera. Leoncavallo's opera never attained the fame that Puccini's did probably because Puccini's opera was gaining a popularity in 1897 that left Leoncavallo's opera in the dust.
"La bohème" was first performed in Turin, Italy on February 1, 1896 at the Teatro Regio. It was conducted by Arturo Toscanini. In 1946, Toscanini conducted a radio performance that was released to LP records and later compact discs. It is the only recording of a Puccini opera by its original conductor.
Within a few years, the opera was performed in theatres throughout Italy including La Scala and La Fenice. The first performance outside of Italy was in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1896. Other performances followed in the next ten years around the world.
The first performance in United Kingdom took place in Manchester, on 22 April 1897. It was performed by the Carl Rosa Opera Company in English and was supervised by Puccini. On 2 October 1897 the same company gave the opera's first staging at the Royal Opera House in London.
The opera was first performed in the United States by the Carl Rosa Opera Company on October 14, 1897 in Los Angeles, California. It was performed in New York City at Palmo's Opera House on May 16, 1898. The Metropolitan Opera House staged the opera for the first time on December 26, 1900.
"In the four bohemians' attic room"
Act 1 takes place in Paris around 1830. A group of bohemians live in a room in an attic. Marcello is painting while Rodolfo gazes out of the window. They are so poor and so cold that they burn a drama that Rodolfo has written. Colline, the philosopher, comes in shivering and cross because he had not been able to pawn some books. Schaunard, the musician of the group, arrives with food, firewood, wine, cigars, and money. He tells his friends that he has got these things because he has a job with an English gentleman. The others hardly listen as they are so hungry that they try to eat the food. Schaunard interrupts them, taking the meal away, and saying that they will all celebrate his luck by having dinner at Cafe Momus instead.
While they drink the wine, Benoit, the landlord, arrives to collect the rent. The group gives him lots of wine so that he becomes drunk and starts to tell the people his adventures about love. Eventually, the group throws him out. The money that should have been used to pay the rent is divided among them so they can have a good time.
The other Bohemians go out, but Rodolfo stays alone for a moment in order to finish a newspaper article, promising to join his friends soon. There is a knock at the door, and Mimi, a seamstress who lives in a flat below, enters. Her candle has blown out, and she has no matches; she asks Rodolfo to light it. She thanks him, but returns a few seconds later, saying she has lost her key. Both candles go out. It is dark, and the couple try to feel their way about. Rodolfo wants to spend time with Mimi. He finds the key, but puts it in his pocket and does not tell her. In two famous arias (Rodolfo's "Che gelida manina" — "What a cold little hand," and Mimi's "Sì, mi chiamano Mimì" — "Yes, they call me Mimi"), they tell each other about their backgrounds. Rodolfo’s friends call for him to come out and join them. He would prefer to stay there with Mimi but she decides they should go together. They go out, singing about their love for one another.
"Latin Quarter on Christmas Eve"
The streets are crowded with happy people. Rodolfo buys Mimi a bonnet. The friends go into a café. Musetta, who used to be Marcello's sweetheart, comes into the cafe with Alcindoro, a rich old man. She is tired of him. She sings a naughty song, hoping Marcello will notice her.
Marcello becomes mad with jealousy. To be rid of Alcindoro for a bit, Musetta pretends to have a tight shoe and sends him with it to the shoemaker. Musetta and Marcello fall into each other's arms.
The sound of a military parade is heard. Marcello and Colline carry Musetta out on their shoulders while everyone claps. Alcindoro returns with the repaired shoe. The waiter hands him the bill. He is surprised by how much he has to pay, and sinks into a chair.
"At a toll gate a month or two later"
Mimì passes through the toll gate. She is coughing. She finds Marcello, who lives in a little tavern near the gate. She tells him of her hard life with Rodolfo, who has left her that night.
Rodolfo comes out of the tavern looking for Marcello. Mimì hides. She hears Rodolfo telling Marcello why he left her. At first he says Mimì does not love him, but then he says he left her because she is dying of an illness.
Rodolfo is poor and can do little to help Mimì. He hopes that a rich man may fall in love with her and pay for her to have medical treatment. Out of kindness towards Mimì, Marcello tries to stop Rodolfo, but she has already heard everything.
She coughs, and Rodolfo discovers her. They sing of their lost love, and agree that although they should separate, they love one another and agree to stay together until the spring. Marcello and Musetta are heard quarrelling in the background.
"The attic room"
Marcello and Rodolfo are both sad at losing their loved ones. Schaunard and Colline arrive with a tiny bit of food. They pretend they are having a big feast, and they all dance. Musetta arrives with news: Mimi, who had found a rich gentleman, has now left him and is wandering in the streets feeling very ill and weak.
Musetta has brought Mimi back with her to the attic room. Mimi is helped into a chair. Musetta and Marcello leave to sell Musetta's earrings in order to buy medicine, and Colline leaves to pawn his overcoat. Schaunard leaves quietly to give Mimi and Rodolfo time together. Left alone, the two remember their past happiness.
They remember their first meeting. Rodolfo gives Mimi the pink bonnet he bought her, which he has kept as a souvenir of their love. The others return, with a gift of a muff to warm Mimi's hands and some medicine, and tell Rodolfo that a doctor has been called, but it is too late. As Musetta prays, Mimi dies. Rodolfo collapses in tears.
"La bohème" is scored for the standard orchestra of the period:
In 1965, a West German movie version of the opera was released. It was filmed on location in Milan and Munich. The movie was produced by conductor Herbert von Karajan and designed by Franco Ziffirelli. It starred Mirella Freni as Mimi, Adriana Martino as Musetta, Gianni Raimondi as Rudolpho, and Rolando Panerai as Marcello. The movie won the 1966 National Board of Review for Top Foreign Film.
La traviata
La traviata is an Italian opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, after Alexandre Dumas, fils's novel "La dame aux camélias", published in 1848. It was first performed at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, on March 6, 1853. The title "La traviata" means literally "The Woman Who Strayed", or perhaps more figuratively, "The Fallen One". Although a failure at its premiere, the opera soon established itself and became one of the best-loved and most frequently performed, recorded and filmed of all operas. Notable interpreters of Traviata have included; Maria Callas, Anna Moffo, Renata Scotto, Beverly Sills, amongst many others.
Dil Se (, , translation: "From the Heart)" is a 1998 Hindi movie. It was directed by Mani Ratnam. The movie was also released in Tamil as Uyire and in Telugu as Prema Tho. It stars Shahrukh Khan, Manisha Koirala, and Preity Zinta. Mani Ratnam also wrote the screenplay for the movie. It was produced by Mani Ratnam and Ram Gopal Varma along with Shekar Kapur.
The movie was shot in Maqbuza Kashmir, Assam, Delhi and other parts of India and Bhutan over a period of 55 days. Its cinematography won a National Film Award for cinematographer Santosh Sivan. The movie score and soundtrack were composed by A. R. Rahman. A. R. Rahman received a Filmfare Award for the music. The movie became the first Indian movie to reach the Top 10 in the UK Box Office Charts, when released in 1998.
The movie has won the following awards since its release:
1999 Berlin International Film Festival (Germany)
1999 National Film Awards (India)
1999 Filmfare Awards (India)
The soundtrack features 5 songs composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics by Gulzar.
Track listing:
Mani Ratnam
Mani Ratnam () (born June 2, 1956) is a Tamil Indian movie director, writer and producer.
The following is the list of movies directed by Mani Ratnam. For many of these movies, Mani Ratnam is also credited for the story, screenplay and producing:
Mani Ratnam established Madras Talkies for movie production during the shoot of "Iruvar". Mani Ratnam had earlier produced "Thiruda Thiruda" under his personal name. All movies directed by Mani Ratnam subsequent to "Iruvar" have been produced through "Madras Talkies". Apart from production, Mani Ratnam also has written story and screenplay for movies directed by others.
Chris Fehn
Christopher Michael Fehn (born February 24, 1972) was an American musician and percussionist for the band Slipknot. In Slipknot, he was known as #3. He was the joker in Slipknot. He wore a fetish type mask with a long Pinocchio style nose. He is a big fan of sports and is a good golfer.
James Brian Jacques (pronounced "Jakes") (15 June 1939 - 5 February 2011) was an English author. He is best known for his "Redwall" series of books, as well as the "Tribes of Redwall" and "Castaways of the Flying Dutchman" series. He also wrote two books of short stories called, "The Ribbajack & Other Curious Yarns" and "Seven Strange and Ghostly Tales".
Courtney Michelle Love (born Courtney Michelle Harrison on July 9, 1964) is an American rock musician and Golden Globe-nominated actress. Love is best known as lead singer, songwriter and lyricist for the now-defunct alternative rock band Hole and as the widow of Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain, with whom she had a daughter called Frances Bean Cobain. "Rolling Stone" has called Love "the most controversial woman in the history of rock". In the 90s there was a twee band who were called, 'Courtney Love', named after her.
In 1981 Love started Sugar Babydoll. In 1982 she went to a Faith No More concert. She convinced the members to let her join as a singer. She was kicked out of the band because they wanted "male energy". In 1984 she started Pagan Babies.
In 1989 Love began Hole. In 1999 Hole's first single "Retard Girl" was released. The band released its first album "Pretty on the Inside" in 1991. On April 12, 1994 Hole's second album "Live Through This" was released, four days after Love's husband Kurt Cobain was found dead in their home. The album got very good reviews. On September 8, 1998 "Celebrity Skin" was released.
On February 10, 2004 Love released "America's Sweetheart". Hole's last album "Nobody's Daughter" was released on April 27, 2010.
In 2006 she published a memoir, "Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love".
Love sung on "Rat a Tat" on Fall Out Boy's fifth album "Save Rock and Roll", released April 12 2013. She also wrote the song.
Love said that her next album would be released for Christmas 2013 along with "Courtney Love: My Story", a book about her life so far.
In 2014 Love released her first single in ten years, "Know My Name".
Love is a feminist. She is open about having had cosmetic surgery.
Love was married to Kurt Cobain from 1992 until his death in 1994. They have one daughter born in 1992.
Ouest (department)
Ouest (English: "West") is one of the ten departments (French: "départments", singular "départment") of Haiti. Its capital is Port-au-Prince which is also the capital of the country and its largest city.
With an area of 4,827 km², it is the second largest department in Haiti after the Artibonite Department. It has a population of 2,943,200 (2002). The Gonâve Island (French, "Île de la Gonâve") is part of this department.
It is bordered to the northwest by the Artibonite Department, to the northeast by the Centre Department. The Gulf of Gonâve is to the west (and to the north of the southern part of the department). It borders the Dominican Republic to the east.
The department is divided into five "arrondissements":
Sud (department)
Sud (English: "South") is one of the ten departments (French: "départments", singular "départment") of Haiti. Its capital is Les Cayes.
The "Départment du Sud" has an area of 2,794 km². It is bordered to the north by the Grand'Anse and Nippes departments, to the east by the Sud-Est Department and by the Caribbean Sea to the west and south.
The "Massiff de la Hotte", an important Haitian mountain range, runs from west to east along the centre of the department. Because of this, rivers here are short; some of them are Acul du Sud, Torbeck, Ravine du Sud, de l'Ilet, Cavaillon, des Anglais, Port à Piment, Saut Mathurine, de Tiburon.
The department had, in the 2003 census, a population of 621,651 persons: 312,729 men and 308.922 women, with only 109,623 (17.63%) living in cities and towns.
The department is divided into five "arrondissements" (like districts) and 18 "communes" (like municipalities). The "arrondissements" and their "communes" are:
Sud-Est (department)
Sud-Est (English: "South-East") is one of the ten departments (French: "départments", singular "départment") of Haiti. Its capital is Jacmel.
After the Haitian Revolution, the country was divided into only three departments: Nord, Ouest and Sud. The "Sud-Est" department was part of the "Sud" department.
The "Départment du Sud-Est" has an area of 2,023 km². The department is in the Southern Peninsula, also known as the Tiburon Peninsula.
It is bordered to the north by the Ouest Department, to the west by the Sud Department and to the south by the Caribbean Sea. It borders the Dominican Republic to the east.
The "Massif de la Selle" is the main mountain range in the département and it covers almost all the department except for some small valleys near the coast, as the Jacmel valley. The highest mountain of Haiti, "Pic la Selle" (2,680 metres), is in the Massif de la Selle.
Rivers are short and they flow into the Caribbean Sea. The most important river is "La Grande Rivière de Jacmel". Other rivers are "Bainet", "Belle-Anse", "des Côtes-de-Fer", "Gauche", "de la Gosseline", "Marigot" and "Pedernales"; Pedernales marks the border with the Dominican Republic and is common to both countries.
The department had, in the 2003 census, a population of 484,675 persons: 235,187 men and 249,488 women, with 59,642 (12.31%) living in cities and towns. The population density was, in that year, of 240 persons/km².
Xanten
Xanten (Latin: "Castra Vetera" or "Xantum") () is a historic town in the Wesel district of the North Rhine-Westphalia state of Germany. Xanten is known for the Archaeological Park as well as its mediaeval picturesque city centre with Xanten Cathedral and visited by approximately 800,000 tourists a year.
Xanten is the only German town whose name begins with "X".
John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter born in Coahoma County near Clarksdale, Mississippi.
Hooker was born on August 22, 1917 in Coahoma County near Clarksdale, Mississippi. He was born to William Hooker and Minnie Ramsey and was the youngest of eleven children. He and his siblings were home-schooled and they were only allowed to listen to religious songs. His parents separated in 1921 and his mother married William Moore, a blues singer the next year. Moore introduced Hooker to the guitar. John would later credit Moore for his distinctive playing style.
All through the 1930s, Hooker lived in Memphis where he worked on Beale Street and sometimes performed at house parties. In 1948, he started working at Ford Motor Company.
Hooker's early solo songs were recorded by Bernie Besman. John Lee Hooker rarely played on a standard beat, changing tempos to fit the songs. This made it nearly impossible to add backing tracks.
Hooker appeared and sang in the 1980 movie "The Blues Brothers". He recorded over 100 albums.
In 1989, he played with Keith Richards, Carlos Santana and Bonnie Raitt to record "The Healer" and won a Grammy Award. Hooker recorded lots of songs with Van Morrison, including "Never Get Out of These Blues Alive", "The Healing Game" and "I Cover the Waterfront".
He fell ill just before a tour of Europe in 2001 and died soon afterwards at the age of 83. The last song Hooker recorded before his death, is "Ali D'Oro".
Son House
Mississippi John Hurt
"Mississippi" John Smith Hurt (July 2, 1892, Teoc, Mississippi - November 2, 1966, Grenada, Mississippi) was an American blues singer and guitarist.
Hurt was raised in Avalon. He tought himself playing guitar at the age of nine. While he was working as a sharecropper, he played at local dances and parties. He did his first recording in 1928 for Okeh Records but was not successful. So he worked on as a sharecropper and played on at the local parties.
Two of Hurt's songs were included in the album "The Anthology of American Folk Music" and an Australian found a copy of "Avalon Blues". So the interest in finding John Hurt himself increased. In 1963 Tom Hoskins found him in Avalon and found out that his musical skill was still intact. He brought him to Washington, D. C. He started playing at greater festivals like the 1964 Newport Folk Festival. In his later years he often played in colleges, concert halls, coffee houses and also on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He also recorded three albums for Vanguard Records and recorded most of his songs for the Library of Congress.
Hurt influenced different music genres like blues, country, bluegrass, folk and contemporary rock and roll. He died 1966 from a heart attack in Grenada, Mississippi.
Last Sessions - 1966 (Vanguard)
Mississippi John Hurt 1928 Sessions (Yazoo 1065, Yazoo Records)
Worried Blues (Piedmont PLP 13161, Piedmont Records)
Mississippi John Hurt Today (VSD-79220, Vanguard Records)
Mississippi John Hurt Last Sessions (VSD-79327, Vanguard Records)
The Best of Mississippi John Hurt (VSD-19/20, Vanguard Records)
Recorded live at Oberlin College April 15, 1966
The Candy Man (QS 5042, Quicksilver Records)
Volume One of a Legacy (CLPS 1068, Piedmont Records)
Folk Songs and Blues (PLP 13757, Piedmont Records)
Biopsy
A biopsy is a test in medicine where doctors remove cells and look at them closely under a microscope or do chemical analysis to see whether there is an illness.
Biopsy is a Greek word, from the Greek words bio meaning "life" and opsia meaning see.
Jake Gyllenhaal