AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band. They formed in The Black Country, England in 1969. They are famous for having two guitar players, named Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing. The singer, Rob Halford, left the band in the early 1990s because of problems with the other people in the band. He went back to the band in 2003.
On 7 December 2010, the band said they would play their last concert tour during 2011, But they are still a band, and have made a new album called "Redeemer of Souls".
Judas Priest used to be a different band to the one that is together now. The lead singer for this old band was called Al Atkins. Around the same time, guitar player K.K. Downing and bass player Ian Hill put together their own band, and when they were looking for a lead singer, they found Al Atkins. His band called Judas Priest had broken up by then, and he suggested that KK and Ian should use the same name. They kept on using the name even after Atkins left in 1973.
When the band was looking for another singer, Ian Hill discovered the singing talents of his girlfriend's brother, Rob Halford. He joined the band.
During the seventies, the band went through several drummers, including Alan Moore, John Hinch, Simon Phillips and Les Binks.
Before Judas Priest recorded their first album, a second guitar player, Glenn Tipton, joined the band. The first album, Rocka Rolla, came out in 1974. It was not very successful, probably because it didn't have many of the songs that the band were known for playing in live concerts back in those days. They would later be on the band's next album, Sad Wings of Destiny in 1976. That album was followed up by Sin After Sin in 1977. These three albums had a hard rock style that was familiar to bands like Led Zeppelin, and had a psychedelic feel.
The band's fourth album, Stained Class, had less of a psychedelic sound and was rockier sounding. This was the first album to have drummer Les Binks, who had a drumming style that was liked by many fans, and is thought of as important for improving the band's sound. The fitth album, Killing Machine (called Hell Bent for Leather in America because of the original title suggesting murder) was also rockier sounding but had shorter songs. "Hell Bent for Leather" from the album is one of the band's more popular songs. Les Binks left after this album.
It was also during the late 70s/early 80s that Rob Halford started putting together stage costumes of S&M leather and studs. This was done to express that he was gay - he felt like he needed to keep this from the fans in case it would hurt the band's popularity, and he did not come out until 1998. The S&M look was not thought at the time by fans to be a symbol of homosexuality, and it was copied by many other metal bands.
Les was replaced by Dave Holland, who drummed with the band on all their 80s albums.
The band gained much more fame with album #6 in 1980, called British Steel. The album is said to be important for building on what we know as the heavy metal sound and is one of their most popular, including hit songs like "Metal Gods" "Breaking the Law" and "Living After Midnight". The next album, Point of Entry, didn't do as well.
Album #8, Screaming For Vengeance, was a return to success and had the hits "Electric Eye" and "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" Album #9. Defenders of the Faith, had a similar style.
Album #10, however, called Turbo, had more of a pop-metal sound with synthesizers on all the songs and lyrics with sexual themes. This is best demonstrated in the first song "Turbo Lover". It received mixed critic reviews who had doubts about the change in sound. The next album, Ram It Down, mixed the pop metal sound of Turbo with the heavy metal sound of the band's more popular albums.
Dave Holland left the band in 1989, and was replaced with the American Scott Travis - the first non British person to play for the band.
In the summer of the year 1990, the band was involved in a trial where they were blamed for causing two young men to try to kill themselves. These men were 20-year-old James Vance and 18-year-old Raymond Belknap, both American. On 23 December 1985, Vance and Belknap, after hours of drinking beer, smoking weed and apparently listening to Judas Priest, went to a playground at a church with a shotgun to kill themselves. Belknap died instantly after shooting himself, but Vance survived with a disfigured face. Vance died three years after.
Their parents thought they heard "do it" being sung in the band's song "Better By You, Better Than Me" from the Stained Class album (actually a cover of a Spooky Tooth song). They said the words in the song made them shoot themselves. The trial was dismissed in August of 1990 when Rob Halford played a clip from their song called Exciter in reverse, so it sounded like Halford was singing "I asked her for a peppermint, I asked her to get one" (the actual words were "Stand by for exciter, salvation is his task"). He did this to show how any reverse messages in their songs suggesting suicide were accidental.
The band released one of their most popular albums in 1990 called Painkiller. The title song did very well and is a popular Judas Priest song. Fans and critics liked Scott Travis' fast and heavy drumming style, feeling it was better than the more simple slower drumming of Dave Holland.
Halford wanted to make heavier music in the style of newer bands like Pantera, but the band wanted to carry on with the style they were playing. Halford and the rest of the band started arguing which led to his leaving of the band, starting new bands called Fight and 2wo.
The band didn't play together for a few years, until 1996 when they found American singer Tim Owens, who nicknamed himself 'Ripper' after an early Priest song. Owens had been playing in a Priest tribute band before joining the actual band.
They released Jugulator in 1997. The album was a lot heavier and darker than Painkiller and had lyrics describing the end of the world. Reviews were negative about Owens' singing style and the heavier musical style.
Halford and the rest of Judas Priest started speaking again after KK, Glenn and Ian were invited to a wedding of a relative of Halford's. KK and Ian attended and made up with Halford.
However, Tim Owens was still in the band until 2003, bringing out Demolition in 2001. The album has a larger variety of musical styles than Jugulator, but was no more successful.
Their next album was Nostradamus in 2008, which was a concept album (an album telling a story) about a prophet, also called Nostradamus. Reviews were more critical, with negativity towards the album's length of two discs.
Around 2010, media reported that the band planned to break up after one last tour. However, eventually, the band confirmed that they would not be breaking up after the tour but would be doing a lot less touring. K.K. Downing left the band in 2011, after 41 years. He was replaced by Richie Faulkner.
During the tour, the band played at least one song from every studio album apart from the two with Ripper Owens.
The band made a new album after the tour called "Redeemer of Souls", which came out in 2014. The band are still touring although their tours will not last as long due to the elderly ages of some of the band members.
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a city in the American state of California that has a population of about 55,000 people. It is in the region called Silicon Valley and close to Stanford University. It is the home of many innovators and entrepreneurs. "Palo Alto" means tall tree in Spanish after a famous redwood that was struck down by lightning in 1955. A diverse population thrives in a city known for its schools, churches, restaurants and mild climate.
Palo Alto is where Apple CEO, Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011.
Palo Alto is also where Actor Bruce Namet was born and where he died 76 years later.
Phil and Don Everly (Phil January 19, 1939 – January 3, 2014 and Don born February 1, 1937) were two brothers from the U.S. state of Iowa. They started performing in the 1950s and had a lot of famous songs in the 1950s and 1960s. They are considered very influential in rock and roll.
Don was born in Brownie, Muhlenberg County, Kentucky.
Phil was born in Chicago, Illinois. Phil died at age 74 on January 3, 2014 in Burbank, California from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Willie Hugh Nelson (; born April 29, 1933) is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist.
Willie Nelson was born in Abbott, Texas on April 29, 1933, during the Great Depression to Myrle Marie (née Greenhaw) and Ira Doyle Nelson. He was born on April 29, 1933, but his birth was recorded by doctor F. D. Sims on April 30. He was named Willie by his cousin Mildred, who also chose Hugh as his middle name, in honor of her recently deceased younger brother. Nelson's ancestry includes English, Irish, and Cherokee. His parents moved from Arkansas in 1929, to look for work. Nelson's grandfather, William, worked as a blacksmith, while his father worked as a mechanic. His mother left soon after he was born, and his father remarried and also moved away, leaving Willie and his sister Bobbie to be raised by their grandparents. The Nelsons, who taught singing back in Arkansas, started their grandchildren in music. Nelson's grandfather bought him a guitar when he was six, and taught him a few chords, and with his sister Bobbie, he sang gospel songs in the local church. He wrote his first song at age seven, and when he was nine, played guitar for the local band Bohemian Polka. During the summer, the family picked cotton along with other citizens of Abbott. Nelson didn't like picking cotton, so he earned money by singing in dance halls, taverns, and honky tonks from age thirteen, and continuing through high school. Nelson's musical influences were Hank Williams, Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzell, Ray Price, Ernest Tubb, Hank Snow, Django Reinhardt, Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong.
Nelson is the co-chair of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) advisory board.
Africa-Eurasia
Africa-Eurasia (also called Afro-Eurasia, Eurafrasia, Afrasia) is the world's biggest landmass. Around 85% (approximately 5.5 billion) of the world population lives there. It is split between the two continents of Africa and Eurasia, the latter of which has been historically further subdivided into Europe and Asia.
In geopolitics the mainland of Africa-Eurasia (excluding islands such as the British Isles, Japan and Madagascar) has been referred to as the World Island.
The Old World includes Africa-Eurasia and its surrounding islands:
In geological terms, Africa-Eurasia (or Eurafrasia) may be a supercontinent if Africa collides with Europe. One estimate suggests it will happen in 600,000 years, when the southern tip of Spain reaches Africa. If this happens, the Mediterranean Sea will be isolated from the Atlantic Ocean. Africa is expected to collide with Europe completely in 50 million years, closing the Mediterranean.
1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar.
A cemetery or a graveyard is a place (usually surrounded by a fence) where people bury dead bodies and honor the dead people. Many of them have gardens and other greenery in them to symbolise life and to honor those who are dead.
Linda Blair
David Crosby
David Van Cortland Crosby (born August 14, 1941 in Los Angeles, California, USA) is an American Guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is most famous as a founding member of the bands The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, and Nash.
Paul Harvey
Paul Harvey Aurandt (born September 4, 1918; died February 28, 2009) was an American radio host. He was best known for his short radio program called "The Rest of the Story" that was broadcast on many radio stations in the United States. He worked in the radio industry from 1933 to 2009. He also had news programs two times a day, in which he would comment on the headlines and tell some odd news stories.
Harvey died on February 28, 2009 at a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. His son, Paul Harvey Jr., said, "millions have lost a friend".
Carbon dioxide (CO) is a chemical compound and is acidic. It is a gas at room temperature. It is made of one carbon and two oxygen atoms. People and animals release carbon dioxide when they breathe out. Also, every time something organic is burnt (or a fire is made), it makes carbon dioxide. Plants use carbon dioxide to make food. This process is called photosynthesis. The properties of carbon dioxide were studied by the Scottish scientist Joseph Black in the 1750s.
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gases trap heat energy. Greenhouse gases change the climate and weather on our planet, Earth. This is called climate change. Greenhouse gases are a cause of global warming, the rise of Earth surface temperature.
Carbon dioxide is an end product in organisms that obtain energy from breaking down sugars, fats and amino acids with oxygen as part of their metabolism. This is a process known as cellular respiration. This includes all plants, animals, many fungi and some bacteria. In higher animals, the carbon dioxide travels in the blood from the body's tissues to the lungs where it is breathed out. Plants take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to use in photosynthesis.
Dry ice, or solid carbon dioxide, is the solid state of CO gas below -109.3 °F (-78.5°C). Dry ice does not occur naturally on earth but is man made. It is colorless. People use dry ice to make things cold, and to make drinks fizzy, kill gophers, and freeze warts. The vapor of dry ice causes suffocation and eventually, death. Caution and professional assistance is recommended whenever dry ice is in use.
At usual pressure it will not melt from a solid to a liquid but instead changes directly from a solid to a gas. This is called sublimation. It will change directly from a solid to a gas at any temperature higher than extremely cold temperatures. Dry ice sublimates at normal air temperature. Dry ice exposed to normal air gives off carbon dioxide gas that has no color. Carbon dioxide can be liquified at pressure above 5.1 atmospheres.
Carbon dioxide gas that comes off of dry ice is so cold that when it mixes with air it cools the water vapour in the air to fog, which looks like a thick white smoke. It is often used in the theater to create the appearance of fog or smoke.
Chemists can get carbon dioxide from cooling air. They call this air distillation. This method is inefficient because a large amount of air must be refrigerated to extract a small amount of CO2. Chemists can also use several different chemical reactions to separate carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is made in the reactions between most acids and most metal carbonates. For example, the reaction between hydrochloric acid and calcium carbonate (limestone or chalk) makes carbon dioxide:
The carbonic acid (HCO) then decomposes to water and CO. Such reactions cause foaming or bubbling, or both. In industry, such reactions are used many times to neutralize waste acid streams.
Quicklime (CaO), a chemical that has widespread use, can be made heating limestone to about 850 °C. This reaction also makes CO:
Carbon dioxide is also made in the combustion of all carbon-containing fuels, such as methane (natural gas), petroleum distillates (gasoline, diesel, kerosene, propane), coal or wood. In most cases, water is also released. As an example the chemical reaction between methane and oxygen is:
Carbon dioxide is made in steel mills. Iron is reduced from its oxides with coke in a blast furnace, producing pig iron and carbon dioxide:
Yeast metabolizes sugar to produce carbon dioxide and ethanol, also known as alcohol, in the production of wines, beers and other spirits, but also in the production of bioethanol:
All aerobic organisms produce when they oxidize carbohydrates, fatty acids, and proteins in the mitochondria of cells. The large number of reactions involved are exceedingly complex and not described easily. (They include cellular respiration, anaerobic respiration and photosynthesis). Photoautotrophs (i.e. plants, cyanobacteria) use another reaction: Plants absorb from the air, and, together with water, react it to form carbohydrates:
Carbon dioxide is soluble in water, in which it spontaneously interconverts between CO and (carbonic acid). The relative concentrations of , and the deprotonated forms (bicarbonate) and (carbonate) depend on the acidity (pH). In neutral or slightly alkaline water (pH > 6.5), the bicarbonate form predominates (>50%) becoming the most prevalent (>95%) at the pH of seawater, while in very alkaline water (pH > 10.4) the predominant (>50%) form is carbonate. The bicarbonate and carbonate forms are very soluble. So, air-equilibrated ocean water (mildly alkaline with typical pH = 8.2–8.5) contains about 120 mg of bicarbonate per liter.
Industrial carbon dioxide is produced mainly from six processes:
Carbon dioxide can be created with a simple chemical reaction:
An intermission or interval is a break in a performance. An intermission may be twenty minutes or longer: time for people to have a drink and time for the performers to relax. Plays and operas are usually divided into acts. The intermission will come where there is a suitable break between the acts. There are a few operas (e.g. those by Richard Wagner) which are so long that there may be two intermissions.
Laramie, Wyoming
Laramie is a city in the U.S. state of Wyoming. It is near the University of Wyoming. It is the county seat of Albany County.
The University of Wyoming is located in Laramie.
In 1998, Matthew Shepherd was murdered in this town.
The Black Death was an outbreak of disease that killed millions of people across Europe and Asia. Most people think that the disease was the bubonic plague. Around 50 million people were killed by the bubonic plague, and was at its worst between 1347 and 1351. The disease may have started in Asia. This disease is carried and spread by fleas living on rats. Traders from the Silk Road may have brought the infected fleas to Europe.
Fleas started the problem; the infected fleas were carried by black rats. Rats that were carrying the fleas would go into cities. When the fleas bit somebody, they would inject a little bit of the bacteria into the wound. This would cause the person to be infected. Rats were often on ships. This meant the disease spread extremely quickly, all over Europe.
In humans, the disease caused swelling in the groin, under the arms and behind the ears. These swellings were a black and purple colour, hence the name 'The Black Death'. The dark swellings were called buboes. People were in pain and victims died a horrible death. The symptoms could be seen 3–7 days after victims were bitten by a flea carrying the disease.
The disease killed around a third of Europe's population, with variation between areas. It killed at least 75-200 million people across Europe, the Middle East, India, and China.
The same disease is thought to have returned to Europe every generation with different degrees of intensity and fatality until the 1700s. Later outbreaks include the Italian Plague of 1629-1631, the Great Plague of London (1665–1666), the Great Plague of Vienna (1679), the Great Plague of Marseille in 1720–1722 and the 1771 plague in Moscow. In its virulent form it seems to have disappeared from Europe in the 18th century.
There is some controversy over the identity of the disease. Anthrax and Viral hemorrhagic fevers are other ideas for what specific disease the Black Death might have been.
The Black Death had a very big effect on Europe's population. It changed Europe's social structure. It was a serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church and resulted in widespread persecution of minorities such as Jews, Muslims, foreigners, beggars and lepers. The uncertainty of daily survival influenced people to live for the moment, as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccio in "The Decameron" (1353).
The initial fourteenth-century European event was called the "Great Mortality" by contemporary writers and, with later outbreaks, became known as the 'Black Death'.
The Black Death has been used as a subject or as a setting in modern literature and media.
Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Masque of the Red Death (1842) is set in an unnamed country during a fictional plague that bears strong resemblance to the Black Death.
Albert Camus uses this theme too. His novel, "The Plague" (1947) is set against an outbreak of the plague in Algeria and how people handle it.
Sufferers of the bubonic plague develop fevers, severe flu symptoms and buboes that could swell to the size of an average apple. These buboes appear mainly in the groin, armpit and apparently sometimes on the thighs. The buboes were not only large but also were filled with pus and turned a purple color.
The medical knowledge of the time was based on Hippocrates' theory of humorism. This said the body consists of different fluids. If they are in harmony, the person is healthy. If they are not, disease results. Very often, diseases were also seen as a punishment of God.
Such a theory can of course not account for the spreading of a disease from one person to another one. Infection was said to occur from bad winds (called "Miasma"). The bad air could also come from within the earth, and thereby cause the disease. Remedies against the disease included to only open windows towards the north, to not sleep during the day, and not to work too hard.
The Faculty of Medicine of the University of Paris concluded that the Black Death was caused by a bad conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars on 20 March, 1345. They had been asked by Philipp VI about the cause of the disease in 1348. Since the answer was scientifically founded, it was soon taken to be the real cause, and translated into many languages.
Therefore, the doctors often limited their actions to telling people to go to Confession, so that their sins would be forgiven if they died. In the long run, the pandemics caused the doctors to change their ideas on how the human body worked, to get away from the theories of Hyppocrates and Galenos, more towards empirical science. Only 200 years later did Girolamo Fracastoro discover that diseases spread through infection.
Liverpool is a city in North West England, United Kingdom with a population of about 485,000 in 2015. It is part of the Liverpool-Birkenhead metropolitan area, the fifth-largest metropolitan area in the UK. The local government is Liverpool City Council.
Liverpool is on the eastern side of the River Mersey. It used to lie in the old area of West Derby in the south west of Lancashire. It became a borough in 1207 and a city in 1880. In 1889, it became separate from Lancashire. Liverpool's growth as a large port was matched by the growth of the city during the Industrial Revolution.
It was most famous as a port during the late 19th and early 20th century. It is the birthplace of the famous rock group The Beatles. It is also famous because of its football teams, Everton F.C. and Liverpool F.C.
People from Liverpool are called Liverpudlians or Scousers. People from Birkenhead are called "true Scousers" by some.
Liverpool became very important due to trade in sugar, tobacco and especially slaves. In 1818, the Black Ball Line, with a fleet of sailing ships, offered the first regular passenger service with emphasis on passenger comfort, from England to the United States.
In the 19th Century, transatlantic trade and passenger travel was served to destinations such as New York City from Liverpool by;
In 1830, Liverpool and Manchester became the first cities to have a railway connecting them to each other, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Not including airports in London, Liverpool Airport was the first airport in Britain opening in 1930. In 2008 it was awarded the title European Capital of Culture.
Liverpool is a city on the River Mersey, on the coast next to the Irish Sea. On the other side of the river Mersey is the Wirral. In 1846 the Albert Dock was opened and in 1988, turned into a shopping centre.
The city is the birthplace of the famous rock group The Beatles and the musical style Merseybeat. It has several art galleries, museums and theatres. The Tate Liverpool is a gallery of modern art, the Walker Art Gallery displays classical art. Museums include the World Museum, the Maritime Museum and the Museum of Liverpool. There are two cathedrals, Liverpool Cathedral which is known as Anglican and Metropolitan Cathedral which is Catholic. There are two famous football clubs, Liverpool F.C. and Everton F.C. It has several parks including Sefton Park and Stanley Park.
Liverpool Airport opened in 1930, it was later renamed Liverpool John Lennon Airport. It has three tunnels under the River Mersey, one for trains and two (Queensway and Kingsway) for cars travelling to and from Wirral.
It has a local train network called Merseyrail and the station Liverpool Lime Street provides train travel to and from the rest of the United Kingdom. Until the 1950s it also had Liverpool Overhead Railway and Liverpool Corporation Tramways. Liverpool is connected to the West Coast Main Line railway connecting London, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Motorways running into Liverpool include the M62 from Manchester, the M58 and the M53 from Wirral. The inner ring road is Queens Drive and the outer ring road is the M57.
Liverpool Cruise Terminal opened in 2007 and provides travel to Europe. Regular ferries services operate to Wirral and the Isle of Man. River cruises operate down the Manchester Ship Canal and the Leeds Liverpool Canal also connects into Liverpool.
Liverpool has several universities;
There has been a lot of development work which is part of a regeneration plan for Liverpool. It is because Liverpool was the Capital of Culture for 2008.
Serfdom is a legal and economic system.
A serf is a worker who has to stay in a lords area. Serfs were the lowest social class of the feudal society. Serfs were different from slaves. Serfs could have property. In most serfdoms, serfs were legally part of the land, and if the land was sold, they were sold with it.
Serfdom is the forced labour of serfs, on the fields of the land owners. Serfs got protection and the right to work on the leased fields. Serfs worked in fields, and other agricultural-related works, like forestry, transportation (both land and river-based), work in craft and even in manufacturing.
Serfdom came from agricultural slavery of the Roman Empire and spread through Europe around the 10th century. Most people lived in serfdoms during the Middle Ages of Europe.
In England, serfdom lasted up to the 1600s, in France until 1789. In most other European countries serfdom lasted until the early 19th century.
All land was owned by landowners - nobility, Church and monarchs. A serf is any peasant who has to do manual labor for someone else in order to get to keep his land. While most serfs were farmers, some serfs were craftsmen - like the village blacksmith, miller or innkeeper.
The serfs had a feudal contract, just like a baron or a knight. A serf's feudal contract was that he would live on and work a piece of land held by his Lord. The serf would get protection in return.
During that time, people said that a serf "worked for all", a knight or baron "fought for all" and a churchman "prayed for all." Everyone had his place and all was right with God's world. The serf did not have as good a position as the knights or barons, but was better than slavery. Serfs had some rights in the feudal contract.
A manorial Lord could not sell his serfs like Romans sold slaves. If his Lord sold some land, the serf of that land went with it to serve the new Lord. A serf could not leave his lands without permission. A serf could not sell his lands.
A free man usually became a serf because he owed a large debt. He would make an agreement with the Lord of the land. The Lord would keep him safe, give money for his debt, and give him land to work on, and he would do work for the Lord. All his children would become serfs.
The usual serf "paid" his fees and taxes by working for the lord 5 or 6 days a week. At different times in the year he would do different things. A serf could plough his lord's fields, harvest crops, dig ditches, or repair fences. The rest of his time he could take care of his own fields, crops and animals.
The big problem for a serf was that he had to do the work for the Lord before he could do his own work. When his Lord’s crops needed to be harvested, his needed to be harvested, too. The Lord would give them very good food when they worked for him.
The serfs also had to pay taxes and fees. The Lord decided how much taxes they would pay from how much land the serf had, usually 1/3 of their value. They had to pay fees when they got married, had a baby, or there was a war. Money was not very common then, so usually they paid by giving food instead of money.
There were strange tests to decide if something was good enough to be given for taxes. A chicken, for example, had to be able to jump over a fence. That showed that the chicken was young and healthy.
A serf had some freedom. A serf could get and keep property and money. Some serfs had more money and property than their free neighbours. A serf could sometimes buy his freedom.
Serfs could grow what they wanted on their lands. Sometimes their taxes had to be paid in wheat, which is difficult to grow. They could take the wheat they did not give for taxes to the market. Mostly they were subsistence farming, eating what they grew. Their heirs usually got an inheritance.
The lord could not make the serfs leave his land unless he had good reasons. The lord was supposed to protect them from criminals or other lords, and he was supposed to give them charity during famines.
The rules for serfdom were different at different times and places. In some places, serfdom changed into different types of taxation.
In different places and times, serfs had to work different amounts. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 13th century it was 2 – 3 days a year. In the 14th century, serfs had to work one day per week. They had to work 4 days per week in the 17th century. They had to work 6 days per week in the 18th century.
Sometimes, serfs were soldiers during war. They could get freedom or even ennoblement for bravery in war. In other cases, serfs could also purchase their freedom, be manumitted by their enlightened or generous owners, or flee to towns or newly settled land where few questions were asked. Laws varied from country to country: in England a serf who made his way to a chartered town and evaded recapture for a year and a day obtained his freedom.
In many cases, serfs had to get permission from their lord to marry someone who was not a serf for that lord.
Sometimes a serf had to pay money because of something he had done. This is called a fine. A serf had to pay a fine when he inherited money or property. He had to pay a fine if he became a priest or monk. A serf had to pay a fine if his children went to the city instead of staying and being a serf. Serfs had to give their best animal to their lord when they died, so that their children would get to stay on the land.
Serfs had to pay to use the lord’s grain mill and bread oven. They had to pay to use the lord’s carts to carry their produce. The serfs were very angry about that. Many peasants had to pay a fine because they used their own grain mill. The miller charged a fee called (multure), which was usually 1/24 of the total grain milled. The serfs often thought the millers were not honest. Many lords made the serfs use the lord's oven to bake their daily bread.
Serfdom began to change because barter became less important as money was used more. Lords could make money by renting the land. Many Lords "freed" their serfs when their work was less valuable than money.
Still, the serfs' lives were not seriously changed; they still had to farm their land, take care of their families and pay their taxes. The main difference was that they could be forced off their lands if they did not pay the rent, or if their Lord decided he wanted to use their fields for raising sheep (for example) rather than corn. Even though the serfs were “free”, their life was often harder.
The helots in the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta and the peasants working on government lands in ancient Rome worked like serfs, but they did not use that name. They were called coloni, or "tenant farmers”. When Germanic tribes took over the Roman Empire they took the lands from the wealthy Romans. They became the new lords of the same economic system of serfdom.
The serfdom of medieval times began with the breakup of the Carolingian Empire around the 10th century. This empire had ruled most of western Europe for more than 200 years. It was followed by a long time when there were no strong central governments in most of Europe.
During this time, feudal lords worked to make serfdom the common way for people to live. Serfdom was the system where great landlords could make sure other people worked to feed them and are forced, legally and economically, to keep doing that.
This system gave most of the agricultural labor during the Middle Ages. There was slavery during the Middle Ages, but it was not common. Usually they were only slaves to take care of people’s houses. Parts of Europe, including much of Scandinavia, never used serfdom or other feudal institutions.
In the later Middle Ages serfdom began to go away west of the Rhine even as it grew in Eastern Europe. This was one important cause for the deep differences between the societies and economies of eastern and western Europe.
In Eastern Europe, the rise of powerful monarchs, towns, and an improving economy weakened the manorial system through the 13th and 14th centuries. Serfdom was not common after the Renaissance.
Serfdom in Western Europe mostly ended in the 15th and 16th centuries. This was because of changes in the economy, population, and laws about what lords could make their tenants do in Western European nations. The end of serfdom in England around 1600 conincides approximately with the start of chattel slavery in the English-speaking parts of the Western hemisphere.
At the same time, there were more protests by serfs and peasants, like Wat Tyler’s Rebellion in England in 1381. This put pressure on the nobility and the clergy to change the system and make it better. The new ways of renting the land gave people more freedom.
The Industrial Revolution helped end serfdoms. Farmers wanted to move to towns to make more money than working in the fields. Land owners also put their money into industries that made more money for them. This caused urbanization.
Serfdom reached Eastern European countries later than Western Europe. It became the main way around the 15th century. Before that time, Eastern Europe had fewer people than Western Europe. The lords of Eastern Europe tried to make people want to move there from Western Europe. Serfdom developed in Eastern Europe after the Black Death epidemics. That stopped the people moving to Eastern Europe, and many people who were already there died.
There was still serfdom in Russia until February 19, 1861. In Russian Baltic provinces it ended in the beginning of 19th century (Russian Serfdom Reforms). Russian serfdom was different than in other Eastern European countries, because it was not changed by German law and people coming from Germany. The serfdom and manorialism systems were forced by the crown (Tsar), not the nobility.
Some people say that planned economies, especially those based on Soviet-style Communist economics, such as the Soviet collective farm system, are government-owned serfdom. Friedrich Hayek said that in his book "The Road to Serfdom".
Mikhail Gorbachev grew up in a kolkhoz. They were supposed to be collectives. There were also sovkhoz which were state-owned. The government used a system of internal passports and household registration (such as China's hukou system) to make people stay on their farms. They had to plant crops according to instructions from the central authorities, especially if they were on state-run farms. The state then bought their agricultural produce at low prices and invested heavily in industrialization. Gorbachev said this was much like being a serf.
This kind of serfdom lasted in Russia until 1974 (with a brief break during the Civil War). USSR Government Decree #667 gave peasants identification documents, with an unrestricted right to move within the country. This was the first time in Russian history that had happened. It is possible that a system like this still is happening in rural China.
Refrigerator
A refrigerator is a machine used for keeping things cold. It is sometimes called a fridge or an icebox. It is normally maintained at 4-5 degree Celsius for household use. People put food and drinks in it, to keep those items cold or good (unspoiled) for a longer time. A refrigerator has a heat pump which takes heat away from the air inside the fridge. The heat is moved to the air outside. The heat pump is usually driven by an electric motor.
There are also ice boxes available that do not use electricity because they are filled with ice to provide the colder temperature. The ice can keep things cold until the ice melts. Ice boxes can be taken on camping trips. Sometimes they are called coolers. Refrigerator-sized iceboxes were used before electricity was available.
Most modern refrigerators are available in a variety of colours, although most are white. Smaller versions of the popular refrigerator are also used. They are mainly used in hotels and college dorm rooms.
A freezer is a special type of refrigerator that stores food at freezing temperatures. Inside a freezer, it is normally . Freezers can be found in household refrigerators, as well as in industry and commerce. When stored in a freezer, frozen food can be stored safely for a longer time than storing at room temperatures.
Domestic freezers can be a separate compartment in a refrigerator, or can be a separate appliance. Household refrigerators usually have a separate compartment where the heat pump is used to pump even colder temperatures to the contents. Most household freezers maintain temperatures from . Some freezer-only units can achieve and lower. Most household refrigerators generally do not achieve a temperature lower than , because it is difficult to control the temperature for two different compartments. This is because both compartments shares the same coolant loop.
Domestic freezers normally stand upright, resembling refrigerators. Sometimes a domestic freezer is laid on its back to look like a chest. Many modern upright freezers come with an ice dispenser built into their door. Many commercial freezers stand upright and have glass doors so shoppers can see the contents.
Janis Ian (born Janis Eddy Fink, April 7, 1951) is an American songwriter, singer, musician, columnist, and science fiction writer. She stated singing folk in the mid-sixties while she was still a teenager. She sang the most in the 1960s and the 1970s, but she's still singing today. In 1975, Ian won a Grammy Award for her song, "At Seventeen".
Ian is openly lesbian and is married to a woman.
Vilnius is the capital city of Lithuania. It is also the largest city in that country. Vilnius is the largest city and the capital of Lithuania, with a population of 553,904 (850,700 together with Vilnius County) as of December 2005. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County. Vilnius lies 312 kilometres (194 mi) from the Baltic Sea and Klaipėda, the chief Lithuanian seaport. Vilnius is connected by highways to other major Lithuanian cities, such as Kaunas (102 km/63 mi away), Šiauliai (214 km/133 mi away) and Panevėžys (135 km/84 mi away).
See History of Vilnius
According to the 2001 census by the Vilnius Regional Statistical Office, there were 542,287 inhabitants in the Vilnius city municipality, of which 57.8% were Lithuanians, 18.7% Poles, 14% Russians, 4.0% Belarusians, 1.3% Ukrainians and 0.5% Jews.
The climate of Vilnius is considered as Humid Continental or Hemiboreal by Köppen climate classification. Summers can be hot, with temperatures above thirty degrees Celsius throughout the day. Winters can be very cold, with temperatures rarely reaching above freezing
Vilnius is a cosmopolitan city with diverse architecture. There are more than 40 churches in Vilnius. Restaurants, hotels and museums have sprouted since Lithuania declared independence. Like most medieval towns, Vilnius was developed around its Town Hall. The Old Town, the historical centre of Vilnius, is one of the largest in Europe (3.6 km²). The most valuable historic and cultural sites are concentrated here. The main sights of the city are Gediminas Castle and Cathedral Square, symbols of the capital. The Old Town of Vilnius was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1994. In 1995, the first bronzecast of Frank Zappa in the world was installed near the center of Vilnius with the permission of the government.
Vilnius is the major economic centre of Lithuania and one of the largest financial centres of the Baltic states.
The city has many universities. The biggest are:
Specialized higher schools with the university status are:
Vilnius is the Roman Catholic center of the country, with the main church institutions and Archdiocesan Cathedral located here. There are many churches in the city as there are many monasteries and religion schools. The Church architecture in the city includes Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical styles, these styles can be foundin the Old Town. Vilnius is considered one of the main centers of the Polish Baroque movement in architecture of churches. Vilnius has been home to an Eastern Orthodox Christian presence since the thirteenth century. A famous Russian Orthodox monastery, named for the Holy Spirit, is located near the Gate of Dawn. St. Paraskeva's Orthodox Church in the Old Town is the site of the baptism of Hannibal, the great-grandfather of Pushkin, by Tsar Peter the Great in 1705. A number of Protestant and other Christian groups are present in Vilnius, most notably the Lutheran Evangelicals and the Baptists.
Islam came to Lithuania in the 14th century from Crimea and Kazan, through the Tatars. Tatars in Lithuania have maintained their religious practices: currently, about 3,000 Tatar Muslims live in Lithuania. There are same few groups of pre-Christian pagan in the city.
The city of Vilnius is made up of 21 elderates that are based on neighbourhoods:
Vilnius is the starting point of the Vilnius-Kaunas-Klaipėda motorway that runs across Lithuania and connects the three major cities. The Vilnius-Panevėžys motorway is a branch of the Via-Baltica.
Vilnius International Airport serves most Lithuanian international flights to many major European destinations.
Vilnius has a public transportation system. There are over 60 bus and 19 trolleybus routes, the trolleybus network is one of the biggest in Europe. Over 250 buses and 260 trolleybuses transport about 500,000 people every day. In the end of year 2007 a new electronic monthly ticket system was introduced.
Vilnius has 14 sister cities.
Year 1524 (MDXXIV) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Fungus
A fungus (plural: fungi) is a kind of living organism that includes yeasts, moulds, mushrooms and others. Fungi have thin thread-like cells called "hyphae" that absorb nutrients and hold the fungus in place. Some, such as mushrooms, also have a body containing many cells. Fungi do not have chlorophyll to capture energy from sunlight as plants do. Instead, they are nourished by digesting dead organic matter around them and absorbing it. The study of fungi is called "mycology".
The fungi are a separate kingdom of living things, different from animals and plants.
The cells of fungi have nuclei, unlike the cells of bacteria. Hyphae sometimes have many nuclei. Their cell walls contain chitin, unlike the cell walls of plants, which contain cellulose. These and other differences show that the fungi form a single group of related organisms. The group for fungi is called the "Eumycota" or" Eumycetes". They share a common ancestor, which makes them a monophyletic group.
Fungi are "saprophytic": a fungus breaks down dead organic matter around it, and uses it as food. It absorbs the molecules of food through its cell wall. Some fungi are parasitic or symbiotic.
Fungi reproduce sexually and asexually in several different ways. Many fungi make spores that grow into new fungi.
Fungi came into existence about 1000 million years ago. They are found in fossils from the Devonian period, and they are probably much older. They are hard to find in older fossils because they decay rapidly.
Fungi reproduce both sexually and asexually. Some fungi grow mushrooms: these are fruiting bodies. Under the cap there are gills; the gills bear spores that will disperse, and may develop into new fungi. Otherwise, fungi use a sporangium to bear asexual spores by mitosis, or sexual spores by meiosis. The spores are haploid.
Fungi may be single celled or multicellular. Yeast is single-celled, and reproduces either sexually or asexually. Asexual reproduction occurs by simple budding (binary fission).
The mycelium is the vegetative (non-reproductive) part of a fungus. It is usually underground (or inside some other substance), and made of filaments called hyphae (singluar: "hypha").
Hyphae look like threads or tiny roots. The mycelium is a mat of hyphae that may be very thickly woven. The fungus uses them to extract nutrients. Each hypha is a long cell inside a tube-shaped cell wall that grows from the end.
Hyphae are usually syncytia. This means the cell walls (septa) are mostly not complete, and the cell nuclei are not separated from each other as in normal cells. Details differ between species.
Symbiosis means living together. Lichens are a symbiosis between a fungus and an alga or bacterium. In this partnership the algal cells live inside the fungus tissue. The end result is a new mat-like life-form which clings to rock and other surfaces. About 20% of all fungi live as part of a lichen.
Another important kind of symbiosis is mycorrhiza. This is when a fungus lives inside plant roots; most trees have mycorrhizal roots, and so do many crop plants. Both the fungus and the plant benefit in this arrangement.
Some fungi cause crop diseases; others cause serious disease in humans. Some are highly poisonous: never eat a mushroom picked in the wild unless you know what you are doing.
Guernsey is an island in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy. It is one of the Channel Islands, and is the main administration island of the Bailiwick of Guernsey'. Elizabeth II is the head of state, but it has a government of its own, with its own laws and special status when it comes to taxes.
65,573 people live there.
Guernsey has 10 parishes. These are
Castel, Forest, St Andrews, St Martins, St Peter Port, St Pierre du bois, St Sampson, St Saviour's, Torteval, Vale.
St Peter Port is the biggest parish by terms of population, with 16,500 people living there.
Guernsey has its own dialect of the Norman language, called Guernésiais. It is spoken by only 2% of the population, but is understood by around 14%. This means that only 1300 people speak it, and most of these people are elderly. Only 1 in every 1000 young people can speak it.
Pottery is the ceramic material which makes up potteryware. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a "pottery" (plural "potteries"). Pottery also refers to the art or craft of a potter or the making of pottery. A dictionary definition is simply clay fired in a kiln.
Pottery objects are made from damp clay mixed with other materials. They are then fired in a special oven called a kiln at high temperatures. Firing makes the clay hard. The potter may then apply a glaze to the surface before firing the object again. The fired glaze makes the surface of the pottery shiny, decorative and water-tight.
Some potters make objects which are not useful and are really artistic objects or sculpture. Bare pottery objects without a glaze are called "bisque" or just earthenware. The finest pottery objects, made of porcelain or bone china are quite strong, yet are translucent.