AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
Most people living in Taiwan (sometimes called Taiwanese) are Han. Taiwan has three large Han groups. They speak different dialects of Chinese and their ancestors came from different places: the Southern Fujianese (from China's Fujian Province), the Hakka (from China), and Mainlanders (from Mainland China after 1948).
There are also Taiwanese Aborigines who have lived in Taiwan before the Han came to live there.
There are two Chinese governments in the world: The People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC). Today, in reality, the PRC government controls mainland China, and the ROC government governs Taiwan. The ROC government governed most of China mainland from 1911 to 1949, before losing control of China mainland to the PRC.
Today, people who live in Taiwan have different ideas. Although many Taiwanese think there is no freedom in China, there are still some Taiwanese who want to be united again with China. The majority of the people in Taiwan want to keep everything like it is now.
Today most countries of the world recognize the People's Republic of China as China. Even though Taiwan is not recognized by the UN as a sovereign nation, most countries still have close economic and cultural relations with Taiwan. So, both sides are not making any big changes from the political status quo. This policy was expressed in a 1992 Consensus among some leaders of both sides.
In March 2004, China's government passed a law called the Anti-Secession Law. The law requires the Chinese military to invade Taiwan immediately if they declare independence. The law shows China's concern over a growing move towards independence by the government of Taiwan.
The island of Taiwan is about 180 kilometers off the southeastern coast of China. It is across the Taiwan Strait. It has an area of . The East China Sea is to the north, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Luzon Strait directly to the south and the South China Sea to the southwest.
Taiwan's highest point is Yu Shan (Jade Mountain). It is 3,952 meters high (12,966 ft). There are five other peaks over 3,500 meters.
The Penghu Islands are west of the main island. They have an area of . More distant islands controlled by the Republic of China are the Kinmen, Wuchiu and Matsu Islands off the coast of Fujian. They have a total area of . The Pratas Islands and Taiping Island in the South China Sea have a total area of . They have no permanent inhabitants.
The largest cities in Taiwan are:
A trademark (or trade mark) is a way for a business to help people to identify the products that the business makes from products made by another business. A trademark can be a name, word, phrase, symbol, logo, design, or picture. It can only be used on things made by the business that owns the trademark.
For example, Coca-Cola and Coke are trademark names for a certain drink made by the Coca-Cola Company. No other business can use these names or any names similar to them. Other businesses can make a drink that is similar, like colas soft drinks, but they have to use a different name for their drink, such as Pepsi.
Another example is the Nike company which makes sporting goods like shoes and clothes. The "swoosh" symbol used on their products is a trademark.
Famous trademarks like Coca-Cola and Nike are used for branding whole families of products.
Trademarks are protected by law. In some countries, a person or company can get a trademark simply by using the name, word, phrase, symbol, logo, design, or picture on its products.
Trademarks can also be registered. In that case, the business tells the government of its country that it wants to use a certain name, word, phrase, symbol, logo, design or picture as a trademark for the products it sells. If no other person or business is using the trademark to sell those products, then the government will list that trademark. Once it is listed, no one else can use that trademark for those products. This is called "registering" the trademark.
If someone uses the trademark in a wrong way, the trademark owner can sue the other person. If a court decides that the other person was not allowed to use the trademark, they might have to pay damages to the trademark owner.
If another person wants to use a trademark that they do not own, they can ask the trademark owner for permission. The trademark owner can grant the other person a license. The other person usually must pay some money to the trademark owner for the license. This can be in the form of a percentage of the cost of the product that the other person sells called a royalty. For example, a person might pay Nike ten percent (10%) of the cost of each pair of shoes it sells for the right to include the Swoosh.
When people write a word that is a trademark or show a picture or symbol that is a trademark, they should say that it is a trademark. If a trademark is not registered, they can write the word "Trademark", use the abbreviation "TM", or use the symbol ™ on their products.
If a trademark is registered, they can use the letter R in a circle symbol: "®". People can also say it is a "registered trademark" or use the abbreviation "Reg.
Trademarks are used for products. Businesses that do things for people instead of making things are called service providers. They can get a service mark instead of a trademark. When people write or show a service mark, they can use the service mark symbol: "℠".
In the United States, the governing law for trademarks is the Lanham Act, in Germany the Markengesetz.
The Ten Commandments are a set of rules or laws. The Bible says that God gave them to the people of Israel. The commandments exist in different versions. One version can be found in the Book of Exodus of the Bible. Another version can be found in the Book of Deuteronomy. In the Book of Exodus, the mountain where they were given is called Mount Sinai, the Book of Deuteronomy talks about Mount Horeb (the same Mt. Horeb where God called Moses from the burning bush(Exodus 3:1-3). Both are probably different names for the same mountain. The laws were written on stone tablets. These laws are important for Judaism and Christianity. Countries which follow those religions have some of the commandments as part of their Civil laws.
Sometimes these rules are also called Decalogue (from Greek, can be translated as "ten statements"). The name decalogue first occurs in the Septuagint. The Israelites received the commandments after they had left Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose. There are different texts talking about the commandments. Most of them are in the Bible: The Book of Exodus, Chapter 20 and the book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 5. The Qu'ran mentions the tablets but does not list exactly the same commandments. For instance Quran 17:23-39 starts with worshipping God alone and honouring your parents.
The Exodus version (from the ESV BIBLE)
The Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy Chapter 5: verses 1-22 NKJV
5 And Moses called all Israel, and said to them: “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your hearing today, that you may learn them and be careful to observe them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who "are" here today, all of us who "are" alive. The Lord talked with you face to face on the mountain from the midst of the fire. I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord; for you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up the mountain. "He" said:
These commandments are translated from ancient Hebrew to Basic English, so the exact words chosen may not mean to us exactly what they meant to the Hebrews. There are a variety of interpretations of these commandments:
The Roman Catholics understanding of the commandment to not make "any image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above" means that "likenesses" may be built and used, as long as the object is not worshipped as an idol.
The Eastern Orthodox Church has a very similar position. Eastern Orthodoxy teaches that the incarnation of an invisible God as a visible human, Jesus, makes it alright to use flat images in worship (see Iconoclasm).
Most other Christians allow statues of religious figures, provided there is no "veneration" of them. They are not commonly found in Protestant Churches, but may be found nearby or in Museums. Historical figures or busts may be used for educational purposes. Stained glass windows may contain depictions of honored historical or Biblical persons.
Judaism in its various forms usually takes a position somewhere between the Protestant view and that of Islam. Synagogues would not have any statues in them. Images of God are forbidden anywhere.
Islam forbids any images whatsoever of Allah (God) or persons, including Mohammad. That is why their buildings are generally decorated with calligraphy but never depictions of living beings.
Jehovah's Witnesses criticize the use of all of the above, as well as the use of the cross.
The Amish forbid any sort of image, such as photos.
This can be understood to mean cursing or using profanity which includes the name of God.
Many languages have expressions of anger or dismay that include the word "God". In addition, many times people "swear to God" to try to convince others they are telling the truth. Another offense might be to say that "God told me" to do something when He didn't. The actual name of God in the Old Testament was YHWH, sometimes pronounced Yahweh or Jehovah. Pious Jews refrain from using this name or even the word God, for which they substitute G_d. This is to avoid using God's name in a way that might break this commandment.
Jews honor the Sabbath "(Shabbat)" from sundown on Friday until the appearance of three stars in the sky on Saturday night, the seventh day of the week on the Jewish calendar.
In the New Testament Jesus did things that made the Sabbath command different from the other nine. Jesus seemed to reduce its demands, unlike some other commandments where he made them stronger. Jesus was often criticized for healing on the Sabbath or doing other things. He said that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath". Doing good on the Sabbath seemed to be praised and practiced by Jesus. In that way he disobeyed some of the strict interpretations that had become common in His day.
Most Christians honor the Sabbath on Sunday to remember the Resurrection of Jesus on the first day of the week on the Jewish calendar.
Some conservative Christians are "Sabbatarians" (most of these follow the Reformed traditions). Sabbatarians think the first day of the week or "Lord's Day" is the new Sabbath, because the 4th commandment has never been removed. They also say that the Sabbath law was given when the world was made. It came before the ten commandments were given.
Others believe that the Sabbath remains as a day of rest on Saturday, while Sunday as a day of worship, in reference to Acts 20:7: the disciples came together on the first day of the week to break bread and to hear the preaching of the apostle Paul. Also, Jesus appeared to his followers on the "first day of the week" while they were in hiding.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church, and some others, believe that the custom of meeting for worship on Sunday originated in paganism, specifically Sol Invictus and Mithraism (in which sun god worship took place on Sunday). Instead, Adventists keep Saturday as the Sabbath as a memorial to God's work of creation believing that none of the Ten Commandments can ever be destroyed. Seventh-day Sabbatarians claim that the seventh day Sabbath was kept by the majority of Christian groups until the 2nd and 3rd century, but because of opposition to Judaism after the Jewish-Roman wars, the original custom was gradually replaced by Sunday as the day of worship.
To "be false to the married relation", called adultery, is when a married person has sexual relations with a person other than his or her spouse. Having sex outside of marriage is fornication and is also sin. It is condemned in other places in the Bible, but not specifically in the Ten Commandments. Jesus taught his audience that the outward act of adultery does not happen apart from sins of the heart: "From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.” In The New Testament Jesus says "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."
There are different translations of this commandment; the Hebrew words are translated either as "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not murder". Older Protestant translations of the Bible, those based on the Vulgate and Roman Catholic translations usually translate it "Thou shalt not kill". The Catholic Church believes that endangerment of human life or safety is a mortal sin that breaks The Fifth Commandment. Furthermore, the Catholic Church does not believe in a difference between murder and manslaughter the way the law does. With the exceptions of killing in self-defense (a form of manslaughter in many nations' laws) and killing in war, the Catholic Church believes all other forms of killing or attempting to kill violate The Fifth Commandment. Unsafe driving could also lead to unintentional killing. Jewish and newer Protestant versions tend to use "You shall not murder". There are different opinions as to which translation is more faithful to the original.
The many examples in the Old Testament of killing sanctioned by God, are quoted in defense of the view that "murder" is more accurate. Furthermore, the Hebrew word for "kill" is "" - ""harog"", while the Hebrew word for "murder" is "" - ""retzach"", which is found in the Ten Commandments "" - ""lo tirtzach"".
Many theologians (such as German Old Testament scholar A. Alt: "Das Verbot des Diebstahls im Dekalog" (1953)) suggest that commandment "you shall not steal" was originally intended against stealing people—abductions and slavery. This would be the same as the Jewish interpretation of the statement as "you shall not kidnap" (e.g. as stated by Rashi). Civil laws in most countries list many types of stealing. These include burglary, embezzlement, looting, robbery, shoplifting or fraud. The penalties depend on the value of the thing stolen, and if violence was used to take it.
In some places stealing horses brought a death penalty. That is because it could cause danger or even death to the horse's owner who could no longer do necessary travel. Poaching is the illegal killing of wild animals. Especially in modern times, money is often stolen by trickery or keeping false bank or debt records. In the 21st century this can be done using computers. This is called "White-collar crime".
Some societies have attempted to say that no property is "private" but everything belongs to the whole society. If this were ever put in practice, it would make stealing impossible, but it has not been fully practiced anywhere.
To "give false witness" would include lying in court which is called perjury. Telling false gossip which harms someone is similar. Some think this commandment includes all lying. It is to knowingly give any false statement. Others allow a white lie. Some Jewish teachers said that not all lying is false witness (perjury). They say that lying is sometimes "permissible or even commendable". This would include changing the truth to be modest or to avoid harm to someone. Saint Augustine believed that some lies could be pardoned, and that there were in fact occasions when lying would be the right thing to do. He says that lies which hurt nobody and benefit someone may be forgiven. These need to used with great caution, however.
The Bible does not number the commandments. Different religious groups have numbered them in different ways. The Jews, followed by Christian Protestants, end the first commandment with "You are to have no other gods but me." as above. Catholics and Lutherans end the first commandment at "I will have mercy through a thousand generations on those who have love for me and keep my laws." and separate in their last two commandments the desire for a man's wife from the desire for other things he owns.
The commandments passage in Exodus has more than ten important statements, there are 14 or 15 in all. While the Bible itself gives the count as "10", using the Hebrew phrase "ʻaseret had'varim"—translated as "the 10 words", "statements" or "things", this phrase does not appear in the passages usually presented as being "the Ten Commandments". Various religions divide the commandments differently. The table below shows those differences.
Table may mean one of these:
A tree is a tall plant with a trunk and branches made of wood. Trees can live for many years. The oldest tree ever discovered is approximately 5,000 years old and the oldest tree from the UK is about 1,000. The four main parts of a tree are the roots, the trunk, the branches, and the leaves.
The roots of a tree are usually under the ground. However, this is not always true. The roots of the mangrove tree are often under water. A single tree has many roots. The roots carry nutrients and water from the ground through the trunk and branches to the leaves of the tree. They can also breathe in air. Sometimes, roots are specialized into aerial roots, which can also provide support, as is the case with the banyan tree.
The trunk is the main body of the tree. The trunk is covered with bark which protects it from damage. Branches grow from the trunk. They spread out so that the leaves can get more sunlight.
The leaves of a tree are green most of the time, but they can come in many colors, shapes and sizes. The leaves take in sunlight and use water and food from the roots to make the tree grow, and to reproduce.
Trees and shrubs take in water and carbon dioxide and give out oxygen with sunlight to form sugars. This is the opposite of what animals do in respiration. Plants also do some respiration using oxygen the way animals do. They need oxygen as well as carbon dioxide to live. Trees are renewable resources because, if cut down, other trees can grow in their place.
The parts of a tree are the roots, trunk(s), branches, twigs and leaves. Tree stems are mainly made of support and transport tissues (xylem and phloem). Wood consists of "xylem" cells, and bark is made of "phloem" and other tissues external to the vascular cambium.
As a tree grows, it may produce growth rings as new wood is laid down around the old wood. In areas with seasonal climate, wood produced at different times of the year may alternate light and dark rings. In temperate climates, and tropical climates with a single wet-dry season alternation, the growth rings are annual, each pair of light and dark rings being one year of growth. In areas with two wet and dry seasons each year, there may be two pairs of light and dark rings each year; and in some (mainly semi-desert regions with irregular rainfall), there may be a new growth ring with each rainfall.
In tropical rainforest regions, with constant year-round climate, growth is continuous. Growth rings are not visible and there is no change in the wood texture. In species with annual rings, these rings can be counted to find the age of the tree. This way, wood taken from trees in the past can be dated, because the patterns of ring thickness are very distinctive. This is dendrochronology. Very few tropical trees can be accurately dated in this manner.
The roots of a tree are almost always underground, usually in a ball shaped region centered under the trunk, and extending no deeper than the tree is high. Roots can also be above ground, or deep underground. Some roots are short, some are meters long.
Roots provide support for the parts above ground, holding the tree upright, and keeping it from falling over in high wind.
Roots take in water, and nutrients, from the soil. Without help from fungus for better uptake of nutrients, trees would be small or would die. Most trees have a favorite species of fungus that they associate with for this purpose.
Above ground, the trunk gives height to the leaf-bearing branches, competing with other plant species for sunlight. In all trees the shape of the branches improves the exposure of the leaves to sunlight. Branches start at the trunk, big and thick, and get progressively smaller the farther they grow from the trunk. Branches themselves split into smaller branches, sometime very many times, until at the end they are quite small. The small ends are called twigs.
The leaves of a tree are held by the branches. Leaves are usually held at the ends of the branches. The, although some have leaves along the branches. The main functions of leaves are photosynthesis and gas exchange. A leaf is often flat, so it absorbs the most light, and thin, so that the sunlight can get to the green parts in the cells, which convert sunlight, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and water from the roots, into glucose and oxygen. Most of a tree's biomass comes from this process.
Most leaves have stomata, which open and close, and regulate carbon dioxide, oxygen, and water vapour exchange with the atmosphere.
Trees with leaves all year round are evergreens, and those that shed their leaves are deciduous. Deciduous trees and shrubs generally lose their leaves in autumn as it gets cold. Before this happens, the leaves change colour. The leaves will grow back in spring.
The word "tree" in English means a long lived plant having obvious main stem, and growing to a considerable height and size. Thus not all trees have all the organs or parts as mentioned above. For example, most (tree-like) palms are not branched, and tree ferns do not produce bark. There are also more exceptions.
Based on their general shape and size, all of these are nonetheless generally regarded as trees. Trees can vary a lot. A plant that is similar to a tree, but generally smaller, and may have multiple trunks, or have branches that arise near the ground, is called a "shrub", or a "bush". Since these are common English words there is no precise differentiation between shrubs and trees. Given their small size, bonsai plants would not technically be "trees", but are indeed "trees". Do not confuse the use of tree for a species of plant, with the size or shape of individual specimens. A spruce seedling does not fit the definition of a tree, but all spruces are trees.
A tree is a plant form that can be found in many different orders and families of plants. Trees show many growth forms, leaf type and shape, bark traits and organs.
The tree form has changed separately in classes of plants that are not related, in response to similar problems (for the tree). With about 100,000 types of trees, the number of tree types in the whole world might be one fourth of all living plant types. Most tree species grow in tropical parts of the world and many of these areas have not been surveyed yet by botanists (they study plants), making species difference and ranges not well understood.
The earliest trees were tree ferns, horsetails and lycophytes, which grew in forests in the Carboniferous period; tree ferns still survive, but the only surviving horsetails and lycophytes are not of tree form. Later, in the Triassic Period, conifers, ginkgos, cycads and other gymnosperms appeared, and subsequently flowering plants in the Cretaceous period. Most species of trees today are flowering plants (Angiosperms) and conifers.
A small group of trees growing together is called a grove or copse, and a landscape covered by a dense growth of trees is called a forest. Several biotopes are defined largely by the trees that inhabit them; examples are rainforest and taiga (see ecozones). A landscape of trees scattered or spaced across grassland (usually grazed or burned over periodically) is called a savanna. A forest of great age is called old growth forest or ancient woodland (in the UK). A very young tree is called a sapling.
Scientists in the UK and Malaysia say they have discovered the world's tallest tropical tree measuring more than 100m (328ft) high.
A coast redwood: , in Redwood National Park, California had been measured as tallest, but may no longer be standing.
The tallest trees in Australia are all eucalypts, of which there are more than 700 species. The so-called 'mountain ash'. with a slim, straight trunk, grows to over 300 feet.
The stoutest living single-trunk species in diameter is the African baobab: , Glencoe baobab (measured near the ground), Limpopo Province, South Africa. This tree split up in November 2009 and now the stoutest baobab could be Sunland Baobab (South Africa) with diameter 10.64 m and circumference of 33.4 m.
Some trees develop multiple trunks (whether from an individual tree or multiple trees) which grow together. The sacred fig is a notable example of this, forming additional 'trunks' by growing adventitious roots down from the branches, which then thicken up when the root reaches the ground to form new trunks; a single sacred fig tree can have hundreds of such trunks.
The life-span of trees is determined by growth rings. These can be seen if the tree is cut down or in cores taken from the edge to the center of the tree. Correct determination is only possible for trees which make growth rings, generally those which occur in seasonal climates. Trees in uniform non-seasonal tropical climates are always growing and do not have distinct growth rings. It is also only possible for trees which are solid to the center of the tree; many very old trees become hollow as the dead heartwood decays away. For some of these species, age estimates have been made on the basis of extrapolating current growth rates, but the results are usually little better than guesses or speculation. White proposed a method of estimating the age of large and veteran trees in the United Kingdom by correlation between a tree's stem diameter, growth character and age.
The verified oldest measured ages of living trees are:
Other species suspected of reaching exceptional age include European Yew "Taxus baccata" (probably over 2,000 years) and western redcedar "Thuja plicata". The oldest known European yew is the Llangernyw yew in the Churchyard of Llangernyw village in North Wales which is estimated to be between 4,000 and 5,000 years old.
The oldest reported age for an Angiosperm tree is 2,305 years for the Sri Maha Bodhi sacred fig ("Ficus religiosa") planted in 288 BC at Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka; this is said to be the oldest human-planted tree with a known planting date.
The earliest fossilised trees date to 386 million years ago in the Devonian period. They have been found at an abandoned quarry in Cairo, New York. The forest was so vast it originally stretched beyond Pennsylvania.
This discovery two or three million years older than the previous oldest forest at Gilboa, also in New York State.
Studies have shown that trees contribute as much as 27% of the appraised land value in certain markets.
These most likely use diameter measured at breast height (dbh), 4.5 feet (140 cm) above ground—not the larger base diameter. A general model for any year and diameter is:
assuming 2.2% inflation per year.
Tree climbing is an activity where one moves around in the crown of trees.
Use of a rope, helmet, and harness are the minimum requirements to ensure the safety of the climber. Other equipment can also be used depending on the experience and skill of the tree climber. Some tree climbers take special hammocks called "Treeboats" and Portaledges with them into the tree canopies where they can enjoy a picnic or nap, or spend the night.
Tree climbing is an "on rope" activity that puts together many different tricks and gear originally derived from rock climbing and caving. These techniques are used to climb trees for many purposes, including tree care (arborists), animal rescue, recreation, sport, research, and activism.
The three big sources of tree damage are biotic (from living sources), abiotic (from non-living sources) and deforestation (cutting trees down). Biotic sources would include insects which might bore into the tree, deer which might rub bark off the trunk, or fungi, which might attach themselves to the tree.
Abiotic sources include lightning, vehicles impacts, and construction activities. Construction activities can involve a number of damage sources, including grade changes that prevent aeration to roots, spills involving toxic chemicals such as cement or petroleum products, or severing of branches or roots. People can damage trees also.
Both damage sources can result in trees becoming dangerous, and the term "hazard trees" is commonly used by arborists, and industry groups such as power line operators. Hazard trees are trees which due to disease or other factors are more susceptible to falling during windstorms, or having parts of the tree fall.
The process of finding the danger a tree presents is based on a process called the quantified tree risk assessment.
Trees are similar to people. Both can take a lot of some types of damage and survive, but even small amounts of certain types of trauma can result in death. Arborists are very aware that established trees will not tolerate any appreciable disturbance of the root system. Even though that is true, most people and construction professionals do not realize how easily a tree can be killed.
One reason for confusion about tree damage from construction involves the dormancy of trees during winter. Another factor is that trees may not show symptoms of damage until 24 months or longer after damage has occurred. For that reason, persons who do not know about caring for trees may not link the actual cause with the later damaged effect.
Various organizations have long recognized the importance of construction activities that may damage tree health. This can result in monetary losses due to tree damage and replacement costs. As a result, standard methods of tree management for building activities are well established and tested.
The tree has always been a cultural symbol. Common icons are the World tree, for instance Yggdrasil, and the tree of life. The tree is often used to represent nature or the environment itself. A common mistake (wrong thing) is that trees get most of their mass from the ground. In fact, 99% of a tree's mass comes from the air.
A Wish Tree (or wishing tree) is a single tree, usually distinguished by species, position or appearance, which is used as an object of wishes and offerings. Such trees are identified as possessing a special religious or spiritual value. By tradition, believers make votive offerings in order to gain from that nature spirit, saint or goddess fulfillment of a wish.
Tree worship refers to the tendency of many societies in all of history to worship or otherwise mythologize trees. Trees have played a very important role in many of the world's mythologies and religions, and have been given deep and sacred meanings throughout the ages. Human beings, seeing the growth and death of trees, the elasticity of their branches, the sensitiveness and the annual (every year) decay and revival of their foliage, see them as powerful symbols of growth, decay and resurrection. The most ancient cross-cultural symbolic representation of the universe's construction is the 'world tree'.
The tree, with its branches reaching up into the sky, and roots deep into the earth, can be seen to dwell in three worlds - a link between heaven, the earth, and the underworld, uniting above and below. It is also both a feminine symbol, bearing sustenance; and a masculine, phallic symbol - another union.
For this reason, many mythologies around the world have the concept of the World tree, a great tree that acts as an "Axis mundi", holding up the cosmos, and providing a link between the heavens, earth and underworld. In European mythology the best known example is the tree Yggdrasil from Norse mythology.
The world tree is also an important part of Mesoamerican mythologies, where it represents the four cardinal directions (north, south, east, and west). The concept of the world tree is also closely linked to the motif of the Tree of life.
In literature, a mythology was notably developed by J.R.R. Tolkien, his Two Trees of Valinor playing a central role in his 1964 "Tree and Leaf". William Butler Yeats describes a "holy tree" in his poem "The Two Trees" (1893).
There are many types of trees. Here is a list of some of them:
In theatre, a tragedy as defined by Aristotle is a play that ends badly for the hero or heroine or others. A tragedy is usually about a person who has many good qualities, but also has one poor quality (called a "tragic flaw") that causes trouble for him, and maybe his family or friends.
Often in a tragedy, there is one possible event that the hero fears and tries to prevent, but no matter what he does, it makes this thing more and more sure to happen. Tragedies originated in Ancient Greek theatre, where they were performed at religious festivals. The three most famous Greek tragedy writers were Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Later famous writers include Shakespeare and Jean Racine.
Sometimes the word tragedy is also used to mean something with a bad outcome in real life e.g. crime or death.
Taxonomy is a branch of science. It is about the laws and principles of classifying things, especially classifying organisms. From one type of taxonomy, many classifications might be produced.
The best-known kind of taxonomy is used for the classification of lifeforms (living and extinct). Each organism has a scientific name. This name is part of the biological classification of that species. The name is the same all over the world, so scientists from different places can understand each other. In addition, a species has a position in the tree of life. Thus the crow is "Corvus corone", a member of the Corvidae family, and they are passerine birds. That is well agreed, but the classification of some groups is not agreed at present, and often several classifications are being discussed.
Living things are classified into three domains: bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes. The highest rank in a domain is the kingdom. Each kingdom has many smaller groups in it, called phyla. Each phylum has more smaller groups in it, called classes. This pattern looks like branches on a tree with smaller branches growing from them. Each species is put into a group because of what it does, how and what it eats, special body parts, and so on. At the end of the pattern, the groups (genera) are very small. Then each species in the genus is given its own name.
When someone writes about a living thing and its formal scientific name, they write the genus and species name. This is known as binomial nomenclature, because it uses two names for each organism. The first is the genus name, and the second is the species in that genus. The scientific name of the domestic cat is "Felis catus". Sometimes it is enough to write "F. catus".
These are the major groups (ranks) used in taxonomy:
Kingdom --> Phylum --> Class --> Order --> Family --> Genus --> Species
Some mnemonics (sayings to help a person remember something):
When people started naming species, Latin was a language widely used in Europe. All species names are still written in Latin. This has some advantages. Since Latin is no longer spoken, it is unchanging, and is owned by no-one. It gets over the problem of every language having its own names for animals and plants.
Scientists used to write the official description of each new species in Latin. On 1 January 2012, the International Botanical Congress changed to allow English (as well as Latin) for describing new plant species. The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature recommends choosing a language that is widely used, and that is used in the places where the species lives.
An important modern approach to taxonomy is cladism. This approach is based on the branching (tree-like) course of evolution. Like traditional Linnaean classification, it uses traits to decide on the branches of the classification. It insists on groups being monophyletic. This has the effect that birds are not a class but a sub-group of dinosaurs. It also means the ranking system described above would be abolished.
So cladism has different principles of taxonomy, and produces a different kind of taxonomy. Decisions, where possible, are supported by DNA sequence analysis. Present-day biological classification is a mixture of the old Linnaean and the modern cladistic principles of taxonomy. In parts, it is changing rapidly. The classifications presented in Wikipedia at present are often a compromise between the two systems. The details are regularly discussed.
Today, there are many changes in the classification of living things. This turmoil in taxonomy has led to many alternative classifications. It is caused partly from the move from Linnaean to cladistic principles, and partly by the use of DNA sequence data in taxonomy. An example is: the way derived groups like birds should not be classified at the same level as the group they evolved from. Yet birds have traditionally been a class under the Linnaean system.
The turmoil sometimes results in differences between related pages. Pages may rely on different references and different authors' opinions as to the present best arrangement.
The following source is good on the differences between cladistic and taxonomic classification systems:
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System.
The Sun may also mean:
A temple is a building where people go to practice their religion. In a temple people may perform religious rituals, ceremonies, and pray. Thus, a temple is a general term for a house of worship. Christians usually call their religious buildings churches.
Some examples of temples from different religions:
Theft is when one person or group takes from another persons or state any object, money, or information without permission. A person who has been convicted of theft may be called a thief. However, the practice of engaging in theft is also called stealing. There are many different types of theft, such as pickpocketing and shoplifting. Burglary and robbery are separate crimes which involve theft.
Stealing is basic and is illegal almost everywhere. Thieves steal things sometimes because they want to have something for themselves, or because they want to sell something for money. Sometimes thieves will make plans to rob a store, bank, house, or person, and sometimes they will just see a chance to steal something and take it. Some thieves have kleptomania.
When thieves steal things for money, they usually pick cars, electronics, laptops, or other things they can sell easily. Sometimes thieves use pawn shops to sell things easily to someone who will not ask questions.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland or simply the United Kingdom (UK) is a sovereign country in Western Europe. It is a constitutional monarchy that is made up of four separate countries: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth, NATO, the G8, and formerly the EU. It had the sixth largest economy in the world by nominal GDP in 2019.
Around 66 million people live in the UK (2018). They can be divided into four big nationalities based on the countries where they live (or where they were born or their ancestry).
About 95 per cent of the UK's population are English speakers. 5.5 per cent of the population speak languages brought to the UK as a result of relatively recent immigration.
The UK has many cities. London is the biggest city in the UK and is the nation's capital city. There are also other big cities in England including Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Bristol and Newcastle upon Tyne. Scotland has the big cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Cardiff and Swansea are in Wales and Derry and Belfast is in Northern Ireland.
Between the 17th and mid 20th-centuries, Britain was a world power. It became a colonial empire that controlled large areas of Africa, Asia, North America and Oceania. At its height in 1922, more than 458 million people lived in the British Empire, one-fifth of the Earth's population. Its area was 13,012,000 square miles: almost a quarter of the Earth's land area. The empire was sometimes called 'the empire on which the sun never sets', meaning the sun is always shining on at least one of its territories. Almost all countries left and became independent from the empire in the 20th century, although Britain keeps links with most countries of its former empire.
The "UK" is an abbreviation of United Kingdom, which derives from when its Kingdom had been United.
Species of humans have lived in Britain, for almost a million years. The occupation was not continuous, probably because the climate was too extreme at times for people to live there.
Archaeological remains show that the first group of modern people to live in the British Isles were hunter-gatherers after the last ice age ended. The date is not known: perhaps as early as 8000 but certainly by 5000. They built mesolithic wood and stone monuments. Stonehenge was built between 3000 and 1600. Celtic tribes arrived from mainland Europe. Britain was a changing collection of tribal areas, with no overall leader. Julius Caesar tried to invade (take over) the island in 55 but was not able to do so. The Romans successfully invaded in 43.
Written history began in Britain when writing was brought to Britain by the Romans. Rome ruled in Britain from 44 to 410. They ruled the southern two-thirds of Great Britain. The Romans never took over Ireland and never fully controlled Caledonia, the land north of the valleys of the River Forth and River Clyde. Their northern border varied from time to time, and was marked sometimes at Hadrian's Wall (in modern England), sometimes at the Antonine Wall (in modern Scotland).
After the Romans, waves of immigrants came to Britain. Some were German tribes: the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Others were Celts, like the Scoti, who came to Great Britain from Ireland. English and Scots are Germanic languages. They developed from Old English, the language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons of Anglo-Saxon England, an area stretching from the River Forth to the River Tamar.
A later wave of immigration was that of the Vikings, during the Early Middle Ages' Viking Age. During the Viking invasion of Britain, they set up their own kingdom in north-western England, which the Anglo-Saxons named the "Danelaw", after the Danes who lived there and controlled the land. Vikings from Scandinavia also controlled most of the islands which are now part of Scotland, including the Outer Hebrides, the Inner Hebrides, and the Northern Isles (the Shetland Islands and the Orkney Islands).After a long period when Anglo-Saxon England was split into various kingdoms, it was made into one kingdom by Æthelstan (Athelstan) in 945. In the 13th century, the lands of Wales were unified by force with England by the wars of Edward I of England ("Edward Longshanks").
There were hundreds of years of fighting between both kingdoms of Great Britain. In 1603, when Queen Elizabeth I of England died, her closest relative was King James VI of Scotland. He became king of England and Ireland as well as king of Scotland. The kingdoms of England, Ireland, and Scotland had the same monarch ever since. James VI and I was the first to be named "King of Great Britain", and he ordered the design of the Union Jack. The Union Jack has been the British national flag ever since.
In 1707, the Parliaments of England and Scotland agreed the Treaty of Union, which joined the two countries into one country called the "United Kingdom of Great Britain" under Queen Anne with the Acts of Union 1707. This union merged Scotland and England into one kingdom. England and Scotland kept their own laws, with English law in England and Wales and Scots law in Scotland. The division between the Church of Scotland and the Church of England continued. Ireland and Great Britain continued to have the same king, but Ireland did not become part of the new kingdom in 1707.
Scotland and England had already independently had much influence over Ireland since 1200. In 1800 laws were passed in the parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland to merge the two kingdoms and their two parliaments. The country was then called the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland". The Union Jack was changed so that the flag of Saint Patrick (a red saltire) shows Ireland to be a part of the country.
In 1922 much of Ireland became independent from the United Kingdom as the Irish Free State (now called Ireland). However, six northern counties (called Northern Ireland) are part of the United Kingdom. The country was renamed the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" in 1927.
The new Parliament of Northern Ireland set up in the 1920s stopped working in the 1970s, because of The Troubles. However, devolution started again with the Northern Ireland Assembly after the Belfast Agreement (the "Good Friday Agreement") in 1998. Devolution in Scotland and Wales started the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Parliament the same year.
The UK is north-west off the coast of mainland Europe. Around the UK are the North Sea, the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean. The UK also rules, usually indirectly, a number of smaller places (mostly islands) around the world, which are known as British Overseas Territories. They were once part of the British Empire. Examples are Gibraltar (on the Iberian Peninsula next to the Strait of Gibraltar) and the Falkland Islands (in the south Atlantic Ocean).
In the British Isles, the UK is made up of four different countries: Wales, England and Scotland and Northern Ireland. The capital city of Wales is Cardiff. The capital city of England is London. The capital city of Scotland is Edinburgh and the capital city of Northern Ireland is Belfast. Other large cities in the UK are Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle upon Tyne, Leeds, Sheffield, Glasgow, Southampton, Leicester, Coventry, Bradford and Nottingham.
The physical geography of the UK varies greatly. England consists of mostly lowland terrain, with upland or mountainous terrain only found north-west of the River Tees-River Exe line. The upland areas include the Lake District, the Pennines, the North York Moors, Exmoor, and Dartmoor. The lowland areas are typically traversed by ranges of low hills, frequently composed of chalk, and flat plains. Scotland is the most mountainous country in the UK and its physical geography is distinguished by the Highland Boundary Fault which goes across the Scottish mainland from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. The Royal Observatory, Greenwich is the is the defining point of the Prime Meridian.
The weather of the United Kingdom is changeable and unpredictable. Summers are moderately warm, winters are cool to cold. Rain falls throughout the year, and more on the west than the east because of its northerly latitude and the warm water from the Atlantic Ocean's Gulf Stream. The usually moderate prevailing winds from the Atlantic may be interrupted by Arctic air from the north-east or hot air from the Sahara.
The United Kingdom is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It has met some Kyoto Protocol targets. It has signed the Paris Agreement. The British government want the UK to be carbon neutral by the year 2050.
The United Kingdom is a parliamentary democracy based on a constitutional monarchy. The people of the United Kingdom vote for a members of Parliament to speak for them and to make laws for them. Queen Elizabeth II is the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and is the head of state. The government, led by the Prime Minister, governs the country and appoints cabinet ministers. Today, the Prime Minister is Boris Johnson, who is the leader of the centre-right Conservative Party.
Parliament is where laws are made. It has three parts: the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Queen. The House of Commons is the most powerful part. It is where Members of Parliament sit. The Prime Minister sits here as well, because they are a Member of Parliament.
Scotland has its own devolved Parliament with power to make laws on things like education, health and Scottish law. Northern Ireland and Wales have their own devolved legislatures which have some powers but less than the Scottish parliament. The Parliament of the United Kingdom is sovereign and it could end the devolved administrations at any time. The UK is a unitary state and not a federation of states.