AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
Northwest Italy borders to the west with France, to the north with Switzerland and to the east with Northeast Italy (Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna). To the south is Toscana (Central Italy), a short distance, and the Ligurian Sea.
The Alps are in the northern part of the region and the northern Apennines in the south. The highest point in the region and in Italy is Mont Blanc (), in the Alps (Valle d'Aosta) on the border with France; it is high.
Northwest Italy has an important part of the valley of the Po river (). The Po is the longest river of Northeast Italy and of Italy.
Central Italy encompasses four of the 20 regions of Italy, including 24 provinces and 1,789 comuniː
Kevin Geer
Kevin Scully Geer (November 7, 1952 – January 25, 2017) was an American actor. He appeared on stage and screen. He began his career in 1975. His best known stage performances included "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1988), "The Rose Tattoo" (1995), "Flyovers", "Side Man" (both 1998) and "Twelve Angry Men" (2004). His television appearances included "Oz", "Law & Order", "", "China Beach", "M*A*S*H" and "MacGyver". He also appeared in the movies "A Force of One" (1979), "The Pelican Brief" (1993), "The Contender" (2000), "American Gangster" (2007), "Bunker Hill" (2008) and "The Men Who Stare at Goats" (2009).
Geer was born in Reno, Nevada. He grew up in Los Angeles, California. He died from a heart attack on January 25, 2017 in Manhattan, New York. He was 64.
Heng Freylinger
Henri "Heng" Freylinger (23 September 1926 – 17 January 2017) was a Luxembourgian wrestler. He competed in the Greco-Roman welterweight event at the 1952 Summer Olympics.
Bob Holiday
Bob Holiday (November 12, 1932 – January 27, 2017) was an American actor. He was best known for playing Superman in the Broadway musical "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman!" (1966). He had the most appearances as Superman than any other actor, making over 140 performances. He was born in Brooklyn, New York.
Holiday died on January 27, 2017 at his home in Hawley, Pennsylvania, aged 84.
Gisella Sofio
Gisella Sofio (19 February 1931 – 27 January 2017) was an Italian actress. She began her career in the 1950s. She had roles in the movies "Accidents to the Taxes!!" (1951), "Rascel-Fifì" (1957), "La liceale" (1975), "The Big Heart of Girls" and "The Worst Week of My Life" (both 2011). She was born in Milan.
Sofio died on 27 January 2017 in Rome at the age of 85.
Bill Fischer (American football)
William Anton "Bill" Fischer (March 10, 1927 – January 20, 2017), nicknamed "Moose", was an American football player. He played as an offensive lineman. He played in the National Football League (NFL) for the Chicago Cardinals from 1949 to 1953. He was born in Chicago, Illinois.
Fischer died on January 20, 2017 in Cape Coral, Florida. He was 89.
Alexander Tikhanovich
Alexander Grigorievich Tikhanovich (; 13 July 1952 – 28 January 2017) was a Belarusian pop singer. He was best known as a member of the band Verasy. He was awarded the Meritorious Artist and People's Artist honours of Belarus. He was born in Minsk, Byelorussian SSR, Soviet Union.
Tikhanovich died on 28 January 2017 in Minsk at the age of 64.
Rettenberg is a municipality in the district of Oberallgäu in Bavaria in Germany. Rettenberg is twinned with the village La Frénaye in Northern France (close to Le Havre). Rettenberg is the southernmost village with breweries ("Engelbräu" and "Zötlerbrauerei") in Germany.
Sonthofen
Sonthofen is the most southerly town of Germany. It is in the Oberallgäu region of the Bavarian Alps. Oberstdorf is farther south but is not a town. In 2005, Sonthofen was awarded "Alpenstadt des Jahres" (Alpine city of the year).
In World War II Sonthofen was bombed twice. This was because Adolf Hitler had built the "Ordensburg Sonthofen" in Sonthofen. Young boys were trained there for Nazi Party organisations. Sonthofen was given town rights on 18 August 1963.
Lennart Nilsson
Lars Olof Lennart Nilsson (24 August 1922 – 28 January 2017) was a Swedish photographer. He was known for his photographs of human embryos and other medical subjects once thought not to be photographable. He was also known for his extreme macro photography. His book, "A Child Is Born" (1965), featured many of his photographs. He was born in Strängnäs, Södermanland County.
Nilsson died on 28 January 2017 at the age of 94.
Sulzberg, Oberallgäu
Sulzberg is a municipality in the district of Oberallgäu in Bavaria in Germany. Since 1990, Sulzberg has been twinned with the municipality Chailland (Mayenne) in France.
Lauda Air Flight 004 was a passenger flight from Hong Kong to Vienna, Austria via Bangkok, Thailand. On May 26, 1991 the Boeing 767 exploded mid-flight over the Burma-Thai border. The thrust reverser in the No.1 engine did not work and killed all 223 people on board.
Geoff Nicholls
Geoffrey James "Geoff" Nicholls (28 February 1948 – 28 January 2017) was a British musician and keyboardist. He was best known as a member of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath. He did not perform with the band after 2004. He was born in Birmingham.
Nicholls died from lung cancer on 28 January 2017 at the age of 68.
Insular Italy
Insular Italy ( or just ) is one of the five official statistical regions of Italy used by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), a NUTS1 level region.
Insular Italy is defined only for statistical and for some elections and includes the two main Italian islands: Sicily and Sardinia, together with other small islands and archipelagos next to them.
Sicily is the largest Mediterranean island with an area of . To the east, it is separated from the Italian mainland by the Strait of Messina, about wide in the north, and about wide in the southern part. Its highest point is Mount Etna (), the largest active volcano in Europe with an altitude of . The longest river of the island is the Salso river, long.
Sardinia is the second largest Mediterranean island with an area of . To the east is the Tyrrhenian Sea that separates the island from mainland Italy, and to the north is the Strait of Bonifacio that separates Sardinia from the French island of Corsica. Its highest point is Punta La Marmora () with an altitude of . The longest river of the island is the Tirso river, long.
Insular Italy has 2 of the 20 regions of Italy, including 24 provinces and 1,789 comuniː
Lucia Bosè
Lucia Bosè (' Borloni"'; 28 January 1931 – 23 March 2020) was an Italian actress. She reached peak fame during the time of Italian neorealism in the 1940s and 1950s. She appeared in the movies "Under the Olive Tree", "Story of a Love Affair" (both 1950), "The Lady Without Camelias" (1953), "Death of a Cyclist" (1955) and "Harem Suare" (1999). In 1947, she was Miss Italia.
Bosè was born in Milan. She was married to Spanish bullfighter Luis Dominguín from 1955 to 1967. The couple had three children, including Miguel (b. 1956, Panama City). She was the grandmother of Bimba Bosé (1975–2017).
On 23 March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain, Bosè died of pneumonia caused by COVID-19 in Segovia. She was 89.
Many Clouds
Many Clouds (21 April 2007 – 28 January 2017) was a Thoroughbred racehorse. He was best known for winning the Hennessy Gold Cup (2014), the Grand National (2015) and the Cotswold Chase (2015, 2017).
Many Clouds was bred in Ireland but was trained in United Kingdom.
Many Clouds died on 28 January 2017 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. He collapsed after winning his second Cotswold Chase and died from a pulmonary haemorrhage. He was nine.
Wim Anderiesen Jr.
Gerardus Willem "Wim" Anderiesen Jr. (2 September 1931 – 27 January 2017) was a Dutch footballer. He played as a defender at club level from the early-1950s to the mid-1960s. He played for Ajax from 1951 to 1961. He later played for Holland Sport.
Anderiesen was born in Amsterdam, North Holland. He was the son of and named after Wim Anderiesen (1903–1944). He died on 27 January 2017 in Heerhugowaard at the age of 85.
Smith &amp; Wesson
Smith & Wesson (S&W) is an American firearms manufacturing company. Their headquarters are in Springfield, Massachusetts. The company was founded in 1852. Smith & Wesson's pistols and revolvers have become standard issue to police and military forces. Smith & Wesson firearms are very popular among sport shooters.
Smith & Wesson is also known for the many types of ammunition it has introduced over the years. Many cartridge calibers bear the S&W name. For example, the .500 S&W Magnum.
Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson founded the Smith & Wesson Company in 1852. The purpose was to develop a lever action pistol. But by 1854 the company was failing. They sold the company to a shirt manufacturer named Oliver Winchester. In 1866, Winchester renamed the company Winchester Repeating Arms Company. That same year Smith and Wesson formed the second company called Smith & Wesson. Their timing was right. Not long after they built their new factory in Springfield, the American Civil War started.
One of the most popular pistols during the war was the Smith & Wesson Model 2. Many Civil War soldiers purchased the No 2 revolver privately. Between 1861 and 1874, over 77,000 were produced. Smith & Wesson became so profitable that the two partners were the wealthiest men in Springfield by 1865.
One of the most popular calibers during the Civil War was the .44 caliber. The partners realized they needed to produce a pistol in this caliber. By 1870 S&W introduced the .44 metallic cartridge which was a major improvement over the .44 percussion cap models used in the war. To use this new cartridge, the company introduced a larger pistol known as the Smith & Wesson Model 3. It featured rapid loading and reloading. The gun was a personal favorite of Wyatt Earp. In 1875, at age 65, Smith sold his share of the company to Wesson. He still advised his former partner in business matters.
In 1880 S&W introduced the first double-action revolver. It was designed to use the .32 S&W caliber cartridge. By this time Wesson's three sons, Walter H., Frank L., and Joseph H., were active in the company. In 1887, Frank L. Wesson died but his brothers continued as partners in the company.
In 1887 a new concealed hammer design for police was made. Variations of this design are still being made. In 1899, S&W brought out its most famous design, the Military & Police pistol. It was a double-action which set a standard for modern revolvers. It also introduced what has become a very popular caliber, the .38 S&W Special. It is still one of the most popular revolver cartridges ever produced. Large numbers of S&W .38 special handguns were sold to police and military worldwide. They were used in both World War I and World War II. They remained popular until they were finally replaced by many police and military organizations by Semi-automatic pistols.
In 1904, Daniel B. Wesson died. But without his guidance the two sons could not agree on the future direction of the company. This period of weak leadership continued for some time. In 1908 the company introduced a new line of .44 caliber pistols called the .44 New Century, but was soon renamed the Smith & Wesson Triple Lock. It used a new cartridge developed by S&W, the .44 Special.
Smith & Wesson received large government contracts for military revolvers from the American government. The company expanded to produce the firearms. But management problems, labor disputes and a new workforce all caused problems for production. As a result, the US government stepped in to manage S&W until the end of the war.
After the war a surplus of military arms and imports of low cost guns caused sales to drop. Under Harold Wesson, the company manufactured other items to try to keep up profits. They made sewing machines, handcuffs, washing machines and toilet parts. But none of these items made the company profitable.
About this time, bullet-proof vests came into use. Gangsters quickly adopted them so that bullets traveling at under 1,000 fps would not penetrate them. S&W immediately began experimenting with improved bullets. They also used the famous firearms expert Bill Jordan as a consultant to help develop a new much more powerful handgun. What resulted was the first magnum cartridge, the S&W .357 Magnum. In 1935 they released the Smith & Wesson Model 19. Using a 125 grain bullet traveling at 1600 fps, it could easily defeat the body armor of the time.
By the start of the war S&W was nearly bankrupt. The company was now run by Carl R. Hellstrom. Under his management the company concentrated its efforts on handguns and the company began to expand. In 1965 the Wesson family sold the company to the Bangor Punta corporation. The company began producing firearms accessories as well as firearms. In 1884, S&W was sold to Lear Siegler who, in 1986, was acquired by Forstmann Little & Company. Forstmann & Little was mainly interested in Siegler's aerospace and automotive lines. So they sold Smith & Wesson to Tomkins plc, a British holding company. Under Tomkins, S&W developed a number of semiautomatic pistols. This included several using the new .40 S&W cartridge. During this time handgun sales declined. Because of anti-gun lawsuits, operating costs began to rise.
On March 17, 2000, Smith & Wesson made an agreement with US President Bill Clinton. It agreed to make changes in the design and distribution of its firearms. This was in return for "preferred buying program" to offset the loss of revenue as a result of anticipated boycott. All authorized S&W dealers and distributors had to follow a “code of conduct” to eliminate the sale of firearms to prohibited persons. Dealers had to agree to not allow children under 18 access to gun shops or sections of stores that contained firearms.
After an organized campaign by the NRA and NSSF, thousands of retailers and tens of thousands of firearms consumers boycotted Smith & Wesson.
On 11 May 2001, Saf-T-Hammer Corporation acquired Smith & Wesson from Tomkins plc for $15 million USD. This was a fraction of the $112 million originally paid by Tomkins. The Smith & Wesson purchase was chiefly brokered by Saf-T-Hammer President Bob Scott. He had left Smith & Wesson in 1999 because of a disagreement with Tomkins’ policies. After the purchase, Scott became the president of Smith & Wesson. He guided the 157-year-old company back to its former standing in the market.
On 15 February 2002, the name was changed to Smith & Wesson Holding Corporation.
In December 2014, Smith & Wesson Holding announced it was paying $130.5 million for Battenfeld Technologies. This is a Columbia, Missouri-based designer and distributor of hunting and shooting accessories. This was part of a plan to merge all its existing Smith & Wesson, M&P and Thompson Center Arms accessories into a single division.
In August 2016 the company bought Crimson Trace, a laser-sight manufacturer, for $95 million. They bought Taylor Brands, a tool and knife maker, for $85 million. In November 2016 the company bought UST Brands, a survival equipment maker, for $32.3 million. On November 7, 2016, Smith & Wesson announced that it would be changing the name of its holding company to American Outdoor Brands Corporation.
Ni Yulan
Ni Yulan is a Chinese business lawyer. In 2016, she received the International Women of Courage Award.
Ni fought for property rights for people who lost their homes because of building for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She went to prison many times. In prison she was beaten and lost the use of her legs. She applied for a passport to travel to the U.S. to receive the award, but the Chinese government refused.
Tirso (river)
The Tirso () is the most important river of Sardinia for its length ad the size of its drainage basin. It starts on the mountains of the centre of the island and ends in the Mediterranean Sea.
The river was known in Sardinia as "riu de Aristanis" ("river of Oristano") or, simply, "riu Mannu" (the "big river"). The name Tirso began to be used in modern times following Ptolemy that named it in ancient times as "Thyrsos" (, "mouth of the Tirso river").
The Tirso river has a length of , and a drainage basin with an area of approximately .
Its discharge (volume of water which passes through a section of the river per unit of time) depends of the season; its average discharge is but is very low during summer.
The Tirso river starts in the Buddusò plateau, on the slopes of "Punta Pianedda", at an elevation of about , to the north of the "comune" of Bitti. From here, the river flows to the southwest.
Finally, after , it flows into the Gulf of Oristano in the Sea of Sardinia (Mediterranean Sea). The river enters the sea at about to the north of the city of Oristano.
The river forms the "Omodeo lake", an artificial lake that is long and wide; it is one of largest artificial lake in Italy.
It flows through 81 comuni.
Most tributaries of the Tirso are small streams; the main tributaries are:
Both rivers are left tributaries of the Tirso.
Theo Brokmann Jr.
Theodorus Johannes Franciscus "Theo" Brokmann Jr. (born 3 July 1922) is a Dutch former footballer. He played as a striker. He played for Ajax from 1939 to 1951.
Brokmann was born in Amsterdam, North Holland. He was the son of and named after Theo Brokmann (1893–1956).
Michael Tönnies
Michael Tönnies (19 December 1959 – 26 January 2017) was a German footballer. He was born in Essen. He played as a striker. He played from 1978 to 1994.
Tönnies was best known for playing for MSV Duisburg, playing in 179 league games and scoring over a hundred goals. He also played for Schalke 04, SpVgg Bayreuth, 1. FC Bocholt, Rot-Weiss Essen and Wuppertaler SV. He held a Bundesliga record, scoring the fastest hat-trick (three goals). He held the record from 1991 until 2015, when Robert Lewandowski beat the record.
Tönnies died on 26 January 2017 at the age of 57.
Piet Ouderland
Piet Ouderland (17 March 1933 – 3 September 2017) was a Dutch footballer and basketball player. He was born in Amsterdam, North Holland.
As a footballer, Ouderland played as a striker. He played Ajax, AZ Alkmaar and the Netherlands national team. For Ajax, he made 261 total appearances with the club between 1955 and 1964. This made him a member of Club van 100. He also made seven appearances with the national team in 1962 and 1963. As a basketball player, he also played for the national team. He was the first Dutchman to play for the national sides of football and basketball.
Henry-Louis de La Grange
Henry-Louis de La Grange (26 May 1924 – 27 January 2017) was a French musicologist. He was known for being known as a biographer of Gustav Mahler. He was born in Paris. La Grange began working as a music critic in 1952, writing articles for the "New York Herald Tribune" and "The New York Times", and the magazines "Opera News", "Saturday Review", "Musical America", and "Opus".
La Grange died in Paris on 27 January 2017 from complications of pneumonia, aged 92.
Christopher Bland
Sir Francis Christopher Buchan Bland (29 May 1938 – 28 January 2017) was a British businessman and politician. He was born in Yokohama, Japan.
He was deputy chairman of the Independent Television Authority (1972), which was renamed the Independent Broadcasting Authority in the same year, and chairman of London Weekend Television (1984) and of the Board of Governors of the BBC (1996 to 2001), when he took up a position as chairman of British Telecommunications plc. He left his position with BT in September 2007.
Before leaving BT, he became chairman of the Royal Shakespeare Company, in 2004.
Bland died on 28 January 2017 in Clanville, Hampshire from complications of prostate cancer, aged 78.
Number One Observatory Circle
One Observatory Circle is the official residence of the Vice President of the United States. The Victorian house sits on the grounds of the United States Naval Observatory on Massachusetts Avenue just north of the British Embassy. It has been the residence of the Vice President since 1974.
Waltenhofen
Waltenhofen is a municipality in the district of Oberallgäu in Bavaria in Germany. On 1 January 1972, the previously independent municipality of Memhölz was incorporated into Waltenhofen. On January 1 1976, Niedersonthofen was added, and on April 1, 1976 Martin im Allgäu was also added. The mayor has been Eckhard Harscher since 2006.
Weitnau
Weitnau is a municipality in the rural district Oberallgäu in Bavaria/Germany. Since 2008 Alexander Streicher has been the mayor. Weitnau has been twinned with Magné in France since 1986. Weitnau is situated in the foothills of the Allgäu Alps.
Kaniyan Pungundranar
Kaniyan Pungundranar is an influential Tamil poet and philosopher who lived during the Sangam Age. He was said to be born in the village of Mahibalanpatti in Tirupattur taluk of Sivagangai district, Tamil Nadu.
Kaniyan Pungundranar composed two poems in Tamil in Purananuru and Natrinai. His poem in Purananuru is a famous poem, it starts with the lines of Yaadhum Oore Yavarum Kelir speaks about unity. Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the former president of India spoke about these lines in the United Nations Organisation. At present, these lines are depicted in the UNO.
Andreas Sparman
Andreas Sparman or Andreas Palmcron (1609 – November 30, 1658) was a Swedish doctor. He was the personal physician to Queen Christina and King Charles X Gustav of Sweden. He is most known for his book, "Sundhetzens Speghel", which is considered to be the best medical book of the century, and is sometimes considered to be the first Swedish cookbook.
Andreas Sparman was born Andreas Schomerus in Sparrsätra parish, Uppsala County, Sweden. He died in
Stockholm. When he wrote his dissertation in 1629, he used the name "Schomerus", but later changed his name to Sparrman, for his birthplace. He was knighted in 1647 with the name Palmcron.
Sparman's father was Nikolaus Olai. His mother was Susanna Andersdotter. His first wife was Helena Isaksdotter. His second wife was Susanna Lilliecrona. He had a daughter, Brita Susanna Palmkron, with his second wife.
Sparman studied medicine in the city of Leiden, in the Netherlands. After he returned to Sweden he became the city doctor for Stockholm. Later, he was the personal doctor to Queen Christina and Charles X Gustav of Sweden.
In connection with the plague epidemic in 1638, Sparman wrote an educational book about the plague. It was a summary of how to prevent and treat the disease. It was published again during plague epidemics in 1652 and 1710.
In 1642, Sparman wrote the most complete book ever published about preventive health care, "Sundhetzen's Speghel, uthi hwilken man beskodhar Sundhetzens Natur..." or "Mirror of Health, from which one may learn the nature of health, the principle causes of all diseases which chiefly undermine health, together with the remedies which deliver us from them".
Because of the severe "rödsots" or dysentery epidemics, in 1652 Sparman wrote about how to prevent dysentery.
Sparman also translated the hymns of the Psalms. He got permission to publish them, but they were never published.
Elkin Ramírez
Elkin Fernando Ramírez Zapata (26 October 1962 – 29 January 2017) was a Colombian singer-songwriter. He was best known as the lead singer of the rock band Kraken. He was also a member to bands such as Kripzy (1981–1982) and Ferrotrack (1983–1984). He joined Kraken in 1985. He was born in Medellín, Antioquia.
Ramírez died from brain cancer on 29 January 2017 in Medellín. He was 54.
Walt Streuli
Walter Herbert "Walt" Streuli (September 26, 1935 – January 19, 2017) was an American professional baseball player. He played as a catcher. He appeared in six Major League Baseball games over parts of three seasons with the 1954–1956 Detroit Tigers.
Streuli was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He studied at Rhodes College. Streuli died in Greensboro, North Carolina on January 19, 2017, aged 81.
R-dropping
R-dropping happens to English-speakers when the "r" sound is not pronounced after a vowel. Then the words "car" and "card" both sound like "cah" and "cahd". That happens for most speakers in England and some speakers in the United States, especially in the Boston area. They usually pronounce "r" when the next word begins with a vowel as in "car is". For them, "spa" and "spar" sound alike.
The pronunciation of the R is kept in the Scottish, Irish and most of the U.S. and Canada versions of spoken English. The R-droppers include most of England, Wales, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
The issue of how the R is used is called rhoticity by linguists.
Jamshid Giunashvili
Jamshid Giunashvili (; 1 May 1931 – 21 January 2017). He was a Georgian linguist, Iranologist, researcher, author, and diplomat. He having served as the first ambassador of Georgia to Iran for a period of ten years from 1994 through 2004.
Giunashvili was born in Tehran, Iran. He graduated from Tbilisi State University with a doctors degree in Iranian studies. Giunashvili died on 21 January 2017 in Tbilisi, Georgia, aged 86.
Brunhilde Pomsel
Brunhilde Pomsel (11 January 1911 – 27 January 2017) was a German broadcaster and secretary. She was born in Berlin. She was known as a personal secretary to politician Joseph Goebbels. She began work in the news department of the Third Reich's radio station in 1933. After World War II ended, she was not released from jail until 1950. She retired in 1971 at the age of 60.
Pomsel turned 100 in 2011. She died on 27 January 2017 in Munich at the age of 106.
Anne-Marie Colchen
Anne-Marie Colchen-Maillet (8 December 1925 – 26 January 2017) was a French former track and field athlete and women's basketball player. She was born in Le Havre, France.
She became France's first high jump champion at the 1946 European Athletics Championships and held the French record for the event for ten years. She represented France in high jump at the 1948 Summer Olympics.
In basketball she was the highest scorer at the 1953 FIBA World Championship for Women, helping France to third place. She was a member of the French national team for the European Women's Basketball Championship in 1950, 1952, 1954 and 1956.
After retiring from active competition she went into coaching. Colchen was inducted into the Gloire du sport (the French national sports hall of fame) in 2002.
Colchen died on 26 January 2017 in Paris, France, aged 91.
Sachet d'épices
A sachet d'épices is a small cheesecloth sack containing herbs and spices. It is used to add flavor to stocks, soups and sauces. It means "small bag of spices" in French.
It is often simply called a "sachet". It is used like a "bouquet garni", but a sachet's ingredients are inside a cheesecloth while a "bouquet garni" is not. This means that spices such as whole peppercorns and dried herbs, which cannot be used in a "bouquet garni", can go in a sachet.
Laurie Salas
Dame Margaret Laurence "Laurie" Salas (née Hay, 8 February 1922 – 26 January 2017) was a New Zealand women's rights and peace activist. She was born in Wellington, New Zealand.
Salas was involved with the Playcentre movement, and became that organisation's first representative on the National Council of Women. Salas was a New Zealand committee member for the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, and she was also an honorary vice president of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. In the 1982 Queen's Birthday Honours Salas was appointed a Companion of the Queen's Service Order for community service.
Salas died on 26 January 2017 in Kaori, New Zealand, aged 94.
Atanas Kirov
Atanas Kirov (, 24 September 1946 – 27 January 2017) was a Bulgarian bantamweight weightlifter. He was born in Burgas, Bulgaria.
From 1973 and 1975, he won the world titles and three European titles and set two world records in the total. He competed in the 1968 and 1972 Summer Olympics and placed seventh and fifth, respectively.
Kirov died on 27 January 2017 in Sofia from a heart attack, aged 70.
Fine Air Flight 101
Fine Air Flight 101 was a scheduled cargo flight from Miami International Airport, in Miami, Florida, to Las Américas International Airport in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. On August 7, 1997 the Douglas DC-8 crashed into a road (72nd Avenue) at 28th Street, in Miami near the airport. There were four people on the plane but only three bodies were found hours after the crash. Two people on the ground were reported to be injured. One person was killed while driving a vehicle.
The probable cause was the airplane was the cargo being loaded too far to the back of the plane. Combined with an incorrect stabilizer trim setting, the aircraft pitched up too far at takeoff. Witnesses said the plane looked like it was going to flip backwards as it took off. The plane, weighing , to an altitude of . Then it fell back to the ground, tail first. When the plane hit the ground it broke apart and caught fire.
Zakia Soman
Zakia Soman (Arabic: زكية سومان ) is an activist from India. She is the head of the human rights group Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA). In 2014, she received the Outstanding Women Achievers award from the National Commission for Women.
Soman is from Ahmedabad, Gujarat in India. She worked as a university professor.
Soman fights for women to be able to enter religious shrines. She works to reform Islamic divorce customs in India, and to stop the triple talaq practice of divorce in Islam for the 90 million Muslim women in India. The BMMA works for women's rights in Islam and recommended changes in India's family law.
In 2013, the BMMA did a survey of 5000 women about women's rights in Islamic families. After that, they trained 30 women as judges to help solve family problems. In the survey, 92 percent of women had agreed to ban the one-sided triple divorce. The Shariah court for women was started because they thought that women were not being heard in the male Shariah court. In the survey, 92 percent of the women were also opposed to multiple wives.
Howard Frank Mosher
Howard Frank Mosher (June 16, 1942 – January 29, 2017) was an American author and retired high school teacher. He was known for his novels "Where the Rivers Flow North" (1978) and "A Stranger In the Kingdom" (1991). He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1979, and is the 1981 recipient of the Literature Award bestowed by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
Mosher was born in Cato, New York. He studied at Syracuse University in 1964. He taught English in Vermont at Orleans High and Lake Region Union High School during his early years. Mosher died of prostate cancer under hospice care in Irasburg, Vermont, aged 74.
Stuart Timmons
Stuart Timmons (January 14, 1957 – January 28, 2017) was an American journalist, activist, and historian. He was an award-winning author specializing in LGBT history. He was the author of "The Trouble With Harry Hay: Founder of the Modern Gay Movement" and the co-author of "Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, And Lipstick Lesbians" with Lillian Faderman. In 2007, Stuart began developing walking tours of LGBTQ historic sites in Los Angeles.
Timmons was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He studied at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2008, he suffered a massive stroke that left him paralyzed from the waist down.
Timmons died on January 28, 2017 at a hospital in Hollywood, California from cardiac arrest, at the age of 60.
Ion Ungureanu
Ion Ungureanu (2 August 1935 – 28 January 2017) was a Moldovan actor and politician. He served as a member of parliament for first Parliament of Moldova from 1990 to 1994. During this time, he was Minister of Culture of Moldova. He was a screen actor between 1962 and 1990. He was born in Opaci.
Ungureanu died on 28 January 2017 in Bucharest, Romania at the age of 81.
Rocket League is a vehicular association football video game. It is developed and published by Psyonix. It was first released on Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4 in July 2015. It was later released on Xbox One, OS X and Linux in 2016. It is a sequel to "Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars" (2008).
It is multiplayer and single-player. Single-player has the "Season" game mode where the player plays against bots. Multiplayer is online and has 1 versus 1, 2 versus 2, 3 versus 3 and 4 versus 4 modes.
Players control a rocket-powered car and use it to hit a ball that is much larger than the cars towards the other team's goal area to score points.
The game has received very positive reviews. As of January 2017, the game has had 25 million players since 2015.
Psyonix
Psyonix Inc. is an American video game development studio. It is based in San Diego, California. They were founded in 2000. They were officially incorporated on April 30, 2001. Psyonix are best known for publishing and developing "Rocket League" since 2015. "Rocket League" is a sequel to their other game, "Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars" (2008).
Psyonix also worked on games such as "Gears of War", "Bulletstorm" and "Homefront".
Darryl Sutton
Darryl Sutton (27 July 1952 – 28 January 2017) was an Australian rules footballer. He played for North Melbourne, Richmond and the Sydney Swans in the Victorian Football League (VFL). He was born in Tasmania.
Sutton had dementia. He died from pneumonia on 28 January 2017 at the age of 64.
Richard Portman
Richard Portman (April 2, 1934 – January 28, 2017) was an American sound engineer. He worked on over 160 movies between 1963 and 2004. He won an Academy Award for Best Sound for "The Deer Hunter" (1978). He was nominated ten other times for "Kotch" (1971), "The Godfather", "The Candidate" (both 1972), "Paper Moon", "The Day of the Dolphin" (both 1973), "Young Frankenstein" (1974), "Funny Lady" (1975), "Coal Miner's Daughter" (1980), "On Golden Pond" (1981) and "The River" (1984). He was born in Los Angeles, California.
Portman died of problems from a fall on January 28, 2017 in Tallahassee, Florida. He was 82.
Arthur H. Rosenfeld
Arthur Hinton "Art" Rosenfeld (June 22, 1926 – January 27, 2017) was an American physicist. He was Commissioner of the California Energy Commission from 2000 to 2010. From 1994 to 1999, he was a Senior Advisor for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy in the United States Department of Energy. In 2011, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by U.S. President Barack Obama.
Rosenfeld was born in Birmingham, Alabama. His wife of 53 years, Roselyn Bernheim "Roz" Rosenfeld, had died in 2009. They had two children.
Rosenfeld died from pneumonia on January 27, 2017 in Berkeley, California. He was 90.
Impasto is a term used in painting and sometimes in pottery.
It means the paint is laid on thickly in places, thick enough so the brush or painting-knife strokes can be seen. When dry, impasto gives texture, because some of the paint stands out from the canvas.
Impasto is an Italian word which means "to knead", or "to paste".
Azerbaijan Volleyball Federation
Iraqi Airways is the flag carrier of the Iraq. It began in 1945. It's first flight was to Syria in January 1946. It bought its first jet aircraft in the 1960s. They allowed the airline to add flights to cities in the Middle East, Asia and Europe. During the 1970s, it began its first flight to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. In 1991, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, all of its planes were grounded by the United Nations. A few years later, they allowed the airline to operate a few domestic flights. The airline was allowed to resume international flights 12 years later on May 30, 2003, after the War in Iraq ended. In 2015, the European Union banned the airline from flying there.
ISO 3166-2:PA
ISO 3166-2:PA is the entry for Panama in ISO 3166-2, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which defines codes for the names of the principal subdivisions (e.g., provinces, departments or states) of all countries that are in ISO 3166-1.
Currently for Panama, ISO 3166-2 codes are defined for 10 provinces and 3 indigenous regions.
Each code consists of two parts, separated by a hyphen. The first part is , the code of Panama. The second part is either of the following:
The codes for the provinces are assigned in traditional Spanish alphabetical order.
Tokitenkū Yoshiaki
Tokitenkū Yoshiaki (born Altangadasyn Khüchitbaatar, ; 10 September 1979 – 31 January 2017) was a Mongolian sumo wrestler. He made his professional debut in 2002. He reached the top "makuuchi" division just two years later. The highest rank he reached was "komusubi". He held this three separate times, but never for more than one tournament. He earned one special prize, for Technique. He wrestled for Tokitsukaze stable. He was born in Altanbulag, Töv Province. He became a Japanese citizen in January 2014.
Yoshiaki died from lymphoma on 31 January 2017 in Tokyo. He was 37.
Leonard H. Perroots
Leonard Harry Perroots Sr. (April 24, 1933 – January 29, 2017) was an American Air Force general. He was the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) from October 1985 to December 1988. He retired on January 1, 1989. He was born in Morgantown, West Virginia.
Perroots died after a short illness on January 29, 2017 at the age of 83.
Deaths in February 2017
Thomas Joseph Simpson
Thomas Joseph Simpson (November 6, 1921 – January 28, 2017) was a Canadian Royal Navy veteran. He was one of only 114 Canadians to receive the Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) for World War II service. He was born in Windsor, Ontario.
Simpson died on January 28, 2017 in Windsor at the age of 95.
Masaya Nakamura (Namco)
On 30 January 2017, it was announced that Nakamura died on 22 January at the age of 91.
Erland Kolding Nielsen
Erland Kolding Nielsen (13 January 1947 – 23 January 2017) was a Danish librarian and academic. He was best known as director of The Royal Library. He was also the president of the library organisation LIBER from 2003 to 2006. He was born in Frederiksberg.
Kolding Nielsen died on 23 January 2017 at the age of 70.
Sambre
The Sambre is a river that flows through France and Belgium. It empties into the Meuse at the city of Namur from the left side, and has a length of 193 km.
The Sambre river springs from the French commune of Fontenelle in the Hauts-de-France region at an altitude of 210 m. It continues through the Belgian provinces of Hainaut and Namur, passing the city of Charleroi.
Elizabeth Bathory (1560–1614) was a countess who lived in Transylvania, then a part of the Kingdom of Hungary. She was from a very important family that included kings, cardinals, knights, and judges. Her family ruled Transylvania as an independent region within the Hungarian kingdom. She was well-educated, beautiful and wealthy. She was also virtually untouchable as a member of the Bathory family.
She may have been a vicious female serial killer. It is impossible to know what part of her story is fact and what part is fiction. Her gruesome legend has become a part of folklore. She is the central character in a number of books, plays and movies. As the "blood countess", she has often been compared to another fictional character, Count Dracula. Some scholars now that Báthory was not a murderer but instead may have been the victim of a political betrayal.
According to her legend, she was supposed to have tortured and killed over 650 servant girls. It also claimed she bathed in human blood. That, after hearing of all the deaths and tortures going on in her castle, the countess and her servants were put on trial. Her servants were said to have been executed. Báthory herself was walled up in a room in her own castle. There were only slits for air and food. She was found dead three and a half years later. After her death, the story of the evil countess began.
In 2008 a movie was made about her called "Bathory" starring Anna Friel. The movie suggested she did not spend her time bathing in blood. It was a rumor spread by those who were after her wealth.
Charles Y.J.Gh. Michel (born December 21, 1975 in Namur) is a Belgian lawyer and politician of the Mouvement réformateur. From October 11, 2014 through October 27, 2019, he was the Prime Minister of Belgium.
Former European Commissioner Louis Michel is his father.
Michel Jr. studied at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the University of Amsterdam. He successively worked as a lawyer in Brussels.
He held several political posts like government minister of Development Cooperation and an alderman and mayor of Wavre (last one still incumbent).
On 2 July 2019, the President of the European Council Donald Tusk announced a deal reached by EU Leaders which would make Michel his replacement and took office on 1 December 2019.
Louis d'Orléans, Prince of Condé
Prince Louis of Orléans, "Prince of Condé" ("Louis Philippe Marie Léopold"; 1845 – 24 May 1866 was a French prince given the title of Prince of Condé at birth. He died in Australia in 1866 at age 20.
He was born on 15 November, 1845 at the Château de Saint Cloud outside Paris. He was the eldest son of Henri d'Orleans, Duke of Aumale and his wife Princess Carolina Augusta of the Two Sicilies. Through his father Louis was he was a grandson of Louis Philippe I. As a result of this Louis was a "Prince of Orléans" at birth. He was later given the courtesy title of Prince of Condé. Following the French Revolution of 1848, he and his parents fled to England. He was educated at the "Royal High School" in Edinburgh. He was also the first member of a royal house to visit the Australian continent. This is where he died after catching a cold. He was eventually buried at the Royal Chapel of Dreux in France.
Dana Air Flight 992
Dana Air Flight 992 was a scheduled passenger flight from Abuja to Lagos, Nigeria. The aircraft was a McDonnell Douglas MD-83. On July 3, 2012, both engines stopped working. The aircraft crashed into a neighborhood in Lagos. All 153 people on-board the flight died. Ten people on the ground also died.
Bocas del Toro Province
Bocas del Toro (meaning "Mouths of the Bull") is a province of Panama. The province is in the northwestern part of the country, bordering Costa Rica. The provincial capital is the city of Bocas del Toro on Colón Island.
Christopher Columbus, looking for a way to the Pacific Ocean during its fourth voyage to the Americas, visited this region in 1502 and named the island known now as Colón Island as "Isla del Drago" (the Dragon's Island).
During colonial times, Bocas del Toro was part of the Veraguas province. When the country was part of Colombia, the government made the district of Bocas del Toro in 1834. In 1850, Bocas del Toro became part of Chiriquí but later was made part of the Colón province.
On 16 November 1903, Bocas del Toro was separated from the Colón province and became one province. In 1941, it was divided in two districts, Bocas del Toro and Crimamola. In 1970, the district of Bocas del Toro became the district of Changuinola, the Bastimentos district was eliminated and three new districts were created.
The limits of the districts were changed in 1997 when the Ngäbe-Buglé "comarca" was created.
The Bocas del Toro province borders the Caribbean Sea to the north, Limón Province of Costa Rica to the west, Chiriquí Province to the south, and Ngäbe-Buglé Comarca to the east. The Sixaola river forms part of the border with Costa Rica.
Bocas del Toro province has an area of . The province includes the Bocas del Toro Archipelago, a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea; the main islands of the archipelago are:
The national parks in the province are "Isla Bastimentos National Marine Park" (), which contains most of Bastimentos islands and some smaller nearby islands, and "La Amistad International Park" (), which spans the Costa Rica–Panama border. Bocas del Toro contains most of the Panamanian section of the park, which covers . The Costa Rican section of the park covers .
The people of the province are known as "Bocatoreños" (women:"Bocatoreñas").
The Bocas del Toro province had a population, in 2010, of 125,461, for a population density of inhabitants/km.
Evolution of the population in Bocas del Toro province
The Bocas del Toro province is divided in four districts, which are divided into 30 "corregimientos". The new district of Almirante was created on 8 June 2015 with territory of the Changuinola district.
The main economic activity in the mainland of the province is farming, with plantain as the main commercial crop. In the islands, the main activities are fishing and tourism.
Marta Becket
Marta Becket (August 9, 1924 – January 30, 2017) was an dancer, choreographer and painter. She was born in New York City. She performed for more than 40 years at her own theater, the Amargosa Opera House in Death Valley Junction, California. She retired in 2012.
The 2000 documentary movie about Becket's life, "Amargosa" won a 2003 Emmy Award for cinematographer Curt Apduhan, in addition to the movie's numerous festival awards and nominations.
Becket died on January 30, 2017 at her home in Death Valley Junction, California from congestive heart failure, aged 92.
James S. C. Chao
James Si-Cheng Chao (; born December 29, 1927) is a Chinese-American businessman and philanthropist. His daughter, Elaine, is the 18th and current United States Secretary of Transportation.
He is the founder of the Foremost Group, a New York-based shipping, trading, and finance enterprise. The James S.C. Chao Scholarship is named after him. Active philanthropists, Chao and his wife, Ruth Mulan Chu, established the Mulan Foundation in 1984 to provide scholarships to help students in the U.S. and China access higher education.
Chao has served for more than a decade as Chairman of both the Chiao-Tung University Alumni Association in America and the Chiao-Tung University Alumni Foundation of America from 1988-1999.
Chao married Ruth Mulan Chu in 1951. Chu died in 2007 from lymphoma. They had six children. They immigrated to the United States in 1961. He now lives in New York City.
John Wetton
John Kenneth Wetton (12 June 1949 – 31 January 2017) was a British singer-songwriter and bass guitarist. He was born in Willington, Derbyshire. He rose to fame with bands Mogul Thrash, Family, King Crimson, Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry, Uriah Heep, and Wishbone Ash. He was known for playing the bass guitar.
Wetton died in his sleep at his home in Bournemouth, Dorset on 31 January 2017 from colon cancer. He was 67. He was survived by his wife, Lisa and son, Dylan.
Philip M. Bilden
Philip Michael Bilden (born 1964) is an American business leader. He is a private equity pioneer in Asia. Bilden is also a national security and cybersecurity advocate, and philanthropist.
Bilden was nominated to serve as the 76th Secretary of the Navy by President Donald Trump on January 25, 2017. He withdrew his nomination on February 26, 2017.
James Brien "Jim" Comey, Jr. (born December 14, 1960) is an American lawyer. He was the 7th Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from September 4, 2013 until May 9, 2017 when he was fired by President Donald Trump.
Comey was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from January 2002 to December 2003, and later, the United States Deputy Attorney General, from December 2003 to August 2005. As Deputy Attorney General, Comey was the second-highest-ranking official in the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), and ran its day-to-day operations.
Comey was born in Yonkers, New York. He grew up in Allendale, New Jersey. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1982, majoring in chemistry and religion and later from the University of Chicago with a Juris Doctor.
In September 2013, Comey was appointed Director of the FBI by President Barack Obama.
Comey was responsible for overseeing the FBI's investigation of the Hillary Clinton email controversy. His role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, particularly with regard to his public communications, was highly controversial. His decisions have been regarded by many analysts, including Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight, to have likely cost Clinton the election.
Comey was fired by President Donald Trump on May 9, 2017 reportedly days after Comey asked increased funding from the Justice Department for the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. The Justice Department called the "New York Times" report that Comey asked for more funding "totally false". In a statement by the White House, they released a statement saying that "removing Comey will help bring the Russia investigation to end" quickly and rapidly, and that it would be ended soon.
Comey and his wife Patrice Failor are the parents of five children. He was raised in a Roman Catholic household.
Comey was a member of the Republican Party until 2016 when he announced that he was an Independent.
E. Ahamed