AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
Thomas came from a musical family. His father, also called Thomas Linley, was a composer, singing teacher and harpsichord player. His young son was soon showing exceptional musical skills. We do not know who taught him the violin in his early years, but people writing at the time all say he was a brilliant player. He went to Italy to study the violin and composition with Nardini in Florence. He met Mozart there in 1770 and he also met Charles Burney in the same year. Burney wrote that Linley was the most promising genius of the time.
In 1771 Linley went back to England. He was the leader of the orchestra in the theatre in Drury Lane. He often played concertos between the acts of oratorios.
During the last five years of his life he composed a large amount of excellent music. Unfortunately a lot of it has been lost. Gainsborough twice painted a portrait of him.
He died in a boating accident when he was on holiday with his family in Lincolnshire.
Kaiane Aldorino
Kaiane Aldorino won Miss World 2009 on December 12, 2009. She was born July 8, 1986 in Gibraltar.
Thomas Linley the elder
Thomas Linley (born Badminton, Gloucestershire, England, 17 January 1733; died London 19 November 1795), was an English composer, harpsichordist and singing teacher. He studied with Thomas Chilcot, organist of Bath Abbey, and later with William Boyce and possibly also with Paradies, the Italian harpsichordist who had come to live in England.
He soon became well known as a singing teacher and composed a lot of music for the Drury Lane theatre, London.
He married a girl called Mary Johnson and the couple had twelve children. Several of them were gifted musicians, especially Thomas who died at the age of 22 in a boating accident.
Thomas Linley was chosen to be a member of the Royal Society of Musicians in 1777. He is buried in Wells Cathedral.
Hypothetical imperative
A hypothetical imperative is a rule of the form "If you want x, then do y". Moral theories may generally have this structure. This means that only those who want x, must do y. Another view is that moral values are not relative to some objective, but are the same for all, that is they are unconditional, or categorical.
The term was coined by Immanuel Kant. Kant said that moral values had to be unconditional, categorical; he wrote a categorical imperative.
William Boyce
William Boyce (born London, 11 September 1711; died Kensington, 7 February 1779) is one of the most important English composers of the 18th century. He was composing during the last years of the Baroque period and the early years of the Classical Period. He is famous for his church music as well as music for the theatre and orchestral music.
Boyce was born in the City of London. His father was a cabinetmaker. His house was known by the sign of a Naked Boy which hung outside.
Boyce was a choirboy at St Paul's Cathedral and then studied music with Maurice Greene after his voice broke. When he had finished his studies he got a job as organist at the Earl of Oxford’s chapel in Cavendish Square. Two years later he went to St Michael’s Cornhill. He was still studying music, now his teacher was Pepusch.
Boyce wrote songs for Vauxhall Gardens. Many people would have heard these songs. He became composer to the Chapel Royal in 1736. This was a great honour. He wrote several big works, although we do not know much about them or about their performances. Some time during the 1740s he composed a theatre work called "The Secular Masque". The words were by John Dryden. In 1749 he was given the title of Doctor of Music after a performance of his anthem "O be joyful".
Boyce was very famous by now. He went to live in a large house in Chancery Lane. He seems to have married and started a family. He was asked to compose for the theatre in Drury Lane. It is surprising he had not been asked to write theatre music before. It may be because he was going deaf. This would have made it difficult for him to rehearse his music with the orchestra.
Boyce wrote a good deal of music for the theatre. There seems to have been some rivalry with the composer Thomas Arne. Probably the composers themselves did not want this rivalry, it was encouraged by their supporters.
In 1755, when Maurice Green died, William Boyce was made Master of the King's Music in his place. He was expected to compose odes for every New Year and for the King’s birthday. He did this for the rest of his life.
Not much of Boyce’s works were published during his lifetime. He wrote eight symphonies. The earlier ones are in a Baroque style. Later his style started to change to become more Classical, but by the time he was very deaf he could not hear new music that was being composed by other people, so his style did not develop any more. He spent a lot of his time putting together a collection of church music called
"Cathedral Music". It included music from two centuries of English church music, especially music by John Blow, Henry Purcell, Pelham Humfrey and Orlando Gibbons. He encouraged singers to sing with a score in front of them (music which shows all the singing parts) instead of just the part that they sing, so that they could see how their part fitted in with the others. This is normal today, but it was a new idea at the time. He had to spend a lot of his time writing unimportant music for the king which was unlikely ever to be performed more than once.
Boyce is best known for his eight symphonies, his anthems and his odes. He also wrote the masque "Peleus and Thetis" and songs for John Dryden's "Secular Masque", incidental music for William Shakespeare's "The Tempest", "Cymbeline", "Romeo and Juliet" and "The Winter's Tale", and a lot of chamber music including a set of twelve trio sonatas. He also composed the British and Canadian Naval March "Heart of Oak". The lyrics were later written by David Garrick. His music is always skilfully written, especially his fugues and dances.
Boyce was largely forgotten after his death. In the 19th century he was known mainly for editing "Cathedral Music". Today some of his orchestral and instrumental pieces are often played.
Kalgan River
The Kalgan River is in Western Australia near Albany. It is one of the oldest rivers in the world and has seen dinosaurs on its banks. It is about in length.
The river was named the 'Riviere des Francais' by the French Scientific Expedition in 1803 led by Nicolas Baudin. Early settlers called it the 'French River'. The explorer Dr Alexander Collie wrote down the name of the river as 'Kal-gan-up' in April 1831. The name Kalganup is thought to be the Noongar word for 'place of many waters'. Kalganup is also thought to mean 'place of fishes' and there are still the remains of Aboriginal fish traps to prove the point.
Gas mask
A gas mask is a kind of mask that fits over the face area and nose. It protects from poison gases and many other hazards in the air. During World War II gas masks were sent all over England. They were worn everywhere, even to sleep, in case of surprise attack. However, the Germans didn't attack with gas bombs. Gas masks have a filter, a type of material which lets good air in.
George Whipple
Milişăuţi
Milişăuţi is a town in Suceava County, Romania. In 2011, 4,958 people lived there according to the census.
Fălticeni
Fălticeni (; ; ) is a city in Suceava County, Romania, capital of the former Baia County (1929-1950). As of 2003 the population is 28,899, and the city covers an area of 28,76 km², of which 25% are orchards and lakes. The city is away from Suceava, the capital of the county.
Vicovu de Sus
Vicovu de Sus () is a town in northern Suceava County, Romania. It is on the border with the Ukraine.
George Minot
The Tertiary was an official geological period, but it is no longer used. It included the first part of the Cainozoic. This is now divided into the Palaeogene and the Neogene.
The previous use of the term "Tertiary" explains why the last period of the Cainozoic is called the Quarternary. There was a big debate about that. These decisions are made by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). This organisation runs an International Commission on Stratigraphy, which decides how we should name geological strata and stages.
In 19th and 20th century scientific literature, Tertiary is used where geologists now use Palaeogene and Neogene.
The Quaternary is the current geological period. It is the most recent of the three periods of the Cainozoic era and the most recent of the twelve periods of the current eon, the Phanerozoic. The Quaternary follows the Neogene, which is the second period of the Cainozoic.
The Quaternary began about 2.6 million years ago, and continues today. A great deal of information is considered when geologists discuss the timing of periods. The status of the Quaternary as a period is confirmed by the "International Commission on Stratigraphy" (ICS).
In the Quarternary were the glaciations known as the Ice Age. Also, anatomically modern humans evolved. During the Quaternary, many large mammalian species became extinct. This was due to climate change and hunting by humans.
The Quaternary includes two geologic epochs:
iCal is a personal calendar application made by Apple Inc. that runs on the Mac OS X operating system. iCal was the first calendar application for Mac OS X to offer support for multiple calendars and the ability to publish/subscribe calendars to WebDAV server.
Originally released as a free download for Mac OS X v10.2 on September 10 2002, with the release of Mac OS X v10.3 it was bundled with the operating system as iCal 1.5. Version 2 of iCal was released as part of Mac OS X v10.4, Version 3 with Mac OS X v10.5 and Version 4 as part of Mac OS X v10.6.
Apple licensed the iCal name from Brown Bear Software, who have used it for their iCal application since 1997.
iCal development is quite different from other Apple software because it was designed independently by a small French team working "secretly" in Paris, led by Jean-Marie Hullot, a friend of Steve Jobs. iCal's development has since been transferred to Apple US headquarters in Cupertino.
It has been reported that some users of iCal who have their calendar on a CalDAV server can not view or add events to their calendar. This issue is specific to Google Calendar users.
The release of Snow Leopard introduced several bugs into Snow Leopard, with regard to iCal alarms. These problems include alarms not firing; all alarms being set to one fixed date and time in the past, preventing them from firing; alarms from repeat events being fired for all historic occurrences of that repeated event, resulting in dozens of alarms for one event. Updates to Snow Leopard 10.6.1 and 10.6.2 have not addressed these problems.
iCal supports times zones, i.e.: if the function is enabled, and the computer's time zone changes, all the events in iCal are shifted to compensate for the time zone difference. The bug is that this function also occurs when it is turned off, therefore, whenever the computer's time zone changes, all the events in iCal shift as well. As of today, there is still no fix for this bug.
Palaeogene
The Palaeogene (meaning “old generation” in Greek) is the first geological period of the Cainozoic and the tenth period in the Phanerozoic eon. It began 65 million years ago, and ended 23 million years ago. Before it was the Cretaceous. The Palaeogene was followed by the Neogene.
The Palaeogene had three stages: Palaeocene, Eocene and Oligocene.
The Palaeogene, along with the succeeding Neogene were originally together considered one period, the Tertiary until recently, when it was split.
Neogene
The Neogene (meaning “new generation” in Greek) is the second geological period of the Cainozoic and the eleventh period in the Phanerozoic eon. It began 23 million years ago, and ended about 2.6 million years ago.
Before the Neogene was the Palaeogene. The Neogene has two stages: Miocene, and Pliocene. It is followed by the Quaternary.
The Neogene, along with the preceding Palaeogene were originally together considered one period, the Tertiary until recently, when it was split.
Palaeocene
The Palaeocene is the first geological epoch in the Palaeogene. It started after the end of the Cretaceous, and lasted for about 10 million years. It was followed by the Eocene epoch.
The Palaeocene began and ended with an extinction event, each of quite a different character. The epoch began with the K/T extinction event, caused by a combination of a meteorite strike (Chicxulub crater) and a huge volcanic flood basalt eruption which produced the Deccan Traps in what is now India. This caused the extinction of many groups, including the dinosaurs and many other reptiles. The epoch ended with the "Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum", a deep ocean anoxic event (DOAE). This means that the ocean depths were lacking oxygen, so no higher forms of life could survive. This produced a mass extinction of between 35–50% of deep water forms such as benthic foraminifera, and coincided with a major change of mammalian types on land.
After a cooler start, the climate grew warmer during the epoch, far warmer than today, and the world was heavily forested. There were no ice caps at the poles. Warm seas circulated throughout the world, including the poles. The earliest Paleocene featured a low diversity and abundance of marine life, but this trend reversed later in the epoch. Tropical conditions gave rise to abundant marine life, including coral reefs. With the demise of marine reptiles at the end of the Cretaceous, sharks became the top predators. At the end of the Cretaceous, the ammonites and many species of foraminifera became extinct.
Marine faunas also came to resemble modern faunas, with only the marine mammals and an important family of sharks, the Carcharhinidae, are missing.
Non-avian dinosaurs may have survived to some extent into the early Danian stage of the Paleocene Epoch circa 66 mya. The controversial evidence for such is a hadrosaur leg bone found from Paleocene strata in New Mexico; but such stray late forms may be derived fossils. This means they were fossilised, then erosion uncovered them, then they were buried again in a younger layer of rocks.
The Palaeocene is divided into three stages:
Byron Moreno
Eocene
The Eocene was the second geological epoch in the Palaeogene. It began 56 million years ago, and ended 33.9 million years ago. Before it was the Palaeocene and, after it was the Oligocene.
The Eocene, like the Palaeocene before it, had a climate much warmer than today. At the start of the Eocene the "Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum" was reached. This lasted for 100,000 years, and caused a large extinction event. The land was heavily forested, with temperate forests into arctic and antarctic regions, and the many herbivorous mammals were browsers, not grazers.
The end of the Eocene was the beginning of the Oligocene (33.9 million years ago). Many plant and animal species went extinct. This was the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event. The extinction event was probably caused by meteorite strikes in Siberia and Chesapeake Bay.
Islam in Pakistan
Islam is the official religion of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. In 2007, 97% of the population were Muslims, with 75% being Sunni and 20% Shi'a. There are about 175,376,000 Muslims in Pakistan which is the second largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia. The Shi'a Muslim population is the second largest in the world after Iran, more than 50 million.
In 644 A.D. an Arab Army under the command of Hakam defeated the combined forces of Makran and Sindh. The period of Arab rule brought the religion of Islam to the Indus Valley. The Baloch tribes gradually embraced Islam, replacing their centuries-old Zoroastrian religion. Islam arrived in the area of modern Pakistan in 711 AD, 79 yrs after the of death of the prophet Muhammad. The Umayyad dynasty sent a Muslim Arab army led by Muhammad bin Qasim al-Thaqafi against the ruler of Sindh, Raja Dahir. Raja Dahir had given refuge to many Zoroastrian Princes who had fled the Islamic conquest of Iran. Muhammad Bin Qasim's army was defeated in his first three attempts. The Muslim army conquered the northwestern part of Indus Valley from Kashmir to the Arabian Sea.
The arrival of the Arab Muslims to the provinces of Sindh and Punjab, along with subsequent Muslim dynasties, set the religious boundaries of South Asia. This would lead to the development of the modern state of Pakistan as well as forming the foundation for Islamic rule across much of South Asia. Following the rule of various Islamic empires, including the Ghaznavid Empire, the Ghorid kingdom, and the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughals controlled the region from 1526 until 1739. Muslim technocrats, bureaucrats, soldiers, traders, scientists, architects, teachers, theologians and Sufis flocked from the rest of the Muslim world to Islamic Sultanate and Mughal Empire in South Asia.
Kashmir Smast
Lower Cretaceous
The Lower Cretaceous is the first geological epoch in the Cretaceous. It began 145 million years ago, and ended 100.5 million years ago.
Lasting for about 46 million years, this is the longest stage in the Phanerozoic eon. It is longer than some of the geological periods in the Phanerozoic.
The Lower Cretaceous is best displayed in England, where it is composed of two series of rocks. Between the two is a major rise in sea level.
The two parts of the Cretaceous represent the sea level where the divisions were first defined. In the Lower Cretaceous, the sea level was much lower than in the Upper Cretaceous. In the Wealden, Southern England was a huge tropical river delta; in the Greensand the same areas were just offshore. However, in the Upper Cretaceous the deposits were made in deeper water, on what was then the continental shelf. Sea level then stood at its highest level in the Mesozoic.
Trio sonata
A trio sonata is a type of music for four instruments which was very popular during the 17th century and early 18th century: the period known as the Baroque period.
A trio sonata is written for three voices (three parts), in other words, it can be played by three different instruments. The two upper voices share the same musical themes. They often imitate one another. They are of equal importance. The third part, the lowest part, is played by basso continuo, which means the accompaniment. This continuo is usually played by two instruments: typically a cello or bass viol and a keyboard instrument such as the harpsichord. That makes four players, of course. However, the harpsichord player’s left hand notes are the same as the cello’s notes. This is the “third” part of the trio.
Some of the best trio sonatas are those by Arcangelo Corelli. His collection of trio sonatas numbered opus 1 and 3 are sonata da chiesa: four movements (slow-fast-slow-fast) finishing with a fugue. His op 2 and 4 sonatas are sonata da camera type: each movement is a kind of dance. Corelli’s trio sonatas are for two violins and continuo.
Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a trio sonata in "The Musical Offering" for violin, flute and continuo.
Bach also wrote six trio sonatas for organ. These are played by one player. The organist’s two hands each play on different manuals (keyboards) so that they sound like two different instruments. The organist’s feet play the third part on the pedals. Each part is strictly a single line (no chords, never more than three notes at a time) so that these works can also be played by other instruments (e.g. two violins and cello with harpsichord).
Bach also wrote sonatas for one melodic instrument and harpsichord. These pieces are really trio sonatas, although he does not call them trio sonatas. The melodic instrument (normally violin or flute) plays the top part, the harpsichordist plays the second part with his right hand, and the third part is the lowest part of his left hand notes.
Some other composers who wrote trio sonatas are Tomaso Albinoni, Henry Purcell, Dieterich Buxtehude, George Frideric Handel, Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Pachelbel and Antonio Vivaldi.
K/T extinction event
The Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, now called the Cretaceous–Palaeogene extinction event, was about 65.5 million years ago. It may be called the K/T extinction event or K/Pg event for short. This is the famous event which killed most of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period.
It was a large-scale mass extinction of animal and plant species. The event marks the end of the Mesozoic era and the beginning of the Cainozoic era.
Dinosaur fossils are only found below the K/T boundary. This shows they became extinct before, or during the event. Mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs and many species of plants and invertebrates also became extinct.
Mammalian and bird groups got through the event with some extinctions. Those that survived became widespread and varied during their later evolutionary radiation.
The K/T extinctions were so sudden and far-reaching that they must have been caused by something sudden and powerful. One or more massive asteroid or meteor impacts, and increased volcanic activity have been suggested.
How quickly animals died out around the world is an important clue. Patterns in rocks also suggest causes. There are several impact craters and massive volcanic activity in the Deccan Traps in India dated to about the same time as the extinctions. Those impacts and volcanoes would have reduced sunlight and hindered photosynthesis, disrupting Earth's ecology.
The best supported theory is that the meteorite strike in the Yucatan was the main cause of the extinction at the end of the Mesozoic era.
There were several impact events across the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary, such as the Chicxulub crater in Mexico, Boltysh crater in Ukraine, Silverpit crater in North Sea, and the Shiva crater offshore western India.
The Shiva crater is a sea floor structure under the continental shelf in the Indian Ocean, west of Mumbai, India. It was named by paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee after Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and renewal.
John Rutter
John Rutter (born London 24 September 1945) is an English composer and choral conductor. He has composed a lot of church music. Many of his anthems and songs are very popular indeed with church choirs as well as choral societies. He writes in a style that can be enjoyed easily, and at the same time it is excellent music.
Rutter was born in London. He went to school at Highgate School. Another pupil in the school was John Tavener who was also to become a famous composer, although his style of music is very different.
Rutter studied music at Clare College, Cambridge. He became director of music at Clare College in 1975 and made the choir internationally famous.
In 1974, Rutter visited the United States where he conducted his new cantata "Gloria" which became a great favourite. He also conducted his "Eight Childhood Lyrics".
In 1981 Rutter started a choir of his own, the Cambridge Singers. He still conducts them. They have made many recordings. Rutter still lives near Cambridge and spends his time composing and conducting all over the world.
Rutter has been given many honours, including honorary Fellow of Westminster Choir College, Princeton (1980), Fellow of the Guild of Church Musicians (1988). In 1996 the Archbishop of Canterbury gave him the Lambeth Doctorate of Music to celebrate all he has done for church music. He was made a CBE in 2007.
Rutter also works as an arranger and editor. His collection of "Carols for Choirs" which he prepared together with Sir David Willcocks is extremely widely used in Britain.
Rutter's compositions include Christmas carols, anthems and longer choral works such as a "Gloria", a "Magnificat", and a "Requiem".
In 2002 his setting of "Psalm 150", written for the Queen's Golden Jubilee, was performed at the thanksgiving service in St Paul's Cathedral, London. He has also written an opera for young people called "Bang!". His "Mass for Children" was first performed in 2003 in the Carnegie Hall, New York.
Most of his songs and anthems were written at first with piano or organ accompaniment, but he has also arranged many of them for orchestral accompaniment as well.
Dante Daniel "Danny" Bonaduce (born August 13, 1959) is an American radio and TV host, and he was a child actor.
He is famous for being on the 1970s sitcom/television series "The Partridge Family".
The Permian/Triassic extinction event (P/Tr for short and also popularly referred to as the Great Dying) was the largest extinction event in the Phanerozoic eon. 57% of all biological families, 83% of all genera, 96% of all marine species (including many kinds of fish and the last surviving trilobites) and 70% of all terrestrial vertebrates (including many of the large amphibians, primitive reptiles and synapsids) became extinct. It is the only known extinction event of insects. It ended the Palaeozoic era, and began the Mesozoic era.
The event forms the boundary between the Permian and Triassic periods, at about 252 million years ago. Because so much biodiversity was lost, the recovery of life on earth took much longer than after other extinction events. This event has been described as the "mother of all mass extinctions".
The pattern of extinction is still unclear, as different studies suggest one to three different pulses.
There are several proposed mechanisms for the extinctions. These include: large or multiple meteorite impacts, increased volcanism, sudden release of methane hydrates from the sea floor. Gradual changes include sea level change, oceanic anoxic events, increasing aridity, and a shift in ocean circulation driven by climate change.
One thing is probably significant. One of the largest ever flood basalt eruptions took place across the P/Tr junction. These eruptions, from 251 to 250 million years ago, produced the Siberian Traps, a huge volcanic province in Siberia. This would certainly have made the world's climate much worse, and is now thought to be the main cause of this great extinction.
Another factor is that global sea levels were at an historic low point at the time.
Camille Pissarro (10 July 1830 – 12 November 1903) was a French Impressionist painter. He was born on Saint Tomas in the Virgin Islands. Pissarro died in Paris.
He was the only artist to exhibit in both Impressionism and Post-impressionism forms. Pissarro learnt from great forerunners, including Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. He later studied and worked alongside Georges Seurat and Paul Signac when he took on the Neo-Impressionist style at the age of 54.
In 1873 he helped establish a society of fifteen aspiring artists, holding the group together and encouraging the other members. Art historian John Rewald called Pissarro the “dean of the Impressionist painters", not only because he was the oldest of the group, but also "by virtue of his wisdom and his balanced, kind, and warmhearted personality”. Cézanne said "he was a father for me. A man to consult and a little like the good Lord". He was also one of Gauguin's mentors. Renoir referred to his work as “revolutionary”, through his artistic portrayals of the common man. Pissarro insisted on painting individuals in natural settings without "artifice or grandeur".
Pissarro is the only artist to have shown his work at all eight Paris Impressionist exhibitions, from 1874 to 1886. He acted as a father figure to the Impressionists and, in varying degress, to all four of the major Post-impressionists including Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.
The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 compelled Pissarro to flee his home in September 1870; he returned in June 1871 to find that the house, and along with it many of his early paintings, had been destroyed by Prussian soldiers. By December 1870 he and his family had taken refuge in London and settled in Crystal Palace, southwest London.
Through the paintings Pissarro completed at this time, he records Sydenham and Norwood at a time when they were just recently connected by railways. One of the largest of these paintings is a view of "St. Bartholomew's Church" at Lawrie Park Avenue, commonly known as "The Avenue, Sydenham", in the collection of the National Gallery, London.
Whilst in Upper Norwood Pissarro was introduced to the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who bought two of his 'London' paintings. Durand-Ruel subsequently became the most important art dealer of the new school of French Impressionism.
Returning to France, in 1890 Pissarro again visited England and painted some ten scenes of central London. He came back again in 1892, painting in Kew Gardens and Kew Green, and also in 1897, when he produced several oils of Bedford Park, Chiswick.
Snowball Earth or Icehouse Earth refers to times when the Earth's surface was nearly or entirely frozen. The occurrence of Snowball (or Slushball) Earths is still controversial, but it is now probable that widespread glaciation occurred in periods of the Proterozoic. What is still debatable is how widespread those glaciations were. Proponents claim the theory explains sedimentary deposits of glacial origin at tropical latitudes and other enigmatic features of the geological record. Opponents do not draw the same inferences from the geological evidence, and doubt the geophysical feasibility of an ice or slush-covered ocean.
The Snowball Earth hypothesis explains glacial deposits in the Huronian supergroup of Canada. The palaeomagnetic evidence, which suggests ice sheets at low latitudes, is contested. The glacial sediments of the Makganyene formation of South Africa are slightly younger than the Huronian glacial deposits (~2.25 billion years old) and were deposited at tropical latitudes. Perhaps the rise of free oxygen that occurred during this part of the Paleoproterozoic removed methane in the atmosphere through oxidation. As the Sun was notably weaker at the time, the Earth's climate may have relied on methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, to maintain surface temperatures above freezing. In the absence of this methane greenhouse, temperatures plunged and a snowball event could have occurred.
There were three or four significant ice ages during the late Neoproterozoic. Of these, the Marinoan was the most significant, and the Sturtian glaciations were also truly widespread. These were both in the Cryogenian period, before the Ediacaran. The million year long Gaskiers glaciation did not lead to global glaciation, although it was probably as intense as the late Ordovician glaciation. The status of the Kaigas glaciation or "cooling event" is unclear. Some do not recognise it as glacial, and others believe it may indeed be a third ice age. It was certainly less significant than the Sturtian or Marinoan glaciations, and probably not global in extent. Evidence does suggest that the Earth underwent a number of glaciations during the Neoproterozoic.
Rivallo
Rivallo () was a legendary king of the Britons as told by Geoffrey of Monmouth. He was the son of King Cunedagius.
During the time he ruled he was troubled by disasters: a rain of blood which lasted three days, a terrible plague, and a great swarm of flies. After he died his son Gurgustius became king.
Pat Fenlon
Pat Fenlon (born 15 March 1969) is an Irish football manager who is currently managing Bohemians F.C..
His first job as a manager was at Shelbourne where he won the league in 2003, 2004 and 2006. In that time they also made history by managing the first Irish club to reach the third qualifying round of the Champions League, where they were knocked out by Deportivo de La Coruña from Spain. He left Shelbourne at the end of 2006.
He was made the Derry City manager at the end of 2006 but left halfway through the 2007 season after making a poor start with his new club.
He was made manager of Bohemians in early 2008 and so far has won back-to-back titles, an FAI Cup and a League Cup. He has stated that his desire is to get Bohemians into the Champions League group stages in 2010.
Victoria Wood (19 May 1953, Prestwich, Lancashire – 20 April 2016, Highgate, North London) was an English comedienne, actress, singer, writer and television presenter.
Victoria Wood went to Bury Grammar Girls' School. She wrote and starred in sketches, plays, films and sitcoms. She was a stand-up comedian. She sang and accompanied herself on the piano.
Her humour was usually about everyday life, known as observational comedy. It was often satirical. It referred to popular British media and brand names of British products.
She started her career in 1974 by winning the ATV talent show "New Faces". It was not until the 1980s that she began to be known as a comedy star, with the award-winning television series "Victoria Wood As Seen On TV" and became one of Britain's most popular stand-up comedians.
In 1998, she wrote and starred in the sitcom "dinnerladies" (deliberately spelt with a small-case "d") which ran for 16 episodes over two seasons.
Wood often worked with Anne Reid, Maxine Peake, Julie Walters, Duncan Preston and Celia Imrie.
She won many awards, including the BAFTA award. She was made a CBE in 2008.
Wood married magician Geoffrey Durham in March 1980. They separated in October 2002 and divorced in 2003. They had a daughter, Grace (born 1988) who is a singer and son Henry (born 1992).
Wood's brother is the politician Chris Foote Wood.
Wood was diagnosed with terminal cancer in late 2015, but kept her illness private. She died on 20 April 2016 at her Highgate home, aged 62.
Niccolò Piccinni
Niccolò Piccinni (born Bari, Italy, 16 January 1728; died near Paris, 7 May 1800) was an Italian composer. He wrote over 80 operas. During his life, he worked with the greatest librettists of his age, including Metastasio.
Piccinni’s music is hardly ever played today, but in his day many of his operas were extremely popular. He is mainly remembered today because he was invited to Paris where people wanted him to be a rival of Gluck. There were lots of arguments between the people who supported Piccinni and those who supported Gluck.
Piccinni was born in Bari. His father, who was a musician, did not want his son to study music, but the bishop persuaded him to change his mind. Niccolò went to the music conservatoire in Naples. He started to write comic operas (opera buffa). His opera "La Cecchina, ossia la buona Figliuola" with a libretto by Goldoni played for two years in Rome and was produced in all the important European capital cities. It was probably the most popular opera buffa of the 18th century.
Piccinni wrote music with a sentimental feeling that was very popular in the mid-18th century. It was typical of a lot of music in the early Classical music period.
A few years later Piccinni was invited by Queen Marie Antoinette to go and live in Paris. He had married in 1756 his pupil Vincenza Sibilla. She was a singer, but he never allowed his wife to sing on stage again after they married.
The people who had invited Piccinni to Paris were people who did not like Gluck’s music. They wanted Piccinni to be a rival to Gluck. They enjoyed arguments, and they wanted to try to make the two composers enemies. There were a lot of arguments between the people who supported Piccinni and those who supported Gluck. The whole affair is often called: the war between the Piccinnists and the Gluckists. It was very stupid, because the arguments had nothing to do with music. Both composers were asked to compose an opera about the same story: Roland. Gluck never finished the opera because he wanted to finish his career by writing Alceste. He did not want to be compared to Piccinni. Then both composers were asked to write operas about the story "Iphigénie en Tauride" . Gluck’s opera was first produced on 18 May 1779. Piccinni's "Iphigénie" followed on 23 January 1781. The rival parties went on arguing, even after Gluck left Paris in 1780. Then some people tried to get a new rival for Piccinni: they invited Sacchini to Paris. But Piccinni continued to be popular. When Gluck died, in 1787, Piccinni suggested that a public monument should be built to his memory. Gluck’s supporters refused to support the idea.
In 1784 Piccinni became professor at the Royal School of Music, a school which later became part of the Conservatoire. When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, Piccinni returned to Naples. At first he was warmly welcomed by King Ferdinand IV; but when his daughter married a French democrat the Neapolitans were angry. They said he was a revolutionist. He was not allowed to leave his house for four years.
For the next nine years he tried to make a living in Venice, Naples and Rome; but he returned in 1798 to Paris, where the public gave him a warm welcome, but he made no money. He died at Passy, near Paris.
He produced over eighty operas, but although his later work shows the influence of the French and German stage, his music is typical of Italian musicians of the 18th century.
William P. Murphy
William Parry Murphy (February 6, 1892 – October 9, 1987) was an American doctor. He won the 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with George Whipple and George Minot, for discovering how eating liver could cure anaemia.
"Silent Night" () is a very popular Christmas carol and song. It was first performed in 1818, by Franz Xaver Gruber and Joseph Mohr. Gruber was an organist and headmaster of a primary school. Mohr was a priest. Mohr had written the poem in 1816; Gruber wrote the melody for it before Christmas 1818. Little else is known on how the song came to be.
One of the theses is that at the time it was not possible to play the organ in the church. For this reason Gruber and Mohr created a song that could be accompanied by a guitar. There are many other stories about how the song came to be.
The audience liked the performance very much. Gruber sang, and Mohr played the guitar. It is because of an organ-maker called "Mauracher" that the song became known to a wider audience. Mauracher could capture the attention of the crowd at a performance in Leipzig in 1832. From there it spread, first to the German-speaking countries, then to the world. Today there are translations into more than 300 languages and dialects.
The song was first published on a leaflet in 1833, with other "authentic Tyrolean songs". Frederick William IV of Prussia wanted to know the authors of the song, and asked St. Peter's Archabbey, Salzburg, in 1854. The abbey found Gruber, who was still alive. In the meantime, the song had been attributed to Michael Haydn.
The author Hertha Pauli, who was born in Austria had to flee from the persecutions during the Second World War. In 1943, she found that many Americans thought that "Silent Night" was an American popular tune. She then wrote the children's book, "Silent Night. The Story of a Song", where she explained where the song was from.
Indonesian Rupiah
The Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) is the money used in Indonesia. Rupiah started to be used in 1946.
The coins that are used now are 25 rupiah, 50 rupiah, 100 rupiah, 200 rupiah, 500 rupiah and 1000 rupiah.
The banknotes that are used are 1000 rupiah, 2000 rupiah, 5000 rupiah, 10 000 rupiah, 20 000 rupiah, 50 000 rupiah and 100 000 rupiah.
Hans Spemann
Hans Spemann (27 June 1869 – 9 September 1941) was a German doctor. He won the 1935 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for his discovery of the 'organizer effect' in embryonic development
Henry Hallett Dale
Paul Abraham Dukas (October 1, 1865 – May 17, 1935) was a French composer and teacher of classical music.
Paul Dukas was born in Paris to a Jewish father and Catholic mother. He was taught music by Théodore Dubois and Ernest Guiraud at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he became friends with the composer Claude Debussy. He then worked as a music critic and orchestrator.
Although Dukas wrote a lot of music, he destroyed many of his pieces because he was unhappy with them. Only a few are left. His first important surviving work is the "Symphony in C" (1896). This is in the style of Beethoven and César Franck. Like Franck's only symphony, Dukas' is in three movements not the usual four: Allegro non troppo, ma con fuoco; Andante espressive e fuoco; Allegro spiritoso.
In 1897 Dukas wrote another work for orchestra, "L'apprenti sorcier" (English: "The Sorcerer's Apprentice") based on Goethe's poem "Der Zauberlehrling". A short version of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" was used in the Walt Disney film "Fantasia". Dukas's use of rhythm and his skill in writing for orchestras can be seen in both the "Symphony in C" and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice".
For the piano, Dukas wrote two complex and difficult works, a Sonata in E-flat minor (1901) and "Variations, interlude and finale on a theme of Rameau" (1902), again in the style of Beethoven and Franck. The Sonata has not been performed very often, but lately pianists, such as Marc-André Hamelin, have started to add it to their concerts. There are also two smaller works for piano solo.
The opera "Ariane et Barbe-Bleue" ("Ariadne and Bluebeard"), which he wrote between 1899 and 1907, has often been compared to Debussy's "Pelléas et Mélisande". This is because it is similar in its musical style, and both operas are based on words by Maurice Maeterlinck. Dukas's last big work was the grand oriental ballet "La Péri" (1912). This is about a man who goes to the Ends of the Earth to find immortality, and finds a mythical Peri, holding The Flower of Immortality.
Because the opening of the ballet is very quiet, Dukas later added a short 'Fanfare pour preceder La Peri' which gave the usually noisy audiences time to settle in their seats before the main opera began.
In later life, Dukas became well known as a music teacher, with many famous students including Joaquín Rodrigo, Manuel Ponce, Maurice Duruflé, Xian Xinghai, Olivier Messiaen, Jehan Alain, Carlos Chávez, and David Van Vactor. After Dukas died he was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
List of extinction events
An extinction event is a relatively fast drop in the number of species living on Earth. It occurs when the rate of extinction increases more than the rate of speciation. This is a list of the largest. Major extinction events are important to both geology and evolution.
There are five major extinction events in the Phanerozoic eon, and many smaller events. In order of time, latest first:
1. K/T extinction event. The Cretaceous/Tertiary extinction event ended the Mesozoic era and started the Cainozoic era.
2. End–Triassic extinction event.
3. P/Tr extinction event. The Permian/Triassic extinction event ended the Palaeozoic era and started the Mesozoic era.
4. Late Devonian extinctions, at the Frasnian/Famennian junction.
5. End–Ordovician extinction event. After a series of lesser events, the end-Ordovician extinction resulted in an estimated 84% species loss.
Other extinction events in the Phanerozoic also had significant impact on the evolution of the biota.
Blaise Compaoré (born February 3, 1951) is a former President of Burkina Faso. He served from 1987 until his resignation in 2014. He started a political party called the Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP). This is the ruling party of Burkina Faso. Compaoré became president in 1987 after a military coup and the assassination of Thomas Sankara, who was president then.
His attempt to change the constitution to extend his 27-year term caused the 2014 Burkinabé uprising. The uprising began due to attempts at changing the constitution to allow him to run again and extend his rule. He resigned on 31 October 2014 after ruling for 27 years.
Mossi
The Mossi are an ethnic group of people who live mostly in Burkina Faso in Africa, and also in Ivory Coast and Ghana. They make up 40% of all the people in Burkina Faso. They speak a language called Mòoré or More.
The Mossi believe that they came from the marriage of a Dagomba princess called Yennenga (or Nyennega) and a Mandé hunter called Rialé. Yennenga was a warrior princess, daughter of a Dagomba king in Ghana. One day she lost her way and was rescued by Rialé. They got married and had a son called Ouedraogo. Ouedraogo is known as the father of the Mossi people.
Cassiopeia (constellation)
Cassiopeia is a constellation in the northern sky. It was named after a queen in Greek mythology called Cassiopeia. It looks like a letter W or M, with five bright stars. It has two very bright stars called ρ Cas and V509 Cas.
In 1572, a supernova called Tycho's Star, or SN 1572, was seen in Cassiopeia by many people.
Vikash Dhorasoo
Vikash Dhorasoo (born 10 October 1973) is a former French football player. He has played for France national team.
364||16
376||16
Park Kun-Ha
Park Kun-Ha (born 25 July 1971) is a former South Korean professional athlete. He is best known as an football player. He was a member of Korean national team.
292||44
297||45
Willy Sagnol
Willy Sagnol (born 18 March 1977) is a former French football player. He has played for France national team.
117||1||||||||||18||0||135||1
184||7||25||1||5||0||64||0||278||8
301||8||25||1||5||0||82||0||413||9
Ediacara
Ediacara can refer to several things:
Jathera
A Jathera is a shrine constructed to commemorate common clan ancestors. Each village in the Punjab has a Jathera which can be visited by members of different surnames. Many villages have a Jathera for each clan/surname.
When members of a clan form a new village, they continue to visit the Jathera in the ancestral village. If this is not possible, a link is brought from the old Jathera to construct a new Jathera in the new village.
People visit the Jathera when getting married, on the 15th day of the Indian month, and sometimes on the first Sunday of an Indian month.
Ediacaran
The Ediacaran period (about 635–541 million years ago), was named after the Ediacara Hills of South Australia. It is the last geological period of the Proterozoic eon. The Edicaran is followed by the Cambrian, the first period of the Palaeozoic.
The period is famous for the first larger-bodied fossils, which are probably the first recorded metazoans. These were impressions or trace fossils, first found in England's Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire. Geologists did not know what they had found. It was over 60 years later before fossils from the same period were found in South Australia.
The status of the Ediacaran as an official geological period was confirmed in 2004 by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). This made it "the first new geological period declared in 120 years".
The Ediacaran period was previously called the Vendian period. The Vendian period was proposed in 1952 by Russian geologist/paleontologist Boris Sokolov. The term "Vendian" is still widely used.
The two terms are not the same. The Vendian was a longer period: it included the whole of the Marinoan glaciation, of Snowball Earth fame. In other words, the Vendian included the last part of the Cryogenian period.
The Ediacaran lasted for about 90 million years. It began at the end of the Cryogenian Snowball Earth. It ended with the first appearance worldwide of some kinds of trace fossils ("Trichophycus pedum") at the base of the Cambrian. The Ediacaran period's start is defined at the base of a carbonate layer, referred to as a "cap carbonate". This caps glacial deposits and shows a sudden climatic change at the end of the Marinoan ice age. The period ended with the mass extinction of almost all the Ediacaran fauna.
No exact dating has been possible at the type section of the Ediacaran period in South Australia.
The Ediacaran biota include the oldest definite multicellular organisms. The fossils are traces or impressions of soft-bodies forms with segments, fronds, disks, or bags. Skeletons or shells are not found.
Ediacaran biota
The Ediacaran biota are the fauna of the Ediacaran period. This geological period was from 635–542 million years ago, but the fossil biota was only from 575–542 million years ago. This was after a series of ice ages and just before the Cambrian period. The biota consists of soft-bodied multicellular organisms, probably animals, which left trace fossils in rocks of Ediacaran age.
The biota is quite unusual, and there is no sign of it in the preceding Marinoan glaciation. The biota appears to suffer a fairly severe extinction event at the boundary with the Cambrian. Some of the biota may have survived into the early Cambrian.
There have been several different interpretations of the biota. The standard view is that the traces are fossils of well-known phyla (Cnidaria, annelids, early arthropods) with body plans that disappeared before the Cambrian.
Quite different ideas have been put forward. Seilacher thought few if any of the forms belonged to living phyla. Conway Morris opposed this idea. Rentallak suggested the biota might be lichens.