AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
The islands are of volcanic origin. There are large central peaks covered in tropical rainforest. People do not live on the steeper slopes leading to these peaks. Most of the people on both islands live closer to the sea. There are many rivers coming from the mountains of both islands. These give fresh water to the people. St. Kitts also has one small lake.
The federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis is divided into fourteen parishes. There are nine divisions on Saint Kitts and five on Nevis.
These are some of the more important cities and towns in Saint Kitts and Nevis.
Cricket is common in Saint Kitts and Nevis. Top players go to the West Indies cricket team. The late Runako Morton was from Nevis. Saint Kitts and Nevis is the smallest country on Earth to ever host a World Cup event. It was one of the host venues of the 2007 Cricket World Cup.
The St. Kitts and Nevis national football team, also known as the "Sugar Boyz", has had some international success. They went to the semifinal round of qualification for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in the CONCACAF region. Led by Glence Glasgow they defeated U.S. Virgin Islands and Barbados. They then lost to Mexico, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago.
The St. Kitts and Nevis Billiard Federation, SKNBF, is the governing body for cue sports across the two islands.
Kim Collins is the country's best known track and field athlete. He has won gold medals in the 100 metres at both the World Championships in Athletics and Commonwealth Games. At the 2000 Sydney Olympics he was the country's first athlete to reach an Olympic final. He and three other athletes represented St. Kitts and Nevis at the 2008 Summer Olympics. The four by one hundred metre relay team won a bronze medal in the 2011 world championships.
American writer and former figure skater and triathlete Kathryn Bertine was given dual citizenship. She tried to qualify for the 2008 Summer Olympics representing St. Kitts and Nevis in women's cycling. She did not make enough points to go the Olympics.
St. Kitts and Nevis had two athletes ride in the time trial at the 2010 UCI Road World Championships. Athletes included Reginald Douglas and James Weekes.
Danish is the Germanic language spoken in Denmark, the Faroe Islands, and parts of Greenland and Germany (Southern Schleswig). Around 5.5 million people speak Danish. It is used as a second language in Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The Danish people, or "Danes", call their language "dansk".
Here are some simple words in Danish:
Niger or the Niger ( or ; ), officially the Republic of the Niger, is a country in western Africa. The capital is Niamey, and the official language is French. It is surrounded by Algeria and Libya to the north, Chad to the east, Nigeria and Benin to the south, and Burkina Faso and Mali to the west. Niger is landlocked, meaning it has no coastline. Niger gets its name from the Niger River, whose name possibly comes from the Berber word "River of Rivers".
The Mali Empire and the Songhai Empire both had land in what is now Niger. Later France controlled the land that is now Niger. Niger has a population, or the number of people living in an area, of 15,306,252 and an area of 1,267,000 square kilometres. Much of Niger is desert.
After a military coup in 2010, Niger is now a democratic, multi-party state. Most of the people live in rural areas, and have little access to advanced education.
Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world with a lack of contraception. 41.4% live in poverty. Hunger plagues the country.
Niger’s main exports are uranium ore, livestock, cowpeas and onions. Millet and sorghum are grown in the south, as well as cassava and sugarcane. Rice is grown in the Niger River valley. Peanuts are the most important cash crop. Other important crops are cotton and pulses.
Niger is home to the critically endangered addax antelope. West African giraffes are the only giraffes in West Africa that exist in Niger.
Niger is on the border between the Sahara and Sub-Saharan regions. Niger's area is of which is water. It is the world's twenty-second largest country. Niger borders seven countries. The longest border is with Nigeria to the south.
The lowest point is the Niger River, with an elevation of . The highest point is Mont Idoukal-n-Taghès in the Aïr Mountains at .
This table shows cities with a population over 10,000, according to 2001 census.
Niger's subtropical climate is mainly very hot and dry. Much of it is covered by desert. In the extreme south there is a tropical climate on the edges of the Niger River basin. The land is mostly desert plains and sand dunes. There is flat to rolling savanna in the south and hills in the north.
There are several ethnic groups in Niger:
The literacy rate (the amount of the adult population who can read or write) of Niger is among the lowest in the world. In 2005 it was estimated to be only 28.7% (42.9% male and 15.1% female). Primary education in Niger is required for six years. The primary school enrollment and attendance rates are low, particularly for girls. Children are often made to work rather than attend school. This is particularly true during planting or harvest periods.
Zealand (Danish: "Sjælland") is an island in the eastern part of Denmark. It is just west of Sweden and a strait called the Øresund lies between the two. It has an area of 7,031 km² and is the largest island in the country.
About 2,268,000 people were living in Zealand as of 2016. Most of these people live in and around Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, which is on the eastern shore of Zealand.
A number of bridges and tunnels link Zealand to other parts of Denmark. They include:
Brunei (officially called the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace) is a country in Southeast Asia. It is north of Malaysia on the island of Borneo. The country is rather landlocked by Malaysia. To the north is the South China Sea and the Philippines to the northeast. The capital of Brunei is Bandar Seri Begawan. The country is small and has a small population. The leader of the country is the Sultan of Brunei. Due to the sale of his oil, he is one of the richest people in the world. The official religion in Brunei is Islam. There are also minorities of people who follow Buddhism or Animism. The native language of Brunei is Malay and English is the second language. Brunei is one of the smallest Muslim countries in the world.
From the 14th to the 16th centuries Brunei Darussalam was the seat of a powerful sultanate extending over Sabah, Sarawak and the southern Philippines. Thus, the current Sultan represents one of the oldest continuously ruling dynasties in the world. By the 19th century, the Brunei Darussalam Empire had been whittled away by wars, piracy and the colonial expansion of European powers.
In 1847, the sultan ended a treaty with Great Britain and in 1888 Brunei Darussalam officially became a British protectorate. In 1906, the Residential System was established in Brunei Darussalam. A British Resident was nominated as a representative of the British government to advise the sultan in all matters except Malay customs, traditions and Islamic religion.
The 1959 Agreement established a written constitution which gave Brunei Darussalam internal self-government. In 1971, the agreement was amended and revised to assert full internal independence except defence and external affairs.
In June 5, 1966 His Highness Sultan Haji Sir Muda Omar Ali Saifuddien abdicated in favour of his son Pengiran Muda Mahkota Hassanal Bolkiah. On January 1, 1984 Brunei Darussalam resumed full independence and the Sultan took office as Prime Minister, Finance Minister and Home Affairs Minister, presiding over a cabinet of six. In October 1986, the cabinet was expanded to 11 members, with His Majesty relinquishing the portfolios of Finance and Home Affairs and taking over the Defence portfolio which his late father had held since 1984. In 1988 another reshuffle brought about the elevation of the deputy minister to a full minister and the creation of the Ministry of Industry and Primary Resources designed to boost the country's development.
In spite of the sizable non-Muslim population (about 1/3 of the population) and criticism by the international community, the Sultan still announced Brunei's adoption of Sharia law in 2013 to fully enforce on the Muslim majority and partially enforce on non-Muslims. It was expected to take full effect in 2016 after 3 phases, and had begun partial enforcement in its first phase in 2014. It is the first country in East and Southeast Asia to practice Sharia law.
Brunei is divided into four districts ("daerahs") and 38 subdistricts ("mukims").
The daerah of Temburong is physically separated from the rest of Brunei by the Malaysian state of Sarawak.
Over 90% of Brunei's total population lives in 15 of the 38 mukims.
Officially, there are no places in Brunei that have "city" status. Some of the important places are:
Given that Brunei is an oil-rich country, Brunei gets most of its income from selling natural resources. .
Brunei uses the Brunei Ringgit to trade. However, the Singapore dollar can be used here as both currencies are of the same value.
The Taka is the currency of Bangladesh. The most commonly used symbol for the Taka is Tk and ৳. This is used on receipts while purchasing goods and services. One taka is divided into 100 poisha.
In Bengali, the word "taka" is also used to mean any money, currency, or notes.
Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of the country, prints the currency, except for one taka and two taka notes, which are made by the Ministry of Finance.
Bogotá
Bogota is the capital (city) of Colombia. As of 2009, more than 7 million people live in Bogota, which makes it the largest city in Colombia. It is about 2,640 meters above sea level, on top a plateau (a mountain with a flat top). This makes it the third highest capital in the world. With many universities and libraries, Bogotá has become known as "The Athens of South America".The weather is usually nice during the day and cool at night. It has a series of bike paths (trails that are made for bikes) that wind through the city. It has many recreational and amusement parks open to the public. The current mayor is Claudia López.
Originally, Native Americans called Muisca lived in the area. Then, in 1538, Gonzalo Jimenes de Quezada, a Spanish conqueror, founded Bogota. Bogota became a center of trade, art, and education. Some of the oldest universities in the Americas are in Bogota. After Independence from Spain, Bogota became the capital of Gran Colombia in 1819.
Bogota has had extremely awful moments. In 1948, a presidential candidate, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, was murdered while doing a speech in front of hundreds of persons. This tragic moment brought with it terrible consequences: one of the most remembered one is the "Bogotazo". The "Bogotazo" started as a political party war, the blue party, self named the "conservatives", began to hunt and kill every single member of the red party, the "liberals". The remaining blue party members decided to create the "Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia" (FARC); however, this group was ironically created to protect the oppressed people from their oppressors. Nowadays, this group is known as terrorists and murderers;nevertheless, Colombia's capital city, Bogota, has not being attacked in the last few years.
Aymara people
The Aymara are members of a tribe of Native Americans that live in Bolivia and Peru. They are native to the area around Lake Titicaca. They speak the Aymara language. They call themselves Aymaras.
The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, is Aymara.
The many-colored flag of the tribe is called the Wiphala.
The perihelion is the point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid or comet that is nearest to the sun. It is the opposite of aphelion, which is the point farthest from the sun.
The word perihelion stems from the Greek words "peri," meaning near, and "Helios," meaning the Greek god of the sun. So it referred to as perihelion. (The similar word, perigee, refers to the nearest point in some object's orbit of Earth.)
All planets, comets and asteroids in our solar system have approximately elliptical (a kind of non-circular) orbits. Thus, they all have a closest and a farthest point from the sun: a perihelion and an aphelion. Orbital eccentricity measures the flatness of the orbit. Any single revolution of a body around the sun is only approximately elliptical, because the precession of the perihelion prevents the orbit from being a simple closed curve such as an ellipse. This causes Milankovich cycles.
Earth comes closest to the sun every year around January 3. It is farthest from the sun every year around July 4. The difference in distance between Earth's nearest point to the sun in January and farthest point from the sun in July is 3.1 million miles (5 million kilometers). Earth is about 91.4 million miles (147.1 million kilometers) from the sun in early January, in contrast to about 94.5 million miles (152 million kilometers) in early July.
When Earth is closest to the sun, it is winter in the northern hemisphere and summer in the southern hemisphere. Thus it is possible to see that Earth's distance from the sun does not noticeably cause the seasons to change; the relatively minor effects of differences in distance is somewhat masked by the mainly oceanic southern hemisphere vs the half- continental northern hemisphere. Therefore, the Earth's seasons come and go mainly because Earth does not rotate with its axis exactly upright with respect to the plane of our world’s orbit around the sun. Earth's axial tilt is 23.5 degrees. This puts the Sun farther south in December and January, so the north has winter and the south has summer. Thus winter falls on that part of the globe where sunlight strikes least directly. Summer falls on that part of the globe where sunlight strikes most directly.
The island is named after Captain James Johnston, who discovered it in 1807. The island was mined for guano until 1890. After that, it was used as an army base.
A Llama ("Lama glama") is a mammal of the "Camelidae" family. It is from South America, the Andes Mountains of Peru and Ecuador.
Sometimes the name "llama" is used for all four South American camelids.
The llama was domesticated about 5000 years ago. It was and is used for carrying things, and for wool. The llama was very important for the Incan people. Even today, llamas are used for similar reasons, but will more commonly be used as domesticated pets.
The llama's close relative is the alpaca, who is a more demure, petite animal in comparison to the llama. Llamas have three related cousins - the alpaca, the guanaco, and the vicuña. The llama is the national symbol of Bolivia.
Llamas spit, and travel together. Llamas also have a high content of hemoglobin which causes their blood cells to be oval and not circular.
1840s
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War took place between 1846 and 1848 between United States and Mexico.
When Mexico got independence from Spain in 1821, Texas was part of Mexico. Americans and other settlers came into Texas when Mexico allowed non-Spanish settlers to settle there.
After many settlers came to Texas, disputes led to the Texas Revolution in 1836, when Texas became independent. Mexico refused to recognize the Republic of Texas, as an independent country. Texas soon asked to join the United States.
The United States moved quickly to annex Texas after the 1844 election of James K. Polk. In his campaign, Polk had called for the "re-annexation" of Texas and the "re-occupation" of the Oregon Territory. Polk also wanted California and the rest of what is now the Southwestern United States.
In 1845, the United States annexed Texas. However, Mexico still did not recognize its independence or recognize the annexation. The US offered to buy from Mexico the land extending from Texas to the Pacific Ocean, but Mexico wanted to keep the vast area.
In 1846, a dispute over the border between Texas and Mexico resulted in armed conflict, and the Mexican–American War began. After offering to buy the territory, Polk moved US troops into a place that Mexico said was not in Texas but in the Mexican state of Coahuila. The Mexican army attacked them.
The main cause of the war was the westward expansion of the United States. In the 19th century Americans believed it was their right to expand westward. They believed they could take over the people already living on the land and have it for the United States. Southerners wanted to have more slave states.
Antonio López de Santa Anna became president again. Many Mexicans hated him and did not want to follow him into war. Many Americans, including the young Abraham Lincoln, also disliked the war since they thought that it was to expand slavery.
In addition to small units sent to California and New Mexico, the US sent two major armies into Mexico under the commands of General Winfield Scott and future US President General Zachary Taylor.
After the US had entered Mexico, Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna took command of the Mexican soldiers in early 1847. The US forces fought Santa Anna near Monterrey and Buena Vista. After Buena Vista, the Mexican army had many problems, including starvation, disease, and desertion. The Mexican government was unstable.
In March 1847, Scott landed at Veracruz. His force included future Civil War Generals Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Stonewall Jackson and George G. Meade as well as Commodore Perry. Scott took Puebla in May and took Mexico City in September after the Battle of Chapultepec.
When American soldiers came to California, the Bear Flag Revolt was happening. Some Californians were trying to leave Mexico and to form their own country, as had happened in Texas. In July and August 1846, American soldiers captured Monterey, Yerba Buena, and Los Angeles. After a counterattack by the "Californios", the Americans had taken much of California by 1847. The Mexican governor of California, Pio Pico, left the state.
The US won the war, and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which gave the US the area that would become the states of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, southwestern Colorado, and southwestern Wyoming. Mexico received 15 million US dollars and gave up its claims to Texas.
The slavery debate in the United States became more intense with the addition of the new territory and the question of whether slavery would be legal in the new territories. Also, many of the officers who would lead troops in the American Civil War fought in the Mexican-American War would use their experiences.
Nevada and California became part of the US with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Before then, Nevada was part of Alta California, which is now California, Baja California, Utah, about a quarter of Colorado, parts of Arizona, Wyoming and New Mexico.
The Act of Congress establishing California as the 31st state was part of the Compromise of 1850.
The European Revolutions of 1848 were a series of revolts in Europe. In some places they are called Spring of Nations or the Year of Revolution.
These revolutions started in January with a Palermo republican uprising. The larger French Revolution of 1848 in February was followed in March by several other revolutions amongst them the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states. In Ireland, the rebellions began because of famine conditions in their country.
People in the various countries tried to take over their governments.
Edvard Grieg (born 15 June 1843 Bergen, Norway; died 4 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist who composed in the Romantic period. He is Norway’s most famous composer. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor and for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play "Peer Gynt", which includes movements called "Aubade" and "In the Hall of the Mountain King". He wrote many pieces for piano, including a collection of 66 pieces called "Lyric Pieces". He also wrote songs to Norwegian and to German words.
Grieg was born in Bergen on 15 June 1843. His ancestors were Scottish people who had moved to Norway around 1770. The original family name was spelt "Greig".
Grieg came from a musical home. His mother was his first piano teacher. He went to several schools, and started composing when he was young. He used to take his compositions to school, but the teacher did not show much interest in them.
In the summer of 1858 Grieg met the great Norwegian violinist Ole Bull, who was a friend of the family, and whose brother was married to Grieg's aunt. Bull noticed the 15-year-old boy's talent and persuaded his parents to let him go to Leipzig in Germany to study music.
Grieg enrolled in the conservatory, concentrating on the piano, and enjoyed all the concerts and recitals given in Leipzig. He did not like the discipline of the conservatory course of study, but he still got very good grades. The first piano recital he gave was in Sweden. In 1862 he finished his studies in Leipzig and went back to Bergen where he gave another recital.
In 1863 Grieg went to Copenhagen, Denmark, and stayed there for three years. He met the Danish composers J. P. E. Hartman, and Niels Gade. Gade told him to go and write a symphony. Grieg did not feel happy writing a long symphony although he did try. He also met the Norwegian composer Rikard Nordraak who had composed the Norwegian national anthem. Nordraak showed Grieg how wonderful Norwegian folk music was. Grieg had hardly heard any Norwegian folk music until then. When Nordraak died, Grieg composed a funeral march in his honour.
On 11 June 1867, Grieg married his first cousin Nina. The next year their only child, Alexandra, was born. The following summer, Grieg wrote his Piano Concerto in A minor while on holiday in Denmark. Edmund Neupert gave the concerto its first performance on 3 April 1869 in the Casino Theater in Copenhagen. Grieg himself was unable to be there because he was conducting in Christiana (now called “Oslo”).
In the summer of 1869, Grieg's daughter Alexandra became ill and died, at the age of 13 months.
In 1870, he met Franz Liszt in Rome. Liszt had made it possible for Grieg to get a travel grant. They played Grieg's Violin Sonata No. 1 together, which Liszt liked very much. On a second visit, in April, Grieg brought with him the manuscript of his Piano Concerto which Liszt played by sight. Liszt gave him some advice about the orchestration.
Grieg spent most of his time conducting and playing the piano in concerts. He often travelled, and in 1876 he went to Bayreuth to hear the first performance of Wagner’s Ring cycle. He wrote a review of the operas for a Norwegian newspaper.
In 1876, Ibsen asked Grieg to write some incidental music for the first performance of the play he had written about the Norwegian hero Peer Gynt. Many of the pieces from this work became very popular. They are played by orchestras as well as in arrangements for piano or for piano duet.
In 1883 he and wife parted for a while, although friends managed to persuade the couple to come together again and they spent four months in Rome. They built a house called Troldhaugen in Bergen, with a view of the fjord. They moved into the house in 1885 and Grieg lived there for the rest of his life. They continued to travel and give concerts. Nina had a good voice and sang her husband’s songs. Grieg only performed his own works at concerts. During his last years he received many honours.
In his later life Grieg became famous, although never rich. The Norwegian government gave him a pension. Grieg made some recordings of his piano pieces. These are some of the very first gramophone recordings that were made. The sound is not very good, but they show that Grieg was an excellent pianist. He also recorded music rolls on a pianola.
Edvard Grieg died in the autumn of 1907, aged 64, after a long illness. He had suffered from respiratory problems ever since he was very ill in 1860 as a student in Leipzig. At his funeral thousands of people went out on the streets of his home town to honour him. Following his wish, his own funeral march for Rikard Nordraak was played, as well as the funeral march by Frederic Chopin. His and his wife's ashes are buried in a mountain crypt near his house, Troldhaugen.
Grieg was often inspired by Norwegian folk music. This can be heard in his songs and some of his instrumental music. His chamber music includes 3 violin sonatas and a cello sonata as well as a piano sonata and many shorter piano pieces. However, he has become very well known all over the world through his Piano Concerto and his music for "Peer Gynt". Another popular work is his "Holberg Suite" which was originally written for the piano but later arranged for string orchestra.
The famous opening of Grieg’s Piano Concerto featured in a comedy sketch by Morecambe and Wise in the 1970s. The conductor André Previn was their special guest in the sketch which has become a classic.
Palmyra Atoll
Palmyra Atoll is an island in the North Pacific Ocean. No one lives there, but 4 to 20 people use this island, mainly scientists. It is managed as a nature reserve by the United States. It is known as the "Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge".
In 2005, a team of scientists from around the world started to build a research station on the island. They wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the environment of the island.
Palmyra Atoll was claimed by the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1862, and was taken by the United States in 1898 along with Hawaii. The atoll was not included in the Hawaii Admission Act of 1959, which made Hawaii a state, so it remained a US territory.
Kingman Reef
Kingman Reef is a coral reef in the North Pacific Ocean, owned by the United States.
It is the farthest north of the Northern Line Islands. It is only sometimes above water.
Palmyra Atoll is the other U.S. territory in the Northern Line Islands.
Jarvis Island
Jarvis Island (; formerly known as Bunker Island) is an uninhabited island owned by the United States. The small island is a part of the United States Minor Outlying Islands, a group of mostly uninhabited islands.
Jarvis Island was officially made part of the United States in 1858. People used to mine guano there, but they then abandoned it. The United States treats it as a nature reserve.
Located 25 miles south of the equator, Jarvis Island, is an uninhabited coral island located in the South Pacific Ocean. Jarvis has no known natural freshwater sources, and very little rain. This creates a very bleak, flat landscape with plants no larger than shrubs. Jarvis Island has no ports or docks, other than a reef the guano miners blew up in order for the cargo boats to be able to drop anchor. Its grass, vines and low-growing bushes are primarily a nesting, roosting, and foraging habitat for wildlife. The island has a tropical desert climate, with high temperatures in the day, constant wind, and a very hot sun. There is no evidence that the island has ever supported a native human population, but on August 30, 1913, the Amaranth was carrying a cargo of coal from Newcastle, New South Wales, to San Francisco when it crashed on Jarvis' southern shore. Ruins of ten wooden buildings, and a two-story house among them, could still be seen by the "Amaranth" crew, who left Jarvis aboard two lifeboats. Also, Settlers were moved to Jarvis Island in 1935 to maintain a weather station and plan a landing field. A settlement called Millersville was established on the west coast of the island because of it was the highest elevation. The Japanese shelled the island in 1942 and the men living on Jarvis were evacuated soon afterward. The United States claimed possession of Jarvis under the Guano Islands Act of 1856. The Act gave American citizens the right to claim any unclaimed, uninhabited islands for the purpose of mining guano. Because at the time guano was a very valuable asset used for fertilizer.
Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was a colonel in the United States Army. He became the General-in-chief of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He led the Army of Northern Virginia in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. He started out as an engineer but then moved up the ranks. Before the Civil War, Lee was an officer in the Mexican-American War. He was also head of West Point. As a colonel in the United States Army he led a battalion of marines to put down the rebellion at Harpers Ferry Armory and captured their leader, John Brown.
Lee was born at Stratford Hall in Westmoreland County, Virginia, on January 19, 1807. His parents were American Revolutionary War General and Governor of Virginia, Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, and his wife, Anne Carter Lee. In 1818, Lee's father died in the West Indies without ever seeing his son again. Robert was raised by his mother in Alexandria, Virginia.
Lee and George Washington were both descendants of Augustine Warner, Sr. and his wife, Mary Towneley Warner. Lee was descended through their daughter, Sarah. Washington was descended through their son, Augustine, Jr. Lee and Washington were third cousins, twice removed.
Lee attended Eastern View, a school in Fauquier County, Virginia. He may have attended schools in Shirley, Virginia, and in Alexandria, Virginia. His mother instructed him in the Episcopalian faith. Lee attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, and graduated second in the class of 1829.
On June 30, 1831, Lee married Mary Custis at Arlington House. She was the granddaughter of George Washington's stepson, John Parke Custis. They made their home at Arlington House. They had seven children.
Lee fought in the Mexican–American War under General Winfield Scott as a captain. Later, Scott wrote about Lee calling him "the very best soldier I ever saw in the field." After the war, Lee helped the army build forts. In 1855, Lee became a lieutenant colonel, and joined a cavalry regiment. As a Colonel, Lee was called on to stop the "slave rebellion", otherwise known as John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. Brown's raid was ended in less than an hour by Lee.
Lee inherited a number of slaves with Arlington House. He proved not to be a very good slave master. He tried kindness and refused to use torture. But the slaves knew their freedom had been granted them in the will and refused to work. Lee wanted to grant them their freedom but needed them to help him see out the work at Arlington House. Personally, Lee hated slavery calling it an "evil" to both blacks and whites. But he thought it had to be ended gradually or the economy of the South would wikt:collapse. But Lee did agree with other Southerners thinking that blacks were inferior. He believed God would work out the problem in his own time. Lee, like Thomas Jefferson had mixed feelings about slavery.
The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 caused several states to secede in protest. This put Lee in a difficult position. The newly formed Confederate States of America offered Lee the rank of brigadier general. Lee did not respond to the offer. Winfield Scott offered him command of the army of U.S. volunteers. He didn't answer this offer, either. Between April 12–14, 1861, U.S. troops were bombarded at Fort Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina. The same day Virginia seceded from the Union. Lee did not support secession but he could not fight his own state of Virginia. Lee resigned his U.S. Army commission on April 22, 1861, at Arlington House. He told his friends that he would not be a part of an invasion of the South. Several days later he accepted command of all Virginia forces.
At first, Lee did not command any soldiers in battle. Instead, he helped Confederate president Jefferson Davis make military decisions. In 1862, he became the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. He would lead the army for the rest of the war. He would win many battles, even though the Union army in the battles had more men and weapons. At the Battle of Gettysburg, he tried to invade the Union in order to end the war. But his army was defeated and he had to retreat back into Virginia.
During 1864 and 1865, Lee fought Union general Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia. During the end of 1864 and the beginning of 1865, Lee and Grant fought near Richmond, Virginia in a series of battles called the Siege of Petersburg. In April 1865, Grant forced Lee to retreat from Richmond. After a series of battles, Grant surrounded Lee near Appomattox Courthouse and forced Lee to surrender. Before he surrendered, he said "I would rather die a thousand deaths than surrender".
President Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation granting amnesty and pardon to those Confederates who were a part of the rebellion against the United States. It contained 14 exempted classes and members of these groups had to make an application to the President of the United States asking for a pardon. Lee sent an application to General Grant. On June 13, 1865, Lee wrote to President Johnson:
On October 2, 1865, Lee became president of Washington College in Virginia. That same day Lee signed his Amnesty Oath as required by President Johnson. But Lee was not pardoned and his citizenship was not restored.
His amnesty oath was found over a hundred years later in the National Archives. It appears United States Secretary of State William H. Seward had given the application to a friend to keep as a souvenir. The State Department had simply ignored Lee's application and it was never granted. In a 1975 Joint resolution by the United States Congress, Lee's rights as a citizen were restored with the effective date of June 13, 1865. The act was signed into law by President Gerald R. Ford on August 5, 1975.
Lee had a stroke on September 28, 1870 and died on October 12, 1870. Washington College changed its name to Washington and Lee University in Lee's honor. Lee's birthday is celebrated in several southern states as a holiday.
1830s
1820s
Isaiah was a prophet of God in Judaism, Islam, Christianity and Bahá'í. He lived from about 740 to 681 BC. The name "Isaiah" means "the Lord is salvation" in the Hebrew language.
Isaiah is also the name of a book in the Old Testament of the Bible, which tells the story of the Israelites in Isaiah's time. According to Christianity, Isaiah predicted in this book, the birth and then death of Jesus, hundreds of years before it actually happened. Judaism does not agree with that interpretation.
Isaiah was known to be the Shakespeare of the Bible due to his good education and the quality of the passages he wrote. He was cut in half by King Manasseh which led to his gruesome death. Most of Isaiah's Bible passages begin with 'God's message to'.
Leopold Poetsch
Leopold Poetsch was a German antiSemitic professor and a high school teacher of Adolf Hitler who influenced the future leader's later views.
Poetsch came from the southern German border area. There, political fights between Slavs and ethnic Germans angered him and made him one who was for the Pan-German movement. He started to teach in Maribor, Slovenia and later moved to Linz, Austria to teach history.
Hitler was very interested in what Poetsch said. Poetsch hated the Habsburgs and argued that all ethnic Germans should be united by a single government. He said that the Aryan race was stronger, in better health, and more fit to rule than all other people. Poetsch said that Jews and Slavs were what he called "inferior races". (This view was held a lot in Germany after World War I.)
Hitler began reading an anti-Semitic newspaper in his area. In his later years, Hitler spoke of Poetsch as a "great man." As dictator of Germany, Hitler tried to get all German-speaking people together and persecuted Slavs, Jews, Gypsies, and others. Hitler later tried to kill them all in the "Final Solution."
Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide was the forced deportation and the killings of most Armenians from 1915 to 1917 in the Ottoman Empire, which was ruled by the Young Turks.
In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined World War I on the side of the Central Powers. İsmail Enver, the Minister of War, launched a disastrous military campaign against Russian forces in the Caucasus in the hope of capturing Baku. His forces were routed at the Battle of Sarikamis, and many of his men froze to death.
Returning to Istanbul, Enver largely blamed the Armenians living in the region for actively siding with the Russians. Despite the tensions, the Armenians had thrived under Ottoman rule. Most Armenians were better educated and wealthier than their Turkish counterparts, who were jealous of their success. The resentment was fuelled by suspicions that the Christian Armenians would support fellow Christian governments, especially Russia, which shared an unstable border with the Ottoman Empire, as opposed to the Muslim Ottoman caliphate.
In 1914, the Ottoman War Office had already begun a propaganda drive to present Armenians as a liability and a threat to the Ottomans' security. An Ottoman naval officer in the War Office described the planning:
The Ottoman government, moving quickly, arrested an estimated 250 Armenian intellectuals on the night of 24 April 1915. The acts of genocide against the Armenians continued for nine years until 1922, with around 388,000 Armenians remaining.
The massacres of Armenians in 1894, 1895, 1896 and 1909 were still fresh in their minds.
In the beginning, around 1915-1916, Armenians were kicked out of their homes, which were claimed by Turks. During a Turkification campaign, the government squads kidnapped children, converted them to Islam and gave them to Turkish families. In some places, they raped and forced women to join Turkish “harems” or serve as slaves. Women would mar their bodies with scars or burn a part of their face to be unfit to join a harem. Muslim families moved into the homes of deported Armenians and seized their property.
At the same time, the Turks created a 'Special Organization', which in turn organized 'killing squads' or 'butcher battalions' to carry out, as one officer put it, “the liquidation of the Christian elements”. The killing squads were often made up of murderers and other ex-convicts. People were drowned in rivers, threw off cliffs, crucified and burned alive.
Guenter Lewy claims in his book,"The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide", that there is not enough evidence of the Young Turk regime organizing the killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
According to Lewy, even though their fate in World War I proved tragic, it was not a "real" genocide because "there were no centrally organized and state-sponsored premeditation and genocidal intention".
A major obstacle for the wider recognition of the genocide in the world is the official position of Turkey, which states that there was no systematic attempt to annihilate the Armenian population and that the 1915 massacres happened because of the Tehcir Law and the war. In December 2008, a group of Turkish scholars launched an online petition for people who wanted to apologize for what happened. The people who created the petition failed use the word "genocide" but used "the Great Catastrophe" regarding the event. Many Turks viewed the Armenians as a threat to the Ottoman Empire in a time of war and argued that people of various ethnicities were killed during the violence. Turkey and its leaders fear that recognizing the word "genocide" could cost considerable sums of money in reparations, as well as public embarrassment.
Soghomon Tehlirian (Armenian: Սողոմոն Թեհլիրեան; April 2, 1896 – May 23, 1960) was an Armenian revolutionary and soldier who assassinated Talaat Pasha, the former Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, in Berlin on March 15, 1921. The assassination was a part of Operation Nemesis, a revenge plan by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation against members of the Ottoman Imperial Government responsible for the Armenian Genocide during World War I. Talaat Pasha had been convicted and sentenced to death in absentia in the Turkish courts-martial of 1919–20, and was viewed as the main orchestrator of the genocide. After a two-day trial Tehlirian was found not guilty on all charges by the German court, and freed. Tehlirian is considered a national hero by Armenia.
In February 1919, Soghomon Tehlirian also assassinated Harutyun Mkrtchian, who had helped Talaat Pasha round up Armenian clergymen, journalists and lawyers for exile and death in April 1915. He was an Armenian quisling in Istanbul who was spying for the Turks during the genocide.
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The prime minister of the United Kingdom or British prime minister is the head of government in the United Kingdom. The prime minister controls the Government of the United Kingdom through the cabinet. The prime minister is the chairman of the British cabinet and a member of the Privy Council. It is normal for the prime minister to be the leader of the political party that has a majority in the House of Commons.
The prime minister is not the head of state, but is the most important politician in the British politics. By tradition, the monarch of the United Kingdom chooses as prime minister. The monarch chooses the leader of the political party with enough votes to get the Parliament of the United Kingdom's approval for the British monarch's speech from the throne.
Boris Johnson (Conservative Party) became prime minister after the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election.
The prime minister is usually the leader of the political party which wins most seats after a general election. There are 650 are available in the United Kingdom. Voters vote for their own local member of parliament, not for the prime minister. Voters in their constituency choose their member of parliament. The prime minister is a member of parliament, and only voters in one constituency can vote for them.
The first prime minister was Robert Walpole in the eighteenth century. He was known as the "First Lord of the Treasury". The first person to be use the title "prime minister" officially was Henry Campbell-Bannerman in 1905.
Well-known prime ministers in the 20th century include Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, and Tony Blair. The prime ministers usually live and work at 10 Downing Street or Chequers while in office. Chequers was donated to the country by Winston Churchill.
There are several other official residences, some owned by the government, others held by trusts. The 3,500-acre Chevening House estate, in Kent is an example. Dorneywood is another.
There are five living former British prime ministers:
River Forth
The River Forth is a river in Scotland.
The source is Loch Ard, in Kinlochard. The river flows through the city of Stirling, and the city of Edinburgh is on the south of the Firth of Forth estuary.
Alejandro Toledo
Alejandro Toledo is a former president of Peru. He won the 2001 election for President. He gained international prominence after leading the opposition against president Alberto Fujimori, who held the presidency from 1990 to 2000.
He pursued his undergraduate and graduate education at the University of San Francisco and Stanford University. He originally joined the technical and academic field, from where he participated as an analyst on politics and economics on some occasions.
He entered politics when he founded the País Posible party, participating for the first time in the 1995 general election. In 2000, he managed to become in the largest opposition leader to the government of Alberto Fujimori, before whom in the midst of a controversial and bumpy process, lost the election for a second time. After the transition stage and the return of democracy in Peru, he participated for the third time in the 2001 elections against Lourdes Flores of National Unity and Alan García of the Peruvian Aprista Party; he competed with the latter in the second round, winning with 53.1% of the popular vote.
On 16 July 2019, Toledo was arrested in the United States. On 19 March 2020, he was released on bail.
He is from the town of Chimbote in Ancash Region, Peru. He is married to Eliane Karp of Belgium.
Inuktitut
Inuktitut is a language of the Arctic, spoken by Inuits in Canada and in Greenland. Inuktitut is a very complex language. It is an official language in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.
The Inuit write Inuktitut in two ways. One way to write Inuktitut is by using the Roman alphabet. The other way to write Inuktitut is by using an abugida, which is a kind of alphabet which has letters based on syllables.
The uses a small part of the Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics, a set of letters made up for writing down many of the languages of the First Nations people in Canada.
Some words in English come from Inuktitut or another Inuit language. Among them are the words anorak, igloo, and kayak.
Fall Out Boy
Fall Out Boy (often shortened to FOB) is an alternative rock band from Chicago, Illinois, USA. The members are Pete Wentz (bassist), Patrick Stump (vocals), Andy Hurley (drums), and Joe Trohman (guitar). They have written successful songs, including "Thnks fr the Mmrs", "Sugar, We're Goin Down" and "Dance, Dance".
Their music is mostly like the pop-punk style, or genre, of music. The band got the name "Fall Out Boy" from a character who appeared in one episode of The Simpsons. "Sugar, We're Goin' Down" was the first single from their album "From Under the Cork Tree". It has peaked at number eight on the "Billboard" charts. The second single was "Dance, Dance" which picked up major airplay in the U.S. The third single was "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, a Little More Touch Me." Their third album is "Infinity on High" and it had lots of success around the world.
Two songs from the album were very popular across the world. They are "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race" and "Thnks fr th Mmrs". The second song's title is "Thanks for the Memories" without the vowel letters, which is meant to look as if it were from a text message.
The third single from "Infinity on High" is called "The Take Over, The Breaks Over". The fourth is "I'm Like a Lawyer With the Way I'm Always Trying to Get You Off (Me & You)". Their fourth album "Folie à Deux", was released on December 16, 2008. "I Don't Care" was the first song released from the album. In late 2009 the band took a rest. Patrick Stump went solo and released his debut album "Soul Punk" on October 18, 2011.
His EP "Truant Wave" was released on February 22, 2011. Bassist Pete Wentz formed the electropop band Black Cards. Guitarist Joe Trohman and Andy Hurley formed a rock band The Damned Things with people from Anthrax and Every Time I Die.
Fall Out Boy came off hiatus in 2013, releasing a new single "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light 'Em Up)" and an album "Save Rock and Roll", along with a supporting tour, They went on the Save Rock and Roll Arena Fall Tour September of 2013 with fellow rock band Panic! at the Disco in support of the album as well. In September 2014, they released a new single, called "Centuries".
Greek alphabet
The modern Greek alphabet has 24 letters. It is used to write the Greek language. The Greek alphabet is also frequently used in science and mathematics to represent various values or variables. Most letters in the Greek alphabet have an equivalent in the English language.
The twenty-four letters (each in uppercase and lowercase forms) are:
Α α, Β β, Γ γ, Δ δ, Ε ε, Ζ ζ, Η η, Θ θ, Ι ι, Κ κ, Λ λ, Μ μ, Ν ν, Ξ ξ, Ο ο, Π π, Ρ ρ, Σ σ or ς, Τ τ, Υ υ, Φ φ, Χ χ, Ψ ψ, and Ω ω.
The Greek alphabet is thought to be where most European alphabets came from. The alphabet was borrowed from the Phoenician alphabet around the 10th century BC, with many changes to make it fit the Greek language.
Some of the Phoenician letters for sounds not used in Greek were turned into vowels. The Phoenicians had written their abjad without any vowels, and this is the case with Hebrew and Arabic to the present day. Obviously, their peoples knew how to say the words, so that worked well for them. But the Greek addition of vowels was better for countries where it might be a second language.
The Greek change made reading easier for trading with other cultures. In general, Indo-European languages did not use consonant-based roots (where the word's central meaning is based on the consonants) like those in Semitic languages such as Phoenician, Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic.
At first, Greek was written from right to left, same as Phoenician, but after the 6th century BC, it was written from left to right.