AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
Alexandre Dumas "fils" was born in Paris, France, the illegitimate child of Marie-Catherine Labay, a dressmaker, and novelist Alexandre Dumas. In 1831 his father legally recognized him (he adopted him) and ensured the young Dumas received the best education possible at the Institution Goubaux and the College Bourbon. At that time, the law allowed the elder Dumas to take the child away from his mother. Her agony inspired Dumas "fils" to write about tragic female characters. In almost all of his writings, he emphasized the moral purpose of literature and in his 1858 play, "Le fils naturel" ("The Illegitimate Son"), he wrote about the belief that if a man fathers an illegitimate child, then he has an obligation to legitimize the child and marry the woman.
Dumas' paternal great-grandparents were a white French nobleman and a young black Haitian woman. In the boarding schools, Dumas "fils" was constantly taunted by his classmates. These issues all profoundly influenced his thoughts, behaviour, and writing.
In 1844, Dumas "fils" moved to Saint-Germain-en-Laye to live with his father. There, he met Marie Duplessis, a young courtesan who would be the inspiration for his romantic novel, "La dame aux camélias" ("The Lady of the Camellias"). Adapted into a play, it was titled in English (especially in the United States) as "Camille" and is the basis for Verdi's 1853 opera, "La Traviata". Although he admitted that he had done the adaptation because he needed the money, he had a huge success with the play. With this work began the playwriting career of Dumas "fils" which not only eclipsed that of his father during his lifetime but also dominated the serious French stage for most of the second half of the nineteenth century. After this, he virtually abandoned the novel (though his semi-autobiographical "L'Affaire Clemenceau" (1867) achieved some success).
In 1864, Dumas married Nadeja Naryschkine, with whom he had a daughter. After Naryschkine's death, he married Henriette Regnier.
In 1874, he was admitted to the Académie française and in 1894 he was awarded the "Légion d'Honneur".
Alexandre Dumas the son died at Marly-le-Roi, Yvelines, on 27 November 1895 and was interred in the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris. It was, perhaps coincidentally, only some 100 metres away from Marie Duplessis.
Conjunctivitis
Cerulean is a range of colours from teal-blue, sky-blue, bright blue, or azure to deep cyan. The word cerulean comes from the Latin word "caeruleum", which means "sky" or "heavens". This was in turn from Latin "caeruleus" deep blue: resembling the blue of the sky.
In classical times, this term was used to describe blue pigments, particularly mixtures of copper and cobaltous oxides, called genuine cerulean. These early attempts to create sky blue colours were often less than satisfactory due to greenish hues and lack of permanence. When the artificial pigment cerulean blue was invented people started using this instead.
The first recorded use of "cerulean" as a color name in English was in 1590.
John Barrowman
John Barrowman (born 11 March 1967) is a Scottish-American actor. He was born in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom but moved to Joliet, Illinois in the United States when he was 8 years old and grew up there. He is citizen of both the United Kingdom and the United States because of this. Barrowman was a contestant on the first series of "Dancing on Ice" in 2006.
Barrowman is most known for playing the character Captain Jack Harkness in the television series "Doctor Who" and "Torchwood". He is also a famous musical actor and singer. He has appeared in many musicals, as well as television shows about musicals. He also has been a presenter for series such as "Live & Kicking and, the Hollow Earth trilogy". He is currently staring in CW's Arrow as Malcolm Merlyn.
Barrowman is openly gay. He has been in a relationship with Scott Gill since 1993. They have been civil partners since 2006. They married in 2013.
A swamp is a type of wetland ecosystem. Swamps are forested, low, spongy land generally saturated with water and covered with trees and aquatic plants. Big parts of swamps are often flooded with water. Swamps are nesting and breeding grounds for birds and other animals.
The water of a swamp may be fresh water, brackish water, or seawater. Freshwater swamps form along large rivers or lakes. Saltwater swamps are found along tropical and subtropical coastlines.
About 6 percent of Earth's surface is covered by swamps. Swamps are also filters for groundwater, and protect against flooding. Swamps are one of the key wetland areas which are protected by the international agency Ramsar.
Some well-known swamps are:
Peat accumulates in these swamps. Some of the world's largest swamps are found along major rivers such as the Amazon, the Mississippi, and the Congo.
Diego Rivera (December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a famous Mexican painter and muralist. He was born in Guanajuato City, Guanajuato.
Rivera is famous for his 1933 mural, "Man at the Crossroads," for the lobby of the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center. Before he finished the mural, people saw that there was an image of Vladimir Lenin and other communist images in it. Rivera was fired because of this and the mural was destroyed.
Rivera's wife, Frida Kahlo, was also a famous Mexican painter. He died in Mexico City of congestive heart failure at the age of 70.
David Alfaro Siqueiros (December 29, 1896 in Camargo, Chihuahua, Mexico – January 6, 1974 in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico) was a famous painter and muralist.
Avenged Sevenfold
Avenged Sevenfold (or A7X) is an American hard rock band. The band started in Huntington Beach, California in 1999. The band is sometimes called "A7X", which is a title started by the band's guitarist, Zacky Vengeance. They have a song called "Beast and the Harlot" which is used in the video game "Guitar Hero II" and "". Their song "Almost Easy" is used in "Rock Band 2".
A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress. The purpose is to conquer by starvation, lack of water, or by a well-prepared assault.
Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict. The defender inside has a strong, static, defensive position. Negotiation between combatants is common.
A siege happens when the attacker gets to a city or fortress which cannot be taken by storm, and which refuses to surrender. Sieges block the supplies and reinforcements or escape of men. Siege engines, artillery bombardment, and undermining are frequent. Deception and treachery are common.
Sieges can be decided by starvation, thirst, or disease. This form of siege can take many months or even years, depending upon the size of the stores of food the fortified position holds.
Well known sieges were:
A hull can be:
Other places:
There are several people named Hull:
There is also:
River Hull
The River Hull is a river in Yorkshire in the north of England.
It has its source in the Yorkshire Wolds. It joins the River Humber estuary in the centre of Kingston upon Hull.
The river separates the industrial area of the city, and several opening bridges have been constructed. These continue to cause traffic delays during high tides, though river traffic is not so heavy any more in recent years.
These are the bridges in the Hull area:-
Hull (watercraft)
A hull is the body of a ship or boat. It is a central concept in floating vessels as it provides the buoyancy that keeps the vessel from sinking.
Almost all watercraft, from small boats to the largest ships, have a general form that is necessary for stability and efficient propulsion, which includes:
Archimedes, a Greek doctor, inventor, and mathematician, made the science of "hydrostatics", the study of liquids and pressure. The Archimedes principle says that the force holding up an object that is inside a liquid in part or totally. So, a ship actually does sink, until it moves an amount of water that is the same weight of the weight of the ship. The weight must be over a wide area to work. This explains why ships and boats (including submarines) float. An object's weight pulls down in the direction of gravity, but the water's buoyant (floating) force pushes it up. Because these forces counteract each other, the object seems to lose weight. NASA uses this principle to prepare their astronauts for the weightlessness of space, so they had the astronauts work on parts of the space ship inside water tanks 25 feet (7.6 m) deep.
Bow is the frontmost part of the hull
Stern is the rear-most part of the hull
Portside is the left side of the boat when facing the Bow
Starboard is the right side of the boat when facing the Bow
Waterline is an imaginary line circumscribing the hull that matches the surface of the water when the hull is not moving.
Midships is the midpoint of the LWL (see below).
It is half-way from the forwardmost point on the waterline to the rear-most point on the waterline.
Baseline an imaginary reference line used to measure vertical distances from. It is usually located at the bottom of the hull.
Hull forms are defined as follows:
In physics, buoyancy () is a force on an object making that object rise or move upward. It comes from the Spanish word for "float", "boyar". Buoyancy is made by the difference in pressure put on the object by the Fluid or air that the object is in.
The net upward buoyancy force is equal to the magnitude of the weight of fluid that is displaced by the body. This force enables the object to float or at least to seem lighter. Buoyancy is important for many vehicles such as boats, ships, balloons, and blimps.
If the object has exactly the same density as the liquid, then its buoyancy is the same as its weight. It will not sink or float.
If the object has a higher average density than the liquid, then its buoyancy is less than its weight. It will sink. That is why pebbles do not float.
If the object has a lower average density than the liquid, then its buoyancy is greater than its weight. That is why, although a ship may be made of steel which is more dense than water, it floats because it encloses a volume of air and the resulting shape has an average density less than that of the water.
The Asura are a group of supernatural creatures in Hinduism and Buddhism.
In today's beliefs and assumptions, the Asuras are demons. But this was not always that way. The idea of the Asuras is very, very old, from long before the time people learned how to read and write. The Asuras only became demons after much time had passed. Buddhism also has Asuras. These are from Hinduism but have also changed a lot in their own way.
Some of the Asuras are very important, and have been worshiped for thousands of years. The most important of these are Varuna and Mitra. Varuna is the god of the ocean, which in olden times was thought to be flowing under the earth. So, Varuna came to be seen as god of the underworld. In ancient times, water was thought to be where wisdom came from. So Varuna is considered very wise, and he gives his wisdom to those who honor him. Varuna's closest companion is Mitra. Mitra mostly means "friend" in Hinduism, but it originally meant "promise". And so Mitra is the god of friendships and promises. He protects people who honor the truth and punishes those who tell lies. The "Mi-" in "Mitra" means "to tie tightly". Friendship and promises tie people to one another.
In Hinduism, the Asura (Sanskrit: असुर) are a group of creatures looking for more power, sometimes called demons. They went against the devas. The devas and asuras are the children of "Kashyapa".
Hinduism has many stories of Asuras and Devas fighting each other. Mostly they fight about who will get the best prayers from the worshipers.
In Hinduism the Asuras are said to be beings of moral and social things. Like truth and marriage. The Daevas are said to be beings of natural things. Like the sun and the rain. In Hinduism, the Asuras are said to be "older". And the daevas are said to be "younger". There are very many Asuras and Daevas. Two hundred years ago someone counted them and said there were over 2,000 Daevas and Asuras. So naturally not all Asuras are very important. But some names have been forgotten since then, and others have been added. This is why Hinduism is called a "living religion." It is changing all the time.
The Asuras are partly—but not completely -- demonic in Buddhism. Buddhism takes the basic idea from Hinduism.
Mostly the Asuras of Buddhism represent some mental state of humans that is not nice. For example, anger or pride or violence. There are many different kinds of Asuras. They are always angry with everyone and are always fighting. Their leaders are called the Asurendra, which means "Lord of Asuras".
The Asuras are almost human in their emotions. On the Buddhist scale of supernatural beings, the Asuras are almost at the bottom.
Buddhism is very popular in the far east. So, many of the Asuras also have Japanese, Chinese and Korean names.
The Vedas are the most holy books of the Indian religions, especially of Hinduism. There are four Vedas, and they are all very, very old. The oldest of the Vedas is called the RigVeda, and it is more than 3,000 years old.
In the RigVeda the Asuras are not yet demons. At that time the Asuras and the Devas were both still groups of gods. In fact, many of the figures of the RigVeda are both "asura"s "and" "daeva"s. This is because, at that time, the two words were not yet names of groups. They were just names of characteristics. "Asura" means "life", and so the gods who were called "asura"s were thought to give life. And the "daeva"s were shining. This is the original meaning of the names. In later books they became different.
In the RigVeda many of the devas are called asuras, and many of the asuras are called devas. Sometimes they are also called both at the same time: Like "daev"ic" asuras" or "asur"ic" devas". The "-"ic"" makes those words a part of the other word. There are some beings who are both ahuric daevas "and" daevic ahuras. This shows that there was no big difference between 'ahura' and 'daeva' in the RigVeda.
The forefathers of the people who wrote the Vedas spoke Sanskrit. Sanskrit is the source of many Indian languages. The stories in the Rig Veda are seen in the books of various North Indian peoples, and also in the books of some Iranian peoples like the Zoroastrians.
One of the books of the Iranian peoples is called the Avesta. It is not really one book, but a collection of many books, but together they are called the Avesta. The Avesta is the holy book of Zoroastrianism. The language of the Avesta is very similar to the language of the RigVeda. The Avesta also has asuras and devas. But in Iran they are written as "ahura" and "daeva".
The old part of the Avesta is almost as old as the RigVeda. In this old part of the Avesta the ahuras and the daevas are almost like they are in the RigVeda. In both books they are groups of supernatural beings. But they are very different in character.
Some time after the RigVeda was written, stories were told about the asuras and devas that made them not friends any more. A similar thing also happened in the Avesta. Only that the two groups had been switched: The Asuras became demons in regions where North Indian languages were spoken, and the Daevas became demons in regions where Iranian languages were spoken.
It is not known for sure why this happened. It was a very, very long time ago.
One possible reason why the Asuras became demons in India is this: Some time after the RigVeda was written Indians started to think that "asura" means "a-sura", which means "not a hero". So, maybe that way the "asura"s got a bad name.
One possible reason why the Daevas became demons in Iran is this: At about the same time as the Indians were writing the last part of the RigVeda, a very thoughtful man named Zoroaster appeared in Iran. He thought and thought a lot about why there was goodness and badness in the world. Finally, he told everyone what he had been thinking about. And one of those things was that Daevas were not to be trusted because they could not tell the difference between truth and lies. After some time Zoroaster became very popular for his ideas. And so, with time, the Daevas became demons in Iran.
In both cases, the one side did not know what the other side was thinking. So in India only the Asuras became demons. And in Iran only the Daevas became demons.
Many, many centuries before the RigVeda and before Zoroaster, a name that sounds like "Asura" was the proper name of a very mighty god. Some scholars say his name was "Ansu" but this is not sure. So that is why they write the name as "*Ansu". That '*' means it is not sure. *Ansu was the god of life from which the name 'asura' and 'ahura' comes. We know that this god existed because far, far away in Northern Europe there was also a god named 'Aesir', who was also a giver of life. It sometimes can happen that a similar name appears in two or three places. But it is very rare that the same name with the same function appears. So, that is why 'Asura' and 'Ahura' and 'Aesir' must be all come from '*Ansu'. And we know that such a god must have been very powerful because he was very popular for so very long.
Although the Asuras and the Ahuras are related, they should not be mixed up. This is not only because their names are slightly different. It is also because they are very different. But the most important thing is that they are from different cultures. Even if they came from the same place, that was very long ago. After such a long much time, people have very different ideas about them.
Intercontinental ballistic missile
ICBM is an acronym. It stands for Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. It is a missile that can travel such distances so it can be used from one continent to another. The missile can then carry a bomb. This can be a conventional or nuclear warhead. Today, most of the time, it will be a nuclear warhead.It is a guided ballistic missile which follows a path and has a range of 5500 km.They are primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery but can also carry chemical and biological weapons.
When talking about geography the elevation of a certain point is how high it is compared to some reference point. Very often, the reference point is mean sea level, the level of the ocean midway between high and low tide on an average day. Most land has a positive elevation, which means it is above sea level. A few desert places are below sea level, thus have negative elevation.
Sometimes elevation is measured against the center of the earth. The problem there is that the earth does not really look like a ball, it is slightly squashed (an oblate spheroid). This means, that while still at mean sea level (at the equator), some points are farther away from the center of the earth than others. That way the peak of Chimborazo, a volcano in Ecuador is farther away from the center of the earth than the peak of Mount Everest. Yet, Mount Everest is higher above sea level.
Bastila Shan
Bastila Shan is a character from the "Star Wars" universe.
Bastila Shan was born in the year 3,979 BBY. She is the daughter of Helena Shan and an unknown treasure hunter who joined the Jedi Order despite her protests. She became a valuable member to the Jedi Order despite her young age due to her mastery of Battle Meditation. During the Jedi Civil War, she was responsible for the capture of Darth Revan, with whom she fell in love.
After the amnesic Darth Revan was given an entirely new identity, they worked together for a long time, searching for the Star Forge.
After Revan learnt of his true identity she was captured and tortured by Darth Malak and turned to the dark side. During a confrontation, she tried to persuade the redeemed Revan to return to the dark side and reclaim his rightful place. After being rejected and forced to flee to the Star Forge, Bastila confronted Revan again and lost. She begged him to kill her, but he refused and used the power of their love to bring her back to the light and help the Republic in the Battle of Rakata Prime.
She later married Revan and soon had a child called Vaner. When Revan left to stop a war he was sure was coming, she stayed behind to look after her child. She is also one of the surviving Jedi to survive the purge that followed it. She died of old age.
Darth Revan
Darth Revan is a fictional character from the "Star Wars" universe and .
Revan was a Jedi Knight and general who turned to the dark side in the Mandalorian Wars. After the death of Mandalore the Ultimate, Revan claimed the title of "Dark Lord of the Sith". He then founded a powerful new Sith Empire, and declared war on the Republic and the Jedi themselves. After defeating almost all of the Republic territories, Revan was captured by the Jedi due to the betrayal of his apprentice Darth Malak. He almost died (a small spark of the Force kept him alive) and was brought to the Council to have his mind replaced by a new identity that was loyal to the Republic. Even after discovering his former identity, he rejected the dark side. Revan ended the war he had begun by killing Malak. After the Jedi Civil War, Revan was given back his rank as Jedi Knight at age 26.
He was the lover of Bastila Shan. A year later, all his memories returned. He later left to the Unknown Regions to face this new threat known as the "True Sith".
Kraft Foods
Kraft Foods () is a business that makes packaged food. They own Oscar Meyer and Nabisco.
Soft drink
Soft drinks (also known as pop, soda, tonic, soda pop, fizzy drinks, or minerals ) are carbonated drinks made from concentrates and sugar. Some have flavors. Some popular types of soda are Sprite, Mountain Dew, 7 Up, Pepsi, Dr Pepper and Coca-Cola. Most soft drinks are sweetened with sugar, that is what makes them so unhealthy.
Lexington is the second largest city in Kentucky. In 2010, 295,803 people live there. It is called "the Horse Capital of the World".
Lexington was first named by a party of Virginians who camped here in June, 1775, after they heard the news about the Battle of Lexington, Massachusetts in April of that year starting the American Revolution against the British government. A fort was begun at the same spot in 1779, and by 1782 there was a town here known as "Lexington, Virginia". This is because Kentucky was still part of Virginia then, and was not made into a state of its own until 1792.
Toby Keith Covel (born July 8, 1961) is an American country music singer-songwriter, record producer and actor.
Redhead is a person with red or reddish-tinted hair. Approximately 1 to 2% of the world's population has red hair.
In iceland people that have red hair are called Anton Einar or short name for it lúði
Red hair is made by genes. The gene for red hair is recessive, meaning to be weaker than other genes, like the brown hair gene, for example. Because of this, in order to have natural red hair a person needs to have red-haired ancestors present on both the maternal (mother's) and paternal (father's) side of the family.
Red hair is said to be most common close to the Northern European coasts and islands of the Atlantic Ocean, like British Isles, and in particular among Celtic people.
In Ireland, the percentage of population with red hair is very high relative to the rest of the world at around 10%, with 46% carrying the gene. Parts of the United Kingdom such as Scotland also have very high percentages with around 6%. There was a misconception that red hair occurrence in Scotland ran at around 13%, due to this figure appearing in reliable media sources, however this figure was only an estimate and has since been disproved by research. Dr. Jim Wilson of Britain's DNA has carried out the only large scale genetic study of Red Hair using a sample of over 2,343 people; and has found red hair occurrence of 6% in Scotland, this is concurrent with the largest ever study of hair colour in Scotland which analysed over half a million people and found red hair prevalence of 5.3%. A 1956 study of hair color among British army recruits also found high levels of red hair in Wales and the English Border counties.
Depite all this, the US has the largest number of redheads living there in the world (up to 18 million compared to 650,000 redheads living in Scotland).
In some countries, particularly the British Isles, despite the high proportion of redheads there, redheads are sometimes given rude names such as "carrot-top" and "ginga", and are in some cases heavily ridiculed (made fun of) by their peers. In some extreme cases, people have been harassed (others have behaved threateningly towards them) for having red hair.
Owen Spencer-Thomas
Owen Spencer-Thomas was born on 3 March 1940 in Braughing, Hertfordshire, England. He is perhaps best known as a television and radio news journalist over three decades. Spencer-Thomas combined this career with that of ordained Anglican clergyman and charity fundraiser. He is married to Maggie; they have three adult children, two sons and a daughter.
He graduated in sociology at The Polytechnic, Regent Street, (now the University of Westminster) where he helped to establish its Students' Union and became its first elected President in 1966. He continued his studies at Westcott House and Fitzwilliam College in the University of Cambridge. His father, Ivor Spencer-Thomas, held the feudal barony of Buquhollie and Freswick in Caithness, Scotland.
He has wide experience in the field of communications - mainly in television and radio broadcasting as a news journalist. Joining Anglia Television in 1978 as senior reporter on the regional magazine programme "About Anglia", he became news bulletin editor of "Anglia News" in 1992. He also presented Anglia Television’s late night religious programme "Reflections". He has been a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4's "You and Yours" and "Sunday" programmes and has presented religious and ethics programmes on Thames Television and Southern Television. He has reported for Independent Television News.
He devised and presented the popular "Sounding Brass" radio phone-in programme which was later fronted by Gloria Hunniford on BBC Radio 2. His radio biographies appealed to a wide audience and his portrayal in 1978 of the outspoken television personality, panellist and quizmaster, Gilbert Harding, was widely acclaimed.
An innovative programme producer, Spencer-Thomas recorded two half-hour interview programmes with Kenneth Williams in which the comic actor, who rarely revealed his private life, spoke frankly about his early days and his feelings of loneliness, despondency and underachievement. Carry On Kenneth also featured skilfully chosen clips from the famous Carry On films, in which Williams starred, adding a gentle humour to the probing interview questions.
His award-winning documentary "Underneath the Arches" broke tradition by enabling London’s homeless people to tell their own stories without any links from a programme presenter. Instead, short clips from catchy music hall songs were used to establish each location and, with careful editing, the interviewees related their own experiences and introduced each other. The unique presentation won the Unda award for the best religious radio programme in 1977.
As well as giving practical support to families with disabled children, Owen Spencer-Thomas headed several successful major charity appeals and raised millions of pounds for adult accommodation. He was the Founder Chairman of the East Anglian Autistic Support Trust (EAST) which established the first and desperately needed specialised accommodation and daycare for adults with autism in Cambridgeshire. He served on the National Autistic Society (NAS) Council from 1996 until 2002 and continues to raise funds for a range of other charities.
He became Director of Communications for the Diocese of Ely in 2002. He was Chaplain of Christ's College from 1997 - 2001 and was made an Honorary Canon of Ely Cathedral in 2004. During the Lent Term 2005, he was Acting Dean of
Clare College, and in 2006 was Acting Dean of Trinity Hall, in the University of Cambridge.
Spencer-Thomas was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours. He was invested by HM Queen Elizabeth II on 4 March at Buckingham Palace for services to the Church of England and to the community in Cambridgeshire.
The University of Westminster awarded him an honorary degree, Doctor of Letters (D.Litt) in January 2010 in recognition of his services to journalism and the voluntary sector.
John Inman
Frederick John Inman (28 June 1935 – 8 March 2007) was an English actor. He is best known for his role as Mr Humphries in the 1970s/early 1980s BBC comedy series, "Are You Being Served?".
Edward Abbey
Edward Abbey was an American nature writer. He is known for books including Desert Solitaire, Black Sun, The Journey Home, The Fool's Progress, and Hayduke Lives.
He was born in the state of Pennsylvania in the United States in 1927. He grew up in Pennsylvania, in a small town in the mountains near the city of Pittsburgh. He later moved to the American Southwest and wrote several books. He spent most of his adult life in the states of New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. Most of his books are about the Southwest.
During World War II, he was in high school. He took a trip hitchhiking to see the American West. During his trip through Arizona and New Mexico, he fell in love with the Southwest. He enlisted near the end of World War II and was stationed in Italy as a military policeman. When he came back to the United States, he moved to New Mexico and got a college degree. Then he started writing books.
Abbey's first book was titled "Jonathan Troy". It did not sell well and Abbey did not like it very much, and it was taken out of print. His second book was "The Brave Cowboy". This book sold better and made him known as a writer of western fiction. It was also made into a movie called "Lonely are the Brave". "Fire on the Mountain" was his third book. "The Brave Cowboy" and "Fire on the Mountain" are about cowboys who loved the old American West and did not like it becoming modernized.
He moved to New Jersey for a short time but did not like it, and moved back to the Southwest. He took a job as a park ranger in Utah. He wrote about his job as a park ranger in his fourth book, "Desert Solitaire". "Desert Solitaire" became a bestseller and made him a popular nature writer. He also took other jobs in the Southwest. He worked as a fire lookout at the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and as a park ranger in other National Parks.
After "Desert Solitaire" became a bestseller, he wrote several books of nature essays. Some of these include "The Journey Home", "Abbey's Road", "Down the River", "Beyond the Wall", and "One Life At a Time, Please". He also kept writing novels. His next novel was "Black Sun", which is about a fire lookout at the Grand Canyon falling in love but then seeing his girlfriend disappear. His next novel after that was "The Monkey Wrench Gang". This was his most controversial novel because it was about four people using sabotage to stop development in the Southwest. He also wrote a science fiction novel called "Good News".
His last two novels were "The Fool's Progress" and "Hayduke Lives". "The Fool's Progress" is a long novel that is based on Edward Abbey's own life. "Hayduke Lives" is a sequel to "The Monkey Wrench Gang".
Abbey died in 1989 and was buried in the desert in Arizona.
List of MPs elected in the 2005 United Kingdom general election
This is a list of Members of Parliament (MPs) elected to the House of Commons for the Fifty-Fourth Parliament of the United Kingdom at the 2005 general election, held on 5 May 2005. The list is arranged by constituency.
The following table is a list of MPs elected on 5 May, 2005, ordered by constituency. The previous MP and previous party column shows the MP and party holding the seat at dissolution on April 11, 2005.
Note that most Scottish constituency boundaries were considerably changed from the previous general election, due to a decrease in the number of Scottish seats from 72 to 59. In this case, the previous MPs cannot be shown, and the previous party column shows the "notional" winner of the new seat, based on analysis of the 2001 general election result.
Rio de Janeiro (state)
Rio de Janeiro is one of the 26 states of Brazil. Its capital is the city of Rio de Janeiro.
Rio de Janeiro is in the Southeast Region of Brazil. It shares borders with Minas Gerais, Espírito Santo and São Paulo as well as the Atlantic Ocean. Rio de Janeiro has an area of .
The state's largest cities are Rio de Janeiro, Nova Iguaçu, Niterói, Duque de Caxias, São Gonçalo, São João de Meriti, Campos dos Goytacazes, Petrópolis and Volta Redonda. Its main rivers are the Guandu River, the Piraí, the Paraíba do Sul, the Macaé and the Muriaé. Its climate is tropical.
The state is made up of both mountains and plains. It is between the Mantiqueira Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. The bays of Guanabara, Sepetiba, and Ilha Grande are on the coastline of Rio de Janeiro.
Rio de Janeiro is the smallest state in the Southeast Region and one of the smallest in Brazil. Its coastline is , the third longest coastline in the country.
Sampling could mean:
Specific types of sampling include:
Bretons
The Bretons are a distinct ethnic group in the region of Brittany in France. They trace much of their heritage to groups of ancient Britons who settled the area from south western Great Britain in the 4th–6th centuries. The region of Brittany is named after them and many speak "Brezhoneg", a Brythonic language closely related to Cornish and a bit more distantly to Welsh. The Breton language as such is part of the Insular Celtic language group. In eastern Brittany, a regional "langue d'oïl" named Gallo developed; it shares certain points of vocabulary, idiom, and pronunciation with Breton.
West Midlands (region)
The West Midlands is an official Region of England, covering the western half of the Midlands.
The official region contains the large conurbation that includes Birmingham and Wolverhampton and includes also the mainly rural shire counties of Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire.
(Unofficially the West Midlands region also spreads as far as Cheshire, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, but these are not part of the official region.)
There is some confusion in the use of the term "West Midlands", as the name is also used for the much smaller West Midlands county, and is still used by various organisations within that area such as West Midlands Police and West Midlands Fire Service.
The highest point in the region is Black Mountain, at 703 metres.
Major towns and cities in the West Midlands region include:
The official representative body of the region is the West Midlands Regional Assembly which has limited administrative functions such as regional planning and economic development. The assembly is not an elected body, but is made up of members appointed from local councils across the region, and members from regional interest groups such as business and environmental groups and trade unions.
Coal mining used to be the main industry of the Black Country. Nationally famous companies in the West Midlands are Cadbury's in Bournville, Birmingham; the brewing companies such as Coors Brewers in Burton on Trent, as well as Marmite; JCB is based in Staffordshire.
Midlands could be in general the central region of any territory. In Britain and Ireland, the term is reseved for the "middle" in the North-South ("vertical") direction (countries that are oriented more East-West use "Mid" with a "horizontal" meaning.)
In the United Kingdom, Scotland and England both have midland areas that are famous enough to be called the "Midlands" (as a name, not just as a description). In Wales the term for the central region is "Mid Wales" (not "The Welsh Midlands").
The rest of this article deals with the English Region known simply as The Midlands, which is more or less the territory of the early-medieval kingdom of Mercia.
The area lies between Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales, and includes the counties of Derbyshire, Herefordshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, the West Midlands and Worcestershire. The 2001 census also included Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire in the Midlands but these are not generally considered to be part of the Midlands but East Anglia.
There are two administrative regions of England in the Midlands: West Midlands and East Midlands. Taken together, these regions do not fully cover the traditional Midlands:
The "midland" status of Cheshire is often debated. South Cheshire has strong links with North Staffordshire (definitely in the Midlands), and North Cheshire with Merseyside and Manchester (both definitely in Northern England). Officially Cheshire is now part of the North West region.
The largest Midlands conurbation, which includes the cities of Birmingham and Wolverhampton, is approximately covered by a metropolitan county (which also includes Coventry) also called the West Midlands. Thus, there are two West Midlands, a Region and a (smaller) County.
Parts of the East Midlands are also densely populated, particularly the triangle formed by the cities of Leicester, Nottingham and Derby.
The South Midlands have an own government for development. They include Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire with northern Buckinghamshire. In other context Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire are not considered part of the Midlands. They are in the administrative regions of the South East and the East of England.
Midlands (disambiguation)
There are several regions in the world known as the Midlands. These include:
Jaworzno
Jaworzno is a city in Poland in Silesian Voivodeship. It has about 96 600 inhabitants and 152,2 km².
The volt (symbol: V) is the SI derived unit of electric potential difference or electromotive force (also known as voltage). It is named in honor of the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta (1745–1827), who invented the voltaic pile, the first chemical battery.
The volt is defined as the potential difference across a conductor when a current of one ampere dissipates one watt of power. Hence, it is the base SI representation m · kg · s · A, which can be equally represented as one joule of energy per coulomb of charge, J/C.
In the "hydraulic analogy" sometimes used to explain electric circuits by comparing them to water-filled pipes, voltage is like water pressure - it determines how fast the electrons will travel through the circuit. Current (in amperes), in the same analogy, is a measure of the volume of water that flows past a given point, the rate of which is determined by the voltage, and the total output measured in watts. The equation that brings all three components together is: volts × amperes = watts
Nominal voltages of familiar sources:
Note: Where 'RMS' (root mean square) is stated above, the peak voltage is formula_2 times greater than the RMS voltage for a sinusoidal signal.
In 1800, as the result of a professional disagreement over the galvanic response advocated by Luigi Galvani, Alessandro Volta developed the so-called Voltaic pile, a forerunner of the battery, which produced a steady electric current. Volta had determined that the most effective pair of dissimilar metals to produce electricity was zinc and silver. In the 1880s, the International Electrical Congress, now the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), approved the volt for electromotive force. The volt was defined as the potential difference across a conductor when a current of one ampere dissipates one watt of power.
Music competition
A music competition is an event in which people compete for prizes by performing music. Music competitions can be for solo performers or for small or large groups such as orchestras, bands or choirs. Some competitions are for young people who are starting to make a professional career in music. Other music competitions may be for amateurs, which means that professional musicians are not allowed to compete.
The person who decides who is the winner is called the adjudicator. Some big festivals have a team of several adjudicators who decide together on the winner.
The British and International Federation of Music Festivals organizes music competitions for amateurs in many parts of the British Isles. Children and adults can take part, competing in classes for music, speech and drama and dance. Competitions like these are often called "festivals" because the main reason for taking part is to enjoy performing rather than just to win.
There are many big international competitions for some of the most talented musicians from all over the world. Winning a big competition can help a young musician to start a successful career. Some people think it can also be a bad thing to win a big competition, especially for musicians who are still very young. It may make them a star for a short time but they still have to get better and mature as a musician and a person.
Some of the most famous international music competitions are:
In popular music one of the great European events is the Eurovision Song Contest.
An adjudicator is someone who decides on a winner at a competition for music or theatre. The adjudicator will always be somebody who has a lot of experience in what he is adjudicating. In big international festivals, a team of several adjudicators may decide together on the winners. In amateur competitions, the adjudicator may also talk to the competitors after they have performed and give them advice. Competitors are often given first, second and third prizes.
In Law, an adjudicator is someone who decides who is right when a group of people cannot agree on something.
Criticism is a word used in two senses. Originally, it meant "a scholarly analysis and balanced judgement". Later (mid-20th century) it came to mean "a hostile attack" pointing out the bad features of the topic.
In ancient Greek "kritos" meant judge, and "kritikos" meant the critic. Related Greek terms are krinein (separating out, deciding), krei- (to sieve, discriminate, or distinguish). The word moved from Greek to Latin ("Criticus", a judge) to French ("critique") to English. The words "critic" and "critical" existed in the English language from the mid-16th century, and the word "criticism" first made its appearance in English in the early 17th century.
Arthur is a male name that can also mean:
Eduard Hanslick
Eduard Hanslick (born Prague September 11, 1825; died Baden, Austria, August 6, 1904) was a famous music critic. He wrote about music that was being composed in his time. He liked the music of composers like Brahms and Schumann but hated the music of Wagner and Liszt. Their music sounded too modern for his taste.
He was born into a German-speaking family. His father was a music teacher. When he was 18 Hanslick went to study music with Tomášek, one of Prague's most important musicians. He also studied law at Prague University. He did not study music at university but he knew a lot about music and played the piano very well. He started writing music reviews (writing about concerts that had taken place). For many years he wrote reviews in a paper called "Neue freie Presse". He became professor of history and music at the University of Vienna and was an adjudicator at lots of music festivals. His most famous book was called "Vom Musikalisch-Schönen" ("About Beauty in Music").
Hanslick's tastes were conservative (he did not like new ideas). We remember him today for writing good things about Brahms and bad things about Wagner. A lot of musicians took sides on this matter. It is sometimes called: "The War of the Romantics". Musicians had long arguments in the music journals about which kind of music was better.
Although in some ways he was narrow-minded he had a lot of influence on music. His books on music are very interesting showing great knowledge. He knew most of the great musicians of his day.
Wagner made a caricature of Hanslick in his opera "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" in which the town clerk Beckmesser criticizes the young singer Walther who sings songs which break the traditional rules of composition.
The Fairly OddParents
The Fairly OddParents was an animated television series created by Butch Hartman in 2001 for the Nickelodeon cable television network. It is about a ten-year-old boy named Timmy Turner who has fairy godparents, named Cosmo and Wanda, and a fairy godbrother named Poof. The fairies have the power to grant wishes to Timmy, while still following "Da Rules", the fairy rule book.
"The Fairly OddParents" was the fourth longest-running Nicktoons series. In 2017, it ended with the half-hour episode "Hare Raiser / The Kale Patch Caper". The series was originally set to continue, but ended with the tenth season. The show was cancelled by Nickelodeon in 2018. A live-action reboot by Paramount+ and Nickelodeon Productions was announced to be in development in February 2021.
Additional voices: Nika Futterman, Paget Brewster, Kimberly Brooks, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Lori Alan, Debi Derryberry, Jennifer Hale, Mo Collins, Cheri Oteri, Patton Oswalt, Mick Wingert, James Arnold Taylor, Richard Steven Horvitz, Crystal Scales, Carolyn Lawrence, Queen Latifah, Mary Hart, Pat Fraley, Lori Alan, Bobbi Page, Megan Cavanagh, Jessica J. Immanuel, Brendan Fraser, Alec Baldwin, Dana Carvey, Scott Hamilton, Heidi Klum, Amber Hood, Tress Macneille, Cara Ruyle Newman, Susan Yezzi, Dan Castellaneta, Billy West, Michael Dorn, Michael Clarke Duncan, Mark DeCarlo, Jeff Garlin, Scott Baio, Julie Chen Moonves, Tim Curry, Lauren Tom, Paul Rugg, Mona Marshall, Vanessa Marshall, Julie Lemieux, Katie Griffin, Judy Marshak, Patrick Mckenna, Zarina Rocha, Danny Smith, Delon Jessup, Tajja Isen, Hannah Hutch, Holly Gorkski, Rick Fox, David Berni, Linda Ballantyne.
Invasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland in 1939 was a military offensive in which Nazi Germany and, two weeks later, the Soviet Union, invaded Poland. It was the start of World War II in Europe. The invasion took place from 1 September to 6 October 1939. The invasion of Poland caused Britain and France to declare war on Germany on 3 September; they did little to affect the September Campaign. In the end, Poland lost. Germany and the Soviet Union divided the country according to a treaty signed years before the war.
This was often called the first time Blitzkrieg was tried on the battlefield, though similar methods had been used before. The German surprise attack was successful. It was very effective against the ineffective and demobilized Polish Army, whose tanks and airplanes were nearly out and mostly old. They were outflanked, outmaneuvered, and outnumbered in September 1939, and easily destroyed by the Blitzkrieg. The Poles, if well prepared, could have had two million soldiers in the fight.
In the first few days of the German invasion, the Poles proved to be more difficult than the Germans expected. In the Battle of Mokra on September 2nd, the Poles repulsed an attack by a German Panzer division forcing their retreat. The German air force, unlike their invasions of other countries, did not easily overcome the outnumbered Polish Air Force. However, due to their great superiority in numbers, they gained air superiority after 5 to 6 days.
Surrounded by German territories north, west, and south of Poland, the Poles had little space for tactical retreat. The Germans reached Warsaw and attacked on September 7, but were repulsed suffering heavy tank losses and were forced to retreat. The Battle of Bzura on September 9 was the largest attack by the Poles during the war. The Poles had great initial success, decimating 2 German divisions and took 3500 German prisoners. Polish infantry fought well, but by September 19th, due to overwhelming German reinforcements, they were defeated.
When the Poles realized the British and French were in a phoney war, and had no intention of assisting Poland, with another factor being when the Red Army invaded Poland from the east on September 17th, the Polish high command ordered as many troops and equipment to the Romanian bridgehead to enter Romania with the intention to continue their resistance by moving as much of their army to France as possible. Most of the Polish navy escaped to Britain. Polish cryptographers who had cracked the German Enigma (machine) went to France and later to Britain to continue their work.
Polish politicians set up a government-in-exile in France and later escaped to Britain. In 1945, when the Allied armies invaded Germany, forcing their surrender, the Polish army was the fourth largest allied army.