AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
The budgerigar (nicknamed budgie) is a small parrot. It belongs to the family of old-world parrots and parakeets (Psittaculidae). Budgerigars are often called "parakeets", especially in American English. The term "Parakeet" refers to many types of small parrots with long flat tails. The budgerigar is found in the drier parts of Australia. It has lived there for over 5 million years. It is commonly kept as a pet. Budgies are intelligent birds and can be taught to mimic human speech.
Endocarditis
Tetracycline
Tetracycline is a family of antibiotics discovered as natural products in 1945. It is a broad-spectrum antibiotic because it works against a range of bacteria.
Tetracyclines was first prescribed in 1948. It is produced naturally by the "Streptomyces" genus of Actinobacteria. It is a protein synthesis inhibitor.
In 1950, Harvard University professor Robert Burns Woodward worked out the chemical structure of the related oxytetracycline (Terramycin). The patent protection for its production was also first issued in 1950.
Tetracycline is an antibiotic used to treat a number of bacterial infections. It is commonly used to treat acne and rosacea. Historically it was important in reducing the number of deaths from cholera. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.
Hemoglobin
Hemoglobin (or haemoglobin) is a protein in red blood cells which contains iron. It is used to transport oxygen around the human body. Hemoglobin is found in the red blood cells of all vertebrates apart from white-blooded fish. It also occurs in some invertebrates. Some other invertebrates use other chemicals such as hemocyanin
Hemoglobin is involved in the transport of other gases. It carries some of the body's respiratory carbon dioxide (about 20-25% of the total).
Red blood cells get their colour from hemoglobin, which is red. There are millions of hemoglobin molecules in each red blood cell and millions of red blood cells in the human body. When hemoglobin has oxygen attached, it is called oxyhemoglobin.
The most common type of hemoglobin in mammals contains four such subunits. Each subunit of hemoglobin is a globular protein (globin) with a heme group inside it. Each heme group has one iron atom. This binds one oxygen molecule. So the complete hemoglobin molecule has four globin chains, four heme molecules, and four iron atoms. When hemoglobin is in the lungs, it picks up oxygen in its hemes, and carries it to the rest of the body.
Its structure took years to work out. Max Perutz and John Kendrew worked out the structure of myoglobin first. That muscle globin is smaller, with only one heme group.
Cornea
The cornea is the front part of the eye. It is the clear transparent section of the eye. The cornea covers the iris, pupil, and the eye chamber. It is a special form of tissue. The cornea is clear and has no blood vessels. It has nerves, but with no myelin sheaths on them.
The cornea, with the lens, refracts light. The cornea and the lens bend light so the image strikes the retina. The cornea does about two-thirds of this refraction.
Dua's layer is a newly discovered layer of the cornea. It was described in June 2013. It is the sixth layer of the cornea to be discovered. Despite its thinness, the layer is very strong, and air does not get through it.
WASSCE
The West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) is a type of exam in West Africa. It is made by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC). It is only given to students who live in the five English-speaking West African countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, The Gambia and Liberia
There are two different types of the exam:
The grades below are given on the WASSCE certificates for the students who finished their exams. They also depend on how well the students did in their exams.
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev () (born Sontsovka, Ukraine 23 April 1891; died Moscow 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer and pianist who came from Ukraine. During his lifetime, Ukraine was part of Russia. Together with Dmitri Shostakovich he is one of the greatest Russian composers of the 20th century. Children all over the world love to listen to his musical story "Peter and the Wolf" and the music for "Lieutenant Kije", but he wrote many other great works including symphonies, concertos, piano sonatas, ballets and operas.
Prokofiev was born into an educated family, and his mother recognized very early her son's musical gifts. His father was a college-educated agronomist who managed the farm-site of his employer in the Ukrainian steppe. His mother played the piano reasonably well in her son's opinion. The young Sergei started composing at a very early age. By the time he was eleven he had written two operas and a series of small piano pieces he would later call "little puppies". Soon he was writing music with unusual time signatures and in unusual changes of key.
Prokofiev's formal musical education began when, as a young boy, he started taking lessons from Reinhold Glière. In 1904 he went to study at the Conservatory in St Petersburg. He was a brilliant student, but he often disagreed with the way the professors were teaching. He was bored with the lessons in orchestration from Rimsky-Korsakov and the counterpoint lessons from Liadov although he could have learned more from these great men. His main friends were the composers Nikolai Myaskovsky and Boris Asafiev. He often showed them his latest piano compositions which sounded very modern. Many of St. Petersburg's newspaper critics did not like his music, while others felt he showed great promise and was sure to be a "futurist".
Prokofiev spent the summer of 1909 back at home in the small Russian farming village of Sontsovka in what is now Ukraine where his father was an estate manager. He worked in a way that was to be typical of him all his life: he carefully kept a diary until the middle 1930s, was an excellent chess player and writer, kept making changes to a number of his earlier works. He often borrowed music from one composition and put it in another, or used unfinished works in new compositions.
When he returned to St Petersburg he took piano lessons from a teacher at the St. Petersburg Conservatory called Anna Esipova. She worked hard to discipline him in his playing although he did not appreciate her efforts. He also took conducting lessons from Nikolai Tcherepnin who taught him to like late-Romantic composers such as Scriabin and Debussy. He wrote some music himself in this style, but most of the music he wrote at this time sounded very harsh and dissonant and, although he was becoming quite famous, many people hated it. When he finished his studies at the Conservatoire he won its top prize (the Rubinstein Prize) with his "First Piano Concerto", although the examiners had found it hard to agree and Rimsky-Korsakov said that Prokofiev was "gifted but immature".
Prokofiev travelled to London where he met many famous people including Diaghilev who had a very skilled ballet group called Ballets Russes. The composer Igor Stravinsky had been writing ballet music for Diaghilev’s dancers. Prokofiev particularly loved Stravinsky’s "Rite of Spring" and it influenced his music. He wrote an opera "The Gambler" based on the novel by Brusilov but the singers and the orchestra did not understand his music and refused to perform it. One of the first works of Prokofiev to become known all over the world was his First Symphony known as the "Classical Symphony". He made the music sound like that of composers from the Classical period such as Haydn. This symphony is still very popular today.
He composed the music in peter and the wolf
In 1917 the Russian Revolution took place. The country was in a chaotic state so Prokofiev went to the United States. After a journey which took four months via the Transsiberian railway, Tokyo and San Francisco, he arrived in New York. His first real success came from his connections with Cyrus McCormik in Chicago. His first major commission was the opera "The Love for Three Oranges" for the Chicago Lyric Opera. It was popular in Chicago but not in New York City where he really wanted to make his reputation. He soon traveled to Paris to see Diagalev again whom he had met earlier in London. His first ballet for him was "Ala and Lolly" which Diagalev did not like and would not perform. This ballet later became Prokofiev's "Scythian Suite". His next ballet was more successful, "The Tale of the Buffoon". He also wrote his "Third Piano Concerto" which is his most popular concerto for piano. Prokofiev lived off and on in Paris for fourteen years, but he often went on tour, performing his works on the piano. In 1928 his "Third Symphony" was first performed, much of which was based on music from his opera " The Fiery Angel" which was never performed completely in his lifetime. In the late-1920s he was invited back to Russia. Although many Soviet people tried to persuade him to stay there he decided to remain in the West where he was starting to have a very successful career. It was not until 1936 that he finally decided to move back to Russia. Life was not easy in the Soviet Union for all types of creative people such as musicians, poets, writers and film makers. Composers were expected to write music which would make ordinary people happy and make them feel proud of their country and of the communist revolution. Any music that did not do this was called “decadent” or “formalist”. Many artists where punished for creating works that did not do what the socialist politicians expected of them. Prokofiev had never been interested in politics, and he thought the politicians would leave him in peace so that he could write the kind of music he liked.
Back in Russia Prokofiev settled in Moscow. He wrote several children’s pieces including "Peter and the Wolf". He was asked to write music for two important jubilees: the 20th anniversary of the Revolution and the centenary of Pushkin’s death. He took great care over this music. Much of what he wrote was to be directed by Meyerhold, but Meyerhold was arrested, later tortured and murdered so the whole project never happened. Some of the music written for the Pushkin centenary was later used in his opera "War and Peace", the "Stone Flower" ballet and Symphonic Waltzes. He also wrote a very large piece called "Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of the October Revolution", using words by Marx, Lenin and Stalin for a total of 500 performers. The music included realistic effects such as gun shots, machine-gun fire and sirens. However, many critics said that the music was vulgar, and it was not performed until 1966, long after Prokofiev’s death. He tried to make the soviet authorities pleased by writing a "safe" opera called "I am the Son of the Working People" but the politicians stopped it during its early auditions. The opera was going to be produced by Meyerhold, but again it never happened because Meyerhold was arrested and executed.
The World War II was a time of change for Prokofiev for several reasons. In 1941 his marriage to Lina Llubera came to an end and his new companion Mira Mendelsohn, and later wife, saw him through his last years. Lina was a foreigner and marriage to foreigners was made illegal (forbidden) at that time. In 1948 she was arrested, charged with being a spy, and sent to a labour camp. On the other hand, Mira had lived her entire life within the Soviet system and was much more aware of how to survive in the politacally-charged times. In 1945, shortly after the premier of his Fifth Symphony, he had a stroke which was the beginning of a period of bad health. He spent a lot of time away from Moscow where it was unsafe. The first signs that his health was to be poor occurred in Alma-Ata in 1943 when he had a fainting spell. He was an workaholic and this, plus the pressures placed upon him by the Soviet system, forced him to withdraw from an active social life in Moscow. Prokofiev lived with Mira for the rest of his life. Lina was freed from the labour camp after Stalin’s death. Later she left the Soviet Union and she died in London in 1989.
During the war Prokofiev composed a lot of his best music. He wrote his last piano sonatas as well as working on his operas "Betrothal in a Monestary" after Sherican, and "War and Peace" (based on the novel by Tolstoy) and writing his film music for both Eisenstein’s "Alexander Nevsky" and "Ivan the Terrible" and composing his Fifth Symphony. The first performance of this symphony, given on 13 January 1945, was the last time he conducted in public. He spent the rest of his life in a house in the country to the west of Moscow, although during his last winters he lived in Moscow close to his doctors. Even in these last years he was not to find peace. Stalin’s rule of terror had serious effects on all Soviet artists. In 1948 a committee of the Communist Party spoke out against several Soviet composers including Prokofiev. They said that his music was “formalist” and “alien” to the Soviet people. His opera “War and Peace” was not allowed to be performed because it was neither lyrical nor patriotic enough. The works he wrote in his last years were mostly ones which the politicians officially approved. His last great work of this period is the "Symphony-Concerto" for cello and orchestra which used a lot of music from the unsuccessful "Cello Sonata", and greatly revised with the help of the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.
Prokofiev died of a brain haemorrhage on 5 March 1953. His death was hardly mentioned in the newspapers because the dictator Josef Stalin died on the same day.
Arab Christians
Arab Christians are people who speak Arabic or of Arabic-speaking origin and have the religion of Christianity.
Most Christian Arabs live in the Middle East, where Islam is the biggest religion. The largest number of Arab Christians are in Egypt (around 8 millions). Many Arabs have emigrated from the Middle East in modern times. In some places such as the Americas, a big number of these Arabs are Christians. In Brazil, there are more than 12 million Arabs, and most of these people are Christian.
Arab Christians faced significant persecution with the Muslim conquests of Christian countries after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Conversion was often required for those who could not pay a substantial tax known as the 'jizya'. Furthermore, during various periods in the history of the Islamic world, Arab Christians were subject to at times brutal and humiliating persecution. Despite this, many Christians chose not to change their religion to Islam. Instead, they kept Christianity as their belief. Muslims call them the "People of the Book" (with Jews).
In the early 21st century, persecution of Christians area increased. In most countries they are required to obey Islamic "Shari'ah" law. In some countries, notably Egypt, political approval is required for the construction or renovation of a church - such restrictions are not present in the construction of Mosques. Countries in the Arabian Gulf, most notably Saudi Arabia, do not allow for the construction of churches or the public practice of Christianity - although that is slowly changing in progressive areas like the UAE. Coptic Christians in Egypt continue to face significant discrimination in the workplace and have a hard time reaching to the upper echelons in universities, corporations, and government offices.
Arab Christians have been around before Arab Muslims. This is because there were many Arab tribes that became Christians since the first century. They were the Nabateans (whose ancestors were Aramean) and the Ghassanids (who were of Qahtani origin and spoke Yemeni-Arabic and Greek). They protected the south-eastern parts of the Byzantine Empire in north Arabia.
Arab Christians made important contributions to the Arab world, and they still do. Some of the best poem writers at certain times were Arab Christians, and many Arab Christians were doctors, writers, government staff, and people who knew a lot about literature.
A musical synthesizer is an instrument that uses electricity to make musical sounds. They are the main instrument for making electronic music. Many synthesizers have a keyboard like that of a piano. When playing a piano keyboard, sounds are made by hitting soft hammers against strings pulled very tight. When playing a synthesizer keyboard, sounds are made by turning electrical oscillators on and off. Since "synthesizer" is such a big word, the word is usually shortened to "synth".
An oscillator is something that "vibrates", or repeats the same pattern. The pendulum of a clock, for example, is a very slow oscillator. A piano string "oscillates" when struck by a hammer.
Electric oscillators might be made using transistors. They turn electricity into electrical patterns, or signals, that repeat over and over. When different keys are pressed, different notes are heard. This is done by making the signal from the oscillator repeat at different rates.
The signal can be boosted in strength and sent straight to a loudspeaker. But the sound of a simple signal can be boring after a while. Sounds can be made more interesting in many ways.
By combining many of these methods, synths can now sound very much like older instruments. For one example, special synths called "drum synths" are used just to make the sounds a drummer might make. Synths can also make many new sounds never heard before.
In the early 2000s, computers got fast enough so "software synths" could be made. These are computer programs designed to look and work like a synth. They tend to be less expensive, so more can be used. Most of these programs can be downloaded for free, however this may be illegal.
There are special tools available to play synths. For example, a thing called a "wind controller" lets players of wind instruments use their special skills. But there is still a need for more ways to control synths to make them more expressive.
John Foxe
John Foxe (1516 – 8 April 1587) is remembered as the author of "Foxe's Book of Martyrs".
Foxe was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, England into a prominent family. In 1535 Foxe was admitted to Magdalen College School. He became a fellow in July 1539.
Foxe resigned from his college in 1545, after referring to it as "a prison." During his time at Oxford he became an evangelical, meaning that he converted to Protestant beliefs not accepted by the Church of England under Henry VIII. As he wanted to leave Oxford, Foxe looked to other evangelicals for help but received only advice and a little money. Foxe married Agnes Randall on February 3, 1547.
With the death of Henry VIII in January of 1547 Foxe's prospects (and those of the evangelical cause generally) changed for the better. Foxe was ordained deacon by Nicholas Ridley on June 24, 1550.
In the fall of 1554 Foxe moved to Frankfurt, where he lived with Anthony Gilby in the English colony of Protestant refugees.
Foxe then removed to Basel where he lived and worked with John Bale and Lawrence Humphrey.
In 1559, when Mary I had died Foxe returned to England. He lived for some time at Aldgate, London, in the house of his former pupil, Thomas Howard. Foxe started publishing works of religious controversy and worked on a new martyrology, which would become the "Foxe's Book of Martyrs".
Foxe was ordained priest by Edmund Grindal, now Bishop of London, on January 25, 1560, and he moved to Norwich to live with its bishop, John Parkhurst. On March 23 of the following year the first edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs was published.
Foxe was one of the earliest students of Anglo-Saxon, and he and Day published an edition of the "Saxon gospels" with the help of Archbishop Parker.
Foxe died on 8 April 1587 and was buried at St. Giles's, Cripplegate.
The word evangelicalism refers to a type of Christian belief and practice in conservative Protestant Christianity, although some Catholic Christians would also call themselves evangelicals.
Evangelicals believe in spreading their faith, (evangelism), the need to be converted, also called being born again, believing what is in the Bible and the need to live a moral life both personally and in society. In the past 200 years, people, churches and social movements have often been called "evangelical". This is different from Protestant liberalism although they may share some of the same goals.
Outside the United States, the word evangelical can mean different things. In Europe and Latin America the word evangelical is often used to simply mean Protestant, as different from Roman Catholic religion. Some Christian denominations
have the word evangelical as part of their official name. This may indicate that they are more conservative than other denominations with a similar name.
In 2016, there were thought to be about 619 million evangelicals in the world, meaning that one in four Christians would be an evangelical. The United States has a large number of evangelicals. American evangelicals are about one fourth of the nation's population and its largest religious group. There are also many evangelicals in Latin America, Africa, China and Korea. Evangelicals make up most of the Baptist churches, Pentecostals, a portion of Methodists, Presbyterians and other older denominations, and many independent Christian churches that don't belong to any larger group.
Billy Graham was probably the best known evangelical of the last 100 years. He preached all around the world and brought millions of people to the Christian faith.
920s
Below are some of the important events that happened from 940 to 949.
910s
Canopic jar
Canopic jars were used to store the internal organs of a mummy in Ancient Egypt. The lid had the head of a baboon, human, falcon or a jackal—representing the sons of Horus. These jars were used to store organs which were removed from a dead person, these were the stomach, the intestine, the liver and the lungs, because they were thought to be use less in the afterlife.They only did the mummyfication process to important people. The jars were placed in the tombs with the bodies.
Names: imesty the (human), Duamutef (Jackal), Hapi (Baboon), Qebehsenuf (Falcon) .
Millipedes are a very long type of arthropod. Millipedes are segmented. Most have between 20 and over 100 segments, and have flattened bodies. Except for the first few segments, each segment has 2 pairs of legs, as a result of each segment being the fusing (coming together) of two.
So far, about 12,000 different species of millipedes have been described. with 10,000 identified, and there is an estimated 80,000 total species of millipede on Earth. The animals are detrivores, they eat what is left over from plants.
Most of the time, their food is decaying leaves and other dead plant matter. Millipedes are not poisonous, but many species have glands capable of producing irritating fluids that may cause allergic reactions in some individuals. This protects them from being constantly eaten because of their slow movement. Generally, they are not a pest, although young seedlings in greenhouses can be sometimes eaten by these creatures. "Xenobolus carnifex "is known for its common infestation of thatched roofs in India. Several species swarm houses and farms, causing damage.
Some millipedes have fangs that allow them to directly prey on plants.
The primary defense mechanism of millipedes is to roll up into a spiral-shaped circle, protecting their more delicate organs from being hurt by an armor-like skin. Millipedes can secrete liquids that can burn their predators for protection.
Bristly millipedes lack armor-like skin, and instead have bristles (small spiky hairs) that protect them from insects, like detaching a bristle when it goes through the body of an ant.
They can easily be told apart from centipedes because centipedes move faster, have only have one pair of legs per segment, and eat animals instead of just plants, although a very small amount of millipede species are omnivores, feeding on insects, earthworms, or snails.
Scientists who study millipedes are called diplopodologists, and the scientific study (like astronomy or biology) of millipedes is known as diplopodology.
A millipede species," Pneumodesmus newmani," was the first animal species to live constantly on land that lived 428 million years ago.
Millipedes are the most common in temperate, wet deciduous forests, but are also often found in coniferous forests and high-altitude alpine environments, some species live in deserts, and even fewer in caves. Many live under stones, fallen leaves, and in woodpiles, plus other dark damp locations in forests.
Some species of bristly millipedes have been known to live in the common small cracks of tree bark.
Millipedes, due to their herbivore (plant-eating) and, with some species, limited omnivore capabilities, do not bite humans, although some of the defensive liquids that they give out might cause minor irritation and burns on human skin. On the eyes, these can be much worse, and direct exposure can lead to very bad problems.
They also appear in various folklore, remedies, and traditional usages around the world.
Edwy of England
Edwy All-Fair or "Eadwig" (940/941 – 1 October 959) was the King of England from 955 until his death. Edwy was the eldest son of King Edmund I and Saint Elgiva. Edwy was chosen in 955 to succeed his uncle Edred as King.
His short reign as King was marked by conflict. He had problems within his family, the Thanes, and the Roman Catholic Church, under the leadership of Saint Dunstan and Archbishop Odo. Edwy died at the age of eighteen or nineteen, and was succeeded by his rival brother, Edgar, who re-unified the kingdom.
Oda of Canterbury
Magdalen College School, Oxford
Magdalen College School is an independent school for boys. It is on the edge of central Oxford, England. It was founded as part of Magdalen College, Oxford by Thomas Becket in 1480
The school was originally founded by William Waynflete to educate the sixteen boy choristers of Magdalen College, Oxford University who sang in the college's chapel. Important Old Waynfletes include William Tyndale, Sam Mendes, Alex Lennox, Tim Hunt, and Ben Goldacre.
Edward V (2 November 1470– 1483) was the King of England from 9 April 1483 until he was removed two months later, on 25 June 1483.
Edward was born at Westminster while his father, King Edward IV of England, was in exile in Burgundy. The King, Henry VI, said his mother and his sisters would be safe if they stayed at the abbey. When Edward IV came back and took over the throne again, Edward became his heir and was given the title "Prince of Wales". Edward IV thought it would be right for the Prince of Wales to rule Wales, so he sent little Prince Edward to live in Ludlow Castle, where the Council of Wales met. The prince was helped by his uncle, Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers, and began to learn how to be a ruler. His mother, Queen Elizabeth, was often with him, and his father, the king, also visited.
The prince spent most of his time at Ludlow until he was twelve, when his father the king suddenly died. The prince had to go straight to London to take the throne, and his uncle, Earl Rivers, went with him. On the way, they were met by another of his uncles, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. The Duke was a younger brother of King Edward IV, and the king had given him the title of "Lord Protector" in the hope that he would look after Prince Edward until he was old enough to be the real king.
Instead of arranging a coronation for the new king, Duke Richard decided to take the throne for himself, and became King Richard III. He sent Prince Edward to live in the Tower of London and wait for his coronation. He also got Edward's younger brother, Prince Richard, Duke of York, to come and live at the Tower. Earl Rivers was executed by Richard. Gloucester was able to convince people that the two young princes were not the legal heirs to the throne. On 25 June 1483, the Parliament said that Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was the legal king.
This was because Edward and his other brothers and sisters was declared illegitimate. After Edward IV had died, it was revealed that he had been engaged to a woman named Eleanor Butler, so Edward IV's marriage to his mother Elizabeth Woodville was seen as bigamy.
After a few months, the two boys disappeared, and what happened to them is still a mystery today. Most people think that the two boys were murdered. They became known as the Princes in the Tower. It is most likely they were killed by their uncle, Richard III. It is also possible that they were killed by Henry VII, who became king two years later.
In 1674, during building work at the Tower, a wooden chest was found under a staircase in the White Tower. It contained the bones of two young boys. It has never been proved that these are the missing princes, but King Charles II had the bones buried in Westminster Abbey. In 1933 the bones were looked at again by scientists who believed that they were the two princes.
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire ( or ; abbreviated Lincs) is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Rutland, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire, the East Riding of Yorkshire, and (for just 19 metres or 20 yd, England's shortest county boundary) Northamptonshire. Its county town is the ancient city of Lincoln.
Norfolk
ISO 3166-2 is part of the ISO 3166 standard. It was made by the International Organization for Standardization. For each country listed in ISO 3166-1, ISO 3166-2 defines its provinces with two or three letter codes, or numbers.
Below is a full table of the ISO 3166-2 codes for each country, with three columns:
Leicestershire (abbreviated Leics) is a county in central England. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, its traditional administrative centre, although the City of Leicester is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire. The county borders onto Lincolnshire, Rutland, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, and Nottinghamshire.
Leicestershire was recorded in the Domesday Book.
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire (abbreviated Northants or N'hants) is a county in central England with a population of 629,676 (2001 census). It has borders with Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Cambridgeshire, Peterborough, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire (including the Borough of Milton Keynes), Oxfordshire, and Lincolnshire (England's shortest county boundary: 19 metres). The county town is Northampton.
Northamptonshire has often been called the county of "squires and spires" due to its wide variety of historic buildings and country houses.
Northampton is by far the largest town in the county, with a population of 194,122. This is followed by Corby (53,174), Wellingborough (48,428), Kettering (47,000), Rushden (25,849) and Daventry (22,367). Most of the county's population is concentrated in a central north-south.
Cherwell Edge in Northamptonshire () is near the River Cherwell, north-west of Banbury, England. The once heavily wooded hill and valley was mostly cleared many years ago. The area now also covers the nearby Cherwell Edge Golf Club that was recently built by it too. The golf club is used by various local residents.
These are the main settlements in Northamptonshire with a town charter, a population over 5,000, or otherwise notable.
Two major canals - the Oxford and the Grand Union — join in the county at Braunston.
A branch of the Grand Union Canal connects to the River Nene in Northampton.
Two trunk railway routes, the West Coast Main Line and the Midland Main Line traverse the county.
Before nationalisation of the railways in 1948 and the creation of British Railways, Northamptonshire was home to three of the "Big Four" railway companies; the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, London and North Eastern Railway and Great Western Railway. Only the Southern Railway was not represented.
An Earl (or Jarl) was a title for nobility used by Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians. It originally meant "chieftain" and it referred especially to chieftains set to rule a territory in a king's stead. In Scandinavia, it stopped being used in the Middle Ages, whereas, in Britain, it became synonymous with the continental count.
In Anglo-Saxon times the title was similar to that of Ealdorman.
Today, an earl is a member of the British peerage, and is below a Marquess, but above a Viscount. A British Earl is the same as a continental Count. Since there is no feminine form of Earl, the wife of an Earl has the rank of Countess (the continental equivalent).
Lobsters are large crustaceans that live in the sea. They form the family of Nephropidae, which is sometimes also called Homaridae. People make a lot of money from catching lobsters and selling them to make seafood.
Lots of different kinds of animals that live in the sea are called lobsters. When people talk about lobsters, most of the time they mean "clawed lobsters". One kind of clawed lobster is the American lobster. Lots of animals that we call lobsters are not actually "clawed lobsters". Squat lobsters, spiny lobsters or slipper lobsters, are all different kinds of animal. Some kinds of crayfish which live in fresh water and reef lobsters are very similar to "clawed lobsters".
Smaller kinds of lobsters are sometimes called "lobsterettes". Lobsters do not have bones. They have hard shells which protect them. This hard shell is made from a material called chitin. The shell is so hard that lobsters must climb out of them before they can grow bigger. This is called "moulting". When lobsters moult they are weak and easy to attack. If they hide for long enough they will grow a new hard shell and the lobster will be bigger. Some lobsters change color when they grow a new shell. Lobsters can grow new parts of their body when they lose them. Every time they moult the body part will get a little bit bigger and stronger until it is back to normal.
Lobsters live in the sea between the shore and the edge of the continental shelf. They live underwater on rocky, sandy, or muddy ground. They usually live alone in cracks or under rocks.
Lobsters usually eat live food like fish, molluscs, other crustaceans, worms, and some plants. Lobsters sometimes scavenge (eat dead plants and animals). Lobsters also eat other lobsters (cannibalism) when they are put together in small spaces where they cannot get out. Lobsters do not usually eat other lobsters in the oceans. People have found lobster skin in the stomachs of some lobsters. This is because lobsters eat the skin they shed when they moult. Lobsters grow all their lives. Some lobsters live for over 100 years, and some become very big. The Guinness World Records says that the largest lobster was from Nova Scotia, Canada and weighed 20.14 kg (44.4 lb).
Lobsters are usually the same on the left and right sides. Lobsters have claws on their front legs, and one claw can be bigger than the other. One reason they are different sizes is because they do different jobs. Big strong claws can grab food, and little sharp claws can cut the food up so they can eat it. When a fisherman catches a lobster, they like to keep them if the claws are big. People like to eat lobsters with big claws because there is more good tasting meat in them. The head end of the lobster is called the cephalon. The middle part of the lobster is called the thorax. These parts of a lobster are stuck together and can not move, so we put the words together and call them both the cephalothorax. The bottom end of the lobster is called the abdomen, where the tail is. At the end of the tail is a fan. Lobsters have long thin body parts called antennae under their eyes which they can move around. Lobsters use these to feel what is near them, and they also help them find food. Lobsters have eyes but they cannot see very well. Lobsters have three pairs of jaws. All legs of a lobster have claws apart from the ones at the back. Only the front two legs have big claws. The little claws on the other legs help pick up food they find and put them in the jaws so the lobster can eat.
Lobsters usually move slowly by walking on the bottom of the sea floor. When they are in danger and need to escape, they swim backwards quickly by bending their tail down and up. The fan on the tail helps them to swim faster. Lobsters can move at a speed of 5 metres every second when they do this.
Spiny lobster
Spiny lobsters, also known as rock lobsters are a family (Palinuridae) of about 45 species of crustaceans, in the Decapoda Reptantia. Spiny lobsters are also called "crayfish", "sea crayfish" or "crawfish".
Although they superficially resemble true lobsters in terms of overall shape, and that they also have a hard carapace and exoskeleton, the two groups are not closely related. Spiny lobsters can be easily distinguished from true lobsters by their very long, thick, spiny antennae, and by their complete lack of claws ("chelae"); true lobsters have much smaller antennae and claws on the first three pairs of legs, with the first being particularly enlarged. Like true lobsters, however, spiny lobsters are edible and are an economically significant food source; they are the biggest food export of the Bahamas .
Spiny lobsters are found in almost all warm seas, including the Caribbean and the Mediterranean Sea, but are particularly common in Australasia, where they are referred to commonly as crayfish or sea crayfish ("Jasus novaehollandiae" and "Jasus edwardsii"), and South Africa ("Jasus lalandii"). A new species, "Palinurus barbarae" was described in 2006.
The largest spiny lobster on record was over 1 m (3 ft) long and weighed over 11.8 kg (26 lb).
Spiny lobsters tend to live in crevices of rocks and coral reefs, only occasionally venturing out at night to seek snails, clams, crabs, sea urchins or carrion to eat. Sometimes, they migrate "en masse", in long files of lobsters across the sea floor. Potential predators may be deterred from eating spiny lobsters by a loud screech made by the antennae of the spiny lobsters rubbing against a smooth part of the exoskeleton . Spiny lobsters usually exhibit social habit by being together. However recent studies indicate that healthy lobsters move away from infected ones and leaving the diseased lobsters to fend for itself .
The furry lobsters ("e.g." "Palinurellus") are sometimes separated into a family of their own, the Synaxidae, but are usually considered members of the Palinuridae. The slipper lobsters (Scyllaridae) are their next closest relatives, and these two or three families make up the Achelata. Genera of spiny lobsters include "Palinurus" and a number of anagrams thereof: "Panulirus", "Linuparus", "etc." (Palinurus was also a helmsman in Virgil's Æneid.)
Bromeliads are a family of tropical plants which includes the pineapple and several colourful houseplants. They are nearly all from Latin America and the Caribbean islands, except for Spanish moss from the southern United States, and a single kind from Africa.
Pineapples (Latin name: "Ananas"). See Pineapple.
Air plants (Latin name: "Tillandsia") are very curious because they do not need any roots to stay alive. Instead they soak up moisture from the air around them through tiny, silvery scales on their leaves. They have so many of these scales that the whole plant can look grey. In the wild they grow on tree banches in rainy and misty areas. In the Caribbean there is a kind that grows on telephone wires!
Urn plants (Latin name: "Aechmea") are easy to keep. They grow to about 60 cm across, but because the stiff, green-and-grey leaves have spiny edges, they need to be out of the way. Urn plants got their name because they have a hole in the middle made by the ring-shaped arrangement of their leaves. This central urn fills up with rainwater in the wild and is often home to insects and frogs. Its flowers are held high on a single stem, and protected by a globe of small, pink leaves which lasts for several months.
Vriesias (Latin names: "Vriesia" and "Guzmania") are like urn plants, but they have no spines and their leaves are softer. They are often sold in flower shops (and sometimes in supermarkets) and are very easy to look after. Their flowers grow on a single stem, protected by flattened, colourful leaves. It is better not to fill the central space with water, as these soft-leaved plants might rot. instead their soil should be watered.
Spanish moss (Latin name: "Tillandsia usneoides") is a grey plant found hanging from trees in the swamps of the southern United States, especially in Louisiana but as far east as coastal Virginia. To the south it spreads as far as Chile and Argentina. It gained its current name from Spanish and French colonisers in the Gulf of Mexico. The French called it "Barbe Espagnole" ("Spanish beard") to insult their rivals, and the Spanish in turn called it "Cabello francés" ("French hair"). Today "Spanish moss" survives as a mild version of the French taunt, although some call the plant "Graybeard".
Bromelia, the plant which gives its name to the family, is the only other bromeliad with edible fruit. Its berries taste a bit like pineapple, but are less tasty, and there are not very many on each plant.
Fascicularia is the only bromeliad that can be grown in frosty areas. It is not killed by frost if it is kept dry in the winter.
Pitcairnia is the only wild bromeliad outside the Americas. One species, "Pitcairnia feliciana", was discoved living in West Africa. It is probably descended from seeds carried by migrating birds.
Puya is the largest bromeliad. It can grow up to nine metres tall. It lives in the Andes mountains, and is sometimes eaten by bears for its nectar. In Chile the young leaves of some puyas are eaten in salads.
Eucalyptus is a genus of trees. There are over 700 species of eucalypts, and almost all of them are in Australia. Eucalypts can be found in almost every part of the Australia, and they are adapted to many different habitats.
"Eucalyptus" is one of three similar genera that are commonly referred to as "eucalypts", the others being "Corymbia" and "Angophora".
Many species, but far from all, are known as gum trees because they exude copious sap from any break in the bark.
Eucalypts have many local names, like 'gum trees', 'mallee', 'box', 'ironbark', 'stringybark' and 'ash'.
Eucalypts have special flowers and fruits that no other trees have. When it flowers a bud cap made of petals grows around the flower until it is ready to open. Then the bud cap falls off to reveal a flower with no petals.
The woody fruits are called gumnuts. They are roughly cone-shaped and open at one end to release the seeds.
Nearly all eucalypts are evergreen but some tropical species lose their leaves at the end of the dry season. The leaves are covered with oil glands. These oils are often used to treat coughs and colds.
Many eucalypts also change the shape of their leaves as they get older. Young eucalypts have round leaves. When one to a few years old, the leaves of most kinds become longer and spearhead or sickle shaped. A few kinds keep the round leaf shape all their lives. Most species do not flower until the adult leaves starts to appear.
The bark dies every year. In smooth-barked trees most of the bark falls off the tree, leaving a smooth surface that is often colourfully marked. With rough-barked trees the dead bark stays on the tree and dries out. Many kinds of eucalyptus trees have smooth bark at the top but rough bark lower down. These different kinds of bark are used to arrange the eucalypts into groups – this is useful because there are hundreds of kinds of eucalypts, and breaking down the group in this way makes the group easier to understand.
The different groups are:
Today, specimens of the Australian Mountain Ash, are among the tallest trees in the world at up to 92 metres in height and the tallest of all flowering plants: taller trees such as the coast redwood are all conifers. There is evidence that at the time of European settlement of Australia some Mountain Ash were indeed the tallest plants in the world.
Most eucalypts cannot survive frost, or can only stand light frosts down to -3 °C to -5 °C. The hardiest eucalypts are the so-called Snow gums such as "Eucalyptus pauciflora" which is capable of withstanding cold and frost down to about -20 °C. Two sub-species (wild varieties) of this tree can survive even colder winters.
Several other kinds, especially from the high plateau and mountains of central Tasmania, have produced extreme cold-hardy forms. It is seed from these hardy strains that are planted for ornamental trees in colder parts of the world.
An oil found in eucalyptus leaves is a strong, natural disinfectant, which is used in some medicines, but can be poisonous if too much is taken. Several marsupials, such as koalas and some possums, are partly resistant to it. These animals can tell which plants are safe to eat by their smell.
Eucalypts make a lot of nectar, providing food for many insects.
Eucalypts have a habit of dropping entire branches off as they grow. Eucalyptus forests are littered with dead branches. The Australian Ghost Gum "Eucalyptus papuana" is sometimes called the "widow maker", due to the high number of tree-felling workers who were killed by falling branches. Many deaths were actually caused by simply camping under them, as the trees shed whole and very large branches to save water during droughts. For this reason, you should "never" camp under large eucalyptus branches.
On warm days eucalyptus oil vapour rises above the bush to create the well-known distant blue haze of the Australian landscape. Eucalyptus oil catches fire very easily, and bush fires can travel quickly through the oil-rich air of the tree crowns. The dead bark and fallen branches are also flammable. Eucalypts are well adapted for periodic fires – in fact most species are dependent on them for spread and regeneration. They do this in several ways: by sprouting from underground tubers, hidden buds under their bark and from seeds sprouting in the ashes after the fire has opened them.
Eucalypts began between 35 and 50 million years ago, not long after Australia and New Guinea separated from Gondwana. Their coming coincides with an increase in fossil charcoal deposits (which might mean that fire was important to them even then), but they remained a minor component of the rainforest until about 20 million years ago, when the gradual drying of the continent and lessening of soil richness led to the growth of a more open forest type, with mainly "Casuarina" and "Acacia" trees. With the arrival of the first humans about 50 thousand years ago, fires became much more frequent and the fire-loving eucalypts soon came to account for roughly 70% of Australian forest.
Eucalypts grow back quickly after fire.
The two valuable timber trees, Alpine Ash and Mountain Ash, are killed by fire and only grow back from seeds. The same fire which had little impact on forests around Canberra has resulted in thousands of hectares of dead forests.
Eucalyptus have many uses which have made them important. Because of their fast growth, the main benefit of these trees is the wood. They provide many uses, such as planting in parks and gardens, timber, firewood and pulpwood. Fast growth also makes eucalypts suitable as windbreaks.
Eucalypts draw a very large amount of water from the soil. They have been planted (or re-planted) in some places to lower the water table and reduce the amount of salt in the soil. Eucalypts have also been used as a way of reducing malaria by draining the soil in such places as Algeria, Sicily mainland Europe and California. Drainage removes swamps which provide a habitat for mosquito larvae, but such drainage can also destroy harmless habitats by accident.
Eucalyptus oil is refined from the leaves by steaming. It can be used for cleaning, deodorising, and in very small amounts in food supplements, especially sweets, cough drops and decongestants. Eucalyptus oil is an insect repellent (Fradin & Day 2002).
The nectar of some eucalyptus produces high quality honey. In the western United States the flowering is in late January, before the flowering of other nut and fruit trees; this means that its nectar can be easily made into its own kind of honey, which is said to have a buttery taste.
The ghost gum's leaves were used by Aborigines to catch fish. Soaking the leaves in water releases a mild tranquiliser which stuns fish, making them easy to catch.
Eucalyptus is also used to make the digeridoo, a musical wind instrument made popular by the Aborigines.
Eucalypts were first introduced to the rest of the world by Sir Joseph Banks, botanist on the Cook expedition in 1770. They have since been introduced to many parts of the world. Several species have become invasive (spreading out of the area they were planted in) and are causing major problems for local wildlife.