AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
Another name for red blood cell is "erythrocyte". 'Erythro' means red; 'cyte' means cell. RBC is an acronym for red blood cell.
RBCs carry oxygen and carbon dioxide around our body. Cells in our body need oxygen to live. Cells also make carbon dioxide as a waste. RBCs bring more oxygen around the body. They also take away the carbon dioxide.
RBCs are filled with haemoglobin. This is a protein. It is made to carry a large amount of oxygen. Haemoglobin has iron in it. The iron and oxygen gives haemoglobin its red color. This is why blood is red. Erythropoietin promotes the creation of RBCs. Blood type antigens are carried on the surface of red cells.
RBCs also help the blood stay normal pH. The blood needs a to be at a pH of 7.4. If it is much more or less than 7.4 a person can get very sick or die. RBCs are a buffer for the blood pH. Buffer means that it stops changes in pH. The proteins and the carbon dioxide in the RBC are buffers for the blood.
If you do not have enough RBCs, you will die.
White blood cells are a big part of the immune system. They attack things that do not belong in the body. They kill germs such as bacteria and viruses. They kill cancer cells. White blood cells also help to fight other toxic substances.
White blood cells find where the germs are, and start to destroy them. WBCs arrive in the blood. They also go out of the blood in places where there is infection. WBCs do this to fight the germs that make the infection. If they go out of the blood to fight an infection, they may return in the lymphatic system. So WBCs are in lymph nodes.
Another name for white blood cell is "leukocyte". Leuko means white. -cyte means cell. WBC is an acronym for white blood cell. There are three main kinds of WBCs. They are lymphocytes, granulocytes and monocytes. Some of the WBCs mature into cells which do similar work in the tissues.
The different WBCs work in different ways. Some WBCs kill and eat germs and cancer cells. Some WBCs make antibodies. These are proteins that stick to a cell and tell other WBCs to kill it. Some WBCs make chemicals. They release these chemicals to fight things that do not belong in the body. These chemicals cause inflammation in a part of the body. When a germ makes someone sick, the body shows it. If a bacteria gets under someone's skin and causes an infection, the skin gets red, hot, and painful. This redness, heat, and pain are signs of "inflammation". This shows that WBCs are fighting the infection and killing the bacteria.
Platelets help make blood clot. A clot is when the liquid blood becomes solid. The body makes blood clot when the skin is cut. This stops blood from going out of the skin too much.
For blood to be able to clot is essential. But, rarely, some blood clots are bad. If a blood clot happens in a blood vessel going to the brain, it can cause a stroke. If it happens in a blood vessel going to the heart, it can cause a heart attack. This does not usually happen to young, healthy people.
Platelets are not the only things that make clots. There are proteins in the blood that help make clots. Both platelets and "clotting proteins" are needed to make good clots.
Blood cells are made in the bone marrow and in the spleen. The bone marrow is the soft material in the middle of bones. Special cells in the bone marrow make most of the blood cells in your body.
Plasma proteins are made mostly by the liver. The water and electrolytes in plasma come from the food and water that you eat.
Although blood is a fluid, in some respects it is a kind of connective tissue. Its cells originate in bone marrow and the spleen, and in the blood there are potential molecular fibres in the form of fibrinogen. These are activated when a blood clot forms.
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960 and ended on December 31, 1969. Many things happened in the sixties, including the Space Race, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Vietnam War.
The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called the Sixties. This was a set of cultural and political trends around the globe. This "cultural decade" is loosely defined as beginning around 1963 and ending around 1974.
The social revolution of the 1960s was part of a wider counterculture. Old ways were changed, new ways taken up. Typical was the introduction of the birth control pill, and its effect on sexual activity, widespread use of certain drugs and a general disrespect for traditional ways.
Pop art also started in the 1960s.
The 1970s was the decade that started on January 1, 1970, and ended on December 31, 1979.
The 1980s was the decade that started on January 1, 1980 and ended on December 31, 1989.
This decade (group of ten years) is sometimes called the "Greed decade" in English speaking countries. Unlike the 1960s and 1970s, this is when the word "yuppie" was used to describe "young urban professionals" – young adults who lived in cities and started to get good jobs. This was also the rise of a more conservative period in these countries – Ronald Reagan was president for most of this time in the United States, Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister of Canada.
This decade also saw the Soviet Union fight a war that seemed endless in Afghanistan, civil war in Ethiopia, and the fall of the Berlin Wall which started the end of the Cold War and of Communism in Eastern Europe.
The "eighties" are also well known for their extreme fashions, such as "big hair", New Wave, punk rock, funk, or preppies. Rap music first started to get big in the 80s, and often went with breakdancing in what is now called the "old school" days. Many developments were also made in computer technology during these years, and video games became popular.
In sports, Italy and Argentina won the FIFA World Cup. The Philadelphia Phillies, Los Angeles Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals, Baltimore Orioles, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, New York Mets, Minnesota Twins and Oakland Athletics won the World Series. The Pittsburgh Steelers, Oakland Raiders, San Francisco 49ers, Washington Redskins, Los Angeles Raiders, Chicago Bears and New York Giants won the Super Bowl. Finally, the Los Angeles Lakers dominated the NBA, with only the Houston Rockets winning a title.
The 1990s was the decade that started on January 1, 1990, and ended on December 31, 1999.
Source for some items:
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia (, Low Franconian: "Noordrien-Wesfale", Low German: "Noordrhien-Westfalen", Kölsch: "Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale") is the federal state (Bundesland) with the highest population in Germany. It is in the western part of Germany and has 18,033,000 inhabitants. The capital is Düsseldorf, while the city with the most inhabitants is Cologne.
North Rhine-Westphalia is divided into five government regions:
A computer program is a list of instructions that tell a computer what to do. Everything a computer does is done by using a computer program. Programs stored in the memory of a computer ("internal programming") let the computer do one thing after another, even with breaks in between. John von Neumann, a mathematician born in Hungary, came up with this idea in the late 1940s. The first digital computer designed with internal programming capacity was the EDVAC (which means Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer), built in 1949.
Some examples of computer programs:
A computer program is stored as a file on the computer's hard drive. When the user runs the program, the file is read by the computer, and the processor reads the data in the file as a list of instructions. Then the computer does what the computer program tells it to do.
A computer program is written by a programmer. It is very difficult to write in the ones and zeroes of machine code, which is what the computer can read, so computer programmers write in a programming language, such as BASIC, C, or Java. Once it is written, the programmer uses a compiler to turn it into a language that the computer can understand.
There are also bad programs, called malware, written by people who want to do bad things to a computer. Some are spyware, trying to steal information from the computer. Some try to damage the data stored on the hard drive. Some others send users to web sites that offer to sell them things. Some are computer viruses or ransomware.
The word data means "known facts". Data especially refers to numbers, but can mean words, sounds, and images. Metadata is data about data. It is used to find data.
Originally, data is the plural of the Latin word "datum," from "dare," meaning "give". "Datum" is rarely used in English. So data often gets used as if it were a singular word. Some people like to say "data are", not "data is".
2000s (decade)
The 2000s, also known as the noughties was the decade that started on January 1, 2000, and ended on December 31, 2009.
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ) is a city in Germany. It is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg and of the Administrative District of Stuttgart ("Regierungsbezirk"). Stuttgart is on the river Neckar. In December 2011, 613,392 people live there.
Stuttgart is currently the sixth largest German city and Stuttgart Region is the nation's third largest region. The city is divided into 23 city districts.
Stuttgart is the home of two car manufacturers: Mercedes Benz and Porsche. Porsche is in Zuffenhausen (North) and Mercedes in Untertürkheim (Southeast).
Stuttgart has an oceanic climate ("Cfb" in the Koeppen climate classification).
Stuttgart has 613,392 people within city limits. It is the 6th largest city in Germany after Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Frankfurt am Main. According to a 2005 estimate, the Stuttgart urban area had between 1,238,000 and 1,250,000 people. Its metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million (2008).
The University of Stuttgart is one of the city's higher education institutions.
Schwerin
Schwerin (, , ; Mecklenburgian Low German: "Swerin"; Latin: "Suerina", "Suerinum") is the capital city of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. It has a population of 97,000. It is the second biggest city (behind Rostock) in the state. It is the smallest capital of a German state.
Canton of Schwyz
Schwyz was one of the first cantons of Swiss canton ("Urkanton").
The capital is Schwyz and the main language is German (91%). It has an area of 908 km² and 130200 inhabitants. Schwyz is near to Lucerne.
The Canton of Schwyz is divided into six districts and 30 municipalities, although the districts Einsiedeln, Küssnacht and Gersau simply contain the municipality of the same name.
Russia (), officially called the Russian Federation () is a country that is in Eastern Europe and in North Asia. It is the largest country in the world by land area. About 146.7 million people live in Russia according to the 2019 census. The capital city of Russia is Moscow, and the official language is Russian.
Russia shares land borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It also has borders over water with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, and the United States by the Bering Strait.
Russia is a very large and diverse country. From 1922 to 1991, it used to be the main part of the Soviet Union. It was a country based on Communism, but today its government is a federal semi-presidential republic. It has elements of democracy. The President is chosen by direct election, but challenging candidates do not have access to the mass media, and so have almost no chance of winning. Its current President is Vladimir Putin. The President rules the country, and the Russian Parliament plays a secondary role.
Russia has 85 regional parliaments, and the presidents of these areas are very rarely ever displaced in an election. As a typical example, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was President of the Republic of Kalmykia in the Russian Federation from 1993 to 2010. Such a long tenure is not unusual in Russia, and suggests that the electoral system is heavily biased to keep incumbents in power.
At , Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the world's eighth most populous nation with 143 million people as of 2012. Russia produces a lot of energy made from oil and natural gas.
Extending from eastern Europe across the whole of northern Asia, Russia spans eleven time zones and has a wide range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources, and is the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the world. Russia has the world's largest forest reserves, and its lakes contain about one-quarter of the world's fresh water.
Russia is a federal semi-presidential republic. It has a president and a parliament. Russia consists of 85 federal subjects (territorial units). All subjects of the federation shall be equal. All entities are subject to the uniform federal law. Subjects of the federation have two representatives in the parliament. Subjects of the Russian Federation do not have a right to secession from it. Important issues are decided by the Federation President; lesser powers are given to the member republics.
At the end of the twentieth century, Russia experienced many political changes. Some people fought to leave from the federation.
Elections are held at all levels. According Steve White, the present government made it clear that they had no plans of making a "second edition" of the American or British political system, but rather a system that was closer to Russia's own traditions. Richard Sakwa wrote that the Russian government is considered legitimate by the majority of the Russian people. It seeks to deliver a set of public goods without trying to fit to extra-democratic logic to achieve them. Whether the system is becoming less autocratic (dictatorial) is debatable.
There are four big political parties in Russia. United Russia (Единая Россия) is the biggest party.
The United Russia is the ruling party, which supports the government. The other parties in the Duma (Russian parliament) do not criticize the government strongly, for fear of losing their places in the Duma. Many opposition parties, such as the People's Freedom Party and the Other Russia, have been unable to register due to the strict rules. In the 2000s the government led a war in Chechnya, and in the process, civil liberties and independent media were restricted. Corruption is widespread and human rights, especially in the North Caucasus, are frequently violated. In 2008 Putin's government was in a war with Georgia in a dispute over a region with many ethnic Russians.
The roots of Russia's history began when the East Slavs formed a group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. The Vikings and their descendants founded the first East Slavic state of Kievan Rus' in the 9th century. They adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988. This form of Christianity influenced Russian culture greatly. Kievan Rus' eventually broke up and the lands were divided into many small feudal states. The most powerful successor state to Kievan Rus' was the Grand Duchy of Moscow. This area served as the main force in later Russian unification and the fight against the Golden Horde from Asia. Moscow slowly gained control of the regions around it and took over the cultural and political life of Kievan Rus'.
In the 18th century, the nation had expanded through conquest, annexation and exploration to become the Russian Empire, the third largest empire in history. It stretched from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth eastward to the Pacific Ocean and Alaska. The empire was ruled by an emperor called the Tsar.
Peter the Great ruled Russia from 1689 until 1725. Peter moved the capital from Moscow to a new city named Saint Petersburg. He made Russian society more modern in many ways. The government began building ships for the Russian navy.
The Russo-Japanese War started in 1904 and ended in 1905 with Japan winning the war. The Russian defeat was one of the reasons for later revolutions.
In October 1917, the Bolsheviks (later called "Communists"), influenced by the ideas of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, took over the country and murdered the Tsar and other people who stood against them. Once they took power, the Bolsheviks, under Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, created the first Marxist Communist State.
From the 1920s to the 1950s, Josef Stalin ruled as an absolute dictator of Soviet Russia, and destroyed anything and anyone that was against his rule, including taking the property of farmers and shopkeepers. Many millions of people starved and died in the resulting famines. Stalin also removed, or "purged", all military personnel who were not loyal to him, and many were killed or sent to prison camps, or gulags, for many years. Even in the gulags, many prisoners died.
Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany agreed not to attack each other in 1939. In June 1941, Germany broke the agreement and attacked in Operation Barbarossa. The attack was part of World War II. The war lasted in Europe until May 1945, and Russia lost more than 20 million people during that time. In spite of this large loss, Russia was one of the winners of the war and became a world superpower.
From 1922 to 1991, Russia was the largest part of the Soviet Union, or the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (USSR). People sometimes used the name "Russia" for the whole Soviet Union, or sometimes "Soviet Russia". Russia was only one of 15 Soviet Socialist Republics. The republic was in fact named the "Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic" (RSFSR).
The Soviet Union fell apart in the early 1990s. Russia took over the place of the USSR in the United Nations (UN).
Boris Yeltsin was made the President of Russia in June 1991, in the first direct presidential election in Russian history. Wide-ranging reforms took place, including privatization and free trade laws. Radical changes "(shock therapy) were recommended by the United States and International Monetary Fund. A major economic crisis followed. There was 50% decline in GDP and industrial output between 1990–95.
The privatization largely shifted control of enterprises from state agencies to individuals with inside connections in the government system. Many of the newly rich business people took billions in cash and assets outside of the country . The depression of state and economy led to the collapse of social services. Millions went into poverty, from 1.5% level of poverty in the late Soviet era, to 39–49% by mid-1993. The 1990s saw extreme corruption and lawlessness, rise of criminal gangs and violent crime.
The 1990s had many armed conflicts in the North Caucasus. There were both local ethnic battles and separatist Islamist insurrections. Since the Chechen separatists declared independence in the early 1990s, a Chechen War was fought between the rebel groups and the Russian military. Terrorist attacks against civilians caused hundreds of deaths. The most notable of these were the Moscow theater hostage crisis and Beslan school siege.
Russia took responsibility for settling the USSR's external debts, even though its population made up just half of the population of the USSR at the time of its dissolution. High budget deficits caused the 1998 Russian financial crisis and resulted in further GDP decline.
On 31 December 1999 President Yeltsin resigned, or quit being the president. The job of president was given to the recently appointed Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin. Putin then won the 2000 presidential election. Putin stopped the Chechen rebellion quickly, but violence still occurs in the Northern Caucasus at times.
High oil prices and initially weak currency followed by increasing domestic demand, consumption and investments has helped the economy grow for nine straight years. This improved the standard of living and increasing Russia's influence on the world stage. While many reforms made during the Putin presidency have been criticized by Western nations as un-democratic, Putin's leadership led to stability, and progress. This won him widespread popularity in Russia.
On 2 March 2008, Dmitry Medvedev was elected President of Russia, whilst Putin became Prime Minister. Putin returned to the presidency following the 2012 presidential elections, and Medvedev was appointed Prime Minister.
Russia's capital and the biggest city is Moscow. The second biggest city is Saint Petersburg, which was the capital of Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Cities in Russia with more than one million people are, in order:
The most western point of Russia is near Kaliningrad, formerly named Königsberg. The most eastern point of Russia is Diomid island, 35 km from Chukotka (Russia) and from Alaska (USA). The most southern point is in Caucasus, on the border with Azerbaijan. The most northern point is on Franz Josef Land archipelago in Arctic Ocean, from the North Pole.
Russia has a population of 142 million citizens. Most people (73.7%) live in cities. The population decreased by 5 million people since the fall of the Soviet Union. The current population growth is close to zero, and the population went down by 0.085% in 2008.
Russia's area is about 17 million square kilometers (6.5 million sq. mi.). It is the largest country in the world. Its population density is about 8.3 people per square kilometer (21.5 per sq. mi.). This is among the lowest country densities in the world. The population is most dense in the European part of the country, centering around Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Siberia has a very low density.
The main religion in Russia is the Russian Orthodox Church. It is one of the Eastern Orthodox Churches.
World-renowned composers of the 20th century included Alexander Scriabin, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sergei Prokofiev, and Dmitri Shostakovich. Russia has produced some of the greatest pianists: Anton Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz and Vladimir Ashkenazy are among the all-time greats.
Russian composer Tchaikovsky created famous ballets such as The Nutcracker. The impressario Sergei Diaghilev was responsible for the development of ballet in the early 20th century with the Ballets Russes. Dance companies at the Mariinsky Theatre and the Bolshoi Ballet produced many famous dancers.
Russians have contributed many famous works of literature. Alexander Pushkin is considered a founder of modern Russian literature. He was a poet from the 19th century.
Other famous poets and writers of the 19th century were Anton Chekhov, Mikhail Lermontov, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol (he was born in what is now Ukraine, but during his lifetime Ukraine was a part of Russia), Ivan Turgenev and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky are considered by many people to be two of the greatest novelists ever. Three Russians won the Nobel Prize for Literature in the 20th century: Boris Pasternak (1958), Mikhail Sholokhov (1965) and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1980). Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" was also a novel of the highest quality.
Soccer, ice hockey and basketball are among the most popular sports. Boxing, gymnastics, weightlifting, and tennis are also popular sports. Track suits are popular clothing items for many Russians. Sports people to gain world fame include former tennis world number one Maria Sharapova, who has won three Grand Slam titles, and was the world's highest paid female athlete in 2008.
Since the 1952 Olympic Games, Soviet and later Russian athletes are in the three in gold medals collected at the Summer Olympics. The 1980 Summer Olympic Games were held in Moscow while the 2014 Winter Olympics were hosted in Sochi.
For the 2018 Winter Olympics which were held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, a lot of athletes could not compete because the International Olympic Committee found out they had been doping. Those who were not caught doping were able to play in the 2018 Olympics under the title of "Olympic Athletes from Russia", and they took home two gold medals, including one in ice hockey.
Chess is the main intellectual sport in Russia. In the 20th century there were nine Russian World Chess Champions, more than all other nations combined.
Moscow (, ; ) is the capital city of Russia. 11.5 million people live there (1 October 2010), so it is Europe's biggest city. It is also the seventh biggest city in the world. It sits on the Moskva River. Moscow is an important political, cultural, economic, religious, financial and transportation center. It is a global city, important in the economic infrastructure of the region. Moscow was founded by Prince Yuri Dolgoruki in 1147.
The middle of the city is an ancient walled city called the Kremlin. There are important government buildings, museums and churches in the Kremlin. Many of the buildings in Moscow, like St. Basil's Cathedral and Spasskaya Tower, are very beautiful and famous. There are also modern buildings. The many art galleries have big collections.
Moscow has many scientific and educational buildings, as well as some sports complexes built for the 1980 Summer Olympics. Transport includes four international airports, nine railroad stations and the second busiest (after Tokyo) metro system in the world, which is famous for its artwork.
Over time, the city has earned a variety of nicknames, most referring to its pre-eminent status in the nation: The Third Rome (Третий Рим), Whitestone (Белокаменная), The First Throne (Первопрестольная), The Forty Forties (Сорок Сороков), The Port of five seas (Порт пяти морей).
A person from Moscow is called a Muscovite in English, or a "Moskvich" in Russian.
It is by the Moskva River in the Moscow Oblast, in the European part of Russia. Moscow sits on the center of three parts of Earth's crust. It was once the capital of the Soviet Union (1918-1991), Russian Empire, Tsardom of Russia and the Grand Duchy of Moscow (1480-1703). It is the place of the Moscow Kremlin, one of the World Heritage Sites in the city, which is the home of the President of Russia. The Russian parliament (the State Duma and the Federation Council of Russia (Federation Council) and the Government of Russia also are in Moscow.
The city has a humid continental climate. The winter (usually cold) is lasting from mid-November to the end of March. The average temperature in winter is about −10 °C (−14 °F). The summer is usually warm or even hot with temperature ranging from 15 to 35 °C (50 to 95 °F) .
Moscow has a large economic infrastructure. It is home to the most billionaires in the world. In 2008 Moscow was named the world's most expensive city for non-Russian workers for the third year in a row. In 2009, however, Moscow went down to third after Tokyo and Osaka came in first and second.
The city is named after the river (old , which means "the city next to the Moskva River"). The beginning of the name is not known, but some people have a few ideas. One is that the name might be from a very old Finnic language, in which it means "dark" and "cloudy". The first Russian reference to Moscow is from 1147 when Yuri Dolgoruki called upon the prince of Novgorod-Severski to "come to me, brother, to Moscow."
Nine years later, in 1156, Prince Yuri Dolgoruki ordered the building of a wooden wall, which had to be redone many times, to go around the growing city. After the attack of 1237–1238, when the Mongols burned the city to the ground and killed its people living there, Moscow grew back and became the capital of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality (an amount of land ruled by a prince) in 1327. Its good place on the start of the Volga River helped the city to grow slowly bigger and bigger. Moscow turned into a peaceful and rich principality, known as the Grand Duchy of Moscow, for many years and a large number of people from across Russia moved to live there.
Under Ivan I the city replaced Tver as a political center of Vladimir-Suzdal and became the only collector of taxes for the Mongol-Tatar rulers. By paying high taxes, Ivan worked out an important deal with the Khan. Unlike other principalities, Moscow was not divided among his sons but was passed whole to his oldest. However, Moscow did not like the Mongol rule. In 1380, prince Dmitry Donskoy of Moscow led a Russian army to an important victory over the Tatars in the Battle of Kulikovo. Only two years later Moscow was raided by the Khan Tokhtamysh. In 1480, Ivan III finally broke the Russians free from Tatar control, allowing Moscow to become the center of power in Russia. Under Ivan III the city became the capital of an empire that would eventually include all of Russia and other countries.
In 1571, the Crimean Tatars raided Moscow, burning everything but the Kremlin.
In 1609 the Swedish army, led by Count Jacob De la Gardie and Evert Horn, marched from Veliky Novgorod toward Moscow to help Tsar Vasili Shuiski. They entered Moscow in 1610 and stopped the revolution against the Tsar, but left early in 1611. After that the Polish invaded. During the Polish–Muscovite War (1605–1618) hetman (army commander) Stanisław Żółkiewski entered Moscow after he defeated the Russians in the Battle of Klushino. The 17th century had lots of revolutions, such as the Salt Riot (1648), the Copper Riot (1662), and the Moscow Uprising of 1682.
The plague of 1654–1656 killed half the population of Moscow. The city stopped being Russia’s capital in 1712, after the building of Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great near the Baltic coast in 1703. The Plague of 1771 was the last big plague in central Russia, killing 100,000 people in Moscow alone. During the French invasion of Russia in 1812, the Muscovites burned the city and ran away, as Napoleon’s army was coming near to the city on 14 September. Napoleon’s army, which was very hungry and cold, had to leave and was nearly destroyed by the freezing Russian winter and some attacks by the army.
In January 1905, Alexander Adrianov became Moscow’s first mayor. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, on 12 March 1918 Moscow became the capital of the Soviet Union. During World War II (known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War), after the German invasion of the USSR, the Soviet State Defense Group and commanders of the Red Army were placed in Moscow.
In 1941, 16 groups of national volunteers (more than 160,000 people), twenty-five battalions (18,500 people) and four engineering regiments were created among the Muscovites. That November, the German Army was stopped at the edge of the city and then driven off in the Battle of Moscow. Many factories were moved away, and much of the government was too, and from 20 October the city was declared to be under siege. Its people who stayed built and used anti-tank defences, and the city was bombed from the air. Joseph Stalin (the leader of Russia) did not leave the city, so the general staff remained in the city as well. Even with a siege going on, the construction of the Moscow Metro system continued through the war, and by the end of the war a few new metro lines were open.
On 1 May 1944, a medal "For the defence of Moscow" and in 1947 another medal "In memory of the 800th year of Moscow" were given to Moscow. In commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, on 8 May 1965, Moscow became one of twelve Soviet cities awarded the title of Hero City.
In 1980, Moscow hosted the Summer Olympic Games, which the United States and several other Western countries did not go to because of the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan in the end of 1979. In 1991, Moscow was the scene of a failed overthrow attempt by government members opposed to Mikhail Gorbachev. When the USSR ended in the same year, Moscow continued to be the capital of Russia.
Since then, the beginning of a market economy in Moscow has caused an explosion of Western-style stores, services, architecture, and lifestyles. In 1998, it hosted the first World Youth Games.
Moscow has many sister cities:
Canton of St. Gallen
St. Gallen is a canton in Switzerland. St. Gallen is in the north-east corner of Switzerland. North of St. Gallen is the canton Thurgau. West of St. Gallen is Zürich. South of St. Gallen is Schwyz, Glarus, and Graubünden. East of St. Gallen are the countries Austria and Liechtenstein. The cantons Appenzell Innerrhoden and Appenzell Ausserrhoden are inside the canton St. Gallen (the canton St.Gallen sourrounds them).
St. Gallen has been a Swiss canton since 1803.
St. Gallen is near "Lake Constance". At the south of St. Gallen there are big mountains over 3000m high. The best known mountain in St. Gallen is the "Säntis", which is 2503m high. At the east of St. Gallen there is the river "Rhine". The people in St. Gallen speak German.
There are about 455,000 people (2002) in the canton St. Gallen. It has an area of 2,026 km².
The biggest town in St. Gallen is the town with the same name "St. Gallen". There are 70,000 people in the town St. Gallen.
Canton can mean many different things.
Places:
Saarland (, , ; ; Rhine Franconian: "Saarlond") is a Bundesland (state) of Germany. It has an area of and 1,014,000 people living in it (2011). Saarland lies in the south-west of Germany, near the French border near Metz. The capital is Saarbrücken.
In 1920, the Treaty of Versailles made Saarland from parts of the Prussian Rhine Province () and the Rhine Palatinate (). The area was put under the control of the League of Nations for 15 years. After a plebiscite (vote) in 1935, Germany got the land back. After World War II the Saarland came under French administration. The Saar Protectorate was allowed its own government for most things in 1947 but not independence. Germany got the Saarland back in 1957 and it became a Bundesland.
In the south is France, in the north-west Luxembourg and in the north and east is Rhineland-Palatinate.
Saarland is divided in 6 districts:
1974 (MCMLXXIV) was .
Mars (disambiguation)
Mars may mean:
Jupiter (disambiguation)
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun.
Jupiter may also mean:
Venus (disambiguation)
Venus is a planet in the Solar System. It may also mean:
Saturn (disambiguation)
Saturn is a planet in the Solar System. It might also mean:
Uranus (disambiguation)
Uranus is one of the planets in the Solar System. It might also refer to:
Neptune (disambiguation)
Neptune is a planet in the Solar System. It might also mean:
Pluto (disambiguation)
Pluto is a dwarf planet in Earth's solar system.
Pluto can also mean:
Iceland (; ) is an island country in the North Atlantic, between Greenland and Norway, formerly a possession of Denmark. It is culturally considered to be part of Europe. Iceland is 301 kilometers east of Greenland and 1001 kilometers west of Norway. There are about 329,100 people who live in Iceland. Iceland has an area of 103,000 km².
The first people who lived on Iceland are thought to have been Irish monks. They came to Iceland around the year 800.
In the 9th century, Norsemen went to live in Iceland. The first Norseman who lived in Iceland was Flóki Vilgerðarson. He was also the one who gave Iceland its name. Ingólfur Arnarsons was the first permanent settler on the island. This chieftain from Norway went to live in South West Iceland and founded the city of Reykjavík.
In 930, the Icelandic rulers wrote a constitution. They created the Althing, a kind of parliament in a place called Þingvellir. Therefore, Iceland is the oldest existing republic.
In 985, Erik the Red was sent away from the island because he had killed someone. He sailed to the west and discovered Greenland. Eric's son Leif Ericson discovered America in the year 1000. He called it Vinland. The voyages of Eric, Leif and others were written down in the sagas (long stories).
In 1262, Iceland became part of Norway. This lasted for 400 years. In 1662, it became part of Denmark. In the 19th century, many Icelandic's wanted to be independent from Denmark. In 1918, Iceland got many powers of its own, but the king of Denmark was still king of Iceland.
When Germany took over Denmark on April 9 1940, the Althing decided that Icelandic’s should rule the country themselves, but they did not declare independence yet. British and later American soldiers occupied Iceland to prevent it from being attacked by the Germans. In 1944, Iceland finally became fully independent.
After World War II, Iceland became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but not of the European Union. Between 1958 and 1976, there were three debates between Iceland and the United Kingdom about the rights to catch codfish. They were called the Cod Wars.
In 1980, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir was elected president of Iceland. She was the first woman ever to be elected president of a country.
In 2016, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson become president of Iceland.
Iceland has a multi-party system. Since the 2013 election, the center-right Independence Party and Progressive Party are the biggest political parties in Iceland. Other powerful parties in Iceland include the center-left Social Democratic Alliance and Left-Green Movement. See also: List of political parties in Iceland.
Iceland is a representative democracy and a parliamentary republic. Iceland has a president (Guðni Th. Jóhannesson) and a prime minister (Katrín Jakobsdóttir). The parliament, Althing, has 63 members and each member can only be in there for four years. The president is elected by Icelanders, and is in government for four years. The president can be elected an unlimited amount of times.
Iceland has no standing army. The United States Air Force had a base near Reykjanesbær, but they left in 2006. Since 2008, NATO nations have occasionally had their air force patrol Iceland. This was requested by the Icelandic government.
Iceland is divided into 8 regions, 6 constituencies and 74 municipalities (since 2013). The regions are mainly used for statistics. The constituencies are used for selecting politicians who will represent them in parliament. Lastly, the municipalities give services to the people that live there. These services include education, waste management, public transportation, and so on.
Before 2003, the constituencies were the same as regions, but this was changed because it meant that a vote in Reykjavik meant less than one in a rural area. Even though this was addressed, the problem still exists.
Fishing and fish processing is the main economic activity in Iceland. Despite effort to diversify, particularly into the travel industry, seafood exports continue to account for nearly three-quarters of merchandise exports and approximately half of all foreign exchange earnings.
Geothermal Energy produces the vast majority of Electrical Power consumed on Iceland, due chiefly to the island's position atop the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and exhibits plentiful hot water reservoirs and geysers. This has the effect of drastically reducing the price of electricity in Iceland, and has attracted several energy-intensive industries.
Aluminum Smelting (The reduction of Aluminum ores to Aluminum metal) is the largest energy-intensive manufacturing sector in Iceland, and the country produced over 800,000 Metric Tonnes per Year in 2013, making it the 10th largest producer of Aluminum metal worldwide.
Iceland is very geologically active and combined with large amounts of rain and snow caused by the warm waters of the gulf stream current which flow toward it, many interesting and unusual geographic features have developed which make it different from any other island so close to the Arctic Circle.
Some of these features are Iceland's numerous mountains, volcanoes, hot springs, rivers, small lakes, waterfalls, glaciers, and geysers. The word geyser is, in fact, derived from Geysir, the name of a particularly famous geyser on the southern side of the island. Glaciers cover approximately 11% of the island and the largest, Vatnajökull, is up to 1 km thick and, by far, the largest glacier in Europe.
Iceland, though considered to be a European country, sits partly in North America since it straddles the Mid-Atlantic Ridge which marks the boundary between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. The ridge runs directly through the populated Reykjavik and Thingvellir historic areas, and the tectonic activity of these plates separating is the source of the abundant geothermal energy in the region.
Reykjavík is the capital city of Iceland. Reykjavík is also the most important port in Iceland. Other important towns in Iceland are Akureyri, Kópavogur, Hafnarfjörður, Keflavík, Seyðisfjörður and Vestmannaeyjar.
The people in Iceland are mostly of Scandinavian origin. The language they speak is Icelandic. The language has not changed much in 1,000 years, so Icelanders are still able to read the sagas about the Vikings without many problems. Most people in Iceland are Christian. Most of them are Lutheran.
Icelandic people are considered to be the happiest people on Earth. Iceland has the highest birth rate in Europe, highest divorce rate and the highest percentage of women working outside their home.
There are no real surnames on Iceland. Children get the first name of their father (sometimes mother) with -s+son if it's a boy, and -s+dóttir if it's a girl.
For example, a man named Jón Stefánsson has a son named Fjalar. Fjalar's last name will not be Stefánsson like his father's, it will become Fjalar Jónsson.
The same goes for women. Jón Stefánsson's daughter Kata would not have the last name Stefánsson, she would have the name Jónsdóttir.
In most countries people use to call other people by their surname, but in Iceland people call other people by their first name. So when people talk about Halldór Ásgrímsson they do not call him Ásgrímsson, but Halldór.
1965 (MCMLXV) was .
1969 (MCMLXIX) was .
Saarbrücken (; ; Rhine Franconian: "Saarbrigge" ]; ) is a German city and a district in the state of Saarland.
The city is also the capital of the Saarland. Saarbrücken has 180,000 inhabitants and is on the river Saar.
Saarlouis is a town in the Saarland, Germany. It has 38,400 inhabitants and is on the Saar. From 1936 to 1945 it was called Saarlautern. Ford Motor Company has a plant here; it produces the Focus, C-Max and Kuga.
Brandenburg (Low Sorbian: "Bramborska", Low German: "Brannenborg") is a state ("Bundesland") in Germany. It has been a state since 1990. It is 29,056 km² in area. It has about 2.6 million inhabitants.
Until 1945 it was the biggest province in Prussia, with 38,278 km² and 3 million inhabitants. From 1949 to 1952 it was a state in the German Democratic Republic. In 1952 it became divided into three "Bezirke" (Potsdam, Frankfurt and Cottbus). The capital of Brandenburg is Potsdam.
Berlin is in the middle of Brandenburg. But it is not part of Brandenburg. It is a city state.
Brandenburg is divided into fourteen "Kreise" (districts):
Also Brandenburg has four "Kreisfreie Städte" (district-free city):
Brandenburg is divided into fourteen (rural) counties ("Landkreise"),
and four urban districts ("kreisfreie Städte"),
Russian might mean:
Russian (Russian: , transliteration: "russkiy yaz'ik") is a Slavic language. It is the main language spoken in Russia. It is also spoken in by many people in other parts of the former Soviet Union, such as in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkmenistan and Estonia.
Russian, like other Slavic languages, are Indo-European languages. Russian is one of the three main East Slavic languages; the others are Ukrainian and Belarusian. More people speak Russian than any other Slavic language.
Written Russian does not use the Latin alphabet that English and the West Slavic languages do. (some people do however, learn to write it in Latin letters) It mostly uses the Cyrillic alphabet, whose letters, like those of Latin, came from Greek, but are different from them. The other East Slavic languages and some of the South Slavic languages use the Cyrillic alphabet as well.
Russian is an official language of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. It is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, along with English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Chinese.
Standard Russian is also called modern literary Russian (Современный русский литературный язык). It first appeared at the beginning of the 18th century. Peter the Great was then working to make the state more modern. Standard Russian grew out of the dialect of Russian that was spoken by people in and around Moscow. In some ways, Standard Russian was also like the Russian used in government offices in earlier centuries.
Mikhail Lomonosov wrote the first book on Russian grammar in 1755. The Russian Academy of Sciences published the first full dictionary of Russian in 1783. The grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation of Russian became stable and were standardized at the end of the 18th century and during the 19th century. That was called the "Golden Age" of Russian literature because it was a good period for the subject, which became very famous across the world.
All of Russia began to use Russian as the language of literature, education, and official communication. Until the 20th century, only the upper classes and people in cities spoke the literary language. Russians from the countryside continued to speak their local dialects. In the 20th century, all children were required to go to school. Many people had radios and televisions, which helped to spread Standard Russian. By the mid-20th century, Russian dialects had mostly disappeared. Standard Russian replaced them almost completely especially to talk to people from different oblasts.
In Russian, a person's name has three parts: the first name, the second name and the family name.
Parents choose the first name for their child. Some common Russian names for boys are Ivan, Vladimir, Mikhail and Nikolai. Some common Russian names for girls are Anna, Anastasia, Svetlana and Yekaterina.
The second name is the "patronymic" (Russian: "otchestvo") and comes from one's father's first name. For example, a boy whose father is "Ivan" would havae as patronymic is "Ivanovich". If a boy's father is "Nikolai", his patronymic is "Nikolaevich". If a girl's father is "Ivan", her patronymic is "Ivanovna". If her father is "Nikolai", her patronymic is "Nikolaevna". The patronymic of a boy ends with -"ovich" or "-evich". The patronymic of a girl ends with "-ovna" or "-evna".
Boys have the same family name as their fathers. Girls use their father's family name but an "-a" is added to the end of the name. A man whose family name is "Romanov" would have a son with the family name "Romanov" and a daughter with the family name "Romanova".
If a man's name is "Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov" and has a son, "Aleksei", and a daughter, "Anastasia", the son's full name is "Aleksei Nikolaevich Romanov", and the daughter's full name is "Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova".
There are also many people in Russia whose family names are not Russian. Some of the family names have only one form, which is the same for both sons and daughters. Some examples are "Glushko" (a Ukrainian name), "Rubinstein" (a German/Jewish name) or "Shevardnadze" (a Georgian name).
Like Latin, Greek, and German, Russian has a case system. In Russian, it applies to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, numerals and participles with a set of word endings (sounds/letters attached to the ends of words) that show the grammatical roles of words in a sentence. Because the grammatical roles are shown by the endings, word order is freer in than in English. There are six cases in Russian.
The nominative case, the form listed in the dictionary, is used for the subject of the sentence. The genitive case often shows ownership. The accusative case is used for a direct object, the dative case for an indirect object. The instrumental case is used for the tool or instrument with which something is done. The prepositional case is used after certain prepositions, such as "in" and "on", but other prepositions may require the use of other cases. Each case has other uses than those listed.
In Russian, nouns have one of three genders: masculine, feminine, or neutral. This is the same for languages like French, Spanish, etc. Masculine nouns usually end in consonants, neutral nouns usually end in -o or -e, and feminine nouns usually end in -a or -я. The plural acts like a fourth gender because gender does not change plural words.
In Russian, an adjective must agree with the word that it describes in gender, case and number. In the nominative case, adjectives that describe feminine words usually end in -ая or -яя. Those that describe masculine words usually end in -ый, -ий or -ой. Those that describe neuter words usually end in -ое or -ее. Those that describe plural words usually end in -ые or -ие. The endings change depending on case.
1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was .
1982 (MCMLXXXII) was .