AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
Ross was also the administrator of the great Juana Ross de Edwards fortune, the Nancagua Hacienda, near the city of same name. He designed an urban set of high environmental value and landscape, transforming ""La Posada"" to a hotel ("Great Hotel Pichilemu", later "Hotel Ross", or "Ross Hotel").
Ross also built several chalets, terraces, embankments, stone walls, a balcony in front of the beach and several large houses with imported building materials and furniture from France and England. Additionally, he put up a park and a forest of more than 10 hectares. Ross turned Pichilemu into a summer resort town for rich people from Santiago. He, however, could not build a dock for the city, as he had planned.
In 1935, the Ross successors ceded to the Illustrious Municipality of Pichilemu all the Ross constructions (streets, avenues, squares, seven hectares of forests, the park in front of the hotel, the perrons and the terraces) under condition that the municipality hold them for recreation and public access.
The Cultural Centre was severely damaged after the February 2010 Chile earthquake. The library that it hosted was completely destroyed. After the 2010 Pichilemu earthquake, the Cultural Centre suffered structural damage, but Roberto Córdova, Mayor of Pichilemu, said that it was repairable.
Australia national rugby union team
A sparrow is a member of the genus "Passer". They are small passerine birds which belong to the family "Passeridae". They are also known as old-world sparrows. Sparrows often make their nests near houses or buildings. This means they are one of the easiest birds to see in the wild.
The genus has about 30 species around the world. The best known of these is the house sparrow, "Passer domesticus".
Some authorities place other genera in the sparrow group: "Petronia", the rock sparrows; "Carpospiza", the pale rockfinch; and "Montifringilla", the snowfinches.
Sparrows are small birds. They are between 11–18 centimeters long. They can weigh between 13–42 grams. They are usually brown and gray. They have short tails and small, strong beaks. Most sparrows eat seeds or small insects. Sparrows are social birds and they live in flocks (groups).
The house sparrow ("Passer domesticus") is a species of sparrow. It lives all over the world. It originally lived only in Europe and Asia. However, people travelled to new places and the house sparrow went to those places too. It is now the bird with the widest distribution. This means it lives in the most places. The species has about 50 subspecies.
Sparrows can be seen on every continent on earth. A long time ago, they lived only in Europe, Asia and Africa. However, people traveled to Australia, North America and South America, and now sparrows are seen there too. The house sparrow is seen in every continent. In Australia, there are no sparrows in Western Australia, as they have not been able to travel across the deserts that separate that state from the eastern states. The government employs people to hunt and destroy any sparrows that might arrive.
The house sparrow was introduced to America in the late 19th century. It was introduced on purpose. It was imported by several people, including Eugene Schieffelin, who was a wealthy New York City admirer of Shakespeare. He wanted to introduce to America all the birds mentioned in the works of Shakespeare. Two of these species were great successes: starlings and house sparrows. He organized a society for the importation of foreign birds, incorporated in Albany.
Some ornithologists thought the "Estrildid finches" were in the same family as sparrows. However, they are now in a different family, the Estrildidae.
There is also a group called 'American sparrows', or New World sparrows. These are also in a different family, the Emberizidae (buntings).
The hedge sparrow (also known as the dunnock or accentor) "Prunella modularis" is also not a true sparrow. It is in a different family, the Prunellidae. It is only called a sparrow because people called all small brown birds 'sparrows'. Birdwatchers call then all LBJs (little brown jobs) because they are usually so difficult to tell apart.
The house sparrow is small bird. It is between 14–18 centimeters (5.5–7.1 in) long. It weighs between 24–39.5 grams (0.85–1.4 oz). Females are smaller than males.
Male and female house sparrows are different colors. The male is brown, gray and white. It has a black throat. The female and young house sparrows are brown and dark yellow or cream. They have streaks (stripes) on their heads and wings.
The house sparrow lives close to humans, often near human houses in towns or cities. It also lives near farms and makes a nest in a bush or small tree. It can have two or three broods per year. This means it has two or three sets of eggs and chicks each year.
Nest sites are varied, though cavities are preferred. Nests are most frequently built in the eaves and other crevices of houses. Holes in cliffs and banks, or tree hollows, are also used. A sparrow sometimes digs out its own nests in sandy banks or rotten branches. More often it uses the nests of other birds, such swallows' nests in banks and cliffs, and old tree nest holes. It often uses deserted nests. Sometimes it takes over active nests by driving away or killing the occupants. Tree hollows are more commonly used in North America than in Europe. This puts the sparrows in competition with bluebirds and other North American cavity nesters so the native bird population declines.
The number of house sparrows in the United Kingdom has gone down, perhaps because their hedgerow habitat has shrunk. They are now 'endangered' in the United Kingdom. However, in other countries, the bird is still very common. Hedges are necessary to the bird because predators cannot usually get at their nests. They would have no defence against magpies (for example) if face-to-face.
A couch, sofa or settee is a kind of furniture that is designed to seat more than one person. It usually has a place to rest your arm on each side. Couches are normally found in the living room or in front of the TV.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, a couch was thought as a long, upward seat for resting on. One end would slope up high enough to provide a place for the head to rest.
Some late 18th-century kinds of couches had an arm running partly down one side, and this type continued to be made in England. In Greek places, there were flowing designs with all kind of elegant colors. Many of them had scrolled ends and short legs. The couch was later taken over by the overstuffed sofa during the Victorian age.
Because the couch is usually set in front of the TV, it is the main place where people usually sit and watch it. Lazy people would eventually seem to be stuck to it all the time. This person, a person who does not do a lot of physical activity, was called a "couch potato". This was also because potatoes do not move at all, and does not do anything but just sits there. This may also be considered as slang. Couch came from the word "couche", which means, "a bed, lair," or from the word "coucher", which means "to lie down."
The most common types of couches in homes are the "love seats" for two, or the "sofa" for more than two. Other couches include the "divan" or the ""fainting couch"", which usually does not have a back. Couches are usually bought in a set together with cushions, which give them a bouncey and decorative comfortable touch.
Jena Lee
Jena Lee (born 29 July, 1987 in Chile) is a French singer.
She was adopted by a French family at the age of nine months. In 2007, Jena Lee met Sulee B Wax, who was interested in her work. At this point in time Lee wrote the song "Some Share". The song was used in an album by Sherifa Luna. Jena Lee wrote six out of the thirteen songs that are on Sherifa Luna's album.
In 2008, Jena Lee won the Urban Music Nation contest by Skyrock. Her first single "J'aimerais Tellement" was released in April 2009 along with a music video. It was at the top of the French single charts for eleven weeks. It had the highest number of downloads in November 2009.
Sinik
Sinik (real name Thomas Gerard Idir; born on 26 June 1980) is a famous French rapper. His parents are Algerian. Thomas was four years old when his parents moved to Bergères in France.
Porridge
Porridge is a food which is made with a cereal, usually oats. The oats are boiled in water or milk, or both. It is usually served hot in a bowl or dish. Some people add things to their porridge such as sugar or syrup. In Scotland salt is often added.
Porridge is a traditional food in many countries in Northern Europe. It is usually eaten for breakfast. In some countries barley or other grains may be used. Porridge is cooked in saucepans or in a microwave. Traditionally, it was cooked in large metal kettles over hot coals. Porridge was often served as food for prisoners in prisons. This is why in English there is a slang expression "doing porridge" which means "being in prison". Porridge is also given to people who are ill because it is nourishing and easy to eat.
Semolina and gruel are foods which are quite similar to porridge. Semolina is usually served as a pudding. Gruel is a similar but thinner concoction to porridge. It is semi-liquid and usually drunk rather than eaten. Oliver Twist, in the famous book by Charles Dickens, was given gruel to eat.
Historically, heavy foods were eaten because most work was manual. Before the industrial revolution, men and women doing hard work needed more calories per day than they need today. At any rate this applies to countries which are highly mechanized. Porridge is a good example of the heavy calorie-laden food which has gradually gone out of favour.
Fresnel lens
A Fresnel lens is an optical lens, which was originally developed for Lighthouses. It is named after its inventor, French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel. The name is pronounced /freɪˈnɛl/ (fray-NELL), the 's' is silent. Before Fresnel, Buffon and Condorcet proposed a similar design, as a way to make large burning lenses.
The design allows the construction of lenses of large aperture and short focal length without the weight and volume of material that would be required in conventional lens design. Compared to earlier lenses, the Fresnel lens is much thinner. More light can pass through. Lighthouses that use these kind of lenses can be seen from farther away.
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer (born near Berlin, 5 September 1791; died Paris, 2 May 1864) was a famous German-born opera composer. He was the most important composer of French Grand opera during the 1830s and 1840s. Although he was tremendously popular in his day, his music is not often played now.
Meyerbeer was born into a rich Jewish family in Tasdorf (now a part of Rüdersdorf), near Berlin. His father owned large sugar refineries in Berlin and in Italy. His mother also came from a rich family. Her father had been important in Germany’s struggle to be free of the French in 1812 when Napoleon was trying to conquer much of Europe. Giacomo’s mother did a lot of good work trying to help people who were wounded during the Napoleonic wars.
Many famous people came to the house where Giacomo’s family lived. Some of the visitors were from the royal Prussian court, including the future King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. The naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt also visited them quite often.
The first piano teacher the boy had was Franz Lauska, who also taught the royal princes. He also had lessons in composition. Meyerbeer first played in public in 1801 playing Mozart's Piano Concerto in D Minor in Berlin. He wrote his first opera in 1810. In the same year he went to Darmstadt to study with the well-known music theorist Abbé Vogler. There he met the young Carl Maria von Weber who was also a pupil of Vogler. He left Vogler in 1811 and tried to get some work in Munich. In 1813 he found he had been offered a job as court composer to the Grand Duke of Hessen. Vogler had probably recommended him for the job. At this time Meyerbeer was better known as a pianist than as a composer. He travelled to London to hear an important pianist based there, namely J.B.Cramer. There he met other famous pianists such as Kalkbrenner and Ferdinand Ries.
In 1816 Meyerbeer went to Italy. He wanted to learn about Italian opera and collect Italian folksongs. While he intended at first to stay only three months, he stayed most of the next nine years. He made some trips back to Germany and Austria during this time. He composed several operas which became very popular. People started to compare him with the famous Rossini. However, in Germany people were not interested in his music. He took his opera "Il crociato in Egitto" to London and then to Paris, where it was a success. The opera is remembered now for being the last opera ever to have a part for a castrato singer.
He was becoming well-known now. Spontini asked him to compose an opera for Berlin. He became friends, in Paris, with the librettist Eugène Scribe who had a lot of influence in the French theatre.
From 1825 onwards Meyerbeer spent his life travelling about Europe. He was often in Paris and in Berlin, but did not live in either of these places. He stayed in hotels or private houses wherever he went. One reason why he travelled was because of his health. His wife also had bad health, so they often went to spa towns to try to get better. He also travelled about to watch productions of his operas, and to hear young singers.
When Carl Maria von Weber died, he left an opera, "Die drei Pintos", unfinished. It was sent to Meyerbeer in the hope that he would finish it, but he did not seem interested. In the end Mahler finished it many years later.
Meyerbeer made changes to "Il crociato in Egitto" and turned it into a grand opera for the Opéra in Paris. He changed it from an Italian to a French opera, composing extra dance music and a new overture. He was determined to be famous in Paris.
In 1826 he married his cousin. They had two children, but they both died when they were very small.
In 1828 Daniel Auber, a famous French composer of the time, had composed a very popular opera called "La muette de Portici". It was the first French grand opera. Meyerbeer realized he could not become really popular by turning his Italian operas into French grand opera, so he took his comic opera "Robert le Diable" and changed it into a grand opera. Audiences loved it. Within three years it had been performed in 77 theatres in 10 different countries. Many composers made their own arrangements of some of the tunes from the opera. He was given many honours: the Chevalier of the Legion d’honneur, the title of Prussian Hof Kapellmeister (Director of Music at the Royal Court), and was made a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts and a member of the French Institute.
Meyerbeer realized that anything else he wrote would have to be really good. In 1836 he produced another opera "Les Huguenots". This too was extremely popular.
In 1842 he went to Boulogne to improve his health. There he met Wagner who asked him for financial help to stage his operas "Rienzi" and "The Flying Dutchman". Meyerbeer lent him money, but stopped giving him money when he heard that Wagner was secretly criticizing him.
When Spontini died Meyerbeer was made Generalmusikdirektor in Berlin. His opera "Les Huguenots" had at first been forbidden in Germany, but now it was allowed to be performed. As court composer he wrote a grand opera called "Ein Feldschlag in Schlesien" ("A Battle in Silesia"), but it never became internationally famous. The main part in the opera was sung by Jenny Lind.
In 1849 he returned to Paris. He wrote several works together with Scribe, whom Meyerbeer described as the best living librettist, and who was one of his closest friends. His opera "Le prophète" (for which Scribe again wrote the words) earned him a lot of money. The great contralto Pauline Viardot-Garcia sang the main part.
Scribe died in 1861. Meyerbeer worked very hard to try to finish his last opera, "L’Africaine". Napoleon III said he wanted the opera to be ready by the winter of 1862-63, but it was not ready until 1864. The work was being rehearsed for its first performance when Meyerbeer suddenly died, without having had the chance to revise it, the way he revised most of his other pieces.
Meyerbeer’s body was taken to Berlin where it was buried in the Jewish cemetery in a vault that belonged to his family.
Meyerbeer was always more popular in France than in Germany. His operas are about the society of wealthy people. The sounds he made with his orchestra are often deliberately harsh. In this he is like Beethoven in his final years, and Berlioz. Sometimes he used new instruments such as the bass clarinet and the saxophone. He always thought carefully about what his singers were capable of when writing his music. He enjoyed working with different singers, among them Velluti, who was the last of the great operatic castrati. He took great trouble to give his singers rests during the opera so that they would still be in good voice for the climax of the story. He liked scenes with large crowds. He composed his dance music, in particular, very carefully. Often he would throw it away and start again if the dancers were not happy with it.
Besides his operas he also wrote orchestral pieces for special occasions. He also wrote some songs for performance in the salon.
Meyerbeer was one of the richest men in Europe. This is why some people hated him.
Meyerbeer’s operas were very popular in the middle of the 19th century, but by the end of the century they had gone out of fashion. From 1933 to 1945 his music was banned in Germany by the Nazis because he was Jewish. Today there is some interest again, but nothing like the huge popularity he had in his lifetime.
Grand opera
Grand Opera is a term which is used to describe an opera with continuous music. It is a kind of opera that was popular in the 19th-century. Grand operas are usually divided into four or five acts. There have large casts (many singers taking part) and large orchestras. There is a lot of scenery. The story is dramatic. It is usually a story about a hero from history. The term "Grand Opera" has often been used to describe the Paris Opéra from the late 1820s to around 1850, and sometimes to describe the Paris Opéra itself.
In a broader sense "Grand Opera" can be any large-scale opera from European countries. During the 1830s and 1840s Giacomo Meyerbeer was thought to be the greatest composer of Grand Opera.
Lake Lucerne
Lake Lucerne is a lake in central Switzerland. It is the fourth largest lake in the country. The German name is Vierwaldstättersee which means: "Lake of the Four Forested Cantons".
It is possible to travel all the way round the side of the lake by road. There are several tunnels on the way. It is very popular with tourists. There are many hotels by the lake.
Die Feen ("The Fairies") is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. The German libretto was written by the composer. He was adapting a story by Carlo Gozzi called "La donna serpente".
"Die Feen" was the first opera that Wagner finished. However, it was never performed during his lifetime. It has never become popular, although the overture is sometimes played. The music shows the influence of Carl Maria von Weber and other composers of the time. It also shows some musical ideas that Wagner was to develop later in his life in his famous operas. The fairy tale atmosphere in the story is also an idea that he uses in his later operas which deal with fantasy stories. The idea of being saved (redemption) is also an important idea that he used in later operas.
Rienzi is an opera by Richard Wagner. Its full title is Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen ("Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes"). It is one of the earliest operas Wagner wrote. There are five acts. Wagner wrote the libretto himself, using the story from a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. It was composed between 1838 and 1840 It was first performed at the Hofoper, Dresden on 20 October 1842. It was the first time Wagner had a success as an opera composer.
The story of the opera is set in Rome and is based on the life of Cola di Rienzi (1313–1354), a medieval Italian populist figure who manages to trick the nobles and their followers. He helps the people to get power. At first he is very popular, but then he has to use force against the nobles, and the Church turns against him. In the end the ordinary people burn the Capitol where Rienzi and his friends are sheltering.
Chess tournament
A chess tournament is a competition between chess players. It can take one of these forms:
Since the first international chess tournament in London, 1851, chess tournaments have become a standard form of competition among regular players.
Der fliegende Holländer ("The Flying Dutchman") is an opera by Richard Wagner. Wagner wrote the libretto himself. The story comes from the legend of the "Flying Dutchman", which is about the captain of a ship. It is his fate that he has keep sailing the sea, without ever going on to land, until Judgment Day.
The most important idea in the story as told by Wagner is redemption through love. It was a favourite idea of Wagner, who used it a lot in his later operas.
Wagner conducted the first performance at the Semper Oper in Dresden, in 1843. It is an early opera of Wagner, but it shows his mature style. It is very different from the previous opera "Rienzi" which is still quite similar to operas that other composers were writing. In "Der fliegende Holländer" the drama is very important. Wagner uses a number of leitmotifs: musical ideas associated with particular characters and themes in the story. The leitmotifs are all introduced in the overture. We hear the famous leitmotif of the ocean and then those of the Dutchman and of Senta, the girl he falls in love with.
Wagner originally wrote "Der fliegende Holländer" to be performed without any breaks (intermission). Sometimes it is performed like that today, but Wagner also made a version with three acts.
Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg (En: "Tannhäuser and the Singers' Contest at Wartburg") is a three-act opera with words and music by Richard Wagner. It was Wagner's fifth opera. He worked on it between 1842 and 1845. It was first performed at the Dresden Royal Opera on 19 October 1845 with Wagner conducting. The opera was a success. It became hugely popular in Germany.
In 1859, "Tannhäuser" was the first Wagner opera to be performed in the United States of America. By 1861, the opera had been performed many times in Germany when Wagner was asked to revise the work for the Paris Opéra. Despite his best efforts, Wagner failed. He was not popular. Anti-Wagner riots broke out. He withdrew the work. It was not staged again in France until 1895. Meanwhile, the opera opened the second season of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in November 1884.
Wagner was in Paris completing "The Flying Dutchman" when he began thinking about writing another opera. A friend suggested Tannhäuser as a subject. Wagner did not like the tale. Back in Germany however, he gathered materials by Tieck, Heine, and others about Tannhäuser. Vacationing in Bohemia, he had a change of heart. He began preparing an outline for "Tannhäuser". Returning home to Dresden, he immersed himself in the tale. He completed the opera in October 1845. He conducted the first performance that month at the Royal Opera House.
His Venus said, "You are a genius, but you write such eccentric stuff that it is impossible to sing." His Tannhäuser was completely baffled. The audience was puzzled. The reception was lukewarm. Wagner began revisions at once. The second performance played to a near empty house. In 1859, Wagner offered "Tannhäuser" to the Paris Opéra. They wanted it sung in French. They also wanted a ballet in the second act. This so the Jockey Club had time to finish dinner and arrive at the Opéra just in time to ogle the dancers. Wagner refused to move the ballet from the first act to the second act. There were complaints. Jockey Club members interrupted the performance whenever possible. It was a disaster.
The opera disappeared from the French stage for 34 years. A few years after the Jockey Club incident, Wagner began revising the Paris version. He produced a sophisticated sound version that was superior to the first draft. Though there are several set pieces in the opera, the opera is closer to Wagner's vision of complete independence from such set pieces. "Tannhäuser" is on the threshold of the leitmotif, and the diminishing of the sound power of the orchestra in favor of the sung word.
Wagner's sources for the opera are spread over 600 year time span. In 1391, and again at the beginning of the 15th century, tales were in circulation about a paradise within a German mountain and a traveler who idles with a Sybil before heading to Rome for the Pope's forgiveness. The "Song of Tannhäuser" of 1515 combines moralizing with the adventures of an historical Minnesinger named Danhuser, Tanhuser, or Tannenhauser. This Minnesinger's songs told of erotic love and its opposite, holy love.
Wagner was an insatiable reader, always on the alert for material that could be adapted to an opera. For "Tannhäuser", he combined elements not only from traditional tales but material from C. J. L. Lukas's "Essay" (1838) on the character of Tannhäuser and Ludwig Tieck's "Faithful Eckart" (1799). Ludwig Bechstein's "Thuringian Legends" (1835) included the story of the song contest. Wagner was familiar with the song contest through E. T. A. Hoffmann's "Serapion Brothers", Friedrich de la Motte-Fouque's drama "The Singers Dispute in the Wartburg" (1828), and Wagensil's "Nuremberg Chronicle"."
The story is about the struggle between sacred love and profane love, and redemption (salvation) through love. The story is based on the historical character of Tannhäuser, about whom very little is known except the myths about him. It is also about the myth of Venus, but it also deals with the medieval Minnesinger (minstrel). Half of the opera takes place in a historical setting, and half takes place in the mythological Venusberg.
The critics took Wagner to task for his historical inaccuracies. First, the real Tannhauser was only a boy at the supposed time of the song contest. Secondly, they regarded Wagner's Elisabeth with scorn: Wagner had made the character an amalgamation of several historical women.
Cuts to the original were made almost immediately because the singers were not capable of understanding and thus acting their roles. The Prelude to Act 3 was cut from 155 bars to 92. In the original final scene, neither Elisabeth or Venus appeared on stage. The audience was puzzled.
The original final scene was retained until the 13th performance in 1847. Wagner then recast the final pages to make Venus visible on stage. The Venusberg did not appear however. This new ending disturbed the audience because they were used to the older version. Wagner had also cut the pilgrim's chorus, further antagonizing the audience. Another version was made restoring the chorus.
The first performance outside Dresden occurred at Weimar. This production demonstrated to small theaters that they could stage the opera. Other productions took place in Schwerin, Breslau, Prague, Wiesbaden, and other small houses. The opera played in New York in 1859. It played in London (in Italian) in 1876. In Vienna, Johann Strauss performed excerpts in 1853. The first Austrian staging occurred at Graz in 1854. Vienna mounted the opera in 1857. The opera was performed at the Vienna court opera in 1875. In 1860, the Paris Opera wanted the work in a revised version in French. Wagner made extensive revisions for Paris.
New York State Route 199
New York State Route 199 (NY 199) is a road in the Hudson Valley of New York, United States. It is long, and goes from near Kingston to Millerton. In between, NY 199 crosses over the Hudson River over a bridge and passes through the communities of Red Hook and Pine Plains. Part of the road was part of the Ulster and Delaware Turnpike. NY 199 was named in 1930.
New York State Route 9G
Kennedy Center Honors
Every year, the Kennedy Center gives its Kennedy Center Honors to artists. These artists have contributed to American culture. Most of these artists were performers, such as actors, dancers, and musicians. Some of these artists were movie directors, play writers, and songwriters. Most of the recipients have been American. The President of the United States usually attends the awards ceremony. The Honors are given in Washington, D.C. at the Kennedy Center Opera House.
From 1978 until 2002, the ceremony was hosted by Walter Cronkite. Since 2003, it has been hosted by Caroline Kennedy.
Cypripedioideae
Lady's slipper orchids are the orchids in the subfamily Cypripedioideae. They are special because of their slipper-shaped pouches on their flowers. The pouch traps insects so that they must climb up past the modified stamens, where they get or give pollen, fertilizing the flower.
Some people think this subfamily should be different from the Orchidaceae as a family Cypripediaceae.
A lady slipper orchid has a deep pocket that is actually a bee trap. When a bee crawls down into the flower to get the nectar, the pocket on the flower closes shut. Because of this, the bee is stuck for a while, wiggling and squirming, getting pollen all over itself.
The bee finally finds a small opening near the top of the orchid, and it gets out so that it can get trapped inside another lady slipper, where it will give that pollen to the other lady slipper's stigma.
The lady's slipper is also known in the United States of America as the "moccasin flower", because it looks like a shoe or moccasin.
Pandita Ramabai
Pandita Ramabai (23 April 1858, Karnataka- 5 April 1922) was an Indian Christian who tried to change many things in India. A poet and scholar, she tried hard to improve (make better) the lives of women in India. She wrote many books, such as her popular "The high
-Caste Indian Woman", which showed the troubles of child wives and women in India.
She was born in Gangamoola, in the Mala village, in Karkala Taluk, in the Karnataka State of India. Her father's name was Ananta Shastri. She lost her parents (Laxmi Bai) early. She travelled to Kolkata with her brother. There, she received (got) a Pandita and a Sarasvathi Award for her expertise in Sanskrit Poetry. Born in the home of an important scholar named Brahmin, Pandita Ramabai had more freedom than many Indian women. Her father taught her and her mother to read Sanskrit writing. She then began to study Christianity in India, and later in England. She decided that it was the best religion; that she should be a Christian. However, she had not yet received Jesus into her "heart". Ramabai later said,
Shortly after her "true conversion", Pandita Ramabai began a faith mission for the girls and widows of India. Pandita and her helpers began a school and prayed for what they needed every day. When a great famine came to India, Pandita went to and saved widows and girls from death or abuse.
Soon she had over a thousand women and girls at the mission. Helping this many people during a time of great famine was very hard, but Pandita wrote in her autobiography,
Every day, Pandita Ramabai and her helpers taught the women to read and write, showed them cleanliness, and helped them prepare for a job. She also taught them about Jesus. She opened Ashrams at Pune, Mumbai. She established a Christian High school at Gulbarga, (now at Karnataka) and her daughter Manorama was the principal. Manorama studied in the United States and traveled to Australia.
Ruy Lopez
The Ruy Lopez, also called the "Spanish Opening", is an ancient chess opening. It is named after the Spanish clerk Ruy Lopez who invented the method. These are the opening moves:
The Ruy Lopez is one of the most common and well liked openings, with many ways to play it. It has always been popular in master chess. Something to know about it is that it does not threaten the black e5 pawn:
For this reason White usually plays a longer-term strategy, starting
Continuous function
A mathematical function is called continuous if, roughly said, a "small change" in the input only causes a "small change" in the output. If this is not the case, the function is discontinuous. Functions defined on the real numbers, with one input and one output variable, will show as an "uninterrupted line (or curve)". They can be drawn "without lifting the pen off of the page". The definition given above was made by Augustin-Louis Cauchy.
Karl Weierstraß gave another definition of continuity: Imagine a function "f", defined on the real numbers. At the point formula_1 the function will have the value formula_2. If the function is continuous at formula_1, then for every value of formula_4 no matter how small it is, there is a value of formula_5, so that formula_6, means that formula_7. We can put this another way, given a point close to formula_1 (called x), the "absolute value" of the difference between the two values of the function can be made increasingly small, if the point x is "close enough" to formula_1.
There are also special forms of continuous, such as "Lipschitz-continuous". A function is Lipschitz-continuous if there is a formula_10 with formula_11 for all x,y ∈ (a,b).
A basic way to know if a function is continuous is to use a pencil or your finger. Then, start at the left of the function. Then, move your finger along the path of the function. If you ever need to lift your finger or pencil to keep following the function, then you know it is not continuous. This is because, by lifting your finger, you have "jumped" from one section of the function to another. That means you made a very small movement but the function changed very much. This is what the first sentence of this article is talking about.
Peter Falk
Peter Michael Falk (September 16, 1927 - June 23, 2011) was an American actor. His best known role was Columbo in the TV series of the same name.
Falk was born in Manhattan on September 16, 1927. He was Jewish. He grew up in Ossining, New York. He earned a degree in political science from the New School for Social Research. He then earned his Master's degree in public administration at Syracuse University.
He appeared in a number of Broadway plays including: "The Prisoner of Second Avenue", "The Passion of Josef D", "Diary of a Scoundrel", and "Saint Joan". Falk won four Emmy Awards playing the police detective Columbo, and one for "The Dick Powell Theatre". He was nominated for seven other Emmy awards. Falk also received two Academy Award nominations for the films "Murder Inc." and "Pocketful of Miracles".
Falk was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He died in his Beverly Hills, California home on the morning of June 23, 2011.
Claude Choules
Claude Choules (3 March 1901 – 5 May 2011) was a British-Australian World War I veteran who served in the Royal Navy.
Born in Wyre Piddle, son of Harry & Madeline (née Winn), near Pershore, Worcestershire, Choules joined the Royal Navy as a young man in 1916, and served aboard the Naval Training Ship HMS Circe at Plymouth. In 1917, he joined the battleship HMS "Revenge", which was the flagship of the First Battle Squadron. While serving aboard her, Choules witnessed the surrender of the German Imperial Navy at the Firth of Forth in 1918, ten days after the Armistice, and was also to witness the scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow.
During World War II, Choules was the Acting Torpedo Officer of Fremantle and also the Chief Demolition Officer on the western side of the Australian continent. He was tasked with sabotaging Fremantle harbors and related oil storage tanks in the event of a Japanese invasion.
He died on 5 May 2011 in Perth, Western Australia at 110 years old.
Florence Green
Florence Green (19 February 1901 – 4 February 2012) was a British supercentenarian. She was the last surviving veteran of World War I. Green was born in London and moved to King's Lynn in 1920 after her marriage to Walter, a railway worker who died in 1970.
She joined up in September 1918, two months before the end of the war. She served as a waitress in the officers' mess at RAF Marham and also at Narborough airfield. She was the last living British veteran following the death of Claude Choules.
She was West Norfolk's oldest resident, the second oldest person in Norfolk and one of the 30 oldest people in Britain.
She had a son and two daughters, as well as four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Florence Green died in her sleep two weeks before her 111th birthday in a care home in King's Lynn, Norfolk.
John Babcock
John Henry Foster "Jack" Babcock (23 July 1900 – 18 February 2010) was the last living Canadian veteran who fought in the First World War. He became an American citizen in 1946.
Born on July 23, 1900, Mr. John “Jack” Babcock grew up on a farm near Kingston, Ontario as part of a family of 13 children. When he was quite young, his father died in a tree-cutting accident. Despite this devastating loss, Mr. Babcock went on to bravely serve his country in the First World War before moving to the United States where he settled in Spokane, Washington.
He was 15 years old when he joined the 146th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Sydenham (near Kingston), Ontario. A few months later, he arrived in England. He was transferred to reserve battalions and ended up with the Boys Battalion in 1917, waiting until he turned 18 to go to the front lines. The war ended first. Mr. Babcock would later move to the United States, where he served in the United States Army from 1921 to 1924. Mr. Babcock married Dorothy after losing his first wife, Elsie, in the late 1970s.
Mr. Babcock read voraciously and, in recent years, completed his high school degree via correspondence courses. He had also taken local college courses. He could recite the alphabet backwards without hesitation and spell out his name in Morse code. He enjoyed travelling with his wife and taking daily walks to keep in good shape. He took up flying lessons and became a pilot when he was 65!
In April 2008, the Minister of Veterans Affairs awarded Mr. Babcock a Minister of Veterans Affairs Commendation. Later that year, a small ceremony was held in May at Mr. Babcock’s home, where his Canadian citizenship was reinstated. Another accolade came in September 2008 when the Royal Canadian Regiment Association honored Mr. Babcock with the honorary title of regimental patriarch. This was the first time the title of regimental patriarch was given in Canada.
Frank Buckles
Frank Buckles (1 February 1901 – 27th February 2011) was the last living American veteran who fought in World War I.
Buckles was born in Bethany, Missouri. He enlisted in the U.S. Army at the beginning of America's involvement in World War I in April 1917. Only 16 years old at the time, Buckles was asked by his recruiter to show a birth certificate. Later Buckles said of that event, "“I was just 16 and didn’t look a day older. I confess to you that I lied to more than one recruiter. I gave them my solemn word that I was 18, but I’d left my birth certificate back home in the family Bible. They’d take one look at me and laugh and tell me to go home before my mother noticed I was gone. Somehow I got the idea that telling an even bigger whopper was the way to go. So I told the next recruiter that I was 21 and darned if he didn’t sign me up on the spot! I enlisted in the Army on the 14th of August 1917.""
Before being accepted into the United States Army, he was turned down by the Marine Corps due to his slight weight.
In 1917, Buckles was sent to Europe on the RMS Carpathia, which had rescued RMS Titanic survivors five years earlier. During the war Buckles served in England and France, driving ambulances and motorcycles for the Army's 1st Fort Riley Casualty Detachment.
After the Armistice in 1918, Buckles escorted prisoners of war back to Germany. Following his discharge in 1919, he attended the dedication of the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, in honor of those Americans who died in World War I. While there, he met General John "Black Jack" Pershing, commander of all U.S. forces in France during the war.
In the 1940s Buckles worked for a shipping company in Manila, Philippines. He was captured by the Japanese in 1942 and spent the next three and a half years in the Los Baños prison camp.
He became malnourished, with a weight below 100 lb, and developed beriberi, yet led his fellow inmates in calisthenics. He was rescued on February 23, 1945.
He died on 27 February 2011 at 110 years old.
Józef Kowalski
Jozef Kowalski (2 February 1900 - 7 December 2013) was the last Polish veteran who served just after the First World War. He is the oldest verified military veteran in the world, following the death of Gertrude Noone.
He fought in the Polish-Soviet War that was linked to the First World War. It lasted from 1919 to 1921. He is the only living person who is known to have definitely fought in that war.
He lived in Tursk, near Sulęcin, in a care home. He died on 7 December 2013, aged 113.
Stanley Lucas
Stanley Lucas (15 January 1900 - 21 June 2010) was a British supercentenarian. He was the oldest living man in Europe at the time of his death. He was also the third-oldest man in the world. Lucas was born at Morwenstow UK and had two brothers and two sisters. In 1908 his family moved to Marhamchurch where Lucas lived until 1948. Lucas married Ivy Nancekivell in 1926 and took over the family farm. Lucas was a breeder of Devon cattle and Devon longwool sheep and started a dairy farm in the early 1940s. In 1948 he moved to live with his family at Poughill, where he continued to live after Ivy's death in 1963. Lucas was a member of Bude Town Council from 1959–1970, as well as vice chairman. His daughter said, "He has worked hard in his working life and was a teetotaller and non-smoker and since he has been elderly has been well cared for". He died on 21 June 2010 in Bude, England at the age of 110.
Michelle Keegan
David Jason
Sir David John White, OBE, (born 2 February 1940), known professionally as by his stage name David Jason, is an English actor, comedian, voice actor, screenwriter and television producer; He is best known for his roles as Del Boy in the BBC and GOLD comedy series sitcom "Only Fools and Horses and Detective Insepctor Jack Frost in A Touch Of Frost, Granville in Open All Hours and Still Open All Hours, and Pop Larkin in The Darling Buds of May, as well as voicing Mr. Toad in The Wind in the Williows and the title character of DangerMouse and Count Duckula; His last original was Del Boy was in 2014 and Frost in 2010."
Jason was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1993, and knighted in 2005, both for services to drama. He won the British Comedy Awards Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001, and the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award in 2003.
Jason lived with his long term girlfriend, actress Myfanwy Talog, for eighteen years until her death from breast cancer in 1995. At age 61, Jason and 41 year old girlfriend Gill Hinchcliffe had a baby girl in 2001. They married in 2005.
David Jason has a total of twenty-three awards between 1986 and 2003. His hit comedy show, "Only Fools and Horses" won many of these awards, and was also nominated many times. His crime drama, A Touch of Frost, has also won and been nominated many times. "Porterhouse Blue", "The Second Quest", "All the King's Men" and "A Bit of a Do" have won David Jason one award each.
Karl Malden
Karl Malden (22 March 1912 – 1 July 2009) was an American actor. He worked in acting from the 1930s to 2000. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in "A Streetcar Named Desire". He was also in other classic movies, such as "On the Waterfront", "One-Eyed Jacks" and "Patton". He is perhaps best known for his role on television in the series "The Streets of San Francisco" during the 1970s.
He was born Mladen Sekulovich in Chicago. He grew up in Gary, Indiana. His family was Serbian. In 1938, he married Broadway actress Mona Greenberg. The two would remain married until Malden's death in 2009. Greenberg died in July 2019.
At one time he served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Among other awards he won during his lifetime was an Emmy Award for his role in "Fatal Vision". He was also given a Life Achievement Award by the Screen Actors' Guild in 2003.
Malden died in Los Angeles at the age of 97.
John Campbell Ross
John Campbell Ross (11 March 1899 - 3 June 2009) was the last living Australian World War I veteran.
Born in Newtown, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Ross served as a wireless operator in the First Australian Imperial Force, enlisting in January 1918, but never left Australia or saw active service. He later went on to serve in the Second World War as a corporal with the 20th Battalion, Volunteer Defence Corps.
His wife, Irene (née Laird), had been deceased by several decades before Jack Ross's death. He is survived by a son, Robert, a daughter, Peggy Ashburn, four grandchildren- Janette, Heather, Kay, and John - and nine great-grand children.
On 11 November 1998, Jack Ross had been awarded the 80th Anniversary Armistice Medal to mark the end of World War I. Jack also had been awarded the Centenary Medal for doing his share to the Australian society in the 100 years since the federation.
The death of William Evan Allan in October 2005 left Ross as the last Australian digger from World War I. However Claude Choules, a World War I veteran who served for Britain, lived in Western Australia. Ross became Australia's oldest man at the age of 108, on 12 June 2007, upon the death of Frank Scarrabelotti. Following the death of 112 year old E. Beatrice Riley, he was verified as the oldest person in Australia.
Ross celebrated his 110th birthday with chocolates and cake and a commemorative letter from the Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd.
As a civilian, Ross worked for Victorian Railways until he retired in 1964. Ross died peacefully in his sleep at approximately 4 am. at the Golden Oaks Nursing Home in Bendigo on 3 June 2009, aged 110.
List of veterans of World War I who died in 2009–12
This a list of known veterans of World War I who died in 2009 (5 veterans), 2010 (1 veteran), 2011 (2 veterans) and 2012 (1 veteran). Florence Green, who died on 4 February 2012, was the last surviving veteran of any nation.
These people served in the armed forces during World War I.
Listed here are the veterans who were not verified as a World War I veteran.
Listed here are those that joined the armed services after the Armistice date, but before the Treaty of Versailles was signed, or where there is debate on their join-date, or whose military service is sometimes viewed as outside the scope of "WWI", but are considered World War I-era veterans by the press or by their respective governments, or served in a related conflict.
Bill Stone
William Frederick "Bill" Stone (born 23 September 1900 - 10 January 2009) was a British veteran of World War I who served in the Royal Navy. He died on 10 January 2009.
List of veterans of World War I who died in 2008
These are the veterans that served during the First World War who died in 2008
Norman Wisdom
Sir Norman Joseph Wisdom (4 February 1915 – 4 October 2010) was an English comedian, singer, songwriter, actor and musician.
Lazare Ponticelli
Lazare Ponticelli (7 December 1897 - 12 March 2008) was a French World War I veteran.
In August 1914, after the start of World War I, Ponticelli joined the 1st Régiment de Marche of the French Foreign Legion at 16 years old. He had to lie about his age as he was still to young to join the army. His older brother, Céleste Ponticelli, had also joined the regiment.Ponticelli said that France had done much for him, and being in the army was his way of showing his thanks. He fought at Soissons in Picardy, northeast France and at Douaumont, near Verdun. Ponticelli worked digging burial pits and trenches.
Ponticelli was not a French citizen and in May 1915, when Italy entered the war, he was forced into the Italian Army by conscription. Even though he tried to stay with his French regiment, he had to become part of the 3rd Alpini Regiment. Ponticelli fought against the Austro-Hungarian Army at Mount Piccolo on the Austria–Italy border. At his new job as a machine gunner, Ponticelli was wounded by a shell during an assault on an Austrian mountain. He was sent back to his job after rest in Naples.
Once, his regiment stopped fighting the Austrians for three weeks. The armies, who mostly spoke the same language, traded loaves of bread for tobacco and took pictures of each other. His commanders found out about this, and moved the regiment to another area.
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