Marxism is the name for a set of political and economic ideas.

The basic ideas are that:

 The world is split into multiple classes (groups) of people. The two main classes are the working class and the ruling class. The working class is exploited by the ruling class.
 There is a class conflict
When workers realize their exploitation, they will revolt and take over ownership of factories and materials (dictatorship of the proletariat)
 Communism (stateless, classless society with free enterprise).

These ideas come from the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and their most notable work is The Communist Manifesto. They have had a lot of influence in many countries. Marxism influenced other political views, such as social democracy and reformist socialism. Both believe that the ideas of Marx and Engels can be achieved through what Marx called 'bourgeois democracy'.

People disagree a lot on how a Marxist society should be organized: "Marxist political economists differ over their definitions of capitalism, socialism and communism. These differences are so fundamental, the arguments among Marxist political economists have sometimes been as intense as their oppositions to capitalism".

Marxism is placed on the left-wing to far-left of the political spectrum.

Key ideas

The working class vs. the capitalist class
Marxism says that people in the world are organized into different groups, or classes, based on what they do for work.

Most people are called "workers" because they work in factories, offices, or farms for money. They belong to the "working class" (or "proletariat"). These people do not own the places they work in or the materials they need for their work.

Another group, who are not as big as the working class, are "capitalists" (or "bourgeoisie"). They own the factories, land, and buildings that the workers work in.  They also own some of the tools the workers have to use. Marx calls capitalists the "Ruling Class" because they live off of the work of all the workers. He also says that the capitalists own the government, army, and courts.

In Marxist views, capital is the "means of production" and money which the capitalist can invest in different places of business, so that they can "profit" or gain more capital.

Most workers work for companies owned by either capitalists or "petit-bourgeois" (small-time exploiters). The capitalist pays the worker in exchange for the worker's time. The capitalist has bought a period of time from the worker, which the worker must then use to labor for the capitalist. According to Marxist thinking, this is the only way that a capitalist can create extra money from a commodity (a piece of merchandise).  The capitalist exploits the worker's time as much as they can. The capitalist receives a certain price for the commodity the worker made.  The capitalist builds up capital by paying the worker less than that price.  In this way, the capitalist exploits the worker's labor by:
 Not paying the worker what their labor was worth
 Keeping the extra money that they did not pay the worker

Here is an example of exploitation of labor.  Jane is a shoemaker. She works for Michael, who owns a shoe factory that can make 60 pairs of shoes in a day. Jane makes 60 pairs of shoes every day. Michael pays Jane $20 a day.  However, Michael sells each pair of shoes for $2 each.  This means he makes $120 in a day.  After he pays Jane her $20 wage, Michael has $100 left over. However he then has to pay for materials which cost $1 for each pair, so that's $60 each day. Then running expenses of the factory cost him $10 a day. So he only gets $30 at the end of the day for managing the business.  This remaining wealth is called "Profit" or "Surplus [extra] Value." In other words, even though Jane makes 60 shoes every day, she only gets paid the value of 10 pairs of shoes. The rest of the day, while she is making the other 50 shoes, she is creating money for her boss.  Her labor is making him richer and helping him earn money.

It is this Surplus Value, or Profit, which Marxism thinks as an exploitation of labor. This exploitation allows the smaller class (capitalists) to live without working while making a profit, while the bigger class (the workers) have to work for the capitalists to survive under usually poor working conditions.

Marxism says that factories, tools, and work places cannot create new value on their own. They are like a blueberry bush: it has no value on its own. People have to create that value by laboring. For example, someone spends a day picking blueberries. Those blueberries can now be traded or eaten because of the labor that was put in to pick them.

Class struggle

Marxist thinking claims that capitalists and workers are constantly struggling. They call this "Dialectical Materialism."  This is the idea that the history of humans is the history of conflict between classes. Different classes with different interests argue or fight each other. Social change (or in its absence, social stagnation) is the result.

Marxism says that capitalists want to exploit the workers as much as possible and make their pay as low as they can. The capitalists do this to create as much profit for themselves as possible, as quickly as possible.  Workers, on the other hand, have to struggle to keep their wages up and to keep the "rate of exploitation" low, so that they can live more peaceful lives. This is what Marxism calls "class struggle": where workers and their bosses fight against each other to gain for themselves.

Marxists think that all of written human history has been divided by economic classes. One example is feudal society (a medieval society controlled by feudal lords and nobles). The ruling class got their power and wealth from the labor of peasants (farmers). But as peasants demanded more and more for themselves, small shopkeepers and tradespeople began to appear. Many of these people formed guilds and eventually began to employ workers.  These workers were able to gain wealth for themselves at these jobs. These historical events created capitalism.

In this way, Marxists think that history has been pushed forward by class struggle. They think that change will be born from this struggle, just like capitalism was.  However, they also think that capitalism will give way to communism; as the exploitation of workers becomes worse it will lead workers to revolt against their capitalist rulers.

Materialism
The core of Marxist thinking is called Materialism. Materialism is a philosophical view that says that communities develop from the "ground up".  It says that the "higher" qualities of culture (like art, manners, customs, and religions) are actually founded on the "lower" or simpler qualities of life.  These qualities include having enough of what people need to survive, like food and shelter; who has money and what they have to do to get it; who is allowed to work, and who is forced to work.

Changes in the higher qualities of culture (sometimes called the "Superstructure") are often linked to changes in the lower qualities of life (sometimes called the "Base"). One example is that in medieval times,  people thought "honor" or duty to people with more power than them was very important.  Today, in Western countries, many people see ambition (being someone who works hard for their own goals) as more important.  This is because, in medieval times, people worked their entire lives under lords who depended on them not only for work but for war.  Today, people work for themselves more, and our society lets some people move up from being poor to being rich. In this case, what people see as good and important depends on how the rulers get value out of their workers.

A "classless society"
Marxism recognizes that in earlier time periods, we lived first under rulers who owned everything.  Then we lived under lords who owned land with workers who lived and worked on that land. In Marx's time, people lived under governments that allowed many people to own property. Eventually, Marxists believe that we will move to a society where everyone owns everything in common. This will be called communism.

In other words, human society has always been based on the economic forces that human beings can control. For Marxism, this means that each society would take its form based on its "mode of production."

Marxists believe that humans' ability to produce goods and services today means people can move beyond the conflicts of a society that is divided into classes. Many Marxists believe that there will always be revolts and, with the right conditions, revolutions. In these revolutions, the workers will fight the capitalists. If they win, they will set up a socialist "workers' state" (a form of government where the workers are the rulers of society). This workers' state will only be temporary.  Its job will be to take power away from the capitalists, until all the capitalist countries in the world are defeated, and social classes no longer exist.

Marxists believe that if the working class makes itself the ruling class, and destroys the basis for class society (private property, or what Marx called "Bourgeois Property"), there will be a "classless society."  In a Marxist society, no social classes are in conflict, and there is no government anymore.  The state will no longer be needed. There would be no countries. The world will have no borders. There will be communes around the world.  Workers will organize production of goods and services based on what people need, not based on profits.

Beliefs about modern communism
Some Marxists say that modern "communism" is not communism at all. They say that "communist" countries like the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, Cuba, and Vietnam are really using different forms of capitalism, often with heavily "nationalized" industries. A thinker named Tony Cliff was one of the biggest supporters of these ideas. He wrote that states like the Soviet Union and Communist China (before 1980) were "State-Capitalist."

Not all communists, socialists, or Marxists agree on this question. However, many strong supporters of Marxism agree that:
 With socialism, workers have democratic control over economic decisions and social justice
 An economy produces things (makes goods and services) based on what people need
 Socialism will die and change into communism when capitalism is defeated

Distinction between Marxism, communism and socialism
People use these terms interchangeably but this is incorrect. These concepts have different meanings:

 Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism.
 Socialism is a way of organizing a society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the working class, instead of the capitalists.
Communism is the theoretical classless, stateless society that Marx proposed would arise after the demise of capitalism.

Related pages
 Karl Marx
 Friedrich Engels
 The Communist Manifesto, by Marx and Engels
 Socialism
 Communism
 Marxist economics
 Secular religion

Reading

Footnotes

Marxism


The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is an international environmental organization. It was founded as the World Wildlife Fund, which is still its official name in Canada and the United States.

Most of its offices are in Switzerland. Their mascot, or logo, is the Giant Panda. It is the world's largest independent wildlife management organization. It has over 5 million supporters worldwide, working in more than 90 countries. WWF supports 15,000 conservation and environmental projects around the world. It is a charity. About 90% of its fundraising money is from donations by private individuals and businesses.

The group says its mission is "to halt and reverse the destruction of our natural environment". Much of its work focuses on the conservation of three biomes that contain most of the world's biodiversity: forests, freshwater ecosystems, and oceans and coasts. Among other issues, it is also concerned with endangered species, pollution and climate change. The organization runs more than 1,200 field projects worldwide each year.

References

International environmental organizations
Organizations based in Switzerland
Conservation
Charities
Nyon (district)

World Wide Fund for Nature


Opera is a drama set to music. An opera is like a play in which everything is sung instead of spoken. Operas are usually performed in opera houses. The singers who sing and act out the story are on the stage, and the orchestra is in front of the stage but lower down, in the orchestra pit, so that the audience can see the stage.

Musical numbers of an opera

An opera is normally divided into two, three, four or even five acts. In older operas the music was mostly recitative and arias. During the recitative things would happen in the story. The aria was a song for a solo singer, a setting of a lyric. As well as recitative and aria there would be choruses. The chorus were a group of singers who sing in the crowd scenes. The opera would start with an overture for the orchestra. The overture would usually include tunes that are going to be heard later in the opera.

In operas from the 19th century onwards there is often little or no difference between recitative and aria. Composers like Wagner wanted to get away from operas which had lots of separate arias in which the singers showed off, with the audience clapping loudly after each one. He wanted continuous music so that the mood would not be broken.

Sometimes operas have a lot of dancing in them. French opera especially would often have one act which was full of dances.

Types of opera
Not all operas have music all the time.

Grand opera is opera which is all set to music.

Opéra bouffe (French) or Opera buffa (Italian) is comic opera. The story is very light-hearted and funny.

Opéra comique is a French term for opera which has some spoken words. Surprisingly it does not mean a "comic" opera. An opera like Carmen, which is a tragedy, is still an opéra comique due to the fact that it uses spoken dialogues instead of recitatives.

Singspiel is a German term for a type of opera with lots of magic and fantasy in the story. There were spoken words between the songs. Mozart's Magic Flute is an example.

Operetta is a short opera which is light-hearted and usually has some spoken words.

The singers

Opera singers have to have powerful voices as well as a good technique. Most opera houses are very big, and the singers need to be heard at the back. They also need to be good at acting. They need to be able to learn their music quickly and to sing from memory. It is a help to be good at languages because operas are often in Italian, German, French, English or Russian etc. Some opera companies, like the English National Opera, sing their operas in English. Others, like the Royal Opera House, sing operas in whatever language they were composed in. Translations are printed on a screen above the front of the stage ("surtitles") so that the audience can understand what is being sung.

Although singers train to get a wide range (good top and bottom notes) they cannot be expected to sing any role in their voice range. For example: some sopranos may have big, dramatic voices, suitable for parts like Tosca in Puccini's opera Tosca. Some may have a very light and high voice, called "coloratura", suitable for parts like the Queen of the Night in Mozart's Magic Flute. Some may have a medium range, called mezzo-soprano, suitable for parts like Carmen in Bizet's opera Carmen.

Very often in opera the heroine is a soprano and the hero is a tenor. Basses may often have the part of a powerful king, or he may be the bad guy.

Operatic conventions

The 18th century lexicographer and critic Dr Johnson  described opera as an "exotic and irrational entertainment". By "exotic" he meant that it came from a foreign country (which in those days was true: all opera at the time came from Italy). By "irrational" he meant that the things which happened in the stories were strange and not like real life. A play can be like real life, but an opera is being sung, so things are not going to happen like they normally do in real life. A singer might be singing "I must go, I must go!" and he may stand on the stage and sing this for several minutes before at last he goes! A singer may be pretending to die, and will sing a beautiful song before he or she finally dies. These things are "conventions", which means that they are a kind of habit we have to accept when watching and listening to opera. Another convention of earlier operas was to have the part of young men sung by women. This is sometimes called a breeches role or trouser role. They are often small parts such as page boys, or teenagers who flirt with older women, such as the part of Cherubino in Mozart's  The Marriage of Figaro or Oktavian in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. It should be remembered that in the 18th century it was usual for the main female part to be sung by a man who was a castrato.

There are lots of famous operas, and the best ones have some of the greatest music ever written. The music could not have been written like that if it had not been written for opera. For example: Mozart is very clever at writing music where maybe six people are all singing different things at once because they all have different ideas about the situation in the story.

The history of opera

Medieval Opera (mid 12th century)

One of the first operas ever written was Ordo Virtutum by  Hildegard of Bingen. Ordo Virtutum (Latin for Order of the Virtues) is an allegorical morality play, or liturgical drama,  composed c. 1151, during the construction and relocation of Bingen's Abbey at Rupertsberg. It is the earliest morality play by more than a century, and the only Medieval musical drama to survive with an attribution for both the text and the music.

A short version of Ordo Virtutum without music appears at the end of Scivias, Hildegard's most famous account of her visions. It is also included in some manuscripts of the Symphonia armoniae celestium revelationum ("Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations"), a cycle of more than 70 liturgical songs. It may have been performed by the convent nuns at the dedication of the St. Rupertsberg church in 1152 or possibly before the Mass for the Consecration of Virgins at the convent .

Baroque opera (1600-1750)

The first Baroque opera ever written was performed in 1597 in Florence in Italy. It was called Dafne and the composer was Jacopo Peri. This opera is now lost, but three years later, in 1600, he worked together with another composer called Giulio Caccini to write an opera called Euridice. The music for this still exists. It was nearly all recitative. This kind of writing was new, but if opera was to tell a story it was important to have a solo voice singing words that could be heard. They were trying to produce something like an ancient Greek tragedy. It was performed at a kind of club, called "camerata", for intellectual (clever) people to a small audience. It was not great music, but the amazing thing was that there was a composer of genius around. His name was Claudio Monteverdi, and only seven years later, in 1607, he wrote the first really good opera: Orfeo, which was produced in Mantua. Monteverdi must have realized that opera had the possibilities of putting poetry, music, scenery and acting all together. He took the kind of songs that were popular at the time and joined them with speaking or recitative. Later in life he joined these so that the music flowed more dramatically.

In 1637 the first public opera house was opened in Venice. Soon lots of theatres in Italy started to produce operas. The stories were usually about ancient times, like the Roman Empire or Greek myths. They started to put in comic (funny) bits to make people laugh. Soon there was opera in Paris, Vienna, Hamburg and in the small courts of Germany which in those days was lots of little countries, each with their own prince who ruled and who kept musicians at court. The composers who are best remembered today include Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) who was an Italian who moved to France and wrote operas for the French king, and George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) who was a German who moved to England and wrote operas for the opera houses in London. In Italy there were composers like Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676) who had been a choirboy in Monteverdi's church choir in Venice, and Alessandro Scarlatti 1660-1725 who lived in Naples.

During this period, known as the Baroque period, the opera was an entertainment for the upper classes who went to the opera to be seen in public. Opera was a social occasion where you could meet people and talk, even during the music. Both the singers and the audience behaved in ways that we would think were bad manners.

Classical opera (late 18th century)

Christoph Willibald Gluck was a composer who tried to make people take opera more seriously. In 1762 he wrote an opera called Orfeo ed Euridice which was performed in Vienna. It had lots of choruses and ballet numbers, like French opera, but the words were in Italian and the music really concentrated on the story rather than being just a display for clever singers to show off. Some of its music is very famous today, e.g. the Dance of the Blessed Spirits which is played on a flute, and Orfeo's aria "Che faró senza Euridice?" ("What shall I do without Euridice?").

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart learned from Gluck's ideas about opera. This can be seen in his opera Idomeneo which is about a Greek story. Other Italian operas by Mozart include: Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro and Cosi fan tutte. He also wrote operas in German: The Abduction from the Serail and The Magic Flute. These are Singspiel: operas which tell magic and fantasy stories.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) only wrote one opera: Fidelio. It is a story of a woman who rescues her lover from prison. Rescue operas were popular in France, but this one is in German. It is a serious opera about how a woman can save a man by being true and faithful.

Romantic opera (19th century)

In the 19th century Richard Wagner (1813-1883) continued Gluck's ideas. Wagner had very personal ideas about how his operas should be performed, and he liked to train the singers himself. He wanted them to take the drama of his operas seriously instead of treating the music as a way of showing off their voices. He always wrote the libretti (words for the opera) himself, and they were always in German. They are mostly about serious subjects from German folklore and myths, although he did write one comic opera: The Mastersingers of Nürnberg. Wagner used "leitmotifs" which means that there are tunes which are used for particular characters or ideas in the opera. This allows the music to develop with the story, and can be used in interesting ways. For example: when Sigmund (in the opera Die Walküre) says that he does not know who his father is, we hear his father's tune in the orchestra! The audience, of course, know (this is called: dramatic irony).

In Italy Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) wrote lots of operas. There was no difference in style between his comic and his serious operas. Often the same overture was used for both. He wrote exactly all the notes that the singers were to sing, he did not want to leave it to them to improvise their own ornamental notes. Everything was carefully thought out. Musicians are not sure whether to call him a Classical or Romantic composer. Composers like Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) and Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) are definitely Romantic. They had the ability to write lovely lyrical tunes. The most famous Italian opera composer of the 19th century was Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901). His music is not always continuous like Wagner's. Sometimes it stopped for the audience to applaud. Verdi had a wonderful sense of drama, and could write beautiful melodies which captured people's hearts. He loved Shakespeare, and based several of his operas on Shakespeare plays: Othello, Macbeth and Falstaff.

The 19th century was the time when Nationalism was important. Composers were writing music typical of their own countries. Wagner, as we have seen, took German myths for his opera stories. In Spain they had their own kind of opera called "zarzuela". In Russia Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857) wrote Ruslan and Lyudmila which was based on a Russian fairy tale. Other Russian composers include Alexander Borodin who wrote Prince Igor, and Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) who wrote Boris Godunov. Both these operas are about stories from Russian history. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) wrote a fairy tale opera Sadko, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) used some very Russian tunes in Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades.

Czech composers wrote national operas. The most famous Czech opera composers were Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904), Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884) and Leoš Janáček (1854-1928). In France the most famous composer was Charles Gounod (1818-1893) who wrote an opera called Faust.

Opera in the 20th century

In the 20th century composers had many different styles of composing. This was true of all kinds of music, including opera. Richard Strauss (1864-1949) was really a Romantic, although almost all his operas were written in the 20th century. His harmonies show that he had studied Wagner's operas. Der Rosenkavalier (1909) has lots of romantic tunes, although it is a story about Vienna in the Classical period. In Italy composers like Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) wrote operas in the verismo style. This meant operas with stories that felt like real life. The characters in the stories were usually from the lower classes.

Alban Berg (1885-1935) also wrote operas about poor or simple people. He wrote an opera called Wozzeck which is the tragedy of a man who is too simple to understand that people are being unkind to him and using him. Berg's music is often built on the twelve tone series which he had learned from Schoenberg. Stravinsky's (1882-1971) The Rake's Progress is in yet another style called Neo-classical because the music is made to sound a bit like music of the Classical Period. In England Britten wrote many great operas like Peter Grimes and Billy Budd. In Russia Dmitri Shostakovich wrote Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Most of them are about unfortunate people who want to be part of society but are not accepted.

More recent composers who wrote operas include the Hungarian György Ligeti (1923-2006), the Polish Krzysztof Penderecki (b.1933), the English Sir Harrison Birtwistle and the Americans Philip Glass (b.1937) and John Adams (b.1947).

Opera


Uganda is a landlocked country in East Africa whose diverse landscape encompasses the snow-capped Rwenzori Mountains and immense Lake Victoria. Its abundant wildlife includes chimpanzees as well as rare birds. Remote Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is a renowned mountain gorilla sanctuary. Murchison Falls National Park in the northwest is known for its 43m-tall waterfall and wildlife such as hippos.

Uganda


Polarization (also polarisation) is a property of some types of waves.  Some waves have motion in another direction as well as the direction of the wave.  In water, for instance, the wave will move across the water, but the wave will also move water up and down on the surface.  Light waves are similarly transverse waves though they are also particles.  Sound waves do not have polarization, since they are longitudinal waves. Polarized sunglasses take advantage of these oscillations.

Light

Light reflected by shiny transparent materials is partly or fully polarized, except when the light is perpendicular to the surface.  Polarization was first discovered in 1808 by the mathematician Etienne Louis Malus. A polarizing filter, such as a pair of polarizing sunglasses, can be used to observe this effect by rotating the filter while looking through it at the reflection off of a distant horizontal surface. At certain rotation angles, the reflected light will be reduced or eliminated. Polarizing filters remove light polarized at 90° to the filter's polarization axis. If two polarizers are placed atop one another at 90° angles to one another, very little light can pass through both.

Polarization by scattering is observed as light passes through the atmosphere. The scattered light produces the brightness and color in clear skies. This partial polarization of scattered light can be used to darken the sky in photographs, increasing the contrast. This effect is easiest to observe at sunset, on the horizon at a 90° angle from the setting sun. Another easily observed effect is the drastic reduction in brightness of images of the sky and clouds reflected from horizontal surfaces. This is why polarizing filters are often used in sunglasses. Polarizing sunglasses also show rainbow-like patterns caused by color-dependent birefringent effects, for example in toughened glass (e.g., car windows) or items made from transparent plastics. The role played by polarization in the operation of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) is also frequently apparent to the wearer of polarizing sunglasses, which may reduce the contrast or even make the display unreadable.

Polarization filter
Polarization of light is useful, after it has been filtered.  A filter will separate light with one type of polarization from other types.  Most daylight, or light from a light bulb, has a mix of polarizations (lasers are an exception).  The filter works much like trying to put a playing card through a comb - only if the card is turned the right direction will it fit.  Light that is turned a different way will be blocked by the filter.  Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) use this to block light to make letters or numbers on a display.  Glasses that have different polarization filters for each eye can separate light meant for the left eye and for the right eye.  This is a common way to make 3D movies and 3D television.

In nature sometimes light that bounces off of a surface has the same polarization - this is called 'glare' from a window or water.  A polarization filter on a camera will remove this glare to help see through the window or water (or can increase the glare, depending on how it is turned).

The photograph on the right was taken through polarizing sunglasses and through the rear window of a car. Light from the sky is reflected by the windshield of the other car at an angle, making it mostly horizontally polarized. The rear window is made of tempered glass. Stress from heat treatment of the glass alters the polarization of light passing through it, like a wave plate. Without this effect, the sunglasses would block the horizontally polarized light reflected from the other car's window. The stress in the rear window, however, changes some of the horizontally polarized light into vertically polarized light that can pass through the glasses. As a result, the regular pattern of the heat treatment becomes visible.

Electromagnetic
Other electromagnetic waves also have polarization, but it can happen in different ways.

General polarization: Some waves can be described by having the electric field perpendicular to the direction of the wave, and these are called TE (transverse electric) waves. Others have the magnetic field perpendicular to the direction of the wave, and these are called TM (transverse magnetic) waves. These are the most general types of wave polarization. They can also be called vertical or horizontal polarized waves. If both the electric field and magnetic field are perpendicular to the direction of the wave, the wave is called TEM (transverse electromagnetic). Linear, circular, and elliptical polarizations are specific cases of TEM polarization.

Linear, circular, and elliptical polarizations are three specific types of TEM polarization. They cannot be measured close to an antenna. Far away from an antenna the fields are TEM, so these can be used. They are easy to imagine if you look from at the wave straight on.

Linear polarization Looking along the direction of the wave, the electric field is a single straight line. If the direction of the electric field remains constant, even if the size or magnitude is allowed to change, the state of polarization is referred to as linear. This is because the tip of the electric field vector traces out a straight line in the plane perpendicular to the forward direction of the wave. (Similar to shaking a jump rope up and down, looking at the rope from one end. The moving rope will make the shape of a line).

Circular polarization Looking along the direction of the wave, the electric field traces out the shape of a circle. If the magnitude of the electric field remains constant, and the direction is allowed to vary, the state of polarization is referred to as circular, because the tip of the electric field traces out a circle in the plane perpendicular to the forward direction of the wave. In particular, the circle may be traced out in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction (as the wave is traveling away). (This is similar to swinging a jump rope around for jumping, it makes a circle shape).

Elliptical polarization This is like the circular polarization, but the magnitude changes as it rotates, forming an ellipse.

Electromagnetism
Light

Polarization


Kamenny Monastery (Russian: Спасо-Преображенский Свято-Каменный монастырь) was the name of a Russian Orthodox monastery situated on a small eponymous island in the very centre of the Kubensky Lake, in Ust-Kubinsky District of Vologda Oblast, Russia. It is distinguished as the first stone monastery of the Russian North.

Overview
Kamenny Island (literally, "Stone Island") is very small, measuring just 120 metres by 70 metres. It is so named after stone ramparts set up by the monks around the island's perimeter in order to preclude its erosion. The lake is known for its inclement weather and frequent storms. The monastery was quite rich, owning seven larger villages (selo), four average villages (seltso) and 98 small villages, in addition to two salt pans in Totma and two branches in Vologda.

History

It is believed that during one of such storms in 1269 Duke Gleb of Beloozero was cast ashore, where he found a small monastic community. The legends of the monks attribute the construction of the first timber cathedral on the isle to the funds subsequently provided by that monarch.

Under Dmitry Donskoy, the Kamenny Monastery was run by Dionisius, a Greek monk who introduced the coenobian rule of Mount Athos, whereby the brethren were closed alike, took their meals (usually limited to bread and scarce vegetables) in the refectory and were bound to possess no private property. Female animals were banned from the isle to avoid any impure thought on the part of the monks.

The monastic community reached its peak under Paisiy Yaroslavov, a former hegumen of the Trinity Lavra and one of the most influential clerics of the time. This starets authored The Tale of the Kamenny Monastery whose main themes are the history of this monastery and the struggle of its monks against paganism in the area.

In 1476 the monastery burnt down. Ivan III's brother Andrey Menshoy, who was the ruler of Vologda, commissioned a stone four-pillared cathedral to be built on the island. The two-storey two-domed edifice was constructed in 1481 by a team of masters from Rostov, who proceeded to erect very similar cathedrals in the Ferapontov Monastery (1490) and Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery (1497). Paisiy Yaroslavov mentions that he engaged the great artist Dionisius to paint a deesis for the cathedral. It is believed that Dionisius's works perished 185 years later, during a great fire, which resulted in the collapse of the domes.

In the 16th century, the Kamenny Monastery did not develop as quickly as the two last-mentioned abbeys, because of the limited territory that the tiny and remote island could afford. In the 1540s, the monks constructed a church-belltower of curious architecture and a refectory, after which the monastery gradually declined to obscurity. It was remembered in Moscow primarily as a place of exile, where the famous Old Believer, Ivan Neronov, was deported. On 24 July 1774 one of the exiles set the monastery on fire, whereupon the monks were transferred for 26 years to Vologda. When they finally returned to the island in 1801, the cathedral was restored with five domes instead of one. The only post-medieval buildings on the island were an inn and two lighthouses, built for the needs of the monastery in the 1870s.

Closure and destruction
The Soviet government closed down the Kamenny Monastery in 1925 and had its brethren evacuated from the island. The buildings were adapted to house a penal colony for minor delinquents. This establishment proved a failure and by 1937 the island had been deserted. The regional administration profited from the situation to blow up the oldest building of the Russian North in order to obtain brick required for construction of the local "palace of culture", which eventually failed to materialise. The ruins of the cathedral are still in situ.

, the only building marking the spot of the historic monastery is the church belltower from the 1540s, which is now being repaired by a team of enthusiasts from Vologda and Moscow.

Restoration
In October, 2017, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church officially decided to reopen Spaso-Kamenny Preobrazhensky monastery with Dionysius (Vozdvizhenskiy) as hegumen.

Online references
 Kamenny Monastery Restoration Fund
 Kamenny Monastery and Dionisius
((ru icon)) (in English) https://www.supernewsworld.com/Russian-Skydivers-Restoring-An-Ancient-Island-Monastery-9566482.html

References

Russian Orthodox monasteries in Russia
Buildings and structures in Vologda Oblast
1925 disestablishments in the Soviet Union
Cultural heritage monuments of federal significance in Vologda Oblast

Kamenny Monastery


Somalia (; ), officially called the Federal Republic of Somalia (; ), is a country located on the Horn of Africa. It used to be known as the Somali Republic.

It is bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya with Yemen to the north, the Guardafui Channel and Somali Sea to the east, and Ethiopia to the west. It has a hot, dry climate. A person from Somalia is called a Somali.

Government
Somalia is a republic governed by a federal administration with various regional administrations governing on a micro level.

Somalia is an independent country. Since the Somali Civil War in the early 1990s, there has been no working government that covers all of Somalia; instead, different pirates have been destabilizing the region to the southwest, the Gulf of Aden. Somalia is now trying to gain control of their people and get back up on its feet with very little resources.

Somalia is one of the poorest and least developed countries. It has the world's second-highest fertility rate.

Clan wars
There are four big tribes in Somalia, the Hawiye, the Dirweyn, the Koofur Orsi inhabitants and the Darood. Somalis are a nation of related families, which are called clans. Groups of clans sometimes band together based on a common ancestor or other blood relationship. Sometimes these family relationships date back hundreds or even thousands of years in the past. Somalis are mostly camel or goat herders, and depend on their livestock to live. In Somalia there are limited sources of drinking water and grazing land, and disputes over grazing rights, water rights, or land in general can lead to fighting between families. Because of the clan system, the families involved will call on their clan for help, leading to a clan war. The discovery of oil and minerals in Somalia, as well as the power and money associated with politics and business, has created more opportunities for families to get ahead, and has also created more reasons for families to have disputes.

Because Somalia does not have a working legal system, the only help a family in Somalia has to solve a dispute with another family is to get their clan involved. The only solution to the clan wars in Somalia is a working legal system, but the only group who has succeeded in creating one is the Islamic Courts Union. Unfortunately the Islamic Courts Union was accused of being terrorists and Ethiopia invaded Somalia to topple their government and put the government they created in power instead.

History
In ancient times, Somalia was a place where people from Egypt and Arabia went to buy gum arabic, myrrh and ebony wood. The Ancient Egyptians used to call it Punt, which meant "God's Land". Somalis started herding camel and goats about 4,000 years ago, and they remain mostly herders today.

Visitors from as far away as China visited Somalia, including Zheng He.

Medieval history
400 more years later, the king of Ethiopia told his subjects that God hated Ifat, and he invaded Ifat with his army, destroying everything he came across and driving the king of Ifat to an island off the coast of Zeila, where he died. The king of Ethiopia then took part of Ifat and added it to his kingdom, and made Ifat pay him lots of money once a year. The remains of Ifat put their kingdom back together again and renamed it Adal.

About a hundred years later, the King of Adal was deposed by an influential warlord by the name of Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, who had lots of influence with Somali clans across the north. He declared a jihad against Ethiopia, brought together a huge army that included Turkish musketeers and Somali cavalry. The Somali cavalry were especially deadly because they could shoot arrows while riding their horses, something that the Mongol hordes and Japanese Samurai are also famous for.

Ahmad chose a bad time, however, because the Portuguese Empire was muscling into East Africa. They had taken over the whole east African coast up to Baraawe, and were trying to take over Mogadishu. The Portuguese decided to help out the Ethiopians because the Ethiopians were Christians and the Portuguese did not like Muslims. Ahmad had taken over more than half of Ethiopia when a troop of Portuguese musketeers showed up to help the Ethiopians out. One Portuguese musketeer managed to shoot Ahmad himself, killing him.

A lot of the Somali cavalry was only there because of Ahmad, so the Jihad ended and Ethiopia wound up invading Adal. The Turks had to send an army to stop them from taking over Zeila, and Adal ended up becoming part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. On those days we do not find the exact people dwell in Zeila, but the history ascribed the black people, without tracing their origin and their tribes. However, some historians attributed Zeila inhabitant were called semaale without farther lucid explanation.

Daraawiish State

The Turks and Portuguese fought over East Africa for the next 200 years, but the Turks eventually won about 270 years ago. Northern Somalia stayed under Turkish protection after Ahmad died, and the east coast including Mogadishu ended up under the protection of the King of Oman. When Egypt declared independence from the Turks a hundred years later, Northern Somalia became part of Egypt. Egypt came under British protection shortly after that, and northern Somalia basically became a British protectorate as well. This became official about 130 years ago, and northern Somalia officially became British Somaliland.

The Kingdom of Italy had just come together as one country around this time, and wanted the same things that the other big countries had, like colonies. Italy offered to buy the rights to the east Africa coast from Oman, who was in charge of protecting the cities and small kingdoms there, and Oman agreed. Italy made deals with some of the larger kingdoms/sultanates (like the Sultanate of Nugaal) for them to be under Italian protection, but the smaller ones Italy just invaded. This became Italian Somalia in 1905, with capital Mogadishu.

Ethiopia, which had fallen apart again after Ahmad's Jihad, had recently put itself back together again as well, and started invading small Somali kingdoms as well, and by 1890 there were not many left. The French got in on this too, but they just took over a small area which today is Djibouti.

Lots of Somalis did not like what was going on, so a Muslim religious leader named Mohammed Abdullah Hassan started a group called the Darwiish to fight the British, Italians and Ethiopians. The British called him the "Mad Mullah" and spent about 30 years fighting him, eventually using fighter planes against his cavalry. At their height the Darwiish controlled almost a third of Somalia.

Italy created a colony around Mogadishu and enlarged the territory of Italian Somalia after WW1 with the areas south of the Juba river. In the next 20 years the Italian colony grew in importance, having at Hafun the biggest salt production in the world and in the Scebeli river a huge production of bananas exported to Europe. In 1928 was created the first airport in Somalia's capital and later in 1939 was started the longest air route in Africa with the Linea dell'impero, a flight between Rome and Mogadishu.

World War 2 history
When Benito Mussolini took power in Italy, he ended the deals he made with the bigger Somali sultanates and invaded them conquering all the area that was to be the colony of Italian Somalia. Then he invaded and took over Ethiopia, using poison gas on the Ethiopians. Shortly afterwards, World War 2 broke out and he invaded British Somaliland, but two years later the British returned and liberated British Somaliland and Ethiopia as well as taking over Italian Somaliland.

After the war, Britain wanted to put all of the places Somalis lived in one country, which would be a British protectorate. The Ethiopians complained that they should be able to keep the areas they conquered, and the Italians also complained the same thing, so in the end the Ethiopians got to keep their bit, and the Italians did too. However, Italian Somaliland was put under a United Nations mandate, so the Italians could not make it a colony.

Cold War history
In 1960 both British and Italian Somaliland declared independence together as the Somali Republic. It was chosen the Latin alphabet for the Somali language. Many areas where Somalis lived were still part of Britain, Ethiopia and France. Somalia wanted to get back all the areas that had been colonized by the French, Ethiopians and British. Somalia and Ethiopia had a short war in 1964 over the Ethiopian part of Somalia, and it was obvious that more fighting was to come.

In 1969, the President of Somalia was killed by a man whose clan had been hurt by his policies, and General Mohammed Siad Barre took over the country. Siad Barre built a huge army with help from the Soviet Union and when Ethiopia fell for the fourth time (this time because of a communist takeover) he invaded. The Soviet Union decided that Ethiopia was more important than Somalia and double-crossed Siad Barre, supplying huge amounts of weapons to Ethiopia. Some other countries including Cuba and Israel also sent help to Ethiopia, so in the end Siad Barre lost the war.

Ethiopia's new government then began helping Somali rebel groups, who did not like how Siad Barre took over the country, and these rebel groups toppled Siad Barre' government in 1991 and forced him out of the country. After this, however, all of the rebel groups started fighting amongst themselves over who would be in charge now that Siad Barre was gone.

Eventually, some of the rebel groups decided to make their own governments in the land that they controlled. One, called Somaliland, declared independence from Somalia entirely, while another called Puntland declared independence "for now" until a new Somali national government can be put together. Dozens of attempts to create a new national government failed.

Modern history
Because there was no government in most of Somalia (except where one had been built from scratch, like Puntland and Somaliland) Somalia's only legal system, beyond the law of the gun, was traditional custom and Islamic Sharia law. Because of this, Sharia legal scholars in the lawless south of Somalia gained quite a bit of influence. Around the same time, the people fighting for Somali lands in Ethiopia to be part of Somalia turned to the example of the Afghani Mujahideen, and created their own group called al-Ittihad al-Islamiyya or the Islamic Union. During the 1990s Ethiopia invaded Somalia several times to attack the Islamic Union, who were helping Somali rebels in Ethiopia.

After 2001, the United States of America became very suspicious of both the Sharia courts and the Islamic Union of being terrorists. Warlords made a group called the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism. The Sharia courts banded together to protect themselves and created the Islamic Courts Union. People liked the Sharia courts and hated the gangsters, so everyone helped the Islamic Courts Union, who defeated the gangsters and drove them out of Mogadishu in 2006. The Islamic Courts Union then formed an army and took over most of southern Somalia.

The United States of America and Ethiopia was alarmed by this takeover, so Ethiopia invaded southern Somalia in 2007 and put a new government in power that was made up of the rebel groups that Ethiopia had funded 15 years earlier. Almost everyone disagreed with this decision, and that same year a rebellion against this new government broke out in Mogadishu and spread across the whole country by 2008. At around the same time, Somali pirates kidnapped westerners from cargo ships and tourist boats for ransom. In 2006, jihadist group al-Shabaab began an insurgency.

References

Italian-speaking countries
Least developed countries
Members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation

Somalia


Arlington National Cemetery is a cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia. People who served in the United States military are buried here. The cemetery started during the American Civil War. It is on a big farm called Arlington House. Arlington House was the home of Mary Anna Custis Lee. Mary Anna Custis Lee was a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. She was also the wife of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Although most of the farm now has graves, the old farmhouse still stands in the middle of the cemetery. The cemetery is across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C..

The cemetery covers . People who died serving the United States in a war, and military veterans are allowed to be buried in the cemetery. People are buried here who fought in wars from American Civil War to the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. People who were buried here before the Civil War were reburied after 1900.

Arlington National Cemetery is taken care of by the United States Army. Arlington House (Custis-Lee Mansion) and its land are taken care of by the National Park Service as a memorial to Lee. Recently, the way the cemetery is managed caused controversy.

History

George Washington Parke Custis was the grandson of Martha Washington, and grew up with Martha and George Washington. He got the land that now is Arlington National Cemetery in 1802. He began building Arlington House, where he lived with his wife Mary Lee Fitzhugh Custis. The land and house was given to their only child that lived to be an adult, Mary Anna Custis Lee. She was married to Robert E. Lee, a West Point graduate and United States Army officer. When Fort Sumter was forced to surrender at the beginning of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln asked Lee to be the general of the federal army. Lee did not give an answer right away, but waited to see if his home state of Virginia would leave the Union.

Lee left the federal army when Virginia said it was leaving the United States.  He decided he could not fight against his home state. He became the leader of the armed forces of the Commonwealth of Virginia. He then became commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee was a great commander and won several battles against the Union forces. Most Union officers thought Lee had broken his promises to the Union because he chose to fight against them. Part of Arlington was taken away from the Lee family and became a graveyard. Mostly Union dead are buried there.

Before the Civil War, the United States did not have large military-only cemeteries.  Important generals were buried in the Congressional Cemetery with other important leaders. American military cemeteries were needed on distant frontiers, and near battles and hospitals where many soldiers died. When dead Civil War soldiers filled the burial grounds near Washington, D.C., Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs proposed in 1864 that  of the Robert E. Lee family property at Arlington be taken for a cemetery.

During the Civil War, people invented tricks to capture or to make life hard for Americans that fought on the other side of the war. The government assessed taxes on properties and insisted that the owners appear in person to pay them. If the plantation owner did not come, the government would sell the land. The government bought Arlington at tax sale in 1864 for $26,800.  Mrs. Lee did not show up in person, but rather had sent an agent to pay the $92.07 in property taxes that were owed for the land. The government turned away her agent, refusing to accept the tax payment. In 1874, Custis Lee, heir under his grandfather's will passing the estate in trust to his mother, sued the United States claiming ownership of Arlington. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Lee's favor in United States v. Lee, deciding that Arlington had been taken illegally, Congress returned the land to him. The next year, Custis Lee sold it back to the government for $150,000. Custis Lee and Robert Todd Lincoln, Secretary of War and son of President Lincoln, were both present when the property was officially turned over to the government.

In 2011, Hurricane Irene killed six large trees at the cemetery. The 220-year-old "Arlington Oak" fell down near the grave of John F. Kennedy.

Sections

Arlington National Cemetery is divided into 70 sections, with some sections in the southeast part of the cemetery saved for future use. Section 60, in the southeast part of the cemetery, is the burial ground for military personnel killed in the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan. In 2005, Arlington National Cemetery bought another  from the National Park Service, along with  from the Department of Defense that was part of Fort Myer and  that is the site of the Navy Annex.

Section 21, also known as the Nurses Section, is the area of Arlington National Cemetery where many nurses are buried. The Nurses Memorial is there. In the cemetery, there is a Confederate section with graves of soldiers of the Confederate States of America and a Confederate Memorial. All Confederate headstones are peaked rather than rounded. In Section 27, there are buried more than 3,800 former slaves, called "Contrabands" during the Civil War. Their headstones are designated with the word "Civilian" or "Citizen".

Grave markers, niches and headstones
The United States Department of Veterans Affairs takes care of the National Cemetery Administration's requests for the words and faith emblems (a cross, Jewish star, etc.) at no charge to the family of the dead put on upright marble headstones or columbarium niche covers. There are 39 authorized faith emblems available for placement to represent the deceased's faith. "Available Emblems of Belief for Placement on Government Headstones" and "Markers" Markers

The cemetery had allowed privately-purchased markers in certain burial areas. Since 2001, the areas that the cemetery permitted such markers in are filled.  The older sections of the cemetery have many different private markers, including artillery pieces.

Tomb of the Unknowns

The Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery is also called the "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier". It stands on top of a hill overlooking Washington, D.C. It honors soldiers who died without their bodies being identified.

The Tomb is one of the more popular sites at the Cemetery. The tomb is made from Yule marble quarried in Colorado. It consists of seven pieces, with a total weight of 79 short tons (72 metric tons). The tomb was completed and opened to the public April 9, 1932, at a cost of $48,000.

U.S. Army guards have stood watch at the Tomb of the Unknowns at all times since July 2, 1937. The 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment ("The Old Guard") began guarding the Tomb April 6, 1948.

Arlington Memorial Amphitheater

The Tomb of the Unknowns is part of the Arlington Memorial Amphitheater. The Memorial Amphitheater has hosted state funerals and Memorial Day and Veterans Day ceremonies. Ceremonies are also held for Easter. About 5,000 people attend these holiday ceremonies each year. The structure is mostly built of Imperial Danby marble from Vermont. The Memorial Display room, between the amphitheater and the Tomb of the Unknowns, uses Botticino stone, imported from Italy. The amphitheater was the result of a campaign by Ivory Kimball to construct a place to honor America's soldiers. Congress authorized the structure March 4, 1913. Woodrow Wilson laid the cornerstone for the building on October 15, 1915. The cornerstone contained 15 items including a Bible and a copy of the Constitution.

Netherlands Carillon

The Netherlands Carillon is a carillon (bell tower) that was a gift from the Netherlands to the people of the United States in 1954, in thanks for their efforts during World War II. The bells are played by people with special training.  This happens regularly during the summer and on special days. Recorded tunes are played on the hour and during the day.  It is next to Arlington National Cemetery, on the north side.

Memorials

It is now hard to find space to build new memorials at the cemetery.  The army worries that new memorials take up space that could otherwise be used for graves. The army requires a joint or concurrent resolution from Congress before it will place new memorials onto the cemetery grounds. Still, there are several memorials on the cemetery grounds, and groups regularly ask for space for new memorials.

The Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial was dedicated on May 20, 1986, in memory of the crew of flight STS-51-L, who died during launch on January 28, 1986. Written on the back of the stone is the text of the John Gillespie Magee, Jr. poem High Flight. Although many remains were identified and returned to the families for private burial, some were not, and were laid to rest under the marker. Two of the crew members, Scobee and Smith, are buried in Arlington, as well. There is a similar memorial to those who died when the Shuttle Columbia broke apart during reentry on February 1, 2003.  It was dedicated on the first anniversary of the disaster. Astronauts Laurel Clark, David Brown and Michael Anderson are also buried in Arlington.

The Cairn, the Lockerbie memorial is a memorial to the 270 killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The memorial is made up of 270 stones, one for each person killed in the disaster. In section 64, there is a memorial to the 184 victims of the September 11 attacks on the Pentagon. The memorial takes the shape of a pentagon, and lists the names of all the victims that were killed.

There are only two mausoleums located within the confines of the cemetery. One is for the family of General Nelson Appleton Miles in Section 3 and the other one belongs to the family of General Thomas Crook Sullivan and it is in Section 1.

There is a Commonwealth Cross of Sacrifice with the names of all the citizens of the USA who lost their lives fighting in the Canadian forces during the Korean War and the two world wars.

The Women in Military Service for America Memorial is at the Ceremonial Entrance to Arlington National Cemetery.

Notable burials

The first soldier to be buried in Arlington was Private William Henry Christman of Pennsylvania on May 13, 1864.

Notable civilians
 Julian Bartley, Sr. (54) and his son Jay Bartley (20), killed together in the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi
 Harry Blackmun, Thurgood Marshall, William O. Douglas, Potter Stewart and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, five justices of the Supreme Court of the United States
 Leslie Coffelt, Secret Service member killed fighting off would-be-assassins of President Harry S. Truman in the 1950 assassination attempt at Blair House
 George Washington Parke Custis, founder of Arlington Plantation, grandson of Martha Washington, step-grandson of President George Washington, father to Mary Anna Custis Lee.
 Mary Lee Fitzhugh Custis, wife to George Washington Parke Custis, daughter of William Fitzhugh and Ann Bolling Randolph Fitzhugh, mother to Mary Anna Custis Lee.
 Albert Sabin, scientists who helped develop an oral polio vaccine.
 Charles Durning, actor and personality.
 Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, former First Lady and widow of John F. Kennedy
 Phyllis Kirk, famous TV and movie actress, alongside her husband.
 James Parks, freedman, the only person buried at Arlington Cemetery who was born on the grounds.
 Manuel Quezon (1878–1944), President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines (1935–1944), later transferred to a cemetery in Manila
 Mary Randolph, first person to be buried at Arlington Plantation, descendant of Pocahontas and John Rolfe, cousin to Mary Lee Fitzhugh Custis.
 Marie Teresa Rios, author of Fifteenth Pelican, basis for The Flying Nun television show.
 John Gibson and Jacob Chestnut, United States Capitol Police officers killed in the 1998 Capitol shooting attack
 Leslie Sherman, student killed in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre (her parents Holly and Anthony Sherman are both veterans and will be buried next to their daughter).

Whether or not they were wartime service members, U.S. presidents are eligible to be buried at Arlington, since they oversaw the armed forces as commanders-in-chief.

Four state funerals have been held at Arlington: those of Presidents William Howard Taft and John F. Kennedy, that of General John J. Pershing, and that of U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

Military burials
As of May 2006, there were 367 Medal of Honor recipients buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Nine of these recipients are Canadians.
 Creighton Abrams (1914–1974), United States Army General who commanded U.S. military operations in the Vietnam War, 1968–1972
 Henry Harley "Hap" Arnold (1886–1950), first (and so far only) General of the Air Force (5-Stars)
 Gordon Beecher (1904–1973), United States Navy Vice Admiral and composer
 Jeremy Michael Boorda (1939–1996), US Navy Admiral and Chief of Naval Operations
 Gregory "Pappy" Boyington (1912–1988), World War II Marine Corps fighter ace, Medal of Honor recipient, and commander of VMF-214, the "Black Sheep Squadron" (basis for the 1970s TV series Baa Baa Black Sheep)
 Omar Nelson Bradley (1893–1981), commanded the 12th Army Group in Europe during World War II, first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the last living five star general.
 Ruby G. Bradley (1907–2002), Colonel and, with 34 medals, one of the most decorated women in U.S. military history
 Alfred Winsor Brown (1885–1938), World War I Navy officer and Governor of Guam
 Miles Browning (1897–1954), World War I and World War II Navy officer and hero of the Battle of Midway
 Frank Buckles (1901–2011), last known American veteran of World War I.
 Omar Bundy (1861–1940), World War I Major General who commanded the 1st Brigade, 1st Expeditionary Division in France, awarded the French Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre.
 John Allen Campbell (1835–1880), Brevet Brigadier General; American Civil War, first Governor of Wyoming Territory in 1869 and Third Assistant Secretary of State.
 Roger Chaffee (1935–1967) and Gus Grissom (1926–1967), astronauts killed in the Apollo 1 fire (Edward White was buried at West Point)
 Claire Lee Chennault (1893–1958), was a United States military aviator who commanded the "Flying Tigers" during World War II.
 Bertram Tracy Clayton (1862–1918), Congressman from New York, killed in action in 1918
 Charles Austin Coolidge (1844–1926), Brigadier General, served in Civil War, Indian Wars, Spanish-American War, Philippine-American War and the China Relief Expedition.
 William P. Cronan (1879–1929), US Naval officer and 19h Naval Governor of Guam.
 Scott Crossfield (1921–2006), US Naval aviator and test pilot, first to fly at twice the speed of sound; played a major role in the design and development of the North American X-15.
 Louis Cukela (1888–1956), Marine Corps Major, awarded two Medals of Honor for same act in World War I
 Jane Delano (1862–1919), Director, Army Nursing Corps
 Sir John Dill (1881–1944), British Diplomat and Field Marshal
 William "Wild Bill" Donovan (1883–1959), Major General and Chief of the OSS during World War II
 Abner Doubleday (1819–1893), Civil War general credited with inventing baseball
 Clarence Ransom Edwards (1860–1931), commanded the 26th "Yankee" Division in World War I
 Frank J. Fletcher (1885–1973), Admiral, U.S. Navy, World War II; operational commander at Coral Sea and Midway; awarded Medal of Honor.
 Nathan Bedford Forrest III (1905–1943) Brigadier General of the United States Army Air Forces, and a great-grandson of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. First American general to be killed in action in Europe during World War II
 Rene Gagnon, Ira Hayes and Michael Strank: three of the six servicemen in Joe Rosenthal's famous picture, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima (Strank was killed in action just days after the photo was taken)
 John Gibbon (1827–1896), Brigadier General, Union Army, Civil War, most notably commander of 2nd Division, US II Corps that repelled Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg.
 David Haskell Hackworth (1930–2005), Colonel and most decorated American soldier
 William "Bull" Halsey (1882–1959), World War II Navy five-star Fleet Admiral
 Grace Hopper (1906–1992), rear admiral, pioneering computer scientist
 Kara Spears Hultgreen (1965–1994), the first female naval carrier-based fighter pilot
 James Jabara (1923–1966), the first American jet ace in history. He's credited with shooting down 15 enemy aircraft during aerial combat.
 Daniel "Chappie" James, Jr. (1920–1978), USAF, first African American four-star General in the U.S. Armed Forces
 Philip Kearny (1815–1862), "fearless" one-armed cavalry general killed at Chantilly during the Civil War
 Włodzimierz B. Krzyżanowski (1824–1887), Polish military leader and Civil War Union general
 Henry Louis Larsen (1890–1962), Marine Lieutenant General; commanded the first deployed American troops in both World Wars; Governor of Guam and American Samoa.
 Mark Matthews (1894–2005), last surviving Buffalo Soldier
 Francis Lupo (1895–1918), Private killed in France during World War I; holds the distinction of possibly being the longest U.S. service member missing in action to be found (1918–2003)
 John S. McCain, Sr. (1884–1945), USN Admiral – grandfather of Senator John McCain and father of McCain Jr.
 John S. McCain, Jr. (1911–1981), USN Admiral – father of Senator John McCain
 Henry Pinckney McCain (1861–1941), US Army officer and Adjutant Generals of the U.S. Army; Uncle to McCain Sr, grand-uncle of McCain Jr
 David McCampbell (1910–1996), Captain, the US Navy's top World War II Ace with 34 kills
 Montgomery Cunningham Meigs (1816–1892), Brigadier General. Arlington National Cemetery was established by Brig. Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, who commanded the garrison at Arlington House and took over the grounds on June 15, 1864, for use as a military cemetery. He wanted to make the house not usable for living, in case the Lee family tried to return. A stone and masonry burial vault in the rose garden,  wide and  deep, and containing the remains of 2,111 Civil War dead, was among the first monuments to Union dead erected under Meigs' orders. Meigs himself was later buried within  of Arlington House with his wife, father and son.
 Glenn Miller (1904–1944), Major and well known band leader who disappeared over the English Channel while flying to Paris. His body was never found, but he has a memorial headstone.
 Audie Murphy (1924–1971), U.S. Army, Recipient of the Medal of Honor, actor, and the most decorated U.S. Soldier during World War II.
 Edward Ord (1818–1883), Major General, Army of the James during the Appomattox Campaign, Union Army, Civil War.
 George S. Patton IV (1923–2004), Major General of the Army and son of famed WWII General, George S. Patton
 John J. Pershing (1860–1948), America's first General of the Armies, commanded American forces in World War I
 David Dixon Porter (1813–1891), Admiral, Union Navy, Civil War, most notable as the Union naval commander during the Vicksburg Campaign, a turning point of the war, which split the Confederacy in two.
 Francis Gary Powers (1929–1977), American U-2 pilot shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960
 John Aaron Rawlins (1831–1869), Civil War general, chief of staff and later Secretary of War to Ulysses S. Grant
 Alfred C. Richmond (1902–1984), Commandant of the United States Coast Guard
 Hyman G. Rickover (1900–1986), father of the Nuclear Navy
 Matthew Ridgway (1895–1993), WWII and Korea General, Chief of Staff of the Army
 William S. Rosecrans (1819–1898), Major General, Army of the Cumberland, Union Army, Civil War
 William T. Ryder (1913–1992), Brigadier General, first American paratrooper
 Thomas Selfridge (1882–1908), First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army and the first person to die in a crash of a powered airplane
 Philip Sheridan (1831–1888), commanding general, Union Army, Civil War
 Daniel E. Sickles (1819–1914), Major General, III Corps, Army of the Potomac, Union Army, Civil War. Also served as U.S. Minister to Spain and as U.S. Representative from New York
 Robert F. Sink (1905–1965), Lt. General, and former Regimental Commander of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, portrayed by Vietnam Veteran, and retired Marine Captain Dale Dye in the HBO/BBC miniseries Band of Brothers.
 Walter Bedell Smith (1895–1961), General, U.S. Army, World War II, Dwight D. Eisenhower's Chief of Staff during Eisenhower's time at SHAEF and Director of the CIA from 1950 to 1953. Also served as U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1946 to 1948.
 Lauri Törni, a.k.a. Larry Thorne (1919–1965), Finnish soldier who served in the US special forces and was a World War II veteran; called "soldier who fought under three flags (Finland, Germany and USA)".
 Matt Urban (1919–1995), Colonel, U.S Army, most highly decorated soldier for valor in the history of the US Military
 Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright IV (1883–1953), Major General, hero of Bataan and Corregidor; highest ranking POW in World War II
 Robert Webb (1922–2002), B-17 Flying Fortress pilot
 Joseph Wheeler (1836–1906), served as a Major General for two opposing forces: the Confederate Army during the Civil War, and the U.S. Army during the Spanish-American War and Philippine-American War
 Orde Charles Wingate (1903–1944), British major general, creator and commander of the Chindits
 Clark H. Woodward (1877–1968), Vice Admiral, served in five wars: the Spanish-American War, Philippine-American War, Boxer Rebellion and both World Wars
 Charles Young (1864–1922), first African-American Lieutenant colonel in the US Army

Burial under protest
Warrant Officer Gregory S. Crandall's helicopter was shot down over Savannakhet province, Laos, on  February 18, 1971. In May of that year the military listed him KIA. According to Arlington National cemetery records John Manning, chief of the Army's Mortuary Affairs Branch stated that witnesses to the crash reported that the ..."helicopter burst into flames and exploded when it hit the ground.". It was also reported that there were a series of seven explosions. The remains of Crandall and two other soldiers were recovered in February 1991 and on September 17, 1993, with full military honors, a full sized steel casket, and at the protest of the family, the remains of Warrant Officer Gregory S. Crandall, a single No. 4 maxillary premolar tooth, was buried.

Service members with other distinguished careers

 Sosthenes Behn, businessman and founder of ITT Corporation
 Hugo Black, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
 William J. Brennan, Jr., Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
 Ron Brown, United States Secretary of Commerce
 William Jennings Bryan, Secretary of State, three-time presidential candidate, orator
 William Francis Buckley, CIA Station Chief, murdered in Beirut.
 Clark Clifford, Secretary of Defense, advisor to four presidents
 Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr., Apollo astronaut, third man to walk on the Moon
 Denver Dickerson (1914–1981), U.S. Army veteran of World War II, Secretary of Guam (1963–1969)
 Dwight F. Davis, Secretary of War, established the Davis Cup
 Michael E. DeBakey, famous cardiovascular physician, U.S. Army soldier during World War II
 John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State
 Medgar Evers (1925–1963), U.S. Army veteran of World War II, civil rights activist
 Stanley L. Greigg, U.S. Congressman from Iowa
 Dashiell Hammett, author
 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, wounded three times in the Civil War, "The Great Dissenter"
 Robert G. Ingersoll, political leader and orator, noted for his agnosticism
 Edward Stanley Kellogg (1870–1948), U.S. Navy Captain, 16th Governor of American Samoa (1923–1925).
 Edward M. Kennedy (1932–2009), U.S. Army Veteran (1951–1953), U.S. Senator from Massachusetts (1962–2009).
 John F. Kennedy (1917–1963), U.S. Navy officer during World War II, U.S. Representative (1947–1953), U.S. Senator (1953–1961), President of the United States, (1961–1963).
 Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968), Navy veteran, Attorney General of the United States (1961–1964), U.S. Senator from New York (1965–1968).
 Frank Kowalski, U.S. Army veteran of World War II; U.S. Representative from Connecticut
 Pierre Charles L'Enfant, French military engineer, architect, and urban planner; designed the city of Washington
 Robert Todd Lincoln, Secretary of War, son of former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln
 Joe Louis, world heavyweight boxing champion
 Allard Lowenstein, U.S. Congressman from New York.
 John R. Lynch, freedman, U.S. Army major, and Member of Congress
 Mike Mansfield, longest-serving Senate Majority Leader, United States Ambassador to Japan
 George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army, General of the Army, Emissary to China, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense. Instrumental in developing the Marshall Plan after World War II
 Lee Marvin, Marine Corps veteran and actor
 Bill Mauldin, editorial cartoonist; noted for World War II–era work satirizing military life in Stars and Stripes
 George B. McClellan, Jr. (1865–1940) Mayor of New York (1904–1909), son of Union Army Major General George B. McClellan
 John C. Metzler, World War II sergeant, former superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery (1951–1972)
 Daniel Patrick Moynihan, U.S. Senator from New York
 Phelps Phelps, 38th Governor of American Samoa and United States Ambassador to the Dominican Republic
 Spot Poles, considered among the greatest outfielders of the Negro Leagues
 William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States
 Earl W. Renfroe, orthodontist who helped originate the concept of preventive and interceptive orthodontics.
 Frank Reynolds, ABC television anchorman
 Samuel W. Small, journalist, evangelist, prohibitionist.
 Johnny Micheal Spann, CIA officer, first American killed in Afghanistan. Although Spann had served in the USMC, he was not in the military when killed. However, because he had received the CIA's Intelligence Star, considered the equivalent of the US Military's Silver Star and recognized as such by President George W. Bush, Spann was approved for burial in Arlington National Cemetery.
 Ted Stevens, US Senator from Alaska
 Samuel S. Stratton, 15-term U.S. Representative from New York
 William Howard Taft, Secretary of War, President of the United States, Chief Justice of the United States
 George Westinghouse, Civil War veteran, Westinghouse Electric founder
 Harvey W. Wiley, first Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, "father" of the Pure Food and Drug Act
 Charles Willeford, World War II veteran and author
 William Christman First soldier to be buried at Arlington Cemetery

References

Further reading
 Poole, Robert M., On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery , Walker & Co, 2009.

Other websites

1864 establishments in the United States
Military monuments and memorials in the United States
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
19th-century establishments in Virginia
1864 establishments
1864 in the United States
Burials at Arlington National Cemetery
History of Virginia
National Register of Historic Places
United States Army
Buildings and structures in Washington, D.C.

Arlington National Cemetery


Explosives are chemical compounds that cause explosions; they flare up and burst with a loud sound. Explosive material has many special characteristics: it is a chemically unstable material, it changes its form very fast and, while changing its form, it explodes by bursting and making loud sounds.

There are two types of explosives: low explosives and high explosives. This classification depends on their rate of explosion. Low explosives conflagrate (= burn very fast). High explosives detonate (= explode with bursts). A low explosive is a material, which burns very fast, but does not explode generally. For exploding them, people mix them with high explosives. Sometimes, even a low explosive may detonate. A high explosive bursts and explodes very fast. High explosives produce more pressure than low explosives but low explosives are more safe to use. People use low explosives in fuses, rocket engines and fireworks, and high explosives in mining and demolition (destroying old bridges and buildings). Guns use low explosives as propellants; most bombs use high explosives.

Gunpowder and ammonium nitrate are low explosives.

High explosives may belong to different groups: primary explosives and secondary explosives. Primary explosives are very unstable and rapidly react to shock, friction, and heat. Any shock, friction, or heat makes primary explosives to burn or blast fast. Secondary explosives are much more safe to use and do not react very fast to shock, friction, and heat. Any shock, friction, or heat may burn such explosives, but not make them to burst and blast. Some people call secondary explosives as base explosives. Some people also tell about another group of explosives. These are tertiary explosives. These explosives do not react to shock, friction, and heat. For explosion, tertiary explosives may need a mixture with secondary explosives.

Primary explosives are used as detonators: that is, to cause the secondary explosives to explode. Mercury fulminate, picric acid, lead azide, nitroglycerine and iodine nitride are examples of primary explosives. TNT, dynamite, hexogen, HMX and Torpex are examples of secondary explosives.

While sending explosives from one place to another, the packs containing different types of explosives may have different types of markings on the boxes. The United Nations has advised use of such markings. Some examples are:

 1.1 Mass Explosion Hazard
 1.2 Nonmass explosion, fragment-producing
 1.3 Mass fire, minor blast or fragment hazard
 1.4 Moderate fire, no blast or fragment: a consumer firework is 1.4G or 1.4S
 1.5 Explosive substance, very insensitive (with a mass explosion hazard)
 1.6 Explosive article, extremely insensitive

References

Explosive material


Ne gjuha, nje archaism (nga, archaïkós, 'old-fashioned, antiquated', ultimately , archaîos, 'from the beginning, ancient') is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current. This can either be done deliberately (to achieve a specific effect) or as part of a specific jargon (for example in law) or formula (for example in religious contexts). Many nursery rhymes contain archaisms. Archaic elements that occur only in certain fixed expressions (for example 'be that as it may') are not considered to be archaisms.

Perdorimi

Arkaizmat jane most frequently encountered in poetry, law, science, technology, geography and ritual writing and speech. Their deliberate use can be subdivided into literary archaisms, which seeks to evoke the style of older speech and writing; and lexical archaisms, the use of words no longer in common use. Archaisms are kept alive by these ritual and literary uses and by the study of older literature. Should they remain recognised, they can be revived, as the word anent was in this past century.

Because they are fields of continual discovery and re-invention, science and technology have historically generated forms of speech and writing which have dated and fallen into disuse relatively quickly. However the emotional associations of certain words (for example: 'Wireless' rather than 'Radio' for a generation of British citizens who lived through the second world war) have kept them alive even though the older word is clearly an archaism.

A similar desire to evoke a former age means that archaic place names are frequently used in circumstances where doing so conveys a political or emotional subtext, or when the official new name is not recognised by all (for example: 'Persia' rather than 'Iran', 'Bombay' rather than 'Mumbai', 'Madras' rather than 'Chennai'). So, a restaurant seeking to conjure up historic associations might prefer to call itself Old Bombay or refer to Persian cuisine in preference to using the newer place name. A notable contemporary example is the name of the airline Cathay Pacific, which uses the archaic Cathay ("China").

Archaisms are frequently misunderstood, leading to changes in usage. One example is found in the phrase "the odd man out", which originally came from the phrase "to find the odd man out", where the verb "to find out" has been split by its object "the odd man", meaning the item which does not fit.

The compound adverbs and prepositions found in the writing of lawyers (e.g. heretofore, hereunto, thereof) are examples of archaisms as a form of jargon. Some phraseologies, especially in religious contexts, retain archaic elements that are not used in ordinary speech in any other context: "With this ring I thee wed." Archaisms are also used in the dialogue of historical novels in order to evoke the flavour of the period. Some may count as inherently funny words and are used for humorous effect.

Mendimet alternative

Ne studimet kulturore anthropologjike , arkaizmat jane perkufizuar si the absence of writing and subsistence economy. Ne histori, arkaizma is used to connote a superior, albeit mythical, "golden age."

Shih edhe
 Legal English
 List of alternative country names
 List of archaic technological nomenclature
 Thou

Referenceat
 George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (1946)

Leksikologji

Arkaizmat


《鐘聲頌歌》()或譯《聖誕鐘聲》,是由烏克蘭作曲家米科拉·莱昂托维奇在1914年所發表的聖誕頌歌,烏克蘭文原歌詞版為《什徹德里克》。

英文歌詞
Hark how the bells,
sweet silver bells,
all seem to say,
throw cares away

Christmas is here,
bringing good cheer,
to young and old,
meek and the bold,

Ding dong ding dong
that is their song
with joyful ring
all caroling

One seems to hear
words of good cheer
from everywhere
filling the air

Oh how they pound,
raising the sound,
o'er hill and dale,
telling their tale,

Gaily they ring
while people sing
songs of good cheer,
Christmas is here,
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas,
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas,

On on they send,
on without end,
their joyful tone
to every home

Ding dong ding: dong!

烏克蘭音樂
圣诞颂歌
聖誕歌曲

鐘聲頌歌