A punching bag (or British English punchbag) is a sturdy bag designed to be repeatedly punched. A punching bag is usually cylindrical and filled with various materials of suitable hardness.

History

Punching bags have been used in martial arts and swordplay for the entire written history of military training. Similar apparatus in Asian martial arts include the Okinawan makiwara and the Chinese mook jong, which may have padded striking surfaces attached to them.

In martial arts and combat sports—such as karate, taekwondo, and Muay Thai—"heavy" bags, standing bags, and similar apparatuses have been adapted for practicing kicking and other striking maneuvers in addition to developing punching technique.

Construction
Punching bags are often filled with grains, sand, rags, or other material, and are usually hung from the ceiling or affixed to a stand. Other bags have an internal bladder to allow them to be filled with air or water.  The design of a punching bag allows it to take repeated and constant physical abuse without breaking. The bag must also absorb the impact of blows without causing harm to the user.

Types
There are different types of punching bags, with different names based on their size, use and mounting method. Almost all punching bags are covered with either leather or synthetic materials such as vinyl which resist abrasion and mildew. Canvas can also be used as a bag material where there is lower use and humidity.

Speed bags (AKA, speedballs) are small, air-filled bags anchored at the top to a rebound platform parallel to the ground. Speed bags help a fighter learn to keep their hands up, improve hand-eye coordination, and learn to shift weight between feet when punching. They are also known as speedballs or speed ball bags. They are generally filled with air and fitted around a tight PU-based or leather material. They come in various sizes, ranging from the large  and , midsize ,  and , to the small ,  and . Generally the larger the bag, the slower it is and the more force is required to keep it going. Large bags are used more for building strength and endurance, while smaller bags allow the training athlete to focus on faster hand speed, timing and coordination. Beginners might view this bag more as a "control bag", not a speed bag, for they will not be able to punch both quickly and repetitively until they gain control over their swinging force and speed.

A boxer normally hits the speed bag from the front with his or her fists, but it is also possible to use fists and elbows to hit the bag from all around it, including the front, back and sides. In this method the user may perform many diverse punching combinations that create improvised rhythmic accents.

Although speed bags are normally hung vertically, recently the additional method of hanging a bag horizontally on a wall has regained popularity. This was very popular during the early twentieth century, specifically the 1920s–1940s era. The same punching skills may be used on the horizontal bag that are used when it hangs vertically. A coordination bag is a new type of speed bag that moves unpredictably rather than rhythmically. Additionally, due to the tedious mounting and anchoring necessary when installing a traditional speed bag platform, a portable speed bag platform that installs in a doorway has been created. Designed so that downward pressure stabilizes this portable speed bag platform, it can be installed and removed through a tension system that allows for use in any doorway.

Swerve balls/floor-to-ceiling balls/double-end bags are almost the same as speed bags, with the only differences being that the bag' size, shape and material may be different, and that the cable system is attached to both the ceiling and a clip on the floor — when the boxer makes any strike on the ball, it reacts by swinging fast towards them, the object being to swerve, punch, dodge and improve co-ordination. The harder and faster these bags are hit, the more they rebound and react in different motions and angles, thus giving broader practice to the fighter. Double-floor to ceiling balls which allow for training body-head combinations also exist.

Maize bags or slip bags are not punched with great force, but are used in boxing training to improve the athlete's head motion and ability to evade an opponent's punch, their name deriving from the fact that traditionally they are filled with maize.

A heavy bag is a larger, cylindrical bag, usually suspended by chains or ropes and used for practicing powerful body punches, and can be used to toughen hands or any other limb used to hit the bag.  Heavy bags are for developing power; technique is best learned on the punch mitts or pads. Some variants of heavy bag are a Banana Bag used in Muay Thai, which is longer than a regular heavy bag and is used to train low kicks and knee strikes, and a slim line bag that is thinner than a heavy bag.

Freestanding heavy bags are heavy bags mounted on a weighted pedestal rather than being hung from above. The base is typically filled with sand or water to give more stability to the bag and prevent it from moving around. While they serve the same purpose as hanging heavy bags, they can also be toppled over and used for ground-and-pound practice. Other variations on the standard heavy bag include horizontal suspension from both ends to practice uppercut punches, and non-cylindrical shapes. Freestanding reflex bags (freestanding speed bags) also exist.

Uppercut bags began to appear towards the beginning of the 21st century. With so many different variations of bags and training equipment for boxing taking off, the uppercut bag was and is still a common sight in clubs and gyms.

Designed for uppercut practice, jabbing, curl punching and quick bursts of high and low punching practice, it allows the fighter to punch at different lengths, different speeds and different forces compared to the standard average 4-foot straight PU (polyurethane) punching bags. Some types of uppercut bags: An angle bag a variant of uppercut bag used for training hooks and uppercuts; an uppercut horizontal punching tag, teardrop bag, body snatcher/wrecking ball bag or bowling pin bag are used for training knees and uppercuts.

A wall bag is a type of bag that is attached to a wall and can be used for training hooks and uppercuts.

Body-shaped training aids such as the modern "body opponent bag" are made primarily of synthetic materials, and punching bags are sometimes mounted on a weighted pedestal rather than hanging from above. These bags try to simulate a live opponent while providing an opportunity to practice vital area strikes which are generally unsafe to perform on a sparring partner. These are not considered punching bags in the strict sense, but modern versions of apparatus such as the wooden man apparatus of Chinese Wing Chun, the medieval quintain, and target dummies used in modern bayonet training. Large inflatable balloons with weighted bases are another kind of punching bag, often painted with a picture and sold as a children's toy.

Safety precautions

Heavy bags are typically filled with dense material which have little "give" (e.g., packed sand, grains, etc.); in order to avoid injury, hand protection (boxing gloves, bag gloves, training gloves, hand wraps, etc.) is used during practice.

Powerful strikes to the heavy bag are not recommended for inexperienced, or younger athletes (<18 female, <21 male), as risk of sprain, strain, or bone-plate damage may adversely affect bone structures. It is highly recommended to carefully focus strikes to reduce chance of injury (such as boxer's fracture).

See also

Strength tester machine – some of these machines utilize a punching bag

References

Articles containing video clips
Boxing
Exercise equipment
Martial arts equipment

Punching bag


A Roman legion  was the basic military unit of the ancient Roman army in the period of the late Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. It was roughly equivalent to the modern word division. In the plural, the legions, it may mean the entire Roman army.

A legion was about 5,000 men in several cohorts of heavy infantry (legionaries). It was usually accompanied by attached units of auxiliaries, who were not Roman citizens. They provided cavalry, ranged troops and skirmishers to complement the legion's heavy infantry.

The size of a typical legion varied during the history of ancient Rome. It had a complement of 4,200 legionaries in the republican period of Rome. In the imperial period, the full complement was 5,500 men split into 10 cohorts of 480 men each. The first cohort was at double strength with 800 men. The remaining 220 were 120 cavalry plus technical staff.

Rome did not have a standing army until the reforms of Gaius Marius about 107 BC. Legions instead were created, used, and disbanded again. In the time of the early Roman Empire, there were usually about 25–35 standing legions plus their auxiliaries, with more raised as needed.

Organization

Greek phalanx
The development of the early legion may be seen as a Roman version of the Greek phalanx formation. Until the 4th century BC the massive Greek phalanx was the mode of battle. Roman soldiers would have thus looked much like Greek hoplites. Tactics were no different from those of the early Greeks and battles were joined on a plain. Spearmen would deploy themselves in tightly packed rows to form a shield wall with their spears pointing forwards.

Republic

There were now three lines of soldiers when in battle formation. Roman soldiers had to purchase their own equipment.

In the middle of the Republic, legions were composed of the following units:

 Equites (cavalry): The cavalry was originally the most prestigious unit, where wealthy young Roman men displayed their skill and prowess, laying the foundation for an eventual political career. In a total of circa 3000 men, (plus the velites that normally enlarged the number to about 4200), the legion had only around 300 horsemen, divided into 10 units (turmae) of 30 men. These men were commanded by decurions. In addition to heavy cavalry, there would be the light cavalry. In battle, they were used to disrupt and outflank enemy infantry formations and to fight off enemy cavalry. In the latter type of engagement they would often (though not always) dismount some or all of the horsemen to fight a stationary battle on foot, an unusual tactic for the time, but one that offered significant advantages in stability and agility in a time before stirrups.

 Velites (light infantry): The velites were mainly poorer citizens who could not afford to equip themselves properly. Their primary function was to act as skirmishers – javelin-throwers who would engage the enemy early in order either to harass them or to cover the movement of troops behind them.

 Heavy infantry: This was the principal unit of the legion. The heavy infantry was composed of citizen legionaries that could afford the equipment composed of an iron helmet, shield, armour and pilum, a heavy javelin whose range was about 30 meters. After 387 B.C. the preferred weapon was the gladius, a short sword. Their hobnailed sandals were also an effective weapon against a fallen enemy. The heavy infantry was subdivided, according to experience, into three separate lines of troops:
 The hastati (sing. hastatus) consisted of raw or inexperienced soldiers, considered to be less reliable than legionaries of several years' service.
 The principes (sing. princeps) were men in their prime (late twenties to early thirties).
 The triarii (sing. triarius) were the veteran soldiers, to be used in battle only in extreme situations; they rested one knee down when not engaged in combat. The triarii served primarily as reserves or barrier troops to backstop the hastati and principes. They had long hastae (spears) rather than the pilum and gladius. Thus armed, they fought in a phalanx formation. The sight of an advancing armored formation of triarii legionaries frequently discouraged exultant enemies in pursuit of retreating hastati and principes troops. To fall upon the triarii was a Roman idiom – meaning to use one's last resort.

Each of these three lines was subdivided into maniples, each consisting of two centuries of 60 men commanded by the senior of the two centurions. Centuries were normally 60 soldiers each at this time in the hastati and principes (no longer 100 men). The mid Republican legion had a nominal strength of about 4500 men.

Later on the legions were made up of 80 strong centuries. Each century had its standard and was made up of ten units of eight soldiers who shared a tent, millstone, a mule and cooking pot (depending on duration of tour).

Late Republic
Throughout Rome's Late Republic, the legions played an important political role. By the 1st century BC the threat of the legions under a demagogue was recognized. Roman Governors were not allowed to leave their provinces with their legions. When Julius Caesar broke this rule, leaving his province of Gaul and crossing the Rubicon into Italy, he precipitated a constitutional crisis. This crisis and the civil wars which followed brought an end to the Republic and led to the foundation of the Empire under Augustus in 27 BC.

Early Empire (30 BC-284 AD)
With each legion having 5,120 legionaries plus an equal number of auxiliary troops, the total force available to a legion commander during the Pax Romana probably ranged from
11,000 downwards. The more prestigious legions were stationed on hostile borders or in restive provinces tending to have more auxiliaries. Some legions may have been reinforced with units making the force near 15,000–16,000 or about the size of a modern division.

The legion was commanded by a legate. Aged about thirty, he would usually be a senator on a three year appointment. Immediately subordinate to the legate would be six appointed military tribunes. Five would be staff officers and the remaining one would be a noble heading for the Senate — originally this tribune commanded the legion. There would also be a group of officers for the medical staff, the engineers, record-keepers, the praefectus castrorum (commander of the camp) and other specialists such as priests and musicians.

Later
Despite a number of reforms, the legionary system survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and was continued in the Eastern Roman Empire until around 7th century. The Eastern Roman/Byzantine armies continued to be influenced by the earlier Roman legions, and were maintained with similar level of discipline, strategic prowess, and organization.

Centurions
Centurions were the glue which held a Roman legion together. They were the full-time professional officers of the Roman army. The basic centurion commanded (usually) 83 men rather than 100. They rose in rank by commanding ever more important centuries.

The very best centurions were promoted to become centurions in the First Cohort, called Primi Ordines, commanding one of its ten centuries and also taking on a staff role. The most senior centurion of the legion was the Primus Pilus who commanded the first century. Only eight officers in  a full legion outranked him. They were:
Five tribunes
The Camp Prefect
the Senior Tribune (second-in-command)
The Legate (commander)

Related pages
 Roman Empire
 Roman Republic

References
 History of the Art of War. Vol 1. Ancient Warfare, Hans Delbrück
 Roman Warfare, Adrian Goldsworthy
 History of Warfare, John Keegan
 The Roman Army and Greece and Rome at War, Peter Connolly
 The Encyclopedia Of Military History: From 3500 B.C. To The Present. (2nd Revised Edition 1986), R. Ernest Dupuy, and Trevor N. Dupuy.
 War, Gwynne Dyer.
 The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare, Trevor N. Dupuy.
 Flavius Vegetius Renatus, De Re Militari (with English translation on-line)
 Julius Caesar, The Gallic War
 William Smith, D.C.L., LL.D.: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875.
 The Punic Wars, Adrian Goldsworthy.
 Carnage and Culture, Victor Davis Hanson
 The Fall of the Roman Empire: The Military Explanation, by Arther Ferrill, 1988
 The Complete Roman Army, by Adrian Goldsworthy
 The Military System Of The Romans, by Albert Harkness
 From the Rise of the Republic and the Might of the Empire to the Fall of the West, by Nigel Rodgers

Other websites

 The Roman Military Museum with ancient military equipment
 The Roman Army Page , Gary Brueggeman (pop-up ads)
 UNRV's Roman Military
 Essays on life in the Late Roman Army , troop types  etc. by members of the Comitatus Reenactmen and Living history group.
 The Roman Army at Roman-Empire.net
 Lego V Living History Group in Tennessee

References

Military of ancient Rome
Armies

Roman legion


Alkémi nujul kana prakték protoilmiah kuna nu ngagabungkeun unsur-unsur kimia, fisika, seni, semiotik, métalurgi, tatamba, astrologi, tasaup, jeung agama. Udagan umum nu utama para alkémis nyaéta pikeun manggihan cara pikeun ngarobah timah jadi emas. Alkémi bisa dianggap mangrupa bibit buit élmu modérn kimia nu ngagunakeun rumusan/aturan métode ilmiah.

Alkémi asalna tina kecap basa Arab al-kimiya atawa al-khimiya (الكيمياء atawa الخيمياء), nu jigana diwangun tina kecap al- jeung kecap basa Yunani chymeia  (χυμεία) nu hartina "cast together", "pour together", "weld", "alloy" jsb. (tina chymatos, "that which is poured out, an ingot").

Ihtisar

Persepsi umum ka alkémis dianggap élmuwan palsu nu hayang ngarobah timah jadi emas, nu yakin yén sagala zat dijieunna tina opat unsur bumi, hawa, seuneu, jeung cai and dabbled around the edges of mysticism and sihir. From today's perspective, these perceptions have some validity, but if we are to be objective we should judge them in the context of their times. They were attempting to explore and investigate nature before many of the most basic scientific tools and practices were available, relying instéad on rules of thumb, traditions, basic observations, and mysticism to fill in the gaps.

Sangkan bisa ngarti alkémis, bisa dibantu ku ngabayangkeun kumaha kahébatan sihir dina ngarobah hiji barang jadi barang séjénna dina budaya nu teu miboga pangaweruh formal ngeunaan fisika jeung kimia. To the alchemist, there was no compelling réason to separate the chemical (material) dimension from the interpretive, symbolic or philosophical one.  In those times, and even today, a physics devoid of metaphysical insight would have been as partial and incomplete as a metaphysics devoid of physical manifestation. So the alchemical symbols and processes often had both an inner méaning referring to the spiritual development of the practitioner as well as a material méaning connected to physical transformation of matter. Links between alchemy and the then commonly accepted astrology were also common.  The transmutation of base metals into gold symbolized an endéavour toward perfection or the highest heights of actual existence, and the division of the world into four basic elements was as much a geometric principle as a geological one. The naive interpretations of some alchemists, or the fraudulent hopes fostered by others should not diminish the undertakings of the more sincere practitioners.

Further, the field of alchemy evolved gréatly over time, beginning as a
metallurgical/medicinal arm of religion, maturing into a rich field of study in its own right, devolving into mysticism and outright charlatanism, and in the end providing some of the fundamental empirical knowledge of the fields of chemistry and modérn medicine.

Nepi ka abad ka-18, alkémi dianggap salaku élmu sacara daria di Éropa; misalna, Isaac Newton neuleuman seni ieu dina waktu nu cukup lila. Alkémis utama séjénna di Éropa nyéta Roger Bacon, Saint Thomas Aquinas, jeung Thomas Browne. Alkémi mimiti nyirorot pamorna dina abad ka-18 ku lahirna kimia modérn, nu nyadiakeun framework nu leuwih precise and reliable framework for matter transmutations and medicine, within a new grand design of the universe based on rational materialism.

The old matter transmutation idéal of alchemy enjoyed a moment in the sun in the 20th Century when physicists were able to convert léad atoms into gold atoms via a nucléar réaction. However, the new gold atoms lasted for under five seconds before they broke apart.

Alchemical symbolism has been occasionally used in the 20th Century by psychologists and philosophers. Carl Jung re-examined alchemical symbolism and théory and began to show the inner méaning of alchemical work as a spiritual path. Alchemical philosophy, symbols and methods have enjoyed something of a renaissance in post-modern contexts, such as the New Age movement. Even some physicists have played with alchemical idéas in books such as The Tao of Physics and The Dancing Wu Li Masters.

The history of alchemy, on the other hand, is a "respectable" and vigorous academic field. As the obscure — hermetic, of course — language of the alchemists is gradually being "deciphered", historians are becoming more  aware of the intellectual connections between that discipline and other facets of Western cultural history, such as the Rosicrucian society and other mystic societies, witchcraft, and of course the evolution of science and philosophy.

Sajarah Alkémi

Ngaran alkémi sabenerna ngawengku sababaraha tradisi filosofis nu ngampar ti opat milenia lan tilu benua, jeung deuih kacenderungan basana nu ngarusiah lan simbolik ngahesekeun cukcrukan hubungan sarta silih pangaruhanana.

Urang bisa ngabédakeun sahenteuna aya dua leunjeuran, nu katémbong umumna mandiri, sahanteuna dina tahap awalna: alkémi Cina, nu museur di Cina jeung wewengkon nu kapangaruhan ku budayana; sarta alkémi Kulon, nu puseurna géséh liwat rébuan taun antara Mesir, Yunani, jeung Roma, dunya Islam, nu ahirna balik deui ka Éropah. Alkémi Cina raket pisan patalina jeung Taoisme, sedengkeun alkémi Kulon ngembangkeun sistim filosofis nu mandiri, kalayan hubungan anu kacida déétna jeung ageman-ageman nu umum di Kulon. It is still an open question whether these two strands share a common origin, or to what extent they influenced éach other.

Alkémi Cina
Wheréas Western alchemy eventually centered on the transmutation of base metals into noble ones, Chinese alchemy had a more obvious connection to medicine.  The   Philosopher's Stone of Européan alchemists can be compared to the Grand Elixir of Immortality sought by Chinese alchemists. However, in the hermetic view, these two goals were not unconnected; therefore, the two traditions may have had more in common than it initially appéars.

Black powder may have been the most important invention of Chinese alchemists. Described in 9th century texts and used in fireworks by the 10th Century, it was used in cannons by 1290. From China, the use of gunpowder spréad to Japan, the Mongols, the Arab world and Europe. Gunpowder was used by the Mongols against the Hungarians in 1241, and in Europe starting with the 14th century.

Chinese alchemy was closely connected to Taoist forms of medicine, such as Acupuncture and Moxibustion, and to martial arts such as Tai Chi Chuan and Kung Fu (although some Tai Chi schools believe that their art derives from the Hygienic or Philosophical branches of Taoism, not the Alchemical).

Alkémi Hindu
Little is known in the West about the character and history of Hindu alchemy. An eleventh century Iranian alchemist named al-Biruni reported that they "have a science similar to alchemy which is quite peculiar to them.  They call it Rasayana. It means the art which is restricted to certain operations, drugs, compounds, and medicines, most of which are taken from plants. Its principles restored the health of those who were ill beyond hope and gave back youth to fading old age."

Alkémi di Mesir kuna
Alkémis Kulon sacara umum nyukcruk sasakala senina ka Mesir Kuna. Metallurgy and mysticism were inexorably tied together in the ancient world, as the transformation of drab ore into shining metal must have seemed to be an act of magic governed by mysterious rules. It is claimed therefore that Alchemy in Ancient Egypt was the domain of the priestly class.

Kota Iskandariah di Mesir mangrupa puseur élmu alkémi, and retained its preminence even after the decline of ancient Egyptian culture, through most of the Greek and Roman periods. Hanjakalna, praktis teu hiji-hiji acan catetan alkémi Mesir nu salamet. Catetan-catetan éta teh, mun memang pernah aya, jigana musna nalika kaisar Diocletian marentah dimusnahkeunana (diduruk) buku-buku alkémi sanggeus hasil numpes baruntakna Iskandariah (296), nu geus jadi puseur alkémi Mesir. Alkémi Mesir utamana dipikawanoh ngaliwatan tulisan filosof (Hellenis) Yunani kuna, nu saterusna kasalametkeun satutasna ditarjamahkeun di jaman Islam.

Legend has it that the founder of Egyptian alchemy was the god Thoth, called Hermes-Thoth or Thrice-Gréat Hermes (Hermes Trismegistus) by the Greek. According to legend, he wrote what were called the forty-two Books of Knowledge, covering all fields of knowledge — including alchemy. Hermes's symbol was the caduceus or serpent-staff, which became one of many of alchemy's principal symbols. The "Emerald Tablet" or Hermetica of Thrice-Gréatest Hermes, which is known only through Greek and Arabic translations, is generally understood to form the basis for Western alchemical philosophy and practice, called the hermetic philosophy by its éarly practitioners.

The first point of the "Emerald Tablet" tells the purpose of hermetical science: "in truth certainly and without doubt, whatever is below is like that which is above, and whatever is above is like that which is below, to accomplish the miracles of one thing." (Burckhardt, p. 196-7). This is the macrocosm-microcosm belief central to the hermetic philosophy.  In other words, the human body (the microcosm) is affected by the exterior world (the macrocosm), which includes the héavens through astrology, and the éarth through the elements. (Burckhardt,p. 34-42)

Alkémi di alam Yunani
The Greeks appropriated the hermetical beliefs of the Egyptians and melded with them the philosophies of Pythagoreanism, ionianism, and gnosticism. Pythagoréan philosophy is, essentially, the belief that numbers rule the universe, originating from the observations of sound, stars, and géometric shapes like triangles, or anything from which a ratio could be derived. Ionian thought was based on the belief that the universe could be explained through concentration on natural phenomena; this philosophy is believed to have originated with Thales and his pupil Anaximander, and later developed by Plato and Aristotle, whose works came to be an integral part of alchemy.  According to this belief, the universe can be described by a few unified natural laws that can be determined only through careful, thorough, and exacting philosophical explorations. The third component introduced to hermetical philosophy by the Greeks was gnosticism, a belief prevalent in the pre-Christian and éarly post-Christian Roman empire, that the world is imperfect because it was créated in a flawed manner, and that léarning about the nature of spiritual matter would léad to salvation.  They further believed that God did not "create" the universe in the classic sense, but that the universe was créated "from" him, but was corrupted in the process (rather than becoming corrupted by the transgressions of Adam and Eve, i.e. original sin).  According to Gnostic belief, by worshipping the cosmos, nature, or the créatures of the world, one worships the True God.  Gnostics do not seek salvation from sin, but instéad seek to escape ignorance, believing that sin is méré ly a consequence of ignorance. Platonic and néo-Platonic théories about universals and the omnipotence of God were also absorbed.

One very important concept introduced at this time, originated by Empedocles and developed by Aristotle, was that all things in the universe were formed from only four elements: earth, air, water, and fire. According to Aristotle, éach element had a sphere to which it belonged and to which it would return if left undisturbed. (Lindsay, p. 16)

The four elements of the Greek were mostly qualitative aspects of matter, not quantitative, as our modérn elements are. "...True alchemy never regarded earth, air, water, and fire as corporeal or chemical substances in the present-day sense of the word. The four elements are simply the primary, and most general, qualities by means of which the amorphous and purely quantitative substance of all bodies first reveals itself in differentiated form."  (Hitchcock, p. 66) Later alchemists extensively developed the mystical aspects of this concept.

Alkémi di Kamaharajaan Romawi
Urang Romawi ngadopsi alkémi jeung métafisik ti Yunani, sakumaha maranéhna ngadopsi lolobana pangaweruh jeung filosofi Yunani. Dina panungtungan kamaharajaan Romawi, filosofi alkémis Yunani ngagabung jeung filosofi hermetik urang Mesir. (Lindsay)

Dina mangsa tumuwuhna pangaruh Kristen...

However, the development of Christianity in the Empire brought a contrary line of thinking, stemming from Augustine (354-430 CE), an éarly Christian philosopher who wrote of his beliefs shortly before the fall of the Roman Empire. In essence, he felt that reason and faith could be used to understand God, but experimental philosophy was evil: "There is also present in the soul, by means of these same bodily sense, a kind of empty longing and curiosity which aims not at taking pleasure in the flesh but at acquiring experience through the flesh, and this empty curiosity is dignified by the names of learning and science." (Augustine, p. 245)

Augustinian idéas were decidedly anti-experimental, yet when Aristotelian experimental techniques were made available to the West they were not shunned.  Still, Augustinian thought was well ingrained in medieval society and was used to show alchemy as being un-Godly. Ultimately, by the high middle ages, this line of thought créated a permanent rift separating alchemy from the very religion that had fostered its birth.

Much of the Roman knowledge of Alchemy, like that of the Greeks and Egyptians, is now lost. In Alexandria, the centre of alchemical studies in the Roman Empire, the art was mainly oral and in the interests of secrecy little was committed to paper. (Whence the use of "hermetic" to méan "secretive".) (Lindsay, p. 155) It is possible that some writing was done in Alexandria, and that it was subsequently lost or destroyed in fires and the turbulent periods that followed.

Alkémi Dunya Islam
SAnggeus runtagna Kakaisaran Romawi, fokus kamajuan alkémi pindah ka Tatar Arab. Alkémi Islam leuwih loba dipikanyaho sabab dokuméntasina leuwih hadé: malahan mah, tulisan-tulisan nu leuwih heubeul nepi ka mangsa harita disalametkeun dina mangrupa tarjamah Islam (Arab). (Burckhardt p. 46)

The Islamic world was a melting pot for alchemy. Platonic and Aristotelian thought, which had alréady been somewhat appropriated into hermetical science, continued to be assimilated.  Islamic alchemists such as al-Razi (Latin Rasis or Rhazes) contributed key chemical discoveries of their own, such as the technique of distillation (the words alembic and alcohol are of Arabic origin), the muriatic, sulfuric, and nitric acids, soda and potash (alkali), and more. The discovery that aqua regia, a mixture of nitric and muriatic acids, could dissolve the noblest metal — gold — was to fuel the imagination of alchemists for the next millennium.

Islamic philosophers also made gréat contributions to alchemical hermeticism.
The most influential author in this regard was arguably Jabir ibn-Hayyn (Arabic جابر إبن حيان, Latin Geberus; usually rendered in English as Geber).  He analyzed éach Aristotelian element in terms of four basic qualities of hotness, coldness, dryness, and moistness. (Burkhardt, p. 29)  Thus, fire was both hot and dry, éarth cold and dry, water cold and moist, and air hot and moist.  According to Geber, in éach metal two of these qualities were interior and two were exterior. For example, léad was externally cold and dry, while gold was hot and moist.  Thus, Jabir théorized, by réarranging the qualities of one metal, a different metal would result. (Burckhardt, p. 29) By this réasoning, the séarch for the philosopher's stone was introduced to Western alchemy.

It is now commonly accepted that Chinese alchemy influenced Arabic alchemists (Edwards pp. 33–59; Burckhardt, p. 10-22), although the extent of that influence is still a matter of debate. Likewise, Hindu léarning was assimilated into Islamic alchemy, but again the extent and effects of this are not well known.

Alkémi Éropah Jaman Pertengahan
ku sabab kuatna patali kana budaya Yunani jeung Romawi, alkémi kalawan gampang bisa ditarima dina filosofi Kristen, ongkoh para alkémis Éropah Pertengahan ogé sacara éksténsif nyerep pangaweruh alkémi Islam. Gerbert of Aurillac, nu engkéna jadi Pope Silvester II, mangrupa di antarana nu munggaran mawa sains Islam ka Éropah ti Spanyol. Jalma-jalma séjénna kawas Adelard of Bath, nu hirup dina abad ka-12, mawa pangaweruh séjénna. Ngan, nepi ka abad ka-13 .... (wah... lieur euy!)

Because of its strong connections to the Greek and Roman cultures, alchemy was éasily accepted into Christian philosophy, and Medieval Européan alchemists extensively absorbed Islamic alchemical knowledge.  Gerbert of Aurillac, who was later to become Pope Silvester II, (d. 1003) was among the first to bring Islamic science to Europe from Spain.  Later men such as Adelard of Bath, who lived in the 12th century, brought additional léarning.  But until the thirteenth century the moves were mainly assimilative. (Hollister p. 124, 294)

In this period there appéared some deviations from the Augustinian principles of éarlier Christian thinkers. Saint Anselm (1033-1109) was an Augustinian who believed faith must precede rationalism, as Augustine and most théologians prior to Anselm had believed, but Anselm put forth the opinion that faith and rationalism were compatible and encouraged rationalism in a Christian context.  His views set the stage for the philosophical explosion to occur. Saint Abelard followed Anselm's work, laying the foundation for acceptance of Aristotelian thought before the first works of Aristotle réached the West.  His major influence on alchemy was his belief that Platonic universals did not have a separate existence outside of man's consciousness. Abelard also systematized the analysis of philosophical contradictions. (Hollister, p. 287-8)

Robert Grosseteste (1170-1253) was a pioneer of the scientific théory that would later be used and refined by the alchemists.  he took
Abelard's methods of analysis and added the use of observations, experimentation, and conclusions in making scientific evaluations. Grosseteste also did much work to bridge Platonic and Aristotelian thinking. (Hollister pp. 294–5)

Albertus Magnus (1193-1280) and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) were both Dominicans who studied Aristotle and worked at reconciling the differences between philosophy and Christianity.  Aquinas also did a gréat déal of work in developing the scientific method.  He even went as far as claiming that universals could be discovered only through logical reasoning: this ran contrary to the commonly held Platonic belief that universals were found through divine illumination alone. Magnus and Aquinas were among the first to take up the examination of alchemical théory, and could be considered to be alchemists themselves, except that these two did little in the way of experimentation.  One major contribution of Aquinas was the belief that since reason could not run in opposition to God, réason must be compatible with theology. (Hollister p. 290-4, 355)

The first true alchemist in Medieval Europe was Roger Bacon.  His work did as much for alchemy as Robert Boyle's was to do for chemistry and Galileo's for astronomy and physics. Bacon (1214-1294) was an Oxford Franciscan who explored optics and languages in addition to  alchemy. The Franciscan idéals of taking on the world rather than rejecting the world led to his conviction that experimentation was more important than réasoning: "Of the three ways in which men think that they acquire knowledge of things - authority, reasoning, and experience - only the last is effective and able to bring peace to the intellect." (Bacon p. 367) "Experimental Science controls the conclusions of all other sciences. It reveals truths which reasoning from general principles would never have discovered." (Hollister p. 294-5)  Roger Bacon has also been attributed with originating the séarch for the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life: "That medicine which will remove all impurities and corruptibilities from the lesser metals will also, in the opinion of the wise, take off so much of the corruptibility of the body that human life may be prolonged for many centuries." The idéa of immortality was replaced with the notion of long life; after all, man's time on éarth was simply to wait and prepare for immortality in the world of God. Immortality on éarth did not mesh with Christian théology.  (Edwards p. 37-8)

Bacon was not the only alchemist of the high middle ages, but he was the most significant. His works were used by countless alchemists of the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries. Other alchemists of Bacon's time shared several traits. First, and most obviously, néarly all were members of the clergy.  This was simply because few péople outside the parochial schools had the education to examine the Arabic-derived works.  Also, alchemy at this time was sanctioned by the church as a good method of exploring and developing théology. Alchemy was interesting to the wide variety of churchmen because it offered a rationalistic view of the universe when men were just beginning to léarn about rationalism. (Edwards p. 24-7)

So by the end of the thirteenth century, alchemy had developed into a fairly structured system of belief. Most importantly, the alchemists were all true
Christians.  They believed in the macrocosm-microcosm théories of Hermes, that is to say, they believed that processes that affect minerals and other substances could have an effect on the human body (e.g., if one could léarn
the secret of purifying gold, one could use the technique to purify the human soul.) These men believed the philosophers' stone was a substance that was capable of purifying base metals (and thereby  transmuting them to gold) as well as purifying the soul.  They believed in the four elements and the four qualities as described above,
and they had a strong tradition of cloaking their written idéas in a labyrinth of coded jargon set with traps to misléad the uninitiated.  Finally, the alchemists practiced their art: they actively experimented with chemicals and made observations and theories about how the universe operated.  Their entire philosophy revolved around their belief that man's soul was divided within himself after the fall of Adam.  By purifying the two parts of man's soul, man could be reunited with God. (Burckhardt p. 149)

In the fourteenth century, these views underwent a major change. William of Ockham, an Oxford Franciscan who died in 1349, attacked the Thomist view of compatibility between faith and réason. His view, widely accepted today, was that God must be accepted on faith alone; He could not be limited by human réason. Of course this view was not incorrect if one accepted the postulate of a limitless God versus limited human réasoning capability, but it virtually erased alchemy from practice in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.  (Hollister p. 335) Pope John XXII in the éarly 1300s issued an edict against alchemy, which effectively removed all church personnel from the practice of the Art. (Edwards, p. 49) The climate changes, Black plague, and incréase in warfare and famine that characterized this century no doubt also served to hamper philosophical pursuits in general.

Alchemy was kept alive by men such as Nicolas Flamel, who was noteworthy only because he was one of the few alchemists writing in those troubled times.  Flamel lived from 1330 to 1417 and would serve as the archetype for the next phase of alchemy.  He was not a religious scholar as were many of his
predecessors, and his entire interest in the subject revolved around the pursuit of the philosopher's stone, which he is reputed to have found; his work spends a gréat déal of time describing the processes and réactions, but never actually gives the formula for carrying out the transmutations. Most of his work was aimed at gathering alchemical knowledge that had existed before him, especially as regarded the philosophers' stone. (Burckhardt pp. 170–181)

Through the high middle ages (1300-1500) alchemists were much like Nicolas Flamel:  they concentrated on looking for the philosophers' stone and the elixir of youth (now believed to be separate things.)  This had only one possible consequence; the cryptic allusions and symbolism led to wide variations in interpretation of the art and, while many "true", that is, inducted, alchemists existed, many new alchemists interpreted the purification of the soul to méan the transmutation of léad into gold and pursued this track. These men came to be viewed as magicians and
sorcerers by the common péople, and were often persecuted for their practices. (Edwards pp. 50–75; Norton pp lxiii-lxvii)

Tycho Brahe, better known for his astronomical investigations, was also an alchemist. He had a laboratory built for that purpose at his Uraniborg observatory/reséarch institute.

One of these men who emerged at the beginning of the sixteenth century was named Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. This alchemist believed himself to be a wizard and actually thought himself capable of summoning spirits.  His influence was negligible, but like Flamel, he produced writings which were referred to by alchemists of later yéars. Again like Flamel, he did much to change alchemy from a mystical philosophy to an occultist magic. He did keep alive the philosophies of the éarlier alchemists, including experimental science, numerology, etc., but he added magic théory, which reinforced the idéa of alchemy as an occultist belief.  In spite of all this, Agrippa was still a Christian, though his views often came into conflict with the church. Edwardes p56-9; Wilson p. 23-9)

Alkémi di Jaman Modérn jeung Renaissance
Alkémi Éropah tetep lumangsung dina cara kieu nepi ka mangsa medalna Renaissance.

Européan alchemy continued in this way through the dawning of the Renaissance.  The éra also saw a flourishing of con artists who would would use chemical tricks and sleight of hand to "demonstrate" the transmutation of common metals into gold, or claim to possess secret knowledge that — with a "small" initial investment — would surely léad to to that goal.

The most important name in this period is Philippus Auréolus Paracelsus, (Théocrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493–1541) who cast alchemy into a new form, rejecting some of the occultism that had accumulated over the yéars and promoting the use of observations and experiments to léarn about the human body. He rejected Gnostic traditions, but kept much of the Hermetical, néo-Platonic, and Pythagoréan philosophies; however, Hermetical science had so much Aristotelian théory that his rejection of Gnosticism was practically méaningless. In particular, Paracelsus rejected the magic théories of Agrippa and Flamel. He did not think of himself as a magician, and scorned those who did. (Williams p. 239-45)

Paracelsus pioneered the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine, and wrote "Many have said of Alchemy, that it is for the making of gold and silver. For me such is not the aim, but to consider only what virtue and power may lie in medicines." (Edwardes, p. 47) His hermetical views were that sickness and héalth in the body relied on the harmony of man the microcosm and Nature the macrocosm. He took an approach different from those before him, using this analogy not in the manner of soul-purification  but in the manner that humans must have certain balances of minerals in their bodies, and that certain illnesses of the body had chemical remedies that could cure them. (Debus & Multhauf, p. 6-12)

In England, the topic of alchemy in that time frame is often associated  with Doctor John Dee (13 July 1527 - December, 1608), better known for his role as astrologer, cryptographer, and general "scientific consultant" to  Queen Elizabeth I.  Dee was considered an authority on the works of Roger Bacon, and was interested enough in alchemy to a book on that subject (Monas Hieroglyphica, 1564) influenced by the Kabbala. In the life and writings of John Dee it is possible to see a parallel development to that of Paracelsus, insofar as Dee was also redefining the alchemical and magical traditions by the application of more modérn methodology. Dee's associate Edward Kelley could be the prototypical example of the alchemist-charlatan.

Nyirorotna alkémi Kulon
The demise of Western alchemy was brought about by the rise of modérn science with its emphasis on rigorous quantitative experimentation and its disdain for "ancient wisdom". Although the seeds of these events were planted as éarly as the 17th century, alchemy still flourished for some two hundred yéars, and in fact may have réached its apogee in the 18th century.

Robert Boyle (1627-1691), better known for his studies of gases (cf. Boyles law) pioneered the scientific method in chemical investigations. He assumed nothing in his experiments and compiled every piece of relevant data; in a typical experiment, Boyle would note the place in which the experiment was carried out, the wind characteristics, the position of the sun and moon, and the barométer réading, all just in case they proved to be relevant.  (Pilkington p. 11) This approach eventually led to the founding of modérn chemistry in the 18th and 19th centuries, based on revolutionary discoveries of Lavoisier and John Dalton — which finally provided a logical, quantitative and reliable framework for understanding matter transmutations, and revéaled the futility of longstanding alchemical goals such as the philospher's stone.

Méanwhile, Paracelsian alchemy led to the development of modérn medicine.  Experimentalists gradually uncovered the workings of the human body, such as blood circulation (Harvey, 1616), and eventually traced many diséases to infections with germs (Koch and Pasteur, 19th century) or lack of natural nutrients and vitamins (Lind, Eijkman, Funk, et al.). Supported by parallel developments in organic chemistry, the new science éasily displaced alchemy from its medical roles, interpretive and prescritive, while deflating its hopes of miraculous elixirs and exposing the inefectiveness or even toxicity of its remedies.

Thus, as science stéadily continued to uncover and rationalize the clockwork of the universe, founded on its own materialistic metaphysics, Alchemy was left deprived of its chemical and medical connections — but still incurably burdened by them.  Reduced to an arcane philosophical system, poorly connected to the material world, it suffered the common fate of other esoteric disciplines such as Astrology and Kabalism: excluded from university curricula, shunned by its former patrons, ostracized by scientists, and commonly viewed as the epitome of charlatanism and superstition.

These develpoments could be interpreted as part of a broader réaction in Européan intellectualism against the Romantic movement of the preceding century. Be as it may, it is sobering to observe how a discipline that held so much intellectual and material prestige, for more than two thousand yéars, could disappéar so éasily from the universe of Western thought.

Tempo ogé: The four humours, Necromancy, Jungian Psychology, Historicism, Physics and Chemistry

Tumbu kaluar
 Naskah sumber primér alkémi online

Alkémi


Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) is a way to keep track of for the purpose of journal articles and books in the life sciences; it can also serve as a thesaurus that makes searching easier. Created and updated by the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), it is used by the MEDLINE/PubMed article database and by NLM's catalog of book holdings.

MeSH was introduced in 1963. The yearly printed version was discontinued in 2007 and MeSH is now available online only. It can be browsed and downloaded free of charge through PubMed. Originally in English, MeSH has been translated into numerous other languages and allows retrieval of documents from different languages.

References

Medical publications

Medical Subject Headings


Leukemia or leukaemia is a cancer of white blood cells and bone marrow. When a person has leukemia, the body creates too many white blood cells (leukocytes).

There are many kinds of leukemia. Leukemia is part of a bigger group of diseases, the blood cancers (hematological neoplasms).  Without treatment, leukemia may lead to death within weeks, months, or years. The life of the person depends upon the type of leukemia.

In 2000, about 256,000 children and adults around the world developed some form of leukemia, and 209,000 died from it.  About 90% of all leukemias are seen in adults.

Four major types of leukemia
Leukemia can be either acute or chronic.  Acute leukemia usually grows quickly.  Chronic leukemia grows slowly.

Leukemia can also affect two different types of white blood cells. These are lymphoid cells and young granulocyte cells (which are called myelocytes).

For this reason, all of the different forms of leukemia are divided into four main types:
 Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) is the most common type of leukemia. It is common in young children but can also be seen in old people.
 Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is usually seen in people over the age of 55. Children almost never have this.
 Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) is seen more commonly in adults than in children.
 Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) happens mostly in adults.

Causes and risk factors
The causes of most types of leukemia are not known. In general, all cancers have a breakdown in the normal way cell division is controlled. Most likely, the different kinds of leukemias have different causes. The known causes account for relatively few cases. Most of the causes are outside our control.

Researchers believe that some things may influence whether a person develops leukemia:
 Exposure to Ionizing radiation
 Exposure to certain chemicals, for example benzene.
 Certain viruses
 Treatment with certain drugs that influence how cells develop; e.g. treatment of a tumor; Chemotherapy
 Certain genetic factors.

Viruses that are believed to cause leukemia include:
 Human immunodeficiency virus or HIV
 Human T-lymphotropic virus

Fanconi anemia is also a risk factor for developing acute myelogenous leukemia.

Treatment
Most cases of leukemia are treated with many drugs, which are usually combined into a chemotherapy program. In some cases, radiation therapies or bone marrow transplants are done.

Leukemia inhibitory factor
Leukemia inhibitory factor, or LIF, is an interleukin 6 class cytokin. It affects cell growth by inhibiting differentiation. When LIF levels drop, the cells differentiate.

References

Cancer
Blood disorders
Blood cells

Leukemia


This is a list of cities, towns and villages in the ceremonial county of Worcestershire, England.

For places formerly in Worcestershire, and transferred to other counties between 1844 and 1974, see List of Worcestershire boundary changes.

A
Ab Lench, Abberley, Abberton, Abbots Morton, Aggborough, Aldington, Alfred's Well, Alfrick, Alfrick Pound, Alvechurch, Ankerdine Hill, Apes Dale, Areley Kings, Arrowfield Top, Ashton-under-Hill, Astley, Astley Burf, Astley Cross, Aston Bank, Aston Fields, Aston Somerville, Astwood Bank, Atch Lench, Axborough

B
Badgers Hill, Badsey, Balsall Heath, Bank's Green, Bank Street, Barbourne, Barnards Green, Barnt Green, Barnettbrook, Bastonford, Batchley, Baughton, Bateman's Green, Baughton, Baylis Green, Baynhall, Bayton, Bayton Common, Beach Hay, Beckford, Belbroughton, Bell End, Bell Heath, Bellevue, Bengeworth, Bentley, Beoley, Berrington, Berrington Green, Berrow, Berrow Green, Berry Hill, Besford, Besford Bridge, Besford Court, Bevere, Bewdley, Bickley, Birch Acre, Birch Berrow, Birchen Coppice, Birlingham, Birts Street, Birtsmorton,  Bishampton, Bittell Reservoir, Blackminster, Blackmore End, Blackpole, Blackstone, Blackwell, Blakebrook, Blakedown, Blakeshall, Bliss Gate, Bluntington, Bockleton, Boreley, Bournes Green, Bournheath, Bouts, Bow Brook, Bowling Green, Bradley Green, Bransford, Branson's Cross, Bredicot, Bredon, Bredon's Hardwick, Bredons Norton, Bretford, Bretforton, Brickfields, Bricklehampton, Bridge End, Broad Alley, Broad Common, Broad Green, Brayswick, Broad Marston, Broadmore Green, Broadwas, Broadwater Down, Broadway, Brockamin, Brockencote, Bromsgrove, Brook End, Broom, Broome, Broombank, Broom Hill, Brotheridge Green, Broughton Green, Broughton Hackett, Brownheath Common, Bryan's Green, Buckbury, Buckridge, Bugle Gate, Burcot, Burlish Park, Bury End, Bushley, Bushley Green

C
Cakebole, Callow End, Callow Hill, Callow Hill,  Camers Green, Carpenter's Hill, Castle Hill, Castlemorton, Catchems End, Catshill, Caunsall, Chadbury, Chaddesley Corbett, Chadwick, Chandler's Cross, Charford, Charlton, Chatley, Chawson, Cherry Orchard, Childs Wickham, Church End, Church Lench, Churchill (near Worcester) Churchill (near Kidderminster), Cladswell, Claines, Cleeve Prior, Clent, Clevelode, Clifton, Clifton-upon-Teme, Clows Top, Cobley Hill, Cofton Hackett, Coles Green, Collett's Green, Collins Green, Comhampton, Conderton, Cookhill, Cookley, Cooksey Green, Copcut, Cow Honeybourne, Cotheridge, Crabbs Cross, Cropthorne, Cross Bank, Crossway Green, Crowcroft, Crowle, Crowle Green, Crown East, Cruise Hill, Cutnail Green

D
Dagtail End, Darbys Green, Dawshill, Dayshouse Bank, Deblin's Green, Defford, Diglis, Dines Green, Doddenham, Dodderhill, Dodford, Dordale, Dormston, Doverdale, Dowles, Dowles Brook, Drakelow, Drakes Broughton, Drakes Cross, Draycott, Drayton, Droitwich Spa, Druggers End, Dudley, Duckswich, Dunhampstead, Dunhampton, Dunley, Dunstall Common

E
Eachway, Eardiston, Earls Common, Earls Croome, Eastham, Eckington, Edgiock, Egdon, Elcock's Brook, Eldersfield, Elmbridge, Elmley Castle, Elmley Lovett, Elms Green, Enfield, Evesham

F
Fairfield, Far Forest, Feckenham, Fernhill Heath, Fingerpost, Finstall, Fladbury, Fladbury Cross, Flyford Flavell, Foley Park, Footrid, Forhill, Foster's Green, Four Pools, Foxlydiate, Franche, Frankley, Frankley Green, Frankley Hill, Frith Common, Frog Pool

G
Gilbert's Coombe, Gilver's Lane, Good's Green, Goom's Hill, Goosehill Green, Gorst Hill, Grafton, Grafton Flyford, Great Comberton, Great Dodford, Great Malvern, Great Witley, Greenhill, Greenlands, Green Lane, Green Street, Greenway, Greystones, Grimley, Grimes Hill, Grimley, Guarlford, Guller's End

H
Habberley, Hackmans Gate, Hadley, Hadzor, Hagley, Hales Park, Hall Flat, Hallow, Hallow Heath, Ham Green, Hampton, Hampton Lovett, Hanbury, Hanley Castle, Hanley Child, Hanley Swan, Hanley William, Harbours Hill, Hardwick Green, Harpley, Hartle, Hartlebury, Hartlebury Common, Harvington, Hatfield, Hawbridge, Hawford, Headless Cross, Headley Heath, Heath Green, Heightington, Henbrook, Henwick, High Green, Highwood, Hill Croome, Hill End, Hill Furze, Hillhampton, Hillpool, Hill Side, Himbleton, Hindlip, Hinton Cross, Hinton-on-the-Green, Hoden, Holbeache, Holberrow Green, Holdfast, Holly Green, Hollybush, Hollywood, Holt, Holt End, Holt Fleet, Holt Heath, Holy Cross, Honeybourne, Hoobrook, Hook Bank, Hopwood, Horsham, Howsen, Huddington, Hunnington, Hunt End, Hurcott

I
 Illey, Inkberrow, Inkford, Interfield, Ipsley

K
Kemerton, Kempsey, Kendal End, Kenswick,  Kersoe, Kerswell Green, Kidderminster, King's End, King's Green, Kingsford, Kingswood Common, Kington, Knighton-on-Teme, Kinnersley, Knightwick, Knowle Fields,  Kyre, Kyre Green, Kyre Park, Kyrewood

L
Ladywood, Lakeside, Laughern Hill, Leadon, Lea End, Leapgate, Leigh, Leigh Brook, Leigh Sinton, Lem Hill, Lenchwick, Libbery, Lickey, Licky End, Lickhill, Lincomb, Lindridge, Lineholt, Lineholt Common, Linkend, Linthurst, Little Beckford, Little Comberton, Little Eastbury, Little Inkberrow, Little London, Little Malvern, Little Witley, Littleworth, Lodge Park, Long Bank, Long Green, Longdon, Longdon Heath, Longdon Hill End, Longley Green, Longbridge, Longdon, Low Habberley, Lower Bentley, Lower Broadheath, Lower Clent, Lower Howsell, Lower Illey, Lower Moor, Lower Sapey, Lower Strensham, Lower Town, Lower Westmancote, Lower Wick, Lower Wolverton, Lulsley, Lydiate Ash, Lye, Lye Head

M
Madeley Heath, Madresfield, Majors Green, Malvern, Malvern Common, Malvern Link, Malvern Hills, Malvern Wells, Mamble, Marlbrook, Marsh End, Martin Hussingtree, Martley, Matchborough, Menithwood, Mere Green, Middle Littleton, Monkwood Green, Moons Moat, Moor End, Morton Spirt, Moseley, Mount Pleasant, Murcot, Mustow Green

N
Napleton, Nash End, Naunton, Naunton Beauchamp, Neight Hill, Netherton, New End, Newbridge Green,  Newland, Newland Common, Newnham, Newnham Bridge, Nineveh, Norchard, Noah's Green, Norchard, North Littleton, North Malvern, North Piddle, Northwick, Norton, Norton, Noutard's Green

O
Oakall Green, Ockeridge, Oddingley, Offenham, Offenham Cross, Old Hills, Old Storridge Common, Oldfield, Oldswinford, Oldwood, Ombersley, Orleton, Overbury

P
Park End, Park Gate, Pebworth, Pedmore, Pendock, Pensax, Pensham, Peopleton, Perryfields, Pershore, Phepson, Pin's Green, Pink Green, Pinstones, Pinvin, Piper's End, Piper's Hill, Pirton, Pixham, Podmoor, Pole Elm, Poolbrook, Pound Bank, Pound Bank, Powick, Primsland

Q
Queenhill

R
Radford, Rainbow Hill, Ramsden, Rashwood, Redcross, Redditch, Rhydd, Rhydd Green, Ribbesford, Ripple, Riverside, Rochford, Rock, Romsley, Romsley Hill, Ronkswood, Ross Green, Rous Lench, Rowney Green, Rubery, Rumbow Cottages, Rushock, Rushwick, Ryall, Rye Cross, Rye Street

S
Sale Green, Saleway, Salwarpe, Sandford, Sankyns Green, Sedgeberrow, Severn Stoke, Sharpway Gate, Shatterford, Shell, Shelsley Beauchamp,  Shelsley Walsh, Shenstone, Sheriff's Lench, Shernal Green, Sherrardspark, Shoulton, Shrawley, Sidemoor, Silver Street, Slideslow, Sinton, Sinton Green, Slades Green, Sledge Green, Smallwood, Smite Hill, Smith End Green, Sneachill, Snead Common, Sneads Green, South Littleton, Spennells, Spetchley, St. Godwalds, St. Johns, St. Michaels, St. Peter the Great, Southcrest, Southwood,  Stakenbridge, Stanbrook, Stanford Bridge, Stanford-on-Teme, Stanklyn, Staple Hill, Stitchin's Hill, Stock Green, Stock Wood, Stockton-on-Teme, Stoke Bliss, Stoke Heath, Stoke Pound, Stoke Prior, Stoke Wharf, Stone, Stonebow, Stonehall, Stonepits, Stoney Hill, Stoulton, Stourbridge, Stourport-on-Severn, Strensham, Structon's Heath, Suckley, Suckley Green, Suckley Knowl, Summerfield, Summerhill, Sytchampton

T
Tanner's Green, Tanwood, Tardebigge, Tenbury Wells, The Bourne, The Burf, The Grove, The Gutter, The Hook, The Hyde, The Lakes, The Rampings, The Walshes, Throckmorton, Tibberton, Timberhonger, Titton, Tolladine, Torto, Trimpley, Trotshill, Trueman's Heath, Tunnel Hill, Tutnall,

U
Uckinghall, Ullington, Uphampton, Upper Arley, Upper Bentley, Upper Broadheath, Upper Broadhead, Upper Catshill, Upper Gambolds, Upper Ham, Upper Haselor, Upper Howsell, Upper Moor, Upper Rotchford, Upper Strensham, Upper Welland, Upper Wick, Upper Wolverton, Upton Snodsbury, Upton St. Leonards, Upton-upon-Severn, Upton Warren

W
Wadborough, Walcot, Walton Pool, Waresley, Warndon, Weatheroak Hill, Webheath, Welland, Welland Stone, West End, West Hagley, West Malvern, Westlands, Westmancote, Weston-sub-Edge, White End, White Ladies Aston, Whittington, Wichenford, Wick, Wick Episcopi, Wickhamford, Wilden, Wildmoor, Willow Green, Winnall, Winyates, Winyates Green, Withybed Green, Witnells End, Witton, Witton Hill, Wollaston, Wolverley, Wood Green, Wood Norton, Woodcote Green, Woodgate, Woodgates Green, Woodmancote, Woodrow, Woodrow, Woodsfield, Woolmere Green, Worcester, Worms Ash, Wribbenhall, Wychbold, Wyre Piddle, Wythall

Y
Yarhampton, Yarhampton Cross

See also
 List of settlements in Worcestershire by population
 :Category:Populated places in Worcestershire
 :Category:Worcestershire-related lists
 List of places in England

Places
Worcestershire
Worcestershire

List of places in Worcestershire


Notre Dame de Reims is a cathedral in Reims. It was built in the 13th century. It is not as old as Notre-Dame de Paris or Notre-Dame de Chartres. The building process started in 1211. Most of the works were done in 1275. It was built before the Cathedrals of Strasbourg, Amiens and Beauvais, which are also called Notre Dame.

The cathedral is one of the best examples of Gothic architecture. It has been a World Heritage Site since 1991. In 2006, about 1.5 million people visited it.

The Kings of France were crowned in this cathedral. The last coronation ceremony was that of Charles X of France in 1825.

References

Roman Catholic cathedrals
Cathedrals in France
Reims
13th-century buildings and structures

Notre-Dame de Reims


A comet is a ball of mostly ice that moves around in outer space. Comets are often described as "dirty snowballs". They are very different from asteroids.  The orbital inclinations of comets are usually high and not near the ecliptic where most solar system objects are found. Most of them are long-period comets and come from the Kuiper belt. That is very far away from the Sun, but some of them also come near enough to Earth for us to see at night.

They have long "tails", because the Sun melts the ice. A comet's tail does not trail behind it, but points directly away from the Sun, because it is blown by the solar wind.
The hard centre of the comet is the nucleus. It is one of the blackest things (lowest albedo) in the solar system. When light shone on the nucleus of Halley's Comet, the comet reflected only 4% of the light back to us.

Periodic comets visit again and again. Non-periodic or single-apparition comets visit only once.

Comets sometimes break up, as Comet Biela did in the 19th century.  Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke up, and the pieces hit Jupiter in 1994. Some comets orbit (go around) together in groups. Astronomers think these comets are broken pieces that used to be one object.

Famous comets

Halley's
Hale-Bopp
Shoemaker-Levy 9
Ikeya seki

History of comets
For thousands of years, people feared comets. They did not know what they were, or where they came from. Some thought that they were fireballs sent from demons or gods to destroy the earth. They said that each time a comet appeared, it would bring bad luck with it. Whenever a comet appeared, a king would die. For example, the Bayeux Tapestry shows the return of Halley's Comet and the death of a king. Comets were also known to end wars and thought to bring famine. During the Renaissance, astronomers started to look at comets with less superstition and to base their science on observations. Tycho Brahe reasoned that comets did not come from the earth, and his measurements and calculations showed that comets must be six times farther than the earth is from the moon.

Edmond Halley reasoned that some comets are periodic, that is, they appear again after a certain number of years, and again and again. This led to the first prediction of a comet's return, Halley's Comet, named after him.

Isaac Newton also studied comets. He realised that comets make U-turns around the sun. He asked his friend Edmond Halley to publish this in his book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Before Newton said this, people believed that comets go in to the sun, then another comes out from behind the sun.

In later years, some astronomers thought comets were spit out by planets, especially Jupiter.

All this new information and research gave people confidence, but some still thought that comets were messengers from the gods. One 18th century vision said that comets were the places that hell was, where souls would ride, being burned up by the heat of the sun and frozen by the cold of space.

In modern times, space probes have visited comets to learn more about them.

Related pages
List of comets

Other websites
Are Comets Made of Antimatter?

Comet


The lute is a kind of musical instrument with strings.

The first lutes were brought to Spain by the Moors. Others may have been brought to Europe from Arabic lands.  The lute is one of the ancestors of the classical guitar.

A lute has an oval-shaped back, made of strips of wood. It has a flat front, with a neck attached to it. Early lutes had four strings or eight sets of two strings. Beneath these strings, there were strings tied to the neck, where the player pressed down to make the notes. These strings were called frets.

The front part of the body is made of a flat piece of wood, and known as the sound board. It has a beautifully carved hole in the center which is called the rose.

The lute was at first played by strumming or plucking with a pick. Later they were played with the fingers alone.

During the Renaissance, bigger lutes were designed. Most lutes at this time had seven or eight sets of strings. New kinds of lutes were invented. One new kind of lute made in the Renaissance was the theorbo. Another kind was the archlute.

In European classical music the lute was changed into the harpsichord and the mandolin.

Today there are kinds of lute still being played in Greece, Turkey, and in Arabic-speaking countries. The Renaissance lute is also played today, in western countries, as well as a German lute that is played the same way as a guitar.

Plucked string instruments
Early musical instruments

Lute


Eugenics is a social and political philosophy. It tries to influence the way people choose to mate and raise children, with the aim of improving the human species.

Eugenics rests on some basic ideas. The first is that, in genetics, what is true of animals is also true of man. The characteristics of animals are passed on from one generation to the next in heredity, including mental characteristics. For example, the behaviour and mental characteristics of different breeds of dog differ, and all modern breeds are greatly changed from wolves. The breeding and genetics of farm animals show that if the parents of the next generation are chosen, then that affects what offspring are born.

Negative eugenics aims to cut out traits that lead to suffering, by limiting people with the traits from reproducing. Positive eugenics aims to produce more healthy and intelligent humans, by persuading people with those traits to have more children.p85 In the past, many ways were proposed for doing this, and even today eugenics means different things to different people. The idea of eugenics is controversial, because in the past it was sometimes used to justify discrimination and injustice against people who were thought to be genetically unhealthy or inferior.

Francis Galton

Modern eugenics was first invented in 1865 by Sir Francis Galton, a British scientist who was the cousin of Charles Darwin. Galton believed that intelligence and talent were hereditary and were passed from parent to their children. Based on this, he thought that people could be bred to be smarter, just like animals were bred to be larger or smaller. Galton thought the best way to do this was to learn more about heredity, and also to tell people that they should only marry people who were smart and strong.  Galton chose the name "Eugenics" because it was very similar to the Greek for "well born".

Galton developed the idea of eugenics throughout his life. He understood the two types of eugenics, positive and negative eugenics. One problem, which critics brought up, is the difficulty of agreeing on who is a healthy person, genetically speaking, and who is an inferior person. Obviously, opinions differ.

Eugenics in Britain and the United States
The rediscovery of the scientific work of Gregor Mendel in 1900 led to modern genetics, and an understanding of how heredity worked. Mendel himself experimented on peas, and found that many characteristics of the pea plants, such as their colour or their height, could be turned on and off through heredity like a switch. For example, his peas could be either yellow or green, one or the other.

When applied to humans, people thought this meant that human characteristics, like being smart or not, could be influenced by heredity.

Another line of thought goes like this. During their evolution, humans were subject to natural selection like any other form of life. On average, healthy and intelligent people had a better chance of reproducing. In modern civilisation, however, it often seems that this process does not apply. Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin had discussed this very point, with concern.p70 In countries where statistics were collected, those statistics showed that in many cases the poor had more children than the rich. Also, statistics showed that the total population of some great nations was declining.p73 One startling piece of information was produced by research directed by Karl Pearson, the Galton Professor of Eugenics at University College London, and the founder of the Department of Applied Statistics. The finding was that half of each succeeding generation was produced by no more than a quarter of the previous generation, and that quarter was "disproportionately located amongst the dregs of society".p74

The evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley was also a supporter of eugenics. He used this argument several times:
"No-one doubts the wisdom of managing the germ-plasm [heredity] of agricultural stocks, so why not apply the same concept to human stocks?"
The American historian of science Garland Allen commented :
"The agricultural analogy appears over and over again as it did in the writings of many American eugenicists".

Similarly, the American geneticist Charles Davenport was a lifelong promoter of eugenics, and wrote one of its first textbooks.Chapter 3 There is no doubt of the support given to eugenics by professional scientists of undoubted repute.

In the United States, eugenics became a very popular idea in the early 20th century. People thought it would cure society of all of its problems at the time, like crime and poverty, because they thought that all aspects of human behavior were probably hereditary. Very important scientists and politicians supported eugenics, and most thought it was a very progressive and scientific philosophy.

But some of those who led the eugenics movement used it to justify racism and prejudice. They used eugenics as an excuse to pass laws which to restrict immigration from countries that they did not like, saying that the people in them were genetically "unfit". They also passed laws which said that people of different races could not get married to one another. Most importantly, they passed laws which said that people who were thought to have mental illness or mental disability could be sterilised against their will. Under these laws over 60,000 people were sterilised in the United States between 1907 and the 1970s.

Today we know that interpreting statistics of this type is a complex business, and that many of the studies published early in the 20th century have serious flaws. Nevertheless, what stopped the eugenics movement was not better science. It was the realization, after World War II, of the effects of Nazi policies on race in Germany and other countries occupied during the war. Such war crimes were not, of course, advocated by any eugenicist. All the same, there was a common theme. This theme was the growing interest in the rights of individuals as against the rights of the state.

Eugenics after WWII

With the end of the Second World War, forced sterilisation ended in Germany. It was continued in the United States until 1974. The main targets were at first those that were ill or that had some physical or mental disabilities.

Only in 1985 was a law of the Swiss canton of Vaud abolished. This law allowed for the forced sterilisation of  a certain group of people. It was replaced by a law on the national level, that tells under which circumstances people who are unable to consent, may be sterilised.

Eugenics today
Though there are few people who openly advocate eugenics today, many people wonder what improvements in genetic technologies will mean in the future.

Genetic counselling exists, where parents can get information about their heredity and even prevent the birth of a child if it has a risk of hereditary illness. Some people do not think the issue is so clear, though, and wonder if genetic screening, genetic counselling, and birth control, are all just another type of eugenics. Some people wonder if it is bad because it infringes human dignity. Some people oppose eugenics and genetic counselling for religious reasons. The idea of eugenics is controversial today for these reasons.

Much of this concern is misplaced. Genetic counselling is not going to change the genetic composition of the human population to any noticeable extent. More relevant is the developing power to identify, and then to change directly, elements of the human genome (genetic engineering). This does have the potential to change the genetic structure of individual children. Long-term it has the potential to make more widespread changes to human populations. At the moment genetic engineering is limited to identifying defects in the foetus (unborn children) and eliminating the defect where possible or adapting the medical treatment for the benefit of the child.

Related pages
Designer baby
Genetic engineering
Genetic screening

References

Eugenics
Controversies

Eugenics


Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (October 11, 1884 − November 7, 1962) was the longest-serving First Lady of the United States, holding the post from 1933 to 1945 during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office.

She was also a political leader in her own right. She supported the civil rights movement. After the death of her husband in 1945, she started her career, as an author, speaker and spokesperson for human rights. She became a new role model for First Lady. President Harry S. Truman called her the First Lady of the World, in honor of her many travels to help promote human rights.

Roosevelt received 35 honorary degrees during her life.

Early life

Background
Her birthplace is 56 West 37th Street, New York City, New York. Her parents were Elliott Roosevelt I and Anna Hall Roosevelt. Two brothers followed young Anna Roosevelt. The Roosevelt family was completed with the addition of Elliott Jr. (1889-1893) and Hall Roosevelt (1891-1941). She is a fifth-cousin, once removed of Franklin Roosevelt, who later became her husband.

She was a favorite niece of Theodore Roosevelt, one of the Presidents of the United States.

Her family was a descendant of Claes Martenszen van Rosenvelt. He had come to New Amsterdam, Manhattan from the Netherlands in the 1640s. His grandsons, Johannes and Jacobus, began two branches of the Roosevelt family. Descendants of Johannes were Roosevelt family of the Oyster Bay, New York. Descendants of Jacobus were Roosevelt family of Hyde Park, New York. Eleanor was a descendant of the Johannes branch. Her future husband, Franklin was descended from the Jacobus branch.

Theodore Roosevelt, one of the Presidents of the United States, was her uncle. He was like a father to Eleanor, the future First Lady. Anna Eleanor liked to use the name Eleanor, using her name as Anna Eleanor only in official papers and for signing bank checks. From her mother side, she was a descendent of William Livingston, a signer of the U.S. Constitution.

Childhood

Her parents died early. After this, her maternal grandmother, Marry Ludlow Hall (1843-1919) raised her. She spent her childhood in Tivoli, New York. Most of her mother's family members tended to look down at her, perhaps because of her plain looks and six-foot tall frame. Even her Hyde Park Roosevelts, including her future mother-in-law, Sara Delano Roosevelt, would remark to her about the Manhattan Roosevelts: "we got all the looks and the money."

In recent times, allegations have surfaced that in her maternal grandmother's home, she felt insecure. Many male members used to consume a lot of drinks. Once when she was visiting her aunt Bamie Roosevelt (sister of Theodore Roosevelt), she broke down and in tears exclaimed, "I have no real home."

Aunt Bamie was very helpful. She tried to find better educational opportunities for her. She arranged that Eleanor go to England for education, and Eleanor readily went.

Education
Eleanor received encouragement from Bamie Roosevelt, sister of Theodore Roosevelt, to get a good education. She went to London, and started her studies in a girls' boarding school at Allenswood, outside London. She studied there from 1899 to 1902. Mademoiselle Marie Souvestre was her headmistress. Later Eleanor would recall that Souvestre was one of the three main persons to influence her life.

During summers, Eleanor visited Europe along with her headmistress, Souvestre. She also studied history, language and literature. She became interested in social justice, and her studies gave her knowledge and confidence to present her views on many issues. One of her great moments at her school at Allenswood was when she made the field hockey team. She was one of the favorite students of the school, and when she returned to the US, the school missed her.

Eleanor and FDR
In 1902 Eleanor and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) met when he was a student at Harvard. They dated and got engaged in November 1903. However, FDR's mother was against their marriage. She even sent FDR on a long tour to delay the marriage, and change FDR's mind. However, on St. Patrick's Day (March 17, 1905) FDR and Eleanor married. President Theodore Roosevelt took the ceremonial role of giving the bride away. After the marriage, Eleanor's mother-in-law, continued to advise (and perhaps interfere) in the young couple's life.

After her husband's death in 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt continued to live on the Hyde Park Estate in a stone cottage near the main house. The structure originated as a small furniture factory Val-Kill Industries, and was converted to a cottage used by Eleanor and her close friends. The cottage afforded Eleanor a level of privacy that she had wanted for many years, and she considered it her first true home. The cottage is now called the Eleanor Roosevelt Center and hosts many programs that continue her legacy.

First Lady
She started her role as the First Lady from 1933 with the beginning of her husband's first term as the President of the United States. Eleanor was an active First Lady with her own ideology on many issues.

She supported the Civil Rights Movement and rights of the African-American. However, her husband needed the support of Democrats of southern states of the USA. Therefore, he was not vocal about the American Civil Rights Movement. Eleanor became his connection to the African-American population instead, helping Franklin Roosevelt to win a lot of votes.

In 1939, the African-American opera singer Marian Anderson was denied permission by the Daughters of the American Revolution to perform at Constitution Hall in Washington because of her race. Eleanor arranged for Anderson to perform on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, on Easter Sunday, to a live audience of 70,000. Millions of people also listened to the performance on the radio.

World War II
During the Second World War, Eleanor Roosevelt remained very active. Once she also co-chaired a committee on civil defense. She visited many places, both civilian and military, to boost war morale. She especially supported African Americans and women.

During the Second War, her husband, as the President of the United States, signed an order named Executive Order 9066. This order confined in special camps about 110,000 American citizens of Japanese descent. Eleanor opposed her husband's decision to sign this order.

For some period, she was earning $1,000 a week for advertising for the Pan-American Coffee Bureau. Eight foreign governments used to support and fund the Bureau. The US State Department tried to cancel the deal, but could not do so.

Postwar Politics

After the Second World War, she along with René Cassin, John Peters Humphrey and others, drafted a declaration for the United Nations: UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She also served as the first chairman of the U.N. Human Rights Commission. On 10th December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the declaration. This made her very famous, and was a great achievement for her.

For about four decades, beginning from 1920s until her death in 1962, Eleanor continued her association with political matters. She opposed the Equal Rights Amendment. She thought that this amendment would prevent the US Congress from passing other rules for protection of women workers.

Roosevelt was an accomplished archer, and one of the first modern women to participate in the sport of bow hunting. She even wrote using a male name "Chuck Painton" about her hunting experiences in a popular hunting magazine of that time, Ye Sylvan Archer. One of Roosevelt's prized hunting trophies had adorned her husband library. It is now a part of the Community Forum Collection of the Smithsonian Institution.

The Catholic issue
In July 1949, her unsure attitude toward American Catholics caused a public debate with Francis Cardinal Spellman, the Catholic Archbishop of New York. Eleanor had written against certain proposals like funding of certain (nonreligious) activities, such as bus transportation for students, of Catholic schools. Spellman pointed out that the Supreme Court had recently upheld such provisions. He also accused her of anti-Catholicism. Most Democrats rallied behind Eleanor Roosevelt and supported her. Spellman came to Eleanor's Hyde Park home to bridge their differences.

In any case, Eleanor was never as popular among Catholics as her husband. They were also not happy at Eleanor's support birth control movement. They had also resented her prewar (before the Second World War) sponsorship of the American Youth Congress, in which the Communists had been heavily represented, but Catholic youth groups were not represented.

New York and National politics
In 1954, Carmine DeSapio campaigned against Eleanor's son, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., during the New York Attorney General elections. Franklin (Jr.) lost. Eleanor held DeSapio responsible for her son's defeat. She became disgusted with the political conduct of DeSapio through the rest of 1950s. She, joined with her old friends like Herbert Lehman and Thomas Finletter, succeeded in removing DeSapio from power in 1961.

Eleanor Roosevelt was a close friend of Adlai Stevenson. She supported his candidacies in the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections. She backed Stevenson once again in 1960 but John F. Kennedy received the presidential nomination.

In 1964, Eleanor Roosevelt helped in founding of the 2,800 acre Roosevelt Campobello International Park on Campobello Island, New Brunswick. This followed a gift of the Roosevelt summer estate to the Canadian and American governments.

Family matters

Mother-in-law
Sara Delano Roosevelt was her mother-in-law. Even before Eleanor married FDR, she did not have a good relationship with Sara Delano. Biographers and historians still continue to discuss the issue and the reasons for their difficult relationship. However, in early years of her marriage, Eleanor valued suggestions from her mother-in-law until she herself could develop confidence in domestic matters.

Perhaps Sara wanted great success for her son, FDR, in all matters of life, including marriage. She had always given her affection to FDR to the extent of spoiling him. She even gave costly gifts to FDR and Eleanor's children. Sometimes, Eleanor had problems, which came with such costly gifts of her mother-in-law.

Oyster Bay Roosevelts

Eleanor always enjoyed the good graces of her uncle Theodore Roosevelt, the main figure of the Oyster Bay Roosevelts. However, she found herself at odds with her cousin Alice Roosevelt. Alice was a daughter of Theodore Roosevelt. Uncle Theodore felt Eleanor's conduct more responsible, socially acceptable and cooperative than his own daughter Alice. Alice was beautiful and highly photogenic, but a rebellious person. Sometimes Theodore Roosevelt would tell her, "Why cannot you be more like 'cousin Eleanor'?" These experiences laid a lifelong unhappy relationship between two high-profile cousins.

With the rise in the political career of FDR, relationships between Eleanor and Oyster Bay Roosevelts became worse. There were comments by "cousin Alice," such as her description of FDR as "two-thirds mush and one-third Eleanor". However, at FDR's presidential inauguration in 1933, invitations went to Alice to attend along with her brothers Kermit Roosevelt and Archibald Roosevelt, with whom Eleanor was close.

Death

In 1961, all volumes of her autobiography were compiled into The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt. However, it will be printed some 45 years later.

Eleanor Roosevelt survived her husband by nearly 20 years. From 1919, she had suffered from bone marrow tuberculosis. It had recurred from time to time.

She died on the evening of November 7, 1962 at her apartment in Manhattan, New York City from tuberculosis. At the time of her death, she was 78 years old. She lies buried next to her husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt in Hyde Park, New York. People liked her so much that a commemorative cartoon published at the time simply showed two angels looking down towards an opening in the clouds with the caption "She's here", since no introduction was needed and people could understand that "she" meant Eleanor Roosevelt.

Eleanor Roosevelt kept a lifelong strong loyalty with Theodore Roosevelt ("Uncle Ted"). Her belongings included her membership card for the Theodore Roosevelt Association.

In 1968 she received the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights. After her death, there was an unsuccessful move to award her Nobel Peace Prize.

Related pages
 Franklin Delano Roosevelt
 Theodore Roosevelt

References

Further reading
 Beasley, Maurine H., Holly C. Shulman, and Henry R. Beasley. The Eleanor Roosevelt Encyclopedia (2001)
 Eleanor Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt, Da Capo Press ed., 1992, paperback, 439 pages, , dacapopress.com

Other websites

 Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site
 National First Ladies' Library
 The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute
 Eleanor Roosevelt Biography from Biography.com
 Ervk

1884 births
1962 deaths
American activists
American autobiographers
Deaths from tuberculosis
First Ladies of the United States
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Infectious disease deaths in New York (state)
People from New York City
Roosevelt family

Eleanor Roosevelt


Twin towns are towns or cities in different countries which are paired to encourage human contact and cultural links.

In Europe, the pairs of towns are called twin towns, but other languages  say friendship towns or partner towns; in North America and Australasia, the towns are called sister cities.  Brother cities was the name of twinned cities in the old Soviet bloc.

Twin towns often (but not always) have similar populations, industries and other characteristics. Sometimes, even larger areas enter into "twinning" agreements, such as that between the provinces of Hainan in China and Jeju in South Korea.

Europe
The earliest form of town twinning in Europe was between the German city of Paderborn and the French city of Le Mans in 836, although this was not officially established as a modern town twinning arrangement until 1967.

Coventry, United Kingdom was the first ever city to "twin" with another city (Stalingrad, Soviet Union) and hence began the modern practice of twinning.

After the Second World War twinning was a way to bring European people into a closer understanding of each other and to promote cross-border projects and peace.

For example, Coventry twinned with Dresden as an act of peace and reconciliation, both cities having been heavily bombed during the war. Each twin city country is represented in a specific ward of the city and in each ward has a peace garden dedicated to that twin city.

Another early example of town twinning dates back to 1947 when Bristol Corporation (later Bristol City Council) sent five 'leading citizens' on a goodwill mission to Hanover.

Twinning is more popular in Europe than anywhere else, but the idea has now spread to other continents.

Since 1989, the European Union has had a support scheme for town twinning.  In 2003 an annual budget of about 12 million euros was given to about 1,300 projects.

North America
The first city in North America to establish a sister city relationship was Toledo, Ohio, United States, with Toledo, Spain in 1931. In 1944, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada  twinned with the Ukrainian city of Odessa, which at the time was part of the Soviet Union. This was to show support and to help the allied port city during World War II.

Images

Other websites

 Town-twinning information from the European Commission
 Sister Cities International (cities twinned with cities in the USA)
 Germany and the town twinning movement
 List of UK twin towns
 Toledo Sister Cities International
 Two Toledos Documentary
 Town twinning in Europe's municipalities, towns and regions

Diplomacy
Settlements

Twin town


A spirit is considered to be the part of a being that is not the body. Other words with the same meanings are soul and ghost. When a body is alive, it has a spirit in it. Death is when the spirit separates from the body.

Christians believe that spirits exist in Heaven or Hell. (See 1 Timothy 3:16, 4:1)

Spiritualists believe that spirits can talk with people, or change things in the world. Many religions forbid communicating with such spirits in any way, (see Leviticus 19:31) but a few include this as part of their practice.

Another use of spirit means the main purpose or meaning of a sentence or document. For example, the "spirit of a law" is the true meaning of the law which the creator wanted. This phrase is often used when the words and sentences of a law could mean more than one thing, but a judge must decide what meaning is correct.

Spirituality

Spirit


Disco is a style of music that was most popular from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, featuring African-American and Latino musicians and audiences, and in private dance parties thrown in the underground gay community of New York. People usually dance to disco music at bars called disco clubs. The word "disco" is also used to refer to the style of dancing that people do to disco music, or to the style of clothes that people wear to go disco dancing. Disco music was an up-tempo form of music which included elements of soul, funk and Latin music. It had a strong beat meant for dancing, a steady four-on-the-floor rhythm, and a big bass line, and orchestral instrumentation often included string sections. Disco is dance music too.

Disco was at its most popular in the United States and Europe in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Disco was brought into the mainstream by the hit movie Saturday Night Fever, which was released in 1977. This movie, which starred John Travolta, showed people doing disco dancing. Many radio stations played disco in the late 1970s. By the early 1980s, disco had started to fall out of popularity, and other genres, such as dance, Hi-NRG and post-disco grew in popularity. Nevertheless, disco still exerts an influence on modern day dance music, and still has occasional moments of popularity. Additionally, a different form of disco arose in Europe, known as Euro disco, which obtained some popularity.

Disco music
Disco music blends R&B with funk, soul and dance music. Disco music usually consists of a singer, electric guitars, synthesizer keyboards, electric bass guitar, and a drummer or electronic drum machine. Disco music is often very simple music, with a strong beat and a strong "bass line". Disco music often has many electronic effects.

Disco dancing
Disco dancing is often sexually suggestive. When people go disco dancing, they usually wear tight trousers, leather shoes or boots, and glittery clothes. Women going disco dancing often wore tight clothes that revealed body parts such as their thighs or the upper part of their chest. Men going disco dancing often opened up the buttons of their shirts to show the upper part of their chest.

Disco clubs
Disco music is played at disco clubs. In the late 1970s, there were famous disco clubs such as Studio 54 in New York City. Disco clubs have a large dance floor and a large pa system. A Disk Jockey (or "DJ") plays records of disco music through powerful amplifiers with a number of high wattage speakers. Disco music was usually played very loud, with lots of low bass frequencies. Disco clubs usually had coloured lights that flashed with the music called scanners, and mirror balls with hundreds of small mirrors, that reflect light onto the dancers and all corners of the room.

Disco culture
Most people who went disco dancing at disco clubs drank alcohol such as champagne and rum. Many people consumed illegal drugs such as cocaine or marijuana, so that they would become intoxicated. People who went disco dancing often had sex with people that they would meet at the disco club.

Notable musicians
(Source: All Music)
Bee Gees
Donna Summer
Village People
Sylvester
Amanda Lear
Amii Stewart
Andrea True Connection
Anita Ward

Related pages
Funk
R&B
Soul music

References

Disco

Disco


Parallel ATA is a way to connect storage devices, such as Hard disks, solid-state drives, and CD-ROM drives inside personal computers. The standard is maintained by X3/INCITS committee T13.

It used to be called Advanced Technology Attachment with Packet Interface (ATA/ATAPI). ATA/ATAPI is the result of a long history of development. It is an evolution of the AT Attachment Interface, which was itself evolved in several stages from Western Digital's original Integrated Drive Electronics interface. As a result, many near-synonyms for ATA/ATAPI and its previous incarnations exist, including abbreviations such as IDE which are still in common informal use. With the market introduction of Serial ATA in 2003, the original ATA was retroactively renamed Parallel ATA (PATA).

Parallel ATA standards allow cable lengths up to only 18 inches (46 centimeters). Because of this length limit the technology normally appears as an internal computer storage interface.
For many years ATA provided the most common and the least expensive interface for this application.
As of 2007, it has largely been replaced by Serial ATA (SATA) in new systems. Older computers based on Parallel ATA are still widely-used in embedded and industrial applications.

Other websites
T13.org

Computer hardware
Computer buses

Parallel ATA