Commodity markets are markets where raw or primary products are exchanged. These raw commodities are traded on regulated commodities exchanges, in which they are bought and sold in standardized contracts.

This article focuses on the history and current debates regarding global commodity markets.  It covers physical product (food, metals, electricity) markets but not the ways that services, including those of governments, nor investment, nor debt, can be seen as a commodity.  Articles on reinsurance markets, stock markets, bond markets and currency markets cover those concerns separately and in more depth.  One focus of this article is the relationship between simple commodity money and the more complex instruments offered in the commodity markets.

See List of traded commodities for some commodities and their trading units and places.

History
The modern commodity markets have their roots  in the trading of agricultural products.  While wheat and corn, cattle and pigs, were widely traded using standard instruments in the 19th century in the United States, other basic foodstuffs such as soybeans were only added quite recently in most markets.  For a commodity market to be established, there must be very broad consensus on the variations in the product that make it acceptable for one purpose or another.

The economic impact of the development of commodity markets is hard to over-estimate.  Through the 19th century "the exchanges became effective spokesmen for, and innovators of, improvements in transportation, warehousing, and financing, which paved the way to expanded interstate and international trade."

Early history of commodity markets
Historically, dating from ancient Sumerian use of sheep or goats, or other peoples using pigs, rare seashells, or other items as commodity money, people have sought ways to standardize and trade contracts in the delivery of such items, to render trade itself more smooth and predictable.

Commodity money and commodity markets in a crude early form are believed to have originated in Sumer where small baked clay tokens in the shape of sheep or goats were used in trade.  Sealed in clay vessels with a certain number of such tokens, with that number written on the outside, they represented a promise to deliver that number.  This made them a form of commodity money - more than an "I.O.U." but less than a guarantee by a nation-state or bank.  However, they were also known to contain promises of time and date of delivery - this made them like a modern futures contract.  Regardless of the details, it was only possible to verify the number of tokens inside by shaking the vessel or by breaking it, at which point the number or terms written on the outside became subject to doubt.  Eventually the tokens disappeared, but the contracts remained on flat tablets.  This represented the first system of commodity accounting.

However, the Commodity status of living things is always subject to doubt -  it was hard to validate the health or existence of sheep or goats.  Excuses for non-delivery were not unknown, and there are recovered Sumerian letters that complain of sickly goats, sheep that had already been fleeced, etc.

If a seller's reputation was good, individual "backers" or "bankers" could decide to take the risk of "clearing" a trade.  The observation that trust is always required between market participants later led to credit money.  But until relatively modern times, communication and credit were primitive.

Classical civilizations built complex global markets trading gold or silver for spices, cloth, wood and weapons, most of which had standards of quality and timeliness.  Considering the many hazards of climate, piracy, theft and abuse of military fiat by rulers of kingdoms along the trade routes, it was a major focus of these civilizations to keep markets open and trading in these scarce commodities.  Reputation and clearing became central concerns, and the states which could handle them most effectively became very powerful empires, trusted by many peoples to manage and mediate trade and commerce.

Forward contracts

Commodity and Futures contracts are based on what's termed "Forward" Contracts. Early on these "forward" contracts (agreements to buy now, pay and deliver later) were used as a way of getting products from producer to the consumer. These typically were only for food and agricultural Products. Forward contracts have evolved and have been standardized into what we know today as futures contracts. Although more complex today, early "Forward" contracts for example, were used for rice in seventeenth century Japan. Modern "forward", or futures agreements, began in Chicago in the 1840s, with the appearance of the railroads. Chicago, being centrally located, emerged as the hub between Midwestern farmers and producers and the east coast consumer population centers.

Hedging
"Hedging", a common (and sometimes mandatory) practice of farming cooperatives, insures against a poor harvest by purchasing futures contracts in the same commodity.  If the cooperative has significantly less of its product to sell due to weather or insects, it makes up for that loss with a profit on the markets, since the overall supply of the crop is short everywhere that suffered the same conditions.

Whole developing nations may be especially vulnerable, and even their currency tends to be tied to the price of those particular commodity items until it manages to be a fully developed nation.  For example, one could see the nominally fiat money of Cuba as being tied to sugar prices, since a lack of hard currency paying for sugar means less foreign goods per peso in Cuba itself.  In effect, Cuba needs a hedge against a drop in sugar prices, if it wishes to maintain a stable quality of life for its citizens.

Delivery and condition guarantees
In addition, delivery day, method of settlement and delivery point must all be specified.  Typically, trading must end two (or more) business days prior to the delivery day, so that the routing of the shipment (which for soybeans is 30,000 kilograms or 1,102 bushels) can be finalized via ship or rail, and payment can be settled when the contract arrives at any delivery point.

Standardization
U.S. soybean futures, for example, are of standard grade if they are "GMO or a mixture of GMO and Non-GMO No. 2 yellow soybeans of Indiana, Ohio and Michigan origin produced in the U.S.A. (Non-screened, stored in silo)," and of deliverable grade if they are "GMO or a mixture of GMO and Non-GMO No. 2 yellow soybeans of Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin origin produced in the U.S.A. (Non-screened, stored in silo)."  Note the distinction between states, and the need to clearly mention their status as "GMO" ("Genetically Modified Organism") which makes them unacceptable to most "organic" food buyers.

Similar specifications apply for orange juice, cocoa, sugar, wheat, corn, barley, pork bellies, milk, feedstuffs, fruits, vegetables, other grains, other beans, hay, other livestock, meats, poultry, eggs, or any other commodity which is so traded.

The concept of an interchangeable deliverable or guaranteed delivery is always to some degree a fiction.  Trade in commodities is like trade in any other physical product or service.  No magic of the commodity contract itself makes "units" of the product totally uniform nor gets it to the delivery point safely and on time.

Regulation of commodity markets
Cotton, kilowatt-hours of electricity, board feet of wood, long distance minutes, royalty payments due on artists' works, and other products and services have been traded on markets of varying scale, with varying degrees of success.  One issue that presents major difficulty for creators of such instruments is the liability accruing to the purchaser:

Unless the product or service can be guaranteed or insured to be free of liability based on where it came from and how it got to market, e.g. kilowatts must come to market free from legitimate claims for smog death from coal burning plants, wood must be free from claims that it comes from protected forests, royalty payments must be free of claims of plagiarism or piracy, it becomes impossible for sellers to guarantee a uniform delivery.

Generally, governments must provide a common regulatory or insurance standard and some release of liability, or at least a backing of the insurers, before a commodity market can begin trading.  This is a major source of controversy in for instance the energy market, where desirability of different kinds of power generation varies drastically.  In some markets, e.g. Toronto, Canada, surveys established that customers would pay 10-15% more for energy that was not from coal or nuclear, but strictly from renewable sources such as wind.

Proliferation of contracts, terms, and derivatives
However, if there are two or more standards of risk or quality, as there seem to be for electricity or soybeans, it is relatively easy to establish two different contracts to trade in the more and less desirable deliverable separately.  If the consumer acceptance and liability problems can be solved, the product can be made interchangeable, and trading in such units can begin.

Since the detailed concerns of industrial and consumer markets vary widely, so do the contracts, and "grades" tend to vary significantly from country to country.  A proliferation of contract units, terms, and futures contracts have evolved,
combined into an extremely sophisticated range of financial instruments.

These are more than one-to-one representations of units of a given type of commodity, and represent more than simple futures contracts for future deliveries.  These serve a variety of purposes from simple gambling to price insurance.

The underlying of futures contracts are no longer restricted to commodities.

Oil and fiat
Building on the infrastructure and credit and settlement networks established for food and precious metals, many such markets have proliferated drastically in the late 20th century.  Oil was the first form of energy so widely traded, and the fluctuations in the oil markets are of particular political interest.

Some commodity market speculation is directly related to the stability of certain states, e.g. during the Gulf War, speculation on the survival of the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.  Similar political stability concerns have from time to time driven the price of oil.  Some argue that this is not so much a commodity market but more of an assassination market speculating on the survival (or not) of Saddam or other leaders whose personal decisions may cause oil supply to fluctuate by military action.

The oil market is, however, an exception.  Most markets are not so tied to the politics of volatile regions - even natural gas tends to be more stable, as it is not traded across oceans by tanker as extensively.

Commodity markets and protectionism
Developing countries (democratic or not) have been moved to harden their currencies, accept IMF rules, join the WTO, and submit to a broad regime of reforms that amount to a "hedge" against being isolated.  China's entry into the WTO signalled the end of truly isolated nations entirely managing their own currency and affairs.  The need for stable currency and predictable clearing and rules-based handling of trade disputes, has led to a global trade hegemony - many nations "hedging" on a global scale against each other's anticipated "protectionism", were they to fail to join the WTO.

There are signs, however, that this regime is far from perfect.  U.S. trade sanctions against Canadian softwood lumber (within NAFTA) and foreign steel (except for NAFTA partners Canada and Mexico) in 2002 signalled a shift in policy towards a tougher regime perhaps more driven by political concerns - jobs, industrial policy, even sustainable forestry and logging practices.

Non-conventional commodities

Nature's commodity outputs

Commodity thinking is undergoing a more direct revival thanks to the theorists of "natural capital" whose products, some economists argue, are the only genuine commodities - air, water, and calories we consume being mostly interchangeable when they are free of pollution or disease.  Whether we wish to think of these things as tradeable commodities rather than birthrights has been a major source of controversy in many nations.

Most types of environmental economics consider the shift to measuring them inevitable, arguing that reframing political economy to consider the flow of these basic commodities first and foremost, helps avoids use of any military fiat except to protect "natural capital" itself, and basing credit-worthiness more strictly on commitment to preserving biodiversity aligns the long-term interests of ecoregions, societies, and individuals.  They seek relatively conservative sustainable development schemes that would be amenable to measuring well-being over long periods of time, typically "seven generations", in line with Native American thought.

Weather trading
However, this is not the only way in which commodity thinking interacts with ecologists' thinking.  Hedging began as a way to escape the consequences of damage done by natural conditions.  It has matured not only into a system of interlocking guarantees, but also into a system of indirectly trading on the actual damage done by weather, using "weather derivatives".  For a price, this relieves the purchaser of the following types of concerns:

"Will a freeze hurt the Brazilian coffee crop? Will there be a drought in the U.S. Corn Belt? What are the chances that we will have a cold winter, driving natural gas prices higher and creating havoc in Florida orange areas? What is the status of El Niño?"

Emissions trading
Weather trading is just one example of "negative commodities", units of which represent harm rather than good.

"Economy is three fifths of ecology" argues Mike Nickerson, one of many economic theorists who holds that nature's productive services and waste disposal services are poorly accounted for.  One way to fairly allocate the waste disposal capacity of nature is "cap and trade" market structure that is used to trade toxic emissions rights in the United States, e.g. SO2.  This is in effect a "negative commodity", a right to throw something away.

In this market, the atmosphere's capacity to absorb certain amounts of pollutants is measured, divided into units, and traded amongst various market players.  Those who emit more SO2 must pay those who emit less.  Critics of such schemes argue that unauthorized or unregulated emissions still happen, and that "grandfathering" schemes often permit major polluters, such as the state governments' own agencies, or poorer countries, to expand emissions and take jobs, while the SO2 output still floats over the border and causes death.

In practice, political pressure has overcome most such concerns and it is questionable whether this is a capacity that depends on U.S. clout: The Kyoto Protocol established a similar market in global greenhouse gas emissions without U.S. support.

Community as commodity?
This highlights one of the major issues with global commodity markets of either the positive or negative kind.  A community must somehow believe that the commodity instrument is real, enforceable, and well worth paying for.

A very substantial part of the anti-globalization movement opposes the commodification of currency, national sovereignty, and traditional cultures.
The capacity to repay debt, as in the current global credit money regime anchored by the Bank for International Settlements, does not in their view correspond to measurable benefits to human well-being worldwide.  They seek a fairer way for societies to compete in the global markets that will not require conversion of natural capital to natural resources, nor human capital to move to developed nations in order to find work.

Some economic systems by green economists would replace the "gold standard" with a "biodiversity standard".  It remains to be seen if such plans have any merit other than as political ways to draw attention to the way capitalism itself interacts with life.

Is human life a commodity?
While classical, neoclassical, and Marxist approaches to economics tend to treat labor differently, they are united in treating nature as a resource.

The green economists and the more conservative environmental economics argue that not only natural ecologies, but also the life of the individual human being is treated as a commodity by the global markets.  A good example is the IPCC calculations cited by the Global Commons Institute as placing a value on a human life in the developed world "15x higher" than in the developing world, based solely on the ability to pay to prevent climate change.

Is free time a commodity?
Accepting this result, some argue that to put a price on both is the most reasonable way to proceed to optimize and increase that value relative to other goods or services.  This has led to efforts in measuring well-being, to assign a commercial "value of life", and to the theory of Natural Capitalism - fusions of green and neoclassical approaches - which focus predictably on energy and material efficiency, i.e. using far less of any given commodity input to achieve the same service outputs as a result.

Indian economist Amartya Sen, applying this thinking to human freedom itself, argued in his 1999 book "Development as Freedom" that human free time was the only real service, and that sustainable development was best defined as freeing human time.  Sen won The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 1999 (sometimes incorrectly called the "Nobel Prize in Economics") and based his book on invited lectures he gave at the World Bank.

Related pages
Currency market
Stock market

Other websites
 National Futures Association
Futures Quotes & Charts

Commerce

Commodity market


A Secure Digital card (SD card) is a kind of memory card. Such cards are often used to store images or data in digital cameras. As of 2008, different capacities between 4 megabytes and 32 gigabytes have been made. The card has a rectangular design, but one edge is chipped off. This means that the cards cannot be inserted into the cameras (or other devices) the wrong way.

There are different kinds of cards:

Those labeled SD, with capacities up to 2 GB
Those labeled SDHC, with capacities between 4GB and 32GB
Those labeled SDXC, with capacities of up to 2 TB (the largest made is currently 1TB for SDXC or microSDXC).

SD and SDHC are not compatible, but devices that accept SDHC also accept SD cards. The interface of SDHC and SDXC cards is the same, but SDXC uses a different file system. Some devices (for example the Wii) that originally shipped only with support for SD can be made to support SDHC with a firmware update.

There are also different classes. These refer to the read and write speeds. Currently in use are Class 2 - which means 2 MBytes/second, Class 4 - 4 MB/sec and Class 6 at 6 MB/sec. The problem with this is that different manufacturers measure different things with it, some measure write speeds, others read speeds. There are also differences because some give guarantees, and others simply say that the speeds they indicate are the maximum achievable under good conditions.

Still another measurement is called rating. A rating of 1 corresponds to 150 KBytes per second, the read speed of a CD. That way, a class 2 is equal to a speed of 13x.

microSD cards do the same thing but are much smaller.

Computing

Secure Digital card


The Celts were a large group of Caucasian tribes in Europe. They first appeared in the early Iron Age, around 1200 B.C. in Austria.  The name 'Celt' comes from the Greeks.  The Romans called them "Gauls".  They came from the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. Their culture and genes spread through much of Europe, and by the time the Greeks and later the Romans started emerging, the British Isles and parts of western, southern and eastern Europe were Celtic - the most prominent Celtic tribes were in Gaul. The Celts spoke Celtic languages. Today, the Celtic languages that remain are the Breton, Cornish, Welsh and Gaelic languages.

Celtic society and technology, although not as advanced as the Romans, was far from being primitive for its time. The Celts lived a way of life based on ethical codes and honor codes and had developed a culture of their own, full of unique drawings, sculptures, jewellery, folklore, and building designs and techniques. They were also skilled in blacksmithing, farming and diplomacy.

Celtic warriors would wear war paint and try to scare their enemies by shouting war cries.  Tribes had different dress standards for battle; some warriors wore chainmail and/or leather armor, some wore only clothes and some were known to fight fully naked.  They also had their own type of sword that was very strong and a shield that was very protective.

When the Roman Republic started expanding, the Gauls and the Romans became very hostile towards each other and clashed on many occasions; however, the Romans were eventually able to defeat them and ended up conquering most of the Celtic tribes in Europe and ruled them until the fall of the Western Roman Empire.  Celtic tribes also fought among each other.  After winning a battle, the Celts would cut off the heads of their enemies and take them home.

During the fall of the Roman Empire most of the old Celtic land ended up being ruled by migrating Germanic tribes and they merged with Romano-Celtic stock (people with both Roman and Celtic ancestry) to eventually form several European nations of today e.g. Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg as well as Southern and Western Germany. Territories that are still considered Celtic are Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Isle of Man, Cornwall and Brittany.

References

Celtic peoples

Celts


The  3rd Summit of the Americas  was a summit held in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, on April 20–22, 2001.

This international meeting was a round of negotiations regarding a proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas. The talks are perhaps better known for the security preparations and demonstrations (known as the Quebec City protest) that surrounded them than for the progress of the negotiations.

Overview
The "Summits of the Americas" is the name for a continuing series of summits bringing together the leaders of North America and South America.  The function of these summits is to foster discussion of a variety of issues affecting the western hemisphere. These high-level summit meetings have been organized by a number of multilateral bodies under the aegis of the Organization of American States.  In the early 1990s, what were formerly ad hoc summits came to be institutionalized into a regular "Summits of the Americas" conference program.

 December 9–11, 1994  – 1st Summit of the Americas at Miami in the United States.
 December 7–8, 1996  – Summit of the Americas on Sustainable Development at Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia.
 April 18–19, 1998  – 2nd Summit of the Americas at Santiago in Chile.

Progress of the negotiations
The talks were the third in the negotiation process for the FTAA. 34 heads of state and government met in Quebec City, representing all the countries of North and South America, except Cuba. Partially due to resistance from the leaders of some poorer countries, no deal was reached in Quebec City.

The participants did make a statement titled "The Declaration of Quebec City" which includes the quotation: "We, the democratically elected Heads of State and Government of the Americas, have met in Quebec City at our Third Summit, to renew our commitment to hemispheric integration"

Security and public response

Preparations

From the beginning, the authorities indicated their intent to use very intensive security measures to restrict the ability of anti- and alter-globalization movement protesters to approach the area where the summit was to take place, in light of the well-known previous incidents in Seattle (November 30, 1999), Prague (September 26, 2000), and Montreal (November 20, 2000).

The most controversial of these preparations was the construction of a 3-metre high concrete and wire fence around a large section of La Colline Parlementaire that encircled the meeting site, the National Assembly and many government and residential buildings. Only residents, summit delegates and certain accredited journalists were allowed inside. Businesses and churches within the area were not permitted to open.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, in collaboration with the Canadian Forces, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Sûreté du Québec and local municipal police forces provided security.

Protests

The Quebec City protests (called A20) were one of the largest anti-globalization demonstrations to that point, attracting some 20,000 protesters from throughout the Americas. Groups represented at the protest included trade unions, civil society groups such as Greenpeace and the Council of Canadians, New Democratic Party and Parti Québécois caucuses, and a great many groups from faith communities, universities and colleges.

In addition to the political concerns of the anti-globalization movement, many focused their attention on the division of the city with the security barrier, and what they saw as the draconic nature of police responses.

Protesters began to arrive on Friday, April 20, many being hosted at Université Laval, college campuses, and churches. A number of clashes with police took place on Friday afternoon, with the first perimeter breach on Boulevard René-Lévesque Est, less than 5 minutes after the protesters arrived at the site, and in the evening. Many peaceful gatherings, including a vegan supper and concert underneath the Dufferin-Montmorency Autoroute, also took place.

The primary day of protests was Friday, April 20. It began with the Second Peoples' Summit of the Americas, an educational and political gathering near the Gare du Palais, in the lower city east of the summit site. From there, the protesters marched northwest along Boulevard Charest towards Rue de la Couronne. The number of people marching has been estimated at anywhere from 50,000 to 150,000.

Protests were divided into three classes: "green zone," being legal protests with no risk of arrest; "yellow zone," peaceful, unsanctioned protest with some risk of arrest or confrontation with police, and "red zone," being direct acts of civil disobedience carrying a high risk of arrest. This innovative division was developed after the G-20 protest in Montreal in October 2000, which though meant to be peaceful suffered from sporadic violence.  A number of riot police on horseback were used to disperse the violent protestors. The zone system was meant to protect those who do not wish to run the risk of arrest or of police violence.

At Rue de la Couronne, the protest march split, with the majority of protesters (the green zone) heading north, towards a main rally at the Colisée.

Protesters favouring the yellow or red zones headed south, towards Cap Diamant. Many spread out through the Saint-Jean Baptiste area north of and below the fence; others marched along the edge of the mountain on Côte d'Abraham towards its intersection with the Dufferin-Montmorency Autoroute, through which the fence passed. Peaceful protesters, including individuals running speaker's corners, were in great numbers throughout this area during the afternoon.

Protestors who headed towards the yellow and red zones confronted the fence.  Approximately 15 minutes after the bulk of the march reached the fence on Boulevard René Lévesque, the fence was brought down by protestors, which the security personnel deemed a clear security threat and danger not only to the conference delegates in the area, but also to the police.

A number of people moved into the once fenced-off area, and a catapult that launched teddy bears was rolled in.  Eventually, the police line fell back and was replaced by a second line of officers, all wearing gas masks. The protestors were then repulsed by the police.

Police responded to the protesters in the "green zone" by firing tear gas canisters, water cannon, and rubber bullets, dispersing large groupings of protesters both violent and peaceful, including teach-ins and teams of medics providing first aid to other protesters. Other tactical interventions aimed at arresting various perceived movement leaders and the expulsion of the independent media centre and protest clinic from their locations. So much tear gas was used that delegates were incommoded inside their meeting halls. The security wall was breached on several occasions, though protester incursion across the perimeter was limited. According to David Graeber in his book Direct Action: An Ethnography, "plastic bullets were being used increasingly, and from guns with laser sights so at night people could often see that the cops were intentionally aiming for heads or groins."

Protests continued into the night. In addition to continued peaceful protests and acts of civil disobedience, some protesters vandalized storefronts and advertisements and built bonfires. Police continued to respond with tear gas, in several cases firing at areas beneath the mountain where no protests were taking place, as well as with direct assaults on protester positions.

Protests concluded on Sunday, April 22.

Response to protest conduct

Police claimed that their actions were justified in protecting delegates from "red-zone" attempts to break through the fence, as well as to violent protesters destroying property and attacking the police, the media, and other protesters.

Many protesters accuse the police of excessive force, claiming that the police's abundant use of tear gas and rubber bullets was both completely disproportionate to the scale of violence, and primarily directed at unarmed, peaceful demonstrators with dispersal of violent protesters an afterthought. A number of protesters were severely injured by rubber bullets; also, tear gas canisters were fired directly at protesters on numerous occasions, in violation of the protocols governing their use. They also criticize the actions of prison authorities. Altogether, the anti-globalization movement describes the actions of the police in Quebec City as an attempt to suppress dissent.

Intelligence operations prior to the event were also criticized, For example, Joan Russow, then leader of the Green Party of Canada, was arrested while attempting to photograph the prison where protesters would be held. During the event, some prominent protesters such as Jaggi Singh were arrested by undercover police officers while they were engaging in legal activities in "green-zone" areas.

A formal complaint regarding the RCMP's conduct was filed by New Democrat MP Svend Robinson with the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP. On November 13, 2003, the complaint's chairwoman Shirley Heafey found that "RCMP members used excessive and unjustified force in releasing tear gas to move the protesters when a more measured response could have been attempted first." The commission recommended improved crowd-control techniques, disciplinary action against certain officers, and a formal apology to protesters.

Notes
Link to an article detailing some of the events in The Quebec City Riot of April 20, 2001.https://rabble.ca/babble/rabble-news-features/g-20-summit-toronto-and-tear-gas-summit-quebec-city

References

External links

 Summits of the Americas - Quebec City Summit of the Americas
 Collection of reports about the Quebec City anti-FTAA protests 2 hour-long MP3s
 Watch View from the Summit, a National Film Board of Canada documentary

Economy of Canada
Economy of Mexico
Economy of the United States
History of Quebec City
Politics of the Americas
Anti-globalization protests
Summit of the Americas
Riots and civil disorder in Canada
Summit of the Americas
Diplomatic conferences in Canada
21st-century diplomatic conferences (Americas)
Summit of the Americas
Summit of the Americas
Summit of the Americas
Organization of American States
Summit of the Americas
Summit of the Americas
Summit of the Americas, 3rd

3rd Summit of the Americas


A generator usually means a machine that makes electrical energy. It has a generator head with wires, spinning inside a magnetic field. The resulting electromagnetic induction makes electricity flow through the wires. Hybrid electric vehicles carry a generator powerful enough to make them go. The biggest generators don't go anywhere; they stay in power stations.

Different things can be used to make the generator head spin. Some small ones are cranked by someone's arms or legs. Bigger ones are connected to an engine. The biggest ones use a steam turbine or hydroelectric water power. Some use wind power. Whatever makes it turn, the generator converts this energy into electrical energy.

Some portable generators have an internal combustion engine. They are harmful when used indoors because they make carbon monoxide.

Components
Simple generators have:
a rotor, which is the moving part of the generator
an axle
a magnet
brushes

Some kinds have:
a commutator, which is a switch that reverses the current
a power supply to start the generator

Related pages
 Electricity

Electricity
motors

Electrical generator


Pentecostalism is a faith within Evangelical Christianity. It believes in a personal experience with God through the baptism of the Holy Spirit (); the same as in the Biblical account on the Day of Pentecost. Pentecostalism is similar to the Charismatic groups, but it came about earlier and separated from the main church branches. Charismatic Christians, at least in the beginning, tended to stay in their denominations and did not divide away.

Beliefs
There are different types of Pentecostal churches. Most believe that you must be saved by believing in Jesus as their Savior; to be forgiven for their sins and to be pleasing to God. Pentecostals also believe, like most other evangelicals, that the Bible is true and must be obeyed in decisions of faith. In this majority group, speaking in tongues is the sign of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and is not required for salvation. To this group, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is a supernatural gift for ministry that one receives after they have become a Christian.

Other groups believe in an "" based salvation. This means a person needs to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus. They then receive the Holy Spirit (Holy Ghost). In this belief, the Holy Spirit is required for salvation; which includes speaking in tongues. In this group, some Pentecostals churches baptize in the name of Jesus only, and some baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost/spirit.

Pentecostal churches believe that Jesus still heals the sick, with the power of the Holy Spirit.
They also believe in other gifts such as speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, supernatural knowledge, mainly about sickness or spiritual matters, and prophesy about future spiritual happenings. Many also practice exorcism, that is, casting out evil spirits.

Statistics
See also: List of Christian denominations by number of members This list indicates that there may be 150 million Pentecostals. The largest Pentecostal denominations are:

Denomination statistics
 Assemblies of God -51 million
 Independent - 50 million
 Church of God in Christ - 9 million
 Church of God (Cleveland, Tennesee) - 8.5 million
 The Apostolic Church - 6 million
 The Pentecostal Mission -6.7 million
 United Pentecostal Church International - 4 million
 Christ Apostolic Church - 2.8 million
 Christian Congregation of Brazil- 2.5 million
 Zion Christian Church - 2.5 million
 Church of the Lord Aladura - 2.5 million
 International Church of the Foursquare Gospel 2 million
 Universal Church of the Kingdom of God - 2 million
 Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada - 1 million
 Christian Outreach Centre - less than 1 million
 Christian City Church = less than 1 million
 World Christian Ministries Association - less than 1 million
While not as large as some of the above organizations the following have made quite an impact on Pentecostalism:
 Northgate Pentecostals (Dallas - Fort Worth, Texas, USA [Colleyville, TX 76034])
 Church of Jesus Christ of Prophecy (AKA Mercy Tabernacle, Benton Tennessee)
 International Church of Jesus Christ (Columbus, Ohio)
 Potter's House Christian Fellowship (Prescott, Arizona)
 United Christian Church (Cleveland, Tennessee)
 Igreja Pentecostal e Apostólica Missão Jesus (São Paulo, Brazil)
 Revival Centres International and The Revival Fellowship in Australia

Geographical distribution
 Africa: 41.1 million
 Nigeria: 13.0 million (34.5 million ; 41.0 million  )
 Kenya: 4.1 million (18.94 million )
 South Africa: 4.4 million (15.1 million  )
 Ethiopia: 2.6 million
 Ghana: 1.76 million
 America: 58.9 million
 United States: Total of: 30 million; 20.2 million (30.0 million  ; 80.0 million including Charismatics and Neo-charismatics  )
 Brazil: 15.0 million (20-90 million ; 84 million  )
 Argentina: 3.5 million
 Mexico: 2.7 million
 Guatemala: 2.0 million (7.2 million )
 Chile: 1.8 million (4.8 million )
 Canada: 1.3 million
 Asia: 15.3 million
 South Korea: 5.35 million  (8.75 million  )
 China: unknown; 72.0 million
 Philippines: 9.0 million (38.65 million ; 25.0 million  )
 Indonesia: 7.0 million
 India: Total of: 54 million; 5.2 million (54.0 million  ; 38.0 million  )
 Pakistan: 0.25 million
 Europe: 9.5-11.0 million
 England: 0.9-1.7 million
 Ukraine: 1.2-1.5 million
 Russia: 1.0 million
 Italy: 0.55 million
 Romania: 0.33 million
 Germany: 0.3 million
 Spain: 0.28 million
 France: 0.2-0.3 million
 Netherlands: 0.15 millions
 Hungary: 0.11 million
 Switzerland: 0.1 million
 Greece: 0.03 million
 Oceania: 3.3 million
 Papua New Guinea: 0.4 million
 Australia: 0.4 million
 New Zealand: 0.11 million

Sources:

Operation World by Patrick Johnstone and Jason Mandryk, 2000, unless otherwise indicated.
 Pentecostal survey
 Statistics on Pentecostal renewalists
 World Christian Database

Leaders

Precursors
 William Boardman
 John Alexander Dowie (1848-1907)
 Edward Irving
 Albert Benjamin Simpson (1843-1919)

Early history
 Maria Woodworth-Etter (1844 - 1924)
 Smith Wigglesworth (1859 - 1947)
 Mary Magdalena Lewis Tate (1879 - 1930) - Mother of Holiness. Founder of the Church of the Living God and its dominion churches.
 Charles Fox Parham (1873 - 1929) Father of Modern Pentecostalism
 William J. Seymour (1870 - 1922) Azusa Street Mission Founder (Azusa Street Revival)
 Bishop R.A.R. Johnson (1876 -1940) Founder of the House of God, Holy Church of the Living God, The Pillar and the Ground of the Truth, The House of Prayer for All People. A Commandment (Sabbath) keeping Pentecostal organization.
 George Jeffreys (1889 - 1972) Founder of the Elim Foursquare Gospel Alliance and the Bible-Pattern Church Fellowship in Britain
 Aimee Semple McPherson (1890 - 1944) American Female Evangelist and organizer of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel
 Joseph Ayo Babalola (1904 - 1959) Oke - Ooye, Ilesa revivalist in 1930. Also, spiritual founder of Christ Apostolic Church
 David du Plessis (1905 - 1987) South-African Pentecostal church leader, one of the founders of the Charismatic movement
 Kathryn Kuhlman (1907 - 1976) American female evangelist who brought Pentecostalism into the mainstream denominations
 William M. Branham (1909 - 1965) Healing Evangelists of the mid 20th century
 Jack Coe (1918 - 1956) Healing Tent Evangelist of the 1950s
 A. A. Allen (1911 - 1970) Healing Tent Evangelist of the 1950s and 1960s
 Oral Roberts (1918 - 2009) Healing Tent Evangelist who made the transition to televangelism
 Rex Humbard (b.1919) The first successful TV evangelist of the mid-1950s, 1960s, and the 1970s and at one time had the largest television audience of any televangelist in the U.S.

Related pages
 Prophecy

References

Studies
 Paul Alexander, (2000), "An Analysis of the Emergence and Decline of Pacifism in the History of the Assemblies of God", PhD Dissertation, Baylor University.
 Grant Wacker, (2001), Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA - An academic history of early Pentecostalism.
 Walter Hollenweger, (1972), The Pentecostals: the charismatic movement in the churches, Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis,
 Walter Hollenweger, (1997), Pentecostalism : origins and developments worldwide, Peabody, Mass. : Hendrickson Publishers,
 Clifton, S. J., (2005), An Analysis of the Developing Ecclesiology of the Assemblies of God in Australia, PhD thesis Australian Catholic University
 Matthew Steel, (2005), Pentecostalism in Zambia : Power, Authority and the Overcomers, MSc Dissertation - an examination of the growth and effects of Pentecostalism on development, University of Wales
 Pentecostalism losing its youth?

Other websites
 Journal of Pentecostal Theology  is published by SAGE publications. The editorial board is comprised of members of the Church of God Theological Seminary faculty.
 The REFLEKS journal  is published by REFLEKS-Publishing in Oslo, Norway and contains scholarly Scandinavian and English articles on Pentecostalism and neo-Pentecostalism.
 Encounter: Journal for Pentecostal Ministry  is a published by the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary (AGTS)
 The European Research Network on Global Pentecostalism (GloPent) is an initiative by three leading European Universities in Pentecostal studies networking academic research on Pentecostal and Charismatic movements.
 Hollenweger Center  for the interdisciplinary study of Pentecostal and Charismatic movements at the Free University of Amsterdam
 Cyberjournal for Pentecostal Charismatic Research
 Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center  (Assemblies of God archives), one of the largest collections of materials documenting the global Pentecostal movement; website contains free research tools, including over 250,000 digitized pages of periodicals and online catalog with over 80,000 entries.
 Pentecostalism
 Lecture on "Pentecostalism"
 Map showing Percentage of Pentecostal Population in USA by county  from Valparaiso University
 Apostolic Herald Online newsletter sharing Pentecostal and Apostolic concepts written primarily by Pentecostal authors.
 Pentecostal Conference of the North American Keralites
 Australasian Pentecostal Studies journal
 Pew Religious Forum Pentecostal Hub
 Some statistic

Christian movements and denominational families

Pentecostalism


A port is a place at the edge of an ocean, river, or lake for ships to load and unload their cargo. Persons on ships can get on or off ships at a port. It is also called a harbour or harbor. This kind of port is the same as sea port.

A good port is easy to get to over water or land. It is also in a place that is not easily hurt by bad weather, like strong wind or big waves.

Some ports are important for trade; other ports are important to a country's navy.

Types of ports
If a port is visited by ships that can go on the ocean, it is called a "sea port" or just a "port". If a port is visited only by river boats like barges, it is called a "river port".

If a port is on a lake, river, or canal that goes to a sea or ocean, that port can be called an "inland port".

A fishing port is a port or harbour used by people who are fishing.

A warm water port is a port where the water does not freeze in winter time.

A cruise home port is a port where people get on and off cruise-ships. It is also where the cruise ship gets its supplies, like fresh water, fuel, and food. The Port of Miami, Florida is called the "Cruise Capital of the World". Port Everglades, Florida and the Port of San Juan, Puerto Rico also have big cruise ports.

A port of call is a place where a ship stops before it has finished its trip.

A cargo port is a port that is used to move things people want to buy or sell.

Port


The Upanishads are some of the sacred books of the Hindu people. The Upanishads are part of a large collection of sacred books of Hindu people, called the Vedas. They are placed at the end of the Vedas and they primarily deal with knowledge or wisdom. Because they deal with knowledge portion of the Vedas, they are called Jnana-Kanda (Jnana means knowledge). Also because they come at the end portion of the Vedas they are often called texts of Vedanta (veda: of vedas, anta: at the end). Upanishads form the foundation of the philosophy of Hindu religion.
Many scholars believe that originally Upanishads are rebellion against Vedas and it has added to Vedas by its unique spiritual quest.
Upanishad means "sit down with" master to learn about the Atman(soul).
The Upanishads do not belong to a specific period of Sanskrit literature. The oldest, such as the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad and Chandogya Upanishad, may be as old as 8th century BC, while the youngest, depending on the specific Upanishad, may date to the medieval or early modern period. More than 300 text about Upanishad have been found but we have  108 Upanishad in written.
Geeta which is the most religious book of Hindu's is also a Greatest Upanishad.

Other websites
 Philosophia Ultima:Osho commentary on Mandukyopanishad

Hindu texts

Upanishad


An adverb is a word used to tell more about a verb, and it almost always answers the questions how?, when?, where?, how often?, and in what way?. Words like slowly, loudly, carefully, quickly, quietly or sadly are all adverbs. Adverbs usually, but not always, end in -ly.

Examples of adverbs in a sentence (with the adverb in italics):
 How did the man walk? The man walked slowly.
 How did the dogs bark? The dogs barked loudly.

An adverb can also modify (describe) an adjective or another adverb

Examples:
Adverb modifying a verb: He writes well
Adverb modifying another adverb: He writes very well
Adverb modifying an adjective: He is very well

In the first two examples the word 'well' is an adverb. In the last example, it is an adjective. This is one example in which the same word can be both an adjective and an adverb but not in the same sentence.

As a rule, the same word can play different roles but not in the same sentence. It all depends on what the word is doing in the sentence. It could be a noun, an adjective, an adverb, a verb, etc. Example: take the word 'cool'. In the sentence, "he walks cool", the word 'cool' is an adverb. In the sentence, "cool the hot dish", the word 'cool' is a verb. In the sentence, "it is a cool evening", the word 'cool' is an adjective. In the first example, "he walks cool", the word 'cool' really means 'coolly' as in "play it cool" (do not get excited; be calm).

Adverb form
Most adverbs are formed by adding ly to the end of an adjective. To see 100 adjectives used in Basic English, click here ---> : adjective

Parts of speech

Adverb


An abbreviation is a shorter way to write a word or phrase. People use abbreviations for words that they write a lot. The English language occasionally uses the apostrophe mark ' to show that a word is written in a shorter way, but some abbreviations do not use this mark. More often, they use periods, especially the ones that come from the Latin language. Common Latin abbreviations include i.e. [id est] that is, e.g. [exempli gratia] for example, and et al. [et alia] and others.

Some new abbreviations have been created by scientists, by workers in companies and governments, and by people using the Internet.

People often think words are abbreviations when in fact they are acronyms.

Here are examples of common acronyms: The word "radar" is an acronym for "Radio Detection and Ranging". The name of the large computer company IBM comes from the words "International Business Machines". The name of the part of the United States government that sends rockets into outer space is NASA, from the words "National Aeronautics and Space Administration". When people using the Internet think that something is very funny, they sometimes write "LOL" to mean "Laughing Out Loud". People sometimes write "ASAP" for "As Soon As Possible".

Other websites
 Acronym Finder - largest acronym site with many ways to search for acronyms and abbreviations in many languages. Over 10-year history.
 All Acronyms - a website with a large number of abbreviations and acronyms
 Acronyms Abbreviations and Slang  - over 3 million different acronyms and abbreviations in searchable database
 SlangLang Abbreviations  - Slang Words: 2,700 abbreviations and their meanings
Linguistics

Abbreviation


The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a shipping accident that happened off the coast of the United States on March 24, 1989. An oil tanker, the Exxon Valdez, hit a reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska. At the time of the disaster, the ship carried 53,094,510 U.S. gallons (44,210,430 imp gal/200,984,600 L) of crude oil. The accident caused a massive oil spill: 10.8 million U.S. gallons (9.0 million imp gal/41 million L) were spilled into the Prince William Sound. It was one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in the history of the United States.

The ship had left the shipping lanes because of icebergs. The ship never returned to the shipping lane and hit Bligh Reef at around 12:04 AM. Later, people looked at the causes, and found that the people on board were badly trained and overworked. What made things worse was the fact that the government was not prepared to handle a disaster with such large consequences for the environment. This disaster badly damaged the ecosystems of the area. An estimated 21,300 fish died after being poisoned by the crude oil. The birds that ate the fish got sick.

Some of the methods tried to clean up the oil were: burning, mechanical cleaning, and chemical dispersants.

References

1989 disasters
1989 in the United States
20th century in Alaska
Transport disasters in the United States

Exxon Valdez oil spill


An exhibition is an organized event in which a collection of special objects can be viewed by the public.  The objects are often brought together from many places for the period of the exhibition.  The objects on show are called exhibits.

Museums often organize special exhibitions, such as paintings by a famous painter.  These paintings will mostly be "on loan", i.e. specially borrowed from other museums.  Exhibitions can be about anything.  They may be to do with art, or they can also be science exhibitions.

Some exhibitions show things which can be bought.  Firms exhibit the things they have made, hoping to encourage business.  These exhibitions are called trade fairs.  They are sometimes called expositions or expos.  They may be open to the public, but others are just for invited business people.

Related pages
Art exhibition
The Great Exhibition
Convention center
World's Fair

Exhibition


A nuclear reaction is a process involving an atomic nucleus or more than one nucleus. The most common kinds are
Nuclear fusion, a reaction in which two or more particles collide. The results are new particles which are different from the first ones.
Nuclear fission, a nucleus breaking into pieces.
Radioactive decay, in which a nucleus spits something out, changing itself into a different kind of nucleus.

In the case of radioactivity the reaction is spontaneous. Fission and fusion can be done on purpose, to release energy. This energy can then be used for different things, for example to make steam (as in a nuclear power plant). It can also be used as energy for a bomb.

In the example figure 6Li fuses with deuterium. This makes Beryllium which then decays into two alpha particles.

Nuclear reactions occur in the sun, in nuclear reactors, in particle accelerators, and in outer space.  Other than radioactive decay, very few nuclear reactions occur on earth except in these special places.  Nuclear reactors use nuclear reactions to make heat and electricity.  Accelerators sometimes cause nuclear reactions to make radioactive materials.  Particles from outer space cause nuclear reactions in earth's atmosphere that make air slightly radioactive.

Nuclear reactions differ from chemical reactions in that they do not need a catalyst.  Radioactive decay also cannot be stopped, sped up or slowed down.

Related pages
Chemical reaction

Other websites
Images for nuclear reaction
Videos for nuclear reaction

Nuclear physics
Nuclear energy

Nuclear reaction


This article is about the constructed languages of J. R. R. Tolkien, used in his Middle-earth universe.

External history
J. R. R. Tolkien was a philologist, and he was interested in language since he was a child. He invented several languages, which he then used in his Middle-earth writings. Aside from the external history, most of his languages have also an invented "internal history". The internal history means how the languages evolved and were used inside the fictional story by the fictional people who spoke them.
Some of Tolkien's languages have a detailed grammar and vocabulary. Other languages are not very detailed, and some languages have only a few words and names. Quenya and Sindarin are the best and most developed languages, while others like Rohirric, Khuzdûl, or Black Speech, are not so developed.

Tolkien also created the Tengwar, Sarati, and Cirth scripts for his languages.

Languages of Middle-earth

Elvish languages
The Elvish languages or Eldarin languages are the languages of the Elves. At other times, Elvish languages were the common speech. Later the Elvish languages were also used by humans, especially by scientists and the nobility. The Eldarin languages can be divided into two groups: Quenya language and Telerin languages (which includes Telerin, Nandorin, and Sindarin).

Quenya
Quenya is an Elvish language. It was spoken by the Vanyar and Noldor elves in Valinor. When the Noldor returned to Middle-earth in the First Age, they brought Quenya with them. But the native Sindarin became far more common in everyday speech. In the Second Age and especially in the Third Age, Quenya in Middle-earth was used more as a scientific and ritual language. Because of this Tolkien sometimes called Quenya the "Elf-Latin".

Telerin
Telerin is an Elvish language. It was spoken by the Teleri elves. From Telerin developed several new languages and dialects, for example Sindarin.

Sindarin
Sindarin is an Elvish language. It came from the Telerin language. It was spoken by the Sindar (or Grey Elves) in Middle-earth. It later became the most common elvish language spoken in Middle-earth.

Mannish (Human) languages

Adûnaic
Adûnaic is the language of the people of Númenor. After the Fall of Númenor, Adûnaic was not often used anymore. From Adûnaic and the native languages of the western coastlands of Middle-earth developed Westron.

Westron
Westron (Westron: Adûni, Sindarin: Annúnaid), or the Common Speech (Westron: Sôval Phârë), is a language of Middle-earth. It comes from Adûnaic and the natives languages of Middle-earth. In the Third Age, Westron is used as the common language, spoken by most peoples.
In the books, the text written in English is meant to be Westron most of the time.

Rohirric
Rohirric (also Rohirian or Rohanese) is the language of the Rohirrim of Rohan. In the books, Rohirric text and names are always represented by Old English. This is made because Rohirric should feel older but similar to the hobbit's Westron, and they are in the books represented by Old English and Modern English.

Khuzdûl
Khuzdûl is the language of the Dwarves. The dwarves keep much of what they do a secret, and they also do this with their language. Because of this, only a few place-names and phrases are known from Khuzdûl. Dwarves have never told other (non-dwarven) people their Khuzdûl names. Instead, they use other names when talking to the other peoples of Middle-earth. The dwarven "nicknames" that appear in the books are  all taken from Norse mythology.
Besides the spoken language, called aglab, Khuzdûl had the iglishmek, which was a sign language.

Entish
Entish is the language of the Ents. The language is, like the Ents themselves, very "unhasty": it takes a lot of time to say something. The language uses very long descriptions and many repetitions. Because it is so complicated and takes so much time, nobody but the Ents use or understand this language.

Valarin
Valarin was the language spoken by the Ainur.

Black Speech
Black Speech is the language of Sauron. The language was created by him and used by his followers. The inscription on the One Ring was Black Speech, written in Tengwar. Aside from the Ring-inscription, there are several names and words of Black Speech known.

Related pages

Middle-earth
Tengwar

Languages
Fictional languages

Languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien


John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, religious thinker, and civil servant for the English Commonwealth Government. He is one of the most important figures in Western literature. He is most famous for his Christian epic poem Paradise Lost. His writing influenced both later poets and religious thinkers.

Life
John Milton was born on 9 December 1608, the son of John Milton (senior) and Sarah Jerry. His family lived in Bread Street, London. His father was a musician and composer. His main work was as a scrivener, a secretary who reads and writes letters for people who cannot read and write for themselves. Milton's father was well paid at this work, and was able to hire a private tutor to teach his clever eldest son. Milton's brother Christopher said he studied very long into each night. Milton then went to St. Paul's School where he studied Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.

Milton then studied at Christ's College, Cambridge and graduated with a B.A. in 1629. On 3 July 1632, he received his Master of Arts degree. He returned home where he continued to study and write poetry for six years. He wrote a large number of poems. In 1638 he made a tour of the Continent, spending a lot of time in France and Italy, where he learned about other authors such as Dante, Tasso, and Ariosto. When he was 34, he married Mary Powell, who was 17. He defended freedom of speech and freedom of press.

Publications
In 1645, during the English Civil War, he published Poems of Mr. John Milton, in which there were his famous poems "L'Allegro" and "Il'Penseroso", which was mostly ignored. In 1649, during the trial of Charles I, Milton wrote Of the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, arguing that kings can rule only when the people allow them to. He then became secretary to the Council of State and wrote in Latin Eikonoklastes in 1649. That was the last big writing project he did before he began to become blind. In 1652, he became completely blind and was very unhappy. However, in 1667, he published the famous Paradise Lost, one of the greatest English-language epics. Four years later, he wrote Paradise Regained, a story about how men became sinful and how Jesus Christ won the battle with the devil. The last work that was published while he was alive was Samson Agonistes. He died, probably because of gout, on 8 November 1674.

Other websites

 Milton Reading Room  – online, almost fully annotated, collection of all of Milton's poetry and selections of his prose
 Milton 400th Anniversary  – lots of Milton material and details of the Milton 400th Anniversary Celebrations, from Christ's College, Cambridge, where Milton studied
 "Milton and De Doctrina Christiana"  by Gordon Campbell et al., 1996
 "The masque in Milton's Arcades and Comus" by Gilbert McInnis
 History of the John Milton Society for the Blind in Canada
 How Milton Works by Stanley Fish
 Milton's cottage
 Paradise Lost by John Milton, Introduction and Notes by David Hawkes
 A common-place book of John Milton, and a Latin essay and Latin verses presumed to be by Milton Cornell University Library Historical Monographs Collection.

1608 births
1674 deaths
Alumni of the University of Cambridge
Civil servants
English poets
English Protestants
Writers from London

John Milton


The Réaumur scale is a way of measuring temperature. The unit associated with the scale is called Réaumur, named after the physicist  René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur who created it in 1731. The unit is usually abbreviated "Ré", sometimes "r". The two base points of the scale are the melting point of ice and the boiling point of water, both at normal pressure. There are 80 degrees between those values, one degree Réaumur is the 80th part of that temperature difference.

Réaumur used ethanol for his thermometers. Thermometers that use ethanol show the change of temperature better than those using mercury. This is because, when heated, ethanol expands faster than mercury. There is the problem though that the expansion of ethanol is different at different temperatures -  it is non-linear. Ethanol has a very low boiling point, which makes thermometers based on it unusable for many applications. Soon, instrument-makers used other liquids, and then chose "80°Ré" as the boiling point of water.

In 1772 Jean-André Deluc studied the several substances used in thermometers at the time. At the time, new theories of heat were being developed.
Deluc's analysis came to the conclusion that mercury-based thermometers were the best for practical use: He made an experiment, as follows: Suppose there are two amounts of water, say one liter, are mixed. The two amounts have different temperatures. The temperature of both liquids are taken, before the mix, and the temperature of the mix is measured. The mix should have the temperature that is the mean of both temperatures. This relationship only held reliably, when mercury was used in thermometers. From the late 18th century, almost all thermometers used mercury, for this reason. Thermometers that use other substances than ethanol but have 80 scales between the boiling and the freezing points of water have nothing in common with Réaumur's thermometer, except for the name.

References

Units of temperature

Réaumur scale


Skype for Business Server (formerly Microsoft Office Communications Server and Microsoft Lync Server) is real-time communications server software that provides the infrastructure for enterprise instant messaging, presence, VoIP, ad hoc and structured conferences (audio, video and web conferencing) and PSTN connectivity through a third-party gateway or SIP trunk. These features are available within an organization, between organizations and with external users on the public internet or standard phones (on the PSTN as well as SIP trunking).

Features
One basic use of Skype for Business Server is instant messaging (IM) and presence within a single organization. This includes support for rich presence information, file transfer and voice and video communication. Skype for Business Server uses Interactive Connectivity Establishment for NAT traversal and TLS encryption to enable secure voice and video both inside and outside the corporate network.

Skype for Business Server also supports remote users, both corporate users on the Internet (e.g. mobile or home workers) as well as users in partner companies. Skype for Business supports identity federation, enabling interoperability with other corporate IM networks. Federation can be configured either manually (where each partner manually configures the relevant edge servers in the other organization) or automatically (using the appropriate SRV records in the DNS).

Microsoft Skype for Business Server uses Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for signaling along with the SIMPLE extensions to SIP for IM and presence. Media is transferred using RTP and SRTP. The live meeting client uses Persistent Shared Object Model (PSOM) to download meeting content. The communicator client also uses HTTPS to connect with the web components server to download address books and expand distribution lists. By default, supported combinations include encrypted communications using SIP over TLS and SRTP as well as unencrypted SIP over TCP and RTP. Microsoft has published details of supported configuration for qualified vendors through Unified Communications Open Interoperability Program (UCOIP).

IM is only one portion of the Skype for Business suite. The other major components are VoIP telephony and video conferencing through the desktop communicator client. Remote access is possible using the desktop, mobile and web clients.

Several third parties have incorporated Skype for Business functionality on existing platforms. HP has implemented it on its Halo video conferencing platform.

History
When Microsoft Office Live Communications Server was originally launched on 29 December 2003, it replaced the Exchange Instant Messenger Service that had been included in Exchange 2000, but which was removed from the Exchange 2003 feature set. Holders of Exchange 2000 licenses which included Software Assurance were entitled to receive Live Communications Server as an upgrade, along with Exchange 2003; however, Live Communications Server Client Access Licenses were purchased as normal for new users.

OCS R2 was announced at VoiceCon in Amsterdam in October 2008, a year after releasing Office Communications Server 2007.

Microsoft released Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 in February 2009. The R2 release added the following features:

 Dial-in audioconferencing
 Desktop sharing
 Persistent Group Chat (only available on Windows OS clients)
 Attendant console and delegation
 Session Initiation Protocol trunking
 Mobility and single-number reach

Microsoft Lync Server 2010 reached general availability in November 2010. Microsoft Lync 2013 was released to manufacturing in October 2012 with SP1 being released in March 2014.
In 2015, the new version of Lync became Skype for Business with a new client experience, new server release and updates to the service in Office 365. Microsoft has stated that general availability for Skype for Business Server 2019 is targeted for the end of 2018.

Versions
 2018 - Skype for Business Server 2019 (due end of 2018)
 2015 - Skype for Business Server 2015
 2012 - Lync Server 2013 (RTM 11 October 2012)
 2010 - Lync Server 2010
 2009 - Office Communications Server 2007 R2
 2007 - Office Communications Server 2007
 2006 - Live Communications Server 2005 with SP1
 2005 - Live Communications Server 2005, codenamed Vienna
 2003 - Live Communications Server 2003

Client software and devices
Microsoft Lync is the primary client application released with Lync Server. This client is used for IM, presence, voice and video calls, desktop sharing, file transfer and ad hoc conferences. With Lync 2013 there will be a release of Lync Light Client with fewer features.
Microsoft also ships the Microsoft Attendant Console. This is a version of the Lync more oriented towards receptionists or delegates / secretaries or others who get a large volume of inbound calls.

Persistent Group Chat functionality (introduced with Lync Server 2010) is only supported on the Windows OS client at this time. This requires an additional server or multiple servers for processing group chat transactions.

Other client software and devices include:
 Lync Mobile is a mobile edition of the Lync Server 2010 client that offers similar functionality, including voice calls via the GSM network, instant messaging, presence and single number reachability. Clients for Lync Mobile includes the IPhone, IPad, Android, Windows Phone 7 and 8. New releases of Lync Mobile 2013 (Wave 2) are anticipated, bringing features such as collaboration and voice and video over IP.
 Microsoft RoundTable is an audio and video conferencing device that provides a 360-degree view of the conference room and tracks the various speakers. This device is now produced and sold via Polycom under the product name CX5000.
 The Skype for Business client is supported by Lync Server 2013, as well as Skype for Business Server.
The documentation of Lync 2013 contains references to Lync Room Edition Devices - these are anticipated to provide close to immersive experience.
 LG-Nortel and Polycom also make IP phones in a traditional phone form factor that operate an embedded edition of Office Communicator 2007. The physical plastic phones as referred by Microsoft are also named Tanjay Phones.
 IP Desk Phones 'Optimized for Lync': Powered by Lync Phone Edition these phones have full support to PBX functionalities, access to calendar and contacts, rich conferencing, extended functionalities when connected to the PC, and integrated security and manageability. Built from the ground up for Lync, these phones come in different models designed to meet specific business needs, including a rich information worker experience, a basic desk phone, common area phone, or conference room phone. Aastra and other vendors offer IP Desk Phones Optimized for Microsoft Lync.
 Damaka has Lync clients for Android, iOS (iPhone/iPad), BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows 8, Mac OS X. It provides chat, voice, file transfer, video, and desktop sharing functions.
 Fisil has Lync clients for Linux, Android, iPhone, iPad.

Linux support:

Fisil makes the only available supported Linux client for Lync. The unifiedme.co.uk reference lists a Pidgin-based workaround, but according to the information at CERN, it has important limitations. The Damaka reference leads to the Google+ main page and has no information on a Linux client that I could find. The Fisil reference goes to a project management company that can write custom software.

Compliance
Lync Server also has the capability to log and archive all instant message traffic passing through the server and to create Call Detail Records for conferences and voice. These features can help provide compliance with legal requirements for many organizations. The Archiving server is not an overall end-to-end compliance solution, as archiving requires you to install the Archiving Server and to configure front end servers accordingly.

Public IM connectivity (PIC)
Lync Server also enables organizations to interoperate with four external IM services: AOL Instant Messenger, Microsoft Messenger service, Yahoo! Messenger, and Google Talk. PIC was first introduced with Service Pack 1 for Live Communications Server 2005, PIC is licensed separately for Yahoo, but is free for AOL and Messenger service for customers with Software Assurance. Microsoft announced that effective 30 June 2014, they will no longer support PIC connectivity to AOL/AIM

Third-party software support

SIPE plugin
, the third-party SIPE plugin enables third-party clients such as Pidgin, Adium and Miranda NG as well as clients using the Telepathy framework to support MS Lync Servers with some limitation (Audio but no SRTP, No Video) via the extended version of SIP/SIMPLE.

XMPP
Lync Server has an XMPP gateway server to federate with external XMPP servers. With Lync Server 2013, XMPP is natively part of the product.

The ejabberd XMPP server has a bridge that enables federation with OCS servers, without gateways (transports).

Competition
Competitors to Lync Server include:
 Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise OpenTouch Conversation Platform
 3CX Phone System; 3CX Phone System for Windows is a software-based IP PBX
 Alceo's BCS Communicator
 Asterisk (PBX) Platform - SIP, ISDN, IAX, SMS, open source telephone system
 AT&T UC and SIP Services
 Avaya Aura (tm) Presence Services (with Messaging) and one-X software
 Bopup Communication Server; Based on private and secure IM protocol
 Cisco's Unified Communications Manager IM & Presence (on-Prem) or WebEx Connect Jabber Service (Cisco cloud)
 ejabberd
 Elastix; Elastix PBX, VoIP email, IM, faxing and collaboration functionality
  openUC Enterprise
 IBM's Lotus Sametime
 iChat Server (see Mac OS X Server)
 Jabber XCP (from Jabber, Inc., not to be confused with the IETF open standard XMPP)
 NEC's UCB and UCE
 Mitel Micollab
 Openfire
 Prosody
 ShoreTel
 Siemens' OpenScape
 sipXecs
 Sun Java System Instant Messaging (see Sun Java System Communications Suite)
 Swyx
 Tigase
 TrueConf
 Vertical Communications
 Algoria; TWS

In instant messaging, the free public instant messaging networks (Google, Live Messenger, Yahoo and AOL) are widely used and represent a degree of competition. There have been attempts by other vendors at providing solutions such as Yahoo!'s Enterprise Instant Messenger; however these attempts have been largely unsuccessful. An ICQ corporate client and server option once existed, but it is no longer supported or developed.

Products such as Cisco Unified Presence Server (Version 6.0.2+) support federation with Microsoft Office Communication Server 2007 to provide presence of Cisco IP phones and remote call control of the IP phone from the Microsoft Office Communicator client.

The Siemens OpenScape solution offers a federation with the Office communicator, and also an integration into the office communicator, allowing to use the standard functionalities of the office communication suite together with the SIP based voice functionalities of the Siemens platform.

The Asterisk telephone platform supports SIP, IAX, and ISDN connections. Most telephones that support these protocols may be used with Asterisk, including software phone clients.

See also
Similar products
 LG-Nortel IP Phone 8540
Lists
 List of Microsoft–Nortel Innovative Communications Alliance products
 Microsoft Servers

References

External links

 Lync Dev Center

Microsoft Office servers
Microsoft server software
Microsoft server technology
Instant messaging server software
Innovative Communications Alliance products

Skype for Business Server


Claudio Monteverdi (b.Cremona, 1567; d.Venice 25 November 1643) was the most important composer of the early Baroque period. He lived at a time of great change in musical style. The first opera ever written was composed in 1597 by a composer named Jacopo Peri. Just eleven years later Monteverdi wrote an opera Orfeo which was a really great work. Other important operas of his are Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria. He wrote 9 books of madrigals. He also wrote a lot of church music including the 1610 Vespers. He was director of music at St Mark's, Venice, which was the most important musical job in Italy.

Early life in Cremona

Monteverdi was the son of an apothecary and a doctor. He was very talented as a young boy and was only 15 when he published his first pieces of music. In the introduction to this music he says that his music teacher was Marc' Antonio Ingegneri, the maestro di cappella of Cremona cathedral. We cannot find anything that shows that he sang in the cathedral choir. He probably had private music lessons. He learned composition, singing and how to play string instruments such as the viol and viola da braccio. He got several compositions published in Venice. By the time he got his first job he had already published two books of madrigals.

Mantua
His first job was working at the court of the Duke of Mantua. In Mantua there was a small band of excellent musicians. The musical director was the famous Giaches de Wert. Monteverdi got to know many famous poets, and there were famous singers at Ferrara which was not far away.

At first Monteverdi had a low-paid job. He married the daughter of one of the court musicians in the string band. Monteverdi soon became well-known. He sent several of his compositions to be performed at Ferrara, and he went with the duke to when his army was fighting the Turks.

The young Monteverdi was developing a new musical style. The old style was known as prima pratica ("first practice") and the new style was called the seconda pratica ("second practice"). The prima pratica continued to be used for church music. In this style of writing the music was thought to be more important than the words. This meant that the music could be very contrapuntal, with several things going on at once so that the words could not be clearly heard. However, in the seconda pratica the words were more important than the music, i.e. it was important to be able to hear all the words clearly, and the music had to be simple enough for this to happen. This was particularly important in opera and in madrigals.

There were a lot of arguments among musicians about these two styles of composition, and this is perhaps the reason why there was a gap of 11 years between Monteverdi's 3rd and his 4th book of madrigals. His opera Orfeo (1608) was performed at least twice at court, and several times at Salzburg. Monteverdi was becoming famous all over Europe.

Monteverdi went back to Cremona. His wife died, leaving him with their three small children. It was a terrible tragedy for Monteverdi, and he did not want to go back to Mantua, but the Duke wrote to him telling him he must come back to provide music for the wedding of Prince Francesco Gonzaga and Margharita of Savoy.

Monteverdi returned to Mantua, where he composed his opera Arianna. The performance was a great success, and the audience were moved to tears by the music Arianna's lament. This song is the only part of the opera that has not been lost.

Although Monteverdi's fame was increasing, there were a lot of arguments with his employer. Eventually he found another job, this time as a church musician, in the biggest church in Venice. Monteverdi had a difficult journey from Mantua to Venice. The passengers were robbed by highwaymen on the way. He arrived in Venice in October 1613.

Venice
The job of maestro (director of music) at San Marco (Saint Mark's church) in Venice was perhaps the most important job for a church musician in the whole of Europe. However, the music was in a bad state because previous directors of music had not been very good. Monteverdi started to reorganize the music there: he bought new music for the library and got some new musicians. He had to compose music for many special feast days during the year. He was doing a good job, and in 1616 his salary was increased to 400 ducats (about 44.28 ounces of gold, worth about US$73,500 today). The duke of Mantua was probably cross that he had lost such a good musician. He still asked Monteverdi to write music for him. Monteverdi probably had to obey, as he was still a Mantuan citizen (Italy did not become one country until more than two centuries later). He wrote music for important events such as weddings and carnivals at Mantua.

By 1619 Monteverdi had published his seventh book of madrigals. However, he then started to publish less music. Perhaps it was because he was so busy, or perhaps because he no longer needed to look for fame. He probably wrote a lot of church music which is now lost.

During the 1620s continued his work in Venice, although he may have tried to get other jobs. His hobbies include alchemy. He welcomed the composer Heinrich Schütz who visited Venice for a second time. After the Duke of Mantua died in 1626 Monteverdi wrote less music for Mantua. He was supposed to receive an annual salary from them, but he often did not get it. There was a war in Mantua, a lot of buildings were destroyed and the invading armies brought the plague. Monteverdi became a priest in 1632. It is not clear whether he did this because he really was religious or whether he thought it would help his career.

In 1637 public opera was started in Venice. Monteverdi, who was now in his 70s, wrote operas for Venice. Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (1640) and L'incoronazione di Poppea (1642) form a brilliant end to his career. After the performance of this opera he made a six-month trip to Lombard and Mantua, where again he had to argue at the court about not being paid his pension. After he returned to Venice he was ill for nine days and then died.

References
 Groves Dictionary of Music Online

1567 births
1643 deaths
16th-century Italian composers
Baroque composers
People from Cremona
17th-century Italian composers

Claudio Monteverdi


Ukraine (, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. Russia is to the north-east of Ukraine, Belarus is to the north-west, Poland and Slovakia are to the west, Hungary, Romania, Moldova and self-proclaimed Transnistria are to the south-west and the Black Sea is to the south.

Ukraine is a republic.
The capital of Ukraine is Kyiv (). It was a part of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991.

Official language
The official language of Ukraine is Ukrainian (, [ukrajin's'ka mova]). In the 2001 census, about 29% of people in Ukraine said that they consider Russian to be their main language. These two East Slavic languages are similar in some ways but different in other ways.

Division of Ukraine
Ukraine is divided into 24 oblasts and one Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

The largest cities of Ukraine
The largest cities in Ukraine are:

 Kyiv (from the late 9th century was the capital of Kyivan Rus; the capital of Ukraine since the restoration of the independent Ukrainian state in 1919)
 Kharkiv (was the capital of USSR in 1919—1934)
 Dnipro
 Odesa
 Zaporizhia
 Lviv

Name origin
The name "Ukraine" (u-krayina) has usually been interpreted as "edge" or "borderland", but this an alternative interpretation as "territory" has been proposed. Language specialists are still searching for evidence of the history of the meaning of the word.

It was first used in reference to a core part of the territory of Kyivan Rus in the 12th century. In English, the historical region was usually known as "the Ukraine". Since independence in 1991, adding "the" is no longer proper style for referring to the country.

History

Ancient times
Many different tribes lived on the territory of modern Ukraine since pre-historical times. Most historians believe that the Great Steppe at the North of the Black Sea was a homeland of all Indo-European and Indo-Iranian languages. Some believe it was also the birthplace of the whole European population. Wends, Goths, Huns, Sclaveni, Avars, and other tribes and tribal groups fought among themselves, joined unions, terminated, and assimilated each other.

By the middle of the 4th century AD, Antes joined other tribes and established a state under their rule.  Their state fell under the pressure of  Avars in 602 AD and their name was longer mentioned.  Since the 7th century over 10 tribal groups joined under the name "Slavs" and made their own state named Rus.  The chronicles mention three centers that formed this state: Kuyavia (Kyiv land with Kyiv itself), Slavia (Novgorod land), and Artania (exact location unknown).

Historians still argue about whether Kyiv was founded by Slavs themselves, or they just captured the Khazar fortress which was located on the bank of the Dnieper river, but since the 10th century, it became the capital of the largest and most powerful state in Europe.

Kyivan Rus
Kyivan Rus, is the medieval state of Eastern Slavs.  Established by the Slavic with the help of the Varangian squads whose force was used to integrate separate tribes and their lands into one powerful state. Varangian princes, who ruled Rus from its first years were gradually assimilated by natives, but the dynasty started by semy-legendary Rurik survived and continued to govern their separate principalities even after the collapse of Rus.

At an early stage of its existence Rus destroyed such powerful states as the Khazar Khaganate and Old Great Bulgaria.  Rus princes successfully fought against the Byzantine Empire, whose emperors had to pay tribute to them.  Rus' finally disintegrated into separate principalities.

In the reign of Volodymyr the Great (980-1015) the Kyivan State almost finished its expansion. It occupied the territory from Peipus, Ladoga and Onega lakes in the north to the River Don, Ros, Sula, Southern Bug in the south, from the Dniester, the Carpathians, the Neman, Western Dvina River in the west to the Volga and the Oka River in the east, its area became about 800,000 km2. Although some of his predecessors already accepted Christianity for themselves, Volodymyr decided to convert the entire population of the state to the new religion. Partially with the help of Byzantine missionaries preachers, partly by the brutal violence, he finally made all Kyiv population to be baptized. For this action, the Ukrainian, and later the Russian Orthodox Churches canonized him under the name of Vladimir the Baptist.

During the reign of Yaroslav the Wise, (1019–1054), Rus reached the zenith of its cultural development and military power. Rus raised the prestige of Eastern Slavs in Europe, improved the international significance of Kyiv. Rus influenced the political relations in all of Europe, Western Asia, and the Middle East. Kyivan princes supported the political, economic, dynastic relations with France, Sweden, England, Poland, Hungary, Norway, Byzantium.

The Rus state also ruled non-Slavic people (Finno-Ugric population of the North, Turkic of the East and South, Balts of the West, etc.).  Those people gradually assimilated with the Slavs, and with each other, establishing a framework for the future emergence of three new Eastern-Slavic peoples.

The Kyivan State was an eastern outpost of European Christendom, it kept the movement of nomad hordes to the West, and reduced their onslaught against Byzantium and Central European countries.

After the death of Mstyslav Volodymyrovych (1132), Rus lost its political unity and finally was divided into 15 principalities and lands. Among them, Kyiv, Chernygiv, Volodymyr-Suzdal, Novgorod, Smolensk, Polotsk, and Halycian lands and principalities were most large and powerful.

Major political conditions of fragmentation were:
 The succession among the princes of Kyivan State was different: in some regions lands passed from father to son, in others from the older to the younger brother, etc.
 The political relationship between individual fiefdoms and private lands was weakened, and the better development of certain lands led to the formation of local separatism;
 In some regions the local aristocracy required a strong prince to rule, in order to protect their rights. On the other hand,  while the feudal princes and boyars real power increased, and the power of the Grand Prince decreased, more and more nobles felt priority of their local interests above national ones;
 There was not created their own dynasty  in the Kyiv principality, because all the princely families struggled with each other for possession of Kyiv ;
 Nomads dramatically intensified their expansion to Kyivan lands.

While Kyiv was the center of all social, economic, political, cultural, and ideological life in the country for a long time before, other centers have competed with it since the mid-12th century. There were old powers (Novgorod, Smolensk, Polotsk), as well as new ones...

Numerous princely feuds, large and small wars between different lords, were tearing Rus. However, the ancient Ukrainian state did not fall apart.  It only changed the form of its government: The personal monarchy was replaced by the federal one, Rus came to be co-ruled by the group of the most influential and powerful princes. Historians call this way of governing "the collective suzerainty." The Principality of Kyiv remained a national center and the residence of bishops.

In 1206 the new powerful military-feudal Mongolian state headed by Genghis Khan started the war of conquest against his neighbors. In 1223 in the battle near the Kalka River, 25,000 Tatar-Mongols won a crushing victory over the squads of Southern Rus Princes, who were unable to come together even in the face of grave danger. Under the leadership of Batu, Genghis Khan's grandson, from 1237 to 1238, they conquered Riazan, Volodymir, Suzdal, and Yaroslavl lands.

In 1240, they attacked Kyiv.  The city was plundered and destroyed. According to the legend, the enemy saved governor Dimitri's life for his personal courage in the battle. Then Kamenetz, Iziaslav, Volodymyr, and Halych lost against invaders.  Batu was able to attach most of Rus to his empire, the Golden Horde, which covered the whole territory from the Urals to the Black Sea,

After the fall of Kyivan State, the political, economic, and cultural center of Ukrainian lands was transferred to the Halycian-Volyn Land.  In 1245 Prince Danylo of Halych had to admit his dependence on the Golden Horde.  Hoping to get help from Catholic Europe in his struggle for independence, he also made a secret alliance with Poland, Hungary, Masovia, and the Teutonic Knights.  In 1253 he received the crown from Pope Innocent IV and became a King of Rus. In 1259, due to the lack of military aid from the West, the king was forced to re-recognize the supremacy of the Horde. His successor, Lev I had to take part in the Tartar campaigns against Poland and Lithuania.

In 1308 the government moved to Danylo's grandchildren - Andrew and Lev II, who started the new struggle against the Golden Horde allied with the Teutonic knights and princes of Mazowia. However, after their death the last monarch Yuri II again had to claim himself as the Golden Horde vassal. He was murdered in 1340 and his death gave the rise to Poland and Lithuania (the neighbors who had a  dynastic right for the throne of Rus) to start a war for the Halycian-Volyn heritage. In 1392 Galicia, with Belz and Chelm Lands were finally incorporated to the Kingdom of Poland and Volhynia to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

At the end of the 14th century, Ukrainian territories were divided between different states. Lithuania seized Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Volyn Lands. Poland ruled in Halycian and Podolian. Southern Ukraine was under the rule of the Crimean Khanate (formed in 1447) and the Eastern under the power of Muscovy. In 1569 Lithuania and Poland merged to the united state called Commonwealth (Polish: Rzeczpospolita) to deal with neighbors, as a result, the central Ukrainian lands of Lithuania came under Polish control.

Etymology
Rus, or The Kyivan State, , ; often misspelled as "Kievan State" or even "Kievan Rus", using Russian spelling of its capital Kyiv ( [ˈkiɛf]).

As for the origin and definition of the name "Rus", there is no consensus among researchers. Several versions exist:
 Normans (Vikings), tribes who called themselves Ruses, and founded a state among Slavs, which naturally was called 'Rus Land'. This theory originated in the 17th century and was called the 'Norman theory'. Its authors are German historians G. Bayer and G. Miller, their followers and associates are called 'Normanists';
 Ruses were a Slavic tribe that lived in the middle reaches of the Dnieper;
 Rusa - the Proto-Slavic language word which means 'river';

Ukrainian historians generally adhere to anti-Norman opinion, while not denying the contribution Varangians in the process of formation of the Rus state system. Russ, or The Rus Land in their opinion means:
 The name of the territory where Kyiv, Chernigov and Pereiaslav are located (Polans, Severians, Drevlians tribes);
 The name of the tribes who lived on the banks of the rivers Ros, Rosava, Rostavytsia, Roska, etc.
 The name of the Kyivan state itself since the 9th century.

Cossackian State
At the end of the 15th century, the groups of warriors who called themselves Cossacks appeared on the territory between the borders of Lithuania, Muscovy, and the Crimea, in the "wild steppes" of Zaporizhia.  From the 16th century, the Sich became their military centre. Zaporizhian Cossacks participated in the wars on the side of the Commonwealth: the Livonian War (1558-1583), the Polish-Muscovite War (1605-1618), Khotyn war (1620-1621), and Smolensk war (1632-1634).  Cossacks also organized their own campaigns in Moldavia, Muscovy, and Crimea, on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria and in Asia Minor for looting. They willingly became mercenaries, particularly during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648).

Due to the legal and social oppression of the nobility Cossacks repeatedly revolted. The largest rebellions were raised under the guidance of Kosynskiy (1591-1593), Nalyvaiko (1594-1596), Zhmaylo (1625), Fedorovych (1630), Sulima (1635), Pavlyuk (1637), and Ostryanin (1638). Cossacks, again and again, defended the rights of the Ukrainian population in the Commonwealth who experienced religious and national oppression regularly.

For the conflict in the 1850s see Crimean War.

20th century
In 1917 an independent Ukrainian People's Republic was established.  The Red Army captured it and made it into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Soviet Russia in the 1920s encouraged the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian culture.  In the 1930s this policy changed to making the Ukrainians into Russians.  There were mass repressions of Ukrainian poets, historians, and linguists.  As in other parts of the Soviet Union millions of people starved to death in 1932 and 1933.

During the first years of World War II, Ukrainian nationalists collaborated with Nazis against Soviet Union hoping to reestablish Ukrainian independence or to get autonomy under the authority of Germany. Nationalists took part in mass murders of Jews, Roma people, and other victims of the Nazi regime. However, hopes of independence were ruined and Ukrainian nationalists created Ukrainian Insurgent Army which fought against Nazi Germany but against the Soviet Union (mainly Soviet partisans) for the most part. They failed to get independence. Most Ukrainians fought on the side of the Soviet Union and participated in the liberation of Ukraine from Nazi Germany.

In 1986, the fourth reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded as a result of an improper test. The accident contaminated large portions of northern Ukraine and southern Belarus with uranium, plutonium, and radioactive isotopes. It was one of only two INES level 7 accidents (the worst level) in the history of nuclear power, the other being the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.

Under the second Soviet occupation repressions against Ukrainian nationalists continued and lasted till the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In the Soviet epoch, Ukraine was renamed to so-called a "Soviet Socialist Republic" incorporated into Soviet Union.
Independence day — 24 August 1991

Modern independence
President elections: 1 December 1991, July 1994, October-November 1999, October-December 2004, January 2010

Parliament elections: March 1994, March 1998, March 2002, March 2006, September 2007 (prematurely), October 2012

Constitution of Ukraine was adopted by Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) 28 July 1996 with changes 8 December 2004.

The political demonstrations in autumn-winter 2004 after the Presidential elections gathered millions of people all over the country. On November 26, 2004, Victor Yuschenko lost the Ukrainian presidential election (Viktor Yanukovych was declared the winner). However, Yuschenko and his followers argued that the election had been corrupted. They argued that the election results had been falsified by the Ukrainian government, in support of the opposing candidate Victor Yanukovych. They organized political demonstrations in autumn-winter 2004 that gathered millions of people all over the country. They called the demonstrations The Orange Revolution (). Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was an important ally of Victor Yuschenko during the demonstrations. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine ordered the second round of elections, which Yuschenko won.

Big pro-European Union protests called Euromaidan () began in November 2013 and made the President go away in February.

Russian-occupation of Crimea
In March 2014, Russia occupied Crimea, made a pseudo-referendum which proclaimed Crimea independence and annexed it. Most countries did not recognize the referendum. The EU, OSCE, USA and Ukraine demanded that Crimea be returned. Several countries sought to use economic sanctions to punish Russia's leaders for this.

After some conflicts, the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk declared independence from Ukraine; they are known as the Donetsk People's Republic, and Luhansk People's Republic.  In both areas of Ukraine, there's a majority of Russian speakers.

In 2016, the New Safe Confinement was built to cover the remains of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and prevent radiation from escaping.

Russian invasion

On 24 February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the invasion and attack on Ukraine. Russia invaded Ukraine from the North, East, South, from the Black Sea and from the air (having launched hundred of missiles).

Many people suffered, and people were hiding out in subway systems underground. Poland was allowing refugees into the country, but men of fighting age had to stay and fight in the military.

Presidents of Ukraine
 Leonid Makarovych Kravchuk (1991—1994)
 Leonid Danylovych Kuchma (1994—2005)
 Victor Yushchenko (2005—2010)
 Victor Yanukovych (2010—2014)
 Oleksandr Turchynov (2014)
 Petro Poroshenko (2014–2019)
 Volodymyr Zelensky (since 2019)

Related pages
 List of rivers of Ukraine
 Ukraine at the Olympics
 Ukraine national football team

References

1991 establishments in Europe

Ukraine


Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is a chemical compound, the oxide of silicon. Its chemical symbol is SiO2. It is known for its hardness since the 16th century. It has an important compound used in most types of glass and other hard substances such as concrete, porcelain and stoneware. It is made up of 2 oxygen atoms and 1 silicon atom.

Silicon dioxide exists in nature in a number of forms, including flint, quartz and opal. If it is breathed in as dust, it can cause silicosis and cancer, as the dust is trapped in the lungs. Besides the dangers of inhaling it in dust form, it is harmless.

Chemical compounds
Oxides

Silicon dioxide


A formation, or rock formation, is the fundamental unit of lithostratigraphy.

A formation consists of a certain number of rock strata. They have similar lithology (rocks), sedimentary facies (appearance) or other properties. Formations are not defined on the thickness of the rock strata, and the thickness of different formations can therefore vary widely.

The concept of formally defined layers or strata is central to stratigraphy. A formation can be divided into 'members' and are themselves packed together in 'groups'.

Formations were initially described as time markers, based on relative dating and the law of superposition. The divisions of the history of the Earth were the formations described and put in chronological order by the geologists and stratigraphers of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Rock formations are formed by sedimentary deposition in environments which may persist for hundreds of millions of years. For example, the Hammersley Basin in Pilbara, Western Australia, is a Proterozoic sedimentary basin where up to 1200 million years of sedimentation is preserved intact. Here, up to 300 million years is represented by a single unit of banded iron formation and shale.

In order
Stratigraphic groups
Formations
Members
Stratum (the smallest unit)

Sedimentary rocks
Stratigraphy

Geological formation