Rencana ini merupakan senarai pemilihan angkasawan mengikut tahun, individu dipilih untuk latihan program penerbangan angkasa manusia untuk mengarah, menerbangkan, atau berkhidmat sebagai seorang anak kapal serve as a crew member of a spacecraft. Sehingga masa kini, para angkasawan ditaja dan dilatih secara eksklusif oleh kerajaan, sama ada oleh pihak tentera atau oleh agensi angkasa awam. Walau bagaimanapun, dengan penerbangan sub-orbit pertama SpaceShipOne yang dibiayai secara peribadi pada tahun 2004, kategori angkasawan baru diciptakan - angkasawan komersial.

Sementara terma angkasawan kadangkala merujuk kepada sesiapa yang menjelajah ke angkasa, termasuk para saintis, ahli politik, wartawan dan para pelancong, artikel ini hanya menyenaraikan angkasawan profesional. A list of everyone who has flown in space can be found at List of space travelers by name.

Setakat 2008, lebih daripada 480 orang telah dilatih menjadi angkasawan

1957
 - Man In Space Soonest Kumpulan 1 - USA

Neil A. Armstrong, Albert S. Crossfield, Iven C. Kincheloe, John B. McKay, Joseph A. Walker, Alvin S. White, Robert M. White

Nota: Pada 1957, tujuh juruterbang ujian dari National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), United States Air Force (USAF), dan North American Aviation (NAA) telah dipilih untuk projek Man In Space Soonest, inisiatif tentera U.S. untuk menghantar manusia ke angkasalepas. Ketika projek aspek penerbangan angkasa dibatalkan, 2 angkasawan kemudiannya telah sampai ke angkasalepas, Joe Walker sebagai sebahagian daripada program X-15 dan Neil Armstrong sebagai sebahagian daripada program Gemini dan Apollo.

1958
 - Man In Space Soonest Kumpulan 2 - USA

Forrest S. Peterson, Robert A. Rushworth

Nota: Rushworth telah dimasukkan bagi menggantikan Iven Kincheloe dari pemilihan tahun 1957 yang telah mati dalam penerbangan ujian.

1959
April 9 - NASA Group 1 - Mercury Seven - USA

Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton.

Note: The first group of astronauts selected by NASA were for Project Mercury in April 1959. All seven were military test pilots, a requirement specified by President Eisenhower to simplify the selection process. All seven eventually flew in space, although one, Deke Slayton, did not fly a Mercury mission due to a medical disqualification, instead flying later on the Apollo-Soyuz mission. The other six each flew one Mercury mission. For two of these, Scott Carpenter and John Glenn, the Mercury mission was their only flight in the Apollo era (Glenn later flew on the Space Shuttle). Three of the Mercury astronauts, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper and Wally Schirra, also each flew a mission during the Gemini program. Alan Shepard was slated to fly Mercury 10 before its cancellation and was the original commander for the Gemini 3 mission, but did not fly due to a medical disqualification.  After surgery to correct the problem, he later flew as commander of Apollo 14. He was the only Mercury astronaut to go to the Moon. Wally Schirra also flew on Apollo as commander of Apollo 7, as well as Mercury and Gemini, the only astronaut to fly on all three types of spacecraft. (Gus Grissom was scheduled to fly the first Apollo flight, but died in a fire on the launch pad during training.  It is also widely assumed that had he lived, he would have been the first man to walk on the moon.)  Gordon Cooper was a backup commander for Apollo 10, the "dress rehearsal" flight for the lunar landing, and would have commanded another mission (likely to have been Apollo 13, according to the crew rotation), but was bumped from the rotation after a disagreement with NASA management.

At least one member of the Mercury Seven flew on every NASA class of manned spacecraft of the 20th century, from Mercury, through Gemini and Apollo, and ending with John Glenn's flight on the STS-95 Space Shuttle mission.

1960
Mac 7 - Kumpulan Tentera Udara 1 - USSR

Ivan Anikeyev, Pavel Belyayev, Valentin Bondarenko, Valery Bykovsky, Valentin Filatyev, Yuri Gagarin, Viktor Gorbatko, Anatoli Kartashov, Yevgeny Khrunov, Vladimir Komarov, Aleksei Leonov, Grigori Nelyubov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, Mars Rafikov, Georgi Shonin, Gherman Titov, Valentin Varlamov, Boris Volynov, and Dmitri Zaikin.

Nota: Kumpulan awal kosmonot Soviet telah dipilih dari juruterbang jet Tentera Udara Soviet (Soviet Air Force).

April - Kumpulan Dyna-Soar 1 - USA

Neil Armstrong, Bill Dana, Henry C. Gordon, Pete Knight, Russell L. Rogers, Milt Thompson, dan James W. Wood.

Nota: Dalam bulan April 1960, tujuh lelaki telah dipilih secara rahsia untuk program Dyna-Soar. Armstrong sebelumnya merupakan sebahagian daripada program MISS. Armstrong dan Dana meninggalkan program tersebut pada musim panas tahun 1962.

1962
March 12 - Female Group - USSR

Tatyana Kuznetsova, Valentina Ponomaryova, Irina Solovyova, Valentina Tereshkova, and Zhanna Yorkina.

Note: On March 12, 1962, a group of five civilian women with parachuting experience was added to the cosmonaut training program. Only Tereshkova would fly. A leading Soviet high-altitude parachutist, 20-year-old Tatyana Kuznetsova was, and remains, the youngest person ever selected to train for spaceflight.

September 17 - NASA Group 2 - The Next Nine (Also: The Nifty Nine, The New Nine) - USA

Neil Armstrong, Frank Borman, Charles Conrad, Jim McDivitt, Jim Lovell, Elliott See, Tom Stafford, Ed White and John Young.

Note: A second group of nine astronauts was selected by NASA in September 1962. All of this group flew missions in the Gemini program except Elliott See, who died in a flight accident while preparing for the Gemini 9 flight.  All of the others also flew on Apollo, except for Ed White, who died in the Apollo 1 launchpad fire.  Three of this group, McDivitt, Borman and Armstrong, made single flights in both Gemini and Apollo.  Four others, Young, Lovell, Stafford and Conrad, each made two flights in Gemini and at least one flight in Apollo.  Young and Lovell both made two Apollo flights.  Conrad and Stafford also made second flights in Apollo spacecraft, Conrad on Skylab 2 and Stafford in Apollo-Soyuz.  Six of this group, Borman, Lovell, Stafford, Young, Armstrong and Conrad, made flights to the Moon.  Lovell and Young went to the Moon twice.  Armstrong, Conrad, and Young walked on the Moon.  McDivitt was later Apollo Program Director and became the first general officer and would have been either the prime LM Pilot or backup commander for Apollo 14, but left NASA due to a conflict between Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton.  John Young also later flew on the Space Shuttle (STS-1 and STS-9) and would retire from NASA in 2004.  He was both the first and last of his group to go into space.

September 19 - Dyna-Soar Group 2 - USA

Albert Crews

Note: On September 19, 1962, Crews was added to the Dyna-Soar program and the names of the six active Dyna-Soar astronauts were announced to the public.

1963
Januari 10 - Kumpulan 2 Tentera Udara - USSR

Yuri Artyukhin, Eduard Buinovski, Lev Demin, Georgi Dobrovolski, Anatoli Filipchenko, Aleksei Gubarev, Vladislav Gulyayev, Pyotr Kolodin, Eduard Kugno, Anatoli Kuklin, Aleksandr Matinchenko, Vladimir Shatalov, Lev Vorobyov, Anatoli Voronov, Vitali Zholobov

Oktober 17 - Kumpulan 3 NASA - The Fourteen - USA

Buzz Aldrin, William Anders, Charles Bassett, Alan Bean, Eugene Cernan, Roger Chaffee, Michael Collins, Walter Cunningham, Donn Eisele, Theodore Freeman, Richard Gordon, Russell Schweickart, David Scott, Clifton Williams

Nota: Kesemua kumpulan ketiga (kecuali mereka yang telah mati) terbang di dalam program Apollo - Aldrin, Bean, Cernan dan Scott berjalan di atas bulan.  Lima daripada mereka (Aldrin, Cernan, Collins, Gordon dan Scott) juga melaksanakan beberapa misi ketika program Gemini.  Cernan mungkin satu-satunya angkasawan dari kumpulan ini yang terbang ke bulan sebanyak dua kali (Apollo 10 dan Apollo 17), sementara Bean akan mengemudi misi Skylab 3.

Bassett, Chaffee, Freeman dan Williams telah mati sebelum sempat mereka terbang ke angkasa - Chaffee di dalam kebakaran Apollo 1, yang lain-lain di dalam kemalangan kapal terbang.

1964
January 25 - Air Force Group 2 Supplemental - USSR

Georgi Beregovoi

May 26 - Voskhod Group (Medical Group 1) - USSR

Vladimir Benderov, Georgi Katys, Vasili Lazarev, Boris Polyakov, Aleksei Sorokin, Boris Yegorov

June 11 - Civilian Specialist Group 1 - USSR

Konstantin Feoktistov

1965
June 1 - Journalist Group 1 - USSR

Yaroslav Golovanov, Yuri Letunov, Mikhail Rebrov

Note: In 1965, three civilian journalists were selected for cosmonaut training in preparation for flight on a Voskhod mission. When the Voskhod program was canceled, Golovanov and Letunov were dismissed. Rebrov, on the other hand, stayed with the space program as a journalist until 1974.

June 1 - Medical Group 2 - USSR

Yevgeni Illyin, Aleksandr Kiselyov, Yuri Senkevich

Note: These physicians were selected for the long-duration Voskhod flights, all of which were subsequently canceled to make way for the Soviet Moon program. All three were dismissed at the beginning of the following year.

June 28 - NASA Group 4 - The Scientists - USA

Owen Garriott, Edward Gibson, Duane Graveline, Joseph Kerwin, Curt Michel, Harrison Schmitt

Note: Graveline and Michel left NASA without flying in space. Schmitt walked on the Moon on Apollo 17. Garriott, Gibson and Kerwin all flew to Skylab. Garriott also flew on the Space Shuttle and was the first Amateur radio operator to operate from orbit.

October 28 - Air Force Group 3 - USSR

Boris Belousov, Vladimir Degtyarov, Anatoli Fyodorov, Yuri Glazkov, Vitali Grishchenko, Veygeni Khludeyev, Leonid Kizim, Pyotr Klimuk, Gennadi Kolesnikov, Aleksandr Kramarenko, Mikhail Lisun, Aleksandr Petrushenko, Vladimir Preobrazhensky, Valeri Rozhdestvensky, Gennadi Sarafanov, Ansar Sharafutdinov, Vasili Shcheglov, Aleksandr Skvortsov, Eduard Stepanov, Valeri Voloshin, Oleg Yakovlev, Vyacheslav Zudov

Note: This group of cosmonauts was selected for participation in five separate Soyuz programmes that the USSR was running. These included military programs (with and without the Almaz/Salyut space stations) and two lunar programs (only one of which aimed at an actual lunar landing). In the end, only the orbital program and the space station program went ahead, and few of the cosmonauts from this group ever were given the chance to fly.

November - USAF MOL Group 1 - USA

Michael J. Adams, Albert H. Crews Jr., John L. Finley, Richard E. Lawyer, Lachlan Macleay, Francis G. Neubeck, James M. Taylor, Richard H. Truly.

Note: This group was selected for training for the U.S. Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. Of this group, only Truly transferred to NASA after the cancellation of the MOL program and later flew on the Space Shuttle. In 1989, Truly became the first astronaut to be NASA Administrator.

1966
April 4 - NASA Group 5 - The Original 19 - USA

Vance Brand, John S. Bull, Gerald Carr, Charles Duke, Joseph Engle, Ronald Evans, Edward Givens, Fred Haise, James Irwin, Don Lind, Jack Lousma, Ken Mattingly, Bruce McCandless II, Edgar Mitchell, William Pogue, Stuart Roosa, John Swigert, Paul Weitz, Alfred Worden.

Note: This group -- except John Bull, who left NASA due to a medical disqualification; Edward Givens, who died; Joseph Engle, who was bumped from Apollo 17 for Harrison Schmitt; and Bruce McCandless and Don Lind, who were candidates for one of the canceled Apollo flights -- flew on all Apollo flights after Apollo 12.  Fred Haise and John Swigert flew on Apollo 13, the latter replacing Ken Mattingly after he was scrubbed due to measles exposure although he later flew on Apollo 16.  Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa both flew on Apollo 14 with Alan Shepard, while Alfred Worden and James Irwin flew with David Scott on Apollo 15.  Charles Duke, who was CAPCOM for Apollo 11, flew on Apollo 16 with John Young and Mattingly, while Ron Evans served as Command Module Pilot with Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt on Apollo 17.  Paul Weitz, Jack Lousma, Gerald Carr and William Pogue flew aboard Skylab while Vance Brand, a backup Skylab astronaut, flew aboard ASTP with Thomas Stafford and Deke Slayton in 1975.  Joseph Engle and Fred Haise, in 1977, commanded crews on the Space Shuttle Enterprise landing tests, with Engle, Mattingly, Bruce McCandless, and Don Lind later flying actual Space Shuttle flights.  Engle, with MOL transferee Richard H. Truly, would command the last all-rookie US spaceflight crew (STS-2) in November, 1981, as current NASA policy requires that the Shuttle commander be an experienced astronaut.

May 23 - Civilian Specialist Group 2 - USSR

Sergei Anokhin, Vladimir Bugrov, Gennadi Dolgopolov, Georgi Grechko, Valeri Kubasov, Oleg Makarov, Vladislav Volkov, Aleksei Yeliseyev

June 30 - USAF MOL Group 2 - USA

Karol Bobko, Robert Crippen, Gordon Fullerton, Henry Hartsfield, Robert Overmyer.

Note: This group was selected for training for the U.S. Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. All transferred to NASA after the MOL program was canceled and all five flew on the Space Shuttle as pilot astronauts.

1967
January 31 - Civilian Specialist Group 2 Supplemental - USSR

Nikolai Rukavishnikov, Vitali Sevastyanov

May 7 - Air Force Group 4 - USSR

Vladimir Alekseyev, Vladimir Beloborodov, Mikhail Burdayev, Sergei Gaidukov, Vladimir Isakov, Vladimir Kovalyanok, Vladimir Kozelsky, Vladimir Lyakhov, Yuri Malyshev, Viktor Pisarev, Nikolai Porvatkin, Mikhail Sologub

May 22 - Academy of Sciences Group - USSR

Mars Fathulin, Rudolf Gulyayev, Ordinard Kolomitsev, Vsevolod Yegorov, Valentin Yershov

June - USAF MOL Group 3 - USA

James Abrahamson, Robert Herres, Robert H. Lawrence Jr, Donald Peterson.

Note: This group was selected for training for the US Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory program.  Lawrence was the first African-American to be chosen as an astronaut, but was killed in a jet accident before the MOL program was canceled in 1969 (had Lawrence not died, he would have been, if accepted by NASA, the first African-American astronaut for the agency, pre-dating Guion Bluford by nine years).  Peterson transferred to NASA in 1969 after the MOL cancellation and would fly on the Space Shuttle.  Herres would later become the first Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1987.

October 4 - NASA Group 6 - XS-11 (The Excess Eleven) - USA

Joseph Allen, Philip Chapman, Anthony England, Karl Henize, Donald Holmquest, William B. Lenoir, Anthony Llewellyn, Story Musgrave, Brian O'Leary, Robert Parker, William Thornton.

Note: This second group of scientist-astronauts were assigned as backup crew members for the last three Apollo missions or as backup crew members for Skylab. Except for Chapman, Holmquest, Llewellyn, and O'Leary, the group members eventually flew as Mission Specialists during the Space Shuttle program. With his flight on STS-61 (a Hubble Space Telescope repair flight) at the age of 58, Musgrave held the title of "oldest astronaut" prior to John Glenn's second flight.

1968
May 27 - Civilian Specialist Group 3 - USSR

Vladimir Fartushny, Viktor Patsayev, Valeri Yazdovsky

1969
August 14 - NASA Group 7 - USA
Karol Bobko, Robert Crippen, Gordon Fullerton, Henry Hartsfield, Robert Overmyer, Donald H. Peterson, Richard Truly.

Note: This group is all USAF Manned Orbiting Laboratory astronauts who transferred to NASA after the cancellation of the MOL program in 1969. All flew on early Space Shuttle flights.  Truly, in 1989, would become the first astronaut to become NASA Administrator, holding the position until 1992.

September 10 - Civilian Engineer Group - USSR

Anatoli Demyanenko, Valeri Makrushin, Dmitri Yuyukov

1970
April 27 - Air Force Group 5 - USSR

Anatoli Berezovoi, Aleksandr Dedkov, Vladimir Dzhanibekov, Nikolai Fefelov, Valeri Illarianov, Yuri Isaulov, Vladimir Kozlov, Leonid Popov, Yuri Romanenko

1971
February 25 - 1971 Scientific Group - USSR

Gurgen Ivanyan

May - Shuguang Group 1970 - China

Chai Hongliang, Dong Xiaohai, Du Jincheng, Fang Guojun, Hu Zhanzi, Li Shichang, Liu Chongfu, Liu Zhongyi, Lu Xiangxiao, Ma Zizhong, Meng Senlin, Shao Zhijian, Wang Fuhe, Wang Fuquan, Wang Quanbo, Wang Rongsen, Wang Zhiyue, Yu Guilin, Zhang Ruxiang

1972
March 22 - Civilian Specialist Group 4 - USSR

Boris Andreyev, Valentin Lebedev, Yuri Ponomaryov

March 22 - Medical Group 3 - USSR

Georgi Machinski, Valeri Polyakov, Lev Smirenny

1973
March 27 - Civilian Specialist Group 5 - USSR

Vladimir Aksyonov, Vladimir Gevorkyan, Aleksandr Ivanchenkov, Valeri Romanov, Valery Ryumin, Gennady Strekalov

1974
January 1 - Physician Group - USSR

Zyyadin Abuzyarov

1976
August 23 - Air Force Group 6 - USSR

Leonid Ivanov, Leonid Kadenyuk, Nikolai Moskalenko, Sergei Protchenko, Yevgeni Saley, Anatoly Solovyev, Vladimir Titov, Vladimir Vasyutin, Alexander Volkov

November 25 - 1976 Intercosmos Group - USSR

Miroslaw Hermaszewski, Zenon Jankowski, Sigmund Jähn, Eberhard Köllner, Oldrich Pelcak, Vladimír Remek

1978
January 16 - NASA Group 8 - TFNG (Thirty-Five New Guys) - USA

Pilots: Daniel Brandenstein, Michael Coats, Richard Covey, John Creighton, Robert Gibson, Frederick D. Gregory, Frederick Hauck, Jon McBride, Francis "Dick" Scobee, Brewster Shaw, Loren Shriver, David Walker, Donald Williams

Mission specialists: Guion Bluford, James Buchli, John Fabian, Anna Fisher, Dale Gardner, S. David Griggs, Terry Hart, Steven Hawley, Jeffrey Hoffman, Shannon Lucid, Ronald McNair, Richard Mullane, Steven Nagel, George Nelson, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Sally Ride, Rhea Seddon, Robert Stewart, Kathryn D. Sullivan, Norman Thagard, James van Hoften

Due to the long delay between the last Apollo mission and the first flight of the Space Shuttle in 1981, few astronauts from the older groups stayed with NASA. Thus in 1978 a new group of 35 astronauts was selected after 9 years without new astronauts, including the first female astronauts, and also the first black astronauts Guion Bluford and Frederick D. Gregory. Bob Stewart was the first Army astronaut to be selected (almost 19 years after the original Mercury Seven). Since then, a new group has been selected roughly every two years.

Two different astronaut groups were formed: pilots and mission specialists. Additionally the shuttle program has payload specialists who are selected for a single mission and are not part of the astronaut corps - among them were mostly scientists, also a few politicians and many international astronauts.

Of the first of the post-Apollo group, Sally Ride would become the first American woman in space (STS-7). Later, she would fly with Kathryn Sullivan on a Shuttle flight, in which Sullivan would become the first American woman to perform an EVA. Dr. Thagard, who flew with Ride on STS-7, would later become the first American to be launched on a Russian rocket (Soyuz TM-18 or "Mir-18") to the Mir space station, while Shannon Lucid would serve on the Mir for slightly over 6 months, breaking all American space duration records (both the Skylab 4 record and Thagard's) in 1996-97 until Sunita Williams (who was selected 20 years later) broke Lucid's record. Of this group, Scobee, Resnik, Onizuka, and McNair would perish in the Challenger Disaster.  Of the astronauts chosen, only Anna Fisher still remains on active duty (although her tenure included an extended leave of absence from 1989 to 1996), while Robert Gibson and Rhea Seddon became the first active duty astronauts to marry (both are now retired).  Although classed as inactive, Shannon Lucid continues to serve as CAPCOM to shuttle missions .  After the Challenger Disaster, Sally Ride would serve on both the Rogers Commission and the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.

March 1 - 1978 Intercosmos Group - USSR

Aleksandr P. Aleksandrov, Dumitru Dediu, Jose Lopez Falcon, Bertalan Farkas, Maidarzhavyn Ganzorig, Jügderdemidiin Gürragchaa, Georgi Ivanov, Bela Magyari, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, Dumitru Prunariu

May 1 - Spacelab Payload Specialists Group 1 - ESA

Ulf Merbold, Claude Nicollier, Wubbo Ockels, Franco Malerba

1979
August - USAF Manned Spaceflight Engineer - Group 1

Frank J. Casserino, Jeffrey E. Detroye, Michael A. Hamel, Terry A. Higbee, Daryl J. Joseph, Malcolm W. Lydon, Gary E. Payton, Jerry J. Rij, Paul A. Sefchek, Eric E. Sundberg, David M. Vidrine, John B. Watterson, Keith C. Wright

April 1 - 1979 Intercosmos Group - USSR

Tuân Pham, Thanh Liem Bui

1980
May 29 - NASA Group 9 - USA

Pilots: John Blaha, Charles Bolden, Roy Bridges, Guy Gardner, Ronald Grabe, Bryan O'Connor, Richard N. Richards, Michael J. Smith

Mission specialists: James Bagian, Franklin Chang-Diaz, Mary Cleave, Bonnie Dunbar, William Fisher, David Hilmers, David Leestma, John Lounge, Jerry Ross, Sherwood Spring, Robert Springer

International mission specialists: Claude Nicollier, Wubbo Ockels

Of this group, Franklin Chang-Diaz would become the first Hispanic-American in space, Michael Smith would perish in the Challenger Disaster, while John Blaha would fly aboard the Mir space station.  Both Jerry Ross and Chang-Diaz currently jointly hold the record of number of manned spaceflights flown at seven.  Bolden, the second African-American to be selected as a NASA astronaut and the first as a pilot astronaut (Bluford was selected as a mission specialist astronaut), was chosen on May 23, 2009, to become the second NASA astronaut and the first African-American to the post of NASA Administrator on a full-time basis (although Frederick Gregory, who is also African-American and a former Shuttle commander, held the post on a temporary basis between the departure of Sean O'Keefe and the appointment of Michael Griffin in 2005).  The announcement, made a day before the conclusion of the STS-125 flight to the Hubble Space Telescope, was coincidental, because Bolden was the pilot on the telescope's deployment flight in 1990.

 1980 - 1980 CNES Group -
Jean-Loup Chrétien and Patrick Baudry would become the first Frenchmen in space. Chrétien flight with Soviets to Salyut 7 in 1982, and Baudry on the STS-51-G flight in 1985.  Chrétien would later fly to the Space Station Mir and would become a regular Mission Specialist astronaut for NASA in the 1990's.

1982
August - USAF Manned Spaceflight Engineer - Group 2

James B. Armor, Jr., Michael W. Booen, Livingston L. Holder, Jr., Larry D. James, Charles E. Jones, Maureen C. LaComb, Michael R. Mantz, Randy T. Odle, William A. Pailes, Craig A. Puz, Katherine E. Roberts, Jess M. Sponable, W. David Thompson, Glenn S. Yeakel

Jones was killed on September 11, 2001, as a passenger aboard American Airlines Flight 11.

December 1 - Spacelab Payload Specialists Group - Germany

Reinhard Furrer, Ernst Messerschmid

1983
December - NRC Group - Canada

Roberta Bondar, Marc Garneau, Steve MacLean, Kenneth Money, Robert Thirsk, and Bjarni Tryggvason

This first Canadian astronaut group was selected by the National Research Council of Canada and were transferred to the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) when it was created in 1989.  All the astronauts flew on the U.S. Space Shuttle by 1997 except Kenneth Money, who resigned from CSA in 1992.

1984
May 23 - NASA Group 10 - The Maggots - USA

Pilots: Kenneth Cameron, John Casper, Frank Culbertson, Sidney Gutierrez, Blaine Hammond, Michael McCulley, James Wetherbee

Mission specialists: James Adamson, Ellen Baker, Mark Brown, Sonny Carter, Marsha Ivins, Mark Lee, David Low, William Shepherd, Kathryn Thornton, Charles Veach

Of this group, William Shepherd would become the commander of the first International Space Station crew (Expedition 1). James Wetherbee would become the only person to command five spaceflight missions. Sonny Carter died in 1991 in a plane crash while on NASA business.

1985
June 4 - NASA Group 11 - USA

Pilots: Michael A. Baker, Robert D. Cabana, Brian Duffy, Terence Henricks, Stephen Oswald, Stephen Thorne

Mission Specialists: Jerome Apt, Charles Gemar, Linda Godwin, Richard Hieb, Tamara Jernigan, Carl Meade, Rodolfo Neri Vela, Pierre Thuot

Note: Thorne was killed in the crash of a private airplane before his first flight assignment.

July 19 - NASA Teacher in Space Program - USA

Christa McAuliffe, Barbara Morgan

Note: McAuliffe and Morgan were selected as the prime and backup Payload Specialists for the STS-51-L mission in 1985. McAuliffe was killed in the Challenger Disaster, 73 seconds after lift-off.  Morgan would later join the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1998. She flew on the STS-118 mission in 2007, 21 years after Challenger.

August 1 - 1985 NASDA Group - Japan

Mamoru Mohri, Chiaki Mukai, Takao Doi

August - USAF Manned Spaceflight Engineer - Group 3

Joseph J. Caretto, Robert B. Crombie, Frank M. DeArmond, David P. Staib, Jr., Teresa M. Stevens

1987
June 5 - NASA Group 12 - The GAFFers - USA

Pilots: Andrew M. Allen, Kenneth Bowersox, Curtis Brown, Kevin Chilton, Donald McMonagle, William Readdy, Kenneth Reightler

Mission specialists: Thomas Akers, Jan Davis, Michael Foale, Gregory Harbaugh, Mae Jemison, Bruce Melnick, Mario Runco, James Voss

The group's informal nickname is an acronym for "George Abbey Final Fifteen".  Of this group, Mae Jemison would become the first female African-American in space, while Michael Foale would fly aboard the Mir space station.  At the time of the Columbia accident in 2003, William Readdy was Associate Administrator for Space Flight and Kenneth Bowersox was commanding the Expedition 6 crew on the ISS.  Chilton, after leaving NASA, became the first NASA astronaut to become a full General in the U.S. Air Force (Lt. Gen. Thomas Stafford, USAF, and VADM Richard Truly, USN were three-star officers) and is currently the commander of U.S. Strategic Command.

August 3 - 1987 German Group

Renate Brümmer, Hans Schlegel, Gerhard Thiele, Heike Walpot, Ulrich Walter

1990
January 17 - NASA Group 13 - The Hairballs - USA

Pilots: Kenneth Cockrell, Eileen Collins, William G. Gregory, James Halsell, Charles Precourt, Richard Searfoss, Terrence Wilcutt

Mission specialists: Daniel Bursch, Leroy Chiao, Michael Clifford, Bernard Harris, Susan Helms, Thomas David Jones, William McArthur, James Newman, Ellen Ochoa, Ronald Sega, Nancy Currie, Donald A. Thomas, Janice Voss, Carl E. Walz, Peter Wisoff, David Wolf

Collins would go on to be the first female shuttle pilot, the first female shuttle commander, and then commander of the second "Return to Flight" mission in 2005. The "Hairballs" nickname, according to Jones in his book "Sky Walking," came after the group, the 13th NASA astronaut class, put a black cat on its group patch.

October 8 - 1990 German Group

Reinhold Ewald, Klaus-Dietrich Flade

1992
March 31 - NASA Group 14 - The Hogs - USA

Pilots: Scott Horowitz, Brent Jett, Kevin Kregel, Kent Rominger

Mission specialists: Daniel T. Barry, Charles Brady, Catherine Coleman, Michael Gernhardt, John Grunsfeld, Wendy Lawrence, Jerry Linenger, Richard Linnehan, Michael Lopez-Alegria, Scott Parazynski, Winston Scott, Steven Smith, Joseph Tanner, Andy Thomas, Mary Weber

International mission specialists: Marc Garneau (Canada), Chris Hadfield (Canada), Maurizio Cheli (Italy), Jean-François Clervoy (France), Koichi Wakata (Japan)

Beginning with this NASA Group, non-US astronauts representing their home country's space agencies were brought in and trained alongside their NASA counterparts as full-fledged mission specialists, eligible to be assigned to any shuttle mission.

April - 1992 NASDA Group - Japan

Koichi Wakata

June - CSA Group 2 - Canada

Dafydd Williams, Julie Payette, Chris Hadfield and Michael McKay

The second Canadian astronaut group were selected by CSA.  All the astronauts flew on the U.S. Space Shuttle except Michael McKay who resigned due to medical reasons.

May 15 - 1992 ESA Group - ESA

Maurizio Cheli (Italy), Jean-François Clervoy (France), Pedro Duque (Spain), Christer Fuglesang (Sweden), Marianne Merchez (Belgium), Thomas Reiter (Germany)

1994
December 12 - NASA Group 15 - The Flying Escargot - USA

Pilots: Scott Altman, Jeffrey Ashby, Michael Bloomfield, Joe Edwards, Dominic Gorie, Rick Husband, Steven Lindsey, Pamela Melroy, Susan (Still) Kilrain, Frederick Sturckow

Mission specialists: Michael Anderson, Robert Curbeam, Kalpana Chawla, Kathryn Hire, Janet Kavandi, Edward Lu, Carlos Noriega, James Reilly, Stephen Robinson

International mission specialists: Jean-Loup Chrétien (France), Takao Doi (Japan), Michel Tognini (France), Dafydd Williams (Canada)

Husband, Anderson, and Chawla were crewmembers on the final Columbia mission.  Chrétien trained as a backup Spacelab crew member in the 1980s and flew on both U.S. and Soviet/Russian spacecraft, along with being the first non-U.S. or Soviet/Russian astronaut to perform an space walk.

1996
February 9 - Cosmonaut Group MKS/RKKE-12 - Russia
Oleg Kononenko, Oleg Kotov, Konstantin Kozeyev, Sergei Revin,Yuri Shargin

May 1 - NASA Group 16 - The Sardines - USA

Pilots: Duane Carey, Stephen Frick, Charles Hobaugh, James M. Kelly, Mark Kelly, Scott Kelly, Paul Lockhart, Christopher Loria, William McCool, Mark Polansky

Mission Specialists: David Brown, Daniel Burbank, Yvonne Cagle, Fernando Caldeiro, Charles Camarda, Laurel B. Clark, Michael Fincke, Patrick Forrester, John Herrington, Joan Higginbotham, Sandra Magnus, Michael Massimino, Richard Mastracchio, Lee Morin, Lisa Nowak, Donald Pettit, John Phillips, Paul Richards, Piers Sellers, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, Daniel Tani, Rex Walheim, Peggy Whitson, Jeffrey Williams, Stephanie Wilson

International mission specialists: Pedro Duque (Spain), Christer Fuglesang (Sweden), Umberto Guidoni (Italy), Steven MacLean (Canada), Mamoru Mohri (Japan), Soichi Noguchi (Japan), Julie Payette (Canada), Philippe Perrin (France), Gerhard Thiele (Germany)

Brown, Clark, and McCool were crewmembers on the final Columbia mission. Mark and Scott Kelly are twin brothers, James Kelly is not related. Loria resigned from his shuttle mission due to injury and never flew before retiring from the astronaut corps.  Nowak, who flew on STS-121, was arrested on February 5, 2007 after confronting a woman entangled in a love triangle with a fellow astronaut.  She was dismissed by NASA on March 6, the first astronaut to be both grounded and dismissed (prior astronauts who were grounded due to non-medical issues usually resigned or retired).

June - NASDA Group - Japan

Soichi Noguchi

October - China Group 1996 - China

Li Qinglong, Wu Jie

1997
Israel

Yitzhak Mayo, Ilan Ramon

Ramon was the first Israeli astronaut to fly in space and also a Payload Specialist on the final Columbia mission.

1998
January - Chinese Group 1 - China

Chen Quan 陈全, Deng Qingming 邓清明, Fei Junlong 费俊龙, Jing Haipeng 景海鹏, Liu Boming 刘伯明, Liu Wang 刘旺, Nie Haisheng 聂海胜, Pan Zhanchun 潘占春, Yang Liwei 杨利伟, Zhai Zhigang 翟志刚, Zhang Xiaoguan 张晓光, Zhao Chuandong 赵传东
In October 2003, Yang Liwei became the first man to be sent into space by the space program of China, and his mission, Shenzhou 5, made the PRC the third country to independently send people into space.

June 4 - NASA Group 17 - The Penguins - USA

Pilots: Lee Archambault, Christopher Ferguson, Kenneth Ham, Gregory C. Johnson, Gregory H. Johnson, William Oefelein, Alan Poindexter, George Zamka

Mission Specialists: Clayton Anderson, Tracy Caldwell, Gregory Chamitoff, Timothy Creamer, Michael Foreman, Michael E. Fossum, Stanley Love, Leland Melvin, Barbara Morgan, John D. Olivas, Nicholas Patrick, Garrett Reisman, Patricia Robertson, Steven Swanson, Douglas Wheelock, Sunita Williams, Neil Woodward

International Mission Specialists: Léopold Eyharts (France), Paolo Nespoli (Italy), Marcos Pontes (Brazil), Hans Schlegel (Germany), Robert Thirsk (Canada), Bjarni Tryggvason (Canada), Roberto Vittori (Italy)

Note: Group includes Barbara Morgan, who was the backup "Teacher-In-Space" for Christa McAuliffe for the ill-fated Challenger Disaster in 1986. While often referred to as an Educator Astronaut, Morgan was selected by NASA as a Mission Specialist, before the Educator Astronaut Project was formed.
Patricia Robertson (née Hilliard) was killed in the crash of a private airplane before she was assigned to a Shuttle mission.

October 7 - 1998 ESA Group - ESA

Frank De Winne, Léopold Eyharts, André Kuipers, Paolo Nespoli, Hans Schlegel, Roberto Vittori

1999
February - 1999 NASDA Group - Japan

Satoshi Furukawa, Akihiko Hoshide, Naoko Sumino

2000
Julai 26 - Kumpulan 18 NASA - The Bugs - USA

Juruterbang: Dominic A. Antonelli, Eric A. Boe, Kevin A. Ford, Ronald J. Garan, Jr., Terry W. Virts, Jr., Barry E. Wilmore, Douglas G. Hurley

Pakar Misi: Michael R. Barratt, Robert L. Behnken, Stephen G. Bowen, B. Alvin Drew, Andrew J. Feustel, Michael T. Good, Timothy L. Kopra, K. Megan McArthur, Karen L. Nyberg, Nicole P. Stott

2003
September 11 - SpaceShipOne - USA
Brian Binnie, Mike Melvill, Doug Shane, Peter Siebold

Nota: Ini merupakan kumpulan pertama angkasawan komersil.

2004
Mei 6 - Kumpulan 19 NASA - The Peacocks - USA

Juruterbang: Randolph Bresnik, James Dutton

Pakar Misi: Thomas Marshburn, Christopher Cassidy, R. Shane Kimbrough, Jose Hernández, Robert Satcher, Shannon Walker

Pengajar Pakar Misi: Joseph M. Acaba, Richard R. Arnold, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger

Pakar Misi Antarabangsa: Satoshi Furukawa (Jepun), Akihiko Hoshide (Jepun), Naoko Yamazaki (Jepun)

Nota: Kumpulan ini merupakan kumpulan pertama yang memasukkan Educator mission specialists. Berdasarkan jadual persaraan Space Shuttle pada 2010, ini merupakan latihan yang terakhir angkasawan NASA dilatih untuk penerbangan Shuttle.

2006
March 30 - Virgin Galactic Astronaut Pilots Group - UK

Steve Johnson, Alistair Hoy, David MacKay

September 4 - Angkasawan Group - Malaysia

Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, Faiz Khaleed, Siva Vanajah, Mohammed Faiz Kamaluddin

Note: In 2006, four Malaysians were chosen to train for a flight to the International Space Station through the Angkasawan program. Sheikh Muszaphar became the first Malaysian in space when he flew aboard Soyuz TMA-11.

October 11 - Cosmonaut Group - Russia

 Aleksandr Misurkin, Oleg Novitskiy, Aleksey Ovchinin, Maksim Ponomaryov, Sergey Ryzhikov, Yelena Serova, Nikolai Tikhonov

December 25 - Korean Astronaut Program Group

Yi So-yeon, Ko San

Note: Ko San was chosen as the prime candidate over Yi So-yeon in September 2007.   Yi So-yeon became prime candidate in March 2008.

2009
February 25 - JAXA Group - Japan

Takuya Onishi, Kimiya Yui

May 13 - CSA Group - Canada

Jeremy Hansen, David Saint-Jacques

May 20 - ESA Group - ESA

Samantha Cristoforetti (Italy), Alexander Gerst (Germany), Andreas Mogensen (Denmark), Luca Parmitano (Italy), Timothy Peake (United Kingdom), Thomas Pesquet (France)

June 29 - NASA Group 20 - Chumps - USA

Pilots: Jack D. Fischer, Scott D. Tingle, Gregory R. (Reid) Wiseman
Mission Specialists: Serena M. Auñón, Jeanette J. Epps, Michael S. Hopkins, Kjell N. Lindgren, Kathleen (Kate) Rubins,  Mark T. Vande Hei
International Mission Specialists: Samantha Cristoforetti, (Italy), Alexander Gerst, (Germany), Jeremy Hansen, (Canada), Andreas Mogensen, (Denmark), Takuya Onishi, (Japan), Luca Parmitano (Italy), Timothy Peake, (United Kingdom), Thomas Pesquet, (France), David Saint-Jacques (Canada), Kimiya Yui (Japan)

Note: NASA selected the nine members of Group 20 from over 3,500 applicants.

September 8 - JAXA Group - Japan

Norishige Kanai

Lihat juga

NASA Astronaut Groups

Rujukan

Selection

Senarai angkasawan mengikut tahun pemilihan


In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet was the goddess of the sun, fire plagues, healing and war. She had the head of a lioness and the body of a woman.  She was married to Ptah, the god of healing. They balanced each other. It was believed that her breath created the desert.
Sometimes known as sister to Bastet/Bast, a goddess who protected pregnant women and children.

Physical appearance
Sekhmet had the head of a lioness and the body of a woman. She was usually depicted with a sun disc on top of her head. Many historians argue that she was from Sudan, since lions were plentiful there. When she was seated, she usually held the ankh of life, but when she was standing, she held a papyrus scepter, the symbol of Lower Egypt.

Power
Sekhmet's breath represented a hot desert wind, and her body was the glare of the midday sun. She was created when Hathor came down to earth to take vengeance on man. Sekhmet became the destructive eye of the sun, and a solar goddess, and was named "Eye of Ra." The ancient Egyptians knew that the sun could bring life, (Hathor), but also death. (Sekhmet). Her name translates as "The Powerful One." Sekhmet used her power destructively and brutally

The ancient Egyptians believed that Sekhmet took over sun and then the next morning she gave birth to the moon.

Fear of Sekhmet
People were afraid of Sekhmet because along with her healing and protective powers, she was also destructive and retaliating. The ancient Egyptians believed that the "Seven Arrows of Sekhmet" would bring bad luck, so they used many charms and spells to protect themselves. There was a  "Book of the Last Day of the Year" which they recited over a piece of cloth and wore around their neck at the end of the year. This was considered to be a dangerous time. On the first day of the New Year (Wep Ronpet), people would exchange amulets in the form of Sekhmet to keep the goddess happy.

Worship
Sekhmet had an unusual form of worship. She was worshipped evenly with her husband, Ptah, and her son, Nefertem. Her main cult center was in Memphis. Many priests recited complicated prayers, used to avert the rage of Sekhmet. A well-known prayer was called "The Last Day of the Year," and it was chanted while wearing a piece of cloth around one's head. The last day of the year was considered to be a dangerous period for the people, because Sekhmet usually attacked then.

Sekhmet was the Egyptian goddess of war and destruction. HELP ME. She was bloodthirsty, out of control, and the Egyptians thought she represented natural disasters. Her husband, Ptah, and her son, Nefertem were closely worshipped. Sekhmet was known as the lady of life, and the lady of terror. In one myth, Sekhmet terrorized the country of Egypt, crazy and thirsty for blood. Ra, the sun god, sent many swift-footed messengers to outsmart her. She saw through all, and then saw love through everything, and Sekhmet in her happiness, embraced it. She lay back and later turned into Hathor, the goddess of love.

Cult Center
Sekhmet's main cult center was located in Memphis. When Amenemhat officially moved the capital of Egypt to Itjtawy, her cult center moved too. Her large similarity to Hathor brought the special erection of dual temples where citizens could worship Sekhmet and Hathor. Hundreds of jahovas were set up during the reign of Amenhotep III. At their bases, they emphasize Sekhmet's savagery and brutal myths.

Resources
Ancient Egypt. Oakes, Lorna, & Gahlin, Lucia. 268-269

Other websites
http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/egypt/hathor.htm
http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/Sekhmet.html
http://www.philae.nu/akhet/NetjeruS.html#Sekhmet
http://www.touregypt.net/godsofegypt/sekhmet2.htm
http://www.touregypt.net/godsofegypt/sekhmet.htm

Egyptian gods and goddesses

Sekhmet


Weather is the day-to-day or hour-to-hour change in the atmosphere. Weather includes wind, lightning, storms, hurricanes, tornadoes (also known as twisters), rain, hail, snow, and lots more. Energy from the Sun affects the weather too.
Climate tells us what kinds of weather usually happen in an area at different times of the year.
Changes in weather can affect our mood and life. We wear different clothes and do different things in different weather conditions. We choose different foods in different seasons.

Weather stations around the world measure different parts of weather. Ways to measure weather are wind speed, wind direction, temperature and humidity. People try to use these measurements to make weather forecasts for the future.  These people are  scientists that are called meteorologists. They use computers to build large mathematical models to follow weather trends.

Severe weather can hurt people and their property. It can also just be a bother. Some examples of severe weather are:
 Tropical cyclones
 Rainstorms
 Drought
 Heat waves
 Tornadoes

Causes of weather
Weather happens because different parts of the Earth get different amounts of heat from the Sun. This makes different climates. The tropics get the most heat because the Sun shines straight down on them, while the poles get the least heat because the Sun shines on them from a low angle. Warmer air is lighter than cooler air and rises higher in the sky by convection.

The air always has some water mixed with it. This is called humidity. When it cools, the water can change from a gas to a liquid through condensation. Then the water can fall from the sky as rain or snow. After the air rises, it gets colder and goes back towards the ground. Because the air lost its water before, it is dry when it comes back to the ground. When two air masses of different temperatures meet, this is called a warm front or cold front. The ways that the air moves around the Earth are called atmospheric circulation.

Other websites

 Weather
 Internet Geography's weather page
 The Weather Channel
 National Weather Service

Natural events
Basic English 850 words

Weather


A bank is a financial institution where customers can save or borrow money. Banks also invest money to build up their reserve of money. What they do is regulated by laws. Those laws differ in different countries. The people who work at a bank are called bank employees. Certain banks deal directly with the public and they are the only ones which an ordinary person will deal with. Other banks deal with investments and international currency trading.

Customer's money may be placed in the bank for safe keeping. Banks may give loans to customers under an agreement to pay the money back to the bank at a later time, with interest. An example is getting a mortgage to buy a house or apartment. Banks also can use the money they have from deposit accounts to invest in businesses in order to make more money.

In most countries the rules for banks are made by the government acting through laws. A central bank (such as the Bank of England) adjusts how much money is issued at a particular time. This is a factor in the economy of a country, and the government takes the big decisions. These "banks of issue" take in, and issue out, coins and banknotes.

History
The word bank comes from an Italian word banco, meaning a bench, since Italian merchants in the Renaissance made deals to borrow and lend money  beside a bench. They placed the money on that bench.

Elementary financial records are known from the beginning of history. Baked clay records were done before the invention of writing.

In the 17th century, merchants started storing their gold with goldsmiths in London. The goldsmiths had their own vaults, and charged a fee for storing the merchants' gold. The goldsmiths eventually started loaning money using the gold left to them, and also paid interest on the gold.

The Bank of England began issuing banknotes in 1695.  The oldest bank still in existence is Monte dei Paschi di Siena in Siena, Italy, which started in 1472.

Banking activities
A bank usually provides the following services:
 Checking account
 Cheque books
 Savings account
 Money market account
 Certificate of deposit (CD)
 Individual retirement account (IRA)
 Credit card
 Debit card
 Mortgage
 Mutual fund
 Personal loan
 Time deposit
 Automated teller machine
 Transactional account

Types of banks
 Community development bank: regulated banks that provide financial services and credit to under-served markets or populations.
 Land development bank: The special banks providing long-term loans are called land development banks, in the short, LDB. The history of LDB is quite old. The first LDB was started at Jhang in Punjab in 1920. The main objective of the LDBs are to promote the development of land, agriculture and increase the agricultural production. The LDBs provide long-term finance to members directly through their branches.
 Credit union or Co-operative bank: not-for-profit cooperatives owned by the depositors and often offering rates more favorable than for-profit banks. Typically, membership is restricted to employees of a particular company, residents of a defined area, members of a certain union or religious organizations, and their immediate families.
 Postal savings: savings banks associated with national postal systems.
 Offshore bank: banks located in jurisdictions with low taxation and regulation. Many offshore banks are essentially private banks.
 Savings bank: focuses on accepting savings deposits and paying interest on deposists.
 Building society and Landesbanks: institutions that conduct retail banking.
 A Direct or internet-only bank is a banking operation without any physical bank branches, conceived and implemented wholly with networked computers.

References

Bank


Flatworms (Platyhelminthes, Greek "platy"': flat; "helminth": worm) are a phylum of invertebrates. They are relatively simple animals. They have soft bodies.

With about 25,000 known species, they are the largest phylum of animals without a body cavity.  Flatworms can be found in marine, freshwater, and even damp terrestrial environments.

A troublesome terrestrial example is the New Zealand flatworm, Arthurdendyus triangulatus.  It is an invasive species which colonized large areas of Ireland and Scotland. It was brought there by accident in the 1960s. Since then, it has destroyed most of the indigenous earthworms.

Most free-living flatworms found in Britain are very small ranging from 5mm to less than 1 cm. They are usually black and can easily be mistaken for debris. These are mostly found in freshwater rivers or streams and are of the Turbellaria class.

Most flatworms (over 50%) are parasitic on other animals. There are four classes:
Trematoda (Flukes): internal parasites.
Cestoda (Tapeworms): internal parasites.
Monogenea: external parasites.
and
Turbellaria: free-living flatworms, sometimes called 'Planarians'. Planaria is actually a genus.

Flatworms are one of the invertebrate groups which are studied in school biology. The main reason for this is that they may infect humans, pets and farmyard animals. Some do enormous harm to humans and their livestock. Schistosomiasis, caused by one genus of trematodes, is the second most devastating of all human diseases caused by parasites, surpassed only by malaria.  Effective treatments are now available for these infections. Also, in first-world countries, regulations on domestic cattle prevent infected meat from reaching the human hosts.

Related pages
 List of animal phyla
Fasciola hepatica
Planaria

References

Flatworms

Flatworm


Benthos: the flora and fauna found at the bottom of the sea or lake. Covers quite a wide range of uses, for instance, animals in rock pools are benthic, though only a few inches below the surface. In the ocean, used to contrast organisms in the sea depths (though not actually on the bottom), with plankton, living in the upper pelagic zone. The problem is addressed by extending the pelagic zone down below the light to the bathypelagic and abyssopelagic zones. These terms, however, are mostly not used.

Oceanography
Biomes

Benthos


For other meanings of the word "canon" see canon.

A canon is a piece of voices (or instrumental parts) that sing or play the same music starting at different times. A round is a type of canon, but in a round each voice, when it finishes, can start at the beginning again so that the piece can go "round and round". Perhaps the most well-known canon is the Pachelbel Canon written by Johann Pachelbel.

Different types of canon

There are different kinds of canon.  Canons can be described according to distances between the entries of the voices.  If the second voice starts one bar (one measure) after the first voice, this is called a "canon at the bar".  If it starts after only half a bar, it is called a "canon at the half-bar".  It is even possible to have very close canons, e.g. "canon at the quaver (eighth note)".  Olivier Messiaen wrote a 3 part canon at the quaver in his ''' for violin and piano.  The pianist's right hand (playing chords), his left hand and the violinist are the three parts.

Canons can also be described according to the intervals between two voices.  If one voice starts on a C and the next voice starts the same tune on an F above this is a "canon at the fourth" (because the interval (distance) from C to F is called a "perfect fourth").  If the second voice has the tune upside down (inversion) this is called "canon in inversion".  If the second voice has the tune at half the speed (each note being twice as long) this is a "canon in augmentation" or an "augmented canon".  The opposite is a "canon in diminution".

"Strict canon" means a canon where each voice imitates the first voice exactly all the way through the piece.  If this does not happen (i.e. if it starts off as a canon but then becomes freer) it is "free canon".   A canon may start off sounding like a fugue, but fugues have their own form and rules.

Canons in the history of music

Canons were already popular in the 14th century when composers enjoyed writing music for several voices in which each voice has a share of melody (this is called polyphonic music.)   Composers like Guillaume de Machaut wrote canonic music.  His Sanz cuer m'en vois is a three-part canon in which each part has different words.

Probably the greatest writer of canons in the eighteenth century was Johann Sebastian Bach.  Many of his organ works have canons.  He wrote a famous set of Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her" which have several canons at different intervals and inversions.  He probably  wrote this to show young composers how to write good canons.  Bach also wrote a work called the Musical Offering'' which has what he calls a "canon per augmentationem contrario motu" (canon in augmentation and contrary motion i.e. backwards) as well as a "canon per tonos".  This last one is a modulating canon which means that the tune changes key.  This is hard to compose well so that it sounds good because when the first voice has just changed key the other one is still catching up in the other key.

Bach was a great master at writing canons and other very complicated musical forms.  After 1750 composers became less interested in writing music which was all polyphonic, although many composers still showed an interest in counterpoint.  Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven all wrote canons and even Romantic composers like Schumann and  Brahms showed an interest.  César Franck wrote a canon for the fourth movement of his Sonata for Violin and Piano.  It is quite easy to hear this canon, because the violin plays the tune an octave higher than the piano, and the piano holds on to a long note every other bar while the violin catches up.

In the 20th century composers such as  Schoenberg who wrote serial music were fond of canons.  Modern composers like Pierre Boulez have written rhythmic canons: canons in which, for example, the rhythm of one part is the retrograde (backwards) version of another.

References
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ed. Stanley Sadie:

Musical forms

Canon (music)


A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play by William Shakespeare. The exact date the play was written is unknown. It is generally accepted that the play was written in 1595 or 1596. It was first printed in 1600. In 1623, the play was printed in the First Folio, a collection of all of Shakespeare's plays.

Shakespeare's sources include works by Plutarch, Apuleius, Ovid,  Geoffrey Chaucer, and Edmund Spenser. He found a description of Puck in Reginald Scot's The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584). It is generally believed that the play was written for the festivities surrounding the aristocratic marriage of either Elizabeth Vere, Lord Burghley's granddaughter, in 1595, or Elizabeth Carey, daughter of Sir George Carey, in 1596.

The play is about four confused young lovers, a group of clumsy workmen, the royal court of Duke Theseus, and the royal fairy court of King Oberon and Queen Titania.  The play is set mostly at night in the woods near Athens.

The play has been made into movies on numerous occasions. One movie stars Mickey Rooney as the fairy Puck. Benjamin Britten wrote an opera based on the play, George Balanchine and Frederick Ashton have both made ballets about it, and Felix Mendelssohn wrote many pieces of music for the play which include an "Overture" and a "Wedding March".

Characters

The Court at Athens:
 Theseus, Duke of Athens, engaged to Hippolyta
 Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, engaged toTheseus
 Philostrate, Master of the Revels at the Court
 Egeus, father of Hermia

The Lovers:
 Hermia, Egeus' daughter; loved by Lysander
 Lysander; loved by Hermia
 Helena; loves Demetrius
 Demetrius; loves Hermia, whose father wants them to marry

The Fairies:
 Oberon, King of the Fairies
 Titania, Queen of the Fairies
 Puck, Oberon's servant
 Peaseblossom, a fairy serving Titania
 Moth, a fairy serving Titania
 Cobweb, a fairy serving Titania
 Mustardseed, a fairy serving Titania

The Rustics:
 Nick Bottom, a weaver
 Peter Quince, a carpenter
 Robin Starveling, a tailor
 Francis Flute, a bellows mender
 Snug, a joiner
 Tom Snout, a tinker

Story
Egeus wants his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius. Hermia does not want to marry him. She loves another man named Lysander. Hermia and Lysander decide to run away. Demetrius follows them. Helena, Hermia's best friend, is in love with Demetrius. She follows him. All four become lost in the woods near Athens.

Meanwhile, Oberon and Titania are having an argument. Oberon decides to teach Titania a lesson. He puts a love potion into her eyes while she is asleep. This potion will make her fall in love with the first thing she sees when she wakes.

Oberon finds Helena and Demetrius. He tells Puck to give Demetrius some of the love potion so that he will love Helena. Puck makes a mistake and puts the potion in Lysander's eyes. When Lysander wakes up, he loves Helena instead of his real sweetheart Hermia.

The workmen are practicing a play in the woods for the upcoming marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. Puck plays a trick on Nick Bottom by giving him a donkey head. The other actors run away, so Bottom goes to sleep. He is sleeping near Titania. After Oberon puts love potion in her eyes, she wakes up and falls in love with him.

Oberon realises everything is all mixed up. He gives some of the love potion to Demetrius. Now Demetrius and Lysander both love Helena. Sad and confused, all the lovers fall asleep. At last, Puck rights all the wrongs. He makes Lysander love Hermia again, and makes Demetrius love Helena. Everyone is happy.

The workmen perform their play for the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. Lysander and Hermia also get married, and so do Demetrius and Helena. Titania once again loves Oberon, not the donkey-headed Nick Bottom. They are happy with each other again. The fairies use their magic to bless all the lovers.

References

Other websites

 David Strathairn Online: A Midsummer Night's Dream
 MIT html version .
 First Folio Facsimile  – HTML diplomatic transcription of 1623 text.
 Midsummer Night's Dream – plain vanilla text from Project Gutenberg.
 The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', 1908 publication compiled by Frank Sidgwick, from Project Gutenberg.

Plays by William Shakespeare
1590s plays

A Midsummer Night's Dream


Bullfighting is an old sport. Today it is mostly done in Spain, and in Portugal, and some countries of South America.

The largest bullring is the Plaza México in central Mexico City, which seats 48,000 people, and the oldest is the La Maestranza in Seville, Spain, which was first used for bullfighting in 1765.

The Spanish bullfight (Corrida de toros) is a fight to the death. The modern bullfight has a ritual. It has three distinct stages, the start of each being signalled by a trumpet. The bullfighters (Toreros) enter the arena in a parade, to Paso doble music. The rules, costumes and traditions were sorted out by Paquiro (Francisco Montes Reina, 13 January 1804  4 April 1851, the greatest matador of his time.

A team of bullfighters is seven men. The leader is the matador, and he has six assistants, who play roles in the drama. Bullfighters' costumes are inspired by 18th century Andalusian clothing. Matadores ('those who kill the bull') are easily seen by the gold of their traje de luces ('suit of lights').

At the end comes the tercio de muerte ('the third of death'). The matador re-enters the ring alone with a small red cape, and a sword. The cape called a muleta. The matador uses his cape to attract the bull in a series of passes. The faena is the performance with the cape. The faena ends with a final series of passes in which the bullfighter tries to move the bull into position. He then stabs it between the shoulder blades and through the aorta or heart. The act of thrusting in the sword is called an estocada.

If the matador gets it wrong, he may be gored by the bull's horns, and killed. This does happen: some very famous matadors have died in the ring. When the great matador Manolete was killed in the ring at the age of 31, three days of official national mourning were held. Bullrings do have an infirmary with an operating room, for the immediate treatment of bullfighters with horn wounds.

There is great opposition to the bullfight from animal welfare organisations. There are also versions of the bullfight in which the animal is unharmed.

Art
Bullfighting has influenced all forms of art and culture. Ernest Hemingway said of bullfinghting: "Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honour". Spanish dance and musical forms such as the paso doble and flamenco are heavily influenced by the spectacle of the bullfight.

References

Sport in Spain
Animal rights
Sports involving animals
Spanish culture

Bullfighting


A kernel is the central part of an operating system. It manages the operations of the computer and the hardware, most notably memory and CPU time. Kernels also provide services which programs can use through system calls.

There are five types of kernels:
 A micro kernel - A kernel which only contains the basic functionality;
 A monolithic kernel - A kernel which contains many device drivers. The Linux kernel is an example of a monolithic kernel.
Hybrid Kernel - The Microsoft Windows NT kernel is an example of a hybrid kernel.
Exokernel
Nanokernel

A typical computer user never interacts directly with the kernel. It runs behind the scenes and cannot be seen, except for the text logs that it prints.

Operations of kernel
The kernel is the most fundamental part of an operating system. It can  be thought of as the program which controls all other programs on the computer. When the computer starts, it goes through some initialization (booting) functions, such as checking memory. It is responsible for assigning and unassigning memory space which allows software to run.

The kernel provides services so programs can request the use of the network card, the disk or other pieces of hardware. The kernel forwards the request to special programs called device drivers which control the hardware. It also manages the file system and sets interrupts for the CPU to enable multitasking. Many kernels are also responsible for ensuring that faulty programs do not interfere with the operation of others by denying access to memory that has not been allocated to them and restricting the amount of CPU time they can consume.
It is the heart of the operating system.

Micro kernels and monolithic kernels
Operating systems commonly use monolithic kernels. In Linux, for example, device drivers are often part of a kernel (specifically Loadable Kernel Modules). When a device is needed, its extension is loaded and 'joined' onto the kernel making the kernel larger. Monolithic kernels can cause trouble when one of these drivers is faulty, such as if a beta driver is downloaded. Because it is part of the kernel the faulty driver can override the mechanisms that deal with faulty programs (see above). This can mean that the kernel, and thus the entire computer, can cease to function. If there are too many devices, the kernel can also run out of memory causing a system crash or making the computer very slow.

Microkernels are a way of solving this problem. In a microkernel operating system, the kernel deals only with critical activities, such as controlling the memory and CPU, and nothing else. Drivers and other functions that monolithic kernels would normally include within the kernel are moved outside the kernel, where they are under control. Instead of being an uncontrollable part of the kernel the beta driver is, therefore, no more likely to cause a crash than a beta web browser. That is, if a driver goes wrong it can simply be restarted by the kernel. Unfortunately, creating microkernel based operating systems is very difficult and there are no common microkernel operating systems. Minix and QNX are both microkernel operating systems.

References

Computer science

Kernel (computer science)


Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom are as follows:

Prefixes

01 and 02 - Geographic Numbers
Numbers beginning 01 or 02 are normal phone numbers for home and business telephone lines.
These numbers are always split into two parts:
 The area code comes first, and is linked to a specific part of the country. For example, the 020 area code is for London and the 0121 code is for Birmingham. When calling between two phones that have the same area code, this part is optional. It is sometimes shown inside brackets to make this clear. The area code can be two to five digits long.
 The second part, usually separated from the code by a space, is known as the 'local number' or 'subscriber number'. It is normally 6, 7 or 8 digits long but can sometimes be only 4 or 5 digits long. This is always unique within an area code. For example, only one person in Manchester could have the number 9460018.
Examples: (020) 7946 0018, (0117) 504 1102, (01632) 402881, (01647) 61321, (015394) 52749, (016977) 3789.

03 - UK-Wide Numbers
Numbers beginning with 03 are for businesses, government and other organisations that need a number not linked to any single part of the country. The law says they must always cost the same to call as normal 01 and 02 phone numbers from fixed telephones and from mobiles and be included in all call package bundles.

05 - Businesses and Internet Phones
 055 numbers are used by big businesses that need a lot of numbers for their own private phone networks
 056 numbers are used for internet phone services and let people call an internet phone from a normal telephone. Internet phones can also use other types of numbers
 0500 numbers are free to call from fixed telephones.

07 - Mobile and Personal Numbers
These numbers are for mobile phones and similar mobile services:
 070 numbers are 'personal numbers' that people and business use to forward calls as they move around between different phones and can be very expensive to call
 076 numbers are for pagers (except for 07624 which is mobile phones)
 All other numbers beginning 07 are for mobile phones.

08 - Special Rate
These are numbers that are charged at a different price to normal phone calls.
 0800 and 0808 numbers are free to call from fixed telephones. Except for a few specific charity and helpline numbers, calls from mobile phones are not free.
 Numbers starting with 084 are revenue-share numbers and impose a Service Charge of 1 to 5 pence per minute on the caller
 Numbers starting with 087 (except for 0870) are revenue-share numbers and impose a Service Charge of 5 to 10 pence per minute on the caller
 The Service Charge is related to the first six digits of the telephone number called
 Landline providers add an Access Charge of 0 to 10 pence per minute when calling 084 and 087 numbers
 Mobile providers add an Access Charge of 20 to 40 pence per minute when calling 08 numbers. The total price paid can be up to 45 pence per minute and 08 numbers are never included within call packages.

09 - Premium Rate
These are more expensive revenue-share numbers with a Service Charge of up to £1.50 per minute. These numbers are used to pay for services, for recorded information, for dating and for voting in competitions. The caller also pays an Access Charge to their own phone network and this varies from network to network.

Specific Numbers
Operator: 100

Police (non-emergency): 101

National Health Service (non-emergency): 111

Current time: 123 (not available from some mobiles)

Emergency services: 999 or 112

Telephone numbers in Overseas Territories
Telephone numbers in British Overseas Territories do not come under the UK telephone numbering plan. These calls are treated as international calls. Below are the access codes for the overseas territories:

North American Numbering Plan
 Anguilla +1-264
 Bermuda +1-441
 British Virgin Islands +1-284
 Cayman Islands +1-345
 Montserrat +1-664
 Turks and Caicos Islands +1-649

Others
 British Indian Ocean Territory +246
 Falkland Islands +500
 Gibraltar +350
 Saint Helena and Tristan da Cunha +290
 Ascension Island +247
 Akrotiri and Dhekelia +357 (Shared with Cyprus)
 Pitcairn Islands +64 (Shared with New Zealand)

Other websites
List of telephone area codes
 UK Numbering Policy section of Ofcom's website

Telephone numbers

Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom


The peach is a species of the Prunus persica, and is a fruit tree of the rose family Rosaceae. They grow in the warm regions of both the northern and southern hemispheres.

Description

Peach blossoms are small to medium-sized. The tree is sometimes up to 6.5 m (21 feet) in height. When it is grown by people, the height it is usually kept between 3 and 4 m (10 and 13 feet) by pruning. Its leaves are green and pointy. They usually have glands that make a liquid to attract insects.

Peaches are also called stone fruits because they have a shell of hard wood around their seed, called a stone or a pit. The skin of a peach is an orange or yellow color, and it is covered in small hairs called peach fuzz. A peach without the fuzz is usually called a nectarine. The inside of a peach is a golden color. It tastes sweet and sticky. Because of this, peaches are often part of desserts.

Symbolism

The peach first came from China. It has been grown from at least since 1000 B.C.E. In Chinese culture, the peach tree is considered to be the tree of life and peaches are symbols of immortality. Peach blossoms are carried by Chinese brides. It is also considered as the "National fruit of Afghanistan" and the "Provincial fruit of Balochistan, Pakistan" respectively.

Lifespan of a peach

Because of the cold winter, diseases, and pests, peach trees can usually only live about 10 to 12 years. However, if a peach tree is fertilized properly, and taken care of in the right way, it may live more years.

Pests

Brown rot
Brown rot is a very dangerous kind of peach disease. It can attack the blossoms and stop the fruit from developing. If it is not stopped quickly, good quality fruit can not be produced from the peach tree.

Peach leaf curl
Peach leaf curl, which is another very serious disease, makes the leaves curl up and begin to die in spring. It can be stopped if it meets fungicide.

Bacterial spot
Bacterial spot gives harm to the leaves, twigs and fruit. By the time the disease is recognized, it is often too late to stop it. However, some kind of sprays may be used early in the next season to protect the peach tree.

Cankers
Cankers is a kind of disease that infects the twigs and branches. They make large amounts of amber-colored gum spill out from the infected branch. Later, the bark will crack open completely and the tissue of the twig turns black. Cankers can be removed by pruning.

Insects
There are several kinds of insect pests that can be great trouble to the peach. The Oriental fruit moth can make the peaches filled with worms and young growing tips may die. The plum curculio lays its eggs on the fruit, and makes them drop off or become filled with worms. Insects like the tarnished plant bug and the stink bug eat up the fruit that is still developing. Borers attack the base of the trunk and the branches.

Gallery

References

Prunus
Fruits
Plants of Pakistan
National symbols of Afghanistan

Peach


Figure skating is both an art and a sport, in which people skate around on ice, doing jumps and spins. It is done at the Winter Olympics, and it has its own world championships. The name means to make figures or patterns on the ice. People skate with music.

In figure skating, sometimes women or men skate alone, or they skate in couples. Couples dancing includes pairs and ice dancing. Pairs skating has jumps, and sometimes the man lifts the woman in the air. These things are not done in ice dancing. In ice dancing, the woman must be held in the man's arms. Another kind of figure skating is synchronized skating done in groups.

History
The first ever figure skating club was started in 1742 in Edinburgh, Scotland. World Championships began in 1896 (the first in St. Petersburg, Russia). Before the Winter Olympic Games were started, competitions in figure skating were part of the Summer Olympic Games, in 1908 and 1920.

Rules
The International Skating Union (ISU) made the rules.

Singles Skating
Singles skating is composed of a Short Program and a Free Skate. Both of them have a technical score and a presentation score.

 The Short Program (SP) must include 2 solo jumps, a jump combination consisting of two jumps, 3 spins and one Step Sequence fully utilizing the ice surface.
 Free Skate (FS) contains jump elements, jump combinations or jump sequences.  The Free Skate also has 3 spins, one Step Sequence fully utilizing the ice surface and a choreographic sequence.

Judges
Under the ISU Judging System the Judges focus entirely on evaluating the quality of each element performed (technical aspect) and the quality of the performance. There will be a panel of 9 Judges per segment. Out of these 9 scores, the highest and lowest score of each element or program component are ignored and the average will be taken.

Technical Score
The score for the element is composed of a "Base Value" of each element and the "Grade of Execution - GOE". GOE is that the Judge grades the quality of the element on a scale of +5 to -5. The total of all the elements scores gives the Technical Score.

Presentation Score
The Judges award points on a scale from 0.25 to 10.00 with increments of 0.25 for the Presentation Score to grade the overall presentation of the performance. There are five items in the Presentation Score.

Skating Skills
Over all skating quality
Transitions, Linking Footwork and Movement
The varied and/or intricate footwork, positions, movements, and holds that link all elements. This also includes the entrances and exits of technical elements.
Performance/Execution
The physical and emotional involvement of the skater/couple as they translate the intent of the music and choreography
Choreography/Composition
The arrangement of all movements according to the principles of proportion, space and music
Interpretation
The translation of the music to movement on ice

Jumps
There are six types of jump that ISU decides to score. The following items are listed in order of the score (difficulty). There are two types of jumps: edge jump and toe jump. The Axel, loop,  and Salchow are edge jumps and the lutz, flip and toe loop are toe jumps.
Axel
This is the only jump where a skater takes off while skating forward. It's the most difficult jump of the six.
Lutz
The skater takes off from the back outside edge of the left or right foot and pokes the ice with the opposite toe.
Flip
The skater takes off from the back inside edge of the left or right foot and pokes the ice with the opposite toe.
Loop
The skater takes off from the back outside edge of the right or left foot. This jump is often used in second jump of combination jump.
Salchow
The skater takes off from the back inside edge of the right or left foot.
Toe Loop
The skater takes off from the back outside edge of the right or left foot and pokes the ice with the opposite toe. This is the easiest jump and it is often used in second jump of combination jump.

Spins
Spins are classified as Sit spins, Upright spins or Camel spin. Each of them has various variations. Any position which is not basic is a non-basic position.

Sit spin

The position of this spin is that the upper part of the skating leg is at least parallel to the ice.
there are 3 categories based on position of free leg
Sit Forward (with leg forward)
Sit Sideways (with leg sideways)
Sit Behind  (with the leg behind)
Upright spin

The position of this spin is any position with the skating leg is extended or slightly bent which is not a camel position.
there are 4 categories based on position of the torso.
Upright Forward (with torso leaning forward)
Upright Straight or Sideways (with torso straight up or sideways)
Upright Biellmann (in Biellmann position)
Upright Layback
Camel spin

The position of this spin is any position where the  free leg backwards and the knee is higher than the hip level, however Layback, Biellmann and similar variations are still considered  upright spins.
There are 3 categories based on the direction of the belly button.
Camel Forward (with belly button facing forward)
Camel Sideways (with belly button facing sideways)
Camel Upward (with belly button facing upward)

Turns and Steps
Turns
three turns, twizzles, brackets, loops, counters, rockers
Turns must be executed on one foot. If a turn is "jumped ", it is not counted as performed.
Steps
toe steps, chasses, mohawks, choctaws, change of edge, cross rolls
Steps must be executed on one foot whenever possible.

Some well-known figure skaters

Pairs:
 Emilie Rotter & Laszlo Szolas (Hungary)
 Maxi Herber & Ernst Baier (Germany)
 Barbara Wagner & Robert Paul (Canada)
 Ludmila Belousova & Oleg Protopopov (USSR)
 Irina Rodnina & Alexei Ulyanov (USSR)
 Irina Rodnina & Alexander Zaitsev (USSR)
 Ekaterina Gordeeva & Sergei Grinkov (USSR)
 Xue Shen & Hongbo Zhao (China)
 Tatiana Totmianina & Maxim Marinin (Russia)
 Dorota Siudek & Mariusz Siudek (Poland)
Aljona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy (Germany)
Aljona Savchenko & Bruno Massot (Germany)
Sui Wenjing & Han Cong (China)

Ice dance:
 Jean Westwood & Lawrence Demmy (Britain)
 Eva Romanova & Pavel Roman (Czechoslovakia)
 Diane Towler & Bernard Ford (Britain)
 Lyudmila Pakhomova & Alexander Gorshkov (USSR)
 Jayne Torvill & Christopher Dean (Britain)
 Natalia Bestemianova & Andrei Bukin (USSR)
 Isabelle Duchesnay & Paul Duchesnay (France/Canada)
 Marina Klimova & Sergei Ponomarenko (Russia)
 Oksana Grishuk & Evgeny Platov (Russia)
 Tatiana Navka & Roman Kostomarov (Russia)
 Tanith Belbin & Benjamin Agosto (United States)
 Meryl Davis & Charlie White (United States)
 Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir (Canada)
Gabriella Papadakis & Guillaume Cizeron (France)

Related pages
Ice dancing

References

Other websites

Images for figure skating
Figure Skating TV Schedule
Videos for figure skating

Winter Olympic sports

Figure skating


A house is a building that is made for people to live in. It is a "permanent" building that is meant to stay standing. It is not easily packed up and carried away like a tent, or moved like a caravan. If people live in the same house for more than a short stay, then they call it their "home". Being without a home is called homelessness. Houses are usually numbered, but sometimes, can also be named.

Houses are usually occupied by a single family or housemates, like in the cases of group homes and boarding houses.

Houses come in many different shapes and sizes. They may be as small as just one room, or they may have hundreds of rooms. They also are made many different shapes, and may have just one level or several different levels. A house is sometimes joined to other houses at the sides to make a "terrace" or "row house" (a connected row of houses).

A big building with many levels and apartments is called "a block of flats" (British) or an apartment building. One of the differences between a house and an apartment is that a house has a front door to the outside world, whereas the main door of an apartment usually opens onto a passage or landing that can be used by other people in the building.

Houses have a roof to keep off the rain and sun, and walls to keep out the wind and cold. They have window openings to let in light, and a floor. Houses of different countries look different to each other, because of different materials, climate, and styles.

If a house is important and historic enough, it can be a museum showcasing how the house's residents lived.

Types

A house is a building for people to live in. It is usually built for a family (parents and their children).

Most modern houses have special areas or rooms for people to do the things that they need to live comfortably. A modern house has a place to cook food, a place to eat, places to sleep and a place to wash. These things are usually done in separate rooms, which are called the kitchen, the sitting room, the bedrooms, the bathroom, the toilet (or lavatory). Many houses have a separate dining room for eating meals and a separate laundry. In some houses the toilet is in the bathroom, and in other houses it is separate. Many houses may also have a "study" or computer room and a "family room" where the children can play games and watch television.

Detached house
In some countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand many families live in a "detached house" which is separate from other buildings and surrounded by its own yard, but is close enough to town to have shops, good transport and entertainment nearby. In many other countries, including most of Europe, owning a house like this is something that only the richer families can afford, and is just a dream for most people.

Houses in very poor places
In many very poor countries, a lot of people live crowded in houses with only one room. They often have to share a toilet with many other families, and have to do the cooking outside. The house might be made of materials that can be found nearby like mud bricks and grass or from second-hand materials like corrugated iron and cardboard boxes. In many cities there are thousands of small houses crowded together with narrow alleys between them.

Cottage
A small house is often called a cottage. Apart from it, its also called small space. In England, where this word comes from, it is used to mean a house that has one main storey, with a second, lower storey of bedrooms which fit under the roof upstairs. Cottages are usually found in villages or in the countryside. They are nearly always built from material that can be found nearby. In many places the word cottage is used to mean a small old-fashioned house. In the United States the word cottage is often used to mean a small holiday home.

Tiny
A tiny house is one that's usually 500sqft\48sqm in size and typically built on a trailer or barge and thus portable. Tiny houses can also be built on smaller versions of conventional foundations.

Semi-detached or duplex

A semi-detached house is a building that has two houses side by side and covered over by just one big roof. Each house has a pathway to one side, leading from the front to the backyard. Semi-detached houses are very common in some cities, and can be single storey or several storeys high.

Terraced houses
A row or terraced house (see the picture in the introduction) is a house that is part of a row of houses joined at the side walls. Many cities and towns have thousands of row houses because they are a good way to build lots of houses close together. Many row houses have two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs, with a kitchen or wash area at the back. Houses like this were built for poor factory workers and coal miners in many cities and towns.  "Terrace houses" are a type of row house where each house has a similar front to its neighbours.

Row houses are not always small. Some cities have large beautiful row houses, such as the Royal Crescent, which was built 200 years ago at Bath in England and is a famous example of Georgian architecture.

Bungalow

In some places, the word "bungalow" is used for any house that is all on one level. The word came from India and for a long time was used for a house that is built all on one level and has a verandah where people can sit or work outdoors, but under a shady roof. A bungalow often has a hall down the middle of the house to let the breeze blow through. Bungalows are often seen in countries with hot summers, in India, South East Asia, South Africa, parts of the United States, South America, Australia and New Zealand. In regions with flooding, a bungalow is often built up on wooden "stilts" or a high basement. In the 1800s, bungalows were nearly always built of wood, but from the 1920s it became fashionable to build them of brick as well.

Farmhouse
A farmhouse may look like a cottage, a bungalow or a mansion, but in many countries a farmhouse can look quite different to a house in a town, because, as well as having a place for people to live, it also has a place for animals. Three typical types of farmhouses are found. Many farm houses are long and have two doors. One door leads to the rooms used by the family. The other door opens into a stable for the cows, sheep and chickens. The stable part often has a loft where hay can be kept to feed the animals in the winter. Another type of farmhouse has two storeys with a big stable and storeroom underneath, with the rooms for the family on the upper floor. Another type of farmhouse has buildings such as the family house, the barn and the stable all joined around a central courtyard. Old farmhouses of these three types can be found in many parts of Europe and Great Britain.

Mansion

A mansion is a big grand house, usually with two stories and sometimes more. A mansion often has beautiful architecture, and shows that the person for whom it was designed and built was rich. Mansions often have beautiful gardens. Sometimes a mansion does not belong to a private family, but to a town council, to a big business company, to a church or college and is a place for a person with an important job to live and to entertain guests. A mansion often has rooms which are not found in ordinary houses, such as a drawing room, a ballroom, a library and a music room. Mansions often need servants to help keep them in order and there are often special rooms where the servants do particular jobs such as cleaning the silver tableware. Well-known mansions are the White House in Washington, D.C. where the President of the United States lives and Mansion House in London where the Lord Mayor of London lives.

Castle
A castle is a fortified house constructed in the medieval period, or a house constructed to look like a medieval fortification. Castles protected feudal lords from their attacking enemies. In later periods, castles were built as part of romanticist revival movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Palace
A palace is a house that is very grand for people like Kings and Queens,or other rich people. Many palaces are homes of royal or aristocratic people. Some old palaces been changed by people who lived there over many hundreds of years.

One of the best-known palaces in the world is Buckingham Palace, a royal palace in London. The largest palace in the world is the Louvre which was built in Paris for the Kings of France. It now holds a famous art gallery.

What are houses built from?
Houses are usually built from types of material that can easily be made or bought near the place where the house is built. Because of this, old houses in different towns and different villages look quite different to each other, even in the same country. In modern times building materials can be transported easily and this means that a builder has much more choice about the types of material to use for a house.

Mud and clay

In many parts of the world, mud or clay are the main building materials. Clay is a type of soil that sticks together more strongly than most other types of soil. There are three main ways of building walls with mud and clay.
 One way to make a house of clay is simply to pile up the mud or wet clay with the hands, and flatten it into a wall shape. Often animal hair, straw and dung is mixed with the mud so that the fibres (stringy bits) help hold it together. Some wooden beams and thin wooden slats are used to hold the roof, which is also made of mud or clay. The roof is flat and strong enough to walk on, but must slope a bit, in case of rain. The walls are often protected from rain with plaster and paint. In many countries the walls are usuallly white, but in other places all the houses are painted different bright clolours. These types of houses are only found in very dry countries. Houses built in this way give good protection against the very hot sun and hot dry winds of the dessert. In the cold nights they stay quite warm.
 A second way to make the walls of a house out of mud of clay is "wattle and daub". "Wattle" is weaving from sticks. First, long sticks are stuck into the ground and then very thin sticks are woven through them, like making a basket. The thin wattle wall is then "daubed" or stuck all over on the inside and the outside with damp clay, mud or plaster, usually with some chopped straw or animal hair to help it stick together. "Wattle and daub" are often found in quite damp places where bendy willow trees or acacias (also called "wattle trees") grow. The walls need good protection from the rain, so houses like this often have roofs that have big "eaves"; the roof sticks out all around the house so that the water does not run down the walls. "Wattle and daub" houses often have big roofs made of straw, reeds, banana leaves, palm leaves, wooden shingles or big sheets of bark.
 Another way to make a house of mud or clay is to shape the wet soil into bricks before building the walls. The bricks can be shaped by hand, but more often they are shaped in boxes or "moulds" so that all the bricks are just the same size and shape. They are left in the hot sun until they have dried hard. Then walls can be made which are the same thickness all the way up. Clay bricks that are dried in the sun were used in Egypt and Mesopotamia for thousands of years.

Fired bricks
It was discovered that if clay was used, rather than mud, very strong bricks could be made by "firing" (or baking) them in a "kiln" (a special oven). "Fired" bricks were like pottery; they did not wash away easily in rain and would sometimes last for thousands of years. The bricks were joined to each other with a type of cement called "mortar". Some houses built by the Ancient Romans are still standing 2000 years later.

Bricks became one of the most common building materials. In most cities, nearly all the houses are built of bricks because they are long lasting, they do not need repairing very often. Brick houses are generally made strong by having all the main walls two bricks thick. Two walls are built side by side which are "bonded" (or joined to each other) by having some bricks set so they make a bridge between the two layers. The pattern of the bonded bricks can be seen from the outside. The two main patterns are called "Flemish Bond" and "British Bond".

Because brick walls are heavy, a brick house needs to have a very firm base or "foundation" to sit on. This often means digging deep into the ground to lay a foundation before a brick house can be built.
Houses with brick walls often have tiled roofs, because the tiles can often be made at the brick factory.
Modern bricks and tiles come in a big range of colours, because different materials can be transported from different areas. People who are employing a builder to build a home are nowadays often shown pictures of all the colours of bricks and tiles that are available. This means that although in old towns, every house is made of the same type of bricks, in a modern suburb every house may look quite different. The bricks range from white through shades of red, yellow and brown and are sometimes very patterned, while the roof tiles include blue, green and yellow as well as the traditional red, orange and brown.
 In some countries, the clay for bricks does not set very hard, and washes away more easily. If the bricks are not very hard, then it is usual to cover them with plaster or cement, which can then be painted. In other places, brick walls are not very fashionable so the walls are plastered and made more elegant with decoration. Plastering or cementing over brickwork is called "render" or "stucco". In many countries such as Austria, Italy and Spain, the brick houses are usually covered with stucco and are often painted cream, yellow, orange, pink, red or "orchre" (which is a mustard colour).

Timber
Houses made of timber are found wherever there are, or there has once been big forests. Timber houses are also often found in seaside towns where the sea air makes brick and stone houses feel cold and damp.

 One of the oldest ways to make a timber house is to cut tree-trunks into logs. The logs are then split in half so that there is a flat side for the inside of the wall and a round side for the outside. The logs then have big "notches' or holes cut into the ends, so that when they are piled up, the logs lock together at the corners of the building without any nails. These log cabins can be seen in Canada, in Switzerland, in Scandinavia, in Eastern Europe and in Japan.
 Many houses are made with a wooden "frame" or skeleton. On the outside of the frame, to keep out the weather, rows of flat boards are nailed, which overlap each other so that the rain cannot come in. Walls like this are called "clapboard" or "weatherboard". Clapboard houses are generally painted to preserve the timber. In England and some parts of the United States, they are nearly always painted white. In Australia where "weatherboard" houses are very common, they are usually painted in bright colours. In England and Australia, clapboard houses are usually quite small, but in the United States there are very many grand mansions that are built in this way.
 Some houses with a wooden frame have a brick wall on the outside and a wall of plastered board on the inside. This is called "brick veneer".

Half-timbered houses
A well-known type of old-fashioned house is the "half-timbered" house. These are seen in the British Isles, France, and across northern Europe and the Alps. These houses date mainly from about 1200 to about 1800.
 Half-timbered houses are houses that have a wooden frame built up of lots of thick timber pieces that are generally quite short. The timbers are arranged in a pattern with lots of diagonal pieces to act as braces. The strong wooden frame is then filled in with all sorts of other material. In some houses the "infil" is mainly of brick. In other houses, "wattle and daub" is used between the timber. Other houses have infill of "rubble" (rough stones) in clay or mud. The "infil is generally plastered over and painted white (or in some places a colour) while the timbers are often stained black. If they are not stained, they turn pale silvery grey. Hundreds of these houses exist, including some that are quite grand. In the 1800s and early 1900s, there was a fashion to copy "half-timbering" on modern brick houses.

Stone houses
In places where there is lots of stone, many houses are built of it. In many parts of the world, little cottages are built of stone. Many mansions and palaces are also built of stone, as are nearly all castles.

 Some of the oldest houses in the world are made of stone. They are circular houses with walls of flat stone slabs laid carefully on each other. The walls sloped gently inwards to meet in a stone roof. Other prehistoric stone houses had roofs of thatch.
 In parts of the world where there is stone that can be broken into flat slabs, then walls can be built up without any "mortar" to join the stones together. But the wind blows through the gaps, so the walls need timber or render on the inside, to keep out the weather. Stone houses of this type often have roofs made of flat stones as well. Stone roofs are very heavy and are laid on very thick beams.
 Many stone cottages are built of flint or "rubble" or "cobble". These are broken stones that are brought from nearby hills, or stones picked up from the farmer's fields, or gathered from a river bed. The walls are built up with stones and mortar. In some places where flint is used, the hard stones are split or "knapped" so that when they are placed on the outside of the wall, they show a shiny flat surface which is more attractive than the dull lumpy outside of a flintstone.
 Some types of stone, particularly limestone and sandstone, can easily be cut into big blocks that can be built up like bricks. It can also be "dressed" or smoothed on its surfaces. In villages that are near a limestone or sandstone quarry where the stone is cut, many of the cottages are built of neatly cut stones. But in towns that are far away from the quarries, it is only the mansions and palaces that are built of stone, because it is very heavy and expensive to carry across the country.
 The good thing about the types of stone that are used for grand houses is that they can easily be carved into decoration. Grand houses often have decorative carvings around the doors and windows. The building stones may also have special textures at the basement or the corners of the building.
 Grand stone houses often have roofs of thin stone called slate. They also have roofs of expensive materials like copper and lead.

Making modern houses

Modern houses are often made of "pre-fabricated" parts that are partly built in a factory, and are easy to put together at the site of the building.
Many different types of materials for making houses have been developed in the 20th century.
 Many houses are now made with steel frames put together with rivets and bolts.
 Walls and roofs can be made of boards that combine fibre with cement. These boards are thin, light in weight to transport, easy to put on the frame, and much cheaper than bricks or timber. A similar material can be made into roof tiles.
 Metal roofing can be rolled into thin sheets, and made in many different colours, with matching gutters and downpipes.

Notes and references
 Nicholas Pevsner, An Outline of European Architecture, Pelican, ISBN
 Trewin Copplestone, Ed., World Architecture, Paul Hamlyn, ISBN
 John Summerson, Architecture in Britain, Pelican,
 Trevor Yorke, Tracing the History of Villages, Countryside Books,
 Richard Reid, The Book of Buildings, the Architecture of Europe and North America, Peerage Books,
 R. Apperly, R. Irving and P.Reynolds, A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture, Angus and Robertson's,
 W.R. Dalziel, All-Colour Guide to Architecture, Grosset and Dunlap,

Basic English 850 words

House