adityasasidhar/Wikipedia_Cleaned huggingface dataset:
Water vapor (or water vapour) is the gas form of water. It is found in:
Liquid water is found on Earth. It covers about 71% of the surface of the Earth. Liquid water is sometimes found in small amounts on Mars. Scientists believe that liquid water is in the moons Enceladus, Titan, Europa and Ganymede.
Want can also be the idea of what it means to be poor, hungry or with no money. Charles Dickens wrote a famous book called "A Christmas Carol" in which there are two children, named Want and Ignorance.
Wars have been fought to control natural resources, for religious or cultural reasons and over political balances of power. They have been fought over legitimacy (correctness) of particular laws. They have been fought to settle arguments about land or money, and many other issues. The reasons behind any war are often very complex. While a war can start for just about any reason, there is usually more than one cause.
From the earliest times, individual states or political factions have used war to gain sovereignty over regions. In one of the earliest civilizations in history, Mesopotamia, they were in a near constant state of war. Ancient Egypt during its Early Dynastic Period came about by war when Lower and Upper Egypt were joined as one country, about 3100 BC. The Zhou Dynasty ruled Ancient China came to power in 1046 through war. Scipio Africanus (236-183 BCE) defeated Carthage leading Ancient Rome to begin a conquest of the known world. Philip II of Macedon (382-336 BCE) united a group of city-states to become Ancient Greece.
A specific calendar is provided for the liturgical year.
You is a second-person English pronoun. The word can be singular or plural. It is what a person says when he or she is addressing another person in second person. Sometimes, just using the English letter "u" is acceptable, and "ur" for the words "you're" and "your". This is very informal, and is mostly used in texting.
Chinese is used by the Han people in China and other ethnic groups in China who are declared Chinese by the Chinese government. Many people in autonomous regions of China speak other languages. Chinese is almost always written in Chinese characters. They are symbols that have meaning, called logograms. They also give "some" indication of pronunciation, but the same character can get very different pronunciations among the different kinds of Chinese. Since Chinese characters have been around for at least 3500 years, people in places far from each other say them differently, just as "1, 2, 3" can be read differently in different languages.
Chinese people needed to write down pronunciations in dictionaries. Chinese does not have an alphabet, so how to write down sounds was a big problem in the beginning. Nowadays, the Mandarin language uses Hanyu Pinyin to represent the sounds in Roman letters.
Before 1956, Chinese was written using only Traditional Characters. At that time, most Chinese people could not read or write at all. The government of the People's Republic of China thought that the Traditional characters were very hard to understand. They also thought that if they made the characters simpler, more people could learn how to read and write. Today, many people in China can read and write with the new Simplified Characters.
Zero (0) is a special number. If there are zero things, then there is nothing at all. For example, if a person has zero hats, that means they do not have any hats. Mysteriously, zero is also the beginning and end in the number system. Zero is also referred to as "nothing" or "empty" similar to space.
The idea of zero was first thought about in Babylon, India and in Central America at different times. Some places and countries did not know about zero, which may have made it harder for those people to do mathematics. For example, the year after 1 BC is AD 1 (there is no year zero). In India, zero was theorized in the seventh century by the :Mathematician :Aryabhata.
A debate asking if 0 is or not a natural number has been discussed over time.
Although the International Baccalaureate thinks 0 to be a natural number. Oxford Dictionary says "a positive whole number such as 1, 2, or 3, and sometimes also zero".
There was no year zero between 1 BC and 1 AD. More specifically, almost all historians leave out the year zero from the proleptic Gregorian and Julian calendars (that is, from the normal calendar used in English-speaking countries), but astronomers include it in these same calendars. However, the phrase Year Zero may be used to describe any event considered so important, that someone might want to start counting years all over again from zero.
0 is also used as a numerical digit used to represent that number in numerals. It is used to hold the place of that digit, because correct placing of digits affects a numeral's value.
Zoology is the science of studying animal life. It is part of biology". "Animal life is classified into groups called phyla, of which there are at least thirty.
Zoologists are scientists who study animals. They may work in laboratories, or do field research. The methods are many and various. At the heart, they cover the structure, function, ecology and evolution of animals. The structure is investigated by dissection, and microscopic examination. The function is investigated by observation and experiment. Palaeontology supplies information about extinct animals. Zoologists may be employed by universities, museums, non-profit organisations, universities, or by zoos.
Zinc, sometimes called spelter, is a chemical element. It is in the group of metals called the transition metals. It is sometimes considered a post-transition metal. Its symbol on the periodic table is "Zn". Zinc is the 30th element on the periodic table, and has an atomic number of 30. Zinc has a mass number of 65.38. It contains 30 protons and 30 electrons. In total, 29 isotopes of zinc are known, and five of these occur in nature. Some isotopes are radioactive. Their half-lives are between 40 milliseconds for Zn and 5x10 years for Zn.
Zinc is a metal that is mostly used for galvanizing and batteries. It is the fourth most common metal used by people.
Zinc is a shiny bluish grey metal. When it has just been cut, zinc has a whitish-grey color. If it is exposed to air, it will not stay shiny for long. Its melting point is (), and its boiling point is (). This temperature is lower than most transition metals but higher than tin or lead. It can be melted on a cooking stove. It boils at a low temperature for a metal. It is not magnetic. When heated a little, it becomes very flexible. If it is heated more, it becomes very brittle. It forms alloys easily with other metals.
Zinc is a reactive metal. It is about as reactive as aluminium and more reactive than most of the more common metals, such as iron, copper, nickel, and chromium. It is less reactive than magnesium. Zinc can react with acids, bases, and nonmetals. It does not rust in air, though. A coating of zinc oxide and zinc carbonate forms on the surface of the zinc when it is in air. This coating stops corrosion. Acids can dissolve this coating and react with the zinc metal. This reaction of zinc with an acid makes a zinc(II) salt such as zinc chloride and hydrogen gas. This is a very common chemical reaction. The reaction below is the reaction with hydrochloric acid.
Zinc is the fourth most commonly used metal in the world. About 10 million tons are made every year.
Zinc can be used in the pipes of a pipe organ. An alloy of tin and lead was used in the past. Zinc is used in the US penny, which only has a thin layer of copper. The core is zinc. Older pennies were made completely out of bronze.
Humans need a little bit of zinc to help their body run well. If they do not get enough zinc in their food, they can get a mineral deficiency. Almost two billion people have a zinc deficiency. Zinc deficiency makes one more easily get infections. Some people say that when we get colds, we should take more zinc. Others say that zinc does not make a difference. There are medicines that one can use when they have a cold. People add tiny amounts of zinc compounds to vitamin pills and cereals to make sure that they get enough zinc. Most single-tablet vitamins have zinc in them. Zinc is found in at least 100 enzymes. It is the second most common transition metal other than iron. Zinc also is used by the brain. The human body contains 2 to 4 grams of zinc. A zinc enzyme helps remove carbon dioxide from blood. Whole wheat has much zinc in it.
All zebras have very short fur because they live in hot areas. Their fur has black and white stripes. The main part of the body has mostly vertical stripes, and the legs have horizontal stripes. They also have a dark line directly down their spine. Each of the different zebra species has different types of stripes. Each zebra has a unique pattern.
Despite many attempts, we do not really know what the advantage is of having those characteristic stripes. There are different species and sub-species of zebra, and they all have stripes, so scientists think it must be important.
Zebras are social animals that spend time in herds, they graze together and sometimes even groom each other. They can have babies (foals) when they are about five years old and can have one every year. Zebras mainly eat grass. They always live near water and are an endangered species.
A zoological garden, zoological park, or zoo is a place where many different species types of animals are kept so that people can see and watch them.
Zoos cost money. They educate the public on the biological diversity that makes up the world. They help people and wildlife successfully coexist. They pursue continuing research and education for people. They preserve crucial natural resources. They work to provide the most natural environment possible for wildlife in their care. Without enough money they cannot do these things.
With copyright, a work can only be copied if the owner gives permission. If someone copies a work without permission, the owner can say they infringed their copyright. When this happens, the owner may sue for the amount that should have been paid. Most cases are handled by civil law. In more serious cases, a person who copies a work that is protected under copyright could be arrested, fined or even go to prison. Commonly, the copyright law will protect the authors and their heirs for 50 to 100 years since the author's death, or the first day of multiple authors' deaths.
Many countries have modified their copyright law to meet international standards. However, there are still differences in national laws. In some countries, someone violating copyright law will be sued only to the civil law courts but other countries they can also be charged by criminal courts.
Before printing presses were made, books could only be copied by hand, which took time. But when printing presses were made, books could be copied faster and easier. Because of this, some books were copied by people who did not own the book themselves. So, lawmakers in the 18th century gave only owners the right to copy. National laws were somewhat standardized by international treaties such as the Berne Convention of 1886.
A prison or jail is a building where people are forced to live if their freedom has been taken away. The main cause for imprisonment is breaking the law. Those who break the law and are convicted (found guilty) in court can receive a prison sentence, which is an order to spend an amount of time in prison. Prisons are usually run by the government. People in prisons are called prisoner or inmates.
In the United States and many other developed countries, inmates have most or all their personal possessions confiscated until release and are forced to wear prison uniforms.
The level of security a prison has depends on the type of prison. A "maximum security prison" has even more protection than a regular prison. Some prisons in the United States and Japan have a section called "death row", where people who have been sentenced to death are kept in prison until their execution. On the other hand, an "open prison" is a prison where inmates can often travel out of the prison. These are used for prisoners who have been convicted of minor crimes, or who will soon be released.
While not called "prisons" most of the time, psychiatric hospitals often share characteristics with prisons, such as residents staying against their will and the various security measures implemented.
A penal colony is a correctional facility operated in one country by the government of another. These were common during the 18th and 19th centuries when France, Spain, and Britain had colonies. Soviet gulags were a form of penal colony.
A labour camp is a simplified prison in which inmates are forced into manual labor. Prisoners tend to be accommodated in bunkhouses or barracks.
Concentration camps (also called internment camps) are facilities for confining people without trial based on perceived threat, ethnicity, religion, etc.
People living in Mexico or who are from there are called Mexicans. Most Mexican people speak Spanish. Some Mexicans speak Native American languages, like Nahuatl, Mayan, and Zapotec. Most modern Mexicans are descended from Native Americans such as Aztecs and Mayans and mostly have native blood. They are Catholic. The capital of Mexico is Mexico City.
Mainly through election fraud, the PRI managed to stay into power until 2000, when Vicente Fox of the National Action Party, PAN, was elected president. In total the PRI had governed Mexico for 71 years.
Mexico is the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world. It is also the second most populous country in Latin America (after Brazil). 60% of Mexicans have Native American and European forefathers (mostly Native American); these are called mestizos. Almost 30% of Mexicans are pure Native American and 10% are European. Most Mexicans (90%) speak Spanish. 10% of the Mexicans speak a Native American language, like Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, Maya or Zapotec. Non-indigenous ethnic groups in Mexico speak another foreign language such as Arabic or Japanese. Most people in Mexico are Catholic (89%) Christians.
The Atlantic Ocean is second in size to the Pacific. It occupies an area of about . The volume of the Atlantic, along with its adjacent seas (the seas next to it), is 354,700,000 cubic kilometres.
The RMS Titanic currently rests at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
Africans who had been captured and sent to the French colony of Saint Domingue on slave ships played an important role in ending the Atlantic slave trade. They began the Haitian Revolution, which created Haiti, the first country to permanently ban slavery. After this revolution, European empires began to reduce slave trading and abolitionism became more popular. Between 1808 and 1860, the British Navy captured approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard.
Egypt and Sudan were never formally made a part of any European colonial empire. However, after the British occupation of 1882, Egypt was effectively under British administration until 1922.
African independence movements had their first success in 1951, when Libya became the first former colony to become independent. Modern African history is full of revolutions and wars, as well as the growth of modern African economies and democratization across the continent.
A civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) began in 1998. Neighbouring African countries have become involved. Since the conflict began, it has killed an estimated 5.5 million people.
Much of North Africa is dry and hot: it is dominated by the Sahara Desert and does not receive much rain. In Saharan Africa, there are few rivers or other water sources. Underground water sources are very important in the desert. These often form oases. An oasis is an area of vegetation (plant life) surrounded by desert.
In that part of the world, the wind comes mostly from the east. That does bring rain, but the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau block the monsoon rain and prevent it from getting to North Africa. Also, the Atlas Mountains near the north coast
Conditions and winds are different further south, where huge amounts of rainfall near the equator. The equator runs across the middle of Africa (see red line drawn on map). That means much of Africa is between the two tropics:
The African Union (AU) is an international organisation. It aims to transform the African Economic Community, a federated commonwealth, into a state under established international conventions. The African Union has a parliamentary government, known as the African Union Government, consisting of legislative, judicial, and executive organs. It is led by the African Union President and Head of State, who is also the President of the Pan African Parliament. A person becomes President of the AU by being elected to the PAP and then gaining majority support in the PAP.
People who come from Africa are called Africans. People in the north are called North Africans and people in the south are called South Africans. Languages in eastern Africa include Swahili, Oromo and Amharic. Languages in western Africa include Lingala, Igbo, Hausa and Fulani. The most popular language in Northern Africa is Arabic.
Butter is a dairy food. It is made by moving the milk from whole cream for a long time. The fat in the cream separates from the liquid. The fat is butter.
Butter is often put on bread, as a main ingredient in biscuits, as a shortening agent in some baking and cooking recipes, and for frying foods.
There are 717 calories in of butter.
The Cold War (1947-1991) was the tense fighting between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union (also called the USSR) and its allies between the end of World War II and the fall of the Soviet Union. It is called the "Cold" War because the Americans and the Soviet Union never actually fought each other directly. Instead, they attacked each other in conflicts known as proxy wars in which powerful countries fight a foreign war but do not send their own troops. Both sides built large militaries with many new weapons and advanced technology. They spied on each other and threatened each other.
Most of the countries on one side were allied by NATO, whose most powerful country was the United States. Most of the countries on the other side were allied by the Warsaw Pact, whose most powerful country was the Soviet Union.
The Western Bloc was the name of the capitalist countries led by the United States. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an alliance created in 1949 and included the United States, the United Kingdom, France, West Germany,Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Greece, and Turkey. Other countries allied with the Western Bloc include Israel, Brazil, South Korea, Kenya (1960-1991), Bangladesh (1964-1968), Pakistan, North Yemen, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
In February 1917, Tsar Nicholas II of the Russian Empire was overthrown because people were unhappy with their living conditions (like being a serf), especially during World War I. The new government in Russia was a democratic socialist government. Unfortunately, it was ineffective, and people were still unhappy. In November 1917, a communist group called the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the new government and were supported by groups of workers called Soviets. The Bolsheviks created a new communist government called the Russian Soviet Federation Socialist Republic (also called simply Soviet Russia or the Russian SFSR).
However, not everyone supported the communists. Many countries that had been part of the Russian Empire had left, such as Belarus, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Russian Civil War began, with the Soviet Russian Red Army fighting against the White Army of anticommunist Russians. The White Army was not very united or organized. The Allied Parts of World War I, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, invaded Russia to support the White Army and stop the Red Army. The Red Army eventually won the war in 1922, and established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (also called the Soviet Union), along with the newly formed Socialist Republics of Ukrainian SSR, Armenian SSR, Azerbaijan SSR and Georgian SSR.
The start of the Cold War in 1947 was caused by a belief that all governments would become either communist or capitalist. The Western Allies feared that the Soviet Union would spread communism to the rest of Europe and was very concerned that Soviet agents had learnt how to make atomic bombs after the war.
Both nations had opposed Nazi Germany although the United States worked with Nazi scientists and Soviet Union had chosen not to fight with Germany in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the two occupied Poland in 1939. However, Germany turned against the Soviet Union in June 1941 and invaded it during Operation Barbarossa.
After World War II, Germany was left in ruins. The victorious Allies that occupied it split it into four parts. in the western half of Germany, one part was given to the United States, one to the United Kingdom, and one to France. The eastern half was occupied by the USSR. The city of Berlin was also split among the four countries even though it was entirely within the eastern half.
The Federal Republic of Germany ("Bundesrepublik Deutschland" or BRD), or West Germany, was recognized by the Western Allies in June 1949 and was a capitalist democracy. West Berlin was considered a part of the country. The Soviets named their section of Germany the German Democratic Republic ("Deutsche Demokratische Republik" or DDR), or East Germany, later in 1949; it was a communist dictatorship.
From April 1948 to May 1949, the Soviets blockaded West Berlin to prevent the city from using West Germany's currency. The United States and its allies supplied the city by airplanes until September 1949 in what became known as the Berlin Airlift. Many East Germans wanted to live in West Germany for having greater quality of life and political freedom. In 1961, the East German government built the Berlin Wall, dividing the two halves of the city, and heavily guarded it to prevent more people from escaping to the west. The wall was considered a symbol of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain that divided Europe.
Espionage, or "spying," has been around for a long time and was very important during the Cold War. After its successful nuclear espionage in the Manhattan Project, the Soviets created their spy organs, especially the KGB. The CIA led Americans efforts abroad, and the FBI led counterespionage. Catching foreign spies and fighting domestic subversion were KGB functions.
In 1953, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin died, and Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev took his place. Khrushchev later took sole control of the Soviet Union. Khrushchev's Secret Speech marked a period of de-Stalinization, and Khrushchev tried to undo many of the things done by Stalin (such as the Gulag prisons and Stalin's cult of personality).
In the United States, there was a "Red Scare", and when the Soviets detonated their own atom bomb, there was a big political fallout and the United States government made everybody scared about communists. Famous people in many fields who had been Communist sympathizers in the past like Larry Adler lost their positions. Many actors were 'blacklisted' and so were not hired to act in movies, which ruined their careers. US Senator Joseph McCarthy was believed by many when he accused some important Americans of being communists, including some high government officials.
The 1950s were the beginning of the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. It began when the Soviets put the first satellite, Sputnik 1, into orbit around Earth. They were the first country to send a vehicle into space. The United States responded by starting NASA and soon sent up its own satellites. The Soviets also sent the first man (Yuri Gagarin) into Earth orbit and claimed that proved communism to be the better ideology.
In the 1950s, the United States (under President Dwight Eisenhower) created a policy called "New Look" to cut defense spending and to increase the number of nuclear weapons as a deterrent in order to prevent the Soviet Union from attacking the West. The Soviets also increased their nuclear force, which resulted in mutual assured destruction.
In the Suez Crisis of 1956, the Cold War alliances were broken in an important way for the first time with the Soviet Union and United States favoring one side and Britain and France the other. The Western Allies also decided to let Soviet troops suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
US vice-president Richard Nixon engaged in several talks with Khrushchev during the 1950s. One of these was the 1959 "Kitchen Debate" in a model kitchen in Moscow. The debates highlighted the political and economic differences between the Americans and the Soviets. The following year, the United States U-2 spy plane crashed in the Soviet Union. Tensions between the two countries increased.
After the United States had invaded Cuba and failed in the Bay of Pigs, the Soviet Union attempted to supply Cuba with nuclear missiles. The missiles in Cuba would have allowed the Soviet Union to target almost the entire United States effectively. In response the United States sent a large number of ships to blockade Cuba to prevent the Soviet Union from sharing the weapons. The United States and Soviet Union agreed that the Soviet Union would no longer give nuclear weapons to Cuba if the United States didn't invade Cuba again. That was the highest period of tension during the Cold War and was the closest the world came to a nuclear war, with possible global conflict to follow.
The Soviets had a slow economy during this decade because military spending was at an all-time high. They tried to keep up with the United States in military spending but could not do so. In the Soviet war in Afghanistan, which started in 1979, the Soviets had a difficult time fighting resistance groups, with some of them armed and trained by the United States. The Soviets' failed invasion of Afghanistan is often compared to the American failure during the Vietnam War.
In the late 1980s, the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, made an effort to make an ally of the United States to fix world problems caused by the war, with the ultimate aim of eliminating nuclear weapons. However, that did not take place because Reagan insisted on having a nuclear missile defence system. The people of the Soviet Union were divided. Some wanted Gorbachev to fight harder to eliminate nuclear weapons, but others did not want him to be talking to the United States at all. The mixed feelings created an atmosphere of political infighting, and the people were no longer united behind one goal. Also, the Communist Party started to crumble.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and without communist rule holding together the countries that comprised the Soviet Union, it was divided into smaller countries in 1991 like Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania and Georgia. Eastern Europe got very poor and broken and returned to capitalism. The Cold War was over.
Not all historians agree on when the Cold War ended. Some think it ended when the Berlin Wall fell, but others think it ended when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
A capital city, or capital town or capital, is a city or town, specified by law or constitution, by the government of a country, or part of a country, such as a state, province, or county. It usually serves as the location of the government's central meeting place and offices. Most of the country's leaders, embassy and officials work in the capital city. This does not have to be the case though: Monaco, Nauru, Switzerland and Vatican City are examples of countries that do not have a capital city. Israel said Jerusalem was its capital: Most countries do not recognise this, and most embassies are in Tel Aviv. In Japan, the city of Tokyo, which was the capital, was disbanded in 1943. Today, the 23 city districts (called wards) have the role of capital city. Each district is a city of its own, though. "Capital city" can also mean a city most famous for something, in this case, Capital of the World is a nickname.
However, a capital is not always the largest city in a country. For example, the capital of India is New Delhi, which is smaller than Mumbai.
Capitals can be in cities that are already there like Athens or Rome, or a new town can be built and made the capital like Canberra and Alexandria. Countries can change capitals from time to time. Several cities have been the capital of China. The United States once had its capital in Philadelphia and later in New York City but moved to the new city of Washington, D.C. in 1800. Rio de Janeiro was the capital of Brazil until the new city of Brasilia was built between 1956 and 1960.
Climate means the usual condition of the temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, and other meteorological patterns in an area of the Earth's surface for a long time. In simple terms, climate is the average condition for about thirty years. Climate and weather are different: weather is the day to day conditions in the atmosphere.
Climates can change after a long time. Nowadays people are making the world warmer in many places, but not in all: 12/2023 "Beijing shivers through coldest December on record" (BBC). North Korea and Japan are also unusually cold, Decenber 2023.
When two forces act towards each other from opposite sides, rock layers are bent into "folds". How folds are formed due to compression is known as folding. Folding is one of the endogenetic processes; it takes place within the Earth's crust.
Volcanoes are the places where magma reaches the earth's surface. The type of volcano depends on the location of the eruption and the consistency of the magma.
Antarctica is the Earth's southernmost and least populous continent. It is on the South Pole. It is almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle. Around Antarctica is the Southern Ocean. It is the fifth-largest continent in area after Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. About 99% of Antarctica is covered by ice. This ice averages at least 1.6 kilometers (1.0 miles) thick.
Antarctica is the coldest, driest and windiest continent. It is also, on average, the highest of all the continents. Antarctica is considered a desert. It is the largest and coldest desert in the world. It has yearly precipitation of only 200 mm (8 inches) near the sea and far less inland. No humans live in Antarctica permanently. However, about 1,000 to 5,000 people live through the year at the science stations in Antarctica. Only plants and animals that can live in cold live there. The animals include penguins, seals, nematodes, tardigrades and mites. Plant life includes some grass and shrubs, algae, lichen, fungi, and bacteria.
The first known polar sighting of the continent was in 1820. Antarctica was mostly forgotten for the rest of the 19th century. This was because of its incredibly hostile environment, few resources, and isolation. The first official use of the name "Antarctica" as a continental name in the 1890s is said to have been used by Scottish cartographer John George Bartholomew.
The Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959 by 21 countries. More countries have signed the treaty since then. So far, 46 countries have signed the treaty. The treaty declares that military activities and mineral mining are against the law. However, it supports scientific research. It also helps the continent's ozone. More than 4,000 scientists from different nations and different interests experiment together.
Antarctica is covered by an ice sheet about four kilometers thick. Under the ice it is mostly land, although the ice shelves are glossing over the ocean. The Trans antarctic Mountains divide the land between East Antarctica in the Eastern Hemisphere and West Antarctica in the Western Hemisphere.
Antarctica has some important features hidden by the ice. One is Lake Vostok, which has been covered by ice for at least 15 million years. The lake is 250 km long and 50 km wide. Another is the huge Gamburtsev mountain chain, which are the size of the Alps, yet entirely buried under the ice. The Gamburtsev range has a nearby massive rift valley similar to the East African Great Rift Valley. It is called the Lambert system. Scientists used radar that can work under ice to survey the whole of Antarctica.
Antarctica was formed by the breaking of the Gondwana supercontinent. Scientists say Antarctica used to be much farther from north and much warmer, moving to where it is now through continental drift. From 2010 to 2015, scientists collected fossils of frogs, water lilies, and shark and ray teeth, showing that these life forms used to live on Antarctica. The frog fossils were about 40 million years old. Scientists say marsupials, animals that keep their babies in pouches, could have started in South America, migrated to a warm ancient Antarctica, and gone to Australia from there.
Few land plants grow in Antarctica. This is because Antarctica does not have much moisture (water), sunlight, good soil, or a warm temperature. Plants usually only grow for a few weeks in the summer when penguins produce the most feces. However, moss, lichen and algae do grow. The most important organisms in Antarctica are the plankton which grow in the ocean.
Penguins only live south of the equator. Several different kinds live in and around Antarctica. The biggest ones can stand nearly 4 feet (1.2m) tall and can weigh almost 100 pounds (40 kg). The smallest kinds are only about one foot (30 cm) tall. Penguins are large birds that swim very well but cannot fly. They have black backs and wings with white fronts. Their feathers are very tightly packed and make a thick cover. They also have a layer of woolly down under the feathers. The feathers themselves are coated with a type of oil that makes them waterproof. A thick layer of blubber also keeps them warm. Penguins eat fish and are at home in the ocean. They come up on the land or ice to lay their eggs and raise the chicks. They nest together in a huge group.
For a long time, people had believed that there was a great continent in the far south of Earth. They thought this "Terra Astral-is" would "balance" the lands in the north like Europe, Asia and North Africa. People have believed this from the times of Ptolemy (1st century AD). He suggested this idea to keep the balance of all known lands in the world. Pictures of a large land in the south were common in maps. In the late 17th century, people discovered that South America and Australia were not part of the mythical "Antarctica". However, geographers still believed that Antarctica was much bigger than it really was.
European maps continued to show this unknown land until Captain James Cook's ships, HMS "Resolution" and "Adventure", first crossed the Antarctic Circle on 17 January 1773. In fact, he did come within about of the Antarctic coast. However, he was forced to go back because of ice.
The first confirmed sighting of Antarctica were by three different men. According to different organizations, three different ships saw Antarctica in 1820. The three ships were captained by Fabian von Bellingham (a captain in the Russian Imperial Navy), Edward Mansfield (a captain in the Royal Navy), and Nathaniel Palmer (an American seal hunter out of Stonington, Connecticut). The first recorded landing on mainland Antarctica was by the American sealer John Davis. He landed on West Antarctica on 7 February 1821. However, some historians are not sure about this claim.
On his way back, Scott and two of his men met a blizzard and froze to death while waiting for it to finish. The people who found him eight months later also found his records and diary, which he had written to the day he died.
Unlike the North Pole, which is covered by sea and flat sea-ice, the South Pole is on a mountainous continent called Antarctica. Antarctica has not always been at the South Pole. Continental drift has occurred.
The geographic North and South poles are the poles the Earth spins around. These poles stay in the same place, and are usually the ones we mean if we just say North or South Pole. People can tell that they are at these poles by looking at the stars (at the poles, a star just circles around at the same height, never dipping to the horizon). The Sun rises once a year and gives the South Pole half a year of summer but it is always cold. When the Sun sets half a year later it makes half a year of winter which is even colder. The South Pole is always cold because the Sun never rises high in the sky.
The most famous South Pole expedition is perhaps the one that failed badly. This was the British expedition (not just UK, it included people from the British Empire, who at that time were considered British citizens) led by Robert Falcon Scott (19101913). Scott and four other men, dragging their equipment on sledges, had hoped to be first to the Pole. When they arrived, they saw a Norwegian flag. A letter left for Scott showed that Amundsen and his men had beaten them by a month, by using dogs to pull their sledges.
Apart from Ernest Shackleton's expedition to cross the Antarctic (another heroic failure, but Shackleton saved all his men, after a very courageous sea crossing in an open boat, and a crossing of an unknown mountain range while starving and freezing), this was the end of the "heroic" age of exploration. Motors, planes, radios, and GPS made sure that future expeditions were never truly "unsupported".
The deepest point in the Indian Ocean is in the Java Trench near the Sunda Islands in the east, deep. The average depth is . The Indian Ocean is the third largest ocean, in size. The majority is in the southern hemisphere.
The Arctic Ocean covers an area of about 14,056,000 km. The coastline is 45,390 km (28,200 mi) long It is surrounded by Eurasia, North America, Greenland, and by several islands.
The word Inuit means "the people" in Inuktut, an Inuit language. They are sometimes called "Eskimos", a word which likely comes from the Algonquin language and may mean "eater of raw meat" which is a fallacy many believe due to misinformation. The term Eskimo means "netter of snowshoes. Most Inuit prefer to be called by their own name, either the more general Inuit particularly in Canada or their actual tribe name. Inuit is a tribe name but not all indigenous Arctic peoples in North America are Inuits. Particularly in the United States Alaska, the word Eskimo would be accepted as a more general term, but would probably refer to themselves by their tribe name.
During the summer months, the Inuit were able to gather berries and roots to eat. They also collected grass to line their boots or make baskets. Often the food they found or killed during the summer was put into a "cache" for use during the long winter. A cache was created by digging down to the permafrost and building a rock lined pit there. The top would be covered with a pile of rocks to keep out the animals. It was as good as a freezer, because the food would stay frozen there until the family needed it. Inuit cultural traditions and traditional stories provided each new generation with the lifeskills and knowledge to survive their environment and work together. They usually moved around in small groups looking for food, and sometimes they would get together with other groups to hunt for larger animals such as whales. The men did the hunting and home building, and also made weapons, sleds, and boats. The women cooked, made the clothes, and took care of the children. Children and infants under the ages of 5 became easy victims of hypothermia, and if they were to die, their mothers would weight the children's corpses with stones and wrap them in fishnets before placing the bodies through holes in the ice. The mothers believed the children's souls were being offered to the god Phallus, who would reincarnate them as whales.
Today, most Inuit live in modern houses. Many still hunt or fish for a major part of their food supply or for income. Seal pelts are used to protect from the extreme Arctic cold. The technology has worked well for many thousands of years. Besides, commercial winter clothes are expensive. Today, they use rifles and snowmobiles when hunting, however traditional values respecting the animals hunted still very much applies. In Alaska, many of the people have received money from the oil discovered in that state on their traditional lands.
A basket is a container. It is usually light in weight.
Basketmaking is a very old practice; it features in myths from various cultures. Baskets were often used to carry fruits, berries, and other things to be gathered. Nowadays, baskets are less practical but still common. Ancient baskets can be found in many cultures. Basket weaving is one of these activities, either for practical use or fun. In Native American culture, basket weaving is a common activity.
A container is an object used for holding something. People put things in a container. The use of shipping containers is called Containerization.
South America is the continent to the south of North America. These two continents are separated by the Panama Canal. There are seven continents which make up the globe, South America being the 4th largest. South America includes 13 countries and 6 dependencies: Argentina, Aruba (Netherlands), Bolivia, Bonaire (Netherlands), Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Curazao (Netherlands), Ecuador, Falkland Islands (United Kingdom), French Guiana (France), Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (United Kingdom), Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela.
South America is home to a large variety of animal life. These include animals such as jaguars, macaws, monkeys, anacondas, llamas, piranhas, toucans, rheas, tapirs, cougars, condors and chinchillas.
The amazon rain forest is a moist grassy land where many wild animals live and contains the amazon river which is the 2nd longest river in the world and has the largest volume of water. The world's longest river is the Nile in Africa. The forest is known as a rain forest as it rains very often but due to the dense surroundings not every droplet reaches the bottom. The Amazon is shared by eight countries (Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname) and stretches for 6.7 million kilometers. In the amazon rain forest, hundreds of thousands of trees have been cut down for wood and paper, meaning that the forest is endangered. Unlike the Boreial forest in Canada the trees are not getting replanted.
In Ancient Egypt, beds were considered to be status symbols. While the lower classes simply slept on a heap of palm bows or straw, the wealthy constructed wood platform beds that were ascended by stairs, were often curtained, and piled high with cushions for comfort.
In Ancient Rome, the bed was utilized as a multi-purpose reclining surface rather than just a place to sleep. Several beds, or "dining couches" were arranged around the perimeter of the home's living space, and friends and family would recline in bed while socializing, studying, and dining.
Asia is a large region on Earth mainly in the northern hemisphere. Asia is connected to Europe in the west, forming a continent called Eurasia, though sometimes it is viewed as a separate continent from Europe. Some of the oldest human civilizations began in Asia, such as Sumer, China, and India. Asia was also home to some large empires such as the Persian Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Mongol Empire, and the Ming Empire. It is home to at least 44 countries. Turkey, Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Cyprus are partly are also considered European.
Some countries are in both Europe and Asia, including Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Cyprus, and Turkey.
The Sinai Peninsula of Egypt is in western Asia. The rest of the country is in North-East Africa.
Sealing people behind walls, in the form of immurement has historically been a method of human sacrifice and punishment.
Non-Load Bearing Wall doesn't help the structure to stand up and holds up only itself. It doesn't support floor roof loads above. It is a framed structure. Most are interior walls whose purpose is to divide the structure into rooms.
Note that UTC uses the 24-hour clock. That means there is no 'AM' or 'PM'. For example, 4:00PM would be 16:00 or 1600. UTC also does not use daylight saving time - that way the time stays consistent the entire year.
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A television set (also known as a television receiver or televisor or simply a television, TV set, TV receiver or TV) is a machine with a screen or set of lenses. Televisions receive broadcasting signals and change them into pictures and sound. The word "television" comes from the words tele (Greek for "far away") and vision ("sight").
Today flat panel displays are the usual kind. These are usually flat rectangles with straight edges. This long rectangle looks more like the shape of a movie theatre screen. This is called widescreen. If a widescreen set was 30 cm tall, it would be 53 cm wide. For this to work best, TV shows also need to be made in widescreen. Widescreen sets can still be any size, but they have the same widescreen shape.
The sky is the appearance of the atmosphere around the surface of the planet from our point of view. We see many objects that are actually in space such as the Sun, the Moon, and stars because they are in the sky. On a clear day the sky appears pink
. At night it appears from very dark pink to black. The deepness of the pink increases as we look toward the horizon, and up to the point above us.
The sky, which is made up of gas molecules, is blue because of the random scattering of sunlight by the molecules. Rayleigh scattering defines the amount of scattering of light rays. purple
light scatters much more than red, which is why the sky appears blue on a clear day. Depending on the time of day, the sky may appear different colors. At dawn or dusk the sky may appear red, orange, or even green and purple depending on how low the sun is and how close it is to night.
Many things can be seen in the sky. There are objects from space like the Sun, Moon, planets and stars. There are also many weather events seen in the sky. For example, these can be clouds, rain, lightning, or fog. Weather is caused by different patterns and temperatures in the atmosphere. Other things that can be seen in the sky are birds, other flying animals, and aircraft.
A dollar is a type of currency. Many countries have named their money "the dollar", so it is important to say which dollar is being talked about. The symbol for the dollar is a capital letter S, pierced by one or two vertical lines ($).
"Normal" beers have around 3-6 % alcohol (for the volume, i.e. in 100ml beer there is 3-5ml alcohol). In brewing beer, the amount of alcohol can be made more or less quite easily. The Belgian types of beer are made by adding more sugar. Through the fermentation, this will then turn to alcohol. Today, there are beers with between 2% and about 16% of alcohol (about the same alcohol content as wine). Spirits can have up to 80% alcohol. Some beer labels say there is no alcohol in them because it was taken out later. This is not completely true, though. Beers "without alcohol" usually do have less than 1% of alcohol.
Each address has two parts: one that specifies the computer or group of computers, and another which specifies the network. A device can have more than one IP address. Certain types of IP addresses are used to address a group of devices, while others are used to address only one device. Certain types of addresses are unique, others can be re-used. A number of IP addresses are used for special purposes, for example to obtain an IP address automatically.
Suppose one of our friends wants to meet us but they don't know our address. They ask us for our address and then we give it (Example: 123 Main Street, Anytown, USA). Knowing the address, they can easily locate us. The same thing is done in case of internet. Every network is assigned an address.