alibayram/wikipedia-40-langs huggingface dataset:
Comic book

Comic books are books with comics, with  pictures that make a story. 

Comics were started in the 1800s, a century which saw the development of  modern colour printing and many other inventions. Wood engraving was a cheaper type of illustration which was widely used in the 19th century. These things are important because they created an understanding that illustrations are sometimes just as important as words.

The first comic strip appeared in France in 1889, and in the U.S.A. in 1897.

Some later examples from the U.S.A. are Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk and the X-Men. Some comic companies are DC Comics and Marvel Comics. 

Since the middle 20th century many comic books are about superheroes, but many others are about other things.  DC and Marvel comic books introduced Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Justice League, Teen Titans, Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, the X-Men, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Avengers and the Fantastic Four.  Very often, characters in books, video games, movies and television appear in comics, and sometimes comic book characters are used in movies, TV shows or video games. 

There are three different kinds of comic books: single issues that are usually 32 pages long are called comic books. These are printed and bound like a magazine, with the pages folded and stapled together through the centerfold. Several comics may be put together in a trade paperback. These have spines like a book and are glued together. A bigger comic book that is bound like a trade paperback but is all new, instead of collecting older comics, is called a graphic novel.

In English speaking countries, you read the speech bubbles left to right. Then you read the row below it left to right. This is different from Japanese comics, called manga.
Some famous comics are:

Superman
Batman
Spider-Man
Wonder Woman
Hulk
Captain America
Fantastic Four
X-Men
The Flash
Iron Man
Spawn
The Beano
The Adventures of Tintin
Sailor Moon
Naruto
Death Note
Dragon Ball Z

Big two comic book publishers
 DC Comics (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Shazam and other DC characters)
 Marvel Comics (Spider-Man, Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and other Marvel characters)

References

 
Magazines
Peanuts

Peanuts was a comic strip. It was written and drawn by Charles M. Schulz. It was about a boy named Charlie Brown, his dog named Snoopy who is his best friend, and the lives of their best friends named Linus, Schroder, Sally (Charlie Brown's little sister), Lucy, Patty, Peppermint Patty, Marcie and Woodstock. It started in 1950 and ended in 2000 when Schulz died before 2022. The Peanuts characters and concepts were adapted to several half-hour animated television programs over the years.

Cast and characters in adaptations

1960s

Other websites
 Snoopy.com: Official Peanuts Website
 Snoopy's Home: Charles M. Schulz's home page
 Peanuts Collector Club
 Peanuts Collectible Ornaments Guide 
 AAUGH.com: Peanuts Book Collecting Guide
 Peanuts Animation and Reprints Page
 Charles M. Schulz Museum website
 NCS Awards
 Fantagraphics Books - The Complete Peanuts series 
 Peanuts Gang Wikia

American comic strips
Eddie Cantor

Eddie Cantor (born Isidore Itzkowitz; January 31, 1892 - October 10, 1964) was an American comedian, singer, actor, songwriter. Familiar to Broadway, radio and early television audiences, this "Apostle of Pep" was regarded almost as a family member by millions because his top-rated radio shows revealed intimate stories and amusing anecdotes about his wife Ida and five daughters. His eye-rolling song-and-dance routines eventually led to his nickname, Banjo Eyes, and in 1933, the artist Frederick J. Garner caricatured Cantor with large round and white eyes resembling the drum-like pot of a banjo. Cantor's eyes became his trademark, often exaggerated in illustrations, and leading to his appearance on Broadway in the musical Banjo Eyes (1941). He was the original singer of 1929 hit song "Makin' Whoopie".

References

Presidents of the Screen Actors Guild
American stage actors
Comedians from New York City
American Jews
Actors from New York City
Singers from New York City
American television actors
American radio actors
1892 births
1964 deaths
Days of Our Lives

Days of Our Lives is a popular American television show on the NBC television network. It is one hour long and is broadcast during the day. Betty and Ted Corday made the show in 1965. Two companies, Corday Productions and Sony Pictures Television make Days of Our Lives. In November 2015, the show celebrated 50 years on TV. It is currently in its 59th season with 14,716 episodes (as of October 23, 2023). They began filming the show in HD in 2010.

Days of Our Lives takes place in the city of Salem. The main families on the show are the Bradys, the DiMeras and the Hortons. Many good and bad things happened to the Brady family and the Horton family. One character named "Stefano DiMera" does some of the bad things that happen to characters on this show.

Characters
 Stefano DiMera is the head of the DiMera family. He is the villain in Salem and has done many bad deeds to the Brady family, mainly Marlena.
 Maggie Simmons Horton has been played by actress Suzanne Rogers since August 20, 1973. Maggie was created by scriptwriter William J. Bell, and executive producer Betty Corday.
Marlena Evans, mother of DJ, Sami, Eric and Belle. She has been taken over by the Devil twice and everyone thought she was a serial killer in 2004. 
 Sami Brady, daughter of Roman and Marlena Brady. She has a twin brother Eric, and her half sister is Carrie. She is the mother of Will, Allie, Johnny and Sydney, and she believed that Grace as she had been swapped at birth.

Couples
Here is a list of some of the main couples on the show:
 John and Marlena Black
 Bo and Hope Brady
 Abe and Lexie Carver
 Stefano and Kate DiMera 
 Jack and Jennifer Devereux
 Austin and Carrie Reed (Austin is Kate's son, Carrie is Roman's daughter)
 EJ DiMera and Nicole Walker 
Ciara Brady and Ben Weston

References

1960s American television series
1960s drama television series
1970s American television series
1970s drama television series
1980s American drama television series
1980s soap operas
1990s American drama television series
1990s soap operas
2000s American drama television series
2000s soap operas
2010s American drama television series
2010s soap operas
American soap operas
NBC network shows
English-language television programs
1067

1067 was a common year.

Events 
 On the death of her husband Constantine X, Eudocia Macrembolitissa becomes regent of the Byzantine Empire.
 Work begins on the building of the Tower of London.
 Trencavel family takes over in Carcassonne.
 The Wartburg castle, according to Legend, built in Thuringia.
 Winchester Castle built
 Vorša was first mentioned in the chronicles.
Adolphe Sax

Antoine-Joseph (known as Adolphe) Sax (November 6, 1814 – February 4, 1894) was a Belgian inventor and musician who played the flute and clarinet.  He is best known for inventing the saxophone.

Biography
Adolphe Sax was born in Dinant in Wallonia, Belgium.  Adolphe began to make his own instruments at an early age.  He entered two of his flutes and a clarinet into a competition at the age of fifteen.  He studied those two instruments at the Royal School of Singing in Brussels.

Adolphe's first important invention was an improvement of the bass clarinet design.  He patented this at the age of twenty-four. In 1841, Sax moved to Paris.  Around this time he invented the saxophone.

He got a job teaching at the Paris Conservatoire starting in 1867.
 
Sax suffered from lip cancer between 1853 and 1858 but made a full recovery. He died in 1894 in Paris.

Books about Adolphe Sax
 Adolphe Sax, sa vie son oeuvre, Malou Haine, Brussel University Press, Brussel, 1980
 Sax, Mule & Co, Jean-Pierre Thiollet, H & D, Paris, 2004 

1814 births
1894 deaths
Belgian inventors
Belgian musicians
Clarinetists
People from Namur (province)
Unforgiven

Unforgiven is a 1992 American western movie directed by Clint Eastwood. It stars Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman and Richard Harris. It ranks #98 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies and won the Best Picture Academy Award. It is set in the 1880s in Wyoming and Kansas about an aging outlaw and killer.

Other websites 

1992 crime drama movies
1990s Western (genre) movies
American crime drama movies
Best Picture Oscar
Movies featuring a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award-winning performance
1990s English-language movies
Movies about prostitution
Movies about revenge
Movies about atonement
Movies set in Kansas
Movies set in Wyoming
Movies set in Alberta
Movies set in the 1880s
United States National Film Registry movies
American Western (genre) movies
Movies directed by Clint Eastwood
Bucharest

Bucharest is the capital city of Romania. It is the largest city in the country. The city has a population of 1.9 million people. It is made up of 6 "sectors". It has a humid continental climate (Cfa in the Koeppen climate classification). It became the capital of Romania in 1862. It is the centre of Romanian media, culture and art. Bucharest is the 6th largest city in the European Union by population within city limits.

According to European standards, Bucharest is an old city. The first mention of it appears in 1459. Its eclectic architecture is a mixture of historical, transitional, Communist and modern styles. In the period between the two World Wars, thanks to the elegant urban architecture and ingenuity of the urban elite, Bucharest was named "Paris of the East", or "Little Paris" (Micul Paris).

References 

 
Municipalities of Romania
County capitals of Romania
1459 establishments
15th-century establishments in Europe
Establishments in Romania
Tocantins

Tocantins can refer to: 
 Tocantins, a state of Brazil.
 Tocantins River, a river in Brazil.

There are also some small Brazilian cities called Tocantins.
Avalanche

An avalanche is a natural disaster linked to snow. When there is too much snow on a mountain, some of the snow may fall, causing damage to things in its path. This is called an avalanche. People talk about avalanches because they may be dangerous to skiers and other people doing winter sports.

Large avalanches may carry stones, boulders and trees with them. They may bury people under them. If the people are not found rapidly enough by rescue teams they will die of suffocation (not getting enough air) or of hypothermia (freezing cold).

The chance of surviving an avalanche is as follows:
 92% if found within 15 minutes
 30% if found within 35 minutes (victims die of suffocation)
 nearly zero after two hours (victims die of injuries and hypothermia)

European avalanche risk table 

In Europe, the avalanche risk is widely rated on the following scale, which was adopted in April 1993 to replace the earlier non-standard national schemes. Descriptions were last updated in May 2003 to enhance uniformity pdf .

[1] Stability:
 Generally described in more detail in the avalanche bulletin (regarding the altitude, aspect, type of terrain etc.)

[2] additional load:
 heavy: two or more skiers or boarders without spacing between them, a single hiker or climber, a grooming machine, avalanche blasting.
 light: a single skier or snowboarder smoothly linking turns and without falling, a group of skiers or snowboarders with a minimum 10 m gap between each person, a single person on snowshoes.

Gradient:
 gentle slopes: with an incline below about 30°.
 steep slopes: with an incline over 30°.
 very steep slopes: with an incline over 35°.
 extreme steep slopes: extreme in terms of the incline (over 40°), the terrain profile, proximity of the ridge, smoothness of underlying ground.

Avalanche size:

Surviving avalanches 
Surviving avalanches is very difficult, as the snow rushes at a very fast rate and can bury anyone alive in seconds. However, the snow in an avalanche acts like a liquid when descending. Thus, the best way is to actually 'swim' a backstroke. This will help as the person will be able to keep his/her face up and breathe, and also not get submerged in the snow at the same time (the force of swimming backwards is in contrast and opposes the force of the snow coming in his/her direction, rather than the snow totally taking over). 

Another way is to hold on to something immediately after an avalanche occurs. The item should be strong so it itself doesn't get drifted away by an avalanche, like a tree or large and heavy rock. 
Natural events
Foot (unit)

The foot is a unit for measuring length. It is one of the Imperial units and U.S. customary units. The shortest way of writing the unit "foot" is by the abbreviation "ft" (or "ft."), or by a prime symbol ( ′ ).

One foot contains 12 inches. This is equal to 30.48 centimetres. It is called a foot, because it was originally based on the length of a foot.

History 
The foot was a common unit of measurement throughout Europe. It often differed in length not only from country to country but from city to city. Because the length of a foot changed between person to person, measurements were not even consistent between two people, often requiring an average. Henry I of England was attributed to passing the law that the foot was to be as long as a person's own foot. This was one of the first times a standard unit of measurement was put into place.

In 1959, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom all signed a treaty known as the 'International Yard and Pound Agreement'. This standardised the avoirdupois weight and length of all nations. Those standards are still officially used in both the Imperial system and U.S. customary units.

Usage 

Road signs with height restrictions in the United States and the United Kingdom are in feet and inches. They are less commonly seen in Canada and Ireland. In the U.S. and the UK, people usually measure a person's height in feet and inches. If a person is "five foot eleven", this means that person is 5 feet and 11 inches, or about 180 centimeters. The height is written 5′ 11″

Many people born before metrication in a number of Commonwealth nations still use feet and inches. Altitude measurements are still sometimes given in feet, even in metricated nations.

Length 

Imperial units
Units of length
Acre

For the state in Brazil, see Acre (state).

An acre is an English unit of area, which is also used in the United States and some Commonwealth countries. It is most often used to describe areas of land.
 By the official definition it is 4,046.8564224 m2 (4,840 square yards). It is the area of one furlong by one chain. 
 The international acre is 4,046.8564224 m2, or 0.404686 hectares. This is based on international foot of 0.3048 m.

An acre is approximately equal:
 the area of an American football field.

Originally, it was seen as the area of land a farmer could plough with an ox in a day. Since this definition depended on the farmer and the ox, it looked variable. Therefore, Edward I, Edward III, Henry VIII and George IV passed laws fixing its size. The Commonwealth countries, including the United States then also introduced these laws.

Other websites
 The Units of Measurement Regulations 1995
 NIST Handbook 44 

Units of area
Erfurt massacre

The Erfurt massacre was a mass shooting that happened at the Gutenberg Gymnasium in Erfurt, Thuringia, Germany, on 26 April 2002.  

A boy that had been expelled from the school 2 months earlier, 19-year-old Robert Steinhäuser, was the person who did all the shooting. In anger, he came into the gymnasium, and shot dead 12 teachers, a secretary, two students, and a police officer. After a teacher caught him and put him in an empty room, Steinhäuser shot himself dead. In total, 17 people were killed.

According to students, he ignored them and aimed only for the teachers and administrators, although two students were unintentionally killed by shots fired through a locked door.

References

2002 in Europe
2000s in Germany
2000s murders in Europe
April 2002 events
Attacks on buildings and structures in Germany
Attacks on buildings and structures in the 2000s
Attacks on schools in Europe
Massacre

Mass murder in Germany
Mass murder in the 2000s
Mass shootings in Europe
Mass shootings in the 2000s
Massacres in Europe
Murder in 2002
Murder-suicides in Europe
Murders by firearm in Germany
High school shootings
Suicide in the 2000s
Suicides by firearm in Germany
Gymnasium (school)

The gymnasium is a form of higher education in Western Europe, especially in Germany. It is the same as a grammar school Gymnasiums are also common in Hungary and Austria. Graduating from a gymnasium is considered an accomplishment seeing as how difficult it is to do so.

Types of educational institutions
Huascarán

Huascarán is the highest mountain in Peru, and the fourth-highest mountain in South America. The top of it is 22,205 feet (6,768 meters) high.

The mountain is located in the Ancash Region of Peru.  Huascarán has turned into a tourist attraction for mountain climbers.

Huascarán is all that is left of an extinct volcano.  It has been getting smaller and smaller.  As recently as 1970, the Ancash Earthquake caused a big part of the mountain to crumble and fall off.  That part of the mountain was all rock and ice, and it killed almost 17,000 people in small towns around the mountain.

Related pages 
 List of volcanos
 Active volcano
 Dormant volcano

References 

Andes
Volcanoes of South America
Mountains of Peru
Ancash Region
1490



Events 
 Tirant Lo Blanc by Joanot Martorell, Martí Joan De Galba is published.
 Yoshitane becomes Ashikaga shogun of Japan.
 Charles John Amadeus of Savoy becomes Duke of Savoy at age 1, mother Blanche of Montferrato is regent.
 Aldus Manutius moves to Venice.
 John Colet receives M.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford.
 Castle Church in Wittenberg is begun.
 Pedro de Covilham arrives in Ethiopia.
 Catholic missionaries arrive in the African kingdom of Kongo.
 Regular postal service connects the Habsburg residences of Mechelen and Innsbruck, the first in Germany.
 Leonardo da Vinci observes capillary action in small-bore tubes.
 December 19 – Anne of Brittany married to Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor by proxy

Births 
 Wijerd Jelckama, Frisian warlord and rebel (d. 1523)

Deaths
1571

1571 was a common year.

Events 
 January 11 – Austrian nobility is granted Freedom of religion.
 October 7 Spanish, Venetian, and Papal naval forces under Don John of Austria defeat the Turkish fleet of Ali Monizindade Pasha.
 The Ottoman Empire captured the city of Nicosia on the island of Cyprus.

Births 
 February 15 – Michael Praetorius, German composer (d. 1621)
 October – Tirso de Molina, Spainish dramatist and poet (d. 1648)
 December 27 – Johannes Kepler, German astronomer (d. 1630)
401

401 (CDI) was a common year starting on Tuesday in the Julian calendar.

Events 
 Pope Innocent I succeeds Pope Anastasius I. 
 The Vandals start their westward trek from Dacia and Hungary (or 400).
The Visigoths begin to attack the northernmost reaches of Italy, causing destruction in the countryside.
Kumarajiva arrives in Changan.
Western Roman Empire general Stilicho leads an extensive campaign against the Vandals in Rhaetia.
Synod of Turin
1068



Events 
 January 1 – Eudocia Macrembolitissa marries the general Romanus Diogenes who becomes Byzantine Emperor
 Emperor Go-Sanjō ascends the throne of Japan
 William the Conqueror takes Exeter, England after a brief siege
 Saint Herfast becomes the first Lord Chancellor of England in London, England at the age of 68. He does the job for two years before he retires

Births 
 September 1 – King Henry I of England, English royal (d. 1135)
Urbain Grandier

Urbain Grandier (born 1590 in Bouère, Mayenne, France ; died April 18,1634 in Loudun, France) was a free-thinking cleric. A satirical publication against Richelieu was attributed to him. After this, Pierre-Martin de Laubardement, a statesman was charged to lead the process against Grandier in 1633. He was charged of having bewitched the ursuline nuns of Loudun. They became obsessed by him. His friend, Claude Quillet agreed to defend him in court, but without success. 

He was condemned to burn at the stake as a witch in 1634.

English literature
The Devils of Loudun, by Aldous Huxley, published in 1952

1590 births
1634 deaths
Executed French people
French Roman Catholics
People executed by burning
People executed for witchcraft
Cardinal Richelieu

Armand Jean du Plessis, better known as Cardinal Richelieu (9 September 1585–4 December 1642) was a French clergyman, noble, and statesman. His full name was Armand Jean du Plessis. He was later created the Duke of Richelieu and duke of Fronsac.

In order to keep the diocese of Luçon, Armand Jean needed to become a monk. He joined the Grande Chartreuse, the main monastery of the Carthusian order. This monastery is in the Isère département, near Grenoble. As a comparison, Luçon is near La Roche-sur-Yon.

He was consecrated as a bishop in 1607. For this he obtained a dispensation of the pope; at age 21, he was too young to become a bishop.  He later entered politics and became a Secretary of State in 1616. Richelieu soon rose in both the Church and the state. He became a cardinal in 1622. He became King Louis XIII's chief minister in 1624. He remained in office until his death in 1642; then Jules Cardinal Mazarin became chief minister.

The Cardinal de Richelieu was often known by the title of the King's "Chief Minister". As a result, he is sometimes said to be the world's first Prime Minister. He sought to consolidate royal power and crush domestic factions. By restraining the power of the nobility, he transformed France into a strongly centralized state. His chief foreign policy objective was to check the power of the Austro-Spanish Habsburg dynasty; although a Roman Catholic cardinal, he did not hesitate to make alliances with Protestant rulers. With these alliances, he tried to achieve this goal. His tenure was marked by the Thirty Years' War that engulfed Europe.

As an advocate for Samuel de Champlain and of the keeping of Quebec, he founded the Compagnie des Cent-Associés and saw the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye return Quebec to French rule under de Champlain, after the settlement had been captured by the Kirkes in 1629. This in part allowed the colony to eventually develop into the heartland of French-speaking culture in North America.

Richelieu was also famous for his patronage of the arts; most notably, he founded the Académie française, the learned society responsible for matters of the French language. Richelieu is also known by the sobriquet l'Éminence rouge ("the Red Eminence"), from the red shade of a cardinal's vestments and the style "eminence" as a cardinal.

1585 births
1642 deaths
French cardinals
French nobility
Politicians from Paris
Dukes and duchesses of France
17th-century French people
Belaying

Belaying is a way to hold and control a rope for a person who is rock climbing. A climber has to be attached to a rope so they do not fall very far. A person on the ground who is belaying is called a belayer.

The belayer usually puts the rope through a belay device, which lets the rope move through the device in one direction (as the climber being belayed goes up). If the climber falls, the device lets the belayer also hold the rope still, so the climber hangs in the air but does not hit the ground. 

A belayer can hold the weight of the climber with the rope and help prevent an injury caused by a fall.

Reference 

Rock climbing
Ropework
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills

Part of the AFI 100 Years... series, AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills is a list of the top 100 thrilling movies in American cinema. The American Film Institute presented it on June 12, 2001.

# Psycho (1960)
# Jaws (1975)
# The Exorcist (1973)
# North by Northwest (1959)
# The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
# Alien (1979)
# The Birds (1963)
# The French Connection (1971)
# Rosemary's Baby (1968)
# Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
# The Godfather (1972)
# King Kong (1933)
# Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
# Rear Window (1954)
# Deliverance (1972)
# Chinatown (1974)
# The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
# Vertigo (1958)
# The Great Escape (1963)
# High Noon (1952)
# A Clockwork Orange (1971)
# Taxi Driver (1976)
# Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
# Double Indemnity (1944)
# Titanic (1997)
# The Maltese Falcon (1941)
# Star Wars (1977)
# Fatal Attraction (1987)
# The Shining (1980)
# The Deer Hunter (1978)
# Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
# Strangers on a Train (1951)
# The Fugitive (1993)
# The Night of the Hunter (1955)
# Jurassic Park (1993)
# Bullitt (1968)
# Casablanca (1942)
# Notorious (1946)
# Die Hard (1988)
# 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
# Dirty Harry (1971)
# The Terminator (1984)
# The Wizard of Oz (1939)
# E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
# Saving Private Ryan (1998)
# Carrie (1976)
# Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
# Dial M for Murder (1954)
# Ben-Hur (1959)
# Marathon Man (1976)
# Raging Bull (1980)
# Rocky (1976)
# Pulp Fiction (1994)
# Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
# Wait Until Dark (1967)
# Frankenstein (1931)
# All the President's Men (1976)
# The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
# Planet of the Apes (1968)
# The Sixth Sense (1999)
# Cape Fear (1962)
# Spartacus (1960)
# What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
# Touch of Evil (1958)
# The Dirty Dozen (1967)
# The Matrix (1999)
# The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
# Halloween (1979)
# The Wild Bunch (1969)
# Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
# Goldfinger (1964)
# Platoon (1986)
# Laura (1944)
# Blade Runner (1982)
# The Third Man (1949)
# Thelma and Louise (1991)
# Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
# Gaslight (1944)
# The Magnificent Seven (1960)
# Rebecca (1940)
# The Omen (1976)
# The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
# The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
# Poltergeist (1982)
# Dracula (1931)
# The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
# The Thing from Another World (1951)
# 12 Angry Men (1957)
# The Guns of Navarone (1961)
# The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
# Braveheart (1995)
# Body Heat (1981)
# Night of the Living Dead (1968)
# The China Syndrome (1979)
# Full Metal Jacket (1987)
# Blue Velvet (1986)
# Safety Last (1923)
# Blood Simple (1984)
# Speed (1994)
# The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Lists of movies
American Film Institute
South Vietnam

South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam was a country that existed from 1955 to 1975. It occupied in the southern of what is now Southern Vietnam. The country was south of the local Demilitarized Zone.

History
South Vietnam established on 26 October, 1955 after the 1955 Referendum. It was first ruled by Ngo Dinh Diem until 1963. After the 1963 coup, South Vietnam was run by a military government. It lasted until 1967. From 1967, On 1 April, 1967, the Second Republic was established. This Second Republic lasted until the Fall of Saigon when the president Duong Van Minh surrendered to Viet Cong. South Vietnam ceased to exist on 30 April, 1975. This day is also known as Black April to Vietnamese anti-communists.

Related pages
State of Vietnam

References

Notes

1955 establishments in Asia
1976 disestablishments in Asia
20th century in Vietnam
Former countries in Southeast Asia
Former dictatorships
States and territories established in the 20th century
States and territories disestablished in the 20th century
Robert Ludlum

Robert Ludlum (May 25 1927 - March 12 2001) was an American writer. He is best known as the author of The Bourne Identity from 1980, which was made into a movie in 2001.

Other websites 
 Official website of Robert Ludlum 
 

1927 births
2001 deaths
Writers from New York City
1170s

The 1170s was a decade that started on 1 January 1170 and ended on 31 December 1179.

Events and trends 
 1170 – Assassination of Thomas à Becket
 1171 – Saladin ends the Islamic ruling of Fatimid, bringing back Sunni rule in Egypt.
 1179 – Third Council of the Lateran condemns Waldensians and Cathars as heretics (people who turn away from certain religious beliefs); reformation of clerical life

Significant people
Arab people

The Arabs ( ʻarab) are an ethnic group widespread in the Middle East and North Africa. Arabic is one of the Semitic languages, which is also the name of the ethnic family which they belong to. Genealogically, Arabs are those who can trace their ancestry back to the people who first lived on the Arabian Peninsula.

Who is an Arab 
There are three points which decide whether someone is considered Arab or not:
 Political: whether they live in a country which is a member of the Arab League (or the Arab world); this definition covers more than 450 million people.
 Linguistic: whether their main language is Arabic; this definition covers more than 423 million people.
 Genealogical: whether they can trace their ancestry back to the people who first lived on the Arabian Peninsula.

Minorities are the Iraqi Turkmens in some Arab countries. The Iraqi Turkmen people are often considered Arab, but they are an Turkic people ethnic group with their own language and culture. The same goes for Berbers (Amazigh) and Bedouins.

There are many people who can be called Arabs by these points, but who do not think of themselves as Arab.  Examples include modern Egyptians (Coptics) and the Syriacs (Aramaics/Assyrians). Although they live in countries like Syria or Egypt which is part of the Arab League and speak the official language-Arabic, they are different cultural groups. They have their own languages, culture, identity and churches, such as the Coptic Church and the Syriac Catholic and Orthodox churches. Even though many have assimilated to Arab society, they have their own heritage that spans 3,000 years.

Traditional genealogy 
In Islamic and Jewish tradition, Arabs are a Semitic people from the Ishmaelites, who trace their ancestry from Ishmael, a son of the ancient patriarch Abraham and Hagar and of the sons from Abhraham and his wife Keturah. Medieval Arab genealogists separate the Arabs into two groups: the "original Arabs" (Bedouin) of South Arabia, descending from Qahtan (identified with the biblical Joktan) and the "Arabized Arabs" (musta`ribah) of North Arabia (The Levant), descending from Adnan who is descended from Ishmael.

Religion
Most Arabs today follow the religion of Islam, whose central prophet is Muhammad. Christianity makes up the largest religious minority - most of the Christians that do consider themselves Arabs belong to the Greek Orthodox Church with smaller numbers of Roman Catholics.

While Coptic and Maronite Catholic Christians are native Arabic-speakers, many reject the Arab pan-ethnicity, but are still considered Arab by outsider sources.

There are some small communities practicing Judaism and polytheism (the worship of many gods).

References

Other websites 
 A is for Arabs: What the world owes Arabs and Muslims 
 Maps of the Arab World 
 News from Arabic countries
 Business news from Arab countries
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Ancient history
Mebibyte

A mebibyte is a unit of measure. It represents 1024 * 1024 bytes. 

A mebibyte (a contraction of mega binary byte) is a unit of information or computer data storage, symbol MiB.

1 MiB = 220 bytes = 1,048,576 bytes = 1,024 kibibytes

The mebibyte is closely related to the megabyte (MB). Megabyte can either be a synonym for mebibyte, or refer to 106 bytes = 1,000,000 bytes, depending on context (see binary prefix for background). The two numbers are relatively close together, but mistaking the two has nevertheless led to problems. 

The unit MiB was defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in December 1998.  Use of mebibyte and related units is strongly endorsed by IEEE and CIPM and is becoming more common.

One mebibyte equals 1024 (= 210) kibibytes, and 1024 mebibytes equal one gibibyte.

Mibibyte is a common misspelling, presumably from the "i" in the abbreviation or confusion about how the surrounding prefixes (i.e., "kibi" and "gibi") were actually formed.  The "i" is actually from the end of the prefix.  Tebi- and pebi- are similarly abbreviated Ti- and Pi-, but they are not usually misspelled.

Related pages
Megabyte
Kibibyte
Gibibyte
Tebibyte

Other websites 
NIST Prefixes for binary multiples

Units of information
Clergy

Clergy are people who have an office in a Christian church or other religion such as a rabbi or a priest. Clergy are often ordained before they are allowed to do their work.

Related pages 
 Clergyman
 Muslim clergy
 Rabbi
 Priest

Religious workers
Acre (state)

Acre is a state in the Northern Region of Brazil. It borders other two states, Amazonas and Rondônia. It also borders two countries, Bolivia and Peru. Its capital city is Rio Branco. Other important cities are: Cruzeiro do Sul, Tarauacá, Sena Madureira, and Brasiléia.

The state is mostly covered by the Amazon Rainforest. There are many rivers in Acre. Some of the rivers are the Juruá, Purus River, Acre River, Tarauacá, Muru, Embirá, and Xapuri.

The economy is based on agriculture, cattle animal husbandry, and rubber production.

Until the start of the 20th century, Acre was a territory of Bolivia. Since the 19th century, most people from Acre were Brazilian people, and they created an independent state.

In 1889, the Bolivians tried to control the area again and there were fights.

On November 17, 1903, Acre become a Brazilian territory. On June 15, 1962, it was unified and became a state.

References
Roller coaster

The roller coaster (some people say the simple form coaster) is a kind of theme park ride. A roller coaster is usually a small train. It has a number of carriages that travel on a track. This track has hills that go up and valleys that go down. Sometimes it has other features that will turn the train upside-down. The track can be made from wood or steel. Some roller coasters are made for children, so they do not travel very fast. Other roller coasters are made very tall and they travel very fast. Riders are generally held in place with a bar, a belt, or something similar.

Scientifically, a roller coaster works because of gravity, a force that pulls things down to the ground. Most roller coaster trains are pulled to the top of a hill on a chain. The train will slide down the track, which has a number of hills and valleys. As it slides downhill it goes faster, and it slows down when climbing.

History 
In the United States, LaMarcus Adna Thompson patented the first roller coaster on January 20, 1865. He named his ride the "Switchback Railway," and workers pulled the carriage to the top of the track. The first modern steel roller coaster was the Matterhorn Bobsleds at Disneyland. It opened in 1959.

Types of roller coasters 
Roller coaster rails are made of wood or steel.

Steel roller coasters can be separated into many more types. On a Wing Coaster riders sit on either side of a roller coaster track and nothing is above or below the riders.

On a flying roller coaster riders lie face down so they feel like they are flying. Cars hang below the track.
On a Floorless Coaster riders sit with no floor underneath them, so their feet can swing freely just above the track. 

Some roller coasters spin riders.

Both steel and wooden roller coasters can turn riders upside down.  This is called an inversion. 

Son of Beast was the only wooden roller coaster to have an inversion.  However the loop was removed after an incident and after another incident, the ride was torn down.  In 2013, Hades 360 and Outlaw Run have inversions.  The Smiler has the world record for the most inversions.

Famous roller coasters

References

 Fuji-Q Highland'
 Nagashima Spa Land

Other websites
 Coasterpedia, the Roller Coaster Wiki
Zimbabwean dollar

The Zimbabwe dollar was a currency for Zimbabwe from 1980 to 2009. Zimbabwe had the highest rate of inflation in the world. The rate of inflation grew to 231,150,888.87% in July 2008.

Because of hyperinflation, or inflation that is out of control, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe had to print banknotes with higher values to cope with the rising cost of living. In January 2009, Zimbabwe released a banknote for one hundred trillion dollars, or $100,000,000,000,000.

The Zimbabwe dollar had to be revalued three times due to the rising cost of living: in August 2006, August 2008 and February 2009. In August 2006, the first revaluation dollar was violent and too quick, meaning that many people lost their savings because they were unable to convert it into the new currency without fear of violence and corruption.

Since 12 April 2009, Zimbabwe stopped using the Zimbabwean dollar and adopted currencies from other countries, such as the United States Dollar and the Euro.

References
Notes

Sources

Zimbabwe
Former currencies
Body modification

Body modification (or body alteration) is when a person changes their body in a way that lasts forever or for a long time. There are many different kinds of body modification, like piercing, circumcision, or tattoos. Almost all cultures do some kind of body modification.

Arguments
People who do not like body modification sometimes call it "disfigurement" or "mutilation." They believe that if someone changes their body, it is wrong and they are doing something dangerous or unethical.

Why people do body modification
Body modification is done for different reasons. Religions might tell people that they should change their bodies to look a certain way. Other people with body modifications might just like the way the body modifications look, or how they feel good during sex.

Kinds of body modification

Common body modification

 Body piercing is when a hole is made through the skin, and a piece of jewelry is put into the hole. Some piercings can be stretched so they fit larger, thicker kinds of jewelry.
 Tattooing is when ink is put under the skin to make a picture. Whole body tatooing and tattooing of the lips and eyes would be thought extreme by some.
 Scarification is when part of the skin is removed to create a scar.
 Branding is when the skin is burned to create a scar.

"Extreme" body modification
 Tongue splitting is when a person's tongue is split in two like a snake's.
 Subdermal implant is when a small object is placed right underneath a person's skin.
 Transdermal implant is when a small object is placed underneath a person's skin, but part of it pokes out of the skin and is visible.
 Extra ocular implant (eye jewellery) is when a tiny chip of metal is placed in someone's eye.

Other body modification
 Amputation is when a body part is cut off.

References 

Body art
Surgery
Skin
Serial killer

A serial killer is someone who murders several people at different times (similar killers of more than one person are mass murderers and spree killers). The victims are usually people the serial killer does not know, and the killer commits his crimes to get a certain kind of excitement or other feeling. They usually have no practical motive such as robbery or revenge.

Serial killer first became a commonly used phrase for this kind of killer in the 1970s. This was the result of the crimes of people like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy. Jack the Ripper is thought by many to be one of the first serial killers that many people knew about, even though his victims were killed long before the phrase was invented.

A serial killer's crimes are nearly always alike in some way. The killer may only attack a certain type of person, for instance women of a certain age or appearance (young or old, blonde or dark-haired). He may always use the same kind of weapon to kill his victims, or may treat them in a certain manner, such as tying them up with the same kind of rope or adhesive tape. Some serial killers have had very strange habits which leave evidence of their work at each crime; for instance Albert de Salvo, the Boston Strangler, would tie the cord with which he had strangled a woman around her neck in a special bow. To law enforcement officers a serial killer's habits are known as his signature, and they are always valuable leads in detecting who he is and capturing him.

Some of the worst serial killers have been doctors. Harold Shipman, a British general practitioner, is thought to have killed up to 250 of his patients. John Bodkin Adams, also British, is thought to have killed 163 patients. Burke and Hare, the 'resurrectionists', killed to sell bodies to a doctor, Robert Knox.

References
World Wide Fund for Nature

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

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

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

References 

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

Deforestation is when forests are destroyed by cutting trees (logging) and not replanting them.  The most common reason is to clear the land to make farms and ranches.  They also cut trees for firewood and lumber and to make room for cities.  Deforestation destroys the habitat of many animals, leading to their death.  The loss is more severe in so called primary forests, which are forests that have yet been untouched by humans.  Deforestation also releases sequestered carbon.

Restoring trees in deforested places is called reforesting.

Causes of deforestation 

Land has other uses besides growing trees.  The biggest uses of land that was once forested are for farming and ranching.  Some land is also used for roads and buildings, especially in urban area. As the population grows, people need to remove more trees.  They also use the wood from the trees as lumber to make buildings and other things, or they burn the trees as firewood.

Forests do these things: 
 regulates the water cycle to some extent
 produces soil, and prevents soil erosion
 provides habitats for animals
 provides some of our oxygen (more is produced in the sea).
 regulates temperature to some extent 

Forests are often planted to protect against natural disasters.  When forests are lost, very often the soil they protected is also lost. This loss of soil is called erosion.

Trees are also important for carbon sequestration.  When the trees burn or rot, the carbon in them returns to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide. Since carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, deforestation causes global warming.  Tropical deforestation is responsible for about 20% of world greenhouse gas emissions. Deforestation continues.

References

Related pages
Desertification
Illegal logging
Reforesting

Other websites
APP & APRIL announces end to deforestation in Indonesia

Forests
Environmental issues
Capillary

A capillary is a blood vessel. It does not have the muscular/elastic tissue of other blood vessels. It has a single celled wall to help substances be transported through organisms.
Capillaries are small, and smaller than any other blood vessels. They are about 5-10 μms big, connect arteries and venules, and enable the moving of water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, as well as many other nutrients and waste chemicals  between blood and surrounding tissues.

Anatomy 
Blood moves from the heart to arteries, which branch and narrow into smaller arteries, and then branch more into capillaries. After oxygen has been moved to the tissue, capillaries join and widen to become small veins and then widen more to become veins, which return blood to the heart.

The "capillary bed" is the network of capillaries supplying an organ. The more metabolically active the cells, the more capillaries it will require to supply nutrients and carry away waste products. 

Special arteries connect between arterioles and venules and are important in bypassing the flow of blood through the capillaries. True capillaries come from mainly from metarterioles and provide movement between cells and the circulation. The width of 8 μm forces the red blood cells to partly fold into bullet-like shapes in order to bypass them in single file.

Precapillary muscles are rings of smooth muscles at the start of true capillaries that handle blood flow into true capillaries and control blood flow through a body part or area.

Physiology 

The capillary wall is a one-layer tissue so thin that gas and other items such as oxygen, water, proteins and fats can pass through them driven by pressure differences. Waste items such as carbon dioxide and urea can move back into the blood to be carried away for removal from the body. 

The capillary bed usually moves no more than 25% of the amount of blood it could contain, although this amount can be increased through auto regulation by making the smooth muscle relax in the arterioles that lead to the capillary bed as well as metarterioles making themselves smaller.

The capillaries do not have this smooth muscle in their own wall, and so any change in their width is passive.  Any signaling molecules they release (such as endothelin for constriction and nitric oxide for dilation) act on the smooth muscle cells in the walls of nearby, larger vessels, e.g. arterioles.

Capillary's ability to move items can be increased by the release of certain cytokines, such as in an the body defending itself from germs.

Related pages
Alveolar-capillary barrier
Blood brain barrier
Capillary action
Hagen-Poiseuille equation

References

Other websites 
 

Blood vessels
Viriato Clemente da Cruz

Viriato Clemente da Cruz, an Angolan poet and politician, was born in 1928 in Kikuvo (Porto Amboim), Angola and died in Beijing, China on 13 June 1973.

He is considered one of the most important Angolan poets of his time. He wrote poems in Portuguese and Angolan languages. He took part in the fight to free Angola from Portuguese rulers.

Political work
He was educated in Luanda, the capital of Angola, which was then ruled by Portugal. As a young man in 1957 he went to Paris, where he met Mario Pinto de Andrade, another Angolan poet and politician, who helped with his political ideas. In the 1960s they helped create the group called the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA—from the Portuguese name ).

The MPLA was in not in Angola at this time, but was first in Conakry (the capital of Guinea) and then later in Leopoldville, Congo (now Kinshasa the capital of the DRC). Viriato da Cruz became secretary-general of the MPLA. After some time he and others, did not agree with some people in the group and this led to fighting in the streets of Leopoldville.

Exiled in China
Viriato da Cruz went to Beijing, China in the 1960s because of the fighting in the MPLA. At first, the Chinese government welcomed him. He was well known because he had helped create the MPLA. The Chinese wanted Viriato da Cruz to help them bring Maoist socialism to Africa.

This was a big problem for Viriato and his family. His ideas were not the same as the Maoists. He thought that stronger countries can not bring a socialist revolution to other places. He was very brave and did not change his ideas. This was against the Chinese Maoist idea of world revolution.

Viriato da Cruz wanted to leave China and return to Africa, but the Chinese government would not let him go and they were not good to him. This may be because he could have made trouble for their work in Africa.

Last years of life
The last years of the life of Viriato da Cruz were unhappy and difficult. He was weak, without much food, and he died on 13 Jun 1973. His dead body was taken away in a military vehicle and his burial was without any ceremony.

Some Angolan people think that this was shocking, because Viriato da Cruz worked hard for Angola and was one of the leaders of the liberation from Portugal.

Principal books
Poems (1961). Among these poems, Namoro, Sô Santo and Makézu are well-known.

1928 births
1973 deaths
Poets
Angolan politicians