alibayram/wikipedia-40-langs huggingface dataset:
A

A or a is the first letter of the English alphabet. The small letter, a or α, is used as a lower case vowel.  

When it is spoken,  ā is said as a long a, a diphthong of ĕ and y. A is similar to Alphabet of the Greek alphabet. That is not surprising, because it means  the same sound. 

"Alpha and Omega" (the last letter of the Greek alphabet) means from beginning to the end. In musical notation, the letter A is the symbol of a note in the scale, below B and above G.

A is the letter that was used to represent a team in an old TV show, The A-Team. A capital a is written "A". Use a capital A at the start of a sentence if writing.

A is also a musical note, sometimes referred to as "La".

Where it came from
The letter 'A' was in the Phoenician alphabet's aleph. This symbol came from a simple picture of an ox head. 

This Phoenician letter helped make the basic blocks of later types of the letter. The Greeks later modified this letter and used it as their letter alpha. The Greek alphabet was used by the Etruscans in northern Italy, and the Romans later modified the Etruscan alphabet for their own language.

Using the letter
The letter A has six different sounds. It can sound like æ, in the International Phonetic Alphabet, such as the word pad. Other sounds of this letter are in the words father, which developed into another sound, such as in the word ace.

Use in mathematics
In algebra, the letter "A" along with other letters at the beginning of the alphabet is used to represent known quantities.

In geometry, capital A, B, C etc. are used to label line segments, lines, etc. Also, A is typically used as one of the letters to label an angle in a triangle.

Its letter shape is referred to abstractly in Sir William Vallance Douglas Hodge's 5th postulate, the basis for, as one of the Millennium Prize Problems, the Hodge Conjecture.

References

Basic English 850 words
Vowel letters
Air

Air is the Earth's atmosphere. Air is a mixture of many gases and tiny dust particles. It is the clear gas in which living things live and breathe. It has an indefinite shape and volume. It has mass and weight, because it is matter. The weight of air creates atmospheric pressure. There is no air in outer space.

Atmosphere is a mixture of about 78% nitrogen, 21% of oxygen, and 1% other gases, such as Carbon Dioxide.

Animals live and need to breathe the oxygen in the atmosphere. In breathing, the lungs put oxygen into the blood, and send back carbon dioxide to the air. Plants need the carbon dioxide in the air to live. They give off the oxygen that we breathe. Without it we die of asphyxia.

Air can be polluted by some gases (such as carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides), smoke, and ash. This air pollution causes various problems including smog, acid rain and global warming. It can damage people's health and the environment. There are debates about whether or not to act upon climate change, but soon enough the Earth will heat up to much, causing our home to become too hot and not support life! Some say fewer people would die of cold weather, and that is true but there is already a huge amount of people dying from heat and that number is and will keep increasing at a frighting height.

Since early times, air has been used to create technology. Ships moved with sails and windmills used the mechanical motion of air. Aircraft use propellers to move air over a wing, which allows them to fly. Pneumatics use air pressure to move things. Since the late 1900s, air power is also used to generate electricity.

Air is invisible: it cannot be seen by the eye, though a shimmering in hot air can be seen.

Air is one of the 4 classical elements.

Main history

Original atmosphere 
At first it was mainly a hydrogen atmosphere. It has changed dramatically on several occasions—for example, the Great Oxygenation Event 2.4 billion years ago, greatly increased oxygen in the atmosphere from practically no oxygen to levels closer to present day. Humans have also contributed to significant changes in atmospheric composition through air pollution, especially since industrialisation, leading to rapid environmental change such as ozone depletion and global warming.

Second atmosphere 
Outgassing from volcanism, supplemented by gases produced during the late heavy bombardment of Earth by huge asteroids, produced the next atmosphere, consisting largely of nitrogen plus carbon dioxide and inert gases.

Third atmosphere 

The constant re-arrangement of continents by plate tectonics influences the long-term evolution of the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide was transferred to and from large continental carbonate stores. Free oxygen did not exist in the atmosphere until about 2.4 billion years ago. The Great Oxygenation Event is shown by the end of the banded iron formations.

Related pages 
 Air pollution
 Air craft

References 

Basic English 850 words
Atmosphere
Arithmetic

In mathematics, arithmetic is the basic study of numbers. The four basic arithmetic operations are addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, although other operations such as exponentiation and roots are also studied in arithmetic.

Other arithmetic topics includes working with negative numbers, fractions, decimals and percentages.

Most people learn arithmetic in primary school, but some people do not learn arithmetic and others forget the arithmetic they learned. Many jobs require a knowledge of arithmetic, and many employers complain that it is hard to find people who know enough arithmetic. A few of the many jobs that require arithmetic include carpenters, plumbers, mechanics, accountants, architects, doctors, and nurses. Arithmetic is needed in all areas of mathematics, science, and engineering.

Some arithmetic can be carried out mentally. A calculator can also be used to perform arithmetic. Computers can do it more quickly, which is one reason Global Positioning System receivers have a small computer inside.

Examples of arithmetic 
  (addition is commutative:  is the same as )
  (subtraction is not commutative:  is different from )
  (multiplication is commutative:  is the same as )
  (division is not commutative:  is different from

Related pages
 Affine arithmetic
 Elementary algebra
 Interval arithmetic
 Modular arithmetic

References 

Arithmetics
Ad hominem

Ad hominem is a Latin word for a type of argument. It is a word often used in rhetoric. Rhetoric is the science of speaking well, and convincing other people of your ideas.

Translated to English, ad hominem means against the person. In other words, when someone makes an ad hominem, they are attacking the person they are arguing against, instead of what they are saying.

The term comes from the Latin word homo, which means human. Hominem is a gender neutral version of the word homo. In ancient Rome it referred to all free men, or in other words, all free human beings.

Ad hominem can be a way to use reputation, rumors and hearsay to change the minds of other people listening. When a social network has already excluded or exiled one person, or applied a negative label to them, this can work more often.

It is most of the time considered to be a weak and poor argument. In courts and in diplomacy ad hominems are not appreciated.

Ad hominems are not wrong every time. For example, when people think that someone can't be trusted, things that they have said previously can be doubted.

What an ad hominem argument looks like 
In logic, a proof is something that starts with premises, and goes through a few logical arguments, to reach a conclusion.

Normal (valid) proof 
 All humans are mortal.
 Socrates is human.
 Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Ad hominem example 
 Person A thinks abortion should be illegal.
 Person A is uneducated and poor.
 Therefore, abortion should not be illegal.

In this example it can be seen that the (completely unrelated) fact that person A is uneducated and poor is used to prove that abortion should not be illegal.

Related pages
 Fallacy for a list of other types of (false) rhetorical arguments.

	

Latin words used in English
Abrahamic religions

An Abrahamic Religion is a religion whose followers believe in the prophet Abraham. They believe Abraham and his sons/grandsons hold an important role in human spiritual development. The best known Abrahamic religions are Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Smaller religious traditions sometimes included as Abrahamic religions are Samaritanism, Druze, Rastafari, Babism and Bahá'í Faith. Mandaeism (a religion that holds many Abrahamic beliefs) is not called Abrahamic because its followers think Abraham was a false prophet

True Abrahamic religions are monotheistic (the belief that there is only one God). They also all believe that people should pray to God and worship God often. Among monotheistic religions, the Abrahamic religions have the world's largest number of followers.

Religions 

 
Mythology
Anatomy

Anatomy is the study of the bodies of people and other animals. Anatomy is the study of the inside of the body and outside the body. Anatomy notes the position and structure of organs such as muscles, glands and bones. A person who studies anatomy is an anatomist. 

The history of anatomy dates back to 1600 BC when Egyptians began studying human anatomy. They discovered the functions of many organs like the liver, spleen, kidneys, heart etc. and were the first to discover the structure and functions of the lymphatic system.

For long periods the dissection of deceased people was forbidden, and correct ideas about human anatomy was a long time coming.

Academic human anatomists are usually employed by universities, medical schools and teaching hospitals. They are often involved in teaching and research.  Gross anatomy studies parts of the body that are big enough to see. Micro-anatomy studies smaller parts.

Body systems 
There are different organ systems, such as the cardiovascular system, also known as the circulatory system (the system that gets blood around the body), the muscular system (the system that contains muscles), the nervous system (the system that controls the nerves,and the brain) and the skeleton (the bones).

Anatomy, physiology and biochemistry are similar basic medical sciences.

Related pages
 Anatomical terms of location
 Medicine
 Zoology
 Comparative anatomy
 Organ (anatomy)
 Gray's Anatomy
 Vesalius
 William Harvey

References
Asteroid

An asteroid is a minor planet that orbits within the inner solar system. It is a small object in the Solar System that travels around the Sun. It is like a planet but smaller. They range from very small (smaller than a car) to 600 miles (1000 km) across. A few asteroids have asteroid moon.

The name "asteroid" means "like a star" in the ancient Greek language. Asteroids may look like small stars in the sky, but they really do move around the Sun. Like planets, asteroids do not make their own light. Because of this, some people think "asteroids" is not a good name, and think that the name "planetoid" ("like a planet") would be a better name.

Giuseppe Piazzi found the first asteroid, in 1801. He called it Ceres, and it is the biggest object in the asteroid belt. Others, like Juno, Pallas, and Vesta were found later. In the 1850s, so many had been found that they were numbered by a Minor planet designation starting with 1 Ceres. Today, astronomers using computerized telescopes find thousands of asteroids every month. Asteroid impact prediction is one of their purposes.  

Asteroids are the leftover rock and other material from the formation of the Solar System. These rocks were too small to come together to make a planet. Some are made of carbon or metal. Depending on what's on the surface, they are classified into various asteroid spectral types including Type M (metal), Type S (stone), and Type C (carbon).

Most asteroids in our Solar System are in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Many are not in the main asteroid belt. The ones that come close to Earth are called Near-Earth asteroids. Some scientists think asteroids striking the Earth killed off all the dinosaurs and caused some of the other extinction events.

References
Angola

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country in southern Africa. It shares borders with Namibia in the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the north, and Zambia in the east. Its west border touches the Atlantic Ocean. Its coastline is 1600 kilometers. Angola's capital is Luanda. The country has many natural resources. Angola is the seventh largest country in Africa. The capital and most populated city of Angola is Luanda.

Angola is a member state of the African Union, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, the Latin Union, South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone and the Southern African Development Community.

History 
Portugal built up its power in Angola from the late 15th to the middle 20th century.

After independence there was a civil war from 1975 to 2002. Cuba and the Soviet Bloc supported the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). South Africa supported the insurgent National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) until the end of apartheid. The war ended after the rebel leader Jonas Savimbi was killed.

Geography
Angola is the world's twenty-third largest country. Angola is bordered by Namibia to the south, Zambia to the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north-east, the Republic of the Congo via the exclave of Cabinda, and the South Atlantic Ocean to the west.

Climate
Angola's average temperature on the coast is  in the winter and  in the summer. It has two seasons; dry (May to October) and hot rainy (November to April).

Demographics

Angola had a population of 25,789,024 in 2014.

Provinces

Angola is divided into eighteen provinces.

See List of settlements in Angola for the cities and towns in the country.

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

References

Other websites
 
 

 
Portuguese-speaking countries
Least developed countries
1975 establishments in Africa
Armenia

Armenia (Armenian: Հայաստան,  Hayastan), officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country located in the Armenian Highlands, spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia.

History
The Hittites and Hayasa-Azzi may have played a significant role in the ethnicity of Armenians. It has an ancient cultural heritage. One of the earliest Armenian kingdoms such as Urartu was established in 860 BC and by the 6th century BC it was replaced by the Satrapy of Armenia. The Kingdom of Armenia reached its height under Tigranes the Great in the 1st century BC and became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion in the late 3rd or early 4th century AD. The official date of state adoption of Christianity is 301.

Foreign invasion
Between the 16th century and 19th century, the traditional Armenian homeland composed of Eastern Armenia and Western Armenia came under the rule of the Ottoman and Iranian empires, repeatedly ruled by either of the two over the centuries. By the 19th century, Eastern Armenia had been conquered by the Russian Empire, while most of the western parts of the traditional Armenian homeland remained under Ottoman rule.

20th century
During World War I, Armenians living in their ancestral lands in the Ottoman Empire were systematically 
exterminated in the Armenian Genocide, perpetrated by Ottoman Young Turks. Around 1.5 million people were slaughtered and many more deported. In 1918, following the Russian Revolution, all non-Russian countries declared their independence after the Russian Empire ceased to exist, leading to the establishment of the First Republic of Armenia. By 1920, the state was incorporated into the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, and in 1922 became a founding member of the Soviet Union. In 1936, the Transcaucasian state was dissolved, transforming its constituent states, including the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, into full Union republics. The modern Republic of Armenia became independent in 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

21st century

Administrative divisions
Armenia is divided into ten provinces, with the city of Yerevan having special administrative status as the country's capital. The chief executive in each of the ten provinces is the marzpet (marz governor), appointed by the government of Armenia. In Yerevan, the chief executive is the mayor, appointed by the president.

, Armenia includes 915 communities, of which 49 are considered urban and 866 are considered rural.

† 2011 censusSources: Area and population of provinces.

Culture
Armenia is a Christian majority country, with European and some wider Eurasian cultural influences. The Republic of Armenia recognises the Armenian Apostolic Church, the world's oldest national church, as the country's primary religious establishment. The unique Armenian alphabet was invented by Mesrop Mashtots in 405 AD.

Armenia is a member of the Council of Europe, the Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Armenia supports the de facto independent Republic of Artsakh, which was proclaimed in 1991.

Gallery

References

Notes 

Armenia
Caucasus
Application

The word application has several uses.

In medicine, 'application' means putting some drug or ointment usually on the skin where it is absorbed into the human body.

In computer software, an application is a type of program which is designed for a particular function. Example: word processing.  It is most used to mean a Mobile app.
 
In business or government, an application is a (usually paper) form filled out and handed in by a person seeking a privilege from a state or company, such as work, credit, some type of license or permit, or a place to live.

At work, generally engineering, when dealing with certain materials or objects, an "application" is a purpose that material or object can be used for. Wood and steel have many applications.
Animal

Animals (or Metazoa) are living creatures with many cells. Animals get their energy from other living things. Usually, they eat them or are parasites. Animals, plants, fungi, and some other living things have complex cells, so they are grouped together as eukaryotes.

The study of animals is called zoology. The study of ancient life is called palaeontology.

Most animals are mobile, meaning they can move around. Animals take in oxygen, and give out carbon dioxide. This cellular respiration is part of their metabolism (chemical working). In both these ways they are different from plants. Also, the cells of animals have different cell membranes to other eukaryotes like plants and fungi. 

Plants are also multicellular eukaryotic organisms, but live by using light, water and basic elements to make their tissues.

Grouping animals
There are many different types of animals. The common animals most people know are only about 3% of the animal kingdom. When biologists look at animals, they find things that certain animals have in common. They use this to group the animals in a biological classification. Several million species may exist, but biologists have only identified about one million.

Animals can mainly be divided into two main groups: the invertebrates and the vertebrates. Vertebrates have a backbone, or spine; invertebrates do not. Vertebrates are the only group to have an adaptive immune system, which may be partly responsible for their size and success.

Vertebrates are:
Fish (or 'fishes': both ways are correct)
Amphibia
Reptiles
Birds
Mammals

Some invertebrates are:
Insects
Spiders
Crustacea
Molluscs (like a snail or squid)
worms
jellyfish

Life styles
The animal mode of nutrition is called heterotrophic because they get their food from other living organisms. Some animals eat only plants; they are called herbivores. Other animals eat only meat and are called carnivores. Animals that eat both plants and meat are called omnivores. Some animals get their energy from photosynthetic protists that live inside them. 

The environments animals live in vary greatly. By the process of evolution, animals adapt to the habitats they live in. A fish is adapted to its life in water and a spider is adapted to a life catching and eating insects. A mammal living on the savannahs of East Africa lives quite a different life from a dolphin or porpoise catching fish in the sea.

The fossil record of animals goes back about 600 million years to the Ediacaran period, or somewhat earlier. During the whole of this long time, animals have been constantly evolving, so that the animals alive on Earth today are very different from those on the edges of the sea-floor in the Ediacaran.

Everyday language 
In scientific usage, humans are animals. But in everyday use, humans are often not regarded as animals.

Related pages
 List of animal phyla
Ethology, the study of animal behaviour

References

 
Basic English 850 words
Black pudding

Black pudding is an English name for zwarte pudding.  It is food made by cooking down the blood of any mammal (usually pigs or cattle) with meat, fat or filler until it is thick enough to congeal (become firm or solid) when cooled.

Types of black pudding

In Great Britain, blood sausage is called  "black pudding". The ingredients include pig's blood, suet, bread, barley and oatmeal.  Bury is well known for them.  The most common kind of German Blutwurst is made from fatty pork meat, beef blood and filler such as barley. Though already cooked and "ready to eat" it is usually served warm.

Other kinds of blood sausage include boudin noir (France), boudin rouge (Creole and Cajun) and morcilla (Spain).

History
A legend says that blood sausage was invented in a bet between two Bavarian butchers drunk on the alcoholic drink absinthe during the 14th century. Homer's Odyssey from Ancient Greece says that "As when a man besides a great fire has filled a sausage with fat and blood and turns it this way and that and is very eager to get it quickly roasted...".

Related pages
Sausage

References

Sausage
Boot

A boot is a type of footwear that protects the foot and ankle. Boots are higher and larger than shoes and sandals. Some boots are high enough to protect the calves (lower part of the leg) as well.  Some boots are held on with bootstraps or bootlaces.  Some also have spats or gaiters to keep water out.  Most have a very strong boot sole, the bottom part of a boot.

Types of boots 
 Rain boots (or rubber boots) are made from rubber or plastic. Rain boots protect a person's feet from water and rain. People who work on fishing boats and farmers wear rubber boots to keep their feet dry. People who work in chemical factories wear rubber boots to protect their feet from dangerous chemicals.

 Winter boots are boots that keep a person's feet warm in cold weather. People in cold countries such as Canada and Sweden wear winter boots during the cold season. Winter boots can be made from many different materials, such as leather, fabric, or plastic. Winter boots are insulated with wool or fur to keep the feet warm. Most winter boots also keep people's feet dry.

 Work boots (or "construction boots") are designed for people who work in construction or factory jobs. Work boots often have a steel toe cover to protect the person's toes. Work boots are usually made of strong leather, to protect the person's foot from sharp objects or dangerous chemicals. Some work boots have a flat piece of steel in the sole to protect the foot from sharp nails. Many countries require construction workers to wear work boots when they are on a construction site.

 Fashion boots are boots that are worn for style than for protection. Usually the term is used for women's boots. These kind of boots come in many heights, where the top ends at the ankle, the knee, or the thigh. The ones that are tall are usually closed by a zipper or can stretch for putting it on easily. This is because using shoe laces would take time for the taller types.

Other websites 

Basic English 850 words
Browser

A browser is a name given to any animal, usually a herbivorous mammal, which eats leaves and shrubs rather than grass. It is contrasted with grazers, which eat grass.

Animals by eating behaviors
Bottle

A bottle is a container used to carry liquids. Bottles can have many different sizes. Bottles are usually made of glass or plastic. Drinks such as milk, wine, lemonade, soft drinks, and water are often put into bottles. Other liquids put into bottles include chemicals like bleach or detergent, and some kinds of medicines.

Basic English 850 words
Containers
Beard

A beard is the hair growing on the lower part of a man's face.

The hair that grows on the upper lip of some men is a mustache.  When a man has hair only below the lower lip and above the chin, it is called a soul patch.  Some men have a lot of hair and a big beard, and some have very little. In the modern world, many men shave part or all of their beards, or cut their beard so it does not get very long.

Some animals also have hair like this, and people sometimes also call this hair a beard. 

Facial hair
Black

In light, black is lack of all color. It is a shade.  In painting, however, the black pigment is the combination of all colors. In heraldry, black is called "sable". It is the opposite of white.

Origin of black
The word "black" comes from Old English blæc ("black, dark", also, "ink"), from Proto-Germanic *blakkaz ("burned"), and from Proto-Indo-European *bhleg-. Black is the darkest color/tone on a scale.

Black in science
In science, an object that is black absorbs the light that hits it. Because these objects do not reflect any light, the human eye can't see any color coming from that object. The brain then sees these objects as black. 

A way to create black objects is to mix pigments. A pigment works by reflecting only the color of the pigment. For example, a blue pigment absorbs all colors except blue. By mixing pigments in the right quantities, black can be made.

In sunlight, black objects become quickly warm because they absorb much light.

Meaning of black 

Black is associated with power, elegance, formality, safety, birth, male, evil and mystery. Black is a dark color, the darkest color there is. Black, along with gray and white, is a neutral color. This means that it is not a hot color or a cool color.

Black is a color seen with fear and the unknown (black holes). It can have a bad meaning (blackbird, black bunny) or a good meaning ('in the black', 'black is beautiful'). Black can stand for strength and power. It can be a formal, elegant, and high-class color (black tie, black Mercedes, black man). Black clothing is dark in emo and goth subculture.

Related pages

 List of colors
 Blackbody radiation
 Black people

Basic English 850 words
Biology

Biology  is the science that studies life, living things, and the evolution of life. Living things include animals, plants, fungi (such as mushrooms), and microorganisms such as bacteria and archaea.

The term 'biology' is relatively modern. It was introduced in 1799 by a physician, Thomas Beddoes.

People who study biology are called biologists. Biology looks at how animals and other living things behave and work, and what they are like. Biology also studies how organisms react with each other and the environment. It has existed as a science for about 200 years, and before that it was called "natural history". Biology has many research fields and branches. Like all sciences, biology uses the scientific method. This means that biologists must be able to show evidence for their ideas and that other biologists must be able to test the ideas for themselves.

Biology attempts to answer questions such as:

 "What are the characteristics of this living thing?" (comparative anatomy)
 "How do the parts work?" (physiology)
 "How should we group living things?" (classification, taxonomy)
 "What does this living thing do?" (behaviour, growth)
 "How does inheritance work?" (genetics)
 "What is the history of life?" (palaeontology)
 "How do living things relate to their environment?" (ecology)

Modern biology is influenced by evolution, which answers the question: "How has the living world come to be as it is?"

History
The word biology comes from the Greek word βίος (bios), "life", and the suffix -λογία (logia), "study of".

Branches
 Algalogy
 Anatomy
 Arachnology
 Bacteriology
 Biochemistry
 Biogeography
 Biophysics
 Botany
 Bryology
 Cell biology
 Cytology
 Dendrology
 Developmental biology
 Ecology
 Endocrinology
 Entomology
 Embryology
 Ethology
 Evolution / Evolutionary biology
 Genetics / Genomics
 Herpetology
 Histology
 Human biology / Anthropology / Primatology
 Ichthyology
 Limnology
 Mammalology
 Marine biology
 Microbiology / Bacteriology
 Molecular biology
 Morphology
 Mycology / Lichenology
 Ornithology
 Palaeontology
 Parasitology
 Phycology
 Phylogenetics
 Physiology
 Taxonomy
 Virology
 Zoology

References

 
Science-related lists
Colchester

Colchester is a city in the northern part of the English county of Essex. It has a population of 104,000 people. People believe that Colchester is the oldest Roman town in England.

History 

Before Roman times, Colchester was Camulodunon. This is a Celtic name that came from Camulos. Camulos was the Celtic god of war. The Romans called Colchester Camulodunum (written "CAMVLODVNVM") and made it the capital of Roman Britain. Colchester was attacked and burnt by Boudicca in 61 AD.  The Romans moved their capital of Britannia to Londinium (now London), but Camulodunum remained an important city until the fifth century, when the Saxons conquered the region. 

The Roman town of Camulodunum, officially known as Colonia Victricensis, reached its peak in the Second and Third centuries AD.  It may have reached a population of 30,000 in those centuries, but when the Romans withdrew from Britannia in 410 AD it probably had fewer than 5,000 inhabitants. 

The church at the Benedictine abbey of Saint John the Baptist was destroyed in 1539.  This action was part of the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII.  Only a gate remains, that people still go to visit.

King Cunobelinus (or "Cunobelin") was from Colchester.

Until 2022, Colchester was officially a town, not a city. On 5 September, Queen Elizabeth II signed letters patent to grant it city status. This was planned as part of her Platinum Jubilee celebrations. However, she died three days later. On 29 September, these letters were publicly released.

Twin cities 
Colchester is twinned with the following cities:
  Imola, Italy
  Wetzlar, Germany
  Avignon, France

Notes

Bibliography
 B D'Ambrosio. "Roman Camulodunum". Universita' Statale di Genova (Genova University). Genova, 2007

Settlements in Essex
Cities in England
Cartography

Cartography is making maps. It is part of geography. How people make maps is always changing. In the past, maps were drawn by hand, but today most printed maps are made using computers and people usually see maps on computer screens. Someone who makes maps is called a cartographer.

Making a map can be as simple as drawing a direction on a napkin, or as complicated as showing a whole country or world. Anyone can make a map, but cartographers spend their lives learning how to make better maps.

For many centuries maps were usually carefully drawn onto paper or parchment. Now they are made on a computer which makes them look neater with accurate images.

Maps are of two main types:
 General maps with a variety of features.
 Thematic maps with particular themes for specific audiences.

General maps are produced in a series. Governments produce them in larger-scale and smaller-scale maps of great detail.

Thematic maps are now very common. They are necessary to show spatial, cultural and social data.

References

Related pages 
 Map projection
 Surveying
 Topography

Geodesy
History of science
Topography
Topology
Creator

A creator is a person who creates something.

In some religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) God (or Allah meaning the God in Arabic) is the most important and original creator of the whole universe - including Man who is made "in his image" (see Genesis) to observe it and control it like God. The idea that anything that a person is creating, like an idea, can be owned as property comes from the ethical traditions and legal codes that came from these religions.

In other traditions (Buddhism, Native American mythology) anyone has this potential for creating, and can become part of the greater creating of the universe. Stewardship of home, land and all of Earth is a test for participating in this, or just good sense.

Related pages 
Creation myth

Theology
Chorizo

Chorizo is a pork (pig-meat) sausage which people first made in the Iberian Peninsula. It is made with large pieces of fatty pork, chili pepper and paprika. The special taste of this sausage comes from the mild Spanish paprika in it. 

In the western hemisphere, the Mexican and Caribbean types are better known. These types of chorizo are made with smaller pieces of pork and different seasonings and peppers are used.

Cured smoked chorizo is edible and can be eaten without cooking. Fresh chorizo must be cooked before eating. It can be eaten by its self, or as part of meal. It can also be used in place of ground beef or pork.

Chorizo can be fresh. Also it can be dried. It can be spicy or not spicy depending on the recipe. There are many ways to eat chorizo. It can be sliced and eaten as a snack, or cooked. Dishes like stews, soups and rice dishes also use Chorizo. In Spain, chorizo is served as a small plate of food with drinks. In Latin America, chorizo is served with beans and eggs for breakfast. To make chorizo, the pork is cut into small pieces. Then it is mixed with spices and other ingredients. The mixture is then put into a casing. Casing is a thin, tube-like skin. Casing is made from the intestine of a pig. The chorizo is then left to dry for a few weeks. By doing this chorizo gets its special flavor and texture. There are many kinds of chorizo. Recipe of chorizo also different in different countries. In Spain, there are two main kinds of chorizo: chorizo de verdeo, and chorizo de cantimpalo. Chorizo de verdeo made with white wine and chorizo de cantimpalomade with red wine. In Latin America, chorizo is made with a mixture of chili peppers and other spices. It makes chorizo spicy. There are a few different ways to cook with chorizo. One popular way is to slice the chorizo and fry it in a pan until it is crispy. It can then be added to dishes like soups, stews and rice dishes. Chorizo can also be grilled, which gives it a smoky flavor. It can be sliced and added to sandwiches or served as a topping on pizza. Chorizo is a tasty and versatile food that can be enjoyed in many different ways.

References

Sausage
Creativity

Creativity is the ability of a person or group to make something new and useful or valuable, or the process of making something new and useful or valuable. It happens in all areas of life - science, art, literature and music.

 As a personal ability it is very difficult to measure. The reason is that we don't understand the mental processes that help some people be more creative than others. Judging what is creative is also controversial. Some people say only things which are historically new are creative, while other people say that if it is new for the creator and the people around them, then it is also creativity.

Some think that creativity is an important thing that makes humans different from apes. Others recognize that even apes, other primates, other mammals and some birds adapt to survive by being creative (for example - primates using tools). Liane Gabora believes that all culture comes from creativity, not imitation. Therefore, these people say, human science should focus on it (pay special attention to it): Ethics for example would focus on finding creative solutions to ethical dilemmas. Politics would focus on the political virtues that need some creativity. Imitation would not be the focus of education. Linguistics might be more interested in how new words are created by culture, rather than in how existing ones are used in grammar.

Intellectual interests (recognized as intellectual rights or intellectual property in the law) are a way to reward creativity in law, but they do not always work very well. A good example is copyright which is supposed to pay writers and artists, but may only pay lawyers to make (imitative) arguments in court.

Creativity is a central question in economics, where it is known as ingenuity (the ability to come up with new ideas) or individual capital - capacities that individuals have, that do not arise from simple imitation of what is known already. This is separate from the instructional capital that might try to capture some of that in a patent or training system that helps others do what the individual leader or founder of the system can do. In urban economics there are various ways to measure creativity - the Bohemian Index and Gay Index are two attempts to do this accurately and predict the economic growth of cities based on creativity.

Related pages 
Art
Imagination
Innovation

Human behavior
Cosmology

Cosmology is the branch of astronomy that deals with the origin, structure, evolution and space-time relationships of the universe. NASA defines cosmology as "The study of the structure and changes in the present universe". Another definition of cosmology is "the study of the universe, and humanity's place in it".

Modern cosmology is dominated by the Big Bang theory, which brings together observational astronomy and particle physics. 

Though the word cosmology is recent (first used in 1730 in Christian Wolff's Cosmologia Generalis), the study of the universe has a long history.

History
Until the Renaissance people thought the universe was only the planets up to Saturn, and stars. With the invention of the telescope, we could see more of the universe. Early in the 20th century, astronomers thought the Milky Way was the entire universe. Later, with astrophotography and spectroscopy, astronomers (for example Edwin Hubble) showed that the Milky Way was only one of many galaxies. 

Modern cosmology is considered to have started in 1917 with the final paper of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. This made physicists realize that the universe changed. When a scientific discipline begins to change an idea that is believed by many people, it is known as a paradigm shift. During this paradigm shift, the Great Debate took place. Many scientists debated if there were other galaxies. The debate ended when Edwin Hubble found Cepheid Variables in the Andromeda Galaxy in 1926.

The Big Bang model was then proposed by Belgian priest, Georges Lemaître in 1927. This was supported by Edwin Hubble's discovery of the redshift in 1929. Later the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation was made. This was found by Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson in 1964. 

All of these discoveries have been further supported throughout the 21st century. Some more observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation were found by the COBE, WMAP, and Planck satellites. Some more observations of the redshift were found by the 2dfGRS and SDSS. These are known as redshift surveys. Survey is this context refers to an astronomical survey. An astronomical survey looks at a place in space. A redshift survey is a survey that looks for redshifts.

On 1 December 2014, at the Planck 2014 meeting in Ferrara, Italy, astronomers reported that the universe is 13.8 billion years old and is composed of 4.9% regular matter, 26.6% dark matter and 68.5% dark energy.

Key terms 
 Mass 
 Gravity 
 Electromagnetic radiation 
 Dark matter 
 Dark energy 
 Speed of light 
 Age of the Universe

Related pages 
String theory
Earth science
Inflation

References 

Astrophysics
Cooking

Cooking is a process to make food ready to eat by heating it.

Raw food is food that is not cooked. Some foods are good to eat raw.  Other foods are not good for the body when they are raw, so they must be cooked. Some foods are good to eat either raw or cooked.

Methods
Cooking is often done in a kitchen using a stove or an oven. It can also be done over a fire (for example, over a campfire or on a barbecue).

The heat for cooking can be made in different ways. It can be from an open fire that burns wood or charcoal. It can be on a stove or in an oven that uses propane, natural gas, or electricity.

There are several different ways to cook food. Boiling cooks food in hot water. Frying (deep or shallow) cooks food in hot butter, fat or oil.  Baking and roasting cook food by surrounding it with hot air. Grilling means cooking food on a metal grill that has heat under it.

People often cook meat by boiling, roasting, frying, or grilling it. Some foods such as bread or pastries are usually baked.

Usually food is cooked in some kind of pot or pan.  Sometimes people cook food by putting it directly into the fire, or by wrapping the food in leaves before they put it into the fire.

Cooks 

A person whose job it is to cook food may be called a cook or a chef.  The word cooker means a machine or tool that a cook might use to cook food. Rice cookers and pressure cookers are examples.

 
Basic English 850 words
Time Cube

Time Cube was a personal website created on 1997 by Otis Eugene Ray. On that website, Ray explained his theory of everything, known as "Time Cube". It described the planet Earth as having a cubic symmetry, and time as rotating four "corners". He also said that all of modern physics is wrong. Scientists reject these ideas, saying that they make no sense and cannot be tested.

The Time Cube website was written in an angry and hateful voice. On his site, Ray said that not believing in Time Cube would be "stupid and evil". Some of the comments were racist and discriminatory, especially against black people and Jews. There were also many comments against gay people. Many people found the site to be difficult to understand.

Ray spoke about Time Cube at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in January 2002. At MIT, a professor tried to cancel the lecture before it took place. Ray believed this is proof of a conspiracy to keep information about Time Cube hidden. Ray also spoke about Time Cube at the Georgia Institute of Technology in April 2005.

Otis Eugene Ray died on March 18, 2015. He was 87 years old. The website went down in August 2015. It was last archived by the Wayback Machine on January 12, 2016.

Related pages 
 Conspiracy theory
 Pseudoscience

References 

Pseudoscience
American websites
1997 establishments in the United States
Conspiracy theories
Census of Marine Life

The Census of Marine Life was a ten-year survey of life in the oceans, starting in 2000. Its head was Ron O'Dor of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. It used data from researchers all over the world. More than 70 nations were involved and over a billion US dollars were spent on it.

It was a major work of marine ecology. It was founded by J. Frederick Grassle.

The purpose of the Census of Marine Life was to say what is alive in our seas and oceans.

Other websites 
 Census of Marine Life website

Biological oceanography
Marine life
Civics

Civics is the study of government.  It most often refers to studying government in high school to prepare to be a good citizen.  In college, civics is usually called political science.  Since a city has the most unsimple government problems, the word for this study is like that for city.

Theories of civics can be grouped as:

Anarchist
Capitalist
Democrat
Green
Libertarian
Republican

It contains the rule and regulations of the citizen to make the country democratic
Political science
Coin

A coin is a piece of metal that is used as currency, or money. The earliest coins were in Lydia, in what is Turkey today, in 7th Century BC. They were made from electrum, an alloy found in riverbeds. 

Most people use coins as currency. They usually have lower value than banknotes. Most are made in government mints.

Appearance 
Many coins have unique or complicated decorations; one side often has the picture of a king or ither important person's head on it. 

The different decorations on each side of a coin might be used to decide things randomly. This is called "tossing a coin".  A person can throw the coin into the air and catch it.  You then look at which side is facing up. If the head is facing up it is called "heads", if the other side is facing up it is called "tails". Before tossing the coin someone has to decide what each side means. Tossing a coin can be a type of gambling, which is illegal (against the law) in some countries.

Collecting 

Because coins have been made for a very long time, some people collect old coins. They can be much cheaper than other old things, especially if they are made of cheap metals like copper. Older coins normally cost more than newer ones, but rarity matters more-some coins from the 1920s cost vast sums, while some Roman coins cost very little.

References
Comet

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

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

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

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

Famous comets 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related pages
List of comets

Other websites 
Are Comets Made of Antimatter?