cahya/wikipedia-simple-en huggingface dataset:
Africa-Eurasia

Africa-Eurasia (also called Afro-Eurasia, Eurafrasia, Afrasia) is the world's biggest landmass. Around 85% (approximately 5.5 billion) of the world population lives there. It is split between the two continents of Africa and Eurasia, the latter of which has been historically further subdivided into Europe and Asia.  

In geopolitics the mainland of Africa-Eurasia (excluding islands such as the British Isles, Japan and Madagascar) has been referred to as the World Island.

The Old World includes Africa-Eurasia and its surrounding islands:

 Eurasia
 Asia
 Northern Asia
 Western Asia
 Central Asia
 Eastern Asia
 Southern Asia
 Southeastern Asia
 Europe
 Northern Europe
 Western Europe
 Eastern Europe
 Southern Europe
 Africa
 Northern Africa
 Western Africa
 Central Africa
 Eastern Africa
 Southern Africa

In geological terms, Africa-Eurasia (or Eurafrasia) may be a supercontinent if Africa collides with Europe. One estimate suggests it will happen in 600,000 years, when the southern tip of Spain reaches Africa. If this happens, the Mediterranean Sea will be isolated from the Atlantic Ocean. Africa is expected to collide with Europe completely in 50 million years, closing the Mediterranean.

References 

Supercontinents
1916

1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar.

Events 
 January 1 – The Royal Army Medical Corps first successful blood transfusionblood that had been stored and cooled.
 January 1 – Impressionist painter Monet paints 'Water Lilies'.
 January 5 – Heavy rain – allegedly caused by rainmaker Charles Hatfield – begins; it will cause flooding around San Diego, California
 January 8 – Allied forces withdraw from Gallipoli
 January 13/14 – A heavy storm sweeps through the Zuiderzee in the Netherlands, causing extensive damage. This storm helped the Dutch parliament to decide to build the Afsluitdijk and build polders in the current IJsselmeer.
 January 17 – The Professional Golfers Association of America (PGA) is formed
 January 18 – A 611 gram chondrite type meteorite struck a house near Baxter, Stone County, Missouri.
 January 23 to January 24 In Browning, Montana, the temperature drops from +6.7 °C to -48.8 °C (44 °F to -56 °F) in one day, the greatest change ever on record for a 24-hour period.
 January 24 – In Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad the Supreme Court of the United States upholds the federal income tax
 January 28 – Louis D. Brandeis becomes the first Jew appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
 January 29 – World War I: Paris is bombed by German zeppelins for the first time.
 February 3 – Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Canada are burned down.
 February 9 – 6.00 PM – Tristan Tzara "founds" Dadaism (according to Hans Arp)
 February 11 – Emma Goldman is arrested for lecturing on birth control.
 February 11 – Baltimore Symphony Orchestra presents its first concert
 February 21 – World War I: In France the Battle of Verdun begins.
 March 20 – Albert Einstein publishes his Theory of Relativity, which explains the relationship between mass and energy.

Births 
 March 11 - Harold Wilson, British Prime Minister
 April 5 – Gregory Peck, American actor (d. 2003)
 July 28 - David Brown, American producer (d. 2010)
 October 14 - C. Everett Koop, American politician and spokesperson (d. 2013)
 November 23 - Michael Gough, British actor (d. 2011)

Deaths 
 June 4 - Lord Kitchener, British Secretary of State for War, drowned.

 

nv:1901 – 1950
Cemetery

A cemetery or a graveyard is a place, usually surrounded by a fence, where people bury dead bodies and honor the dead people. Many of them have gardens and other greenery in them to symbolise life and to honor those who are dead.

Related pages 
Catacomb
Mausoleum
Necropolis

Death customs
David Crosby

David Van Cortland Crosby (born August 14, 1941 in Los Angeles, California, USA) is an American Guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is most famous as a founding member of the bands The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, and Nash.

References 

American guitarists
Musicians from Los Angeles
American folk musicians
American rock musicians
Organ transplant recipients
Singers from Los Angeles
1941 births
Living people
Intermission

An intermission or interval is a break in a performance. An intermission may be twenty minutes or longer: time for people to have a drink and time for the performers to relax.  Plays and operas are usually divided into acts.  The intermission will come where there is a suitable break between the acts.  There are a few operas (e.g. those by Richard Wagner) which are so long that there may be two intermissions.

Theater
Laramie, Wyoming

Laramie is a city in the U.S. state of Wyoming. It is near the University of Wyoming.   It is the county seat of Albany County.

The University of Wyoming is located in Laramie.

Recent history 
In 1998, Matthew Shepherd was murdered in this town.

References

Other websites 

City of Laramie, official website

Cities in Wyoming
County seats in Wyoming
Albany County, Wyoming
1166



Births 
 December 24 – John I of England

Events 
 Marko III follows Yoannis V as patriarch of Alexandria.
 Henry the Lion builds the first bronze statue north of the Alps.
 Giraldo Sempavor captures Evora.
Refrigerator

A refrigerator is a machine used for keeping things cold. It is sometimes called a fridge or an icebox. It is normally maintained at 4-5  degree Celsius for household use. People put food and drinks in it, to keep those items cold or good (unspoiled) for a longer time. A refrigerator has a heat pump which takes heat away from the air inside the fridge. The heat is moved to the air outside. The heat pump is usually driven by an electric motor.

There are also ice boxes available that do not use electricity because they are filled with ice to provide the colder temperature. The ice can keep things cold until the ice melts. Ice boxes can be taken on camping trips. Sometimes they are called coolers. Refrigerator-sized iceboxes were used before electricity was available.

Most modern refrigerators are available in a variety of colours, although most are white. Smaller versions of the popular refrigerator are also used. They are mainly used in hotels and college dorm rooms.

Freezer

A freezer is a special type of refrigerator that stores food at freezing temperatures. Inside a freezer, it is normally . Freezers can be found in household refrigerators, as well as in industry and commerce. When stored in a freezer, frozen food can be stored safely for a longer time than storing at room temperatures.

Domestic freezers can be a separate compartment in a refrigerator, or can be a separate appliance. Household refrigerators usually have a separate compartment where the heat pump is used to pump even colder temperatures to the contents. Most household freezers maintain temperatures from . Some freezer-only units can achieve  and lower. Most household refrigerators generally do not achieve a temperature lower than , because it is difficult to control the temperature for two different compartments. This is because both compartments shares the same coolant loop. 

Domestic freezers normally stand upright, resembling refrigerators. Sometimes a domestic freezer is laid on its back to look like a chest. Many modern upright freezers come with an ice dispenser built into their door. Many commercial freezers stand upright and have glass doors so shoppers can see the contents.

References

Other websites

Home appliances
Machines
Guernsey

Guernsey is an island in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy. It is one of the Channel Islands, and is the main administration island of the Bailiwick of Guernsey'. Elizabeth II is the head of state, but it has a government of its own, with its own laws and special status when it comes to taxes.
65,573 people live there.

The Island 
Guernsey has 10 parishes. These are 
Castel, Forest, St Andrews, St Martins, St Peter Port, St Pierre du bois, St Sampson, St Saviour's, Torteval, Vale.
 
St Peter Port is the biggest parish by terms of population, with 16,500 people living there.

Language 
Guernsey has its own dialect of the Norman language, called Guernésiais. It is spoken by only 2% of the population, but is understood by around 14%. This means that only 1300 people speak it, and most of these people are elderly. Only 1 in every 1000 young people can speak it. 

Islands of the Channel Islands
Pottery

Pottery is the ceramic material which makes up potteryware. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery (plural "potteries"). Pottery also refers to the art or craft of a potter or the making of pottery. A dictionary definition is simply clay fired in a kiln. 

Pottery objects are made from damp clay mixed with other materials. They are then fired in a special oven called a kiln at high temperatures. Firing makes the clay hard. The potter may then apply a glaze to the surface before firing the object again. The fired glaze makes the surface of the pottery shiny, decorative and water-tight. 

Some potters make objects which are not useful and are really artistic objects or sculpture. Bare pottery objects without a glaze are called bisque or just earthenware. The finest pottery objects, made of porcelain or bone china are quite strong, yet are translucent.

History of pottery 
Pottery originated before the Neolithic period. The earliest example we have is from eastern Europe, dating to 25,000 years ago or earlier. It is a female figurine known as the Venus of Dolní Věstonice, from a palaeolithic site in Moravia, Czech Republic. It may have been made as part of a fertility ritual. There are some similar figures from other nearby sites.

Since the invention of agriculture, and the building of cities, containers for food and drink have been found at almost all archaeological sites.

The Potteries 
This means the area of Stoke-on-Trent in England, sometimes called the Staffordshire potteries. There were six towns, Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton and Longton, which now make up Stoke-on-Trent. 

The area was the centre of the English pottery industry. The area had local supplies of clay, salt, lead and coal. Canals were used to transport the product inland. It was a large exporter of pottery for about 200 years: roughly from 1760 to about 1960. Plastic crockery after World War II and cheap ceramic production in China largely destroyed the Stoke pottery industry.

References 

 *
Screenwriter

A screenwriter is a person who writes the screenplay (or script) for a movie or television show - that is, a screenwriter writes the words that the actors and actresses speak.  

A script conveys the dialogue of the movie, and will briefly describe visuals, although not too much, as this is left up to the director.  

There are certain rules as to how to format a movie script.  If these are not followed, then it is highly unlikely that it will ever be taken seriously.  In order to test the effectiveness of a script, actors will do a first reading of it.  If the format is not clear, then it will probably cause the actors confusion, and will make the task very difficult to complete.

References 

 
Movie occupations
Sacramento, California

Sacramento is the capital of the U.S. state of California. The governor and legislature of California are in Sacramento. About 400,000 people live in Sacramento. About 1,700,000 live in and around Sacramento.

Sacramento comes from Spanish and Portuguese  for holy rite. A sacrament is a religious act that gives people divine grace (being liked or favored by God.)

Sacramento was started in 1848 by John Sutter. It was a very important place during the California Gold Rush. The Gold Rush was the time after gold was found in California. Many people came to California to find gold. They did this to make money. During the Gold Rush, Sacramento was where the railroad ended. It was also where the Pony Express stopped.

Sacramento is near where the American River meets the Sacramento River. This was important when Sacramento was founded. It meant that ships could bring things to Sacramento from the Pacific Ocean. Sacramento was a railroad town. This made Sacramento a port town. This made it a very important place for business.

References 

Cities in the Central Valley of California
County seats in California
 
State capitals in the United States
1850 establishments in California
Guyana

The Co-operative Republic of Guyana (formerly British Guiana) is a country in South America. It is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world (700,000 people live there inside its over 200,000 km² of area). Georgetown is the capital; like most of the country's settlements, it is on a flat coastal plain that goes from northwest to southeast. Venezuela claims the land west of the Essequibo River as part of Guayana Esequiba.

Guyana's current president is Irfaan Ali. The country gained independence from the United Kingdom on May 26, 1966 (before which it was called British Guiana). The republic is called cooperative for integrating different ethnic groups into government, introduced after the socialist government PNC won a majority in1968. The term "cooperative republic" however dates back from 1961.

Guyana is member of the Commonwealth of Nations and the Caribbean Community It is ranked first in suicides per capita worldwide.

Related pages
Guyana at the Olympics
Guyana national football team
List of Guyanese people
List of rivers of Guyana

References

Other websites 
President's Official Website
Guyana Portal 
Guyana in the News
Travel information on Guyana 
BBC's profile

 
Caribbean Community
English-speaking countries
1966 establishments in South America
U2 (band)

For the aircraft, see Lockheed U-2.

U2 are an Irish rock band.  The four members of the band are lead singer Bono (born Paul David Hewson), lead guitarist The Edge (born David Howell Evans), bassist Adam Clayton, and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. U2 are a very popular band all over the world and have been since the 1980s. They have sold more than 170 million albums and have won 22 Grammy Awards. This is more than any other rock band.

U2 formed in Dublin in 1976, when none of the members were very good musicians. However, they got better as they got older. They were more popular for playing live shows than for releasing albums. This changed with their hit record in 1987, The Joshua Tree. In 1991, U2 released a new album called Achtung Baby. This album sounded very different from their other albums because it was inspired by alternative rock and dance music. Achtung Baby and its worldwide Zoo TV Tour were both very popular. U2 experimented for the rest of the 1990s, making two other very different albums, Zooropa and Pop. 

In the 21st century, U2 returned to a more traditional sound, but they continue to be very popular and successful. They are involved in charities and helping people with groups such as Amnesty International, Make Poverty History, the ONE Campaign, Live Aid, Live 8, Bono's DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa) campaign, and Music Rising.

In 2014, the group won a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for their song Ordinary Love which was used in the movie Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.

History

Formation (1976-1979) 
U2 was formed in the city of Dublin, Ireland on September 25, 1976. It was founded by 14-year-old drummer Larry Mullen Jr. He posted a note on his school's notice board, asking for musicians to create a new band. There were seven teenage boys who went to their first practice. At first, the bandBand", but they later changed their name to "Feedback" and then "The Hype". The band became smaller over time, eventually becoming just four people, and they finally changed their name to "U2" once Bono, The Edge, Clayton, and Mullen were left.

Albums 

 Boy (1980)
 October (1981)
 War (1983)
 The Unforgettable Fire (1984)
 The Joshua Tree (1987)
 Rattle and Hum (1988) 
 Achtung Baby (1991)
 Zooropa (1993)
 Pop (1997)
 All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000)
 How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (2004)
 No Line on the Horizon (2009)
 Songs of Innocence (2014)
 Songs of Experience (2017)

References

Other websites 
 U2 official website

20th-century establishments in the Republic of Ireland
1980s Irish music groups
1990s Irish music groups
2000s Irish music groups
2010s Irish music groups
Irish rock bands
Musical groups established in 1976 
Musical groups from Dublin
Musical quartets
 
1976 establishments in Europe
Bono

Paul David Hewson  (born 10 May 1960), known by his stage name Bono, is an Irish singer-songwriter, activist, businessman, and philanthropist. He is best known as the lead singer of rock band U2.

Career
He became a member of the band U2 on 25 September 1976, when he responded to a message that was placed by Larry Mullen Jr. to form a rock band.

The name Bono was a type of hearing aid and in Latin means good voice. 

Bono married Alison Stewart. They have four children.  Jordan (b. 1989), Eve (b. 1991), Elijah (b. 1999) and John (b. 2001).

Bono is known for doing a lot of charity work.  For this, he was named Time Person of the Year in 2005.  Bono has even been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, though he did not win it.

References

Other websites 

1960 births
Living people
Honorary Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Irish guitarists
Irish rock musicians
Irish singer-songwriters
Musicians from Dublin
Rock guitarists
Time People of the Year
U2
Adam Clayton

Adam Clayton (born 13 March 1960 in Chinnor, Oxfordshire, England) is the bassist for the rock band U2. He lives in County Dublin now, and he has a house in Southern France too.

Life 
When Adam was five years old, he and his family moved to Malahide near Dublin. He started playing guitar when he went to school. He joined the other members of the future U2 band in the same time. Their band was first named "Feedback" and then they changed its name to "The Hype". However, they released their second album on 1981 under the name of U2.

All other U2 members were married by 2006, and Adam was the only member who was still single. In 2006, it was announced that Adam was going to marry Suzanne "Susie" Smith; they dated for almost 10 years before this news was announced. They were planning to marry in the summer of 2007, but they split up in February 2007.

In January 2011, Adam revealed that he was the father of a baby boy, born in 2010. On September 4, 2013, Adam married Mariana Teixeira de Carvalho, in a wedding in Dublin. She is a fashion model from Brazil.

References 

1960 births
Living people
Bassists
U2
English guitarists
The Edge

David Howell Evans (born 8 August 1961), more widely known as The Edge, is an English-born musician. He is known best as the guitarist, keyboardist and backing vocalist for the Irish rock band U2.

Personal life
David Howell Evans was born at the Barking Maternity Hospital, in Essex, England.  His parents, Garvin and Gwenda Evans, are Welsh.  When he was one, his family moved to County Dublin, Ireland.  There, he attended St. Andrew's National School.  He received piano and guitar lessons with his brother, Dik Evans.  At Mount Temple Comprehensive School, they both answered an advertisement posted by Larry Mullen Jr. wanting musicians to form a band. The band accepted both of them.  This band went through several major changes before emerging as U2 in March 1978.  Dik Evans left the band just before the name change.  U2 began performing in various venues in Ireland and eventually began developing a following. Their first album, Boy, was released in 1980.

In 1981, Evans came very close to leaving U2 for religious reasons, but he was persuaded to stay.  During this time, he became involved with a group called Shalom Tigers.  Bono and Larry Mullen Jr. were also involved in this group.  Shortly after deciding to remain with the band, he wrote a piece of music that later became "Sunday Bloody Sunday".  The Edge married his high school girlfriend Aislinn O'Sullivan on 12 July 1983.  The couple had three daughters together: Hollie in 1984, Arran in 1985 and Blue Angel in 1989.  The couple separated in 1990, but were unable to get officially divorced until 1996 because of Irish laws regarding marriage; divorce was made legal in 1995.

During U2's Zoo TV Tour, The Edge began to date Morleigh Steinberg.  The couple began dating in 1993, and had their daughter, Sian, and a son, Levi.  They were married on June 22, 2002.

The Edge appeared in the 2009 music documentary film It Might Get Loud.  He is also a Methodist.

Music

References

1961 births
Living people
English rock guitarists
English rock singers
Musicians from Dublin
Musicians from Essex
People from Barking
U2
Larry Mullen Jr.

Larry Mullen Junior (born 31 October 1961) is an Irish drummer. He is a member of the rock band U2. Mullen was born in Dublin, Ireland. 

Besides U2, Larry has worked with other musicians, including: Nanci Griffith, Daniel Lanois, Emmylou Harris, Robbie Robertson, Paul Brady and B.B. King. Because of the Irish National Football team's bid for the World Cup in 1990, Mullen co-wrote and co-produced the anthem "Put 'Em Under Pressure." He also worked with U2's Adam Clayton on the theme for the 1996 movie Mission: Impossible. Mullen and Clayton joined with Mike Mills and Michael Stipe of R.E.M. to form the group "Automatic Baby" for Bill Clinton's Presidential inauguration in 1993 at MTV's Inaugural Ball.

References

1961 births
Living people
Irish rock musicians
Musicians from Dublin
Rock drummers
U2
Robert Reed

Robert Reed (October 19, 1932 – May 12, 1992) was an American actor. He is best known for his role as Mike Brady on The Brady Bunch. He also played major roles in The Defenders and Rich Man, Poor Man. He was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards during the 1970s.

Reed was born John Robert Rietz in Highland Park, Illinois. He also grew up in Muskogee, Oklahoma and Navasota, Texas.

Reed was gay but kept this private. He died on May 12, 1992, in Pasadena, California. He was 59 years old. His death was originally said to have been caused by colon cancer. It was later revealed to have been hastened by HIV.

References

Other websites
 
 
 

Actors from Illinois
American movie actors
American stage actors
American television actors
Cancer deaths in California
Deaths from AIDS
Deaths from colorectal cancer
Gay men
LGBT actors
LGBT people from Illinois
LGBT people from Oklahoma
LGBT people from Texas
People from Highland Park, Illinois
Infectious disease deaths in California
1932 births
1992 deaths
Dishwasher

The word dishwasher means either the person who washes (cleans) dishes or a machine that does the same thing. A person could wash dishes either by hand or by operating a dish washing machine.

Occupations
Home appliances
Dennis Hopper

Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010) was an American television, movie, stage, and voice actor, artist, photographer, writer, movie director, and an art collector. He has appeared in many movies and television shows, since the 1950s.

Early life
Hopper was born on May 17, 1936 in Dodge City, Kansas. He spent his life in Kansas City, Missouri and in San Diego, California. Hopper studied to be an actor at Helix High School and at the Actors' Studio. Hopper has two brothers.

Career 
Hopper is probably best known for directing, co-writing, and starring in the Oscar-nominated movie Easy Rider (1969). In 1994, Hopper had a role in the thriller movie Speed. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Personal life
Hopper was married to Brooke Hayward from 1961 until they divorced in 1969. Hopper was then married to Michelle Phillips from 1970 until they divorced weeks later. He was married to Daria Halprin from 1972 until they divorced. He was later married to Katherine LaNasa from 1989 until they divorced in 1992. Hopper was married to Victoria Duffy from 1998 until they divorced in 2010, months before his death. Hopper had 3 daughters and a son.

Lawsuit
Hopper once insulted actor Rip Torn after he said "Texans are hippie-hatting rednecks" and was sued for a total of $475,000 dollars.

Illness and death
On October 29, 2009, his manager announced that Hopper had prostate cancer. He was terminally ill. He died of the disease on May 29, 2010 in Venice, California. He was 74. He was buried at Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico. Alpha and Omega was his last movie and was dedicated to his memory.

References

Other websites 

 

Actors from Kansas
Actors from Kansas City, Missouri
Actors from San Diego, California
American painters
American movie actors
American photographers
American sculptors
American stage actors
American television actors
American voice actors
Cancer deaths in Los Angeles
Deaths from prostate cancer
People from Dodge City, Kansas
Movie directors from California

Movie directors from Missouri
Writers from California
Writers from Kansas
Writers from Missouri 
1936 births
2010 deaths
1066

1066 was a year which brought great changes in England. The land had four kings during the year. The year started under Anglo-Saxon rule, and ended under Norman rule. This was the only occasion since Roman Britain when the entire country was successfully invaded.

There were four kings during the year: Edward the Confessor (to 5 January 1066), Harold Godwinson (to 14 October 1066), Edgar the Ætheling (to 10 December 1066), and finally William I, Duke of Normandy.

Events 
 6 January – Harold II crowned King of England
 25 September – Harold II defeats Tostig and Harald Hardraada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Tostig and Harald Hardraada are killed
 14 October – At the Battle of Hastings William the Conqueror (Duke of Normandy) defeats Harold. Harold is killed. In England, this heralds the start of the Middle Ages.

 The Viking port of Hedeby, a town on the Baltic Sea, is destroyed by Slavs.

Deaths 
 4 or 5 January – King Edward the Confessor of England dies
 25 September – killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge:
 King Harald III of Norway (b. 1015)
 Tostig Godwinson, Earl of Northumbria
 14 October – killed at the Battle of Hastings:
 King Harold II of England
 Leofwine Godwinson, brother of King Harold II
 Gyrth Godwinson, brother of King Harold II

 John Scotus (bishop of Mecklenburg (Johannes Skotus) (born around 990)
 10 November – Sacrificed to Radegast:
1497



Events 
 July 8 – Vasco da Gama leaves Lisbon, Portugal for is first trip through the Cape of Good Hope to India.
 Spanish Empire: Melilla is captured by Castile.
 Girolamo Savonarola, priest and leader of Florence, Italy burns what he believes is immoral art in Piazza della Signoria. Savonarola is excommunicated and burned alive in that same location later in the same year.

Deaths 
 February 6 – Johannes Ockeghem, Belgian composer (b. 1410)
1559



Events 
January 15 – Elizabeth I of England is crowned in Westminster Abbey.
March 23 – Emperor Gelawdewos of Ethiopia, defending his lands against the invasion of Nur ibn Mujahid, Sultan of Harar, is killed in battle. His brother Menas succeeds him as king.
April 3 – Peace of Cateau Cambrésis – France makes peace with England and Spain.  France gives up most of its gains in Italy (including Savoy), keeping only Saluzzo, but keeps the three Lorraine bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, and the formerly English town of Calais.
July 10 – Francis II becomes King of France following the death of his father, Henry II in a jousting accident.
End of the Italian Wars.
 The Decameron expurgated.
 A royal edict in France makes heresy punishable by death.
 Elizabeth I establishes the Church of England, with the Act of Uniformity 1559 and the Act of Supremacy 1559.
1509



Events 
February 2 – Battle of Diu took place near Diu, India.
April 22 – Henry VIII becomes King of England on the death of his father, Henry VII.
April 27 – Pope Julius II places Venice under interdict and excommunication for refusing to cede part of Romagna under Papal control
May 14 – Battle of Agnadello – French forces defeat the Venetians.
 June 11 – Henry VIII of England marries Catherine of Aragon
June 24 – King Henry VIII of England's and Queen consort's Catherine of Aragon coronation ceremony.
Al-Qaeda

al-Qaeda (, al-qāʿidah, "the base"), is an armed Islamic group that was started between August 1988 and late 1989.p75 It works as a network, as a stateless army, and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad. Most of the world thinks it is a Takfiri and a terrorist organization.

Members of al-Qaeda have performed many acts of terrorism. Most of these have been done against the United States and Shias. Some of its most well-known attacks have been the September 11 attacks, the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the attack on the U.S. Navy ship USS Cole in 2000. al-Qaeda has done suicide attacks and simultaneous (at the same time) bombings of different targets.

Among al-Qaeda's goals is for other countries to stop influencing Muslim countries and for a new Islamic caliphate to be made. There have been reports that al-Qaeda believes that Christian and Jewish Islamophobia is trying to destroy Islam and that the killing of bystanders and civilians is religiously justified in jihad.

There have been guesses that there are 500–1,000 operatives in Afghanistan and around 5,000 worldwide. However, there is no confirmation of this.

History
In June 2001, al-Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which had been associated with each other for many years, merged into 'Qaeda al-Jihad'.

"...the members of Islamic Jihad and its guiding figure Ayman al-Zawahiri have provided the backbone of [al-Quaeda's] leadership. According to officials in the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., Zawahiri has been responsible for much of the planning of the terrorist operations against the United States".

Death of Osama Bin Laden Laden and current leadership
Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri is the highest-ranking surviving member of al-Qaeda's leadership after Osama bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011.

Death of Abu Yahya al-Libi
Senior al-Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al-Libi was killed in a drone strike on June 4, 2012. He ranked second to Ayman al-Zawahiri at the time. The strike was carried out in the northwest tribal area of Waziristan. The Pakistan Government has protested to the U.S. about the strike.

References

Other websites
 Council on Foreign Relations al-Qaeda 
 

1980s establishments
 
Rebel militia groups
Shiaphobia
Sunni organizations
1905

1905 (MCMV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar.

Art, music, theatre, literature 
 October 15 – Little Nemo in Slumberland debuts in American newspapers.
 A Little Princess is published

Events 
 January 22 – "Bloody Sunday" in St. Petersburg (Russia). First Russian Revolution has started.
 April 1 – SOS, the Morse code signal for distress, is created by Germany.
 June 7 – Norway becomes an independent country.
 October 28 – Cardiff, Wales becomes a city in the United Kingdom.
 Albert Einstein publishes his special theory of relativity.
 A workers' revolt, supported by the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin, takes place in Odessa, Russia.

Births 
 January 2 – Michael Tippett, English composer (d. 1998)
 February 2 – Ayn Rand, American writer (d. 1982)
 March 9 – Rex Warner, English writer (d. 1986)
 May 16 – Henry Fonda, American actor (d. 1982)
 June 21 – Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher (d. 1980)
 July 29 – Clara Bow, American actress (d. 1965)
 July 29 – Dag Hammarskjöld, Swedish United Nations Secretary-General (d. 1961)
 August 24 – Arthur Crudup, American blues musician (d. 1976)
 August 25 – Faustyna Kowalska, Polish nun and mystic (d. 1938)
 September 18 – Greta Garbo, Swedish actress (d. 1990)
 December 5 – John Whedon, American screenwriter (d. 1991)
 December 11 – Erskine Hamilton Childers, 4th President of Ireland (d. 1974)
 December 21 – Anthony Powell, English writer (d. 2000)
 December 22 – Kenneth Rexroth, American poet (d. 1982)

Deaths 
 March 24 – Jules Verne, French writer (b. 1828)

 

nv:1901 – 1950
1915

1915 (MCMXC) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar.

Events 
 The Birth of a Nation is released.
 April 15 – Armenian Genocide

Births 
 February 1 – Stanley Matthews, English footballer (d. 2000)
 April 21 – Anthony Quinn, Mexican-American actor, painter and writer (d. 2001)
 April 27 – Hovhannes Shiraz, Armenian poet (d. 1984)
 May 6 – Orson Welles, American movie director, screenwriter and actor (d. 1985)
 June 4 - Walter Hadlee, New Zealand cricketer (d. 2006)
 June 28 – David Honeyboy Edwards, American blues guitarist and singer
 July 28 - Frankie Yankovic, American polka musician (d. 1998)
 August 29 – Ingrid Bergman, Swedish actress (d. 1982)
 September 6 – Franz Josef Strauß, German politician (d. 1988)
 October 7 – Charles Templeton, Canadian cartoonist and television evangelist (d. 2001)
 October 24 – Bob Kane, American cartoonist (d. 1998)
 November 25 – Augusto Pinochet, Chilean ruler (d. 2006)
 December 12 – Frank Sinatra, American singer and actor (d. 1998)
 December 19 – Édith Piaf, French singer (d. 1963)

Deaths 
 April 27 – Alexander Scriabin, Russian composer (b. 1872)
 November 14 – Booker T. Washington, American inventor, educator, and writer (b. 1856)
Lombardy

Lombardy (/ˈlɒmbərdi, ˈlʌm-/ LOM-bər-dee, LUM-; Italian: Lombardia [lombarˈdiːa]; Lombard: Lombardia, Western Lombard: [lũbɐ̞rˈdiːɑ], Eastern Lombard: [lombɐ̞rˈdiːɑ, -ˈdeːɑ]) is a region in the northern part of Italy. It is the most populated region of the country, and has almost 9.4 million people. The capital is Milan. Lombardy has provinces within it. 

To the north of Lombardy is the country of Switzerland (Canton Ticino e Grigioni). To the west is the region of Piedmont. To the east are the regions of Veneto and Trentino - Alto Adige. To the south is the region of Emilia-Romagna.

Name 
In the Italian language, Lombardy is called Lombardia. This name comes from an old German word: Langbardland and means "country of the Lombards".

Geography 
In the north of Lombardy there are very high mountains, (40% of the territory is mountains) the highest mountains are almost 4.000 meters in the Bernina Range.

In the south of the region flows the Po river, which is the longest river in Italy. The most important rivers are the Adda river, the Mincio and the Ticino river, all of them end in the Po river.

There are also a lot of lakes, the largest are the lake Maggiore, the Lake of Varese, the lake Como, and the lake Garda.

Provinces 
Lombardy is divided into 12 provinces:
 Bergamo
 Brescia
 Como
 Cremona
 Lecco
 Lodi
 Mantova
 Milano
 Monza e Brianza
 Pavia
 Sondrio
 Varese

References

Other websites 
 Official Site (IT)
Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov (April 22, 1899 – July 2, 1977) was a Russian-American author. He wrote his first books in Russian, and after he moved to the United States, he wrote in English. His most famous book is Lolita, but others have also become famous, such as Pnin, Pale Fire, and Ada or Ardor.

Nabokov was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, the first of five children. In 1919, he and his family went to Europe. In 1945, he became an American citizen. He died in Montreux, Switzerland.

Life
Nabokov's father was a lawyer and politician. As a child, Vladimir learned Russian, English, and French. After the October Revolution, the family moved a few times, but settled in Berlin in 1920. Two years later, his father was shot and killed by mistake, because he had blocked the person the gunman was trying to murder. His mother and sister moved to Prague, but Vladimir stayed in Berlin. He wrote for other Russians who had left Russia to live there. He met Véra Slonin, a woman from a Jewish-Russian family, in 1923. They married in 1925. In 1934, they had their only child, Dmitri.

In 1937, Nabokov started to look for another job. He left for France that year, and his family followed. They all fled to America in 1940, except his brother Sergei, who died in a Nazi concentration camp.

Butterflies 
Nabokov was an expert on butterflies. As a child he had read books by entomologist Maria Sibylla Merian which he found in the attic of his family's country home in Vyra.

During the 1940s, he was a research fellow in zoology. He organized the butterfly collection of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. His specialty was the tribe Polyommatini of the family Lycaenidae.

The genus Nabokovia was named after him in honor of this work, as were a number of butterfly and moth species (e.g. many species in the genera Madeleinea and Pseudolucia have names alluding to Nabokov or names from his novels). In 1967, Nabokov commented: "The pleasures and rewards of literary inspiration are nothing beside the rapture of discovering a new organ under the microscope or an undescribed species on a mountainside in Iran or Peru. It is not improbable that had there been no revolution in Russia, I would have devoted myself entirely to lepidopterology and never written any novels at all".

Related pages
List of Russian language poets
List of Russian-language novelists
List of Russian novelists

References

Other websites 
 Nabokov Library (in Russian and English)

1899 births
1977 deaths
American novelists
Disease-related deaths in Switzerland
Writers from Saint Petersburg
Russian novelists
Abingdon, Oxfordshire

Abingdon is a town in England. It is in the Thames Valley in southern England, 5.5 miles (8.9 km) south of Oxford. It is the seat (place of the government) of the Vale of White Horse district in Oxfordshire. Abingdon was once the county town of Berkshire. It is one of several places which claim to be Britain's oldest occupied town.

History
Abingdon is at a place where people were able to easily cross the Thames. The area has been lived in since the Bronze Age. The bridge over the Thames at Abingdon is more than 550 years old. Work started on the bridge in 1416, and it replaced an old wooden bridge.

The Abingdon Abbey was built in 675 AD by the Benedictines who called it Abbandun. By 1538 it was the sixth richest abbey in Britain. Most of it was destroyed after 1538 when King Henry VIII closed the monasteries. The gatehouse and several smaller buildings are still standing.

There is a market in Abingdon every Monday, which first started in 1556. A canal was built in 1810 to join Abingdon to other towns including London, Bristol and Birmingham. The canal was in use until 1906.

The MG motor cars were made in Abingdon for 50 years until the factory closed in 1980. However the headquarters of the MG Car Club are still in the town.

References 

Towns in Oxfordshire
County towns in England
George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver (c. January 1860 – January 5, 1943) was an American educator, botanist (someone who works with plants), and inventor. He is best known for his work with peanuts, sweet potatoes, and other crops.

Carver's reputation is based on his research into and promotion of alternative crops to cotton, such as peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes, which also aided nutrition for farm families. He wanted poor farmers to grow alternative crops both as a source of their own food and as a source of other products to improve their quality of life. 

The most popular of his 44 practical bulletins for farmers contained 105 food recipes using peanuts. He also developed and promoted about 100 products made from peanuts that were useful for the house and farm, including cosmetics, dyes, paints, plastics, gasoline, and nitroglycerin. He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP.

He was born into slavery in January 1864 in Diamond, Missouri. The exact date of his birth is unknown. He studied in Simpson College when he was 22. Much of Carver's fame is based on his research. He died on January 5, 1943 after a fall he had in his home in Tuskegee, Alabama on January 5, 1943.

References

1864 births
1943 deaths
Accidental deaths from falls in the United States
American activists
American adoptees
American botanists
American Christians
American inventors
Scientists from Missouri
1744



Deaths 
January 25 - Domenico Sarro
 April 25 – Anders Celsius
Julian calendar

The Julian calendar, proposed by Julius Caesar in 46 BCE (708 AUC), was a reform of the Roman calendar. It was first used in 1 January 45 BCE. It was the main calendar in most of the world, until Pope Gregory  replaced that with the Gregorian calendar in 4 October 1582.

During the 20th and 21st centuries, the date according to the Julian calendar is 13 days behind the Gregorian date.

Year length; leap years
The Julian calendar has two types of year: common years of 365 days and leap years of 366 days. There is a simple cycle of three common years followed by a leap year and this pattern repeats forever. However, the rule was not followed in the first years after the of the reform in 45 BCE. Due to a counting error, every 3rd year was a leap year instead of the 4th. The leap years were:
 45 BCE (709 AUC)
 42 BCE (712 AUC)
 39 BCE (715 AUC)
 36 BCE (718 AUC)
 33 BCE (721 AUC)
 30 BCE (724 AUC)
 27 BCE (727 AUC) 

 24 BCE (730 AUC)
 21 BCE (733 AUC)
 18 BCE (736 AUC)
 15 BCE (739 AUC)
 12 BCE (742 AUC)
 9 BCE (745 AUC)
However, in 8 BCE (746 AUC), emperor Augustus Caesar corrected the problem. The next leap year was 7 CE (160 AUC).

Criticism 
With the simple cycle, the length of the Julian year is exactly 365.25 days (365 days and 6 hours), but the actual time it takes for the Earth to go around the Sun once is closer to 365.2422 days (about 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds). This difference is about 365.25 - 365.2422 = 0.0078 days (11 minutes and 14 seconds) each year, although Greek astronomers knew that. This made the seasons get out of track, since the real first day of spring in western Europe (the equinox - day and night the same length) was happening earlier and earlier before the traditional 21 March as the centuries went by. By the 1500s, it was starting around 11 March, ten days 'too early' according to the calendar.

Reform

From Roman calendar 
The first step of the reform was to realign the 25 December with the Winter solstice by making 46 BCE (708 AUC) 445 days long. In ordinary Roman calendar, the common year had 355 days and the leap year (one year after the common year) had 378 days. The 46 BCE was a leap year, according to the calendar. Julius Caesar added 67 more days by adding two extra months (those are called Prior and Posterior in letters of Cicero) between November and December.

References 

Calendars
Southern hemisphere

The Southern hemisphere is the half of Earth that is south of the equator. It has about 10 percent of world's population and only a small part of the world's land. A very small part of Asia, one-third of Africa, 90 percent of South America, and all of Australia and Antarctica are in this hemisphere.

Related pages
Northern hemisphere
Eastern Hemisphere
Western Hemisphere
Seasons
Solstice and equinox
Equator
Tropic of Cancer
Tropic of Capricorn
Arctic Circle
Antarctic Circle

Hemispheres
Chancellor

Chancellor is the leader of the government in Germany or Austria. The title  "Chancellor" means the same thing as "Prime Minister".  

For example, Italy has a Prime Minister while Germany has a Chancellor. They have the same job but a different title. 

In the United Kingdom, the Chancellor means the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the person in charge of the country's finances (taxes and spending). Also in the United Kingdom, there is a Lord Chancellor. 

Chancellor is also a title given to public officials in some other countries. For example, Daijō-daijin or Chancellor of the Realm was a government position in Japan in the late Nara and Heian periods.

Related pages
Chancellor of Germany
University Chancellor

References

Heads of government
 
Titles
Government occupations
Grenada

Grenada ( ; Grenadian Creole French: Gwenad) is an island nation in the Caribbean Sea that received its independence from the United Kingdom in 1974. Its capital is St. George's.

The island was invaded by the American military in 1983 because of Cuba's presence there. In 2004, a hurricane named Ivan destroyed most of the island's resources.

Grenada is called the Spice Island on account of its most famous export, the nutmeg.

Related pages
 Grenada at the Olympics
 Grenada national football team
 List of Grenadian people
 List of rivers of Grenada

References

Other websites 
 Official Government Website
 Official Website of the Tourism Board 
 General Tourism Website 

 
Current monarchies
Caribbean Community
English-speaking countries
Commonwealth realms
1974 establishments in North America
Pune

Pune is the 8th largest metropolis in India. It is in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The city is famous for the great Maratha king Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. The game of badminton was invented there in the 19th century. It is also the birthplace of spiritual teacher Meher Baba. Mula and Mutha are the two rivers that flow through the city. It has also", "Oxford of the East", "Detroit of India" by some. 

It has a major Information Technology (IT) center. This city is managed by the Pune Municipal Council (PMC).
Pune is a city of knowledge and often known as the Oxford of the east. In Marathi, it is known as vidyeche maherghar. It means the hometown of education. The population of Pune was 8,242,142 by 2015. 

 Name 
The name Pune comes from the Sanskrit word - ''. It means "city of virtue".  Pune is known for its educational facilities, having more than hundred educational institutes and nine universities.  Pune has well-established glass, sugar and metal forging industries since the 1950s.  Pune is also known as the "Oxford of the East."  Pune was once the centre of power for the Maratha Empire. It is known to have existed as a town since 847 AD. Pune was the first capital of Shivaji Maharaj.

It is the cultural capital of Maharashtra. There are many historic places like Shaniwar Wada, Lal Mahal and many museums like the Aga Khan Palace, Raja Kelkar Museum, and the National War museum.

The climate of Pune is suitable to reside in, so many people settled there. Today, Pune has many complexes, shopping malls and multiplexes. There are many research centres present in Pune.

Students not only from other cities and States come here to study, but international students from various countries are also found here. There are many clubs for different sports activities in this city. The main attraction of the city is the Ganesh Festival which is celebrated with great joy. 

There are many educational institutions like Symbiosis, SP and Fergusson. Many people in Pune are food lovers, there are many famous Bhelpuri and Vada pav centres.

References
Beer (Devon)

Beer is the name of a village in Devon, South West England. It is famous for underground quarries started by the Romans which have supplied stone for many of England's Historic buildings. Fishing was also a large industry with smuggling connections and the ladies of Beer made the lace for Queen Victoria's wedding dress.

References

Villages in Devon