cyanic-selkie/wikianc huggingface dataset:
N. van Driel
At the 1921 Dutch Athletics Championships was the first national championships that included women’s events. Van Driel became the first female Dutch national champion in the 4x 100 metres relay event with Rozenburg. She won also the bronze medal in the 80 metres as part of these national championships a week later.
Mary Kay Place
Mary Kay Place (born September 23, 1947) is an American actress, director, and screenwriter. She acted in the sitcom Grey's Anatomy. She also acted in The West Wing.
Place was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Imam Reza shrine
Imām Rezā shrine is a complex in Mashhad, Iran. It contains the mausoleum of Imām Ridhā, the eighth Imām of Twelver Shi'ites. Also in the complex are the Goharshad Mosque, a museum, a library, seminaries, a cemetery, a dining hall for pilgrims, vast prayer halls, and other buildings.
Washuk District
Washuk District (ضلع واشک) is a district in the Balochistan province of Pakistan.
Tiger
The tiger (Panthera tigris) is the largest living member of the cat family, the Felidae. It feeds by hunting. It lives in Asia, mainly India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Korea and Siberian Russia. Tigers are solitary animals.
Appearance
There are tigers with distinct colors. Most tigers have orange fur with black stripes, and a white belly. The black stripes usually extend to the white underside. The stripes are used to keep them camouflaged while hunting. No two tigers have the same pattern of stripes. Most Bengal tigers have orange fur, but some Bengal tigers have white fur with black stripes, or that even have pure white fur. These white tigers are not albinos with red eyes. The white coat only appears once in every 100 births. The Bengal tiger is the national animal of Bangladesh and India. Tigers vary in size depending on their subspecies. Siberian tigers are the largest. Males can grow to at least 9 ft long (body length) and weigh about 900 lb. Females are a bit smaller. Record weight for males is claimed as 890 lb, but this cannot be confirmed.
Where they live
Tigers can live in a variety of habitats. Mostly they need to hide, to be near a water source, and have enough prey to eat. Tigers are solitary and they all control large amounts of territory, the size of which depends on the availability of various food for tigers and prey. According to Tigers-World, a male tiger may live and hunt in an area of 60 to 100 square kilometers (23 to 39 square miles). A female tiger may have 20 square kilometers (8 square miles). According to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, a single tiger can live in a territory as small as 21 square kilometers (8 square miles) to as large as 995 square kilometers (385 square miles). Bengal tigers in particular live in many types of forests. These include the wet, evergreen of Assam and eastern Bengal; the swampy mangrove forest of the Ganges Delta; the deciduous forest of Nepal, and the thorn forests of the Western Ghats.
Subspecies
As previously thought, the tiger had five living subspecies. In this context, 'recently' means in the last two centuries. Three tiger subspecies are extinct (†).
However, in 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group revised felid taxonomy and recognized the tiger populations in continental Asia as P. t. tigris, and those in the Sunda Islands as P. t. sondaica.
Tigers and humans
Tigers are becoming rare, because people hunt them for their coat (skin) and destroy the habitats they live in. The Bengal tiger has the largest population with 3,500 left in the wild. To help keep the tiger population, tigers are often placed in zoos. In order for tigers to survive into the next century, governments throughout the tigers’ range must show greater determination and commitment to conserve tigers and their habitats.
Chinese tigers have been used for centuries in traditional Chinese medicine. Body parts such as their whiskers and bones are used to treat things such as toothaches, malaria, and burns.
Tigers also kill and eat peoples' livestock, which are easier to hunt than their typical prey, because they are often in fenced or closed areas and livestock may not be able to flee. Sometimes tigers hunt people as prey and eat them, because they are either too old, injured, or ill to hunt their typical animal prey which are much faster than people. These too are a reason why tigers are killed by people.
Bardejov
Bardejov (Bártfa; Bartfeld; Bardejów) is a town in northeastern Slovakia. About 32,000 people live there. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000.
Tiger
Diet
Tigers eat many types of prey, mostly ungulates. Some examples are deer, monkeys, wild rabbits, wild pigs, tapirs, water buffalo and other animals found in Asia. They also eat birds, reptiles and fish. They also prey on other predators, including dogs, leopards, bears, snakes and crocodiles. All are carnivores (meat eaters). Some tigers may eat up to 50 lb of meat a day. Tigers kill their prey by clamping down on the prey's throat and suffocating it.
Bardejov
Twin towns – sister cities
Bardejov is twinned with:
Takht Bhai Tehsil
Takht-i-Bahi (or Takhtbai or Takht-i-Bahi or Takht Bahai) is a Buddhist monastic complex dating back to 1st century BC. It is located about 15 kilometers from Mardan in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980
Mastung Tehsil
Mastung, the capital of Mastung District, is a town in the Baluchistan province of Pakistan. It is located at 29°48'0N 66°50'60E and has an altitude of 1701 metres (5583 feet). The town is also the administrative centre of Mastung Tehsil, an administrative subdivision of the district - the town itself is administratively subdivided into two Union Councils of Pakistan
Saumane-de-Vaucluse
Saumane-de-Vaucluse is a commune. It is in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur in the Vaucluse department in south France.
Rose Livingston
Rose Livingston (circa 1885 - after 1937) was an American suffragist and former prostitute. She was known as the "Angel of Chinatown". She worked with prostitutes and victims of sexual slavery.
Biography
In 1912 while trying to rescue a prostitute she was severely beaten.
In 1914 she participated in one of the Suffrage Hikes from Manhattan to Albany, New York.
In 1929, she was given a gold medal by the National Institute of Social Science.
In 1934 she was found living in poverty. A retirement fund was established for her.
In 1937 she was awarded a silver cup by Edith Claire Bryce (1880-1960) of the Peace House for her "deeds of courage without violence".
Kathrine Narducci
Kathrine Narducci (born November 22, 1965) is an American actress. She is known for her role as Charmaine Bucco, Artie Bucco's wife, in the HBO crime drama series The Sopranos (1999–2007). Her movie credits include A Bronx Tale (1993), Chicago Overcoat (2009), Jersey Boys (2014), The Wizard of Lies (2017), Bad Education (2019), The Irishman (2019) and Capone (2020).
Narducci was born to an Italian-American family in East Harlem, New York City. Her father, Nicky Narducci, was a bar owner and organized crime figure in East Harlem. He was killed in a Mafia-related murder when Kathrine was ten years old.
Kansas Insurance Commissioner
The Kansas Insurance Commissioner (KIC) is in charge of helping the people whose lives are protected by insurance in the state of Kansas. The Insurance Commissioner is elected. The current Insurance Commissioner is Republican Vicki Schmidt.
List of Insurance Commissioners
The office used to called the Superintendent of Insurance. In 1927, the name changed to Commissioner of Insurance.
SIX Swiss
SIX Swiss Exchange (formerly SWX Swiss Exchange), based in Zurich, is Switzerland's principal stock exchange (the other being Berne eXchange). SIX Swiss Exchange also trades other securities such as Swiss government bonds and derivatives such as stock options.
The main stock market index for the SIX Swiss Exchange is the blue-chip index, the SMI, or Swiss Market Index. The index consists of the 20 most significant and most liquid large and mid-cap SPI equity-securities based on the free float market capitalisation.
SIX Swiss Exchange was the first stock exchange in the world to incorporate a fully automated trading, clearing and settlement system in 1995. The exchange is controlled by an association of 55 banks. Each of these banks has equal voting rights in the matter of decision making concerning the management and regulation of the exchange.
SIX X-Clear Ltd provides clearing and acts as the central counterparty for clearing trades, securities settlement and custody services.
Other services
SIX Group as well as being a stock exchange provides a number of other services through separate subsidiaries, these include;
Hours
The exchange's normal trading sessions are from 09:00 to 17:30 on all days of the week except Saturdays, Sundays and holidays declared by the Exchange in advance.
Savoillan
Savoillan is a commune. It is found in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur in the Vaucluse department in the south of France.
Qibla
Qiblah (قبلة, also transliterated as Kiblah) is an Arabic word for the direction that should be faced when a Muslim prays during Salah. Most mosques contain a niche in a wall that indicates the qiblah.
First Qibla;Unlike the biography stories that are composed of traditional rumor compilations, based on text and archaeological research, en:Patricia Crone and Michael Cook hypothesized that the "Masjid al-Haram" was not located in Mecca, but in the north-west Arabian Peninsula.
Canadian archeology and Islamic history researcher Dan Gibson discovered that the oldest mosque, palace and cemetery positionings point to Petra. He found that it was the place where Muhammad and the first Muslims lived, and that the first direction of qibla for the Muslims was facing Petra.
Fire blanket
A fire blanket is a type of blanket that can be used to put out a fire. A fire blanket includes fire-resistant material to prevent it from burning when it is being used.
Like the fire extinguisher, it is a fire safety material. It can be used in high temperatures.
Kupreanof, Alaska
Kupreanof is a city in Alaska.
Steering the Craft
Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Mariner and the Mutinous Crew is a 1998 nonfiction book by Ursula K. Le Guin. The book started as a writers' workshop led by Le Guin. There self-guided exercises and discussions in the book about how to write stories.
Despicable Me (franchise)
Despicable Me is an American animated movie series. There are currently five movies: Despicable Me (2010), Despicable Me 2 (2013), Minions (2015), Despicable Me 3 (2017), Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022), and Despicable Me 4 (2024)
Magnus Böcker
Magnus Böcker (August 31, 1961 – July 27, 2017) was a Swedish businessman. He was born in Stockholm, Sweden. He was the Executive Chairman of Blibros Capital Partners, an investment company based in Singapore and Stockholm. He was also Chairman and Co-Founder of Tryb.
Böcker died at his home in Singapore of cancer on July 27, 2017 at the age of 55.
Hala, Sindh
Hala (هـالا) is a town in the Pakistani province of Sindh.
Nat Geo/Fox HD
Nat Geo/Fox HD was a Latin American subscription television channel that broadcast exclusively in high definition. It was launched on December 1, 2008 in Latin America (DirecTV being the first platform to offer it). It was owned by Fox Latin American Channels. Nat Geo/Fox HD was closed in June 2014 after it was split to National Geographic HD and Fox HD.
The Secret Life of Pets (franchise)
The Secret Life of Pets is an American animated movie series. There are currently two movies: The Secret Life of Pets (2016), The Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019).
Ptolemaic dynasty
The Ptolemaic dynasty, also known as the Lagids or Lagidae, was a Macedonian Greek    royal family who ruled over Egypt. Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 BC to 30 BC. They were the last dynasty of ancient Egypt.
Ptolemy, was one of Alexander the Great's generals and deputies. He was appointed satrap of Egypt after Alexander's death in 323 BC. In 305 BC, he declared himself King Ptolemy I, later known as "Soter" (savior). The Egyptians soon accepted the Ptolemies as the successors to the pharaohs of independent Egypt. Unlike their previous rulers under the Achaemenid Empire, they usually lived in Egypt. Ptolemy's family ruled Egypt until the Roman conquest of 30 BC.
All the male rulers of the dynasty took the name Ptolemy. Ptolemaic queens, some of whom were the sisters of their husbands, were usually called Cleopatra, Arsinoe or Berenice. The most famous, was the last queen, Cleopatra VII. She was involved in the Roman political battles between Julius Caesar and Pompey, and later between Octavian and Mark Antony. Her death marked the end of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt.
Ptolemaic rulers and consorts
Dates in brackets represent the ruling dates of the Ptolemaic pharaohs. They often ruled jointly with their wives, who were often also their sisters. Several queens exercised royal authority, but the most famous and successful was Cleopatra VII (51–30 BC), with her two brothers and her son as successive nominal co-rulers. Several systems exist for numbering the later rulers; the one used here is the one most widely used by modern scholars.
Medical analysis
Members of the Ptolemaic dynasty were described as extremely obese. Their sculptures and coins show prominent eyes and swollen necks. Graves' disease within the family could explain the swollen necks and eye prominence (exophthalmos), although this is unlikely if they were simply obese.
Members of this dynasty likely suffered from a multi-organ fibrotic condition such as Erdheim–Chester disease or a familial multifocal fibrosclerosis. With this condition, then thyroiditis, obesity and ocular proptosis can all occur at the same time.
Global Development Initiative
The Global Development Initiative (全球发展倡议 in Chinese, also known as GDI; its full name: Global Development Initiative —Building on 2030 SDGs for Stronger, Greener and Healthier Global Development) is a global initiative proposed by China in 2021. It is regarded as another important public good and cooperation platform provided by China to the world since CCP general secretary Xi Jinping put forward the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013. As of September 2022, more than 100 countries and international organizations have expressed their support to the Initiative and more than 60 countries have joined the Group of Friends of the GDI at the UN.
Content
In June 2022, CCP general secretary Xi Jinping chaired the High-level Dialogue on Global Development under the theme “Foster a Global Development Partnership for the New Era to Jointly Implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. As the outcome of the Dialogue, the Chair’s Statement was released with an annex which listed 32 practical measures for cooperation.
=== Core Principles ===
=== Priority areas ===
=== Pathways ===
Launch
On January 2022, the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the UN held the Launch Meeting of the Group of Friends of Global Development Initiative, which marked the official establishment of the Group. The UN Deputy Secretary-General Ms. Amina Mohammed, Under-Secretary-General Mr. Liu Zhenmin, Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Africa to the Secretary-General Ms. Cristina Duarte, Associate Administrator of UNDP Ms. Usha Rao-Monari, Deputy Executive Director of UN Women Ms. Anita Bhatia, and more than 20 heads of UN agencies were present at the meeting and delivered remarks. Delegates from over 100 countries participated in the meeting, including more than 80 ambassadors.
Laurens van Ravens
His final game was Coen Moulijn's farewell match between Feyenoord and Uruguay on 9 June 1972.
Global Development Initiative
Launch
Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed noted in her remarks that the UN welcomes and supports the GDI, and believes this Initiative will help ensure the world keep the promise of “leaving no one behind”. She also mentioned that the GDI shows China’s continued commitment to supporting the SDGs, and the UN looks forward to working with the Group on the next-phase pragmatic cooperation.
Laurens van Ravens
Van Ravens died on 23 October 2018 in Rijswijk, Netherlands at the age of 96.
Global Development Initiative
Launch
As of September 2022, over 60 countries have joined the Group.
Event
On May 9, 2022,the High-Level Virtual Meeting of the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative, with the theme of “Deepening Cooperation under Global Development Initiative for Accelerated Implementation of the 2030 Agenda”,was held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi addressed the meeting via video link. UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a video message. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand Don Pramudwinai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Mukhtar Tileuberdi, Foreign Minister of Pakistan Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Foreign Minister of Cuba Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Secretary of State of Ministry of Planning of Cambodia Thavrak Tuon, Deputy Foreign Minister of Egypt Hamdi Sanad Loza, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Liu Zhenmin, UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner, FAO Director General Qu Dongyu, and representatives of UNEP, UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women, UNIDO and other UN development agencies participated in the meeting and delivered remarks.
In his speech, Secretary-General Guterres said that we are fast-approaching the mid-point of the time to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, but the progress is in peril. We must and can do better. Discussions through the GDI can help move the needle on development progress across all countries. For people, for planet, and for our common future, it’s time to rescue the SDGs.
On September 20, 2022, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi chaired the Ministerial Meeting of the Group of Friends of the GDI in New York. UN Secretary General António Guterres sent a video message. Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister & Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, Lao Deputy Prime Minister & Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith, Thai Deputy Prime Minister & Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai, Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister & Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen Hassen, along with foreign ministers of nearly 40 countries including Mongolia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, and Nicaragua, Permanent Representatives of the Group members to the United Nations, and representatives of international organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Organization for Migration, and the International Renewable Energy Agency, were present.
Secretary-General Guterres said in his remarks that the holistic Global Development Initiative is a valued contribution to addressing common challenges and accelerating the transition to a more sustainable and inclusive future.
At the meeting, China briefed positive outcomes of its implementation of the Global Development Initiative, put forward three suggestions for forming synergy of the international community to advance the GDI, and expressed willingness to strengthen strategic synergy with UN development agencies and work with members of the Group of Friends to take seven additional measures to implement the 2030 Agenda.
Seigneur
Seigneur (Lord, Herr) was used during medieval times. It was the name formerly given in France to someone who had been granted a fief by the ruling king or queen, with all its associated rights over people and property. This form of lordship was called seigneurie. The rights that the seigneur had were also called seigneurie, and the seigneur himself was the seigneur justice because he exercised jurisdiction over his fief. France repealed its feudal system August 4, 1789 in the wake of the French Revolution. Since then, the office of seigneur ceased to exist, and the title has only been used for sovereign princes and only by their families.
The part of Canada that was once called New France also used a seigneurial system from 1627 to 1854.
Joe Wark
Joe Wark (9 October 1947 – 1 October 2015) was a Scottish professional footballer. He spent all of his professional career with Motherwell. He made 464 appearances for the club in the Scottish Football League between 1968 and 1984. He was born in Glasgow.
Wark died after a long illness on 1 October 2015. He was 67.
Virgin Orbit
Virgin Orbit is a company in the Virgin Group that will provide a for small satellites to be put into space. The company was made in 2017 to create the LauncherOne rocket, which would be launched from an airplane.
They currently have have made one try to go to space on May 25, 2020, which did not work. They will try again no earlier than December 19, 2020
Skatval
Skatval is a small village in the municipality of Stjørdal in the province Nord-Trøndelag, Norway. The nature is quite varied; forest, fiords, hills, mountains and farms.
Patrick White
Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 – 30 September 1990), was an Australian author. He is an important English-language novelist of the 20th century. From 1935 until his death, he published 12 novels, two short-story collections and eight plays.
White's fiction uses humour, ornate prose, shifting narrative vantage points and a stream of consciousness technique. In 1973, he got the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was the only Australian citizen with the prize until the South African-born J. M. Coetzee became an Australian citizen in 2006. His novel The Vivisector was close to winning the Lost Man Booker Prize in 2010.
White was made Australian of the Year for 1974.
Patrick White and Christina Stead are widely called the most important Australian novelists of the 20th century.
Plays
Screenplay
Rah Ahan F.C.
Rah Ahan Football Club is an Iranian football club based in Shahr-e-Rey. They currently play in the IPL.
Season-by-season
The table below chronicles the achievements of Rah Ahan every season, from 2002 to the present day.
Montemarciano
Montemarciano is a comune in the Province of Ancona in the Marche region in Italy.
Twin towns
Montemarciano is twinned with:
Accra
Accra is the capital city of Ghana. It has a population of about 1,970,400 (2005). The city is Ghana's largest city. It is also the administrative, communications, and economic center of the country. The main economic activities in Accra are financial and government services, communications, construction, transportation and agriculture (mostly fishing). Most of Ghana's ability to make things is in the capital area.
History of Accra
Accra was founded by the Ga people in the late 1600s. The word Accra comes from the word Nkran meaning ants. This is because of the many anthills seen in the countryside around Accra. During part of its history, Accra was a very important place for trade with the Portuguese. The Portuguese built a fort in the town. Many other countries also built forts at Accra during the 17th century. These countries included Sweden, the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom and Denmark.
The location that is Accra today grew into a large town around the original Ga town. As the city grew, the British, Danish and Dutch forts and the small communities that formed around the forts were made added to the city.
In 1877, at the end of the second Anglo-Asante War, Accra replaced Cape Coast as the capital of the British Gold Coast colony. After a railroad was built between Accra and the inland locations of mines and farms, Accra became the economic center of Ghana. Large areas of the city were destroyed by earthquakes in 1862 and 1939, but the city rebuilt around a seaport and later a brewery. Each time it rebuilt, the city was made larger.
The Accra Riots in 1948 started people in Ghana fighting for independence. This led to the Ghana's independence from the United Kingdom and it becoming a country in 1957.
Today, Accra is one of the richest and most modern cities in the African continent. It has a high quality of living by African standards.
Pablo Casals
Pau Casals i Defilló (Pablo Casals) (born El Vendrell, Catalonia, 29 December 1876; died San Juan, Puerto Rico, 22 October 1973) was a Spanish Catalan cellist. He made the cello popular as a solo instrument to the younger generation. In his later years he was also a conductor as well as a composer.
Casals made many recordings of solo, chamber, and orchestral music. Perhaps his best known recordings are the ones he made between 1936 and 1939 of the Cello Suites by Bach. When the dictator General Franco started to rule Spain he felt very strongly about the political situation. When the democratic party was defeated in 1939 he said that he would never go back to Spain until democracy had been restored. He did not live long enough to see the end to Franco’s rule, which happened two years after his death, with the death of Franco.
Life
Casals' father was the organist at the local church. He gave Casals his first music lessons, teaching him piano, violin and organ. When Casals was eleven, he heard a group of travelling musicians playing music. One of the instruments was the cello. He had never heard one and he decided that was what he wanted to play. His mother took him to Barcelona, where he went to a music school: the Escola Municipal de Música. There he studied the cello, music theory and piano.
One day, when he was 13, he was looking at some old music in a second-hand music shop. He found some very old music for solo cello. They were the Cello Suites by Bach. People in those days thought they were just a collection of studies to help cellists with their technique, but Casals, although only still a boy, realized it was great music. He spent the next 12 years practising them until he felt ready to perform them. Casals’ discovery of these wonderful Cello Suites was the most important Bach discovery since 1829 when Mendelssohn found and performed the St Matthew Passion which the world had forgotten about.
Casals showed enormous talent for the cello. On 23 February 1891, when he was 14 years old, he gave a solo recital in Barcelona. He graduated from the Escola with honours two years later.
In 1893, the Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz heard him playing in a trio in a café. He gave him a letter which allowed him to be introduced to the Queen. She gave him money so that he could study at the Conservatory in Madrid. She then allowed him to go to Brussels to study at the Conservatory which was then the best in Europe for string instruments. The cello teacher mentioned a long list of cello pieces and asked him which ones he played. When Casals told him he could play them all, the teacher made fun of him. When Casals started playing, everyone was amazed at his talent. The teacher wanted him to be one of his pupils, but Casals had been insulted and so he went to Paris the next day. The Queen of Spain was angry with Casals when she heard what had happened and stopped sending him money.
In Paris he had very little money. He earned a living by playing second cello in the theatre orchestra of the Folies Marigny. His mother tried to earn some money by sewing. In 1896, he returned to Catalonia where he taught at a music school and played principal cellist in the orchestra of Barcelona's opera house, the Liceu. In 1897 he appeared as soloist with the Madrid Symphony Orchestra, and was awarded the Order of Charles III from the Queen.
International fame
In 1899, Casals played the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto at Crystal Palace in London, and later for Queen Victoria at her summer home at Cowes, Isle of Wight. He was becoming very famous. In Paris he make a great impression on everyone, especially the conductor Charles Lamoureux who had started a famous orchestra. Casals went to the Netherlands, the United States where he gave 80 concerts, and South America. He often played with the pianist Harold Bauer. On 15 January 1904 Casals was invited to play at the White House for President Theodore Roosevelt. He played in the Carnegie Hall in New York, playing Richard Strauss's Don Quixote with the composer conducting. Between 1906 and 1912 he had a relationship with a Portuguese cellist Guilhermina Suggia, although they were never married. In 1914 Casals married the American singer Susan Metcalfe. They were separated in 1928, but did not divorce until 1957.
Casals formed a trio with the pianist Alfred Cortot and the violinist Jacques Thibaud. They gave many concerts and made some of the first recordings of piano trio music. They played together for 30 years.
In 1905 he toured Russia. It was an unfortunate time because the Russian Revolution was taking place. During the concert he played in Moscow gunfire could be heard outside the hall.
During the First World War Casals lived in New York. In 1919 he went back to Barcelona. He wanted to improve the music in his own country. There were very few people who could play well, so he founded his own orchestra: the Orquesta Pau Casals. This annual music festival continued until the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936.
Casals supported the Spanish Republican government. When it was defeated he said that he would not return until Spain was once more a democratic country. He then left his country and went into exile. He went to live in the French village of Prades which was near the border with Spain. He continued his career as a cellist. After World War II, in June 1946, he went to England and played the cello concertos by Schumann and Elgar at the Royal Albert Hall with Sir Adrian Boult conducting. Outside the hall the police had to help him get to his car because so many people were crowding round him.
Casals played in many countries, but refused to play in any country that was friendly with Franco’s government in Spain. In 1945 he gave a broadcast at the BBC and spoke to his people in Catalonia. He finished by playing a Catalan folksong called El Cant dels Ocells (The Song of the Birds). He played it at the end of all his concerts. When Britain recognized Franco’s government, Casals decided he could no long play in England. He made one big exception to his decision not to visit Franco-friendly countries: in 1961 he took part in a concert of chamber music in the White House on 13 November where he played to President John F Kennedy whom he admired.
Prades Festivals
In 1950 he continued his career as conductor and cellist at the Prades Festival in Conflent. He agreed to play on condition that the money that was made at the festival would be given to a refugee hospital nearby. Franco said that Spaniards were forbidden to go to the festival, but many managed to cross the border on foot. Many world-famous musicians played at Prades: Josef Szigeti, Isaac Stern, Rudolf Serkin and Eugene Istomin and others.
He continued to lead the Prades Festivals until 1966.
Puerto Rico
When he was 80 Casals married one of his young students, a girl called Marta. They had met in Prades. Marta was from Puerto Rico where Casals’ mother had come from. They went to live in Puerto Rico in a house called "El Pesebre". In 1957 a musical festival was started there in the town of San Juan. He continued to visit the festival at Prades every year until 1966. He also gave masterclasses at American schools and universities as well as in other countries. Some of these were televised.
The composer
Casals was also a composer. One of his last compositions was the Himne a les Nacions Unides (Hymn of the United Nations); he conducted its first performance in a special concert at the United Nations on 24 October 1971, 2 months before his 95th birthday.
Casals wrote an autobiography Joys and Sorrows; Reflections (1970).
Sing (franchise)
Sing is an American animated movie series. There are currently two movies: Sing (2016), Sing 2 (2021).
Pablo Casals
Death
Casals died in 1973 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the age of 96. In 1979 his remains were taken to El Vendrell, Catalonia, where he had been born. He did not live to see the end of the Franco dictatorial regime. Later, when Franco had died in 1975 and Spain was a democracy once more, the Spanish government under King Juan Carlos I, issued a postage stamp in honour of the centenary of his birth.
In 1989, sixteen years after his death, Casals was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
His achievements
No other cellist had such an influence on cello playing in the 20th century. He changed the way people thought about cello technique. For example: when he was young violinists and cellists were taught to practise with a book under the right arm. This made the bowing arm very stiff. Casals taught his pupils to play with a free bowing arm. Casals was a great teacher, and he learned a lot about playing through his teaching. He thought about fingering and bowing, and showed his pupils how their left hand could be strong but also relaxed.
The International Pau Casals Cello Competition is held in Germany once every four years. It was started in 2000 to help young cellists to start their careers. It is supported by the Pau Casals Foundation, under the patronage Casals’ widow. One of the prizes is the use of a beautiful cello which was owned by Casals.
References
The Great Cellists: Margaret Campbell, London 2004, ISBN 1-86105-654-0, p. 82. The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie; 1980; ISBN 1-56159-174-2
Jaguar
The jaguar (Panthera onca) is a big cat (feline) of the genus Panthera which lives in South America and Central America.
The jaguar is the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion. It is also the largest and most powerful feline in the Western Hemisphere.
Because of its spots, jaguars look like leopards, though it is usually larger and stronger, and its behavior is more like that of a tiger. It likes to stay near water, and like the tiger, it is famous for being a big cat that enjoys swimming. It usually hunts alone.
The jaguar has a very powerful strong bite, even compared to other big cats. Because of its strong bite, jaguars can bite through armoured reptiles like caimans, crocodiles, turtles and tortoises. Jaguars kill their prey in an unusual way: they bite directly through the skull between the ears and into the brain.
Appearance
Jaguars have yellow or sometimes yellow-orange fur with brown and black rosettes and spots. They are big and heavy and also have very strong muscles which makes them really powerful. They cannot climb well, but they can swim.
Sometimes there are jaguars who are completely black, but if you look closely you can still see the spots. They are called "black panther" or just "panther". This is a 'colour morph' of the same species, a kind of polymorphism.
Habitat
Jaguars live in South America and Central America. They mostly live in rainforests, but also in savannas, swamps, grasslands, forest, deserts and open areas.
Life
Jaguars are not specialized with their food, but eat almost anything they get: big and small mammals, birds, reptiles, fish and livestock. It is an ambush predator. When hunting, they usually try to secretly get very close to the prey, and then the jaguar suddenly jumps at it and throws it down. The jaguar bites the skull of its prey to kill it. It then takes the prey to a safe place and eats it.
Yuka Yamazaki
Yuka Yamazaki (山崎 由加) is a former Japanese football player. She played for the Japan national team.
Biography
Yamazaki was born in Tokyo Metropolis on June 29, 1980. She played for Nippon TV Beleza and Okayama Yunogo Belle. She retired in 2006.
On May 31, 2000, when Yamazaki was 19 years old, she debuted for the Japan national team against Australia. She played 7 games for Japan until 2001.
Nathan Fillion
Nathan Christopher Fillion (born March 27, 1971) is a Canadian-American actor. He was born in Edmonton, Alberta. Fillion is best known for the lead role of Captain Malcolm Reynolds in the television series Firefly and its movie continuation, Serenity, as well as his role as Richard Castle on the ABC series Castle.
Sivergues
Sivergues is a commune. It is found in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur in the Vaucluse department in the south of France.
V6 engine
A V6 engine, often just called a V6, is an internal combustion engine with six cylinders. The engine has three cylinders on each side called banks. The two banks form a "V" shaped angle. In most engines, the two banks are at a right angle (90°) or less to each other. All six pistons turn a common crankshaft. It is the second most common engine design in modern cars after the inline four. It can be powered by different types of fuels, including gasoline, diesel, natural gas and alcohol.
History
Some of the first V6-cars were built in 1905 by the Marmon Motor Car Company.
Delahaye's design-engineer Amadee Varlet came up with a twin-cam V6, that went into series production as the Type 44, in 1911. It was not successful enough to remain in production after 1914, when the first World war interrupted French automobile manufacturing. (Information obtained through Club Delahaye, the recognized global authority and permanent holder of the registered Delahaye trademark).
The first series production V6 was introduced by Lancia in 1950. Other builders soon started using V6 engines. In 1959, General Motors built a heavy-duty 305 in3 (5 L) 60° V6 for use in their pickup trucks and Chevrolet Suburban. The engine was later enlarged to 478 in3 (7.8 L) for heavy truck and bus use.
In 1962, the Buick Special offered a 90° V6 with uneven firing intervals. Consumers did not like this engine because of the vibration.
Balance and smoothness
Due to the odd number of cylinders in each bank, V6 designs are unbalanced, whatever V-angle they use. Each bank in a V6 has an odd number of pistons. The V6 has an end-to-end rocking motion. Counterweights on the crankshaft and a counter rotating balancer shaft compensate for some of the rocking motion.
The Lancia V6 in 1950 used a 60° angle between the cylinder banks and a six-throw crankshaft, to achieve equally spaced firing intervals of 120°. This still has some balance and secondary vibration problems. The first Buick V6 was a 90°, based on their 90° V8. This produced a rough-running design. This was unacceptable to many customers. Later designs have improved the engine and made it reasonably smooth.
60 degrees
The most efficient cylinder bank angle for a V6 is 60 degrees. This makes the smallest size engine and reduces vibration. 60° V6 engines are not as well balanced. Modern design has reduced most of the vibration. 60 degree V6 engines do not need balance shafts. This design works well in larger cars where four-cylinder engines do not have enough power.
90 degrees
Some 90° V6 engines are built. They are usually based on V8 engines. It takes little work to change a V8 into a V6 engine. The problem is these engines are wider and have more vibration than a 60° V6. More modern 90° V6 engine designs avoid vibration problems by changing the crankshaft's design and firing timing. Balancing shafts are often used to remove the remaining vibration.
120 degrees
120° could be thought of as the natural angle for a V6. Each cylinder fires a power stroke every 120° of crankshaft rotation. This allows pairs of pistons to share crank pins (a connection on the crankshaft). Unlike the V8, there is no way to arrange a V6 to balance the piston forces. Because of the odd number of cylinders in each bank, a balance shaft is needed.
The 120° design also creates a very wide engine. It is too wide for most cars. It is often used in race cars. Race cars are designed around the engine, and vibration is not as important.
Odd and even firing
When the fuel in a cylinder is burned, it pushes the piston down and creates power. This is often referred to as firing.
Many early V6 engines were based on V8 engine designs. This made a firing pattern with groups of two cylinders with an odd-firing order. This resulting in rough-running engines with unpleasant vibrations at certain engine speeds.
More modern 90° V6 engines avoid this problem. They use a split crank pin where the piston connects to the crankshaft. This makes an even 120° firing pattern. A 'split' crank pin is weaker than a straight one. Modern metallurgical techniques can produce a crankshaft that is strong enough to not break.
Racing use
The V6 engine was introduced into racing by Lancia in the early 1950s. They had some good results. Then Ferrari built the Dino V6. Alfredo Ferrari, the son of Enzo Ferrari, was nicknamed Dino. He suggested building a 1.5 litre V6 engine for Formula Two racing. The Dino V6 was updated several times, and increased to a 2.4 litre engine. The Dino V6 was used in the Ferrari 246 Formula One car in 1958.
Motorcycle use
Laverda showed a 996 cc V6-engined motorcycle at the 1977 Milan show. The motorcycle was raced in the 1978 Bol d'Or 24 hour race.
Potluck
A potluck is a gathering of people. Every person is expected to bring a dish of food to share with the other people.
Gun
A gun (also called a firearm) is a weapon used to shoot one or more metal projectiles called bullets. Guns made of wood or bamboo are thought to have been made in China around 1000 AD. In the next few centuries they spread to other parts of Asia and to Europe where they were made of metal. Guns largely replaced catapults and bows and arrows when they became strong enough to reach out over longer distances to reliably hit a target. They are of many different sizes. Some are small enough to hold in one hand. Others are large enough to sink a warship.
In military usage, the word "firearm" is used for the type of weapons that soldiers carry. Most of them are either pistols or rifles. These small arms can be carried and used by one person. They have the same basic parts: a trigger, a barrel, and a handgrip or stock. The shooter's finger pulls the trigger to fire the weapon which releases a bullet. The barrel guides the bullet which then flies to the target. The shooter's hand holds the handgrip.
Cartridges
A modern bullet is the front part of a round or cartridge. A cartridge consists of a bullet, propellant and a primer. These are packaged in a metallic, paper, or plastic case which is sized exactly for the chamber of the firearm being used. When the rear of the case (containing the primer) is struck, an explosion in the back of the cartridge ignites the propellant. The controlled explosion forces the bullet out of the barrel. Cartridges have different ways of being loaded into different kinds of weapons. Cartridges can be loaded directly into a firearm into the chamber. Or, more commonly, into a clip, a magazine or other bullet container which is loaded into the firearm. Handguns known as revolvers have a cylinder with holes that the bullets are loaded into. Modern guns called pistols are handguns loaded with a magazine.
Military use
Modern militaries use the word "gun" for larger artillery guns that need several people, and that fire big ammunition. For example, weapons on warships and tanks are called "guns". They may be in a "turret" (a rotating base). Big guns usually fire artillery shells, which explode upon impact.
In almost every country firearms are the main weapons used by armies. In modern armies, every soldier has at least one firearm as standard equipment. Soldiers are trained to use firearms, and to keep them clean and ready for use.
Sporting use
Shooting is a competitive sport involving tests of accuracy and speed. They use various types of guns such as pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns and airguns. Shooting sports are categorized by the type of firearm, targets, and distances at which the targets are shot. Target Shooting is an Olympic sport.
Since the first humans, hunting became a way of life. It was and still is in some places, the key to survival. Mankind is distinguished from other animals by the use of tools. At least 2 million years ago man learned to hunt animals for meat. They learned to create and use spears and axes. Bows and arrows were used at least 71,000 years ago. Modern hunting still uses more primitive tools. But many subsistence hunters have adapted to use modern firearms. In modern countries hunting is still allowed but is considered a sport. Hunting can be used to control the populations of many animal species. As with many aspects of gun ownership and use, modern hunting remains controversial. Handguns are not generally used for hunting.
Legal use
Guns can be used to kill other people. For that reason many countries only allow soldiers, policemen, and certain social classes to have them. In some countries, a person must have a special permit (or license) if they want to own a gun. Depending on the gun, people need to be a certain age and may need to meet other criteria to get such a permit.
An example of this is that in the United States federal law allows buying rifles and/or shotguns at age 18—if purchased from a licensed firearms dealer. But a person must be age 21 or older to purchase a handgun—from a licensed firearms dealer. However, if purchased from an unlicensed person, with few exceptions, a handgun may not be sold to anyone under age 18. There is no age restriction on who may buy a rifle or shotgun from an unlicensed person. In the United States and other countries, people can buy guns for self-defense, hunting, and shooting sports like target shooting.
In some countries, such as Australia, people who live on farms are allowed to keep guns, but it is not easy for a person living in the city to get a gun without good reason. In the United Kingdom, access by the general public to firearms is tightly controlled by law. However, this is less restrictive in Northern Ireland. After the Dunblane school massacre in 1996 followed by the Hungerford massacre in 1987, Britain passed the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988. It required registration for shotguns and banned semi-automatic and pump-action weapons. A further ban on all handguns in mainland Britain came a year and a half later.
Spirit Untamed
Spirit Untamed is a 2021 American computer-animated adventure movie produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Universal Pictures. The movie is directed by Elaine Bogan and co-directed by Ennio Torresan Jr. (in their feature directorial debuts), from a screenplay written by Aury Wallington and Kristin Hahn, making this the second theatrical movie release of the Spirit franchise and is both a spin-off and a stand-alone sequel/reboot of the traditionally animated Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) and loosely based on the characters from its Netflix animated spin-off television series Spirit Riding Free, developed by Wallington.