ejaasaari/simplewiki-2025-04-01 huggingface dataset:
James Albert Michener ( or ; February 3, 1907 – October 16, 1997) was an American writer. His books include "Tales of the South Pacific", "Hawaii", "The Drifters", "Texas", and "Poland". Most of his 40 books are very large sagas. They are about the lives of many generations in a particular place. His non-fiction writings include the 1992 book "The World is My Home" and "Sports in America". Michener wrote that he did not know who his parents were or exactly when and where he was born. He was raised by an adoptive mother, Mabel Michener, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Some have argued that Mabel was his birth mother. He graduated from Swarthmore College, where he played basketball, in 1929. He later studied at the Colorado State Teachers College. He taught there for several years. He also taught at Harvard University.  His writing career began during World War II. He was assigned to the South Pacific Ocean as a naval historian. He used his time there as the basis for "Tales of the South Pacific", his first book. This book was the basis for the musical "South Pacific". Michener met his wife Mari while in Japan. His novel "Sayonara" is autobiographical. On January 10, 1977, he was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Gerald R. Ford. In his final years, he lived in Austin, Texas, where he died of kidney failure on October 16, 1997 at the age of 90.
The 1150s was a decade that began on 1 January 1150, and ended on 31 December 1159. It is distinct from the decade known as the 116th decade which began on January 1, 1151. and ended on December 31, 1160.
The War of 1812 was fought between the British Empire and the United States from 1812 to 1815 in North America and at sea. The British forces were helped by Canadian militia (volunteers) and Native Americans because British soldiers were busy fighting Napoleon I in Europe. In nearly every battle, the British defeated the attacking American forces. The war increased nationalism in both Canada and the United States. Causes. One reason given by Americans for declaring war was that the British were bothering American ships. The British claimed to be looking for British sailors who had deserted. Many British sailors deserted from the miserable conditions and the harsh discipline. Originally, many of the sailors had been pressed into service. It was the practice of the British to arrest any man they found on a street and to force him to serve on their ships. Many British sailors who escaped signed on as crew aboard American merchant ships. The British claim was somewhat true. In 1807, an American ship was boarded and then fired on, which created outrage among the American public. The British were also seizing American sailors at sea and forcing them to serve in the navy. The numbers of American seamen pressed into British service is not well known and may have been greatly exaggerated. The British were also sponsoring Native American territories in the Midwest to stop the United States from expanding westward. That made 10,000 Native Americans fight for the British. Napoleon I started the French invasion of Russia in 1812, just as the war started in North America. The Americans thought that the British would be busy fighting the French during the Napoleonic Wars to do much in North America.  The war. Fighting began when the United States started to attack the Canadian provinces in 1812. However, the British and the Canadians successfully defended their borders. In 1813, British and American ships fought in the Battle of Lake Erie. Americans under Oliver Hazard Perry won, which gave them control of Lake Erie. American forces raided and burned Toronto, which was then called York. In 1814, Napoleon I abdicated the French throne. That freed up experienced British troops to be sent to North America. They burned the unfinished Washington, DC, and also
Chandigarh, also called "The City of Beauty", is a city in India. It is a union territory, because it is the capital of two Indian states: Punjab and Haryana. As a territory it does not belong to either state. Before 1 November 1966 it was the capital of East Punjab, but after formation of Haryana on 1 November 1966 it become a union territory. There are many tourism places in Chandigarh like Rock garden, Rose garden and Sukhna lake. Chandigarh came into existence in 1952 when its first stone was laid. It is one of the modern cities of India, designed by a French architect Le Corbusier. It was the dream city of India's first Prime Minister, Sh. Jawahar Lal Nehru. It is well known for its mixed cultural background and its fast development in the field of Information Technology. It has outlets of many famous multinational companies established here and is emerging as a hub for business development. The territory covers an area of 44 mi² or 114 km², it is bigger than Montserrat but smaller than Jersey.  "Chandi" means 'good', and "ghar" means 'home', so the literal meaning of the city's name can mean "Good Home".
Convection is the movement of heat because of the movement of warm matter. Convection is defined as the method of heat transfer through a fluid from places of higher temperature to lower temperature by the movement of the molecules due to their different densities.  For example, atmospheric circulation moves warm air to cool places, causing wind. Wind, in turn, can enter and cool a room if the window is open. The movement of the clouds, the ocean currents and many types of heaters are examples of convection. Forced convection and natural convection. Convection can happen naturally ("natural convection") or because of a moving device ("forced convection"). The fan is a device that moves air artificially. The air in this case is moving because of the rotation of the fan. This is an example of "forced convection". Natural convection happens because a fluid is lighter when hot and heavier when cold. Thus, if a fluid has a hot part and a cold part, the hot part naturally moves upward and the cold part naturally moves downward. For example, if the water in a pot is hotter near the bottom because of the fire, it rises from the bottom to the surface. At the same time the water near the surface is colder so it sinks to the bottom. Convection currents. Convection currents occur when there are significant differences in temperature between two parts of a fluid. When this happens, hot fluids rise and cold fluids sink. This causes movements or currents in the fluid. Atmospheric circulation, for example, is made by convection currents.
A chipmunk is a small squirrel-like rodent. It is in the Sciuridae family. About twenty-three species fall under this title, with one species in North America. The name may have originally been spelled "chitmunk" (perhaps from a Native American word meaning "red squirrel"). However, the earliest form comes from the Oxford English Dictionary (in 1842) as "chipmonk". Other early forms include "chipmuck" and "chipminck".  Chipmunks are hoarders, meaning they store food for winter. Popular culture. Chip 'n Dale, two Disney cartoon characters, are famous chipmunks in pop culture. Another such trio is Alvin, Simon and Theodore (created by Ross Bagdasarian). Diet. Chipmunks eat seeds, nuts, fruit, grass, shoots, and lots of other plants.They also mushrooms, insects, small frogs, worms, and bird eggs. They will also some times eat newly hatched baby birds. When near where humans live, chipmunks can eat grains and vegetables, and plants from their farms and gardens, so they are sometimes considered pests. Chipmunks mostly look for food on the ground, but they climb trees to obtain nuts like acorns. At the beginning of autumn, many chipmunks begin to hoard foods that wont go bad for winter. They mostly put their foods in a special room their burrows and stay in their nests until spring. Cheek pouches allow chipmunks to carry food items to their burrows to store or to eat.
Major General Vicente Mondéjar Piccio (1 March 1927 – 28 April 2015) was a Filipino soldier. He was Chief of the Philippine Air Force during the last years of the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, notably during the 1986 People Power Revolution.
Donald Duck is a cartoon character created by Walt Disney. He is a white duck with an yellowish-orange bill and legs. He usually wears a sailor cap, a blue sailor shirt and a black or red bow tie. He first appeared on-screen in "The Wise Little Hen" on 9 June 1934. Donald is Scrooge McDuck's nephew. His girlfriend is Daisy Duck and his nephews are Huey, Dewey and Louie. His best friends are Mickey Mouse and Goofy. Donald sometimes gets angry and has a voice that is hard to understand. Donald appeared in animated shorts, comic books, and newspaper comic strips. Donald Duck appears frequently in "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse". Donald Duck has had a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame since 2004.
Esther is the name of a book in the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) and the Old Testament, and also its title heroine. It is the basis for the Jewish celebration Purim. Author and Date. Although it is never said who wrote the book of Esther, from inside evidence it is possible to make some guesses about the author and when it was written. The author was a Jew, because he emphasizes where the Jewish festival came from and from the Jewish nationalism inside the story. The author probably lived in a Persian city, because he knew Persian customs well, and does not say anything about the land of Judah or Jerusalem. The earliest date of the book would be a little while after the events were told, for instance, about 460 B.C. (before Ezra's return to Jerusalem). It is also thought that the festival of Purim had been celebrated some time before this book was written. Purpose, Themes, and Features. Purpose. The author's main purpose was to write about how the yearly festival of Purim started and to make people remember the saving of the Jewish people during King Ahaseurus' reign. The book shows both the start of the festival and why it should continue to be celebrated. Themes. In the book, the author repeatedly talks about the conflict between Israel and the Amalekites, a conflict that began during the exodus and continued through Israel's history. The author of Esther views them as the symbol of all the powers of the world against God's people. Now that Israel has been released from captivity, Haman's dangerous edict is the final try in the Old Testament time to get rid of them. When Haman is defeated, Israel enjoys a time of rest. Feasting is another important theme in Esther, as seen in the picture on the left. Banquets are the setting for important parts of the story. There are ten banquets. Style and Features. Repetition is one of the main stylistic features of the book of Esther. The three groups of banquets come in pairs; there are two lists of the king's servants; two reports that Esther hid her identity; two gatherings of women; two houses for the women; two fasts; two
Clay is a fine-grained silicate mineral made when rocks break down. Wet clay is soft and can be shaped to make pottery, bricks and other things. When it is shaped and then fired in a kiln to make it hard, it becomes pottery. Clay often contains some water because the water molecules stick to the tiny grains. There may also be some organic materials in the clay. There are 35 recognized clay mineral species on Earth, they make muds stick together ('cohesive'), or able to flow ('plastic'). The thixotropy of clay sometimes causes landslides. Quartz, feldspars, iron oxides, and carbonates can weather to sizes of a typical clay mineral. The formation of clay is well understood. It can come from soil, volcanic ash, and glaciation. Ancient mudrocks are another source, because they weather and disintegrate easily. Clay is by far the smallest particles recognized in mudrocks. A clay particle is about 1/1000th the width of a sand grain. This means a clay particle will travel 1000 times further at constant water velocity, thus requiring quieter conditions for settlement. Where the grains are more than a few millimeters wide, the material is called silt, not clay.
The rifle is a gun with a stock to brace against the shoulder and a barrel with twisting grooves. The grooves are called rifling and make bullets spin as they fly through the air. Rifles are made to shoot many different sizes of bullets using different amounts of gunpowder. Rifles are usually made to be able to hit targets at long ranges. Modern rifles are made for many different purposes. Some are made for hunting animals. Some are made for soldiers to use in war. Others are made for police to have in case they need them. Some rifles are made for target shooting.  Types. Rifles can work in different ways. Some rifles have what is called a bolt action. A small handle is used to move a part of the rifle called a "bolt". By moving the bolt backward, then forward, allows the shooter put a bullet in the chamber ready for firing. It also ejects any spent shells still in the chamber from any previously fired rounds. The rifle in the picture above is a bolt action. Some rifles are semi-automatics, where a bullet is loaded (automatically) and fired each time the trigger is pulled. Some are fully automatic, which work like semi-automatics but allow the shooter to fire more than one bullet at a time by holding down the trigger. The automatic rifle stops firing when the trigger is released or it runs out of ammunition.
Deuterocanonical books means "second canon" in Greek. It usually means the parts of the Bible that are only used by some Christian churches (mostly Roman Catholic and Orthodox). The books only exist in Greek language manuscripts that were written by the Jewish people living in Greek speaking areas of the Mediterranean Sea between 250 and 50 BC, as were all of the books of the Old Testament. It was not until circa 900 AD that the Old Testament as known in Jewish and Protestant religions was written in Hebrew and limited to the current so-called "canons". The books are not part of the Jewish Tanakh (also called the "Hebrew Bible"), although they were quoted as Scripture well into the Middle Ages as is found in the Jewish Mishna and later Rabbinical writings, even into the 6th century AD. The current Jewish canon was closed by the time of the Masoretic Text in the 10th century AD.  Some books considered deuterocanonical by Catholics are: The "Book of Daniel" and the "Book of Esther" are longer in Catholic Bibles than in Protestant Bibles because they have more stories. Many, but not all Protestant churches do not accept these books as inspired by God and use the derogatory term for them: Apocrypha. Martin Luther considered these books good to read while John Calvin read and studied them but did not think they should be part of the Bible.(except Baruch which Calvin accepted)
A sidekick is someone who regularly travels with, and helps, another person. In fiction, the other person is often a crimefighter or superhero, such as Batman and his sidekick Robin. Some people consider Sancho Panza, Don Quixote's ever-faithful companion, to be a type of sidekick, even though the book was written long before the word sidekick was invented. Annabeth Chase is Percy Jackson’s sidekick.
The Nicobar Islands are an island chain in the eastern Indian Ocean. They are part of India. The Nicobar islands include 22 islands of different sizes. The largest one is Great Nicobar. The total land area of the chain is 1841 km². The highest point on the Nicobars is Mount Thullier at 642 m. The population of the islands was 42,026 in 2001, roughly 65% of whom are indigenous peoples (the Nicobarese and Shompen peoples, listed among the Scheduled Tribes of India), and 35% migrants from India and Sri Lanka. The Nicobars are located southeast of the Indian subcontinent. They are separated form the subcontinent by the Bay of Bengal by about 1,300 km and are separated from the Andaman Islands to the north by the 150 km wide Ten Degree Channel and are 189 km from the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southeast. The Andaman and Nicobar islands separate the Bay of Bengal from the Andaman Sea. Until the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, Indira Point, south of Great Nicobar, was the southernmost point in India. The islands cluster into three groups. The northern group includes Car Nicobar (127 km²) and uninhabited Batti Malv (2 km²). The central group includes Chowra (8 km²), Teressa (101 km²), Poahat (13.3 km²), Katchal (174 km²), Camorta (188 km²), Nancowry (67 km²), and Trinket (86 km²); the Isle of Man and Tillangchong (17 km²) are uninhabited. Tillangchong is a wildlife sanctuary. The southern group includes Great Nicobar (1045 km²), Little Nicobar (157 km²), Kondul (4 km²) and Pulomilo (1 km²); the islets of Meroe, Trak, Treis, Menchal, Cubra, Pigeon, and Megapod are unin
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are a union territory of India. The name is often shortened to A &amp; N Islands, or ANI. The islands are in the Indian Ocean, in the southern part of the Bay of Bengal. The capital of this territory is the Andamanese town of Port Blair. It is made of two island groups - the Andaman Islands and the Nicobar Islands - separating the Andaman Sea to the east, from the Indian Ocean. These two groups are separated by the 10° N parallel, the Andamans lying to the north of this latitude, and the Nicobars to the south. The channel that separates ANI is the 10° degree channel. This islands have the only active volcano in India, Barren Island. These islands are also uninhabitated. It also has the lowest point in India, The Indira Point The territory's population in the last (2001) census of India was 356,152. Added together, the total land area of the territory is around 6,496 km² or 2,508 mi², it is larger than the Palestinian territories but smaller than Georgia territory of Abkhazia.
Kazan (; ) is the capital city of Tatarstan and one of Russia's largest cities. It is a major industrial, commercial and cultural center, and remains the most important center of Tatar culture. Kazan lies at the meeting of the Volga (İdel) and Kazanka (Qazansu) rivers in central European Russia. Name. The origin of the name is unclear. The literal translation of Tatar qazan is a boiler or cauldron. Or, it may have come from qazğan, Tatar for "dug [ditch]". "Qazan" is originally a name for a special cooking pan, a kind of a wok, but heavier. It was believed that the city of Kazan is named after this object because of its geographical similarity with a "qazan"-pan; namely the city is in a U - shape lowland. Another, more romantic legend tells a story of a Tatar princess Söyembikä, who dropped a golden dish (golden qazan) into the river on which the city is located while washing it. Nevertheless, Chuvash legends refer to Bulgarian prince "Khusan" (Chuvash rendering of Muslim name Hassan) and Chuvashes call this city Хусан after the name of this prince. History. In 2021, nine people were killed in a mass shooting.
A tornado is a tube of violently spinning air that touches the ground. Wind inside the tornado spins fast, but the actual 'circle' of wind around them is huge. This makes tornadoes very dangerous. Tornadoes are especially dangerous to people in cars, trucks, buses or mobile homes and about 60 people are killed by tornadoes every year. The word "tornado" might come from the Spanish word "tronada" (thunderstorm), which comes from the word "tronar" (to thunder). Tornadoes destroy things – they can tear houses to pieces. Cars and trucks may be thrown away and often leave people homeless. Tornadoes can be caused by winds that have been going opposite directions with humidity. They are smaller than hurricanes but stronger. Nearly three quarters of the world's tornadoes happen in the United States. However, they can happen anywhere. Tornadoes mostly happen during strong thunderstorms called supercell storms. They cause a lot of damage to anything in their path. Tornadoes are ranked on the Enhanced Fujita scale, from EF0 to EF5. EF0 is used for tornadoes that cause the least amount of damage, and EF5 is used for tornadoes that cause the most amount of damage. Tornadoes can happen in nearly any part of the world. In the United States, a tornado has happened in every state. The middle part of the United States is nicknamed "Tornado Alley" because of the number of tornadoes there. A tornado can have wind speeds of over 300 miles per hour (480 km/h). Most tornadoes have wind speeds less than 110 miles per hour (180 km/h), are about 250 feet (80 m) across and travel a few miles before disappearing. Other tornado-like phenomena that exist in nature include the gustnado, dust devil, fire whirls, and steam devil; downbursts are frequently confused with tornadoes, though their action is not similar. Characteristics. Condensation funnel. A tornado does not necessarily need to be visible; however, the extremely low pressure caused by the high wind speeds and rapid rotation usually causes water vapor in the air to condense into a visible "cond
A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk or hard drive, is a data storage device for computers which uses magnetic storage to store data. The capacity of a hard drive is usually measured in gigabytes (GB), however hard disk capacity can also be measured in terabytes when the capacity is over 1000 or 1024 gigabytes. A gigabyte is one thousand megabytes and a megabyte is one million bytes, which means that a gigabyte is one billion bytes. Some hard drives are so large that their capacity is measured in terabytes, (TB) where one terabyte is a thousand gigabytes (1 TB = 1000 or 1024 GB). As of 2024, hard drives can go up to 32 TB in size. Different interfaces. Over the years there have been many disk interface types, though all used the same rotating platter recording technology. Differences were in how the data was encoded to binary, data integrity, data transfer speeds, cabling requirements, and cost. In 2009, it was common to attach a hard disk using a Serial ATA connection. The connection that came before that was called "IDE" and is called Parallel ATA today. In large data centers, Fibre Channel is often used. For servers, the SCSI interface is very popular. There are several types and versions of SCSI interface, like parallel and Serial Attached SCSI, each stepping-up in terms of speed and price. Within servers, several SCSI drives are often used in conjunction with each other, in order to safeguard against data loss or corruption (this is known as RAID - and there are many configurations to choose from). Components. An HDD has a disk motor and an actuator motor that positions the read/write head. Wires from the actuator connect to the read/write head to amplifiers. They are bridged by the head support arm. In modern drives, acceleration at the head reaches 550 "g", so a head support arm connects the actuator and the read/write head. The actuator controls the read/write head and acts as a permanent magnet. A metal plate supports a squat neodymium-iron-boron (NIB) magnet. Beneath this plate is the voice