Apple Records hired Rundgren to produce an album, "Straight Up", for the band Badfinger during 1971. Badfinger had not heard of Rundgren and did not know his music, until they bought copies of some of his records. They liked what they heard, and when Rundgren met the band, they got along well, and worked well together.
In the early 2000s, Rundgren replaced Ric Ocasek as bandleader of The Cars, when they reunited to tour.
Actress Liv Tyler used to believe that Rundgren was her father.
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.
1497
1559
1581
1509
1521
Al-Qaeda
al-Qaeda (, "al-qāʿidah", "the base"), is an armed Islamic group that was started between August 1988 and late 1989. 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.
In June 2001, al-Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which had been associated with each other for many years, merged into 'Qaeda al-Jihad'.
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.
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.
1863
1905
1905 (MCMV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar.
1917
1915
1915 (MCMXC) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar.
Tallinn
Tallinn is the capital of Estonia. It is on the north-eastern coast of Estonia and borders the Gulf of Finland. The city is next to many lakes. The largest of these lakes is called Lake Ülemiste, and most Tallinnites get their drinking water from this lake.
Tallinn's Old Town, which is the historic town center, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Tallinn first appeared on a map in 1154, when the cartographer Muhammad al-Idrisi, calling the city "Qlwn", added it to his map of the world. After being conquered by the Danes, the city was known as Reval until Estonia became an independent nation in the 1920s.
In 1285, the city became a part of the Hanseatic League. As a result, in the Middle Ages Tallinn was an important stop on the trade routes between Europe and Russia. During its history Estonia has been ruled at times by Sweden and by Russia. It became independent in 1918 after World War I, but after World War II it was ruled by the USSR. In March 1944 Tallinn was bombed by Soviet Air Force, killing 436 civilians and totally destroying 5073 buildings. Since 1991, Tallinn has been the capital of an independent Estonia.
Today more than 400,000 people live in Tallinn, which is one third of the population of Estonia. It is a big sea port. Its food and textile industries are important. The town has many pretty, old buildings.
The chart below shows the climate of Tallinn.
Lombardy
Lombardy ( ; Italian: "Lombardia" ]; Lombard: "Lombardia", ], ]) 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.
In the Italian language, Lombardy is called "Lombardia". This name comes from an old German word: "Langbardland" and means "country of the Lombards".
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.
Lombardy is divided into 12 provinces:
Regions of Italy
Italy is a country in the south of Europe. It is divided into 20 regions. A region is a part of the country with a government and a president.
In Italy, regions can decide some things. They can give money to local business. They can decide some things about hospitals, schools, and transport.
In some regions, people speak other languages. In Alto Adige/Südtirol a lot of people speak mainly German. So this region is "special" and can decide more things.
Sardinia and Sicily are islands. They have different problems than other regions. They have also some different laws.
These regions are called "regions with special laws" ().
Every region has a capital. Here is the list of the regions, the capital and other information.
1886
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.
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.
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.