Appomattox Court House is a place in Virginia (It is now called Appomattox, Virginia). It is where General Robert E. Lee of the Confederate Army surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army on April 9, 1865, ending the American Civil War. Though the place is called Appomattox Court House, the surrender took place at the McLean House, a private home.
Base isolation
Base isolation is a collection of a building’s units resting on its foundation to provide separation of the building from shaking ground thus improving seismic performance.
Base isolation system consists of "isolation units" with or without "isolation components", where:
1. "Isolation units" are the basic elements of "base isolation system" which provide the mentioned separation effect to a building structure.
2. "Isolation components" are the connections between "isolation units" and other parts of the building having no separation effect of their own.
From the very beginning, the theory of base isolation rested on two pillars: "heavy damping" and "frequency separation". Unfortunately, nobody paid any attention that the heavy damping was a sort of a strong connection between a "substructure" and "superstructure", and that the idea of decoupling them with the help of such connections was of no good. Anyway, to virtually test-drive any design concept of base isolation, some online help is available now.
Shōō (Kamakura period)
, also spelled as "Shō-ō", was a after "Kōan" and before "Einin". The period started in April 1288 and ended in August 1293. During this time, the emperor was .
Vibration control
In earthquake engineering, vibration control is a set of technical means for decreasing seismic loads and improving seismic performance of building structures.
All vibration control devices may be classified as "passive", "active" or "hybrid". The first kind is the simplest one and, therefore, widespread. Passive control devices represent different types of "base isolators" and "seismic dampers".
"Base isolators" restrict penetration of potentially damaging seismic waves into a building structure while "dampers" decrease destructive effect of those waves.
Telephone card
A telephone card, calling card or phone card for short, is a small plastic card that is used to pay for telephone calls. They usually hold a set value of credit. Some cards can be recharged with more credit.
Vera Menchik
Vera Menchik (Moscow, 16 February 1906 – London, 27 June 1944) was a British-Czech chess player. Menchik was the first women's world chess champion. She also competed in chess tournaments with some of the world's leading male chess masters, defeating some of them, including future World Champion Max Euwe.<ref name="H/W">Hooper, David and Whyld, Kenneth 1992. "The Oxford Companion to Chess" 2nd ed, Oxford University Press, </ref>
The daughter of a Czech father and British mother, Vera Menchik was born in Moscow. In the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution, her family moved to England in 1921. Her father taught her chess when she was nine and, in the year of her arrival in England at the age of fifteen, she won the British girls' championship. The following year, she became a pupil of Géza Maróczy, the leading Hungarian grandmaster at the time.
She won the first Women's World Championship in 1927 and successfully defended her title six times in every other championship in her lifetime, and only lost one game, while winning 78 and drawing four games. These were all-play-all tournaments, mostly run alongside Chess Olympiads.
London 1927 (+10 –0 =1).
Hamburg 1930 (+6 –1 =1).
Prague 1931 (+8 –0 =0).
Folkestone 1933 (+14 –0 =0).
Warsaw 1935 (+9 –0 =0).
Stockholm 1937 (+14 –0 =0).
Buenos Aires 1939 (+17 –0 =2).
In addition, Menchik won two matches against her rival Sonja Graf for the Women’s World Champion title; (+3 –1 =0) at Rotterdam 1934, and (+9 –2 =5) at Semmering 1937.
Starting in 1929, she participated in a number of Hastings international tournaments. When, the same year, she entered the tournament in Carlsbad, Viennese master Albert Becker ridiculed her entry by suggesting that any player whom Menchik defeated in tournament play should be granted membership into the "Vera Menchik Club". In the tournament, Becker himself became the first member of the "club". In addition to Becker, the "Vera Menchik Club" eventually included grandmasters such as Max Euwe, Mir Sultan Khan, Samuel Reshevsky, Friedrich Sämisch, Lajos Steiner, and virtually every leading British player of the day.
Menchik's greatest success at international tournaments was at Ramsgate 1929, when she finished tied for second with Akiba Rubinstein, just half a point behind former World Champion José Raúl Capablanca, and ahead of her teacher Géza Maróczy. In 1934 she finished third at Maribor, ahead of Rudolph Spielmann and Milan Vidmar. In 1942 she won a match against international master Jacques Mieses (four wins, five draws, one loss).
Vera was a professional player. From the late 1920s, she was the manager and house professional of the Empire Chess Club, which was situated on the top floor of Whiteleys store in Queensway, West London. In 1939 she was appointed to the new National Chess Centre.
In 1937, at the age of 31, Vera Menchik married R.H.S Stevenson (1878–1943), 28 years her senior, who was a leading chess organiser and patron. Vera Menchik's younger sister Olga was also a tournament chess player. In 1944, in World War II, with 38-year-old Vera still women's world champion, the two sisters and their mother were killed by a V-1 flying bomb, which destroyed their home.
The trophy for the winning team in the Women's Chess Olympiad is known as the "Vera Menchik Cup".
Alexandra Kosteniuk
Alexandra Kosteniuk (born Perm, Volga, 23 April 1984) is a Russian chess Grandmaster and former Women's World Chess Champion. She lost her title in 2010.
Alexandra is married, and lives with her husband and daughter in Key Biscayne, Miami, Florida.
Kosteniuk is now ranked only 31st in the current FIDE rating list for women. She is no longer playing regularly. The highest rated woman, Judit Polgar (Hungary), never plays in female events. The second highest rated woman is Humpy Koneru (India); she has never won the women's world championship.
King's Sutton railway station
King's Sutton railway station serves the village of King's Sutton in Northamptonshire, England. It is also the nearest railway station to the town of Brackley. It was opened on 1 December 1873 by the Great Western Railway. The station is managed by Chiltern Railways, who provide services along with First Great Western. It was heavily renovated in 2009, with new fencing, a new shelter and a bridge being added to it.
Akbash Dog
The Akbash Dog is a large breed (type) of dog which comes from Turkey. It has a white coat of fur. It was bred to protect sheep in the field from thieves and predators. While this dog has been used for this job in Turkey for many hundreds of years, it is not often found outside of Turkey. The Akbash Dog is closely related to other large, white dogs used to protect sheep, such as the Komondor and the Aidi.
Clapping
Clapping is when you hit your hands together which makes a sound. The harder you hit, the louder the sound, the softer you hit, less the sound.
If hitting by means of hand to hand contact it will make a different sound than if you were to clap against another object, say, your leg.
Strung Out
Strung Out is a punk rock band from Simi Valley, California, United States. They formed in 1992. They are known mostly for their musical style, which has both aspects of punk rock and heavy metal to make their main sound. They have made seven albums on Fat Wreck Chords and appeared on many compilations and skate/surf videos. They have played on the Warped Tour and continue to tour around the world.
Reading and Leeds Festivals