The players were only allowed to use their heads, elbows, legs, and hips to hit the ball. The ball was not allowed to touch the ground, so the players often dove to avoid losing points. If one of the teams got the ball through the stone hoop, the game was over and that team won. However, this was very hard to do, since the stone hoops could be as high as off the ground. Since getting the ball through the hoop was uncommon, a team could also score points by hitting one of six markers alongside the edges of the court.
Gambling played a large part in the culture surrounding the ballgame. People could bet nearly anything on which team would win the game. Some ancient people bet things like beautiful feathers. Others bet children or even their own lives. The losers sometimes sold themselves into slavery just so they could pay off their debt.
Sometimes, city-states would play the game instead of going to war with each other. The city-state whose team won the game would rule over the losing city-state. Winning or losing a game could turn into an excuse to start an attack or try an assassination.
The Mesoamerican ballgame also held a very important religious meaning. In Aztec culture, for example, the game was meant to represent the combat that happened every day on the "ball court" in the underworld, where the sun fought with the night to get across.
The game's religious meaning was linked to the Mayan and Aztec practices of human sacrifice. Sometimes, the Mayans would make prisoners of war play the game, and would sacrifice them if they lost. However, Mayan art suggests that Mayan ballplayers, maybe team captains, were sacrificed too.
The Aztecs also sacrificed losing teams (or, according to some historians, winning teams) after some games. The ancient Aztecs believed that without human sacrifice, the sun would stop and the earth would be plunged into darkness. Sometimes, ancient Aztecs would decorate the ball court with the skulls of people who had been sacrificed. The ball itself was a symbol of a sacrificed person's head. Sometimes, the actual head or skull of a sacrificed person was used as a ball in the game.
In modern times, the Aztec ballgame changed into "ulama." People still play this game in a few communities in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.
Ulama uses temporary courts, made by drawing thick lines in the dirt. There are three different ways to play ulama. In the different versions of the game, players may use their hips, forearms, or paddles to hit the ball.
Hit the Road, Jack
"Hit the Road Jack" is a rhythm and blues song from the 1960s.
Percy Mayfield wrote and sang "Hit the Road, Jack" in 1960.
Ray Charles made the song famous. Ray Charles's song was number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in fall of 1961.
The song is ranked #377 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
The chorus of the song is:
The words of this song are not standard English. In standard English, the words could be "Hit the road, Jack, and don't come back again" or "Hit the road, Jack, and don't come back anymore"
In this context, "hit the road" is an idiom meaning "get lost," as the following words indicate.
For the most popular recording
Olaf Scholz
Olaf Scholz (; born ) is a German politician serving as Federal Minister of Finance since 14 March 2018 and as Acting Chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) since 13 February 2018. He was First Mayor of Hamburg from 7 March 2011 to 13 March 2018.
From May to October 2001 he was Minister of the Interior "(Innensenator)" of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and from 2002 to 2004 he was general secretary of the SPD.
In 2005 Scholz was elected a member of the sixteenth Bundestag, and succeeded Franz Müntefering as Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, when the latter left office in 2007.
In 2010 Olaf Scholz took part in the annual Bilderberg Meeting in Sitges, Spain.
On 20 February 2011 the Social Democrats led by Scholz won the Hamburg state election, 2011 with 48.3% of the votes, resulting in 62 out of 121 seats in the Hamburg Parliament. Scholz resigned as a member of the seventeenth Bundestag on 11 March 2011 shortly after his election as First Mayor.
On August 10, 2020, the SPD party executive nominated him as its chancellor candidate for the 2021 federal election in Germany.
Lemmy
Ian Fraser "Lemmy" Kilmister (24 December 1945 – 28 December 2015), commonly known by Lemmy, was a British musician, singer-songwriter and actor. He was best known as the bassist of the heavy metal band Motörhead.
Lemmy was born in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England. He went to school at Ysgol Syr Thomas Jones in Amlwch, Wales. At age 16 he attended a concert by The Beatles in the Cavern Club. Lemmy liked the sarcastic attitude of the Beatles, especially John Lennon. Around that time he began playing guitar in small local bands like The Sundowners.
In mid-1960, he played guitar in bands like The Rainmakers, then The Motown Sect, playing clubs in the north. In 1965, he joined the band The Rockin 'Vickers, and signed a contract with CBS. The band released three single albums and toured Europe. In 1967, he moved to London and got a job as a roadie on The Jimi Hendrix Experience. In 1968, he recorded an album titled "Escalator" with the band Sam Gopal. After that, Lemmy met Simon King in a shopping center in Chelsea and then joined the band Opal Butterfly for a short period.
Lemmy joined the Ladbroke Grove rock band Hawkwind as a bassist and vocalist. He gained experience as a bassist, because until then he had only worked as a guitarist. Lemmy was also lead vocals on several songs for the band.
In 1975, Lemmy founded a new band called Bastard with guitarist Larry Wallis and Lucas Fox on drums. Later, Lemmy changed the name of the band to Motörhead. Wallis and Fox left the band and were replaced by the guitarist Eddie Clarke and drummer Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor. This new formation would begin Motörhead's success in live performances. In 1977, the band recorded their first album, "Motörhead", released 24 September 1977. The second album, titled "Overkill", contained two songs that would become Motörhead classics: "Louie Louie" and "Overkill". The peak of the band was 1980 and 1981 with a series of chart hits in the UK, including the classic single "Ace of Spades", one of the biggest hits of the band.
Motörhead's members changed throughout the band's career, but Lemmy remained on bass and vocals from their start 1975 until today.
Lemmy's career as an actor began by playing small roles in low-budget UK films "Eat the Rich" (1988) and "Hardware" (1990). His credits include "Terror Firmer" (1998), "Frezno Smooth" (1999), and "Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV" (2000).
On 28 December 2015, Lemmy died of prostate cancer, cardiac arrhythmia and congestive heart failure at his home in Los Angeles, California at the age of 70.
Ole von Beust
Carl-Friedrich Arp Ole Freiherr von Beust, generally called Ole von Beust, born 13 April 1955, in Hamburg, Germany, was Ole von Beust First Mayor of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg () from 31 October 2001 to 25 August 2010, serving as President of the Bundesrat from 1 November 2007 on for one year. He was followed as mayor by Christoph Ahlhaus.
He is the son of Achim Helge Freiherr von Beust and Hanna, née Wolff, who was considered half Jewish in Nazi Germany. Through his father he is a descendant of Saxon and Austrian statesman Count Friedrich Ferdinand von Beust.