An altar is a place, often a table, where a religious event happens. Altars are used in Christianity and in other religions.
In some old religions, the event was a sacrifice, which means a holy work. Usually the priest would use this item.
Donald Bradman
Sir Donald 'Don' Bradman AC (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001), often called The Don, was an Australian cricketer. He was a batsman. When he played his last Test match, he only needed to score four runs to have a batting average of 100 runs over the whole of his Test Match career. But he was "out for a duck" (out before he scored any runs) after facing only two balls so his average was 99.94, which was still much higher than any other batsman's average. Most cricket experts think he was the best batsman of all time. He was a great hero in Australia, and he was voted the greatest Australian of the 20th century.
The Don's command over the game showed as a batsman, as a captain, as a selector, as a writer and as an administrator. Jeff Thomson remarked that bowling to Don was one of his "greatest moments". This happened in 1977–78 in Adelaide during India's tour to Australia. In Thomson's words
Before the first match of the tour, England had not told Australia what they were going to do, but when England named 5 fast bowlers (including Harold Larwood and Bill Voce). It was not usual to have so many fast bowlers in one team, so Bradman knew that England were about to try something new. The new way of bowling was first tried in a warm-up match which Bradman played in, and as expected Bradman struggled. Bradman did not play in the first Test Match of the tour, which led some people to think this was because his had suffered a nervous breakdown. England still tried their new way of bowling, and won the match but the Australian team were not happy.
Australian newspapers described this way of bowling as "bodyline", because the balls were often aimed fast at the body. They felt that this bowling was unfair and dangerous, as in 1930s batsman did not wear helmets. Despite this, the tour carried on and in the second Test Match Bradman returned. In the first Australian innings, Bradman was bowled first ball. Bradman guessed that the ball was going to be bounced high, so he moved to one side and swung the bat so he could score a boundary. The ball did not bounce as high as Bradman thought, and it hit the stumps. This was the first time he had been out on the first ball (called a duck) in his career at that point. The crowd were shocked, as they were used to seeing Bradman easily score hundreds. Bradman had a better second innings and scored 103 runs. With good bowling from Australian bowlers Bill O'Reilly and Bert Ironmonger, this score helped Australia win the second match. Australia were happy, as they thought that they had beaten what they felt was unfair bowling.
England won the last 3 test matches, still bowling "bodyline". Bradman changed the way he batted a lot to try to score runs. In bodyline, England put a lot of fielders on the leg side, so Bradman had the idea of moving backwards to hit the ball on the off side, where there were few fielders. This was not a normal way of playing but this helped him to get 56.57 runs on average per innings in the tour. Jack Fingleton (Australian batsman) thought that this tour changed Bradman's way of batting for the rest of his career.
Bradman was married to Jessie Martha Menzies for 65 years, until Jessie died in 1999. Bradman said on many occasions how important his wife was, once saying "I would never have achieved what I achieved without Jessie". Don and Jessie Bradman had 3 children, but family life was difficult. Their first child died young in 1936. Their second child (John, born in 1939) caught a serious virus disease called polio. and their third child (Shirley, born 1941) had cerebral palsy since birth.
Bradman died of pneumonia on 25 February 2001, aged 92, in Kensington Park, South Australia.
Ian Botham
Sir Ian Terence Botham (born 24 November 1955) is an English retired cricketer. He also played football. He was an all-rounder, being good at both batting and bowling. He was also very good at catching the ball when he was fielding. He played over 100 test matches for England. He is a very popular man in England. One reason for this is that he helped England to beat Australia in a series of test matches called "The Ashes" in 1981. This series is sometimes called "Botham's Ashes". Now he works on television. He has done some long walks to raise money for charity. He was knighted in 2007.
Daphne (mythology)
Daphne (, meaning "laurel") was a dryad in Greek mythology, daughter of the river god Peneus.
According to Greek mythology, the god Apollo insulted Eros, otherwise known as Cupid, the god of love. Becoming angry, Eros shot a golden arrow at Apollo, causing him to fall in love with the nymph Daphne the virgin. Eros then shot Daphne with a leaden arrow so she could never love Apollo back. So Apollo followed her while she ran away, until she came to the river of her father, Peneus. Apollo became jealous and puts it into the girl's mind to stop to bathe in the river Ladon; there, as all strip naked, the ruse is revealed, as in the myth of Callisto. There she wanted help from her father who turned her into a laurel tree so she would be safe from Apollo. Apollo then began to be sad. Some versions say that when Daphne saw Apollo sad, taking pity she made him a laurel wreath (a circle made of laurel that is worn like a crown) from her leaves. Other accounts state that Apollo made the laurel himself, taking from the tree. The laurel tree became sacred of Apollo and is used by emperors within the culture. After the crown was used for all the winners at his games and great heroes in the years to come would be crowned with laurel leaves. He also vowed that she, like him, would have eternal youth where her leaves would never turn brown or fall but would always stay lush and green. Some even say that he created this laurel wreath to remind him of the prize he can never win still Apollo loved that laurel with all his heart.
See Ovid. "Metamorphoses". Book I: 452-567.
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) that is a role-playing game (RPG). It is an RPG which is played online (on the internet) by a very large number of people at the same time.
Middle English
Middle English is an older type of the English language that was spoken after the Norman invasion in 1066 until the middle/late 1400s. It came from Old English after William the Conqueror came to England with his French nobles and stopped English from being taught in schools for a few hundred years. Over this time, English borrowed several French words.
In the 1470s, the "Chancery Standard," a type of English spoken in London, started to become more common. This was partly because William Caxton brought the printing press to England in the 1470s. The type of English that people spoke in England between then and 1650 is called Early Modern English. There were many different dialects of Middle English.
Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales in Middle English.
Patroclus
Patroclus (Ancient Greek: Πάτροκλος, Pátroklos - "glory of the father") was a central figure in Homer's "Iliad". He was the son of Menoetius, and is most famous as being the lover of Achilles.