Jerusalem is Islam's third holiest city, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. According to Muslim tradition, Muhammad originally selected Jerusalem as the qibla: the direction Muslims should face during prayer. However, he later told his followers to face Mecca instead of Jerusalem when praying. Muhammad is said to have gone up to heaven from a stone now covered by a golden-domed shrine called the Dome of the Rock. The Dome of the Rock and the ancient Al-Aqsa Mosque are among the holiest sites in Islam. They are the main buildings on the Temple Mount, which Muslims call "Haram al-Sharif" (Noble Sanctuary).
Jerusalem's architecture is a mixture of old and new. The Old City contains architectural examples from each major period in the city's history. Many ancient historical sites and places of worship stand near modern shopping centers and industrial zones. Architecture from the late 1800s and early 1900s shows European influences. Usefulness rather than style characterizes new apartment buildings constructed by the government as housing for immigrants. Many buildings, old and new, have matching exteriors because all construction is required to be faced with a cream-colored limestone called Jerusalem stone, produced by nearby quarries.
Belz Beis HaMedrash HaGadol is the largest synagogue in Jerusalem.
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains (often 'The Rockies') are a range of mountains in the western United States and Canada. They stretch from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States. The Rocky Mountains are more than 3,000 miles long (4,800 kilometers).
The highest point in the Rocky Mountains is Mt. Elbert. Mt. Elbert is 14,433 ft tall (4,401m)
The Rocky Mountains are relatively new, formed from 80 million to 55 million years ago (mya) during the Laramide orogeny. North America began to move westwards as Pangaea broke up. A number of tectonic plates began to slide under the North American plate. The angle of subduction was shallow, resulting in a broad belt of mountains running down western North America. Since then, further tectonic activity and erosion by glaciers has sculpted the Rockies into dramatic peaks and valleys.
The rocks in the Rocky Mountains were formed before the mountains were raised by tectonic forces. The oldest rock is Precambrian metamorphic rock that forms the core of the North American continent. There is also Precambrian sedimentary argillite, dating back to 1.7 billion years ago. During the Paleozoic, western North America lay underneath a shallow sea, which deposited many kilometers of limestone and dolomite.
In the southern Rocky Mountains, near present-day Colorado, these ancestral rocks were disturbed by mountain building approximately 300 mya, during the Pennsylvanian. This mountain building produced the Ancestral Rocky Mountains. They consisted largely of Precambrian metamorphic rock forced upward through layers of the limestone laid down in the shallow sea. The mountains eroded throughout the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic, leaving extensive deposits of sedimentary rock.
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City. It also covers the same area as Kings County. Brooklyn is the second largest borough in land area.
In the early 21st century, about 2.5 million live there. This is more than in any of the other four boroughs.
Brooklyn is the west end of Long Island. The East River separates it from Manhattan in the north. Brooklyn's only land boundary is with Queens in the east. Jamaica Bay separates Brooklyn from Rockaway in the south. The Narrows separates Brooklyn from Staten Island in the west.
Coney Island is the south end of Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Museum is near the middle of Brooklyn, near Prospect Park.
Brooklyn is named after a Dutch town called "Breukelen". Dutch people were the first people from Europe to live in the area. When they got there, there were already some Native American people living there called the Lenape. The Dutch started the town in 1634 as part of the colony of New Netherland.
During the 19th century Brooklyn expanded and filled Kings County. It remained a separate city before the people there voted to join New York City in 1898. Today, many parts of Brooklyn are home to people who are mostly from one culture or ethnicity. Other parts are mixed.
The Brooklyn Bridge is old and famous. It goes over the East River and connects Downtown Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan. The longest bridge in New York, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in Bay Ridge connects Brooklyn to Staten Island.
Cornish language
Cornish is a very old language from Cornwall in the southwest of England. Cornish is a Celtic language and is very similar to Welsh and is related to Gaelic.
A long time ago, Cornish was the only language spoken in Cornwall, but more and more people began to speak English, instead of Cornish. In 1550, when the prayer book was written in English instead of Latin, the Cornish people got angry and there was a rebellion. Because many Cornish-speakers died and they would now hear the Bible in English, Cornish was used less and less.
By 1800, only a few people could speak Cornish, and since no one spoke it to one another any more, Cornish became endangered.
People say that a woman called Dolly Pentreath was the last person who could speak Cornish. That is not quite true, but she was one of the last people to use it instead of English.
Some people learned about Cornish by traveling around talking to people who could still speak it and by reading old plays and books. Some people wanted to learn the language and speak it and so in 1904 a learned man, Henry Jenner, wrote a book to help people. Some people then began to learn the language and speak it again.
No one knows how many Cornish-speakers there are now. People think that about 8,000 to 13,000 people probably speak Cornish. Some young people have grown up speaking it. Most people in Cornwall know a few sentences or words in Cornish. In 100 years, Cornish has grown from almost no speakers to many thousands, which is very exciting for many people.
There are now many new books, films and songs in Cornish. The Bible has now been translated into Cornish. There is an event, the open Gorseth, with a story and poetry competition. Sometimes, Cornish is used in churches.
There used to be a problem with Cornish: three different dictionaries had different spellings, and people did not agree about how to write words or say them. That was confusing for people when they have not been speaking for long. In 2008, people who used different types of Cornish came together and agreed on a new standard form of Cornish to be used everywhere.
Welsh
Welsh could mean many different things:
Welsh could also mean:
Places in the United States (US)
People
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a scandal during and after the 1972 Presidential Election.
United States President and Republican Richard Nixon were running for election against Democrat George McGovern. Frank Wills, a security guard, discovered clues that former FBI and CIA agents broke into the offices of the Democratic Party and George McGovern months before the election. These people listened to phone lines and secret papers were stolen.
When these men were found, it turned out that Nixon was involved and he had helped them cover it all up and might have even hired the men. "The Washington Post" was a newspaper which played a big role in exposing the misdoings, specifically reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. This showed the public that Nixon was not to be trusted, and society began to view him in a different light.