Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856, – November 14, 1915) was an American political leader, teacher and author. He was born into slavery, but was eventually freed. He was one of the most important people in African American history in the United States from 1890 to 1915.
Washington helped start the Tuskegee Institute, which was a university for African-American students, after attending the Hampton Institute. Washington believed that in order to create a peaceful post-slavery society, black and white people needed to "cast down the bucket" and become friends with each other. He saw violence and protests against discrimination of blacks as holding grudges between the races. Washington also stated that freed blacks should not aim for Congress right away, they needed to start by being able to support themselves economically.
Washington was invited to dinner by President Theodore Roosevelt. The President wanted to appoint Washington to advise him on issues of race. This upset some American people. African Americans had visited the White House before but had never been asked to dine there. In reaction several newspapers published a racist poem called "Niggers in the White House". The poem was published again when the wife of Representative Oscar DePriest had tea with wife of President Hoover.
Scipio Africanus
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (236–183 BC) was a general in the Second Punic War and a politician of the Roman Republic. He was best known for defeating Hannibal of Carthage.
Scipio won the battle of Zama in North Africa. He got the last name "Africanus" and became known as one of the best commanders in military history. The battle was a complete disaster for Carthage, who had to beg for peace, and were given humiliating terms by Rome.
Blessing
A blessing is way to wish good luck for a person. Sometimes, in religious rituals, it is said the God blesses those who are good, or people can bless God. In Judaism, they bless God over wine. The priests can also bless religious objects in order to make them become holy.
The saying "bless you" is commonly used when someone sneezes. This is done because there is a tradition carried by the superstition that a person's soul will come out of their mouth and nose if they sneeze. People believed that saying "God bless you," or "bless you" for short, would make the soul go back inside. They are wishing the person good luck so that their soul is able to come back.
People also think that if unusual good luck or a miracle comes to them, it is a blessing. For example, if some people wanted a child badly but are having difficulty conceiving, it could be considered a blessing from God if they end up having a child.
To "give your blessing" to someone is to give permission to them. For example, a man can ask his girlfriend's parents' for their blessing before he asks her to marry him.
Blessings are often thought of as the opposite of a curse.
Karel Svoboda
Karel Svoboda (19 December 1938 – 28 January 2007) was a Czech composer of popular music. He wrote music for many TV series in the 1970s.
Karel Svoboda was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Prague, Czech Republic) and began his career as a pop composer after stopping studying medicine in his third year of university. He became a member of the rock band "Mefisto" in the 1950s. Later, he composed music for the "Laterna Magica" theatre in Prague and for many Czech singers. In 1969 he wrote "Lady Carneval" for Karel Gott, a major Czech pop star. Svoboda wrote a total of 80 songs for him.
Svoboda composed TV scores for the German channel ZDF for over 30 years. He wrote the scores to many TV series in the 1970s that a whole generation of Europeans grew up with. Some examples of these TV series are Vicky the Viking, Maya the Bee and The Wonderful Adventures of Nils.
Svoboda wrote scores for almost 90 films and TV series.
Svoboda was found fatally shot in the garden of his villa at Jevany on January 28, 2007. It is believed that he committed suicide.
Third Servile War
The Third Servile War, also called the Gladiator War and The War of Spartacus by Plutarch, was the last of several slave rebellions against the Roman Republic.
These are called the Servile Wars. The Third Servile War was the only which was dangerous for Italia itself and was doubly alarming to the Roman people because the slaves won several battles against the Roman army between 73 and 71 BC. The rebellion was defeated at last in 71 BC by Marcus Licinius Crassus. The rebellion had indirect effects on Roman politics for many years.
In 71 BC, a band of slaves escaped. At first a small group of about 78 gladiators escaped. The band grew to over 120,000. Men, women and children wandered throughout Italy, and raided with relative impunity. Their leaders included the famous gladiator-general Spartacus.
The able-bodied adults of this band were a surprisingly effective armed force. They showed they could withstand the Roman military, from the local Campanian patrols, to the Roman militia, and to trained Roman legions under consular command. Plutarch described the actions of the slaves as an attempt by Roman slaves to escape their masters and flee through Cisalpine Gaul, while Appian and Florus depicted the revolt as a civil war in which the slaves waged a campaign to capture the city of Rome itself.
The Roman Senate's grew alarmed about the military successes of this band, and their damage to Roman towns and the countryside. Eventually, after several defeats, the Senate put an army of eight legions under the harsh but effective leadership of Marcus Licinius Crassus. The war ended in 71 BC when the armies of Spartacus, after long and bitter fighting, retreated before the legions of Crassus. Realizing that the legions of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus were moving in to trap them, they launched their full strength against Crassus' legions and were utterly destroyed.
The Third Servile War was significant to the broader history of ancient Rome mostly in its effect on the careers of Pompey and Crassus. The two generals used their success in putting down the rebellion to further their political careers, using their public acclaim and the implied threat of their legions to sway the consular elections of 70 BC in their favor. Their actions as Consuls damaged Roman political institutions and led, after Caesar's death, to events which turned the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire.
Works at LacusCurtius.
Vibrating string
A vibration in a string is a wave. A vibrating string mostly produces a sound with constant frequency. As frequency characterizes the pitch, the sound produced is a constant note.
Vibrating strings are the basis of any string instrument like guitar, cello, or piano.
Angular momentum
The angular momentum or rotational momentum ("L") of an object rotating about an axis is the product of its moment of inertia and its angular velocity:
where
There are two kinds of angular momentum: the spin angular momentum and the orbital angular momentum.
The spin angular momentum is a kind of angular momentum for objects turning around an axis that goes through the object, like a top spinning around its center.
Objects that are very spread out from the axis of rotation are very hard to start spinning, but once they get going, they are also hard to stop. We say, that is, it has a large moment of inertia. Similarly, it is easier to start an object spinning slowly (a small angular velocity) than it is to start it spinning fast (a large angular velocity). This is why the spin angular momentum depends both on how spread out the object is (moment of inertia) and how fast it is spinning (angular velocity).
The other kind of angular momentum is orbital angular momentum. This is the kind of angular momentum that planets orbiting around the Sun have, but that tops spinning about their axes do not.