Steel acts just like iron, until a blacksmith "heat-treats" the steel. This is a special way to make the steel hot and then cold, so that the steel will become hard enough to keep a cutting edge (blade). A blade made from a piece of iron (instead of steel) will very soon become dull and will not cut. Good blades (for knives, chisels, axes, and other tools with cutting edges) are always made of steel, then heat-treated, and then sharpened.
To heat-treat steel, a blacksmith heats the steel until it no longer pulls a magnet, then makes the steel become cold very quickly. A blacksmith does this by putting the hot steel into a bucket of water and moving it around until it is cold. This is called "quenching". When this is finished, the steel will be as hard as it can be. This hardness can make it brittle, so if someone hits or drops it, it can break like glass.
The next step is to "draw the temper" or "temper" the steel, so that it will not break like glass. To temper steel, a blacksmith polishes a part of the steel so that it is smooth and shiny. The blacksmith then slowly heats the steel in the fire. When the steel is between , the polished steel will turn different colors. These colors do not glow in the dark; they look like dye on the polished steel. As the steel gets hotter from 300 to 650 degrees F, it will turn through the colors: yellow, then brown, then purple, then blue. Yellow means the steel will still be harder, blue means the steel will be softer (but still hard). When the steel turns the color that the blacksmith wants, he puts the steel into a bucket of water to stop the change. Different tools are tempered to different colors, but it also depends on how much carbon there is in the steel. Usually, stone chisels are tempered to yellow, and axes for trees are tempered to blue, but the blacksmith has to decide.
A blacksmith does not hammer a blade edge thin. A blacksmith hammers the steel so that the edge stays thick. After the "heat-treat" and "temper", stones are used to grind the blade edge to make it sharp.
If a blacksmith has a piece of iron or steel, but does not know which one it is, the blacksmith can heat-treat it like steel. If it does not become hard, then it is not steel. Iron will show the same temper colors as steel, but it will not be hard.
If a blacksmith has an old steel tool, and wants to hammer it into a new different tool, the blacksmith anneals the steel. The steel will then be very soft like iron. The blacksmith can then hammer it into a new tool, and heat-treat and temper it, to make a new, hard steel tool.
A blacksmith must be careful when hammering hardened steel or work-hardened iron, because small pieces can break off and fly, and these can hurt his or her eyes. Many blacksmiths wear plastic safety glasses to keep their eyes safe.
The first blacksmiths were Hittites. They started working iron to make tools around 1500 BC. The ways that tools are made by blacksmiths have changed very little since then.
Around 1850, countries like the United States of America and the United Kingdom made new ways to make steel and tools in factories. Factories now make tools faster, and for less money than blacksmiths. There are now very few blacksmiths in countries that have a lot of factories.
The few blacksmiths that are still in countries with a lot of factories, make iron that is art. These blacksmiths make gates, stair rails, and chairs and tables for outdoors. People buy this iron as art, because each piece is different from the other pieces.
Caracas
Caracas is the capital city of Venezuela. Santiago de Leòn de Losada founded the city in 1567. It is where Simon Bolivar was born. The city has nearly 6 million people, who live in the metropolitan area. Caracas is the center of the economical activity of the country and also hosts the main government offices of Venezuela.
After WW2 the city has experienced a huge growth, thanks to the oil revenues of the country. Nearly half a million Europeans immigrated to the city in the 1950s ( that had in those years only one million inhabitants) and so Caracas developed a typical western-European look in the new modern areas.
All the best teams of the sports done in Venezuela are concentrated in the metropolitan area of Caracas. Between those teams we have:
Many beautiful modern buildings can be seen in the city. Here there are some of them:
Homestar Runner
Homestar Runner, also called H*R, is an Internet cartoon that was made using Macromedia Flash. It usually gets updated every Monday (but, except for an update on April Fools' Day of 2014 and a few cartoons since, it has not been actively updated since December 2010) with a cartoon, a game, or a Strong Bad Email. The people that made the website are Mike Chapman and Matt Chapman. They are brothers and are called The Brothers Chaps. The cartoons on the website normally show Homestar Runner or Strong Bad, who are the main characters on the cartoon.
Telltale Games, the makers of video games based on the Sam & Max comic book, made a game called "Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People" for Windows and the Wii's WiiWare. It's an episodic game with five episodes, and it is made with 3 dimensions instead of 2 dimensions like Homestar Runner is. The first episode was called "Homestar Ruiner", and ended with "8-Bit is Enough".
Horst Köhler
Horst Köhler (born 22 February 1943) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union. He was President of Germany from 2004 to 2010. He was the candidate of the two Christian Democratic sister parties, the CDU and the CSU, and the liberal FDP, for becoming President. Köhler was elected to his first five-year term by the Federal Assembly on 23 May 2004. He was reelected to a second term on 23 May 2009. About one year later, on 31 May 2010, he resigned from his office in a controversy over his comment on the role of the Bundeswehr in light of a visit to the troops in Afghanistan.
Köhler is an economist by profession. Prior to his election as President, Köhler had a career in politics, the civil service and as a banking executive. He was President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development from 1998 to 2000. He also served as the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 2000 to 2004.
Although the office of President is less influential than that of the Chancellor and is mostly concerned with ceremonial matters, Köhler was a highly popular politician during his term. He has called for more influence for the President and has suggested the President should be directly elected. This was the case under Germany's Weimar Constitution.
Köhler was born in Skierbieszów (later named Heidenstein), in the General Government area of German-occupied Poland. He was the seventh child of Elisabeth and Eduard Köhler. His family were Bessarabian Germans from Rîşcani in Romanian Bessarabia (near Bălţi, present-day Moldova). Horst Köhler's parents had to leave their home in Bessarabia in 1940. As part of the Generalplan Ost, they were resettled in 1942 at Skierbieszów. This was a village near Zamość, Poland (then part of the General Government). When the Wehrmacht was pushed back during World War Two, the Köhler family fled to Leipzig. In 1953, they left the Soviet Zone to escape from the communist regime. The family lived in refugee camps until 1957. Then, they settled in Ludwigsburg. Horst Köhler hence spent most of his first 14 years as a refugee.
A teacher proposed that the refugee boy should apply for the Gymnasium. Köhler took his "Abitur" in 1963. After a two-year military service at a Panzergrenadier battalion in Ellwangen, he left the Bundeswehr as reserve officer. He studied and finally earned a doctorate in economics and political sciences from University of Tübingen. There, he was a scientific research assistant at the Institute for Applied Economic Research from 1969 to 1976.