Antigua and Barbuda is an island nation in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. Antigua and Barbuda are part of the Lesser Antilles archipelago. In 2011, about 81,800 people lived there. The capital and largest port and city is St. John's, on Antigua. The country used to be a part of the British Empire. The nation still belongs to the British Commonwealth.
Antigua and Barbuda is divided into six parishes and two dependencies:
Note: Though Barbuda and Redonda are called dependencies, they are important parts of the state. Dependency is simply a title.
Below is a list of the ten largest cities. For other cities see List of cities in Antigua and Barbuda.
Below is a list of the islands of the country.
Tourism is the main part of the economy. It is more than half of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Antigua is famous for its many luxury resorts. Investment banking and financial services are also important.
The Royal Antigua and Barbuda Defence Force has 285 members.
English is the official language, but many of the locals speak Antiguan Creole. The Barbudan accent is slightly different from the Antiguan.
San Marino
San Marino is one of the smallest countries in the world. It is found in southern Europe and is fully surrounded by Italy (this is called an "enclave", and only the Vatican City, Lesotho and San Marino are like this). Fewer than 30,000 people live there. Its total area is 61 km. Its capital is the City of San Marino.
San Marino is the world's oldest republic that still exists. It was started on 3 September in A.D. 301 by a skilled builder called Saint Marinus. Its written constitution was adopted on October 8, 1600. The very small nation was recognized by Napoleon's France in 1797, and by the other European nations at the 1815 Congress of Vienna.
Even though it is an independent country, it depends very much on Italy. Since the 19th century, when Italy was unified, San Marino has been fully surrounded by Italy.
The biggest industry in San Marino is tourism. Selling postage stamps is an important source of income, too. San Marino is not a member of the European Union, but the euro is used in San Marino.
People in San Marino speak the Italian language. Most people in San Marino believe in Roman Catholicism.
San Marino is covered by the Apennine mountain range, and it has a rugged terrain. The highest point in the country is Monte Titano. There are no bodies of water of any significant size. San Marino has no natural level ground. It is hilly terrain.
San Marino is the third smallest country in Europe, Only Vatican City and Monaco are smaller.
Two rivers flow through San Marino. There is no major water transport, and no major port or harbour.
These are the 9 "castelli" (municipalities) of San Marino:
The cuisine of San Marino is strongly similar to Italian, especially that of the Emilia-Romagna and Marche regions. It has a number of its own unique dishes and products. Its best known is probably the "Torta Tre Monti" ("Cake of the Three Mountains" or "Cake of the Three Towers"), a wafer layered cake covered in chocolate. It shows The Three Towers of San Marino. The country also has a small wine industry.
Philippe's
Philippe's is a sit-down restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.. It is at 1001 North Alameda Street, near Olvera Street. Phillippe's is famous for inventing the French dip sandwich (though another restaurant called "Cole's" claims to have invented it, too). It has been in business since 1908, and is the oldest operating restaurant in Los Angeles. The traditional meal served at Phillippe's is a French dip sandwich, a bag of potato chips, a soft-drink (preferably root beer or cola), and a tapioca pudding cup for dessert.
Orbit
An orbit is the path that an object takes in space when it goes around a star, a planet, or a moon. It can also be used as a verb. For instance: “The earth "orbits" around the Sun.” The word ‘revolves’ has the same meaning, but 'rotates' is the spin of the object.
Many years ago, people thought that the Sun orbits in a circle around the earth. Every morning the Sun came up in the east and went down in the west. It just seemed to make sense that it was going around the earth. But now, thanks to people like Copernicus and Galileo Galilei, we know that the Sun is the center of the Solar System, and the earth orbits around it. Isaac Newton discovered that gravity controls the orbit of the planets and moons. Since a satellite is an object in space that revolves around another object, the earth is a satellite of the sun, just like the moon is a satellite of the Earth! The sun has lots of satellites orbiting around it, like the planets, and thousands of asteroids, comets, and meteoroids. The Earth just has one natural satellite (the Moon), but there are many artificial satellites orbiting the earth.
When people first began to think about orbits, they thought that all orbits had to be perfect circles, and they thought that the circle was a "perfect" shape. Copernicus and Galileo, for example, thought so. But when people began to study the motions of planets carefully, they saw that the planets were not moving in perfect circles. Some of the planets have orbits that are almost perfect circles, and others have orbits that are more oblong (egg shaped).
An "orbital period" is the time that it takes for one object - that is, satellite - to orbit around another object. For instance, the Earth's orbital period is one year: 365.25 days. (The extra ".25" is why we have a leap day once every four years).
The Moon takes 27 days (29.53 days as seen from Earth) to go around the Earth and also to rotate around its own axis. This is why only one side always faces the Earth and the "dark side of the Moon" faces away (it is called dark because we cannot see it, though all sides of the moon get equal light). One lunar year and one lunar day take the same amount of time.
Johannes Kepler (lived 1571-1630) wrote mathematical "laws of planetary motion", which gave a good idea of the movements of the planets because he found that the orbits of the planets in our Solar System are not really circles, but are really ellipses (a shape like a "flattened circle"). That is why orbits are described as elliptical.
The more elliptical an orbit is, the more eccentric the orbit is. This is called orbital eccentricity. Other numbers that describe an elliptical orbit include semi-major axis and orbital inclination.
Isaac Newton (lived 1642-1727) used his own ideas about gravity to show why Kepler's laws worked the way they did. Joseph-Louis Lagrange further advanced the study of orbital mechanics, using Newton's theory to predict perturbations which change the shapes of orbits.
Funeral
A funeral is a ceremony that is held because someone has died. A funeral is a gathering of friends and family of the dead person. They will mourn the dead person, meaning that they will feel and show sadness that the person has died, and also say thanks for the life the person had. A funeral is usually held with the dead body present but hidden in a coffin, but there are also open casket funerals. During the funeral, or soon after it, the dead body will be buried, cremated (burned) or made to disappear in some other way. A memorial service or celebration of life is a funeral in which the dead body is not present.
Funerals are held in all human cultures. Religion is an important part of funeral customs in most countries. At many funerals, they say a prayer for the dead so that his or her soul may rest in peace and have a good time in the afterlife.
There are other reasons why funerals are held. Many of them are to do with helping the dead person's friends and family (the mourners):
Modern funerals have greatly changed over time. Present day funeral or memorial services may often be more like a thanksgiving for the life of the dead person, rather than just thinking about the sadness of death.