Pedersen was born in Copenhagen and brought up in the poor area near Vigerslev Alle. He held radical political beliefs. He joined the International Folk High School in Elsinore in 1933, where he met self-taught painter Else Alfelt. They married in 1934, and their first daughter, Vibeke Alfelt, was born later that year. Else Alfelt encouraged Pedersen to paint, and he first exhibited at the Artists' Autumn Exhibition ("Kunstnernes Efterårsudstilling") in Copenhagen in 1936, where he showed four abstract works. His modernist style was at odds with the socialist realism preferred by his communist friends, who snubbed him: he argued with Bertolt Brecht about his art. His abstract works, with flat planes of colour, emulated the works of cubists and of Paul Klee.
Pedersen travelled on foot to Paris in 1939, where he saw works by Picasso and Matisse. He visited the exhibition of "degenerate art" ("entartete Kunst") in Frankfurt am Main on his way home, where he was inspired by the paintings on show, particularly the works of Chagall, which remained a strong influence on his art for the rest of his life. His second daughter, Kari-Nina, was born in 1940. He joined the Høst group during the Nazi occupation of Denmark, writing about medieval Danish murals for its journal, "Helhesten", and continued to produce controversial modern abstract works.
Pedersen and Else Alfelt were founder members of the CoBrA movement in 1948 together with Asger Jorn, Karel Appel and others. The movement took its name from the European cities where its founders were based: Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. They remained with the group until it dissolved in 1951, producing free-form, spontaneous images in strong, fantastic colours. He won the Eckersberg Award in 1950 and the Guggenheim Award in 1958. A retrospective was put on at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh in 1961, and he was Denmark's representative at the Venice Biennale in 1962. He won the Thorvaldsen Medal in 1963.
Pedersen moved into monumental art in the 1960s and 1970s, producing a large mosaic, "Cosmic Sea", for the H. C. Ørsted Institute at Copenhagen University, and a huge tiled wall decoration, "Fantasy Play Around the Wheel of Life", for the Angli courtyard in Herning.
Pedersen was known for resisting to sell his works. Instead, he donated thousands to the Carl-Henning Pedersen and Else Alfelt Museum, which opened in Herning in 1976. Further works were donated to the Danish National Gallery ("Statens Museum for Kunst") in early 2007.
Pedersen moved to Burgundy in the 1980s, but most of his work still came from Danish sources. He surprised many when he worked on the redecoration of the Gothic cathedral in Ribe, working on the murals, painted glass and mosaics to illustrate Bible stories from 1983 to 1987. He also produced bronze sculptures, and works in oils and watercolour.
He died in Copenhagen, after a long illness. He was survived by his second wife, Sidsel Ramson.
Roman Senate
The Roman Senate was the longest-lasting institution in Ancient Rome. It began in the first years of the city, which was supposedly founded in 753 BC. It survived the kings, the Roman Republic (509 BC–27 BC), the Roman Empire (27 BC–395 AD and the fall of the Western Roman Empire (395–476 AD).
The Senate started as an advisory council of elders. The word "senate" came from 'senex' meaning "old man". The Senate reached its peak in the middle Republic, when it was the most powerful body in Rome. The Senate lost much of its power in the first period of the Empire, known as the "Principate".
After Diocletian, when the centre of government was moved out of Rome, the Senate became just a municipal body. The influence of the old idea lived on, and Constantine II set up a Senate in Constantinople.
The Senate passed decrees called "senatus consultum", which were advice from the Senate to a magistrate (senior official). They usually were obeyed in practice.
Through such advice, the Senate directed the magistrates, especially the Roman Consuls (the chief magistrates) in their handling of military conflicts.
The Senate also had power over the civil government in Rome. Only the Senate could authorize paying out public funds from the treasury. As the Roman Empire grew, the Senate also supervised the administration of the provinces, which were governed by former consuls and praetors. It decided which magistrate should govern which province.
The senators were patricians, and so members by birth, or men of lesser birth who had notable achievements. Under the early kings, the Senate numbered 100, but grew to 900, then Augustus reduced it to 600. Even so only about 100 to 200 members were active at any given time. From time to time there were other sources of power in Rome, such as assemblies, magistrates, dictators and emperors, but the Senate always played a part.
Cabinet of the United Kingdom
In the government of the United Kingdom, the Cabinet is a group of 22 people led and chosen by the Prime Minister who are the main decision-makers in the British government. People in the cabinet have to be members of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords.
All the Cabinet members are also members of the governing Conservative Party.
As of 8 January 2021:
Zipper
"This article is about the fastening device called the" zip. "For information on the acronym ZIP, please see that article."
A zipper (zip fastener or zip in British English) is a device for temporarily joining two edges of fabric together. It is widely used in clothing and other textiles.
The bulk of a zip consists of two strips of fabric tape, one permanently fixed to each of the two flaps to be joined, and each carrying tens or hundreds of specially shaped metal or plastic teeth. Another part, the slider, which is operated by hand, rides up and down the two sets of teeth. Inside the slider is a Y-shaped channel that pushes the opposing sets of teeth together or apart, depending on the slider's direction of travel. The zip is usually fitted vertically in clothing so that pushing the slider from top to bottom opens it, and pushing it from bottom to top closes it. The friction of the slider against the teeth causes a characteristic buzzing noise which is probably the origin of the name "zip".
An early device similar to the zip, 'an Automatic, Continuous Clothing Closure', was patented in the USA by Elias Howe in 1851, but did not reach the market. Whitcomb Judson patented a similar 'Clasp Locker', for fastening shoes, in 1891 or 1893, and marketed the invention through his 'Universal Fastener' company. These two designs used hooks and eyes. The design used today, based on interlocking teeth, was invented by an employee of Judson's, Swedish scientist Gideon Sundback, in 1913 as the 'Hookless Fastener' and patented in 1917 as the 'Separable Fastener'. The B. F. Goodrich Company coined the name 'Zipper' in 1923, and used the device on tobacco pouches and boots. The zip became popular for children's clothing and men's trousers in the 1920s and 1930s. At this stage, the zip was permanently joined at one end, so could not be used to fasten jackets.
Spiraeoideae
The Spiraeoideae is an old name for a subfamily of flowering plants in the family Rosaceae. Until 2007, the subfamily name was used for a group of plants that are mostly shrubs (but some are herbs) and have small dry fruit. In 2007, the subfamily was made much larger, to include plants that were previously placed in subfamilies Amygdaloideae and Maloideae. In 2012, it was decided at the International Botanical Congress that the correct name for that large subfamily must be Amygdaloideae. Subfamily Amygdaloideae now includes plants with fleshy fruit including apple and plum.
Analytical chemistry