After the Reformation, many other Churches began because of disagreements over beliefs and practices of earlier Protestant doctrine. According to the 2010 U.S. Religious Congregations and Membership Study, this accounts for most of the Protestant denominations in the United States. There are about 314,000 of these. Two examples of these Protestant (or Reformed) churches are Methodist and Baptist.
Nail
A nail is a metal object with a flat head and a long, sharp tip. A hammer or nail gun is used to put it into another object. It is often used to join two objects together.
The history of the nail came in three periods:
Nails date back at least to Ancient Egypt – bronze nails found in Egypt have been dated 3400 BC. The Bible has references to nails. King David gave iron to make nails for what would become Solomon's Temple.
The Romans made extensive use of nails. The Roman army left behind seven tons of nails when it evacuated the fortress of Inchtuthil in Perthshire, Scotland, in 86 or 87 AD.
Dictatorship
A dictatorship is a form of government, where one person effectively has all the power to run a country. In very few cases, a small group of people holds this power. This person is called a dictator. A dictatorship that is ruled by soldiers is called a military dictatorship or junta. An absolute monarchy (the system where there are Kings and Queens who have full power over their country) can be considered to be a dictatorship, but the people are usually not called dictators.
Roman dictators were temporary rulers appointed to protect the state during a war or other emergency. Many countries have laws that allow a similarly time-limited dictatorship, to fight against such problems. Karl Marx has the idea of the Dictatorship of the proletariat. When they became independent in the 1960s and 1970s, many African states changed to be dictatorships, run by one person. Karl Popper distinguished between two different forms of government, "Those where it is possible to change the government without bloodshed, in a popular vote, and those where it isn't." He said that this was the key difference, and not how the forms of government are named.
Dictators often come to power in times of difficulty, such as massive unemployment, inflation, and unrest among the population. Dictators are normally backed by powerful groups, such as landowners, private company owners, bank owners and in some cases institutions like the Roman Catholic Church to put in place law and order by force. This force may be directed at the poorer parts of society, such as unemployed workers, ethnic minorities, working class areas andshanty towns. Examples of this are the dictatorships in Latin America and the prosecution of the Jewish community in 1940s Germany.
Dictators normally need to do a number of things to put in place their dictatorships: they need to get rid of their opponents (which may be political or religious) - some are imprisoned, exiled (sent outside their country) or killed. Dictators will then need to prohibit (or not allow) political parties that oppose their rule. They will confiscate the political parties' property or offices and such things. Dictators may suppress or persecute some religious groups or institutions. Dictators will also need to undo or close down democratic institutions such as parliament and in some cases the congress.
Some social organizations, such as civil rights groups, human rights organisations, legal aid centers, students' unions, teachers' federations, trade or workers unions are also undone and those who persist with such activities may be killed. Dictators often rewrite an existing constitution or put in place a completely new one. This makes their power constitutional (which then cannot be disputed). Dictators then maintain their rule with state terrorism, which normally involves a secret police, death squads, random or night curfew, indefinite arrest without trial and a network of torture centers and concentration camps. Some dictatorships create a fictional (or non existent) internal (inside their country) enemy which they claim to be at war with to justify (give reason for) their use of much military violence against their people.
Electricity
Electricity is the presence and flow of electric charge. Using electricity we can transfer energy in ways that allow us to do simple chores. Its best-known form is the flow of electrons through conductors such as copper wires.
The word "electricity" is sometimes used to mean "electrical energy". They are not the same thing: electricity is a transmission medium for electrical energy, like sea water is a transmission medium for wave energy. An item which allows electricity to move through it is called a conductor. Copper wires and other metal items are good conductors, allowing electricity to move through them and transmit electrical energy. Plastic is a bad conductor (also called an insulator) and doesn’t allow much electricity to move through it so it will stop the transmission of electrical energy.
Transmission of electrical energy can happen naturally (such as lightning), or be made by people (such as in a generator). It can be used to power machines and electrical devices. When electrical charges are not moving, electricity is called static electricity. When the charges are moving they are an electric current, sometimes called 'dynamic electricity'. Lightning is the most known - and dangerous - kind of electric current in nature, but sometimes static electricity causes things to stick together in nature as well.
Electricity can be dangerous, especially around water because water is a form of good conductor as it has impurities like salt in it. Salt can help electricity flow. Since the nineteenth century, electricity has been used in every part of our lives. Until then, it was just a curiosity seen in the lightning of a thunderstorm.
Electrical energy can be created if a magnet passes close to a metal wire. This is the method used by a generator. The biggest generators are in power stations. Electrical energy can also be released by combining chemicals in a jar with two different kinds of metal rods. This is the method used in a battery. Static electricity can be created through the friction between two materials - for instance a wool cap and a plastic ruler. This may make a spark. Electrical energy can also be created using energy from the sun, as in photovoltaic cells.
Electrical energy arrives at homes through wires from the places where it is made. It is used by electric lamps, electric heaters, etc. Many appliances such as washing machines and electric cookers use electricity. In factories, electrical energy powers machines. People who deal with electricity and electrical devices in our homes and factories are called "electricians".
The idea of electricity, or the fact that amber acquires the power to attract light objects when rubbed, may have been known to the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus, who lived about 600 B.C.
Another Greek philosopher, Theophrastus, stated in a treatise that this power is possessed by other substances.
The first scientific study of electrical and magnetic phenomena, however, did not appear until A.D. 1600, from research done by the English physician William Gilbert. Gilbert was the first to apply the term "electric" (Greek, "elektron", "amber") to the force that substances exerted after being rubbed. He also distinguished between magnetic and electric action.
Ben Franklin spent much time in electrical research. His famous kite experiment proved that the atmospheric electricity (that causes the phenomena of lightning and thunder) is identical with the electrostatic charge on a Leydan jar. Franklin developed his theory that electricity is a single "fluid" existing in all matter, and that its effects can be explained by excesses and shortages of this fluid.