Early Buddhist legends tell that Licchavi was a ruling family during Gautama Buddha's time in India, but links to the Nepalese kingdom are speculative. The language of Licchavi inscriptions is Sanskrit, and the particular script used is closely related to official Gupta scripts. That means that India was a significant cultural influence. That was likely through Mithila, now the north of Bihar, India.
Republicanism
Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic with an emphasis on liberty and the civic virtue practiced by citizens. Republicanism always stands in opposition to aristocracy, oligarchy, monarchy, and dictatorship. More broadly, it refers to a political system that protects liberty, especially by incorporating a rule of law that cannot be arbitrarily ignored by the government. According to John Adams, “They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men.” Much of the literature deals with the issue of what sort of values and behavior by the citizens is necessary if the republic is to survive and flourish; the emphasis has been on widespread citizen participation, civic virtue, and opposition to corruption.
Tabriz
Tabriz تبریز is the largest city in north-western Iran with a population of 1.6 million. Most of them speak the Azerbaijani language. Tabriz is north of the volcanic cone of Sahand and south of the Eynali mountain. It is the capital of East Azarbaijan Province.
Saber–toothed cat
The sabertoothed cats or sabretooth cats are some of the best known and most popular extinct animals. They are among the most impressive carnivores that ever have lived. These cats had long canines and jaws which opened wider than modern cats. This suggests a different style of killing from modern felines.
The sabre-tooth style of life evolved at least five times amongst carnivorous mammals. This is one of the best-known examples of convergent evolution.
The saber tooths were ambush predators, and probably lived in open forests. This would explain their widespread occurrence in the Miocene, when much of the land was covered with woodland. Apart from the canine teeth, their adaptations included strength in the forelimbs (more so than present-day large cats). Their robust (heavy, tough) bodies speak of strength rather than speed.
An idea of how they killed is as follows. They hid in wait, and pounced. They hung on round the prey's neck, gripping and slashing the underside of the throat with their canine teeth. This would cause death by blood loss and loss of the air supply.
The fact that their teeth vary is interesting. Some have larger teeth, some had smaller dagger-like teeth, some had smooth thick teeth, others had blade-like teeth, sometimes with serrated edges. Some had flanges on the lower jaw, most did not. Ewer remarks that this must show that there were variations in killing method, and in the type of prey, but we know little about this.
There are none living today: they are extinct. The extinctions followed climate change, as the world cooled and grassland took over from woodland in the Pliocene and Pleistocene.
Prosper Mérimée
Prosper Mérimée (September 28, 1803–September 23, 1870) was a French writer. He was also a historian and an archaeologist. He is probably best known for writing the short story "Carmen". "Carmen" became the basis for the opera "Carmen" by Georges Bizet.
Jerry Hsu
Jerry Hsu (b. December 17, 1981) is an American professional skateboarder. He was born in, and currently lives in, San Jose, California. Hsu is a member of the San Jose Tilt Mode Army crew. He has several pro model skateboard decks with Enjoi Skateboards. Hsu was featured in the skateboard videos "Bag of Suck" by Enjoi. He won an award for best video part by Transworld Skateboarding Magazine and a reader's choice award for his work in the video.
Barnes &amp; Noble
Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest bookseller in the United States. It operates mostly through its "Barnes & Noble Booksellers" chain of bookstores which is based in lower Fifth Avenue in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Barnes & Noble also operated the chain of small B. Dalton Booksellers stores in malls until they announced the liquidation of the chain.
The company is known for large, upscale retail stores. Many of them contain a café serving Starbucks Coffee. Most stores also sell magazines, newspapers, DVDs, graphic novels, gifts, games, and music. Video games and related items were sold in the company's GameStop retail outlets until October 2004. Then, the division was made into its own company.
As of October 2009, the company operates 777 stores in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. It also has 636 college bookstores, which serves nearly 4 million students and 250,000 faculty members across the country.
Barnes & Noble began in 1873 when Charles Barnes opened a book-printing business in Wheaton, Illinois. Their first true bookstore was set up by his son, William, with G. Clifford Noble, in 1917 in New York City. The original bookstore was at 31 West 15th St., and opened during World War I. In 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, the bookstore was moved to its current location on 18th Street and Fifth Avenue.
The business was bought in 1971 by Leonard Riggio. He oversaw the growth of the business. In 1974, Barnes & Noble became the first bookstore to advertise on television. A year later, the company became the first bookseller in America to discount books. It sold "New York Times" best-selling titles at 40% off the publishers’ list price. During the 1970s and 1980s, Barnes & Noble opened smaller discount stores. These were eventually phased out in favor of larger stores. They also began to publish their own books to be sold to mail-order customers. These titles were mostly low price reissues of out-of-print titles. Selling them through mail-order catalogs allowed Barnes & Noble to reach new customers nationwide.
Barnes & Noble continued to expand throughout the 1980s. In 1987 it purchased the mostly shopping mall-based B. Dalton chain from Dayton Hudson. The last B. Dalton stores closed in January 2010. The purchase of 797 bookstores turned the company into a nationwide retailer. As of the end of fiscal year 1999, the second-largest online bookseller in the United States. B&N's critics claim that it has added to the decline of local and independent booksellers.
It first began selling books online in the late 1980s, but the company’s website was not launched until May 1997. The site now carries over 1 million titles.
In 2002, Leonard Riggio's brother Stephen Riggio was named CEO.
Steve Riggio is vice chairman of the company and served on the board of directors. Riggio began his career at Barnes & Noble in 1975 after graduating from Brooklyn College. After getting his start in the buying and merchandising departments, he became general manager and vice president of the company’s direct mail division. He held this position from 1981 to 1987. Riggio became executive vice president of merchandising in 1987. Then, in 1995, he was appointed chief operating officer. He was appointed CEO in January 2003 and held that position till March 2010. In addition to his career at Barnes & Noble, Riggio serves on the board of directors of the National Book Foundation, Association for the Help of Retarded Children and the National Down Syndrome Society. According to Forbes.com, in 2007 Riggio’s salary is $786,358 a year. He also earns $2,323,942 in other long-term payments, for a yearly grand total of $3,110,480.
Barnes & Noble publishes some of the books it sells. It reprints non-copyrighted titles or gets the American or English language rights from another publisher. In addition, Barnes & Noble pays for reprint anthologies and omnibus editions using in-house editors.