In the 1770s, the English used pirates to help their government. By doing harm to the Spanish navy and export, the English hoped to get more land in the New World and stop the Spanish from controlling the New World trade. They did get what they wanted, but made a new problem.
Sir Henry Morgan was one well-known pirate who was encouraged by the English government. He worked for the government, but he kept the money. As time went on, though, Morgan stopped working for the government and began working to get money only for himself. He and other pirates soon began attacking any trading ship, even if it was an English ship.
Morgan and his helpers called themselves the Brethren. They wore rough shirts, knee-long pants, felt hats, and leather belts. On their belts, they hung gunpowder , butcher's knives, and blunderbusses (short muskets.) They had a "pirate code" which said each man had the right to vote on all things, like choosing a captain or the next ship to attack.
The pirates easily found new members. Seamen in naval services often lived much harder lives than pirates. They could be punished cruelly by people higher than them, did not have good food to eat, and were paid only a little money. The pirates offered equality, good food (when it was there), and a chance to become rich.
However, pirates were little better. The commanders of trading ships were terrified at seeing pirate ships, because pirates had little mercy on the people they captured. They shot them, beat them to death, tortured them, or them on desert islands. Pirates were not very kind to each other, either. Even though they had a "pirate law", they argued with each other, and members could receive the same punishment as their enemies.
Life on a pirate ship was very hard. There was never a dry place to sleep; bathing was very rare; food was often bad; and danger was expected. Many pirates had missing arms or legs after bloody sea battles. Even pirates who finally became rich still risked being hanged if they were caught.
Zhejiang
Zhejiang is a province in east China. "Zhejiang" is named by the Qiantang River, which is also called "Zhejiang". "Zhejiang" means "bent river". It has a population of more than 51 million people. The capital of Zhejiang Province is Hangzhou.
Zhejiang Province is divided into eleven municipalities (Chinese:地级市).
Shaoxing
Shaoxing () is a city and a municipality in China. It is in the Zhejiang province. 4,347,200 people live there, 649 thousand of whom lives in the city of Shaoxing. The area of Shaoxing Municipality is 8,256 square kilometres. Lu Xun () born in Shaoxing is a famous writer in China.
Shaoxing Municipality is divided into 1 district, 3 cities and 2 counties.
Lu Xun
Lu Xun (), (September 25, 1881 – October 19, 1936), was a Chinese writer. His real name is Zhou Shuren (周树人), as Lu Xun is his pen name. He was born in Shaoxing of Zhejiang Province. He had a lot of works, for example, "The True Story of Ah Q", " Medicine", and so on.
Lu Xun Park in Shanghai has a museum about his life and his tomb.
U.S. Open (golf)
The U.S. Open is a golf tournament, which is one of the four major championships played annually. It is organized by the United States Golf Association. The torunament takes place annually on the third weekend in June, and the host course changes every year.
Black Holes and Revelations
Black Holes and Revelations is the fourth album from the British alternative rock band, Muse. It was released in 2006.
United National Independence Party
The United National Independence Party (UNIP) is a political party in Zambia. It governed the country from 1964 to 1991. This was under President Kenneth Kaunda. It was the only party allowed to exist in Zambia between 1973 and 1991. The party was founded in October 1959 after the Zambian African National Congress (ZANC) was banned. It was first led by Mainza Chona, because Kaunda, who was leader of the ZANC, had been imprisoned. Kaunda became the party's leader when he was released in January 1960.
UE Sant Andreu
Unió Esportiva Sant Andreu (UE Sant Andreu) is a Spanish football team formed in 1909 and based in the district of Sant Andreu, in the city of Barcelona. They will play the 2008-09 season in the Segunda División B - Group 3.
Cerapod
The Cerapods are a sub-order of the Ornithischia. They are all herbivorous dinosaurs. They have thicker enamel on the inside of their lower teeth. The teeth wear unevenly, and this allows them to browse on tough vegetation.
They are divided into three groups:
Ceratopsia
The Ceratopsia are the horned dinosaurs of the order Ornithischia. "Triceratops" is the best-known, and one of the largest. They are a group of herbivorous, beaked dinosaurs which thrived in what is now North America and Asia, during the Cretaceous period.
Ancestral forms of this group lived earlier, in the Jurassic. Early members, such as "Psittacosaurus", were small and bipedal.
Later members, including "Centrosaurus" and "Triceratops", became very large quadrupeds. They developed elaborate facial horns and a neck frill. The frill served mainly to protect the vulnerable neck from bipedal predators like Tyrannosaurus, who attacked from above.
The frill was no doubt also used in display, thermoregulation, the attachment of large neck and chewing muscles or some combination of the above.
Ceratopsians ranged in size from 1 meter (3 ft) and 23 kilograms (50 lb) to over 9 meters (30 ft) and 5,400 kg (12,000 lb).
"Triceratops" is by far the best-known ceratopsian to the general public.
Pachycephalosauria
The Pachycephalosaurs are a group of ornithopod dinosaurs in the suborder Cerapoda. Their thick round skulls were used for defence and, probably, for mating contests.
In some species, the skull roof is domed and several inches thick; in others it is flat or wedge-shaped.The flat-headed pachycephalosaurs are usually regarded as distinct species or even families, but they may be juveniles of dome-headed adults. The domes were often surrounded by nodes and/or spikes.
There is evidence of head-butting in pachycephalosaurs. Of 100 domes studied, 20 percent showed signs of healed injuries, all consistent with combative behavior. The pathologies included pitting where the bone had become infected from wounds that originated in the skin. These findings suggest that pachycephalosaurids may have been using their heads for both display and defence as many modern animals do.
Obertshausen
Obertshausen is a city in the Offenbach Rural District in the state of Hesse, Germany.
Obertshausen is in the "Rhine Main area". The town is about 15 km southeast of Frankfurt. The whole area of the town is 13.62 km large and it is 113 m above sea level. It is a plain area with no hills.
About 35 to 20 million years ago in the Age of Tertiary the whole region was lying under sea level. At that time it was covered by an ocean which was warm and not very deep. Lots of sediments sank to its bottom. Then the region rose again and the water left, leaving soil which is mostly sandy and poor.
The city consists out of the two former independent villages "Obertshausen" and "Hausen", which are now the two urban districts of Obertshausen. On 1 January 1977 they were united.
The neighbours of Obertshausen are:
Obertshausen has 24,141 inhabitants (2008). The climate of the town is mild. There is less rain than in other parts of Germany.
Some local people are speaking a regional type (dialect) of the German language with a certain tone and special words. It is a Hessian dialect (German: "Hessisch"). This language type is related to other dialects in the south of Germany. In former times mostly every place had its own special dialect, sometimes hard to understand for people of other parts of Germany. Today the dialect speakers are a minority and the majority of them does not speak the real dialect. They rather speak a kind of regular German with a certain pronunciation.