In years immediately before common years, December starts on the same day of the week as June of the following year, and in years immediately before leap years, March and November of the following year. In years immediately before common years, December finishes on the same day of the week as September of the following year, and in years immediately before leap years, March and June of the following year.
December is one of two months to have a solstice (the other is June, its seasonal equivalent in both hemispheres), and in this month the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere is turned towards the Sun, meaning that December 21 or December 22 is the Northern Winter Solstice and the Southern Summer Solstice. This means that this date would have the least daylight of any day in the Northern Hemisphere, and the most in the Southern Hemisphere. There are 24 hours of darkness at the North Pole and 24 hours of daylight at the South Pole.
In mainly Christian countries, December is dominated by Christmas, which is celebrated on December 25 in most of those countries, though Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrate it on January 7. It marks the birth of Jesus Christ. Epiphany, January 6, is also important in relation to Christmas. Advent starts on the Sunday on, or closest to, November 30, and some countries have their own related celebration before the 25th. Sinterklaas is celebrated on December 5 in the Netherlands and Belgium, and St. Nicholas Day on December 6 is also celebrated in some countries. The Scandinavian countries, mainly Sweden, celebrate St. Lucia Day on December 13, while Iceland celebrates Thorlaksmessa on December 23. The week after Christmas is spent preparing for New Year.
Judaism's festival of light, Hanukkah, is also celebrated over eight days in this month.
Dublin
Dublin () is the capital of the Republic of Ireland, and the biggest city on the island of Ireland. In 2011 there were over 1.1 million people living in the Greater Dublin Area.
Dublin was built by the Vikings upon the river Liffey. The river divides the city into two parts, North Dublin and South Dublin.
Many famous writers lived in Dublin. Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw were born in Dublin. James Joyce is probably Dublin's best known and most international writer.
Dublin is home to Ireland's largest stadium for all sports, Croke Park. It can hold up to 85,000 people. Croke Park is the usual venue for all Ireland hurling and football finals. The Aviva Stadium hosts rugby and soccer.
Dance
Dance is a performing art. It is described in many ways. It is when people move to a musical rhythm. They may be alone, or in a group. The dance may be an informal play, a part of a ritual, or a part of a professional performance. There are many kinds of dances, and every human society has its own dances.
As with other performing arts, some people dance to express their feelings and emotions, or to feel better. Dance can be used to tell a story. In some societies, dance goes with song as well as music. Dancing is sometimes done as sport, and has similar athletic aspects. People who want to learn to dance can go to dance schools. It may take years of practice to become an experienced and capable dancer.
To plan a dance is called "choreography", done by a choreographer. Often this goes with music, and fits into a certain style. Dances may be planned in detail, or they may be whatever dancers feel like doing. However, most dancing does follow some general style or pattern. One style is the couple dance, where (usually) a man and a woman dance together. Other dances need an ensemble, a group of people together to make it work.
People have always danced. Every society has its own dances. There are pictures, on pottery and stone, which show dances from several thousand years ago, in Egypt and Greece.
Sachs divides early dances into 'Imageless dances' and 'Image dances'. By 'imageless dances' he meant dances which have no set form, but aim at getting the dancers into a state of ecstasy. In this state the dancer(s) seem changed, in a trance, and are often thought of (by their society) as being 'possessed by spirits'. These dances are done on certain occasions: marriage, war, famine, illness or death, and so on. They are found in all early ('primitive') societies.
The 'image dances', according to Sachs, are to do with the world outside the dancer. By imitating an animal or object, the dancer believes he can capture a power and make it useful. To dance in imitation of the animal which is going to be hunted is to become one with them. To imitate the act of sex is to achieve fertility. This is the kind of thinking behind an image dance. Sachs points out that societies of this kind do not really understand the connection between cause and effect. They really believe the image dances work. The dance type which is used in image dances is mime.
The two styles of dance may be joined together. Fertility dances may involve both ecstatic states and mime. The great dancer Nijinsky used some of these ideas in his choreography for the ballet "Le Sacre du Printemps" (The Rite of Spring), a ballet about the sacrifice of a girl during a primitive celebration of Spring.
In more recent times, the first dance school we know about was opened in 1661 in Paris. Only men were accepted until 1681. After 1681, women were accepted too. Ballroom dances are forms of modern dance. Ballroom dances such as the waltz are done by couples.
Until the 20th century, most ballroom dances were sequence dances. The way people moved was planned in set formation. These formations were usually lines or squares. Everyone moved at the same time, and finished at the same time. The music played for a set time, and then stopped. After the invention of the waltz, around 1800, another style of dancing developed. In the waltz, and later dances, people danced in couples, but they did so separately. They did not dance in formation, but moved round the room as they pleased (but anti-clockwise). Often, new dance styles arrive. Some dance as individuals, separately, as they please. Street dance is like that. All these types of dance have music.
At the same time, round the world there are many traditional dances. Some of them have been going for hundreds of years. We call them folkloric dances.
The coming of popular music videos and DVDs led to a kind of dancer previously seen in some stage shows. A backup dancer (or background dancer) is a performer who dances with or behind the lead performers in a live musical act or in a music video.
There are many different styles of dance, which fall into these general types:
Dissolution of the monasteries
The dissolution of the monasteries was an event that happened from 1536 to 1540, when English King Henry VIII took away the land and money that the nuns and monks of the Roman Catholic church owned. Henry VIII then gave this land and money to people that supported him.
This was also when Henry VIII made himself the new head of the Church of England (which is a type of Christianity). Parliament made the Act of Supremacy to give him the right to do both these things. It was part of the Protestant Reformation in England.
Deadline
A deadline is a time by which some task must be completed.
Very often, it means a time limit that is set in place by an authority - for example, a teacher tells students that they must turn in their homework in by a certain time. This is so the teacher is able to report fairly to his or her principal that every student had the same chance to do the work.
Deadlines may also be set by a time horizon that comes from something that is not a human authority, but part of nature. For example, by sunset one must do those tasks requiring daylight. However, a human must watch the sun and decide what light is strong enough to still be daylight, so time limits will still be involved even if one observes a horizon and sets a deadline oneself.