Wacław Potocki was born in the village named Wola Łużańska near the town of Biecz in Southern Poland. He was a member of noblemen family. They were Polish Brethren, Christians of the Minor Reformed Church. He was married to Katarzyna Morsztyn. After all Polish Brethren were given order either to become Roman Catholic or to go out of Poland forever, he changed his faith. Wacław Potocki died at Łużna in 1696. He was buried in Francuscan Church in Biecz.
Wacław Potocki wrote a lot. He is the author of "Ogród fraszek" ("The Garden of Verses") that consists of more than 2 000 short poems. Another book by Potocki, named "Moralia" is composed of more than 2 000 pieces, too. This was based on "Adagia" by Erasmus of Rotterdam. He wrote many poems, sometimes in ottava rima. His best known work is an epic poem "Wojna chocimska" ("The War of Chocim"). It was compared by Claude Backvis, a Belgian scholar, to John Milton's Paradise Lost. It narrates about the great battle against the Turks. The battle was fought in 1621, when the poet was born. The poem was written fifty years after. It is in heroic couplets. Lines of the poem consist of thirteen syllables with feminine rhymes.
New7Wonders of the World
New7Wonders of the World (2000–2007) was an idea to choose new Wonders of the World from a selection of 200 existing monuments. The popularity poll was led by Canadian-Swiss Bernard Weber and organized by the New7Wonders Foundation in Zürich, Switzerland. Winners were announced on 7 July 2007 in Lisbon.
The foundation took only private donations and the sale of broadcast advertising. It had no public funding or taxpayers' money. After the final announcement, New7Wonders said it did not make money and barely recovered its investment.
The seven wonders of the world can be seen on various Celebrity Cruises itineraries.
The program caused different reactions from countries and organisations. Some countries praised their finalist and tried to get more people to vote for it. Others criticized the contest or did not think it was very important.
In the beginning, UNESCO helped the New7Wonders Foundation by giving advice on nominee selection. Then they decided they could not continue to help. Saying they have to give equal status to all world heritage sites, they dropped out of the program in 2001 and again in 2007.
In 2007 the Foundation became partners with the United Nations to help promote their shared goals. The UN posted on its website:
But in a press release on June 20, 2007, UNESCO said again that it has no link with the "private initiative".
In Brazil there was a campaign named "Vote no Cristo" (Vote for the Christ) which had the support of private companies. Among them were telecommunications workers that stopped charging voters to make telephone calls and SMS messages to vote. Also, important corporate sponsors spent millions of Brazilian reals in an effort to have the statue voted into the top seven. These included a banking company (Banco Bradesco) and a television network (Rede Globo). Newsweek magazine said the campaign was so widespread that:
An article in Newsweek said that an estimated 10 million Brazilians had voted in the contest by early July. An airplane message, with a huge flying sign "4916 VOTE FOR CHRIST" flew in Rio de Janeiro for a month.
Egyptians were not happy that the only surviving ancient wonder, the Great Pyramid of Giza, would have to compete with the Statue of Liberty, the Sydney Opera House, and other modern sites. "This is probably a conspiracy against Egypt, its civilization and monuments", a state-owned daily newspaper wrote.
The Minister of Culture of Egypt, Farouq Hosny said the project was "absurd". Nagib Aymin, an Egyptian expert on World Heritage Sites, said that "in addition to the commercial aspect, the vote has no scientific basis."
After the complaints from Egypt, the Pyramids of Giza were named an honarary candidate, and removed from the voting. They were listed as one of the 21 finalists and given honorary status among the winners.
The New7Wonders Foundation said that more than 100 million votes were cast through the Internet or by telephone. Voting by the Internet was limited to one vote for seven monuments per person. More voting was allowed by telephone. This led to criticism that the poll was not valid. At the time, New7Wonders Foundation had "the largest poll on record".
The Great Pyramid of Giza was granted honorary status. It is the largest and oldest of the three pyramids at the Giza Necropolis in Egypt. It is also the only structure still remaining of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Esociformes
Esociformes are a small order of ray-finned fish (the Actinopterygii). There are two families, the Umbridae (mudminnows) and the Esocidae (pikes).
The Esocidae are named after the pike genus "Esox". One highly successful species is "Esox lucius" or northern pike. The order also has an extinct family, called Palaeoscidae.
The Esociform fishes live in freshwater, in North America and northern Eurasia.
The order is very similar to the Salmonidae.
Matilda (name)
Matilda (or Mathilda) is a female first name. The name comes from Gothic language. It also comes from the Old High German words "maht" (meaning "might" and "strength") and "hild" (meaning "battle).
The name has been popular in Scandinavian countries. "Mathilde" appeared in the Top 10 most popular names for girls in Denmark in 2008. "Mathilde" was also very popular in Norway, Sweden and Finland. The name has also risen in popularity in other European countries.
As "Matilda", the name was most popular in the United States between 1880 and 1910. During those years, it was in the Top 200 names for girls. It went out of the Top 1,000 names in the United States by 1964. However, it reappeared 44 years later in the Top 1,000 names.
Bethany (name)
Bethany is a female first name. It comes from the Biblical place Bethany, the town where Lazarus lived in the New Testament.
In English speaking countries, Bethany has been very popular. It was the 59th most popular name for England and Wales in 2010. In 1999, it had gone as high as number 11. In the United States, the name was the 87th most popular in the late 1980s.
"Beth" is a short version of this name. "Beth" can also be a short version of the female name Elizabeth.
Santiago, Cape Verde
Santiago (Portuguese for “Saint James”), or Santiagu in Cape Verdean Creole, is the largest island of the Cape Verde archipelago. It is the most important agricultural centre and home to half the nation’s population. Praia, the capital of the country is in this island.
The Santiago island is part of the Macaronesia, a group of islands in the Atlantic Ocean with similar ecosystems.
The island was discovered in around 1460 by António de Noli (or António da Noli), a 15th-century nobleman and navigator from Genoa that worked for Henry the Navigator of Portugal. De Noli founded in 1462 the old capital of the islands, Ribeira Grande, now known as Cidade Velha.
(last national census), there were 273,919 people living in the island, giving it a population density of inhabitants/km².
The largest city of the island is Praia, its capital, with a population, in 2010, of 131,602.
Santiago is in the southern "Sotavento" group of islands, at about to the west of the island of Maio and at about to the east of the island of Fogo.
The Santiago island has an area of ; it is long, north to south, and about wide, east to west.
The island is mountainous, although slightly flatter in the southeast. There are two volcanic mountain ranges:
There are two natural parks in the island to protect the plants and animals in the two mountain ranges:
Praia, in the southeast coast, has a Tropical and Subtropical Desert climate (Köppen climate classification : Bwh).
The average temperature for the year in Praia is . The warmest month, on average, is August with an average temperature of . The coolest month on average is January, with an average temperature of .