juno-labs/simple_wikipedia huggingface dataset:
New York State Route 199

**New York State Route 199** (NY 199) is a road in the Hudson Valley of New York, United States. It is  long, and goes from near Kingston to Millerton. In between, NY 199 crosses over the Hudson River over a bridge and passes through the communities of Red Hook and Pine Plains. Part of the road was part of the Ulster and Delaware Turnpike. NY 199 was named in 1930.

## Other websites

- Route log

## Infobox (road)

- **state**: NY
- **type**: NY
- **route**: 199
- **map notes**: Map of the Mid-Hudson Valley with NY 199 highlighted in red
- **length mi**: 30.91
- **length round**: 2
- **established**: 1930
- **direction a**: West
- **terminus a**: in Ulster, New York, Ulster
- **junction**: in Red Hook (village), New York, Red Hook village
 near Pine Plains, New York, Pine Plains
- **direction b**: East
- **terminus b**: in North East, New York, North East
- **counties**: Ulster County, New York, Ulster, Dutchess County, New York, Dutchess
- **previous type**: NY
- **previous route**: 198
- **next type**: NY
- **next route**: 200
New York State Route 9G

**New York State Route 9G** (NY 9G) is a road in Dutchess County, New York, United States. It starts at US 9 in Poughkeepsie and follows the Hudson River as it goes north. It crosses Route 9 just north of Rhinebeck and ends in Hudson.

## Other websites

- Route log

## Infobox (road)

- **state**: NY
- **type**: NY
- **route**: 9G
- **map notes**: Map of the Mid-Hudson Valley with NY 9G highlighted in red
- **maint**: New York State Department of Transportation, NYSDOT and the cities of Poughkeepsie (city), New York, Poughkeepsie and Hudson, New York, Hudson
- **length mi**: 42.99
- **length round**: 2
- **established**: 1930
- **direction a**: South
- **terminus a**: in Poughkeepsie (city), New York, Poughkeepsie
- **junction**: in Rhinebeck, New York, Rhinebeck
- **direction b**: North
- **terminus b**: in Hudson, New York, Hudson
- **counties**: Dutchess County, New York, Dutchess, Columbia County, New York, Columbia
- **previous type**: NY
- **previous route**: 9D
- **next type**: NY
- **next route**: 9H
- **spur type**: US
- **spur of**: 9
The Vicar of Wakefield

***The Vicar of Wakefield*** is a novel by Oliver Goldsmith. It was written in 1761 and 1762. It was published in 1766. The book was very popular. The novel tells of the Primrose family.

## Other websites

- _The Vicar of Wakefield_
Cypripedioideae

**Lady's slipper orchids** are the orchids in the subfamily Cypripedioideae. They are special because of their slipper-shaped pouches on their flowers. The pouch traps insects so that they must climb up past the modified stamens, where they get or give pollen, fertilizing the flower.

Some people think this subfamily should be different from the Orchidaceae as a family Cypripediaceae.

## Pollination

A lady slipper orchid has a deep pocket that is actually a bee trap. When a bee crawls down into the flower to get the nectar, the pocket on the flower closes shut. Because of this, the bee is stuck for a while, wiggling and squirming, getting pollen all over itself.
The bee finally finds a small opening near the top of the orchid, and it gets out so that it can get trapped inside another lady slipper, where it will give that pollen to the other lady slipper's stigma.

The lady's slipper is also known in the United States of America as the _moccasin flower_, because it looks like a shoe or moccasin.

## Further reading

- Cox, A.V., A. M. Pridgeon, V. A. Albert, and M. W. Chase. 1997. Phylogenetics of the slipper orchids (Cypripedioideae: Orchidaceae): nuclear rDNA ITS sequences. _Plant Systematics and Evolution_ 208: 197-223. PDF
- Pridgeon, A.M.; Cribb, P.J.; Chase, M.W. & F. N. Rasmussen (1999): _Genera Orchidacearum_ Vol. 1, Oxford U. Press.

## Other websites

- The Slipper Orchid Alliance
- SlipperOrchids.info
Pandita Ramabai

**Pandita Ramabai** (23 April 1858, Karnataka – 5 April 1922) was an Indian Christian who tried to change many things in India. A poet and scholar, she tried hard to improve (make better) the lives of women in India. She wrote many books, such as her popular _The high
-Caste Indian Woman_, which showed the troubles of child wives and women in India.

## Conversion

She was born in Gangamoola, in the Mala village, in Karkala Taluk, in the Karnataka State of India. Her father's name was Ananta Shastri. She lost her parents (Laxmi Bai) early. She travelled to Kolkata with her brother. There, she received (got) a Pandita and a Sarasvathi Award for her expertise in Sanskrit Poetry.  Born in the home of an important scholar named Brahmin, Pandita Ramabai had more freedom than many Indian women. Her father taught her and her mother to read Sanskrit writing.  She then began to study Christianity in India, and later in England. She decided that it was the best religion; that she should be a Christian. However, she had not yet received Jesus into her _heart_. Ramabai later said,

## Life

Shortly after her "true conversion", Pandita Ramabai began a faith mission for the girls and widows of India.  Pandita and her helpers began a school and prayed for what they needed every day. Wheta went to refugee camps and saved widows and girls from death or abuse.

Soon she had over a thousand women and girls at the mission. Helping this many people during a time of great famine was very hard, but Pandita wrote in her autobiography,

Every day, Pandita Ramabai and her helpers taught the women to read and write, showed them cleanliness, and helped them prepare for a job. She also taught them about Jesus. She opened Ashrams at Pune, Mumbai. She established a Christian High school at Gulbarga, (now at Karnataka) and her daughter Manorama was the principal. Manorama studied in the United States and traveled to Australia.

## Infobox (person)

- **name**: Pandita Ramabai
- **image**: Pandita Ramabai.png
- **caption**: Christian social reformer
- **birth date**: April 23, 1858
- **birth place**: Karnataka, India
- **death date**: April 5, 1922
- **death place**: Maharastra
Synthesis

**Synthesis** means to bring ideas together, or to make something out of parts which were independent. It is the opposite of analysis.

- As an intellectual activity, synthesis occurs often in philosophy and science. In philosophy, synthesis is the end of a process of argument. Two examples of people whose work was mostly synthesis are:
    - Charles Darwin
    - Herbert Spencer

- In chemistry, to synthesize is to make new compounds from simpler elements.
- In acoustics, speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech.

## Related pages

- Synthetic
- Synthesizer
Ruy Lopez

The **Ruy Lopez**, also called the _Spanish Opening_, is an old chess opening. It is named after the Spanish priest Ruy López de Segura. He may have invented the opening. These are the opening moves:

- 1. e4 e5
- 2. Nf3 Nc6
- 3. Bb5

The Ruy Lopez is one of the most common and well-liked openings. There are many ways to play it. It has always been popular in master chess. White's idea is to try and undermine the center by attacking the knight with his bishop. However, White will not be always able to win a pawn immediately:

- 3... a6
- 4.Bxc6 dxc6
- 5.Nxe5 Qd4 recovers the pawn.

For this reason White usually plays a longer-term strategy, starting with:

- 3... a6
- 4. Ba4 Nf6
- 5. 0-0
Here, Black has two main options. Black can either play with an open center, with 5... Nxe4 or play a closed, positional game with 5... Be7. These openings are called the Open Ruy Lopez and the Closed Ruy Lopez.

## Closed Variation

The closed variation of the Ruy Lopez comes after these moves:

1. e4 e5
1. Nf3 Nc6
1. Bb5 Nf6
1. 0-0 Be7

This line leads to a closed pawn structure. White's idea will be to break open the center with d4. Play typically continues:

- 5. Re1, defending the pawn on e4
- 5... b5, kicking the Bishop back even farther and preventing White from capturing the knight. If White had taken the knight, then the e5 pawn could be taken.
- 6. Bb3 0-0
- 7. c3

These are the main moves for White. However, White can also play 7. h3 or 7. a4. These moves are played in order to avoid the Marshall Variation.

- ECO code: C60–C99. ECO is the _Encyclopaedia of chess openings_.
Triathlon

A **triathlon** is a sport that consists of three different events one after another without resting in between.  Usually, they are swimming, cycling, and running.  Triathlon has been in the Olympic Games since 2000.  One of the hardest and most famous triathlons is the Ironman Triathlon, which involves swimming two miles, biking a hundred miles, and then running a marathon.
Continuous function

A mathematical function is called **continuous** if, roughly said, a _small change_ in the input only causes a _small change_ in the output. If this is not the case, the function is **discontinuous**.  Functions defined on the real numbers, with one input and one output variable, will show as an _uninterrupted line (or curve)_. They can be drawn _without lifting the pen off of the page_. The definition given above was made by Augustin-Louis Cauchy.

Karl Weierstraß gave another definition of continuity: Imagine a function _f_, defined on the real numbers. At the point  the function will have the value . If the function is continuous at , then for every value of  no matter how small it is, there is a value of , so that , means that . We can put this another way, given a point close to  (called x), the _absolute value_ of the difference between the two values of the function can be made increasingly small, if the point x is _close enough_ to .

There are also special forms of continuous, such as _Lipschitz-continuous_. A function is Lipschitz-continuous if there is a  with  for all x,y ∈ (a,b).

A basic way to know if a function is continuous is to use a pencil or your finger. Then, start at the left of the function. Then, move your finger along the path of the function. If you ever need to lift your finger or pencil to keep following the function, then you know it is not continuous. This is because, by lifting your finger, you have "jumped" from one section of the function to another. That means you made a very small movement but the function changed very much. This is what the first sentence of this article is talking about.

## Related pages

- Calculus
- Chaos theory
Peter Falk

**Peter Michael Falk** (September 16, 1927 - June 23, 2011) was an American actor. His best known role was Columbo in the TV series of the same name.

## Early life

Falk was born in Manhattan on September 16, 1927. He was Jewish. He grew up in Ossining, New York. He earned a degree in political science from the New School for Social Research. He then earned his Master's degree in public administration at Syracuse University.

## Career

He appeared in a number of Broadway plays including: _The Prisoner of Second Avenue_, _The Passion of Josef D_, _Diary of a Scoundrel_, and _Saint Joan_. Falk won four Emmy Awards playing the police detective Columbo, and one for _The Dick Powell Theatre_. He was nominated for seven other Emmy awards. Falk also received two Academy Award nominations for the films _Murder Inc._ and _Pocketful of Miracles_.

## Death

Falk was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He died in his Beverly Hills, California home on the morning of June 23, 2011.

## Other websites

- Peter Falk at Emmys.com
- Peter Falk on Dean Martin show, video, 10 min.
- Peter Falk At Find A Grave

## Infobox (person)

- **image**: Columbo Peter Falk 1973.JPG
- **imagesize**: 200px
- **caption**: Falk as Columbo (June 1973)
- **birth name**: Peter Michael Falk
- **birth place**: The Bronx, New York, United States
- **death place**: Beverly Hills, California, United States
- **death cause**: Pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease
- **nationality**: United States, American
- **occupation**: Actor
- **yearsactive**: 1956–2009
- **spouse**: Alyce Mayo
(m. 1960–1976, divorced)
Shera Danese
(m. 1977–2011; his death)
- **children**: 2 daughters
- **education**: Bachelor's degree, Master's degree
- **alma mater**: Syracuse University
- **signature**: Peter Falk sign.gif
Claude Choules

**Claude Choules** (3 March 1901 – 5 May 2011) was a British-Australian World War I veteran who served in the Royal Navy.

### World War I & World War II

Born in Wyre Piddle, son of Harry & Madeline (née Winn), near Pershore, Worcestershire, Choules joined the Royal Navy as a young man in 1916, and served aboard the Naval Training Ship HMS Circe at Plymouth. In 1917, he joined the battleship HMS _Revenge_, which was the flagship of the First Battle Squadron. While serving aboard her, Choules witnessed the surrender of the German Imperial Navy at the Firth of Forth in 1918, ten days after the Armistice, and was also to witness the scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow.
During World War II, Choules was the Acting Torpedo Officer of Fremantle and also the Chief Demolition Officer on the western side of the Australian continent. He was tasked with sabotaging Fremantle harbors and related oil storage tanks in the event of a Japanese invasion.

He died on 5 May 2011 in Perth, Western Australia at 110 years old.

## Related pages

- List of surviving veterans of World War I
- List of Last veterans of World War I by Country and Branch of Service
- List of last surviving World War I veterans by country

## Infobox (military person)

- **name**: Claude Choules
- **born**: - died 5th May 2011 (age 110)
- **image**: Claude Choules.jpg
- **nickname**: Chuckles
- **placeofbirth**: Wyre Piddle, Pershore, Worcestershire, England
- **allegiance**: United Kingdom
 Australia
- **branch**: Royal Navy
Royal Australian Navy
- **serviceyears**: 1916 – 1956
- **rank**: Acting Torpedo Officer, Fremantle, Western Australia, Fremantle
Chief Demolition Officer
- **battles**: World War I
World War II
Florence Green

**Florence Green** (19 February 1901 – 4 February 2012) was a British supercentenarian. She was the last surviving veteran of World War I.

## Biography

Green was born in London and moved to King's Lynn in 1920 after her marriage to Walter, a railway worker who died in 1970.

### World War I

She joined up in September 1918, two months before the end of the war. She served as a waitress in the officers' mess at RAF Marham and also at Narborough airfield. She was the last living British veteran following the death of Claude Choules.

### Later years

She was West Norfolk's oldest resident, the second oldest person in Norfolk and one of the 30 oldest people in Britain.

She had a son and two daughters, as well as four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Florence Green died in her sleep two weeks before her 111th birthday in a care home in King's Lynn, Norfolk.

## Related pages

- List of surviving veterans of World War I
- List of Last veterans of World War I by Country and Branch of Service
- List of last surviving World War I veterans by country
- Oldest people

## Infobox (military person)

- **name**: Florence Green
- **placeofbirth**: London, England
- **allegiance**: United Kingdom
- **branch**: Women's Royal Air Force
- **serviceyears**: 1918 - 1919
- **battles**: World War I
- **relations**: Walter Green (deceased)
John Babcock

**John Henry Foster "Jack" Babcock** (July 23, 1900 – February 18, 2010) was the last living Canadian veteran who fought in the First World War. He became an American citizen in 1946.

Born on July 23, 1900, Mr. John "Jack" Babcock grew up on a farm near Kingston, Ontario as part of a family of 13 children. When he was quite young, his father died in a tree-cutting accident. Despite this devastating loss, Mr. Babcock went on to bravely serve his country in the First World War before moving to the United States where he settled in Spokane, Washington.

He was 15 years old when he joined the 146th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Sydenham (near Kingston), Ontario. A few months later, he arrived in England. He was transferred to reserve battalions and ended up with the Boys Battalion in 1917, waiting until he turned 18 to go to the front lines. The war ended first. Mr. Babcock would later move to the United States, where he served in the United States Army from 1921 to 1924. Mr. Babcock married Dorothy after losing his first wife, Elsie, in the late 1970s.

Mr. Babcock read voraciously and, in recent years, completed his high school degree via correspondence courses. He had also taken local college courses. He could recite the alphabet backwards without hesitation and spell out his name in Morse code. He enjoyed travelling with his wife and taking daily walks to keep in good shape. He took up flying lessons and became a pilot when he was 65!

In April 2008, the Minister of Veterans Affairs awarded Mr. Babcock a Minister of Veterans Affairs Commendation. Later that year, a small ceremony was held in May at Mr. Babcock's home, where his Canadian citizenship was reinstated. Another accolade came in September 2008 when the Royal Canadian Regiment Association honored Mr. Babcock with the honorary title of regimental patriarch. This was the first time the title of regimental patriarch was given in Canada.

## Infobox (military person)

- **name**: Jack Babcock
- **birth date**: July 23, 1900
- **death date**: February 18, 2010 (aged 109)
- **image**: John Babcock 1920.jpg
- **caption**: John Babcock in 1920
- **nickname**: "Jack"
- **birthplace**: Holleford crater, Holleford, South Frontenac, Ontario, Canada
- **deathplace**: Spokane, Washington, United States
- **allegiance**:

- **branch**: Canadian Expeditionary Force
- **serviceyears**: 1916–1918
- **rank**: Sergeant#United States, Sergeant
- **unit**: 146th Battalion
Young Soldiers Battalion
- **battles**: World War I
- **birth name**: John Henry Foster Babcock
- **birth place**: Holleford, Ontario
- **death place**: Spokane, Washington
- **placeofburial**: Washington State Veterans Cemetery
Frank Buckles

**Frank Woodruff Buckles** (born **Wood Buckles**'; 1 February 1901 – 27 February 2011) was the last living American veteran who fought in World War I.

## Early life and career

Buckles was born in Bethany, Missouri. He enlisted in the U.S. Army at the beginning of America's involvement in World War I in April 1917. Only 16 years old at the time, Buckles was asked by his recruiter to show a birth certificate. Later Buckles said of that event, _“I was just 16 and didn't look a day older. I confess to you that I lied to more than one recruiter. I gave them my solemn word that I was 18, but I'd left my birth certificate back home in the family Bible. They’d take one look at me and laugh and tell me to go home before my mother noticed I was gone. Somehow I got the idea that telling an even bigger whopper was the way to go. So I told the next recruiter that I was 21 and darned if he didn't sign me up on the spot! I enlisted in the Army on the 14th of August 1917."_

Before being accepted into the United States Army, he was turned down by the Marine Corps due to his slight weight.

In 1917, Buckles was sent to Europe on the RMS Carpathia, which had rescued RMS Titanic survivors five years earlier. During the war Buckles served in England and France, driving ambulances and motorcycles for the Army's 1st Fort Riley Casualty Detachment.

After the Armistice in 1918, Buckles escorted prisoners of war back to Germany. Following his discharge in 1919, he attended the dedication of the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, in honor of those Americans who died in World War I. While there, he met General John "Black Jack" Pershing, commander of all U.S. forces in France during the war.

In the 1940s Buckles worked for a shipping company in Manila, Philippines. He was captured by the Japanese in 1942 and spent the next three and a half years in the Los Baños prison camp.

He became malnourished, with a weight below 100 lb, and developed beriberi, yet led his fellow inmates in calisthenics. He was rescued on February 23, 1945.

He died on 27 February 2011 at 110 years old.

## Infobox (military person)

- **name**: Frank W. Buckles
- **born**: - February 27 2011 (aged 110)
- **image**: Gates-Buckles.jpg
- **image size**: 270px
- **birth date**: 1 February 1901
- **placeofbirth**: Bethany, Missouri, Bethany, Missouri, United States
- **placeofdeath**: Charles Town, West Virginia, Charles Town, West Virginia, United States
- **death date**: (aged )
- **branch**: United States Army, US Army
- **serviceyears**: 1917 – 1920
- **rank**: Corporal#United States, Corporal
- **unit**: 1st Fort Riley Casualty Detachment
- **battles**: World War I
- **awards**: World War I Victory Medal (United States), World War I Victory Medal
Army of Occupation of Germany Medal
 Légion d'honneur, French Legion of Honor
Józef Kowalski

**Józef Kowalski** (2 February 1900? – 7 December 2013) was the last Polish veteran who served just after World War I, and believed to be the oldest living military veteran in the world, following the death of Gertrude Noone.

He fought in the Polish-Soviet War which was linked to World War I and lasted from 1919 to 1921.

He lived in Tursk, near Sulęcin, in a care home. He died on 7 December 2013, just 8 weeks and one day before his claimed 114th birthday, and claimed to be the oldest living man for around a half-year after 116-year-old Japaneseman Jiroemon Kimura's death in early-summer of 2013 (although the GRG and the Guinness World Records never verified him as the oldest living man).

## Infobox (military person)

- **name**: Józef Kowalski
- **birth date**: ?
- **death date**:
(aged ?)
- **image**: Józef Kowalski.jpeg
- **birth place**: Smerekivka, Lviv, Austria-Hungary (now Ukraine)
- **branch**: Polish Army
- **serviceyears**: 1919–1921; 1939
- **rank**: Captain (OF-2), Captain
- **unit**:  Polish Army 22nd Regiment Uhlan, Ułanów
- **battles**: Polish-Soviet War
Invasion of Poland (1939), September Campaign
- **awards**: Order of Polonia Restituta; "Pro Memoria" Medal
Michelle Keegan

**Michelle Elizabeth Keegan** (born 3 June 1987) is a British actress. She was born in Stockport, Greater Manchester. She is best known for playing Tina McIntyre in the long-running ITV soap opera, _Coronation Street_ from 2008 to 2014.

## Filmography

|Year|Title|Role|class="unsortable"|Notes|class="unsortable"|Refs|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|2008–2014|_Coronation Street_|rowspan="2"|Tina McIntyre|Series regular; 870 episodes|||
|2008|_Coronation Street: Out of Africa_|Direct-to-video film; cameo|||||
|2009|_Red Dwarf: Back to Earth_|Herself|Part 3||||
|2015|_Ordinary Lies_|Tracy|Main cast; 5 episodes||||
|2016|_Drunk History_|Queen Elizabeth I|Season 2 Episode 1||||
|2016–2020|_Our Girl_|Corporal Georgie Lane|Lead role; 24 episodes (series 2–present)||||
|2016|_Plebs_|Ursula|Episode: "The Vestal"||||
|rowspan="2"|2017|_Tina and Bobby_|Tina Moore|Lead role|||
|_Drunk History_|Mary, Queen of Scots|Season 3 Episode 2|||||

## Stage

|Year|Title|Role|class="unsortable"|Notes|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|2014–2015|_Peter Pan_|Tinkerbell|European Tour||

## Infobox (person)

- **name**: Michelle Keegan
- **image**: Michelle Keegan.jpg
- **caption**: Keegan in 2009
- **birth place**: Stockport, Stockport, Greater Manchester, England
- **occupation**: Actress
- **years active**: 2007–present
Karl Malden

**Karl Malden** (22 March 1912 – 1 July 2009) was an American actor. He worked in acting from the 1930s to 2000. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in _A Streetcar Named Desire_. He was also in other classic movies, such as _On the Waterfront_, _One-Eyed Jacks_ and _Patton_. He is perhaps best known for his role on television in the series _The Streets of San Francisco_ during the 1970s.

He was born Mladen Sekulovich in Chicago. He grew up in Gary, Indiana. His family was Serbian. In 1938, he married Broadway actress Mona Greenberg. The two would remain married until Malden's death in 2009. Greenberg died in July 2019.

At one time he served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Among other awards he won during his lifetime was an Emmy Award for his role in _Fatal Vision_. He was also given a Life Achievement Award by the Screen Actors' Guild in 2003.

Malden died in Los Angeles at the age of 97.

## Infobox (person)

- **name**: Karl Malden
- **image**: Karl Malden 2.jpg
- **caption**: Karl Malden in 1996
- **birth place**: Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
- **death place**: Los Angeles, California
- **nationality**: American
- **resting place**: Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
- **birth name**: Mladen George Sekulovich

- **education**: Emerson School for Visual and Performing Arts
- **alma mater**: DePaul University
- **occupation**: Actor
- **years active**: 1935–2000
- **spouse**: Mona Greenberg (1938–2009)
- **children**: Mila Malden,
Carla Malden
- **parents**: Petar Sekulović,
Minnie (née Sebera) Sekulovich
John Campbell Ross

**John Campbell Ross** (11 March 1899 - 3 June 2009) was the last living Australian World War I veteran.

Born in Newtown, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Ross served as a wireless operator in the First Australian Imperial Force, enlisting in January 1918, but never left Australia or saw active service. He later went on to serve in the Second World War as a corporal with the 20th Battalion, Volunteer Defence Corps.

His wife, Irene (née Laird), had been deceased by several decades before Jack Ross's death. He is survived by a son, Robert, a daughter, Peggy Ashburn, four grandchildren- Janette, Heather, Kay, and John - and nine great-grand children.

On 11 November 1998, Jack Ross had been awarded the 80th Anniversary Armistice Medal to mark the end of World War I. Jack also had been awarded the Centenary Medal for doing his share to the Australian society in the 100 years since the federation.

The death of William Evan Allan in October 2005 left Ross as the last Australian digger from World War I. However Claude Choules, a World War I veteran who served for Britain, lived in Western Australia. Ross became Australia's oldest man at the age of 108, on 12 June 2007, upon the death of Frank Scarrabelotti. Following the death of 112 year old E. Beatrice Riley, he was verified as the oldest person in Australia.

Ross celebrated his 110th birthday with chocolates and cake and a commemorative letter from the Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd.

As a civilian, Ross worked for Victorian Railways until he retired in 1964. Ross died peacefully in his sleep at approximately 4 am. at the Golden Oaks Nursing Home in Bendigo on 3 June 2009, aged 110.

## Infobox (military person)

- **name**: John Campbell Ross
- **born**: 11 March 1899
- **died**: 3 June 2009 (aged 110)
- **nickname**: Jack
- **placeofbirth**: Newtown, Victoria, Australia
- **placeofdeath**: Bendigo, Victoria, Australia
- **branch**: First Australian Imperial Force
Second Australian Imperial Force
- **serviceyears**: February – December 1918
1943 – 1945
- **rank**: Corporal
- **unit**: Wireless Operator
- **battles**: World War I
World War II
- **relations**: -Irene (wife)
-Peggy Ashburn (daughter)
-Robert (son)
Bill Stone

**William Frederick Stone** (23 September 1900 – 10 January 2009) was a British veteran of World War I who served in the Royal Navy. He died on 10 January 2009.

## Infobox (military person)

- **name**: Bill Stone
- **image**: William Stone.jpg
- **caption**: Bill Stone photographed in Watlington, Oxfordshire, November 2006.
- **placeofbirth**: Ledstone, Devon, England
- **placeofdeath**: Sindlesham, England
- **allegiance**: United Kingdom
- **branch**:  Royal Navy
- **serviceyears**: 23 September 1918 –     18 September 1945
- **rank**: Chief Petty Officer, Stoker Chief Petty Officer
- **unit**: Included:
HMS Tiger (1913), HMS _Tiger_
HMS Hood (51), HMS _Hood_
HMS _Salamander_
HMS Newfoundland (59), HMS _Newfoundland_
See Bill Stone#Ships, full list below for all ships
- **battles**: First World War
Second World War
*Arctic convoys
*Allied invasion of Sicily
- **awards**: Mentioned in Despatches
See Bill Stone#Medals, full list below for details of campaign and commemorative medals awarded
- **laterwork**: Barber
Norman Wisdom

**Sir Norman Joseph Wisdom** <small>OBE</small> (4 February 1915 – 4 October 2010) was an English comedian, singer, songwriter, actor and musician.

## Filmography

- _A Date with a Dream_ (1948)
- _Wit and Wisdom_ (1948–1950, TV)
- _Trouble in Store_ (1953)
- _One Good Turn_ (1954)
- _As Long as They're Happy_ (1955)
- _Man of the Moment_ (1955)
- _Up in the World_ (1956)
- _Just My Luck_ (1957)
- _The Square Peg_ (1958)
- _Follow a Star_ (1959)
- _There Was a Crooked Man_ (1960)
- _The Bulldog Breed_ (1960)
- _On the Beat_ (1962)
- _The Girl on the Boat_ (1962)
- _A Stitch in Time_ (1963)
- _The Early Bird_ (1965)
- _The Sandwich Man_ (1966)
- _Press for Time_ (1966)
- _Androcles and the Lion_ (1967, TV)
- _The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968)
- _What's Good for the Goose_ (1969)
- _Norman_ (1970, TV)
- _Music Hall_ (1970, TV)
- _Nobody Is Norman Wisdom_ (1973, TV)
- _A Little Bit of Wisdom_ (1974, TV)
- _BBC Playhouse_: "Going Gently" (1981, TV)
- _Bergerac_: "Almost Like a Holiday" (1983, TV)
- _The 1950s: Music, Memories & Milestones_ (1988, TV)
- _Double X: The Name of the Game (Double X, Run Rabbit Run)_ (1992)
- _Last of the Summer Wine_ episode "The Man Who Nearly Knew Pavarotti" (1995, TV)
- _Last of the Summer Wine_ episode "Extra, Extra!" (1996, TV)
- _Where on Earth Is ... Katy Manning_ (1998, TV)
- Casualty episode "She Loved the Rain" (1998, TV)
- _Last of the Summer Wine_ episode "The Coming of the Beast" (2001, TV)
- _Last of the Summer Wine_ episode "A Musical Passing for a Miserable Muscroft" (2002, TV)
- _Dalziel and Pascoe_ episode "Mens Sana" (2002, TV)
- _Coronation Street_ (2004, TV)
- _Five Children and It_ (2004) Played Nesbitt.
- _Last of the Summer Wine_ episode "Variations on a Theme of the Widow Winstanley" (2004, TV)
- _Expresso_ (2007) [www.expressofilm.com]
- _Evil Calls: The Raven_ (2008)
- _Wonderland: The Secret Life Of Norman Wisdom Aged 92 and 3/4_ (2008, TV)

### CDs and vinyl

- _I Would Like to Put on Record_
- _Jingle Jangle_
- _The Very Best of Norman Wisdom_
- _Androcles and the Lion_
- _Where's Charley?_
- _Wisdom of a Fool_
- _Nobody's Fool_
- _Follow a Star_
- _1957 Original Chart Hits_
- _Follow a Star/Give Me a Night in June_
- _Happy Ending/The Wisdom Of A Fool_
- _Big in Albania - One Hit Wonderland''

## Infobox (actor)

- **name**: Sir Norman Wisdom
- **image**: Norman Wisdom Peel IoM 2005 -CCR27366-.jpg
- **caption**: Sir Norman, Peel, Isle of Man (2005)
- **birth date**: 4 February 1915
- **birth place**: Marylebone, London,
England
- **death date**: 4 October 2010 (aged 95)
- **occupation**: Actor, Comedian, Musician, Singer-songwriter
- **nationality**: British people, British
- **yearsactive**: 1948–2005, 2007–2008, 2010
- **spouse**: Doreen Brett
(m. 1941-1946, divorced)
Freda Simpson
(m. 1947–1968, divorced)
- **awards**: **BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Film**
1954 _Trouble in Store_
**London Film Critics Circle - Special Achievement Award**
1996 for services to comedy
- **post-nominals**: OBE
Lazare Ponticelli

**Lazare Ponticelli** (7 December 1897 - 12 March 2008) was a French World War I veteran.

## World War I

In August 1914, after the start of World War I, Ponticelli joined the 1st Régiment de Marche of the French Foreign Legion at 16 years old. He had to lie about his age as he was still to young to join the army. His older brother, Céleste Ponticelli, had also joined the regiment.Ponticelli said that France had done much for him, and being in the army was his way of showing his thanks. He fought at Soissons in Picardy, northeast France and at Douaumont, near Verdun. Ponticelli worked digging burial pits and trenches.

Ponticelli was not a French citizen and in May 1915, when Italy entered the war, he was forced into the Italian Army by conscription. Even though he tried to stay with his French regiment, he had to become part of the 3rd Alpini Regiment. Ponticelli fought against the Austro-Hungarian Army at Mount Piccolo on the Austria–Italy border. At his new job as a machine gunner, Ponticelli was wounded by a shell during an assault on an Austrian mountain. He was sent back to his job after rest in Naples.

Once, his regiment stopped fighting the Austrians for three weeks. The armies, who mostly spoke the same language, traded loaves of bread for tobacco and took pictures of each other. His commanders found out about this, and moved the regiment to another area.

## Infobox (military person)

- **name**: Lazare Ponticelli
- **image**: LazarePonticelli.jpg
- **image size**: 200px
- **caption**: Lazare Ponticelli in 2006
- **placeofbirth**: Groppo Ducale, a _frazione_ in Bettola, province of Piacenza, Piacenza, Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946), Italy
- **placeofdeath**: Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France
- **allegiance**: French Third Republic, France (1914–1915)
 Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946), Italy (1915–1918)
- **branch**: French Army
Royal Italian Army, Italian Army
- **serviceyears**: 1914–1918
- **battles**: World War I
- **awards**: _Croix de guerre_
World War I Victory Medal (United States), _Médaille Interalliée_
_Légion d'honneur_
_Order of Vittorio Veneto, Ordine di Vittorio Veneto_
Fire ant

**Fire ants** are stinging ants. They are also called _ginger ants_ and _tropical fire ants_. They evolved in South America, but have become a major pest in North America. They are known for a painful sting. This sting uses a base, not an acid.

## Invasion

In 1918, fire ants were accidentally moved into the United States of America by a ship from South America. They were moved in large amounts of dirt.  The ships brought heavy things like machines from the US to South America. They brought back light things like crop<nowiki/>s. The dirt was ballast make the ships more stable. The dirt sometimes had fire ants in it.

In the United States, fire ants have no natural predators or competitors. They became an invasive species. Native animals are not adapted to these ants. Fire ants are very aggressive. Their colonies can have many queens unlike many other ant species. Because of this, fire ants have spread very fast. By 1965, fire ant mounds spread on the south eastern coast and as far west as Texas. Today they are found in at least 10 southern states. There is a separate group of fire ants living in California.

## Harm

Fire ants have done a lot of harm as they have spread across the United States.  Because they are attracted to electrical currents, they chew through wires.  This makes short circuit<nowiki/>s.  Fire ants have also disturbed the natural balance of native ecosystems.  In some places, they have killed off 70% of the native ant species and 40% of other native insect species.

Each year, about 25,000 people go for medical help because of painful bites from fire ants.  Fire ants attack in groups when disturbed.  People often get many bites.  Fire ant bites are usually not dangerous but some people are allergic to fire ants.  They may go into shock.  This is called anaphylaxis.  This can kill them.

## Pushback

The fire ants are growing in the US 80 years after they came there. About 157 chemicals, like ammonia, gasoline, parts of manure, and insect-killing pesticides, are used against fire ants. However, none of them were very helpful. By 1995, the government had allowed only one fire-ant bait for people to use a lot.

## Other websites

- Biology, Control, and Management of Imported Fire Ants in North America at www.eXtension.org
- The Alabama Fire Ant Management Program
- Queensland Government - Department of Primary Industries Fire Ants Homepage
- Fire Ant Gene Sequence database
- Fireants building a lifeboat to save the queen  - Video
Fulgurite

**Fulgurites** are a rare type of natural glass made when lightning hits silica-rich minerals that are commonly in sand, soil, and some rocks. _Tubular fulgurites_ are found in places with a lot of silica, like beaches or deserts. Lightning makes a tubular fulgurite when a bolt goes through the sand and melts silica into a liquid. The liquid silica cools and hardens quickly, leaving behind a thin glassy tube, usually with a rough outer surface and a smooth inner surface. Underground, a fulgurite may be shaped like the roots of a tree, branching out with many arms that trace the zigzagging path of the lightning bolt. They are quite delicate, with walls no thicker than 1-2 mm. Some of the largest fulgurites are removed from the ground in many pieces and then glued back into their original shape.
The Musical Offering

***The Musical Offering*** (German title ***Musikalisches Opfer*** or ***Das Musikalische Opfer***), BWV 1079, is a collection of several pieces of music by Johann Sebastian Bach. It consists of canons, fugues, ricercars and a trio sonata. All the music is based on a tune made up by King Frederick II of Prussia (Frederick the Great). Bach dedicated the work to him.

## How Bach composed the work

The idea for this music started at a meeting between Bach and Frederick II on 7 May 1747. One of Bach’s sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel, was one of the king’s court musicians. The king wanted to show Johann Sebastian Bach a new instrument that had recently been invented. This was the piano. The king invited Bach to his palace at Potsdam.

During the visit the king gave Bach a theme and asked him to write a 3 part fugue based on it. Bach was good at improvisation so he made up a 3 part fugue. The king wondered whether he could make up a 6 part fugue. That would be very difficult, and people thought he was joking, but Bach said he would think about it.

Two months later, after he had gone home to Leipzig, Bach made up a six-voice fugue based on the king’s theme. He put it together with other compositions based on the theme and sent them to the king. This music became known as the “Musical Offering”. We do not know what the king thought of it.

At the top of the music Bach wrote some Latin words: "Regis Iussu Cantio Et Reliqua Canonica Arte Resoluta" (this means: “the theme given by the king, with additions, resolved in the canonic style”). The first letters of these words spell out the word _ricercar_, which was a form of music well-known at the time.

_The Musical Offering_ consists of a collection of ricercars, canons, fugues and a trio sonata. The trio sonata was written for flute, violin and basso continuo, but most of the other music does not show what instruments should play it. They are often played on keyboard instruments, or as chamber music by small groups of instruments. Bach did not show what order he wanted the pieces to be played in.

## Riddles

Bach also put riddles at the top of some of the pieces. Some of these riddles have been explained, but some have more than one solution. One of these _riddle canons_, "in augmentationem" (i.e. augmentation) has notes which get longer and longer. Bach wrote: "Notulis crescentibus crescat Fortuna Regis" (“may the fortunes of the king increase like the length of the notes”). Another one is a modulating canon which ends a tone higher than it starts. Bach wrote over the music: "Ascendenteque Modulationis ascendat Gloria Regis" (“as the modulation rises, so may the King's glory”).

## 20th century adaptations

Several composers have made arrangements of some of the music from the “Musical Offering”. In 1935, Anton Webern arranged Bach’s six-part ricercar for orchestra. In 1980 Sofia Gubaidulina used the Royal Theme of the _Musical Offering_ in her violin concerto. She turns the notes into a Russian Orthodox hymn.
Dedication

**Dedication** can mean: the act of consecrating (making holy) a religious building such as a temple or church.

Dedication can also mean the writing at the beginning of a book or piece of music in which the author or composer says that it was written for a particular person. For example: a composer may write a piece of music for a particular musician and dedicate it to them.  An author may dedicate a book to someone they love or respect.  A book or a piece of music may be dedicated to the person who has paid them to write it.  This may be a rich person such as king.

## Related pages

- Consecration
- Patronage
Boomslang

The **boomslang** (_Dispholidus typus_) is a large venomous snake found in sub-Saharan Africa. Its name means "tree snake" in Dutch and Afrikaans. It is a colubrid, the largest family of snakes, found on every continent except Antarctica.

Boomslangs eat small animals like chameleons, frogs, and birds, and they also eat eggs. Like all snakes, boomslangs do not chew  they swallow everything whole.

The venom of boomslangs can disrupt the clotting of blood, and this can kill a person. Even a small scratch can be fatal. After a bite, one can sometimes feel a headache, nausea, sleepiness, and get a mental disorder. This does not happen often, as boomslangs only bite humans when they feel attacked.

Its eyes are large in proportion to its head; they have binocular vision that helps them spot their prey. Its scientific name is _Dispholidus typus_. A boomslang is a slender snake with large eyes on a large blunt head. The snake can grow to up to 2 metres long, but is on average about 1 to 1.6 m in length.
Ice cream sandwich

An **ice cream sandwich** is a type of frozen desert made by putting ice cream in between two cookies or pieces of cake. It is often made with vanilla ice cream between two pieces of chocolate cake. It is sometimes made with other flavours instead.
Mycenaean culture

The **Mycenaean culture** (around 1600–1100 <small>BC</small>) was an early Greek culture during the Bronze Age on the Greek mainland and on Crete.

The name **Achaean** was used by Homer to describe them and occurs in the _Iliad_. The term that is used is derived from Mycenae, which is an important archaeological site about 90 km from Athens. Other important Mycenaean sites are at Athens, Thebes, Tiryns and Pylos. The epic poems of Homer, the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, are Mycenaean in origin.

The earlier Minoans traded but did not conquer. The Mycenaeans traded and conquered.

## Language

**Mycenaean** is the oldest-known form of Greek. It was spoken on the Greek mainland and on Crete in the Mycenaean period, from the 16th century to the 12th century BC. The language is written on clay tablets in a script called Linear B. Most of the tablets were found in Knossos, in central Crete, and in Pylos, in the southwest of the Peloponnese. Other tablets have been found at Mycenae itself; Tiryns and Thebes; and at Chania, on western Crete.

For a long time, no one could translate the tablets. At last, Michael Ventris deciphered the script in 1952 and showed that the language was an early form of Greek.

The texts on the tablets are mostly lists and inventories. There are no stories, myths, or poetry, but they give some idea of the people who made them.

By the late 13th century BC, mainland Greece witnessed a wave of destruction. The Mycenaean sites declined, and the people moved to refuge settlements. That is called the Greek Dark Ages since little or no writing is found until the 8th century BC. See Ancient Greece for that and the later periods.

### Comparison with Hittite

Both Old Hittite and Mycenaean Greek are Indo-European languages. The oldest Hittite texts are slightly earlier than the earliest Mycenaean texts, but Greek is the oldest Indo-European language that is still spoken.

## Identity

The somewhat younger Linear B tablets suggest that the people called Mycenaeans might have been Achaeans. No written source found at a Mycenaean site reveals what they called themselves. In the _Iliad_, the residents of the Peloponnesus and nearby islands are often called Achaeans. There is mention of the Ahhiyawa in Hittite sources from the Late Bronze Age, which suggests itself that the Mycenaeans could possibly be Achaeans. The Tawagalawa Letter, written by an unnamed Hittite king (14th–13th century BC) to the king of Ahhiyawa, treats him as an equal. The letter suggests that Miletus (Millawanda) was under his control and refers to an earlier 'Wilusa' episode" involving hostility by Ahhiyawa.

Ahhiya(wa) has been identified with the Achaeans of the Trojan War and the city of Wilusa with the legendary city of Troy. However the exact relationship of the term Ahhiyawa to the Achaeans had been hotly debated by scholars even after the discovery that Mycenaean Linear B is an early form of Greek. The written forms of the two languages are quite different.
Manna

**Manna**, sometimes spelled **mana**, is the name of a food which, according to the Pentateuch of the Bible, the Israelites ate while they were traveling 40 years in the desert after leaving Egypt, which God provided because they had nothing to eat. Every morning they would gather the white flakes that covered the ground. It is said to have a sweet taste. When they got tired of manna, God gave them quail (bird).

## Where did they come from?

Manna was called the "bread of heaven" because it seemed to come from Heaven, according to the Bible. Some suggest that they were a type of locust; some say that it was the sap of a tree which is known to satisfy hunger. In the Mishna, it is said that it was made during twilight of the sixth day of Creation.
Phase change

A **phase change** is a change in the states of matter.  For example, a solid may become a liquid. This phase change is called melting.  When a solid changes into a gas, it is called sublimation. When a gas changes into a liquid, it is called condensation. When a liquid changes into a solid, it is called solidification. When a gas changes into a solid, it is called deposition . When a liquid changes into gas, it is called evaporation or boiling. Phase changes are usually caused by changes in temperature or pressure.

As the states of matter change from solid to liquid to gas, respectively, their composition changes as well. For example, in a solid, the bonds are stronger than hydrogen bonds. That allows the solid substance to have a definite volume and shape. However, when the heat is added to the solid and it melts to become a liquid, the bonds are considerably weaker, and in water, are simply hydrogen bonds.  A liquid has a definite volume but not a definite shape, and it thus takes the shape of the container in which it is. When _more_ heat is added, the liquid substance evaporates and becomes a gas, which has no bonds at all. Gas is simply a formless collection of particles that tends to expand in all directions at the same time in order to occupy its full container. If a gas is not confined, the space between the particles will continue to increase. A gas has neither a definite volume nor a definite shape.

In this pattern, solid to liquid to gas, heat is being added in order to provoke the phase change. In the other "direction," gas to liquid to solid, heat is being released through the phase change.

It often helps to think of an ice cube when thinking of phase changes. An ice cube is a solid, and when heated up, it becomes liquid water. When heated up some more, it becomes water vapor, which is a gas.
Barn

A **barn** is a agricultural building used usually on farms and for various purposes. Most barns are used for storage The word barn comes from the Old English word, bere, for barley which means grain, and aern, for a storage place. A barn could contain a stable, for housing horses or similar animals. Most barns with a stable in them, could also be called a stable barn. In most places around the world, barns are normally painted red with white trims.