open-index/open-wikipedia-markdown huggingface dataset:
Birdbox

A **birdbox** is a human-made, usually wooden box used as a house for birds. It is suitable as a bird home because it is similar to a natural bird home, such as a hollow tree, and birds often make nests inside birdboxes. Birdboxes are often put on trees. They are often made by people who are fond of birds, but they are also useful for studying birds. For domesticated birds, birdboxes are often used for breeding.

Most birdboxes feature a simple design with of six planks ordered in a cube, with a hole in a wall where birds can go in and out. Common additions include a small stick outside the hole on which birds can sit on, and a sloping roof to make rainwater run off. Some can however be highly detailed and decorated, depending on the maker's preferences. They can also be made from things like logs or gourds. They come in many sizes, depending on the size of the bird type the box is made for. Most birdboxes are small, but some, such as ones made for owls or parrots, can be quite large.

Although birdboxes are intended for birds, many other animals can inhabit them as well. Examples include bees that make beehives inside them, and squirrels.

## Images

File:Bird box.JPG|A typical birdbox.
File:Bird box@Bird feeding station@Tortworth Court.JPG|A birdbox designed to look like a human house.
File:Blue Tit -Cyanistes caeruleus -inside nest box-4.jpg|Blue tit parents with eggs.
File:Birdhouses craft fair.JPG|A selection of colorful, stylistic birdboxes.
File:Tree Swallow-27527-1.jpg|A tree swallow peeking out of a birdbox.
File:SCMA in a wooden nest box near TRC.jpg|A domesticated scarlet macaw in a huge birdbox.
File:Carstramon Wood - a SWT Reserve - geograph.org.uk - 1429061.jpg|In a forest.
File:Bird box - geograph.org.uk - 63405.jpg|A triangle-shaped birdbox.
File:Nistroehre Wiedehopf 2.jpg|A birdbox made from a log.
File:Glaucidium passerinum.jpg|A birdbox made for owls.

## Videos
1900

**1900** (MCM) was an exceptional common year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Saturday in the Julian calendar, the 1900th year of the Common Era (CE) and *Anno Domini* (AD) designations, .

Due to a leap day in the Julian Calendar, the Gregorian Calendar moved ahead by 13 days.

## Art, music, theatre, literature 
* May 17 – *The Wonderful Wizard of Oz* by L. Frank Baum is published.

## Events 
* February 9 – The Boers defeat the British at Ladysmith, South Africa.
* The Olympic Games took place in Paris.

## Births 
### January 
* January 1 – Mieczysław Batsch, Polish footballer (d. 1977)
* January 1 – Paola Borboni, Italian actress (d. 1995)

### February 
]]
* February 22 – Luis Buñuel, Spanish director (d. 1983)

### March 
* March 10 – Violet Brown, Jamaican supercentenarian, oldest Jamaican ever (d. 2017)
* March 29 – John McEwen, 18th Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1980)

### April 
]]
]]
* April 5 – Spencer Tracy, American actor (d. 1967)
* April 26 – Charles Richter, American geophysicist and inventor (d. 1985)

### May 
* May 11 - Pridi Banomyong, Prime Minister of Thailand (d. 1983)

### June 
* June 17 – Martin Bormann, Nazi-German politician (d. 1945)

### July 
* July 19 – Arno Breker, German sculptor (d. 1991)

### August 
]]
* August 4 – Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, queen of George VI of the United Kingdom (d. 2002)
* August 4 – Nabi Tajima, Japanese supercentenarian, last surviving person born in the 19th century (d. 2018)

### September 
]]
* September 3 – Urho Kekkonen, President of Finland (d. 1986)

### October 
]]
]]
]]
* October 7 – Heinrich Himmler, German Nazi politician (d. 1945)
* October 17 – Jean Arthur, American actress (d. 1991)
* October 20 – Ismail al-Azhari, President of Sudan (d. 1969)
* October 21 – Srinagarindra, Queen Mother of Thailand (d. 1995)
* October 26 – Ibrahim Abboud, President of Sudan (d. 1983)

### November 
]]
* November 14 – Aaron Copland, American composer (d. 1990)

### December 
]]
* December 6 – Agnes Moorehead, American actress (d. 1974)

## Deaths 
* June 5 – Stephen Crane, American writer (b. 1871)
* August 25 – Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher and writer (b. 1844)
* November 22 – Sir Arthur Sullivan. English composer (b. 1842)
* November 30 – Oscar Wilde, Irish writer (b. 1854)
Louis Braille

**Louis Braille** (4 January 1809 - 6 January 1852) was a French inventor. He was born in Coupvray. He invented the script braille system, which helps blind people to read. Braille is read by passing one's fingers over characters made up of an arrangement of one to six raised points. It has been adapted to almost every known language. Numbers can be written normal in Braille and there are as well some short forms for common words.

Braille was the child of a leather maker. He was the youngest of four children. He had three older siblings, two sisters and a brother. He became blind at the age of three, because he accidentally stuck a stitching awl into one eye while he was in his father's workshop. At the time, there were no antibiotics, and soon his injured eye was infected. The infection spread to his other eye and soon, he became blind in both eyes. He went to the Royal Institute of Blind Youth when he was 10. Braille was a good student, especially in science and music. Later, when he was an adult, he became a church organist. He was also a teacher at the Institute of Blind Youth. Braille died in Paris at the age of 43 of a disease called tuberculosis.

## References
B. J. Thomas

**Billy Joe "BJ" Thomas** (August 7, 1942 &ndash; May 29, 2021) was an American country singer-songwriter. Thomas was born in Hugo, Oklahoma.

His most famous songs are "Hooked upon a feeling" and "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head", which was in the movie *Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid*. He sang throughout the 1970s. He changed to Christian music in the 1980s. He won a Grammy Award for every year between 1977 until 1981.

In March 2021, Thomas announced that he was diagnosed with stage-4 lung cancer. He died from the disease on May 29, 2021 in Arlington, Texas at the age of 78.

## References
Marsupial

**Marsupials** are in the infraclass of mammals called the Metatheria. This is the marsupials and their extinct ancestors. There are about 320 different species today.

## Reproduction 
Marsupials give birth to living young. The young are called *joeys*. The joeys feed on milk. They are born very small. 

Marsupials have a special pouch where they carry their joeys. After the birth the joey goes into its mother's pouch, where it can drink milk and is kept warm and safe. When the joeys are young they stay in the pouch all the time, but when they are older they can leave it for short times. When they are old enough and too big for the pouch they do not go into their mother's pouch anymore.

Marsupial development is about half-way between reptilian development and mammalian development.

## Biogeography 
 data]]

Marsupials evolved before the southern supercontinent Gondwana broke off from Pangaea 100 million years ago. Early marsupial fossils have been found in Asia, from 125 million years ago. 

They were outcompeted on Laurasia by placental mammals, but the placentals did not get into the Australasian part of Gondwana before it broke away into a separate supercontinent. That is why marsupials now found  only on the southern continents of Australasia. South and Central America, with the single exception of the *Virginia opossum*. 

Some of the 100 living species of South American marsupials have migrated north: 13 species to Central America and one to North America. 

There are 334 species of living Australasian marsupials. They are mostly in Australia and New Guinea, and some are on the smaller islands.

In more recent times the land bridge between the Americas, and reintroductions to Australia, have brought in placental mammals. They have caused the recent extinction of many marsupial species.

## Sounds 
Marsupials are relatively quiet. So we can place the development of mammalian speech to about 200 million years ago with the early placental mammals.

## Living marsupials 
### Australasia 
*Bandicoots
*Kangaroos
*Koalas
*Tasmanian Devil
*Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger)
*Wallabies
*Wombats

#### "Thingodonta" 
The extinct genus *Yalkaparidon* (Order Yalkaparidontia) is a bizarre fossil found in the Oligocene/Miocene deposits of Riversleigh, NE Australia. Its teeth are so strange that palaeontologists call it a 'Thingodont'.

### South America 
*Opossums
*Shrew opossums
*Monito del Monte

### No longer marsupial 
The borhyaenids and the sabertooth *Thylacosmilus* are no longer considered to be marsupials. They are sparassodont metatherians, the sister group of the marsupials.

## Related pages 
*Great American Interchange
*Monotreme

## References
1854

## Events 
* January 6 &ndash; The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes is born.
* March 20 &ndash;The Boston Public Library opens to the public.
*June 24 - Franz Liszt shows Franz Schubert's opera Alfonso und Estrella in Weimar. This was thirty-two years after it was composed.
* August 9 &ndash;Johann succeeds to the throne of Saxony on the death of his brother.
* October 6 &ndash;The great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead in England
* November 5 &ndash;Crimean War &ndash; Battle of Inkerman: The Russians are defeated.
* December 3 – Eureka Stockade miner's rebellion, Ballarat, Australia
* The French fashion label Louis Vuitton is founded.

## Births 
]]
* January 1 &ndash; James George Frazer, Scottish social anthropologist (d. 1941)
* March 15 &ndash; Emil von Behring, German physiologist, 1901 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1917)
* April 29 &ndash;Henri Poincaré, French mathematician and physicist (d. 1912)
* June 26 &ndash;Robert Borden, 8th Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1937)
* July 27 &ndash;Takahashi Korekiyo, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1936)
* October 3 &ndash;William C. Gorgas, American physician and Surgeon General (d. 1920)
* October 16 – Oscar Wilde, Irish writer (d. 1900)
* November 17 &ndash;Hubert Lyautey, Marshal of France (d. 1934)
* December 23 &ndash;Victoriano Huerta, President of Mexico (d. 1916)

## Deaths 
* February 17 &ndash;John Martin, English painter (b. 1789)
* April 11 &ndash;Karl Adolph von Basedow, German physician (b. 1799)
* June 7 &ndash; Charles Baudin, French admiral (b. 1784)
* July 6 &ndash;Georg Ohm, German physicist (b. 1789)
* August 21 &ndash;Thomas Clayton, American lawyer and politician (b. 1777)
* September 8 &ndash;Angelo Mai, Italian cardinal and philologist (b. 1782)
* October 26 &ndash;Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen, queen consort of Bavaria (b. 1792)
* November 25 &ndash;John Gibson Lockhart, Scottish writer (b. 1794)
* December 9 &ndash;Almeida Garrett, Portuguese writer (b. 1799)
* December 15 &ndash;Kamehameha III, King of Hawaii (b. c. 1814)

## New books
 during the Crimean War]]
*Charles Dickens – *Hard Times*
*Fanny Fern – *Ruth Hall*
*Nathaniel Hawthorne – *Mosses from an Old Manse*
*Caroline Lee Hentz – ''The Planter's Northern Bride*
*Alfred Tennyson – "The Charge of the Light Brigade"
*Henry David Thoreau – *Walden, or Life in the Woods*
*Leo Tolstoy – *Boyhood''
Money laundering

**Money laundering** is a process some criminals do to hide the money they make from crimes or political corruption, which is called "dirty money". Such dirty money needs to be "cleaned" so it looks like it came from legal sources, and banks can accept it without being suspicious on where it came from. Criminals also do money laundering to make it hard for the police to find out where the criminal got the money.

One way criminals launder money is by using the money earned from illegal activities to buy things (like gold and silver, bitcoin, shares or casino chips, other legitimate business activities like food or liquor stores) and then selling those things to get the money back. If a criminal buys and sells things many times it is hard for the police to find out where the criminal got the money.

Some countries have laws to try to stop money laundering. These laws help the police to find out when criminals try to do money laundering. Under the laws in some countries, business people must:
*tell the Government when someone pays them a lot of money (for example $10,000) or when someone puts a lot of money in their bank
*tell the Government if they think someone is doing money laundering, and
*write down on paper, or on a computer, every time someone gives them a lot of money or they give someone a lot of money.

In 1989, some countries set up a group of people from different Governments to tell countries the best ways to stop money laundering. This organization is called the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering. The following countries have joined the Financial Action Task Force (FATF/GAFI):

*Argentina
*Aruba
*Australia
*Austria
*Bahrain
*Belgium
*Brazil
*Canada
*China
*Curaçao
*Denmark
*European Commission
*Finland
*France
*Germany
*Greece
*Hong Kong, China
*Iceland
*India
*Ireland
*Italy
*Japan
*Kuwait
*Luxembourg
*Malaysia
*Mexico
*Netherlands
*New Zealand
*Norway
*Oman
*Portugal
*Qatar
*Republic of Korea
*Russian Federation
*Saint Maarten
*Saudi Arabia
*Singapore
*South Africa
*Spain
*Sweden
*Switzerland
*Turkey
*United Arab Emirates
*United Kingdom
*United States

## Money laundering in Canada
In Canada money laundering is a serious issue. The government of Canada has allocated more than $70 million to fight money laundering.

The province of British Columbia announced it is holding a public inquiry into this issue.

## References
Laws of war

is about the sick and wounded members of armed forces. It was signed in 1864.]]

The **laws of war** are some simple rules or international laws which most people accept about war, out of humanitarianism. Many people think that because there is fighting, there should be no rules. This is called "total war". However, laws of war have been made so that wars do not get worse than they need to be.

## The laws 
#Anything marked as a hospital, an ambulance, a doctor, or a first aid person should not be attacked. Those places, vehicles, and people should not have weapons.
#Anyone who is a member of a neutral power should not be a  of violence (unless the person is committing or intending to commit a hostile act).
#Anyone fighting in the war has to wear a uniform. They can only wear the uniform of their side. Also, they have to carry their weapons out in the open where they can be seen.
#Anyone carrying or waving a plain white flag or piece of cloth must not be attacked. That person should also not attack anyone. They may want to , or just talk about ways to solve the problem without more fighting.
#Any enemy soldier captured must be treated fairly as a prisoner of war.
#Religious buildings such as churches, mosques, and temples are to be protected at all costs.
#Occupied territory should be governed fairly and not looted or devastated.

## Where the laws come from
These laws come from various treaties, including:
*The Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law of 1856, which abolished privateering
*The First Geneva Convention *for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field* of 1864
*The St. Petersburg Declaration of 1868. It bans ammunition of less that 400 grams weight. It also bans ammunition with Fulminates in them, or with inflammable substances. Through this convention, it is no longer allowed to use ammunition that falls apart into fragments, that burns, or  for small arms. Such ammunition can still be used in autocannon or artillery though.
*The Hague Conventions of 1898 and 1907
*Various other Geneva Conventions
*The Charter of the United Nations
*Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects. This bans certain types of weapons (like some landmines, weapons with fragmenting ammunition, incendiary devices and blinding laser weapons)

## Related pages 
*International humanitarian law
*Military justice
Evolutionary biology

**Evolutionary biology** is a subfield of biology that studies how species start and change over time; or in other words, how species evolve. Someone who studies evolutionary biology is known as an **evolutionary biologist**.
## History
Evolutionary biology became an academic subject  as a result of the modern evolutionary synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s.  It was not until the 1970s and 1980s that universities had departments which used the term *evolutionary biology* in their titles.

As a result of the rapid growth of molecular and cell biology, many universities have split their biology departments into *molecular and cell biology*-style departments and *ecology and evolutionary biology*-style departments. These have absorbed older departments such as paleontology, zoology, botany and the like.

## Related pages 
*Evolution
*Modern evolutionary synthesis
*Speciation
*Natural selection

## References
Christ (title)

In Christianity, **the Christ** (; ) is a title for the savior and redeemer who would bring salvation to the Jewish people and mankind. Christ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew title *Messiah* (; anointed one), the figure promised by God to the Jewish people and mankind for the salvation of the world. Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Jewish Messiah called Christ of the Christian Old Testament and fulfilled the messianic prophecies of Christian tradition. *Christ*, used by Christians both as a name and as a title, is synonymous with Jesus.

## Related pages
* Christology

## References
Pete Best

**Randolph Peter Best** or **Pete Best** (born **Randolph Peter Scanland**; 24 November 1941) was The Beatles's original drummer. He was born on 24 November 1941 in Madras, India to an Indian mother and an English father. His mother, Mona, later owned the Casbah Club in Liverpool, where The Beatles would sometimes perform. Best was drummer for the group from 1960 until 16 August 1962, when the band and their new manager, Brian Epstein, fired him and replaced him with Ringo Starr. The reason was because when the band auditioned for EMI, record producer George Martin was not satisfied with Best's drum skills, and planned to replace him on their recordings.

Best was devastated, and tried to form other bands with little success. He attempted suicide in 1965. He went on to work as a civil servant. In 1995, when The Beatles released their *Anthology* albums, which featured Best on some recordings, he received a large sum of money from the sales. He also found a new career, appearing at Beatles-related events such as conventions, where he sometimes played drums, with more skill than he showed in earlier days.
Christian Bale

**Christian Charles Philip Bale** (born 30 January 1974) is an English actor. He is from Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire. Bale is best known for playing Batman in Christopher Nolan's *The Dark Knight Trilogy*. He began in a movie of Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun. He also played in *American Psycho* and *The Machinist*. In 2010, Bale won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his performance in *The Fighter*. He played Dick Cheney in the biopic movie *Vice*, and won another Golden Globe Award. He is married to Sandra Blažić since 2000 and they have two children together.

Christian Bale, versatile actor, excels in accents, physical changes, music, languages, precision, genre shifts, stunts, production, and voice acting.

## Other websites
* 
* 

## References
Fag

**Fag** can mean different things:
* Cigarette (British slang)
* Faggot (slang), a slang term for a homosexual man
***Fag**, a term in schools like Eton College, for a younger boy who acts as the servant of an older boy.
Villeneuve-d'Ascq

'''Villeneuve-d'Ascq'* (which means *New city of Ascq'' in French) is one of the main cities of the metropolis of Lille, in France. It is between Lille and Roubaix, at the crossroads of the principal freeways towards Paris, Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels,

## Demography
Villeneuve-d'Ascq has more than 65,000 people and attracts 50,000 students.
The average age of people there is 29 years.

## Geography
The city has about 10&nbsp;km² of greenspace, lakes, forests and farmland.

## History
The roots of the city go back to Celtic Gaul, and are anchored in two feudal mounds, a Gallo-Roman site and a Carolingian one.

Its site was selected in the 1960s to accommodate the new town of Lille-Est. It was made to channel the development of the agglomeration. The commune of Villeneuve-d'Ascq was created in 1970 by combining three communes (Ascq, Annapes and Flers). Its name reminds people at the same time the new city and the memory of Ascq, martyr city of April 1, 1944, date on which the Nazis killed 86 men.
Alberto Vargas

**Joaquin Alberto Vargas y Chávez** (9 February 1896 – 30 December 1982), better known as **Alberto Vargas**, was a Peruvian-born painter, best known for his pin-up paintings of beautiful women. In the 1930s he became famous for movie posters. In the 1940s and 1950s he painted for Esquire Magazine and in the 1960s and 1970s for Playboy.

A painting of Alberto's, *Varga Girl*, was put on the Beatles - ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' album.  She is pictured in the upper right-hand corner (next to Richard Menkin, the man in the hat).

* Alberto Vargas, a history, family photos and gallery. 
* Vargas on "The Pin-Up Files" 
* Alberto Vargas Biography 
* Artwork on the American Art Archives web site
Andhra Pradesh

**Andhra Pradesh** () () is a state in the Republic of India. It has a population of 75,727,000 people according to the census of 2001. The eastern boundary is a  coastline along the Bay of Bengal. Its latitude and longitude is 17.3660°N and 78.4760°E. The state has an area of . It is bigger than Burkina Faso but smaller than Ecuador. In traditional Indian geography it falls under the South Indian zone. It was divided into Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in 2014, because of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act 2014. According to this Act, both states will have the same capital city Hyderabad, for a period of 10 years. The present Chief Minister of the state is Mr.Nara Chandrababu Naidu 

Andhra Pradesh has a gross domestic product (GDP) of 123,560 (in millions of US dollars). That makes it the third largest state in India in terms of GDP, after Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Most of this money comes from agriculture. Andhra Pradesh is sometimes called the "Rice Bowl of India", as a very large amount of rice or paddy is grown in the coastal plains of the state. Recently the state is also involved in newer businesses like biotechnology and information technology.

## Provincial symbols of Andhra Pradesh

File:Coracias affinis - Kaeng Krachan.jpg|Provincial bird of Andhra Pradesh
File:Blackbuck male female.jpg|Provincial animal of Andhra Pradesh
File:Neem tree.JPG|Provincial tree of Andhra Pradesh
File:Blue water lilly flower.jpg|Provincial flower of Andhra Pradesh

## References
Telugu

**Telugu** (Telugu: ) is a  language spoken in southern India and parts of Malaysia originated from the mixture of Proto-Dravidian and Aryan language Sanskrit. It is the official language of the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. It is one of the twenty-two scheduled languages of the Republic of India. Telugu is the second most spoken language in India and 15th largest spoken language in the world. As it is one of the oldest languages in the world, the government of India gave it the status of a classical language.

## References
George Lucas

**George Walton Lucas Jr.** (born May 14, 1944) is an American movie director, producer, and screenwriter most famous for the *Star Wars* and *Indiana Jones* movie series.

He also directed the movies *THX 1138* (1971) and *American Graffiti* (1973). He made the *Indiana Jones* series with Steven Spielberg. He is also an innovator for what he has done with special effects, and has founded companies that make not only movies, but also things like video games, theme park rides, and TV shows.

Lucas founded the Pixar animation studio and later sold it to Steve Jobs in 1986 for $10 million.

## Personal life
He has three children: Katie, Amanda and Jett (born 1993) Lucas. Jett has had cameo appearances in *Attack of the Clones* and *Revenge of the Sith* as Zett Jukassa.

Lucas began dating Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments and chair of DreamWorks Animation, in 2006. Lucas and Hobson announced their engagement in January 2013, and married on June 22, 2013 at Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, California.

## George Lucas Cultural Arts Museum
A George Lucas Cultural Arts Museum was to be built in San Francisco, California, but after talks failed, Lucas decided not to build the museum in San Francisco. 

Soon afterwards, the Chicago Tribune reported that Lucas wanted to build the museum in Chicago, Illinois. Lucas said: "*The city of Chicago has enthusiastically welcomed me and I consider Chicago to be my second home*," Lucas said in a statement. "*I look forward to working with community leaders to see if Chicago can become home to the Lucas Cultural Arts Museum.*" The office of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel confirmed that talks between the two were ongoing. A potential lakefront site on Museum Campus in Chicago was proposed in May 2014. On June 24, 2014, the *Chicago Sun-Times* reported that Chicago was selected as the location, pending approval of the Chicago Plan Commission. The commission approved the idea and the museum will be built in Chicago.

## References
## Other websites
*
Sony

**Sony** is a technology company, based in Japan, which makes many electric products. Among its most popular products is the video game console PlayStation, which was followed by PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and now the PlayStation 5. They also sold the Walkman invented by Andreas Pavel - a small music audio cassette player that could fit in one’s pocket - they later made Walkman systems that could play CDs, MiniDiscs or MP3s instead of tapes, and they often could receive radio too.

The company also makes music players, televisions, headsets, mobile phones (Sony Ericsson) and computers (named Sony Vaio), and game players (PlayStation).

It owns the American movie studios, Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures, through Sony Pictures.

## History
Sony began its activity from a department store in Tokyo. At that time, 1946, the store was damaged by bombs. One engineer and one physicist invested a capital of about $1,600 to create a company which would include 20 employees. The name of the engineer was Masaru Ibuka and the name of the physicist was Akio Morita. People working in their new company repaired electrical equipment. Later they started creating their own products.

The company achieved success in 1954, when it received license that allowed producing transistors. Although transistors were already created in United States, they were not used in production of radios. Sony produced its first transistor radio in May of 1954.

From that period Sony started leading in the field of electronics. Its revolutionary devices included: Trinitron Color Television, created in 1968; color video cassette, produced in 1971 as well as the world's second home video system, created in 1975. Other revolutionary inventions of Sony include: 1979 – Walkman; 1981 – Electronic camera; 1982 – CD player; 1983 – Camcorder and the list continuous with many other devices. One of the most popular Sony products was Sony PlayStation, created in 1995. With its help Sony became the leader in videogames.

In 45 years Sony has grown from a small firm, employing 20 workers, to a multinational corporation, employing about 100,000 workers. The company created its American branch in 1960 and its UK branch in 1968. In recent years the company focused on leadership in software and hardware. Sony acquired, in 1988, CBS Records and formed Sony Music Entertainment. A year later the company bought Columbia Pictures to create Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Sony would later join forces with BMG to form "Sony BMG." BMG Music Publishing was sold to Universal in 2007. Sony bought all of BMG's record labels in 2008, ending the "BMG" name.

## References
## Other websites
* Sony website
PlayStation 3

The **PlayStation 3** (**PS3**) is the third video game console made by Sony. It was released in Japan on November 11, 2006. It came out on November 17, 2006 in North America, and was released in Australia and Europe on 23 March 2007. It competed against the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii consoles.

The PlayStation 3 was the first console to be able to play Blu-ray discs. The PS3 was, according to Sony, the most powerful console at the time. However, many people that create computer games have recently stated that both the PS3 and Xbox 360 are about equal. An upside is that to access the online mode to play and interact with other people is free unlike the Xbox in which must be paid for.

When the PlayStation 3 was released, there were two different models. One had a 20 gigabyte (GB) hard drive and cost $399. The other had a 60 gigabyte hard drive and cost $599. Sony stopped making the 20 gigabyte console in North America after the 60 gigabyte version "sold ten times as many" as the 20 gigabyte version.

In July 2007, Sony announced that they would cut the price of the PS3 to $500 in the United States, though still more expensive than its competitors. Sony also released a version of the console with an 80 gigabyte hard drive around this time.

In October, a version of the PlayStation 3 with a 40 gigabyte hard drive was introduced. This model could not play PlayStation 2 games, but games made for the original PlayStation could still be played. The price of the 60 gigabyte model was also further reduced. A white version of the 40 gigabyte model was released in Japan in November.

Since 2009, the PS3 was sold in a new, slimmer, and more efficient model with a 160 GB or 320 GB of hard drive memory.

In 2012, a slimmer model released to replace the last model. This was the final model released and the PlayStation 3 was discontinued October 31, 2016.

## Discontinuation
The PS3 was discontinued in New Zealand on September 29, 2015, in Europe and Australia on March 31, 2016, in North America on October 31, 2016, and in Japan on May 29, 2017, though third-party games are still being made for the system.

## References
Dionne Quintuplets

Mitchell Hepburn in 1968]]
The **Dionne Quintuplets** were the first quintuplets (five babies born at the same time from the same mother) to survive after being born. They were born in Ontario, Canada on May 28, 1934 to Elzire and Oliva Dionne. They were: 
*Annette (died on December 24, 2025)
*Cecile (died on July 31, 2025)
*Emilie (died on August 6, 1954 from an epilepsy seizure)
*Marie  (died on February 27, 1970 from a blood clot in the brain)
*Yvonne (died on June 23, 2001 from cancer)

The babies were delivered by Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, who later was given custody of the girls by the Canadian government and the Ontario government housed them in a special theme park-like area, just across the street from the house their parents and 6 other siblings lived in. At one time 6,000 people visited **Quintland** each day to see the sisters, they also had dolls made out of them, and appeared in commercials for products like corn syrup and Quaker oats like oatmeal. Then in 1943, the girls' father, Oliva, finally got custody of them again and the girls moved back to live with their real family. Dr. Dafone died soon after that. The girls later claimed their father abused them. In 1998, the surviving sisters sued the government of Ontario for being exploited as kids and were rewarded 4 million Canadian dollars.
PlayStation 2

The **PlayStation 2** (**PS2**) is Sony's second video game console. It was released in Japan on March 4, 2000. It released in other regions later that year. The console released before this was the PlayStation (PS1). The PlayStation 2 competed with the Sega Dreamcast, the Nintendo GameCube, and the Microsoft Xbox during its lifetime. 

The PS2 was very successful. Even today, it is the world's best-selling console. It had sold around 160 million units since its launch in March 2000.
## Functions and backwards compatibility
As well as PlayStation games, the PS2 could play CD and DVD format discs. This helped the console with its success, as many standalone DVD players at the time could cost a lot of money. Many people called it an "*entertainment hub*" because you can play many different kinds of media on it. The PS2 was also backwards compatible, meaning it could play games from the earlier console, the PS1. The PS2 was backwards compatible with about 98% of PS1 games, so people who owned a PS1 would already have games to play on the PS2.

Many PS2 games have online multiplayer modes available, such as *Tony Hawk: Pro Skater 3,* the first ever PlayStation game with an online mode*.* A few games can connect with the PlayStation Portable (PSP). 

## Revised models 
On November 3, 2004, Sony released a revised (newer) model of the PS2 called the PlayStation 2 Slimline (PS2 Slim). It was called this because it is a lot smaller and lighter than the original PS2 model. The PS2 Slim also has an ethernet port so that more people would be able to access the Internet to play online games. In 2006, there were different colored versions of the PS2 Slim released, such as pink, white, red, silver, and blue models.

In 2010, Sony produced a Bravia television with a built-in PS2. It was only made for Europe, and was released 10 years after the PS2 did. This made it hard-to-find at the time. Now the television is very rare to find and expensive to buy second-hand.

## Discontinuation
Sony announced that they had discontinued the PlayStation 2 in Japan on December 28, 2012, and worldwide on January 4, 2013. The last two games to come out for the system were *FIFA 14* and *Pro Evolution Soccer 2014* (released only in Europe) in late 2013 (a week before the PlayStation 4's release date). Both these games also had PS3 and PS4 versions. Online support for games had ended on March 31, 2016. Repair for the console had ended in Japan on September 7, 2018 because Sony was running out of replacement parts for it.

## PSX
The PSX was released in 2003. It was a video recorder that allowed you to play PlayStation 2 games. It had a built-in hard drive (up to 250 GB). It did not sell well because it was expensive, so it was not released outside of Japan. *Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas* became the most sold game, with over 27.5 million copies sold.

## References
Fangame

**Fangames** are computer games created by fans based on popular video games. They are often made using C++, The Games Factory, Multimedia Fusion Express, and GameMaker. But now with free versions available of powerful game development tools available, some fangames are made in either Unity or Unreal Engine. One fangame planned to be produced by Capcom and Marvel Comics was 1992's fighting game *Marvel Task Force,* similar to *Justice League: Task Force*, another fighting game.

## Other websites 
* The Click Wiki  - information about Multimedia Fusion, The Games Factory.
Wrocław

**Wrocław** (; , ; ) is the biggest city in Lower Silesian Voivodeship in the southwest part of Poland. The German name of the city is **Breslau**, and the Czech name is **Vratislav**. The Oder River goes through the city. There are also 4 other small rivers which connect with the Oder River in the territory of the city: Bystrzyca, Oława, Ślęza and Widawa. Before World War II there were 303 bridges in the city; now there are about 220. In Latin it is called "Vratislavia".

## History 
Wrocław is over 1000 years old. It was originally a Slavic town. During the Middle Ages it became a German city, but before that Wrocław was a Czech city. It was called Breslau for a long time. During the Second World War the city was badly damaged.  About 70% of the buildings were damaged. Many of them were rebuilt. After the war, the city became Polish, and the German citizens were forced to leave. It has been called by its Polish name Wrocław ever since.

Johannes Brahms wrote his Academic Festival Overture to thank the University of Breslau in Wrocław. This was for an honorary doctorate he was awarded by the university.

## Modern Wrocław 
Its population in 2004 was 638,000. There are 10 universities in the city. It is famous for its beautiful historical town square (Polish *rynek*) and cathedral (large church).

In 1997 the Oder River flooded, causing a lot of damage.

## Nobel Prize winners from Wrocław 
10 people from Wrocław have won the Nobel Prize.  They are:
* Theodor Mommsen (1902)
* Philipp Lenard (1905)
* Eduard Buchner (1907)
* Paul Ehrlich (1908)
* Gerhart Hauptmann (1912)
* Fritz Haber (1918)
* Friedrich Bergius (1931)
* Otto Stern (1943)
* Max Born (1954)
* Reinhard Selten (1994)

## Notes
## References
## Other websites 
* Wrocław-Life.com portal
* Virtual Wrocław 
* Municipal website 
* Hotels in Wroclaw 
* Airport of Wroclaw
Lou Albano

**Louis Vincent Albano** (July 29, 1933 – October 14, 2009) was a very famous American professional wrestler in the 1980s. Albano is best known as **Captain Lou Albano**. He also appeared in Cyndi Lauper's music video "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and played Mario on *The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!*, based on the series of video games.

## References
Lip synching

**Lip synching** is when a person moves his or her lips at the same time as a recorded sound or with another person.  Some artists lip sync a live performance because they are not as confident and want to avoid hitting possible bad notes.

Lip syncing by singers can be controversial to fans attending concert performances who expect to view a live performance.

The word *synch* is short for *synchronize*, meaning to do something at the same time.
Faith Evans

**Faith Evans** (born June 10, 1973 in Lakeland, Florida) is an American R&B singer. She grew up in Newark, New Jersey. Her first husband, The Notorious B.I.G., died in a drive-by shooting in 1997 . She has been arrested for cocaine and marijuana. Evans' album *R&B Divas* was nominated for Best R&B Album at the 2014 Grammy Awards.

## Discography
### Studio albums
* *Faith* (1995)
* *Keep the Faith* (1998)
* *Faithfully* (2001)
* *The First Lady* (2005)*
* *A Faithful Christmas* (2005)
* *Something About Faith* (2010)
* *Incomparable* (2014)

### Collaboration albums
* *The King & I'' (with The Notorious B.I.G.) (2017)

## Related pages 
* I'll Be Missing You

## References
1906

**1906** (MCMVI) was a common year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday in the Julian calendar.

## Events 
* April 18 – An earthquake in San Francisco, California kills at least three thousand people.
* Camillo Golgi, Italian doctor, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Santiago Ramón y Cajal
* Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Spanish doctor, won the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Camillo Golgi

## Births 
* January 11 – Albert Hofmann, Swiss scientist, invented LSD (d. 2008)
* January 14 - William Bendix, American actor (d. 1964)
* March 6 – Lou Costello, American actor and comedian (d. 1959)
* April 13 – Samuel Beckett, Irish writer (d. 1989)
* April 28 – Kurt Gödel, Austrian-American mathematician (d. 1978)
* July 14 – William H. Tunner, American World War II general (d. 1983)
* August 27 – Ed Gein, American serial killer (d. 1984)
* September 25 – José Figueres Ferrer, President of Costa Rica (d. 1990)
*   September 25   – Dmitri Shostakovich, Soviet composer (d. 1975)
* October 30 – Alexander Gode, German-American linguist and translator (d. 1970)
* November 14 – Louise Brooks, American actress and dancer (d. 1985)
* December 19 – Leonid Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Union (d. 1982)

## Hit songs 
* "Anchors Aweigh"

## Movies Released 
* *Humorous Phases of Funny Faces*, the first animated movie
* *The Story of the Kelly Gang*, the first feature-length movie
San Andreas

**San Andreas** may mean:

* San Andreas Fault, the 1000&nbsp;km fault
* San Andreas, California, a place in the United States
* *Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas*, a video game for PlayStation 2, PC and Xbox
Xbox (console)

The **Xbox** is a video game console (a machine that plays video games and DVDs). It was made by Microsoft from November 2001 to October 2005. The controllers were very large in the beginning, but were made smaller later. The Xbox video game console can play music, DVDs, and games. Microsoft discontinued the Xbox because they made the next version of the Xbox, the Xbox 360. The Xbox was first discontinued in 2006 in Japan, later in 2007 in Europe, then in 2009 in the USA.  

## History 
In 1998, four engineers from Microsoft's DirectX team, Kevin Bachus, Seamus Blackley, Ted Hase and DirectX team leader Otto Berkes, took apart some Dell laptop computers to construct a prototype Microsoft Windows-based video game console. The team hoped to create a console to compete with Sony's upcoming PlayStation 2.

During development, the original DirectXbox name was shortened to Xbox. Microsoft's marketing department did not like the Xbox name, and suggested many other different names.

## Launch
Xbox was the first video game console by Microsoft. It was a very large video game console, and it had a cost of $299.99 in the United States. It was launched one year after the PlayStation 2 and at the same time as the Nintendo GameCube. Halo was the first very popular game for the Xbox.
## Related pages 
* Xbox

## References
All's Well That Ends Well

'''''All's Well That Ends Well''''' is a play by William Shakespeare. It is a comedy. It was based on a story in Boccaccio's *Decameron*. The date ''All's Well'' was written is uncertain, but it was probably written between 1600 and 1603. It was probably first performed about 1602-1603, and probably first printed in the First Folio of 1623. The play is about Helena's love for the unresponsive Bertram.

## References
* All's Well That Ends Well
Barry Switzer

**Barry Switzer** (born October 5, 1937 in Crossett, Arkansas, USA) was an American football coach. He coached both professional and college football for 32 years. Switzer is one of only three head coaches to win both a college football national championship and a Super Bowl. He has one of the highest winning percentages in the history of college football.
 
After high school, Switzer went to the University of Arkansas. He played football there from 1956 to 1960. After graduation, Switzer join the US Army for a short time. After the Army, he returned to the University of Arkansas to work as an assistant coach. 

After the 1966 season, Switzer became an assistant coach at the University of Oklahoma. He became head coach there in 1973. During his first two years as head coach, Oklahoma did not lose any games and won the national championship two time. They won the championship a third time in 1985. Switzer left Oklahoma in 1989. His record there was 157 wins, 29 losses and 4 ties.

In 1994, Switzer became the coach for the Dallas Cowboys. He led them to a win in Super Bowl XXX during the 1995 season. Switzer retired from coaching after the following season.

In 2001, Switzer was elected into the College Football Hall of Fame. On September 9, 2007, he began working with the FOX television network on its NFL pre-game show.

## References
1859

## Events 
* The Suez Canal begins to be built in Egypt.
* January 24 - Wallachia and Moldavia are united under Alexander John Cuza under the name Romania (see December 1 1918 for the final unification, Transylvania and other regions are still missing at that time).

## Deaths 
* Date unknown – Mahmud Bayazidi, Kurdish polymath
*John Brown
Paul Simon

**Paul Simon** (born October 13, 1941) is an American musician and songwriter. He is of Jewish descent and became famous as a member of Simon and Garfunkel, with his friend, Art Garfunkel. He wrote their songs. The two went their separate ways in the early 1970s and since then Simon has become a successful solo artist.

Paul Simon had his first success in 1958 when his song "Hey Schoolgirl" got to Number 49 on the US charts.

## Discography
* *Paul Simon* (WEA), 1972
* ''There Goes Rhymin' Simon*, (WEA), 1973
* *Still Crazy After All These Years*, (WEA), 1975
* *One-Trick Pony*, (Warner Bros.), 1980
* *Hearts and Bones*, (Warner Bros.), 1983
* *Graceland*, (Warner Bros.), 1986
* *Rhythm of the Saints*, (Warner Bros) 1990
* *Songs from the Capeman*, (Warner Bros.), 1997
* *You're the One*, (Warner Bros), 2000
* *Surprise*, (Warner Bros), 2006
* *So Beautiful or So What*, 2011
* *Stranger to Stranger*, 2016
* *In the Blue Light*, 2018
* *Seven Psalms'', 2023

## References
Shirley Jones

**Shirley Jones** (b. March 31, 1934) is an American and singer and actress. She appeared in movie musicals, singing a leading role in movies such as *Oklahoma!*, *The Music Man*, and *Carousel*. 

Jones had a supporting role in the movie *Elmer Gantry*, starring actor Burt Lancaster. She is also famous for her role as Shirley Partridge on the television series *The Partridge Family*.

## Personal life
She was married to Jack Cassidy, from 1956 to 1975, and had three sons with him, Shaun, Patrick, and Ryan. Her stepson is David Cassidy who co-starred with her on *The Partridge Family*. After she divorced Cassidy she married Marty Ingels on November 13, 1977. Their marriage would last until Ingels' death in October 2015.

## Other websites 
* http://www.shirleyjones.com 
*
DeForest Kelley

**Jackson DeForest Kelley** (January 20, 1920 – June 11, 1999) was an American actor. 

## Roles 
Kelley is most famous for his role as Dr. Leonard McCoy of the USS *Enterprise* in the television series *Star Trek* and the six movies that followed.

Also known as well as an older Admiral Dr. Leonard McCoy, Star Fleet Surgeon General Emeritus, in the *Star Trek: The Next Generation* television pilot, "Encounter at Farpoint".

## Other websites 
* 
*
Scott Bakula

**Scott Bakula** (October 9, 1954) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles on the television shows, *Quantum Leap* and *Star Trek: Enterprise*.

## Filmography
* ''Cats Don't Dance* (1997) ... Danny Cat (voice)
* *Looney Tunes: Back in Action* (2003) ... Danny Cat (voice)

## Other websites
*
*
**Shenandoah'' at Ford's Theatre. 
*Scott Bakula 2000 Interview  on *Sidewalks Entertainment*
Forestry

**Forestry** means working to take care of forests.  Someone who has a job looking after forests is called a **forester**.
 
Forests are very important for the world today. Much of the water cycle and carbon cycle goes through forests. Many of them are disappearing because people destroy them for firewood or to make farms. A forester makes sure the forest and all the animals that live there are healthy.  Foresters also make sure the forest is in good condition for people to use.  They makes sure that forests are not destroyed by wildfires before they are ready to use for timber production (cutting down trees to use the wood). 

Forests are important for recreation (letting people enjoy them).  They are very important today because humans produce a lot of carbon dioxide and the trees in forests help to turn this back into oxygen, which we breathe to live. Foresters also help the government figure out what to do about artificial forestry. Many universities offer forestry courses. Forestry students also study zoology, botany and ecology.

## Related pages
* Environmentalism
* Reforesting
800s BC

## Events
*The poet, Homer is thought to have lived.
*Dido, Queen of Carthage is thought to have lived.
* 804 BC - The empire of Assyria takes over the city of Damascus. 
* 804 BC - The Egyptian ruler Pedubastis I dies.
* Ancient Italian society develops.
* Olmec people start to build pyramids.
Constant

A **constant** is something that does not change. Constants (numbers) are used in maths and computer programming.

## Related pages
*Variable
Robert Englund

**Robert Englund** (born June 6, 1947 in Glendale, California) is an American actor. He is most famous for playing Freddy Krueger in the *A Nightmare on Elm Street* movies.

## References
## Other websites
*Robert Englund's official website
*
*Robert Englund interview with the Horror Asylum 
*Robert Englund interview by Ladyghost 
*Robert Englund interview by AOL Canada 
*Robert Englund interview with The Phantom Zone