Among the early blows struck for independence was a rebellion in the town of Olhao. On 16 June 1808, the townsfolkarmed with little more than ancient swords, spears, and stonesattacked and captured the local French garrison. It's said that a party of local men then set sail from Olhao all the way to Brazil, without maps or navigational aids, to tell the king of the insurrection. The real battle, however, was waged under the leadership of the Duke of Wellington, whose coalition forces expelled the French after two years of bitter fighting. The war left Portugal further weakened, and in 1822 its major empire outpost, Brazil, declared independence. At the same time, a dispute over the crown continually raged between Pedro IV, the absentee monarch who preferred to reign as Emperor of Brazil rather than return to Portugal, and his brother Miguel. The power struggle, with strong overtones of absolutism versus liberalism, excited the interest and intervention of other powers. With British help, Pedro defeated Miguel off Cape St. Vincent in 1833, and his expeditionary force marched to Lisbon. Pedro took the throne, though armed struggle continued for months and the lingering bitterness long after that. By 1892 Portugal, racked by wars and the continuing expense of maintaining its African colonies (including those of Mozambique and Angola), declared itself bankrupt. The seeds of discontent with absolutist rule were sown. Kingdom's End Bloodshed would haunt the remaining years of the Portuguese monarchy. On 1 February 1908, the royal family was riding in an open carriage along the Lisbon river front plaza, Terreiro do Paco, when an assassin opened fire and killed King Carlos and the heir to the throne, Prince Luis Filipe. The prince's younger brother, Prince Manuel, was also hit, but he survived and was thus propelled to the throne at the tender age of 19. Amid republican agitation, a surprise uprising led by elements within the armed forces deposed Manuel in 1910. Having ruled for less than three years, Manuel died in exile in 1932 in England. The sudden end of more than seven centuries of monarchy brought confusion and crisis to the country. Presidents and prime ministers were ushered into and out of office an unbelievable 45 times between 1910 and 1926, until a military revolution suspended Portugal's problematic democracy.
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QUESTION: What happened in the town of Olhao?

You know that friction also causes heat. Think about when you rub your hands together. It is friction that makes them warm. But why does this happen? Friction causes the molecules on rubbing surfaces to move faster. Faster moving particles have more heat energy. Heat from friction can be useful. Can you think of other places where you might find friction? Friction also lets you light a match. Heat from friction can also cause problems. It can cause a car to overheat. To reduce friction, oil is added to the engine. Oil coats the surfaces of moving parts. This coating of oil makes them slippery. When things are slippery there is less friction. Have you ever seen a sign that says, slippery when wet? This too has to do with friction. Water, like oil, can reduce friction. The wet surface may allow your shoes to slide more easily.
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QUESTION: How does oil reduce friction between moving car parts?

The Reconquest: The aim of the Crusades in Spain was the eviction of the Muslims. After the recovery of Jerusalem in 1099, it took four hundred years of sieges and battles, treaties, betrayals, and yet more battles, before Christian kings and warlords succeeded in subduing the Moors. On 10 September 1229, a Catalan army led by King Jaume I of Aragon and Catalunya took the Mallorcan shore near the present-day resort of Santa Ponca. The defenders retreated inside the walls of Palma, but on the last day of 1229 the city fell, and pockets of resistance throughout the island were also defeated. Jaume I proved to be an enlightened ruler who profited from the talents of the Moorsconverted by force to Christianityas well as of the island's large Jewish and Genoese trading communities. Mallorca prospered. The Moors on Menorca speedily agreed to pay an annual tribute to Aragon and were left in peace. The island's tranquility lasted until 1287, when Alfonso III of Aragon, smarting over a series of humiliations at the hands of his nobles, found a pretext for invasion. The Moors were defeated and expelled or killed. In contrast to Mallorca, Menorca's economy was devastated for decades. Jaume I died after reigning in Aragon for six decades, but he made the cardinal error of dividing between his sons the lands he had fought for so long to unite. At first this resulted in an Independent Kingdom of Mallorca, under Jaume II, followed by Sanc and Jaume III. But family rivalry triggered the overthrow of Jaume III by his cousin Pedro IV, who then seized the Balearics for Aragon. Attempting a comeback, Jaume was killed in battle near Llucmajor in 1349. A newly unified Christian Spain under the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, completed the Reconquest, defeating the only Moorish enclave left on the Iberian peninsula, Granada, in 1492. However, the centralized kingdom failed to incorporate the Balearics politically or economically.
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QUESTION: What was the purpose of the many battles in Spain and how long did it take

Also on Feb. 12, a week before the ice dancing finals, Tokhtakhounov told Anissina's mother in a telephone call that the Russian federation official "had called me from America" to assure that "we are going to make" Anissina "an Olympic champion." He told her that the Russian skating federation official "will help -- he has two or three judges." On or about March 7, in a conversation between Tokhtakhounov and Anissina, she said she would have won the event without his assistance because the Russian judge did not vote for her and her partner. She also apologized for not calling to thank him earlier, but that Gailhaguet had forbidden her. She told Tokhtakhounov that she knew the FBI had interviewed Gailhaguet because of information that Tokhtakhounov "was involved with the results" of the ice dancing. He assured her that it was nonsense, but that Gailhaguet "knows my name very well -- he tried to help me, and later he made stuff up to scare you so you would not connect me to him even more." The conversations seem to indicate a familiarity between Tokhtakhounov and Anissina. Tass, the official Russian news agency, reported that Anissina attended a ceremony in 1999 at a Paris hotel honoring Tokhtakhounov for his philanthropy. That Russian organized crime may have infiltrated international sport at the Olympics stunned Phyllis Howard, president of the U.S. Figure Skating Association. "This is a criminal act and it certainly puts things in a different league," Howard said. Lloyd Ward, chief executive officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee, said in a statement, "Competitors from all nations must be assured that they compete on a level playing field."
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QUESTION:
Which news agency ran a story that implied Russian organized crime may have infiltrated international sport at the Olympics?