IN: Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (; Russian: Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, pronounced [vla'djimjIr na'bok@f] ( listen), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin; 22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1899 - 2 July 1977) was a Russian-American novelist, translator and entomologist.

In March 1922, Nabokov's father was fatally shot in Berlin by the Russian monarchist Piotr Shabelsky-Bork as he was trying to shield the real target, Pavel Milyukov, a leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party-in-exile. This mistaken, violent death would echo again and again in Nabokov's fiction, where characters would meet their deaths under accidental terms. (In Pale Fire, for example, one interpretation of the novel has an assassin mistakenly kill the poet John Shade, when his actual target is a fugitive European monarch.) Shortly after his father's death, Nabokov's mother and sister moved to Prague. Nabokov stayed in Berlin, where he had become a recognised poet and writer within the emigre community and published under the nom de plume V. Sirin (a reference to the fabulous bird of Russian folklore). To supplement his scant writing income, he taught languages and gave tennis and boxing lessons. Of his fifteen Berlin years, Dieter E. Zimmer has written: "He never became fond of Berlin, and at the end intensely disliked it. He lived within the lively Russian community of Berlin that was more or less self-sufficient, staying on after it had disintegrated because he had nowhere else to go to. He knew little German. He knew few Germans except for landladies, shopkeepers, the petty immigration officials at the police headquarters." In 1922, Nabokov became engaged to Svetlana Siewert; she broke off the engagement in early 1923, her parents worrying that he could not provide for her. In May 1923, he met a Russian-Jewish woman, Vera Evseyevna Slonim, at a charity ball in Berlin and married her in April 1925. Their only child, Dmitri, was born in 1934. In 1936, Vera lost her job because of the increasingly anti-Semitic environment; also in that year the assassin of Nabokov's father was appointed second-in-command of the Russian emigre group. In the same year, Nabokov began seeking a job in the English-speaking world. In 1937, he left Germany for France, where he had a short affair with Russian emigree Irina Guadanini. Yet the family followed him to France, making enroute their last visit to Prague, then spent time in Cannes, Menton, Cap d'Antibes, and Frejus and finally settled together in Paris. In May 1940, the Nabokov family fled from the advancing German troops to the United States on board the SS Champlain, with the exception of Nabokov's brother Sergei, who died at the Neuengamme concentration camp on 9 January 1945.

What happened to them after they married

OUT: In 1936, Vera lost her job because of the increasingly anti-Semitic environment; also in that year the assassin of Nabokov's father was appointed second-in-command of the Russian emigre group.

IN: The Maya civilization was a Mesoamerican civilization developed by the Maya peoples, and noted for its hieroglyphic script--the only known fully developed writing system of the pre-Columbian Americas--as well as for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical system. The Maya civilization developed in an area that encompasses southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador. This region consists of the northern lowlands encompassing the Yucatan Peninsula, and the highlands of the Sierra Madre, running from the Mexican state of Chiapas, across southern Guatemala and onwards into El Salvador, and the southern lowlands of the Pacific littoral plain. The Archaic period, prior to 2000 BC, saw the first developments in agriculture and the earliest villages.

The Maya developed their first civilization in the Preclassic period. Scholars continue to discuss when this era of Maya civilization began. Maya occupation at Cuello (modern-day Belize) has been carbon dated to around 2600 BC. Settlements were established around 1800 BC in the Soconusco region of the Pacific coast, and the Maya were already cultivating the staple crops of maize, beans, squash, and chili pepper. This period was characterized by sedentary communities and the introduction of pottery and fired clay figurines. During the Middle Preclassic Period, small villages began to grow to form cities. Nakbe in the Peten department of Guatemala is the earliest well-documented city in the Maya lowlands, where large structures have been dated to around 750 BC. The northern lowlands of Yucatan were widely settled by the Middle Preclassic. By approximately 400 BC, early Maya rulers were raising stelae. A developed script was already being used in Peten by the 3rd century BC. In the Late Preclassic Period, the enormous city of El Mirador grew to cover approximately 16 square kilometres (6.2 sq mi). Although not as large, Tikal was already a significant city by around 350 BC. In the highlands, Kaminaljuyu emerged as a principal centre in the Late Preclassic. Takalik Abaj and Chocola were two of the most important cities on the Pacific coastal plain, and Komchen grew to become an important site in northern Yucatan. The Late Preclassic cultural florescence collapsed in the 1st century AD and many of the great Maya cities of the epoch were abandoned; the cause of this collapse is unknown.

Anything interesting in 2000BC or near that time?

OUT:
The Maya developed their first civilization in the Preclassic period. Scholars continue to discuss when this era of