Q: Mosaic has a long history, starting in Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium BC. Pebble mosaics were made in Tiryns in Mycenean Greece; mosaics with patterns and pictures became widespread in classical times, both in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Early Christian basilicas from the 4th century onwards were decorated with wall and ceiling mosaics. Mosaic art flourished in the Byzantine Empire from the 6th to the 15th centuries; that tradition was adopted by the Norman kingdom in Sicily in the 12th century, by eastern-influenced Venice, and among the Rus in Ukraine. Mosaic fell out of fashion in the Renaissance, though artists like Raphael continued to practise the old technique. Roman and Byzantine influence led Jews to decorate 5th and 6th century synagogues in the Middle East with floor mosaics.

Bronze age pebble mosaics have been found at Tiryns; mosaics of the 4th century BC are found in the Macedonian palace-city of Aegae, and the 4th-century BC mosaic of The Beauty of Durres discovered in Durres, Albania in 1916, is an early figural example; the Greek figural style was mostly formed in the 3rd century BC. Mythological subjects, or scenes of hunting or other pursuits of the wealthy, were popular as the centrepieces of a larger geometric design, with strongly emphasized borders. Pliny the Elder mentions the artist Sosus of Pergamon by name, describing his mosaics of the food left on a floor after a feast and of a group of doves drinking from a bowl. Both of these themes were widely copied.

Answer the following questions:
1. What is the starting date of Mosaic?
2. Where did it start?
3. Where have Bronze age pebble mosaics been located?
4. In what part of Greece were Pebble Mosaics made?
5. During what period did mosaic art flourish?
6. And what was the period's name?
7. What was the period between 6th to the 15th century named?
8. In which century were mosaics found in Macedonia ?
9. In what city?
10. At what location?
11. What was found in Durres?
12. When?
A: 1. the 3rd millennium BC.
2. Mesopotamia
3. in Tiryns
4. Mycenean
5. the 6th to the 15th centuries
6. unknown
7. during the Byzantine Empire
8. 4th century BC
9. Aegae
10. in the palace-city
11. The Beauty of Durres
12. 4th-century BC
Q: Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linne (), was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who formalised the modern system of naming organisms called binomial nomenclature. He is known by the epithet "father of modern taxonomy". Many of his writings were in Latin, and his name is rendered in Latin as (after 1761 Carolus a Linne).

Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Smaland, in southern Sweden. He received most of his higher education at Uppsala University, and began giving lectures in botany there in 1730. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published a first edition of his " in the Netherlands. He then returned to Sweden, where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on several journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants and animals. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, and published several volumes. At the time of his death, he was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe.

The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message: "Tell him I know no greater man on earth." The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote: "With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, I know no one among the no longer living who has influenced me more strongly." Swedish author August Strindberg wrote: "Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist". Among other compliments, Linnaeus has been called " (Prince of Botanists), "The Pliny of the North," and "The Second Adam". He is also considered as one of the founders of modern ecology.

Answer the following questions:
1. Who is this about?
2. When did he live?
3. What was his occupation?
4. What has he been called?
5. What else?
6. He formalize what?
7. which is called what?
8. Where is he from?
9. What part?
10. Where did he study?
11. Did he teach there also?
12. What did Strindberg say of him?
13. Was he well known when he died?
14. When did he live abroad?
15. Where did he publish his first edition?
16. When did he start giving lectures?
A: 1. Carl Linnaeus
2. 23 May 1707 10 January 1778
3. botanist, physician, and zoologist,
4. father of modern taxonomy
5. Carolus a Linne
6. modern system of naming organisms
7. binomial nomenclature
8. Sweden
9. Smaland, in southern Sweden
10. Uppsala University,
11. Yes
12. Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist
13. Yes
14. between 1735 and 1738
15. Netherlands
16. 1730
Q: (CNN) -- Former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, who embodied a vanishing breed of liberal Republicanism before switching to the Democratic Party at the twilight of his political career, died Sunday after a long battle with cancer, his family announced.

Specter died of complications from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at his home in Philadelphia, his family said. He was 82.

The veteran Pennsylvania politician had overcome numerous serious illnesses over the past two decades, including a brain tumor. He had been in the public eye since serving as a member of the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Specter was elected to the Senate in 1980 and represented Pennsylvania for 30 years, longer than anyone in the state's history. His politically moderate image fit hand-in-glove in the politically blue Northeast, both with its Democratic centrists and its liberal Republicans.

He was also one of America's most prominent Jewish politicians, a rare Republican in a category dominated by Democrats over the decades. And his name is synonymous with Pennsylvania, an idiosyncratic state that pushes and pulls between the two parties, and his home, the staunchly Democratic city of Philadelphia.

In 2006, Philadelphia magazine called him "one of the few true wild cards of Washington politics ... reviled by those on both the right and the left."

"Charming and churlish, brilliant and pedantic, he can be fiercely independent, entertainingly eccentric and simply maddening," the profile read.

Former Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, called Specter "a mentor, colleague and a political institution" who "did more for the people of Pennsylvania over his more than 30-year career with the possible exception of Benjamin Franklin." And Pat Toomey, the Republican who now holds Specter's old Senate seat, praised him as "a man of sharp intelligence and dogged determination."

Answer the following questions:
1. Who is Arlen Specter?
2. What happened to him?
3. What did he die of?
4. How old was he?
5. Where did he die?
6. In Washington D.C.?
7. Where?
8. Was he a conservative republican?
9. What kind was he?
10. When did he first enter the public's eye?
11. What was the purpose of that?
12. Who has Specter's old Senate seat now?
13. What did he say about him?
14. Who said that quote?
15. When was Specter first elected?
16. Which state did he represent?
17. Was he loved by both democrats and republicans?
18. What city did he live in?
19. Was he catholic?
20. What was his religion?
A:
1. Former U.S. Senator
2. he died
3. complications from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
4. 82
5. at his home
6. no
7. Philadelphia
8. no
9. Democrat
10. since serving as a member of the Warren Commission
11. investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy
12. Pat Toomey
13. did more for the people of Pennsylvania over his more than 30-year career with the possible exception of Benjamin Franklin
14. Pat Toomey
15. 1980
16. Pennsylvania
17. no
18. Philadelphia
19. no
20. Jewish