the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
SMSD controls thirty eight elementary schools, two middle schools, six high schools, and multiple support facilities in Overland Park.
Kansas City Japanese School Inc. (カンザスシティ日本語補習授業校 Kanzasu Shiti Nihongo Hoshū Jugyō Kō), a Japanese weekend educational program, is at the Kansas Christian College in Overland Park.
It was created in 1979.
It was officially approved by the Japanese Ministry of Education (Monbusho), and it was officially established in 1984.
Cleveland Chiropractic College
Ottawa University - adult campus
University of Kansas - Edwards campus
Baker University - satellite campus
Emporia State University - satellite campus
Kansas Christian College
Rasmussen College
Kansas City International Airport is about  north of central Overland Park.
Johnson County Executive Airport, a public general aviation facility, is located immediately west of the city in Olathe.
The Kansas City Star is Kansas City's main newspaper.
They publish every day.
It has local news, and it publishes a version that is specifically for Johnson County.
Bietigheim-Bissingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Overland Park - Chamber of Commerce
Overland Park - Visitor's Bureau
Overland Park City Map, KDOT
Bedford is a market town of Bedfordshire, England.
It has a population of more than 79,000 people (100,000 if the people living in Kempston are included).
It is formed of multiple districts, such as Putnoe, Goldington, Brickhill and Woodside.
Many people also live in the smaller villages surrounding Bedford, such as Sandy, Willington, Cople and Cardington.
It has many outstanding schools, both State and Public.
It is one of only two places nationally that has a three-tier school system, although it is currently undergoing the transition to two-tier.
There are academies, Bedford Free School, community and an SEN schools.
It is also a place with a large diversity of nationalities, such as Italians and Polish, stemming from the Brick works that used to stand in ...
The town of Bedford is about 1000 years old.
There was a castle there, but it was destroyed in 1224.
A small hill with a tower now stands in the place of the castle.
It overlooks the river Great Ouse which flows through the town.
Every four years a River Festival is held there, with stalls, a fair and dragon boat races.
Bedford was a market town from the early Middle Ages.
It was given its borough charter in 1166 by Henry II.
During the last century many people moved to Bedford because there were good schools there.
There are four public schools which are governed by the Harpur Trust: Bedford Boys School, Bedford Girls School, Bedford Modern and Pilgrims Pre-Preparatory School.
There are also some smaller private schools.
Bedford also has various local authority schools.
Bedford Borough operates a three-tier education system in some of the area, arranged into lower, middle and upper schools, as recommended in the Plowden Report of 1967.
Many students study at the University of Bedfordshire, which is based in Bedford and Luton.
Bedford College offers further education.
Also, Stella Mann College is a private college which offers a range of further education courses for the performing arts.
Hundreds of school children can take part in Bedfordshire Youth Music courses during the holidays, have music lessons in school and participate in the orchestra.
There is also a Bedfordshire Youth Theatre that runs activities for all age groups.
Features and events
The town of Bedford has scenic routes to walk along the banks of the River Great Ouse.
The banks of the river by the town centre are called The Embankment.
There are nice gardens there and two bridges for pedestrians, one of which is called The Butterfly Bridge.
The newer of these bridges is known as the “Butterfly Bridge” because it is shaped like a butterfly.
Every two years, an event called Bedford River Festival is held near the river in Bedford during early July.
The event lasts for two days.
About 250,000 people go there to enjoy all the events, the sports, food, funfairs and live music.
The big church in the centre of the town is called St Paul’s Church.
It stands in St Paul’s Square.
It has a tall spire which can be seen from a long way away.
There was a church there in 1066.
The present church was started in the early 13th century and gradually more parts were added.
The tower and spire were completely rebuilt in the 1860s.
John Bunyan and John Wesley both preached in the church.
There is a stained glass window dedicated to Sir William Harpur who gave his money to charity in the 16th century allowing almshouses and schools to be built in Bedford.
There are museums in Bedford.
The Cecil Higgins Art Gallery is in the Victorian home of the Higgins family who used to be brewers.
A modern building next to it has paintings, ceramics, glass and lace.
The Bedford Museum is next door and has things from Bedford’s history.
Just round the corner is the John Bunyan museum showing things about Bedford’s most famous writer.
Hospitals and services
Bedford Hospital is split between two sites in the town.
It serves people from the whole of Mid Bedford.
Many discussions are still taking place about the future of the hospital and how it should be organized.
There are many shops in the town centre, as well as out-of-town shopping areas.
The Aspects Leisure Centre has cinemas and other amusements.
It is near the opposite end of the Embankment from the town centre.
Music and Drama
There is a lot of opportunity to hear music in Bedford.
Many local musicians play in the Bedfordshire Symphony Orchestra and the Bedford Sinfonia.
They give their concerts in the Corn Exchange in St Paul’s Square, where one can also hear concerts given by the famous professional Philharmonia Orchestra who give a series of concerts during the year.
There are several amateur choirs including the large Bedford Choral Society and the chamber choirs Cantamus and Concord Singers.
The Bedford Music Club organizes chamber concerts on Thursdays during the year, and there are many other musical events including lunch hour concerts at St Paul’s Church.
In August the 'Proms In The Park' takes place in Bedford Park.
It is given by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and attracts thousands of people who take rugs and food and sit on the grass to listen to the music.
Although Bedford has no large theatre there are many amateur groups such as the Bedford Dramatic Club, Swan Theatre Company, Bedford Marianettes who perform in several places such as the Bowen West Theatre and Civic Theatre.
There are also several local bands.
As Bedford has a river there is a lot of opportunity for rowing.
Bedford has two rugby union teams called Bedford Blues and Bedford Athletic.
Bedford Blues are now in the second tier of English rugby, although they have previously been in the top division.
Bedford has an athletic stadium, home to many famous sports personalities and trains youth.
Bedford’s main railway station is in Midland Road.
Capital Connect run trains from Bedford to Brighton passing through London, and Midland Main Line have trains that go from London, passing through Bedford on their way to Leeds.
There are also trains to Bletchley in Milton Keynes, and the Marston Vale Line which also stops at Bedford St Johns railway station.
There is a lot of traffic in Bedford as several roads spread out from the centre of the town in all directions.
The M1 is 8 miles to the west, and the Al is about the same distance to the east.
Bedford now has a by-pass between Milton Keynes and the Black Cat Round About near St. Neots.
Buses from Bedford travel to Northampton, Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Oxford and other towns in the region.
Most of these services depart from the main bus station in the town.
This bus station is currently undergoing renevation as part of a scheme to upgrade facilities in the town centre, including free car parking for two hours on Saturday.
There are many Italian people living in Bedford.
Many of them came from the 1950s onwards to work at the brickworks of the London Brick Company.
There are many Italian bars and restaurants and social clubs as well as a church and a vice-consulate.
Many of the people who came in the 1950s now have grandchildren growing up in Bedford, and many of them have married people from other cultures.
More recently many people have immigrated from other parts of the world such as South Asia and Eastern Europe (particularly in the last few years), Greece, Cyprus, the Middle East and Africa.
Many languages are spoken in Bedford including Italian, Punjabi, Turkish, Polish, Portuguese, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese.
There is a big, new Sikh temple in the district known as Queen’s Park.
Bamberg, Germany
Arezzo, Italy
Rovigo, Italy
Wloclawek, Poland
Relationship with nearby towns and villages
The town of Kempston has now grown to be part of Bedford.
The villages in the Borough of Bedford with populations of more than 2,000 are Biddenham, Bromham, Clapham, Elstow, Oakley, Sharnbrook, Shortstown, Wilstead, and Wootton.
There are also many smaller villages in the borough.
The villages in the borough are popular with commuters to Bedford, and also with people who commute to Milton Keynes, which is a bigger employment centre than Bedford, and to London.
Famous Bedfordians
The most famous person from Bedford was John Bunyan, the author of The Pilgrim's Progress.
He was born in Harrowden, near Elstow which is just outside Bedford.
Later he lived in St Cuthbert Street, which is the next street east parallel to the High Street, but was still just at the edge of Bedford at that time.
Bunyan Meeting is a church on the site where Bunyan, at the end of his life, was allowed to have a barn to preach.
It is joined to the Bunyan Museum.
There is a statue of Bunyan on the corner of the High Street by Bedford School.
Other famous Bedfordians include Sir William Harpur, the philanthropist, John Howard, the prison reformer, Charles Wells, founder of Charles Wells Brewery, a company which is still in the town, Ronnie Barker the comedian,  Media Personality and former 'Countdown' Co-host Carol Vorderman and John Le Mesurier, actor and comedian.
People who went to school in Bedford include the politician Paddy Ashdown, the cricketer Alastair Cook, the playwright Christopher Fry and the athlete Paula Radcliffe.
Also cricketer Monty Panesar and comedian Al Murray.
Welcome to Bedford!
The Official Town Centre and BedfordBID Website
Towns in Bedfordshire
A pentomino is a 2D shape made out of 5 side-by-side equal-sized squares.
They can be found in the books Chasing Vermeer and The Wright 3.
It was created by Solomon W. Golomb.
All about pentominoes
Ejaculation is when a male person (or other male mammal) shoots out liquid from his erect penis after it has been aroused or stimulated (excited sexually).
It happens when he has an orgasm.
This article is about ejaculation in human beings.
When a man is stimulated, his penis becomes erect.
When he has an orgasm, semen comes out from the end of his penis.
Semen contains sperm and other substances.
How long a man can be stimulated before ejaculating, how long the ejaculation lasts, the strength of the ejaculation, and the amount of semen that comes out, all vary from one man to another.
When a man ejaculates, he has a very good feeling in his penis and his groin area (the part of his body where his torso joins the top of his legs).
A man can ejaculate after he masturbates, is touched by someone else sexually, and sometimes, even if he is not touched (for example, if he looks at pictures and videos on the internet that cause sexual arousal, or thinks about sex).
Ejaculation can also happen without control when a man is sleeping, which is called a wet dream.
Urine can sometimes also come out with the ejaculatory fluid during sex.
Boys usually do not ejaculate until they reach puberty but sometimes it can happen before.
Slang terms for ejaculation are blowing a load or blowing a wad, and busting a nut.
creaming, cumming, jizzing, nutting, jazzing, spurting, squirting and skeeting.
Ejaculation takes place when the man has an orgasm (the height of sexual excitement), usually after his genitals have been physically stimulated in some way.
However, ejaculation can also happen if a man has not been touched, for instance if he becomes aroused or stimulated (made sexually excited) by looking at sexy pictures, watching sexy videos, or thinking about sex.
When a man ejaculates while sleeping, it is called nocturnal emission.
Before a man can ejaculate, his penis needs to be stimulated.
The penis is usually soft, quite short and hangs down.
When a man is stimulated, for example by seeing another naked person, masturbating or being touched by someone else sexually, the inside of his penis fills with blood.
This causes it to become longer, thicker, harder and to stand upright, and is called an erection.
Men can be stimulated for different amounts of time before they ejaculate.
First stage: Emission.
The first stage is called emission (which means "the act of sending or throwing something out").
A man's testicles make sperm cells, and these are stored in a coiled tube called the epididymis.
During emission, the two ducts (tubes) called the vasa deferentia (each tube by itself is called a vas deferens), which carry sperm away from the testicles, squeeze the sperm from the epididymis to the top end of the ducts.
When this happens, the man feels that he cannot stop his ejaculation.
It is sometimes said that the man has reached the "point of no return".
The sperm then passes through other tubes called the ejaculatory ducts, where they are mixed with fluids made by glands called the seminal vesicles, the prostate and the bulbourethral glands (also called Cowper's glands). (
Glands are special body organs that make chemicals.)
The mixture of sperm and fluid is called semen or ejaculate.
It is white or yellowish, and sticky.
Second stage: Ejaculation proper.
The second stage is called ejaculation proper (which means "real ejaculation").
When ejaculation proper begins, the man starts having an orgasm.
A muscle at the base of the man's penis called the bulbospongiosus muscle squeezes strongly again and again.
This forces semen to move from the ejaculatory ducts into the urethra, which is a duct that passes right through the penis.
Semen is pushed along the urethra until it shoots out of the end of the penis in spurts.
Once the muscle starts to squeeze, the man cannot stop the semen from coming out of his penis.
During an orgasm, the man's muscle will usually squeeze about 10 to 15 times.
The squeezes happen very quickly.
They start at about 0.6 second apart, then slow down and become weaker.
Most of the semen is ejaculated in the first few squeezes.
How strong an ejaculation is varies from man to man.
For some men the semen shoots out of their penis very far, while for others it dribbles out.
An ejaculation is often stronger if a man has been stimulated for a longer time.
The squeezing of the man's muscle gives a very good feeling to his penis and his groin area (the part of his body where his torso joins the top of his legs).
A man's orgasm usually lasts about 17 seconds, but some men have an orgasm for only a few seconds while for others it can last for up to one minute.
After a man has ejaculated, his penis usually becomes soft and shorter again.
He may also have an enjoyable and relaxing feeling in his groin area.
It takes some time before he can have another erection and ejaculation.
This time is called the refractory period.
The average refractory period is about half an hour.
Younger men normally have a shorter refractory period than older men.
Men who are 18 years old have a refractory period of about 15 minutes, while men in their 70s have one of about 20 hours.
Some men's penises remain hard after one ejaculation, and they are able to have another ejaculation after some time without losing their erection.
Most young and middle-aged men can probably have about two to three ejaculations in a few hours, but it has been said that some men are able to have up to nine ejaculations a day.
When a man ejaculates before he wants to, this is called premature ejaculation.
If a man cannot ejaculate after having been aroused for a long time, even though he wants to, this is called delayed ejaculation or anorgasmia.
A man who is unable to ejaculate at all is said to have anejaculation.
Some men are able to have an orgasm without ejaculating.
This is called a dry orgasm.
Apart from giving a man pleasure, ejaculation may help a man stay healthy.
A study carried out in Australia seemed to show that men who ejaculate often have less chance of getting prostate cancer.
Semen is known informally as cum, jism or jizz.
More semen tends to come out if a man has not ejaculated for many days, or if he has been stimulated for a long time.
Older men produce less semen.
Semen is usually a white or yellowish fluid.
It starts off being slightly thick and sticky, then after a while it becomes more watery.
Semen contains many chemicals.
These include citric acid, fructose (a type of sugar), enzymes that speed up chemical reactions in the body, lipids (substances that fat is made of), and slippery fluids that help the semen to move through the urethra.
AIDS, gonorrhea, hepatitis B, herpes and syphillis are examples of STIs.
When a man has sexual intercourse with a woman, he places his penis within her vagina and moves his penis back and forth, typically in a thrusting motion, while the woman moves her hips.
The vagina is warm and somewhat moist, and it places pressure on the man's penis.
These sensations, combined with the friction caused by the in-and-out movements, stimulates the penis, which causes the man to have an orgasm and to ejaculate.
If the woman is using birth control this will usually not cause her to become pregnant.
Otherwise, the sperm in the semen can travel into the woman's uterus and Fallopian tubes.
If there happens to be an ovum or egg cell in a Fallopian tube, a sperm may fuse with the ovum.
This is called fertilization, and makes the woman pregnant.
However, before a man ejaculates, a clear, colorless, sticky fluid called pre-ejaculate (also known as pre-ejaculate fluid or informally as pre-cum) can come out of his penis.
Pre-ejaculate is produced by the bulbourethral or Cowper's glands.
Some tests have shown that pre-ejaculate does not contain any sperm.
However, some sperm may have been left behind in the urethra from an earlier ejaculation and the pre-ejaculate may carry this sperm out of the penis.
That is why a woman can become pregnant even if the man pulls his penis out of her vagina before he ejaculates.
Also, if a man ejaculates near the woman's vagina and semen falls on her body, sperm can accidentally enter the vagina and cause a pregnancy.
To avoid the woman becoming pregnant when she does not want to, the man and the woman can use methods of contraception or birth control.
For example, the man can wear a condom on his penis, or the woman can take birth control pills.
First ejaculation
Young boys cannot ejaculate.
A boy's first ejaculation usually happens about one year after he begins puberty, which is when his body starts changing into a man's body.
Most boys go through puberty in their teens.
The first time a boy ejaculates usually happens when he is asleep.
This is called a nocturnal emission (which means "an emission happening at night") or a wet dream.
When a boy begins masturbating, wet dreams usually stop happening.
A team is a group of people who have a certain task to complete.
In order to meet their target, the members of the group must work well with each other.
Successful team - a group of people who tend to meet their target despite barriers.
The group members cooperate with each other and take other members' ideas into consideration.
Unsuccessful team - a group of people who have a very difficult time when attempting to complete a certain task.
This may be because the members of the group think of only themselves and create an uncomfortable environment for other members of the team.
was the 124th Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, reigning from 25 December 1926, until his death on 7 January 1989.
He was succeeded by his eldest son, Akihito.
In Japan, reigning emperors are known simply as "the Emperor" and he is now referred to primarily by his posthumous name, .
The name "Shōwa" was given to Hirohito after he died.
Emperors of Japan are normally renamed in this way; and people started using the new name in 1990.
During his long reign, many people outside Japan call him Emperor Hirohito, or just Hirohito.
Events of Shōwa's life
Prince Hirohito was named regent for his father in 1921.
he became emperor after his father's death.
Hirohito was the emperor of Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War  which became World War 2 (1931 to 1945).
Though he was supposed to be an absolute monarch (an emperor who can make all the laws and rules), most of the power in the Japanese Government during this time was held by Japan's Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō and the military.
Hirohito's role in WW2 is controversial.
Constitutional monarch
After Japan's defeat in the war, the role of emperor changed.
The emperor became a symbol of the state.
Hirohito was the first emperor to travel outside Japan.
He visited Europe in 1971 and he traveled to the United States in 1975.
Emperor Showa died of small intestine cancer and  was succeeded by his son, Prince Akihito.
The state funeral for the late emperor was an international event.
World leaders attending the funeral included U.S. President George H. W. Bush, French President François Mitterrand, and the Duke of Edinburgh.
1967 – A Review of the Hydroids of the Family Clathrozonidae with Description of a New Genus and Species from Japan.
1969 – Some hydroids from the Amakusa Islands.
1971 – Additional notes on Clathrozoon wilsoni Spencer.
1974 – Some hydrozoans of the Bonin Islands
1977 – Five hydroid species from the Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea.
1983 – Hydroids from Izu Oshima and Nijima.
1984 – A new hydroid Hydractinia bayeri n. sp. (
family Hydractiniidae) from the Bay of Panama.
1988 – The hydroids of Sagami Bay collected by His Majesty the Emperor of Japan.
1995 – The hydroids of Sagami Bay II.
Order of the Garter (KG), UK
Fellow of the Royal Society, UK
Bix, Herbert P. (2000).
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan.
New York: HarperCollins. ;
OCLC 247018161
Human evolution is about the origin of human beings.
All humans belong to the same species, Homo sapiens, which appeared first in Africa but has spread to almost all parts of the world.
Fossils found in Africa prove that humans first appeared there.
The word 'human' in this context means the genus Homo.
However, studies of human evolution usually include other hominids, such as the Australopithecines.
This group diverged (split) from the genus Homo in Africa by about 2.3 to 2.4 million years ago.
The first Homo sapiens, the ancestors of today's humans, evolved around 200,000 years ago.
People have known for centuries that man and the apes are related.
Clearly, even though they look different, their anatomy is similar.
For this reason, during the 18th century, Buffon and Linnaeus put men and apes together in a single family.
In the 19th century, Charles Darwin suggested that animals have very similar anatomies when they share a common ancestor.
In fact, humans and apes are close relatives.
Both are primates: the order of mammals which includes monkeys, apes, lemurs and tarsiers.
The great apes live in tropical rainforests.
It is thought that human evolution started when a group of apes (now called the australopithecines) began to live more in the savannah.
A savannah is more open, with trees, shrubs and grass.
This group started walking on two legs.
They began to use their hands to carry things.
Life in the open was different, and there was a big advantage in having better brains.
Their brains grew larger, and they began to make simple tools.
This process began at least 5 million years ago.
We have fossils of two or three different groups of walking apes, and one was the ancestor of humans.
The biological name for "human" or "man" is Homo.
The modern human species is called Homo sapiens. "
Sapiens" means "thought".
Homo sapiens means "the thinking man".
Paleoanthropology looks at ancient human fossils, tools, and other signs of early human life.
It began in the 19th century with the discovery of a skull of "Neanderthal man" in 1856.
Humans are similar to great apes
By 1859, zoologists had known for a long time that humans are, in their anatomy, similar to the great apes.
There are also differences: humans can speak, for example.
But the similarities are more basic than the differences.
Humans also have features with a much older history, from early in the life of vertebrates.
The idea that species are caused by evolution had been proposed before Darwin, but his book gave much evidence, and many were persuaded by it.
The book was On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, published in November 1859.
In this book, Darwin wrote about the idea of evolution in general, rather than the evolution of humans.
Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history, was all Darwin wrote on the subject.
Nevertheless, the implication of the theory was clear to readers at the time.
Several people discussed the evolution of humans.
Among them were Thomas Huxley and Charles Lyell.
Huxley convincingly showed many of the similarities and differences between humans and apes in his 1863 book Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature.
When Darwin published his own book on the subject, The Descent of Man, and selection in relation to sex, the idea of human evolution was already well-known.
The theory was controversial.
Even some of Darwin's supporters (such as Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Lyell) did not like the idea that human beings have evolved their impressive mental capacities and moral sensibilities through natural selection.
Since the 18th century, scientists thought the great apes to be closely related to human beings.
In the 19th century, they speculated that the closest living relatives of humans were either chimpanzees or gorillas.
Both live in central Africa in tropical rainforests.
In fact, chimpanzees are closest to us.
Biologists believed that humans share a common ancestor with other African great apes and that fossils of these ancestors would be found in Africa, which they have been.
It is now accepted by virtually all biologists that humans are not only similar to the great apes, but actually are great apes.
The issue was confirmed by late 20th century studies on the sequences of proteins and genes in apes and man.
These studies showed that man shares about 95 to 98% of these structures with chimpanzees.
This is a much closer relationship than with any other type of animal, and fully supports the ideas put forward in the 19th century by Darwin and Huxley.
"Currently available genetic and archaeological evidence is generally interpreted as supportive of a recent single origin of modern humans in East Africa.
However, this is where the near consensus on human settlement history ends, and considerable uncertainty clouds any more detailed aspect of human colonization history".
Primates have diversified in habitats such as trees and bushes.
They have many features which are adaptations to their environment.
Here are some of those traits:
Shoulder joints which allow high degrees of movement in all directions.
Five digits on the fore and hind limbs with opposable thumbs and big toes; hands can grasp, and usually big toes as well.
Nails on the fingers and toes (in most species).
Sensitive tactile pads on the ends of the digits.
Sockets of eyes encircled in bone.
A trend towards a reduced snout and flattened face, attributed to a reliance on vision at the expense of smell.
A complex visual system with binocular (stereoscopic) vision, high visual acuity and color vision.
Brain with a well developed cerebellum for good balance.
Brain large in comparison to body size, especially in simians (old world monkeys and apes).
Enlarged cerebral cortex (brain): learning, problem solving.
Reduced number of teeth compared to primitive mammals;.
A well-developed cecum: vegetable digestion.
Two pectoral mammary glands.
Typically one young per pregnancy.
A pendulous penis and scrotal testes.
Long gestation and developmental period.
A trend towards holding the torso upright leading to bipedalism.
Not all primates have these anatomical traits, nor is every trait unique to primates.
Primates are frequently highly social, live in groups with 'flexible dominance hierarchies'.
Other similarities
Closely related animals almost always have closely related parasites.
This usually comes about because parasites evolve with their hosts, and when host populations split, their parasites split also.
It is also possible for parasites to get from one species to another.
Two of the most serious parasitic infections of humans in Africa have originated in apes.
Each may have been transferred to humans by a single cross-species event.
There are several species of mosquito, and several species of the malarial parasite Plasmodium.
The most serious type, P. falciparum, which kills many millions of people each year, originated in gorillas.
It is now virtually certain that chimpanzees are the source of HIV-1, the major cause of AIDS.
This information is got by the sequence analysis of ape and human viruses.
The relevance of this to evolution is that our physiology is so close to the apes that their parasites were able to transfer to humans with great success.
Humans have much less resistance to these parasites, which are ancient in origin, but comparatively new to our species.
Immediate ancestors of the genus Homo
It was not until the 1920s that hominid fossils were discovered in Africa.
In 1924, Raymond Dart described Australopithecus africanus.
The specimen was called the Taung Child, an australopithecine infant discovered in a cave deposit being mined for concrete at Taung, South Africa.
The remains were a remarkably well-preserved tiny skull and a cast of the inside of the individual's skull.
Although the brain was small (410 cm³), its shape was rounded, unlike that of chimpanzees and gorillas, and more like a modern human brain.
Also, the specimen had short canine teeth, and the position of the foramen magnum was evidence of bipedal locomotion.
All of these traits convinced Dart that the Taung baby was a bipedal human ancestor, a transitional form between apes and humans.
It took another 20 years before Dart's claims were taken seriously.
This was after other similar skeletons had been found.
The most common view of the time was that a large brain evolved before bipedality, the ability to walk on two feet more or less upright.
It was thought that intelligence similar to that of  modern humans was necessary for bipedalism.
This turned out to be wrong: bipedality came first.
The australopithecines are now thought to be immediate ancestors of the genus Homo, the group to which modern humans belong.
Both australopithecines and Homo sapiens are part of the tribe Hominini, but recent data has brought into doubt the position of A. africanus as a direct ancestor of modern humans; it may well have been a cousin.
The australopithecines were originally classified as either gracile or robust.
The robust variety of Australopithecus has since been reclassified as Paranthropus, although it is still regarded as a subgenus of Australopithecus by some authors.
In the 1930s, when the robust specimens were first described, the Paranthropus genus was used.
During the 1960s, the robust variety was moved into Australopithecus.
The recent trend has been back to the original classification as a separate genus.
The genus Homo
It was Carolus Linnaeus who chose the name Homo.
Today, there is only one species in the genus: Homo sapiens.
There were other species, but they became extinct.
The figure shows where some of them lived and at what time.
Some of the other species might have been ancestors of H. sapiens.
Many were likely our "cousins", they developed away from our ancestral line.
Anthropologists are still investigating the exact line of descent.
A consensus on which should count as separate species and which as subspecies has not been reached yet.
In some cases this is because there are very few fossils, in other cases it is due to the slight differences used to classify species in the Homo genus.
The evolution of the genus Homo took place mostly in the Pleistocene.
The whole genus is characterised by its use of stone tools, initially crude, and becoming ever more sophisticated.
So much so that in archaeology and anthropology the Pleistocene is usually referred to as the Palaeolithic, or the Stone Age.
Homo habilils was likely the first species of Homo.
It developed from the Australopithecus, about 2.5 million years ago.
It lived until about 1.4 million years ago.
It had smaller molars (back teeth) and larger brains than the Australopithecines.
Towards Homo erectus
There are two proposed species that lived from 1.9 to 1.6 million years ago.
Their relation has not been clarified.
One of them is called Homo rudolfensis.
It is known from a single incomplete skull from Kenya.
Scientists have suggested that this was just another habilis, but this has not been confirmed.
The other is currently called Homo georgicus.
It is from Georgia and may be an intermediate form between H. habilis and H. erectus, or a sub-species of H. erectus.
Homo ergaster and Homo erectus
Homo erectus was first discovered on the island of Java in Indonesia, in 1891.
The discoverer, Eugene Dubois originally called it Pithecanthropus erectus based on its morphology that he considered to be intermediate between that of humans and apes.
Homo erectus lived from about 1.8 million to 70,000 years ago.
The earlier specimens (from 1.8 to 1.2 million years ago) are sometimes seen as a different species, or a subspecies.
called Homo ergaster, or  Homo erectus ergaster'.
In the early Pleistocene, 1.5–1 mya, in Africa, Asia, and Europe, presumably, some populations of  Homo habilis evolved larger brains and made more elaborate stone tools; these differences and others are sufficient for anthropologists to classify them as a new species, H. erectus.
In addition H. erectus was the first human ancestor to walk truly upright.
This was made possible by the evolution of locking knees and a different location of the foramen magnum (the hole in the skull where the spine enters).
They may have used fire to cook their meat.
A famous example of Homo erectus is Peking Man; others were found in Asia (notably in Indonesia), Africa, and Europe.
Many paleoanthropologists are now using the term Homo ergaster for the non-Asian forms of this group.
They reserve H. erectus only for those fossils found in the Asian region that meet certain requirements (as to skeleton and skull) which differ slightly from ergaster.
Neanderthal man Homo neaderthalensis (usually called Neanderthal man) lived from about 250,000 to about 30,000 years ago.
Also, less usual, as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis: there is still some discussion if it was a separate species Homo neanderthalensis, or a subspecies of H. sapiens.
While the debate remains unsettled, evidence from mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomal DNA sequencing indicates that little or no gene flow occurred between H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens, and, therefore, the two were separate species.
In 1997, Dr. Mark Stoneking, then an associate professor of anthropology at Pennsylvania State University, stated:
"These results [based on mitochondrial DNA extracted from Neanderthal bone] indicate that Neanderthals did not contribute mitochondrial DNA to modern humans… Neanderthals are not our ancestors".
Denisovan man
A genetic analysis of a piece of finger bone found in Siberia has produced a surprise result.
It dates to about 40,000 years ago, at a time when Neanderthals and modern man were living in the area.
German researchers found its mitochondrial DNA did not match either that of our species or that of Neanderthals.
If this result is correct, the bone belongs to a previously unknown species.
The degree of difference in the DNA suggests this species split off from our family tree about a million years ago, well before the split between our species and Neanderthals.
Homo floresiensis Homo floresiensis, which lived about 100,000–12,000 years ago has been nicknamed hobbit for its small size.
Its size may be a result of island dwarfism, the tendency for large mammals to evolve smaller forms on islands.
H. floresiensis is intriguing both for its size and its age.
It is a concrete example of a recent species of the genus Homo that shows derived traits not shared with modern humans.
In other words, H. floresiensis share a common ancestor with modern humans, but split from the modern human lineage and followed a different evolutionary path.
The main find was a skeleton believed to be a woman of about 30 years of age.
Found in 2003 it has been dated to approximately 18,000 years old.
The living woman was estimated to be one meter in height, with a brain volume of just 380 cm3 This is small for a chimpanzee and less than a third of the H. sapiens average of 1400 cm3.
There is an ongoing debate over whether H. floresiensis is indeed a separate species.
Some scientists believe that H. floresiensis was a modern H. sapiens suffering from pathological dwarfism.
Modern humans who live on Flores, the island where the skeleton was found, are pygmies.
This fact is consistent with either theory.
One line of attack on H. floresiensis is that it was found with tools only associated with H. sapiens.
Stone artifacts have been found on Flores which can be dated to a million years ago.
These artifacts are proxies; which means there were no skeletons of humans, but only a species of Homo could have made them.
The artifacts are flakes and other implements, 48 in all, some of which show signs of being worked to produce a cutting edge.
This means that humans were present on Flores by that date, but it does not tell us which species that was.
Homo sapiens Homo sapiens has lived from about 250,000 years ago to the present.
Between 400,000 years ago and the second warm period in the Middle Pleistocene, around 250,000 years ago, its skull grew and more sophisticated technologies based on stone tools developed.
One possibility is that a transition between H. erectus to H. sapiens occurred.
The evidence of Java Man suggests there was an initial migration of H. erectus out of Africa.
Then, much later, a further development of H. sapiens from H. erectus in Africa.
Then a subsequent migration within and out of Africa eventually replaced the earlier H. erectus.
Studies of the human genome, especially the Y-chromosome DNA and mitochondrial DNA, have supported a recent African origin.
Evidence from autosomal DNA also supports the recent African origin.
The details of this great saga are not fully established yet, but by about 90,000 years ago they had moved into Eurasia and the Middle East.
This was the area where Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, had been living for a long time (at least 500,000 years in western Europe).
By about 42 to 44,000 years ago Homo sapiens had reached western Europe, including Britain.
In Europe and western Asia, Homo sapiens replaced the Neanderthals by about 35,000 years ago.
The details of how this happened are not known.
At roughly the same time Homo sapiens arrived in Australia (However a recent archaeological dig in Kakadu, Northern Territory, may suggest Homo sapiens arrived in Australia 65,000 years ago).
Their arrival in the Americas was much later, about 15,000 years ago.
All these earlier groups of modern man were hunter-gatherers.
Current research has established that human beings are genetically rather homogenous (similar).
The DNA of individuals is more alike than usual for most species.
This may have resulted from their relatively recent evolution or from the Toba catastrophe.
Distinctive genetic have arisen as a result of small groups of people moving into new environmental circumstances.
These adapted traits are a very small component of the Homo sapiens genome and include such outward 'racial' characteristics as skin color and nose shape, and internal characteristics such as the ability to breathe more efficiently at high altitudes.
H. sapiens idaltu, from Ethiopia, about 160,000 years ago, is a proposed subspecies.
It is the oldest known anatomically modern human.
Species list
Sahelanthropus Sahelanthropus tchadensis Orrorin Orrorin tugenensis Ardipithecus Ardipithecus kadabba Ardipithecus ramidus Australopithecus Australopithecus anamensis Australopithecus afarensis Australopithecus bahrelghazali Australopithecus africanus Australopithecus garhi Paranthropus Paranthropus aethiopicus Paranthropus boisei Paranthropus robustus Kenyanthropus Kenyanthropus platyops Homo Homo habilis Homo rudolfensis Homo ergaster Homo georgicus Homo erectus Homo cepranensis Homo antecessor Homo heidelbergensis Homo rhodesiensis Homo neanderthalensis Homo sapiens idaltu Homo sapiens (Cro-magnon)
Homo sapiens sapiens Homo floresiensis''
Ancient Rome was a civilization that started in the city of Rome and the land of Latium on the Italian Peninsula.
Roman civilization was the most important civilization in the Mediterranean region, Europe, and the Near East from the late 3rd century BC.
Roman civilization was in existence all through Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and the Middle Ages, but "ancient Rome" means the ancient history of Roman civilization before the Middle Ages.
Traditionally, the fall of the western Roman Empire during the 5th century AD is named the start of the Middle Ages in western Europe.
In Classical Antiquity, the Roman Empire controlled a very large area of land, which stretched from Great Britain to the Arabian Peninsula.
Ancient Rome has been very important to the history of Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, where the Romans controlled many lands.
Ancient Rome's culture took many ideas from other civilizations, especially Ancient Greece and the Greek kingdoms of the Hellenistic period.
Ancient Romans' ideas have been very influential for later civilizations.
The Romans' Latin language became the most common language in the western Mediterranean and western Europe, and is the ancestor of Romance languages.
The Roman emperors were responsible for making Christianity the Romans' state religion, and the Romans spread Christianity across the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity.
Roman Christianity replaced Roman religion and other traditional religions.
The Romans made many improvements to engineering, architecture, irrigation, and transport.
Rome began as a small farming community in the 8th century BC.
The city of Rome was founded, according to legend, on 21 April 753 BC.
It became a city and a state and had the , which Roman mythology said came from their first king, Romulus.
Rome was first a kingdom, but its last king, Tarquinius Superbus, was sent away in a revolution started by Lucius Junius Brutus.
The Roman state became a republic.
The city-state grew to control the Italian Peninsula during the Hellenistic period, and fought the Punic Wars with the Carthaginian Republic.
After overcoming the Carthaginians, the Roman Republic became the most powerful state in the western Mediterranean.
The Romans became the most powerful state in the eastern Mediterranean after wars with Macedonia, and the Mithridatic Wars with Kingdom of Pontus.
The Hellenistic period and the Roman Republic ended when, after Julius Caesar was assassinated, the Romans fought a long civil war.
At the end of these wars, Augustus overcame his Roman enemies and the Ptolemaic dynasty, who controlled the kingdom of Egypt.
Augustus became the first Roman emperor and Roman civilization controlled all the lands around the Mediterranean Sea.
In 293 AD, Diocletian split the government of the empire into two parts, east and west.
From Diocletian's time there was usually more than one emperor at a time, each controlling a part of the empire.
In the 5th century AD, the lands of the western Roman Empire split up into different kingdoms.
After Romulus Augustulus there were no more emperors in the western empire, and the government of the western Roman Empire ended in 476 AD.
In Western Europe, this is the end of Antiquity and the start of the Early Middle Ages.
The Romans lost control of Rome and most of the Italian Peninsula.
After that, the Roman Empire in the Middle Ages is sometimes named the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire.
Historians use this name because the Romans' capital city was Constantinople (also called Byzantium), and its emperors controlled the eastern half of the Mediterranean Basin.
The Roman Empire was in existence until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, when it was defeated by the Ottoman Empire.
Roman culture spread to Western Europe and the area around the Mediterranean Sea.
Its history still has a big influence on the world today.
For example, Roman ideas about laws, government, art, literature, and language are important to European culture.
The Roman language, Latin, slowly evolved, becoming modern French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, and many other languages.
Latin also indirectly influenced many other languages such as English.
Graeco-Roman polytheism
The most common religion of ancient Rome in its first centuries was Graeco-Roman polytheism.
The traditional religion of the city of Rome was polytheist (with many gods).
The most important gods were the Capitoline triad: three gods worshipped on the Capitoline Hill.
The three were Jupiter (the father and king of the gods), Juno (the queen of the gods), and Minerva (the goddess of wisdom).
The goddess Minerva was born without a mother from the body of Jupiter.
Roman mythology said that among the Romans' ancestors were Venus (goddess of love) and Mars (a god of war and the son of Jupiter and Juno).
The gods Apollo and Bacchus were taken by the Romans from Greek mythology, and many of the Romans' religious practices were the same as those of the ancient Greeks.
The Romans also worshipped the goddesses Cybele and Isis, whose cults they took from Hellenistic Anatolia and Egypt.
Roman worship often took the form of sacrifices.
Romans tried to please the gods by giving food or other gifts to the gods and to other deities, including the souls of dead people.
With sacrifices like this, the Romans hoped to avoid bad luck and bring good luck, such as fertility and a successful harvest, or victory in war.
The Romans built temples to house the images of their gods.
These images were usually statues, and the Romans would offer sacrifices by burning food or frankincense.
Precious objects would be given to the gods in rituals and stored in the temples.
The Romans believed this pleased the gods.
The Romans also did ritual purification, to avoid bad luck and to avoid offending the gods and spirits.
Judaeo-Christian monotheism
Judaism was common in the ancient Roman world, and there was a Jewish diaspora in many cities, like Rome, from the Hellenistic period.
Christianity started in the eastern Roman Empire, in Hellenistic Judaea.
In Classical Antiquity, the Roman government did not like Christianity.
Sometimes, Roman governors or emperors ordered the persecution of Christians.
Under the emperor Diocletian, the persecution of Christians became the strongest.
Christianity became an officially supported religion in the Roman Empire under Constantine I. With the signing of the Edict of Milan by Licinius and Constantine in 313, it became the most powerful religion, and the Christian Church began the persecution of Christians with whom the official ("orthodox" and "catholic") disagreed.
Then, in 391 AD, an edict of Theodosius I made Christianity Rome's official religion.
The state church of the Roman Empire became the state religion in the empire. (
The state church later split into the modern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.)
People practising traditional, non-Christian religions were common in Late Antiquity.
The Christians called these people "pagans".
There was persecution of Graeco-Roman polytheism by the Roman emperors.
Starting in the 5th century, non-Christian religions' property was taken away, and many Roman temples were made into churches.
The Eastern Empire
The Byzantines were threatened by the rise of Islam, whose followers took over the territories of Syria, Armenia and Egypt and soon threatened to take over Constantinople.
In the next century, the Arabs also captured southern Italy and Sicily.
The Byzantines survived during the 8th century and, beginning in the 9th century, took back parts of the conquered lands.