the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
Liverpool Airport opened in 1930, it was later renamed Liverpool John Lennon Airport.
It has three tunnels under the River Mersey, one for trains and two (Queensway and Kingsway) for cars travelling to and from Wirral.
It has a local train network called Merseyrail and the station Liverpool Lime Street provides train travel to and from the rest of the United Kingdom.
Until the 1950s it also had Liverpool Overhead Railway and Liverpool Corporation Tramways.
Liverpool is connected to the West Coast Main Line railway connecting London, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Motorways running into Liverpool include the M62 from Manchester, the M58 and the M53 from Wirral.
The inner ring road is Queens Drive and the outer ring road is the M57.
Sea and river
Liverpool Cruise Terminal opened in 2007 and provides travel to Europe.
Regular ferries services operate to Wirral and the Isle of Man.
River cruises operate down the Manchester Ship Canal and the Leeds Liverpool Canal also connects into Liverpool.
University of Liverpool,
Liverpool John Moores University,
Liverpool Hope University
Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts.
Speke Hall
Merseyside Maritime Museum
International Slavery Museum
Tate Liverpool
Pier Head
Al-Rahma Mosque
Famous people from Liverpool
David Morrissey, actor.
Steven Gerrard, Rangers F.C. Manager, Former Liverpool F.C. & England National Team captain
Jamie Carragher, Liverpool Football Club Legend
The Beatles (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr).
Tom Baker, actor (Doctor Who)
Ken Dodd, comedian
Julian Lennon, musician, son of John Lennon and his first wife, Cynthia.
Brian Epstein, music mogul
Frankie Goes to Hollywood, music group
Gerry Marsden, musician
Gerry and the Pacemakers, music group
Cilla Black, entertainer
Paul O'Grady, former drag act and television presenter
Jason Isaacs, actor
Miles Kane, musician
Melanie "Mel C" Chisholm, Sporty Spice, Member of the Spice Girls
John Bishop, comedian and actor
Clive Barker, author & director
Peter Serafinowicz, actor & comedian
Kim Cattrall, actress
Jodie Comer, actress
Freddie Starr, Comedian, actor & musician
There has been a lot of development work which is part of a regeneration plan for Liverpool.
It is because Liverpool was the Capital of Culture for 2008.
December 24 – John I of England
Marko III follows Yoannis V as patriarch of Alexandria.
Henry the Lion builds the first bronze statue north of the Alps.
Giraldo Sempavor captures Evora.
Serfdom is the forced labour of serfs in a feudal society.
In medieval Europe, serfs were peasant farmers who worked without pay for a lord.
In exchange, they got to live and work on the lord’s manor.
They also got the lord’s protection.
Serfs had more rights than slaves (for example, serfs could own property).
However, they were not completely free.
They could not move, marry, or leave the manor without the lord’s permission.
In most serfdoms, serfs were legally part of the land.
If the land was sold, they were sold with it.
Serfs worked in their lord’s fields.
They sometimes did other things related to agriculture, like forestry and transportation (by both land and river).
Some also worked in craft and manufacturing.
Serfdom developed from agricultural slavery in the Roman Empire.
It spread through Europe around the 10th century.
During the Middle Ages, most European people lived in serfdoms.
Serfdom lasted up to the 1600s in England and until 1789 in France.
In most other European countries, serfdom continued until the early 19th century.
The system of serfdom
During the Middle Ages in Europe, monarchs, the Catholic Church, and the nobility owned all land.
Serfs did not own land.
Instead, they did manual labor for landowners in exchange for a place to live and work.
Most serfs were farmers, but some were craftsmen - like the village blacksmith, miller or innkeeper.
The serf's feudal contract
Serfs had a feudal contract, just like a baron or a knight.
A serf's feudal contract said that he would live and work on a piece of land owned by his lord.
A serf was allowed to have their own home, fields, crops, and animals on the lord’s land.
Serfs had some rights in the feudal contract.
In return for their work, the serf would get protection.
During feudal times, people said that a serf "worked for all", a knight or baron "fought for all," and clergy "prayed for all."
Serfs were in a lower social class than knights and barons.
However, they were better off than slaves.
A manorial lord could not sell his serfs like Romans sold slaves.
However, serfs were legally tied to the land they worked on.
If their lord sold his land, his serfs were sold along with the land.
Serfs could not sell the land they lived on, and could not leave the manor without their lord’s permission.
Often, they needed the lord’s permission before they could marry someone who was not also a serf for that lord.
Becoming a serf
A free man usually became a serf because he owed a large debt.
He would make an agreement with the lord of the land.
The lord would keep him safe, give money to pay his debt, and give him land to work on.
In return, he would work for the lord.
All his children would become serfs.
The serf's duties
Serfs had to pay taxes to their lord.
The lord would decide how much each serf had to pay, based on the size of the land the serf lived on.
Usually, serfs had to pay 1/3 of their land’s value in taxes.
When the lord was fighting a war, serfs also had to pay wartime taxes.
Money was not very common during the Middle Ages.
Serfs usually paid their lord by giving food and working without pay.
Usually, serfs spent five or six days a week working for their lord.
On these days, the lord would give his serfs very good food.
However, serfs had to do the lord’s work before they could do their own work.
When the lord’s crops needed to be harvested, the serf’s own crops needed to be harvested too.
Still, the serf could not harvest his own food until he had done his required work for the lord.
At different times in the year, serfs would do different things.
A serf might plough his lord's fields, harvest crops, dig ditches, or repair fences.
The rest of his time he could take care of his own fields, crops and animals.
There were strange tests to decide if something was good enough to be given for taxes.
A chicken, for example, had to be able to jump over a fence.
That showed that the chicken was young and healthy.
Lords also required serfs to pay fines when they did certain things.
For example, a serf would have to pay a fine:
If he inherited money or property
If he became a priest or monk
If his children moved to the city instead of staying and being a serf on the lord’s manor
If he used his own mill to grind the grain he grew
When a serf died, his children could only stay on the land if they gave the lord their best animal.
Serfs had to pay to use the lord’s grain mill.
Many serfs thought this was unfair.
Millers charged a fee called multure, which was usually 1/24 of the total grain milled.
The serfs often thought the millers were not honest.
Many serfs had to use their lord’s ovens to bake their daily bread.
They had to pay to use these ovens.
They also had to pay to use the lord’s carts to carry their produce.
Benefits of serfdom
Serfs had some freedoms.
They could get and keep property and money.
Some serfs had more money and property than their free neighbours.
Sometimes, serfs could buy their freedom.
The lord could not make serfs leave his land unless he had good reasons.
The lord was supposed to protect them from criminals or other lords, and he was supposed to give them charity during famines.
Agricultural benefits
Serfs could grow what they wanted on their lands.
Sometimes they had to pay their taxes in wheat, which is difficult to grow.
They could take the wheat they did not give for taxes to the market.
Mostly, serfs were subsistence farmers, eating what they grew.
Their heirs usually got an inheritance.
The rules for serfdom were different at different times and places.
In some places, serfdom changed into different types of taxation.
In the 13th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, serfs had to work two to three days a week for their landlords.
In the 14th century, they had to work one day per week.
In the 17th century, they had to work four days per week.
In the 18th century, they had to work six days per week.
Sometimes, serfs were soldiers during war.
They could earn their freedom or even become nobles as a reward for bravery in war.
Serfs could also gain their freedom in other ways.
Sometimes they could buy their freedom.
Enlightened or generous owners could free a serf (this is called manumission).
Some serfs were able to flee to other towns or to newly settled land where people would not ask questions about the serf’s past.
Laws varied from country to country.
In England, a serf became free if he made his way to a chartered town and avoided being recaptured for a year and a day.
Freedom for the serfs
When people started to use money more, and barter became less important, serfdom began to change.
Now lords could make money by renting their land.
This was more profitable than getting unpaid work from serfs.
Many lords "freed" their serfs when their work became less valuable than money.
Still, the serfs' lives were not seriously changed.
They still had to farm their land, take care of their families, and pay their taxes.
However, they could no longer be forced off their lands if they did not pay rent, or if their Lord decided he wanted to use their fields for a different purpose.
History of serfdom
Serfs in antiquity
The helots in the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta worked like serfs.
So did peasants working on government lands in ancient Rome.
However, these workers were not called “serfs.”
Instead, they were called coloni, meaning "tenant farmers.”
When Germanic tribes took over the Roman Empire, they took the lands from the wealthy Romans.
They became the new lords in the same economic system of serfdom.
Beginning of serfdom
In Western Europe
Medieval serfdom in Western Europe began with the breakup of the Carolingian Empire around the 10th century.
This empire had ruled most of western Europe for more than 200 years.
After the empire broke up, Western Europe had no strong central governments for a long time.
During this time, feudal lords worked to make serfdom the common way for people to live.
Under serfdom, rich landlords could force other people to work for them and feed them.
Serfs did most of the agricultural work in medieval Western Europe.
Slavery did exist during this time, but it was not common.
Usually slaves were only used to take care of people’s houses.
Parts of Europe, including much of Scandinavia, never used serfdom or other feudal institutions.
In Eastern Europe
Serfdom reached Eastern European countries later than Western Europe.
It started in Russia around the 12th century, but was not common until several hundred years later.
By the 17th century, serfdom was the most common relationship between Russian peasants and the nobility.
It was most common in the central and southern areas of the Tsardom of Russia, and later the Russian Empire.
Serfdom in Ukraine, in other Cossack lands, in the Urals and in Siberia was rare until the reign of Catherine the Great (r. 1762–1796).
At that time, it spread to Ukraine.
Noblemen began to send their serfs into Cossack lands in an attempt to harvest their extensive untapped natural resources.
Russian serfdom was different than in other Eastern European countries, because it was not changed by German law or by people coming from Germany.
In Russia, serfdom and manorialism systems were enforced by the crown (the Tsar), not by the nobility.
End of serfdom
By the 13th and 14th centuries, serfdom was becoming less common in Western Europe.
The manorial system weakened as powerful monarchs took control, towns developed, and the economy improved.
At the same time, there were more protests by serfs and peasants, like Wat Tyler’s Rebellion in England in 1381.
This put pressure on the nobility and the clergy to change the system and make improvements.
New ways of renting the land gave people more freedom.
By the 15th and 16th centuries, serfdom was ending in Western Europe.
As the economy continued to change, serfdom became less profitable than renting land for money.
Other causes for the end of serfdom included changes in the population and laws about what lords could make their tenants do.
The Industrial Revolution also helped to end serfdom.
Landowners began to put their money into industries, because they made more money this way than they did from having serfs.
This caused urbanization.
As towns got bigger, farmers wanted to move off of manors.
They could make more money working in town than they could by working in a lord’s fields.
In England, serfdom ended around 1600.
After the Renaissance, serfdom was not common in Western Europe.
However, as serfdom was ending, chattel slavery was beginning in the English-speaking parts of the Western Hemisphere.
Serfdom existed in Russia until February 19, 1861.
In Russian Baltic provinces, it ended in the beginning of the 19th century (see Russian Serfdom Reforms).
Dates for abolition in European countries
Savoy: 19 December 1771
Baden: 23 July 1783
Denmark: 20 June 1788
France: 3 November 1789
Switzerland: 4 May 1798
Schleswig-Holstein: 19 December 1804
Grand Duchy of Warsaw (Poland): 22 July 1807
Prussia: 9 October 1807 (effectively 1811-1823)
Mecklenberg: October 1807 (effectively 1820)
Bavaria: 31 August 1808
Nassau: 1 September 1812
Estonia (Russian Empire): 23 March 1816
Courland (Russian Empire): 25 August 1817
Württemberg: 18 November 1817
Livonia (Russian Empire): 26 March 1819
Hannover: 1831
Saxony: 17 March 1832
Austria: 7 September 1848
Hungary: 2 March 1853
Bulgaria: 1858 (when feudalism was definitely abolished in the Ottoman Empire; practically in 1880)
Russia: 19 February 1861 (or 1974 - see 'Return of Serfdom' below)
Danubian Principalities (Romania): 14 August 1864
Bosnia and Herzegovina: 1918
Return of serfdom
Some people say that planned economies, especially those based on Soviet-style Communist economics (like the Soviet collective farm system) are government-owned serfdom.
Friedrich Hayek said this in his book The Road to Serfdom.
Mikhail Gorbachev grew up in a kolkhoz.
These were supposed to be collectives.
There were also sovkhoz, which were state-owned.
The government used a system of internal passports and household registration (like China's hukou system) to make people stay on their farms.
They had to plant crops according to instructions from the central authorities, especially if they were on state-run farms.
The state then bought their agricultural produce at low prices and invested heavily in industrialization.
Gorbachev said this was much like being a serf.
This kind of serfdom lasted in Russia until 1974 (with a brief break during the Russian Civil War).
USSR Government Decree #667 gave peasants identification documents, with an unrestricted right to move within the country, for the first time in Russian history.
It is possible that a system like this still exists in rural China.
Villein
An extraction from the book "Serfdom to Self-Government: Memoirs of a Polish Village Mayor, 1842-1927"
The Granary of Europe - serfdom in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis , discussion and full online text of Evsey Domar (1970), "The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis," Economic History Review 30:1 (March), pp.
18–32
The Estabilishment of Serfdom in Eastern Europe and Russia, Richard Trethewey, American Economist, Spring 1974, Vol.
18 Issue 1
SERFS UP!
War Communism to the NEP: The Road from Serfdom
Gorbachev's BBC Interview
Hayek, Friedrich A. von, The Road to Serfdom, London: Routledge, 2001.
A refrigerator is a machine used for keeping things cold.
It is sometimes called a fridge or an icebox.
It is normally maintained at 4-5  degree Celsius for household use.
People put food and drinks in it, to keep those items cold or good (unspoiled) for a longer time.
A refrigerator has a heat pump which takes heat away from the air inside the fridge.
The heat is moved to the air outside.
The heat pump is usually driven by an electric motor.
There are also ice boxes available that do not use electricity because they are filled with ice to provide the colder temperature.
The ice can keep things cold until the ice melts.
Ice boxes can be taken on camping trips.
Sometimes they are called coolers.
Refrigerator-sized iceboxes were used before electricity was available.
Most modern refrigerators are available in a variety of colours, although most are white.
Smaller versions of the popular refrigerator are also used.
They are mainly used in hotels and college dorm rooms.
A freezer is a special type of refrigerator that stores food at freezing temperatures.
Inside a freezer, it is normally .
Freezers can be found in household refrigerators, as well as in industry and commerce.
When stored in a freezer, frozen food can be stored safely for a longer time than storing at room temperatures.
Domestic freezers can be a separate compartment in a refrigerator, or can be a separate appliance.
Household refrigerators usually have a separate compartment where the heat pump is used to pump even colder temperatures to the contents.
Most household freezers maintain temperatures from .
Some freezer-only units can achieve  and lower.
Most household refrigerators generally do not achieve a temperature lower than , because it is difficult to control the temperature for two different compartments.
This is because both compartments shares the same coolant loop.
Domestic freezers normally stand upright, resembling refrigerators.
Sometimes a domestic freezer is laid on its back to look like a chest.
Many modern upright freezers come with an ice dispenser built into their door.
Many commercial freezers stand upright and have glass doors so shoppers can see the contents.
Janis Ian (born Janis Eddy Fink, April 7, 1951) is an American songwriter, singer, musician, columnist, and science fiction writer.
She stated singing folk in the mid-sixties while she was still a teenager.
She sang the most in the 1960s and the 1970s, but she's still singing today.
In 1975, Ian won a Grammy Award for her song, "At Seventeen".
Janis Ian (1967) #29 US (Verve) / (1978) (Columbia) / (Bonus Track) (2004) (Festival, Cooking Vinyl UK)
For All the Seasons of Your Mind (1967) #179 US (Verve)
The Secret Life of J. Eddy Fink (1968) (Verve)
Who Really Cares (1969) (Verve)
Present Company (1971) #223 US (Capitol)
Stars (1974) #83 US, #63 (Columbia) / (Bonus Track) (2004) (Festival, Cooking Vinyl)
Between the Lines (1975) #1 US, #22 Japan (Columbia, Festival) / (Bonus Track) (2004) (Festival, Cooking Vinyl UK)
Aftertones (1976) #12 US, #1 Japan (Columbia) / (Bonus Track) (2004) (Festival, Cooking Vinyl UK)
Miracle Row (1977) #45 US, #26 Japan (Columbia) /  (Bonus Track) (2004) (Festival, Cooking Vinyl UK)
Night Rains (1979) (Columbia)
Restless Eyes (1981) #156 US (Columbia)
Uncle Wonderful (1983) (Festival) (Australia only)
Breaking Silence (1993) (Morgan Creek) / (Bonus Track) (2003) (Festival, Cooking Vinyl UK)
Simon Renshaw Presents: Janis Ian Shares Your Pain (1995) (not released until 12.09)
Revenge (1995) (Beacon)
Hunger (1997) (Windham Hill)
god & the fbi (2000) (Windham Hill) / (3 Bonus Tracks) (2000) (JVC Japan)
Lost Cuts 1 (2001) (Rude Girl)
Billie's Bones (2004) (Oh Boy, Rude Girl Cooking Vinyl US)s Night Rains (Bonus Track) (2004) (Festival, Cooking Vinyl UK)
Billie's Bones (Bonus Track) (2004) (JVC Japan)
Folk is the New Black (2006) (Rude Girl) / (With DVD) (2006) (Evasound)
Revenge (Bonus Track) (2006) (Cooking Vinyl UK 2003) (WEA)
Remember (1978) (JVC Japan)
The Best of Janis Ian (1980) (CBS)
My Favourites (1980) (CBS)
Stars/Night Rains (Double Album) (1987) (CBS)
At Seventeen (1990) (CBS)
Up 'Til Now (1992) (Sony)
Society's Child: The Verve Recordings (1995) (Polydor)
Live on the Test 1976 (1995) (BBC World Wide)
Unreleased 1: Mary's Eyes (1998) (Rude Girl)
The Bottom Line Encore Collection (1999) (Velvet)
The Best of Janis Ian (2002) (Festival)
Live: Working Without a Net (2003) (Rude Girl)
Souvenirs: Best of 1972-1981 (US CD) (2004) (Rude Girl) / (Japan CD) (2004) (JVC Japan) / (CD/DVD) (2006) (Evasound)
Unreleased 2: Take No Prisoners (2006) (Rude Girl)
Unreleased 3: Society's Child (2006) (Rude Girl)
Ultimate Best (2007) (JVC Victory)
Best of Janis Ian: Autobiography Collection (2008) (Rude Girl)
The Essential Janis Ian (2009)
Live at Club Cafe (2005) (Rude Girl)
Janismania (2005) (Rude Girl)
Through the Years: A Retrospective (2007) (Rude Girl)
Janis Ian '79: Live in Japan & Australia'' (2008) (Rude Girl)
Janis Ian's Pearl Foundation
Janis Ian interview on Slashdot
2006 interview
Janis Ian archive on NPR Music
American science fiction writers
LGBT people from New York City
LGBT singers
LGBT songwriters
Vilnius is the largest city and the capital of Lithuania, with a population of 553,904 (850,700 together with Vilnius County) as of December 2005.
It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality.
It is also the capital of Vilnius County.
Vilnius lies 312 kilometres (194 mi) from the Baltic Sea and Klaipėda, the chief Lithuanian seaport.
Vilnius is connected by highways to other major Lithuanian cities, such as Kaunas (102 km/63 mi away), Šiauliai (214 km/133 mi away) and Panevėžys (135 km/84 mi away).
The climate of Vilnius is considered as Humid Continental or Hemiboreal by Köppen climate classification.
Summers can be hot, with temperatures above thirty degrees Celsius throughout the day.
Winters can be very cold, with temperatures rarely reaching above freezing
Vilnius is a cosmopolitan city with diverse architecture.
There are more than 40 churches in Vilnius.
Restaurants, hotels and museums have sprouted since Lithuania declared independence.
Like most medieval towns, Vilnius was developed around its Town Hall.
The Old Town, the historical centre of Vilnius, is one of the largest in Europe (3.6 km²).
The most valuable historic and cultural sites are concentrated here.
The main sights of the city are Gediminas Castle and Cathedral Square, symbols of the capital.
The Old Town of Vilnius was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1994.
In 1995, the first bronzecast of Frank Zappa in the world was installed near the center of Vilnius with the permission of the government.
The city has many universities.
The biggest are:
Vilnius Gediminas Technical University
Mykolas Romeris University
Vilnius Pedagogical University
General Jonas Žemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania
Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre
Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts
National M. K. Čiurlionis School of Art
Vilnius is the Roman Catholic center of the country, with the main church institutions and Archdiocesan Cathedral located here.
There are many churches in the city as there are many monasteries and religion schools.
The Church architecture in the city includes Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical styles, these styles can be foundin the Old Town.
Vilnius is considered one of the main centers of the Polish Baroque movement in architecture of churches.
Vilnius has been home to an Eastern Orthodox Christian presence since the thirteenth century.
A famous Russian Orthodox monastery, named for the Holy Spirit, is located near the Gate of Dawn.
St. Paraskeva's Orthodox Church in the Old Town is the site of the baptism of Hannibal, the great-grandfather of Pushkin, by Tsar Peter the Great in 1705.
A  number of Protestant and other Christian groups are present in Vilnius, most notably the Lutheran Evangelicals and the Baptists.
Once widely known as Yerushalayim De Lita (the "Jerusalem of Lithuania"), Vilnius once was comparable only to Jerusalem, Israel, as a world center for the study of the Torah, and for its large Jewish population.
That is why one part of Vilnius was named Jeruzalė.
At the end of the 19th century, the number of synagogues in Vilnius was more than hundred.
Islam came to Lithuania in the 14th century from Crimea and Kazan, through the Tatars.
Tatars in Lithuania have maintained their religious practices: currently, about 3,000 Tatar Muslims live in Lithuania.
There are same few groups of pre-Christian pagan in the city.
Verkiai — includes Baltupiai, Jeruzalė, Santariškės, Balsiai, Visoriai
Antakalnis — includes Valakampiai, Turniškės, Dvarčionys
Pašilaičiai — includes Tarandė
Fabijoniškės — includes Bajorai
Pilaitė
Justiniškės
Viršuliškės
Šeškinė
Šnipiškės
Žirmūnai — includes Šiaurės miestelis
Karoliniškės
Žvėrynas
Grigiškės — a separate town included in the Vilnius city municipality
Lazdynai
Vilkpėdė — includes Vingis park
Naujamiestis — includes bus and train stations
Senamiestis (Old Town) — includes Užupis
Naujoji Vilnia — includes Pavilnys, Pūčkoriai
Paneriai — includes Trakų Vokė, Gariūnai
Naujininkai — includes Kirtimai, Salininkai, Vilnius International Airport
Rasos — includes Belmontas, Markučiai
Vilnius is the starting point of the Vilnius-Kaunas-Klaipėda motorway that runs across Lithuania and connects the three major cities.
The Vilnius-Panevėžys motorway is a branch of the Via-Baltica.
Public Transport
Vilnius has a  public transportation system.
There are over 60 bus and 19 trolleybus routes, the trolleybus network is one of the biggest in Europe.
Over 250 buses and 260 trolleybuses transport about 500,000 people every day.
In the end of year 2007 a new electronic monthly ticket system was introduced.
Vilnius Public Transport System
January–June
January – Giovanni da Verrazzano, on board La Dauphine in the service of Francis I of France, sets out from Madeira for the New World.
March 1 (approximate date) – da Verrazzano's expedition makes landfall at Cape Fear.
April 17 – da Verrazzano's expedition makes the first European entry into New York Bay and sights the island of Manhattan.
July–December
Summer – Paracelsus visits Salzburg.
He also visits Villach during the year.
July 8 – da Verrazzano's expedition returns to Dieppe.
August–September – Marseille is besieged by Imperial forces under the Duke of Bourbon.
October 28 – A French army invading Italy under King Francis besieges Pavia.
Luís de Camões, Portuguese poet (d. 1580)
Catherine Howard, Fifth Queen of Henry VIII of England, (born in between 1518 and 1524; d. 1542)
Pietro Perugino – Italian painter
June 12 – Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, Spanish conquistador (b. 1465)
July 20 – Claude of France, queen of Louis XII of France (b. 1499)
December 24 – Vasco da Gama, Portuguese explorer (b. c. 1469)
A fungus (plural: fungi) is a living organism that includes yeasts, moulds, mushrooms and others.
Fungi have thin thread-like cells called hyphae that absorb nutrients and hold the fungus in place.
Some, such as mushrooms, also have a body containing many cells.
Fungi do not have chlorophyll to capture energy from sunlight as plants do.
Instead, they are nourished by digesting dead organic matter around them and absorbing it.
The study of fungi is called mycology.
The cells of fungi have nuclei, unlike the cells of bacteria.
Hyphae sometimes have many nuclei.
Their cell walls contain chitin, unlike the cell walls of plants, which contain cellulose.
These and other differences show that the fungi form a single group of related organisms.
The group of fungi is called the Eumycota or Eumycetes.
They share a common ancestor: they are a monophyletic group.
Fungi are saprophytic: a fungus breaks down dead organic matter around it, and uses it as food.
It absorbs the molecules of food through its cell wall.p107 Some fungi are parasitic or symbiotic.
Fungi reproduce sexually and asexually in several different ways.
Many fungi make spores that grow into new fungi.
Fungi came into existence about 1000 million years ago.
They are found in fossils from the Devonian period, and they are probably much older.
They are hard to find in older fossils because they decay rapidly.
Fungi reproduce both sexually and asexually.
Some fungi grow mushrooms: these are fruiting bodies.
Under the cap there are gills; the gills bear spores that will disperse, and may develop into new fungi.
Otherwise, fungi use a sporangium to bear asexual spores by mitosis, or sexual spores by meiosis.
The spores are haploid.
Fungi may be single celled or multicellular.
Yeast is single-celled, and reproduces either sexually or asexually.
Asexual reproduction occurs by simple budding (binary fission).
The mycelium is the vegetative (non-reproductive) part of a fungus.
It is usually underground (or inside some other substance), and made of filaments called hyphae (singluar: hypha).
Hyphae
Hyphae look like threads or tiny roots.
The mycelium is a mat of hyphae that may be very thickly woven.
The fungus uses them to extract nutrients.
Each hypha is a long cell inside a tube-shaped cell wall that grows from the end.
Hyphae are usually syncytia.
This means the cell walls (septa) are mostly not complete, and the cell nuclei are not separated from each other as in normal cells.
Details differ between species.
Symbiosis means living together.
Lichens are a symbiosis between a fungus and an alga or bacterium.
In this partnership the algal cells live inside the fungus tissue.
The end result is a new mat-like life-form which clings to rock and other surfaces.
About 20% of all fungi live as part of a lichen.
Another important kind of symbiosis is mycorrhiza.
This is when a fungus lives inside plant roots; most trees have mycorrhizal roots, and so do many crop plants.
Both the fungus and the plant benefit in this arrangement.
Some fungi cause crop diseases; others cause serious disease in humans.
Some are highly poisonous: never eat a mushroom picked in the wild unless you know what you are doing.
Edible fungi are widely used as human food.
Certain types of cheese need a fungal species to be added.
Blue cheese and Camembert cheese are examples of those types of cheese.
The fungi give a unique flavor and texture to the cheese.
Some fungi produce psychotropic (mind-altering) substances.
Some people take these fungi recreationally for their psychedelic properties.
These psychedelic mushrooms are often called magic mushrooms because they can cause hallucinations.
As with any drug, their effect ends after a certain amount of time.
Most "magic mushrooms" last for 4 to 6 hours.
Because of their mind-altering effects they are illegal in many countries around the world.
However, scientists are also researching ways to use "magic mushrooms" as medicine.
In modern times, some fungi (for example, penicillin) have been used as a source of antibiotics.
The antibiotics are produced by many fungi as a natural defence against bacteria.
Guernsey is an island in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy.
It is one of the Channel Islands, and is the main administration island of the Bailiwick of Guernsey'.
Elizabeth II is the head of state, but it has a government of its own, with its own laws and special status when it comes to taxes.
Guernsey has 10 parishes.
These are
Guernsey has its own dialect of the Norman language, called Guernésiais.
It is spoken by only 2% of the population, but is understood by around 14%.
This means that only 1300 people speak it, and most of these people are elderly.
Only 1 in every 1000 young people can speak it.
Pottery is the ceramic material which makes up potteryware.
Major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain.
The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery (plural "potteries").
Pottery also refers to the art or craft of a potter or the making of pottery.
A dictionary definition is simply clay fired in a kiln.
Pottery objects are made from damp clay mixed with other materials.
They are then fired in a special oven called a kiln at high temperatures.
Firing makes the clay hard.
The potter may then apply a glaze to the surface before firing the object again.
The fired glaze makes the surface of the pottery shiny, decorative and water-tight.
Some potters make objects which are not useful and are really artistic objects or sculpture.
Bare pottery objects without a glaze are called bisque or just earthenware.
The finest pottery objects, made of porcelain or bone china are quite strong, yet are translucent.
History of pottery
Pottery originated before the Neolithic period.
The earliest example we have is from eastern Europe, dating to 25,000 years ago or earlier.
It is a female figurine known as the Venus of Dolní Věstonice, from a palaeolithic site in Moravia, Czech Republic.
It may have been made as part of a fertility ritual.
There are some similar figures from other nearby sites.
The Potteries
This means the area of Stoke-on-Trent in England, sometimes called the Staffordshire potteries.
There were six towns, Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton and Longton, which now make up Stoke-on-Trent.
The area was the centre of the English pottery industry.
The area had local supplies of clay, salt, lead and coal.
Canals were used to transport the product inland.
It was a large exporter of pottery for about 200 years: roughly from 1760 to about 1960.
Plastic crockery after World War II and cheap ceramic production in China largely destroyed the Stoke pottery industry.
There are certain rules as to how to format a movie script.
If these are not followed, then it is highly unlikely that it will ever be taken seriously.
In order to test the effectiveness of a script, actors will do a first reading of it.
If the format is not clear, then it will probably cause the actors confusion, and will make the task very difficult to complete.
Sacramento is the capital of the U.S. state of California.
The governor and legislature of California are in Sacramento.
About 400,000 people live in Sacramento.
About 1,700,000 live in and around Sacramento.
Sacramento comes from Spanish and Portuguese  for holy rite.
A sacrament is a religious act that gives people divine grace (being liked or favored by God.)
Sacramento was started in 1848 by John Sutter.
It was a very important place during the California Gold Rush.
The Gold Rush was the time after gold was found in California.
Many people came to California to find gold.
They did this to make money.
During the Gold Rush, Sacramento was where the railroad ended.
It was also where the Pony Express stopped.
Sacramento is near where the American River meets the Sacramento River.
This was important when Sacramento was founded.
It meant that ships could bring things to Sacramento from the Pacific Ocean.
Sacramento was a railroad town.
This made Sacramento a port town.
This made it a very important place for business.
Alexander Scriabin (also spelt: Skryabin) (born Moscow January 6 1872; died Moscow April 27 1915) was a famous Russian composer and pianist.
He wrote music for the orchestra and for the piano.
His music belongs to the Late Romantic period, but his later works sound quite modern, and he was influenced by Impressionism.
He had some very unusual ideas about combining all the arts into one work.
Scriabin was the only child in a family which had an aristocratic background.
He was always proud of having been born on Christmas Day (6 January is Christmas Day in the Russian Orthodox church).
His mother died when he was a year old and his father spent most of his time abroad working as a diplomat.
He was looked after by his aunt, grandmother and great-aunt, all of whom fussed over him so that he was a very spoilt child.
When he grew up he was very short and his hands could only just stretch one octave (eight notes) on the piano.
Scriabin was educated in the Moscow Cadet Corps.
He learned to play the piano and became friends with the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff who was just one year younger.
He won the second gold medal ever to be awarded at the Moscow Conservatoire (Rachmaninoff had won the first one).
He practised a piece called Islamey by Balakirev but damaged his right hand doing it.
He still managed to continue his career as a pianist, but he wrote a few piano pieces for the left hand only.
In 1895 he toured through many countries in Europe giving concerts and composing a lot of piano music.
He married in 1897.
He went with his wife to Odessa where he played his Piano Concerto and then spent several months in Paris.
He taught at the Moscow Conservatoire and wrote some important orchestral music.
Later he left his wife and children and went to Europe for several years with another woman.
She inspired a lot of his music.
Scriabin continued to travel and play the piano until the end of his life.
When he was in London in 1914 he had a boil on his lip, which got steadily worse until he died a year later.
Scriabin liked the music of Chopin and he wrote a lot of short pieces called Preludes which show Chopin’s influence.
As he got older his music became more and more personal.
He was very egocentric (thought only about himself and not about other people) and he had some strange ideas.
He wanted to write a work which combined all the arts and all the senses: music, dance, poetry, colours and even smells.
He wanted this work to be performed beside a lake in India.
This work was never finished or performed, and we do not know whether he seriously thought it would happen, but he did buy himself a sun helmet.
Scriabin tried using different harmonies in his music.
He had a favourite chord which he called his “mystic chord” (from the bottom upwards: C, F sharp, B flat, E, A, D).
He used it in lots of ways.
His orchestral works include a Piano Concerto, 3 symphonies, Le poème de l’extase (The poem of extasy) and Prométhée, le poème du feu (Prometheus, the poem of fire).
His music which is mysterious and dream-like and shares some similarity French Impressionist composers like Debussy.
Scriabin Society of America website
Scriabin biography and a description and pictures from the last place he lived, which has been preserved as a museum
1915 deaths
20th-century Russian composers
Musicians from Moscow
Russian pianists
Robert Gabriel Mugabe (21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean politician.
He was the President of Zimbabwe from 1987 to 2017.
Before that, he was Prime Minister, the head of government, after being elected in 1980.
For many years before he resigned, Mugabe ruled his country in the style of a dictator.
His first years as leader were prosperous.
He introduced land reforms, which were supposed to give the land owned by white people back to the "original" black owners.
This has had a serious impact on how the country is seen from outside.
In recent years, Mugabe has allowed violence against the white citizens of the country as well as to opposition leaders of all races.
The reforms were done in 1998.
In 2001, the United Nations imposed sanctions against Zimbabwe.
This was done because human rights abuses came to the attention of the United Nations.
On November 15, 2017, he was placed under house arrest as Zimbabwe's military took control in a coup.
It ended his rule of 40 years.
Mugabe was hospitalized in April 2019, making the last of several trips to Singapore for medical treatment.
He died on 6 September 2019 at a Singapore hospital, at the age of 95.
The cause of death was prostate cancer.
Presidents of Zimbabwe
Prime Ministers of Zimbabwe
African Union chairpersons
The Co-operative Republic of Guyana (formerly British Guiana) is a country in South America.
It is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world (700,000 people live there inside its over 200,000 km² of area).
Georgetown is the capital; like most of the country's settlements, it is on a flat coastal plain that goes from northwest to southeast.
Venezuela claims the land west of the Essequibo River as part of Guayana Esequiba.
Guyana's current president is Irfaan Ali.
The country gained independence from the United Kingdom on May 26, 1966 (before which it was called British Guiana).
The republic is called cooperative for integrating different ethnic groups into government, introduced after the socialist government PNC won a majority in1968.
The term "cooperative republic" however dates back from 1961.
List of Guyanese people
President's Official Website
Guyana Portal
Guyana in the News
Travel information on Guyana
BBC's profile
1966 establishments in South America
Sen no Rikyu (, 1522–1591) made important and lasting changes to the Japanese tea ceremony.
He was a follower of Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Besides the tea ceremony, Rikyu practiced ikebana and wrote poetry.
He also studied zen.
1522 births
1591 deaths
People from Osaka Prefecture
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer, poet and playwright.
He wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the plays Salomé, The Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband, and Lady Windermere's Fan.
Wilde was bisexual.
He was married, and had two children.
His downfall came as a result of his affair with a younger man, Lord Alfred Douglas.
Wilde, born in Ireland in 1854, was an outstanding classical scholar at Trinity College, Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford University.
In London, he worked as a journalist for four years.
Known for his biting wit, flamboyant clothes, and glittering conversation, Wilde was one of the best known personalities of the day.
It was his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, which brought him full recognition.
Then he turned to writing drama.
He wrote Salomé in French in Paris in 1891, but it was refused a licence.
Despite this, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London.
At the height of his fame and success—his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest, was still on stage in London—Wilde sued his lover's father for libel.
After a series of trials, Wilde was convicted of gross indecency with other men and sentenced to two years of hard labour in Reading Gaol (jail).
In prison he wrote De Profundis, a long letter which discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure.
Upon his release he left immediately for France, never to return to the British Isles.
There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a long poem commemorating prison life.
Living in a Paris hotel, he was destitute, with little money and few friends.
His last memorable words were: "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death.
One of us has got to go".p546 He died of cerebral meningitis in Paris at the age of forty-six.
The affair
Wilde's lover was the son of the Marquess of Queensbury, who was known for his outspoken atheism, brutish manner and creation of the modern rules of boxing.
Queensberry, who argued a lot with his son, confronted Wilde and Lord Alfred about the nature of their relationship.
In June 1894, he visited Wilde at 16 Tite Street without an appointment, and said: "If I catch you and my son again in any public restaurant I will thrash you."
Wilde vs Queensberry
Wilde, egged on by Douglas and against the advice of his friends, initiated a private prosecution against Queensberry, and had him arrested on a charge of criminal libel.
As sodomy was then a crime, Queensberry's note amounted to a public accusation that Wilde had committed a felony, forming the legal basis for libel charges.
Queensberry could avoid conviction for libel only by demonstrating that his accusation was, in fact, true.
In his opening speech for the defence, Counsel for Queensbury, Edward Carson, announced that he had found several male prostitutes who were to testify that they had sex with Wilde.
On the advice of his lawyers, Wilde then decided to drop the libel prosecution against Queensberry.
Queensberry was found not guilty, as the court declared that his accusation that Wilde was "posing as a sodomite" was justified, "true in substance and in fact".
The Crown vs Wilde
After Wilde left the court, a warrant for his arrest was applied for on charges of sodomy and gross indecency.
Friends found Wilde at a hotel; they advised him to go to Dover and try to get a boat to France.
His mother advised him to stay and fight like a man.
Wilde was duly arrested and then imprisoned on remand at Holloway, where he received daily visits from Douglas.
Events moved quickly.
His prosecution opened on the 26 April 1895 and Wilde pleaded not guilty.
He had already begged Douglas to leave London for Paris, and Douglas fled to the Hotel du Monde.
Under cross examination Wilde was at first hesitant, then spoke eloquently:
Charles Gill (prosecuting): What is "the love that dare not speak its name?"
Wilde: " 'The love that dare not speak its name' in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare.
It is that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect.
It dictates and pervades great works of art, like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are.
It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may be described as 'the love that dare not speak its name', and on that account of it I am placed where I am now.
It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection.
There is nothing unnatural about it.
It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an older and a younger man, when the older man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him.
That it should be so, the world does not understand.
The world mocks at it, and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it".
This response was, however, counterproductive in a legal sense as it only served to reinforce the charges of homosexual behaviour.
The trial ended with the jury unable to reach a verdict.
Wilde's counsel, Sir Edward Clark, was finally able to agree bail.
The Reverend Stewart Headlam put up most of the £5,000 bail, having disagreed with Wilde's treatment by the press and the courts.
Wilde was freed from Holloway and, shunning attention, went into hiding at the house of Ernest and Ada Leverson, two of his firm friends.
Edward Carson approached Frank Lockwood (QC) and asked "Can we not let up on the fellow now?"p435 Lockwood answered that he would like to do so, but feared that the case had become too politicised to be dropped.
At the final trial, Wilde and Alfred Taylor were convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years' hard labour.
The judge described the sentence as "totally inadequate for a case such as this", although it was the maximum sentence allowed for the charge under the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885.
Wilde's response "And I?
May I say nothing, my Lord?"
was drowned out in cries of "Shame" in the courtroom.
I have the simplest tastes.
I am always satisfied with the best.
We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.
On George Bernard Shaw: An excellent man: he has no enemies, and none of his friends like him.
Hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.
Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.
Anybody can make history.
Only a great man can write it.
Truth, in the matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.
The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.
I can resist everything except temptation. (
Lord Darlington in Lady Windermere's Fan)
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it. (
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. (
What a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us. (
Lady Windermere)
In this world there are only two tragedies.
One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. (
Mr Dumby)
Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. (
The English country gentleman galloping after a fox—the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable. (
Lord Illingworth)
Children love their parents.
Eventually they come to judge them.
Rarely do they forgive them. (
Mrs. Arbuthnot)
To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
Be yourself, everyone else is taken.
The Canterville Ghost (1887)
The Happy Prince and Other Stories (1888)
Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories (1891)
Intentions (1891)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
A House of Pomegranates (1891)
The Soul of Man under Socialism (First published in the Pall Mall Gazette, 1891, first book publication 1904)
De Profundis (1905)
The Letters of Oscar Wilde (1960) This was rereleased in 2000, with letters uncovered since 1960, and new, detailed, footnotes by Merlin Holland.
Teleny or The Reverse of the Medal (Paris,1893)
Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880)