the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
X Japan is a Japanese rock band.
They were formed in 1982 by Yoshiki.
They have sold over 30 million albums and singles and over 2 million videos to date.
X Japan stopped making music in 1997, but reunited in 2007.
They performed their first world tour live in Hong Kong in 2009.
They played to 20,000 people in two days.
Vanishing Vision (1988)
Blue Blood (1989)
Jealousy (1991)
Art of Life (1993)
Dahlia (1996)
Japanese heavy metal bands
Visual kei bands
1982 establishments in Japan
The State Anthem of the Soviet Union was the national anthem of the Soviet Union from 1944 until 1991.
It replaced the old one, which was a Russian translation of The Internationale.
The music was created around 1938 by Alexander Alexandrov, a great Russian composer who earlier started the Alexandrov Ensemble.
The original lyrics were by Sergey Mikhalkov and Gabriel El-Registan and first written in 1943.
They mentioned Joseph Stalin by his name as well as the Great Patriotic War.
When Stalin died in 1953, the lyrics were no longer appropriate and so the music was performed without them.
For the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution in 1977, the lyrics were brought back, but changed so that they do not mention Stalin or the war.
This song was in use until the Soviet Union broke down in 1991.
Until then, most of the republics of the Soviet Union also had their own anthem, but the Russian SSR did not until 1990.
After Russia became independent, the Russian SSR anthem, which used a melody by Mikhail Glinka and had no official words, became the Russian national anthem.
But in 2000, the newly elected President, Vladimir Putin, decided to bring back the melody of the Soviet anthem.
He had new words written to it by Sergey Mikhalkov, the same person who wrote the original Soviet anthem.
Below is the Russian and the English versions of the lyrics; both can be sung to the music.
Like "The Internationale", there are also other versions of the Soviet anthem in different languages.
1977 lyrics
Official Russian lyrics
Official English translation
Unbreakable Union of freeborn Republics,
Great Russia has welded forever to stand.
Created in struggle by will of the people,
United and mighty, our Soviet land!
Sing to the Motherland, home of the free,
Bulwark of peoples in brotherhood strong.
O Party of Lenin, the strength of the people,
To Communism's triumph lead us on!
Through tempests the sunrays of freedom have cheered us,
Along the new path where great Lenin did lead.
To a righteous cause he raised up the peoples,
Inspired them to labour and valourous deed.
In the victory of Communism's deathless ideal,
We see the future of our dear land.
And to her fluttering scarlet banner,
Selflessly true we always shall stand!
Original 1944 version
The 1944 text had three different refrains following three different stanzas; in each refrain, the second line was consequently modified with references to friendship, then happiness and finally the glory.
In 1977, these refrains were replaced by a uniform refrain following all stanzas.
English translation of the 1944 version
The Russian [Soviet] republics, in freedom united,
Great shall your glory be, Motherland proud and free,
Bulwark of friendship for nation and man!
Flag of the Soviet, lead us to victory,
Flag of the people since freedom began!
Bulwark of happiness for nation and man!
Bulwark of glory for nation and man!
Anthem of the Bolshevik Party
The Hymn of the Bolshevik Party (Гимн партии большевиков / Gimn partii boljševikov) uses the same melody as the Soviet anthem, but with different lyrics by Vasily Lebedev-Kumach.
The opening bars of the song is sampled from Life has Become Better (Жить стало лучше / Žitj stalo lučše), one of Alexandrov's previous pieces.
From the 1930s to the 1950s, this served as the unofficial anthem of the Bolshevik Party.
In 2016, Communists of Russia—a Russian communist party—declared that this piece is their party anthem.
1944 establishments in the Soviet Union
Minimalism is a way of making modern art or music that uses simple ideas, sounds or shapes.
It was most popular in America in the 1960s and 1970s.
There are many different kinds of minimalism.
Sometimes a simple thing is repeated many times until it seems very complicated.
Today minimalism can be used to talk about many things such as design, architecture, poetry, and movies.
In music, minimalism is a way of composing classical music which became popular during the second half of the 20th century.
It is a way of composing by using a simple idea which is repeated many times.
A minimalist piece of music usually takes a short idea which may be a melodic or a rhythmic pattern.
This idea is then repeated many times, but each time it changes slightly.
Sometimes this may be done by two or more instruments which start off by playing their notes or chords together but, as one is going slightly faster than the other, they gradually become “out of sync” (not synchronized, i.e. not together), then eventually they catch up with one another again.
Usually this music is tonal so that it is firmly in one key.
A steady pulse is kept throughout the whole piece.
Composers who wrote minimalist music include Steve Reich (b.1936), Philip Glass (b.1937) and Terry Riley (b.1935).
Other composers like John Adams (b.1947) have also used minimalist ways of composing, but they combined these with other techniques, so that their music is not just minimalist.
Minimalist music became popular in the 1960s and 1970s.
Minimalist composers started writing like this, also because a lot of new music at that time was very complicated and hard to understand.
It was often serial music which was atonal with no obvious melodies or ideas that were easy to remember.
Minimalist music is not necessarily simple.
It can have a kind of hypnotic effect, but this is part of what the composer wants.
Reich’s Clapping Music just consists of hand : there is no melody.
He was thinking of African drum music when he wrote it.
Two performers begin by clapping a rhythm together.
After 13 seconds the second performer leaves out the first quaver (eighth note) and puts it at the end of the second bar (measure).
After another 13 seconds this happens again so that in the end the two performers are together again.
This music has to be listened to in a different way from other kinds of music.
Visual art
Minimalism in visual art, sometimes referred to as literalist art and ABC Art emerged in New York in the 1960s.
As a product it had much in common with earlier geometric abstraction and suprematism.
One of the first artists specifically associated with Minimalism was the painter, Frank Stella, whose early "stripe" paintings were highlighted in the 1959 show, "16 Americans", organized by Dorothy Miller at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The width of the stripes in Frank Stellas's stripe paintings were determined by the dimensions of the lumber, visible as the depth of the painting when viewed from the side, used to construct the supportive chassis upon which the canvas was stretched.
The decisions about structures on the front surface of the canvas were therefore not entirely subjective, but pre-conditioned by a "given" feature of the physical construction of the support.
In the show catalog, Carl André noted, "Art excludes the unnecessary.
Frank Stella has found it necessary to paint stripes.
There is nothing else in his painting".
They leaned more towards the controlled, somber color field paintings of Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko.
Although Stella received immediate attention from the MOMA show, artists like Kenneth Noland, Ralph Humphrey, Robert Motherwell and Robert Ryman had begun to explore stripes, monochromatic and hard-edge formats from the late 50s through the 1960s.
Igor Stravinsky was born in Lomonosov (then Oranienbaum), 17 June 1882 and died in New York, 6 April 1971.
He was one of the most important composers of the 20th century, and a leader in modernism in music.
He was brought up in Russia.
When the Russian Revolution started he moved to Switzerland and then to Paris, and finally, when World War II started in 1939, he moved to the United States.
Stravinsky wrote music in different styles.
At first he wrote music similar to his teacher Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
He loved his native Russian music.
He wrote music which had very complicated chords and rhythms.
It is lively music, and some of his best known works of this kind were written for the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev: The Firebird, Petrushka, The Rite of Spring, Les noces, Pulcinella and Apollo musagète.
They were written from 1910 to 1928.
Then he changed his style and wrote in what is called a “neo-classical” way.
He based it on music from the Classical music period but changed it.
His only full-length opera The Rake's Progress was written in this way.
In his later years he wrote serial music.
Igor was the third of four children, all boys.
As a child he spent the winter months in St Petersburg and the summers in the country where several of his relatives on his mother’s side had large estates.
Igor was not particularly good at school, but he often went to see the operas in which his father Fyodor was performing.
Fyodor was an opera singer with a fine bass voice.
He sang at the opera house in Kiev and later at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg.
Igor also went to ballets and even heard Tchaikovsky conduct in 1893, at the end of his life.
For a time Stravinsky studied law at the university of St Petersburg, but gave up in 1906.
Then he married one of his cousins.
They soon had a son and a daughter.
Meanwhile, since his school days, Igor played the piano, and had lessons in harmony and counterpoint.
He enjoyed improvising and he started to be interested in composing.
He wrote some short piano pieces and showed them to the composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the father of a friend.
Rimsky-Korsakov told him he ought to continue to have private music lessons instead of going to the conservatoire.
Shortly after this, Stravinsky’s father died.
Igor went to stay with Rimsky-Korsakov.
He met many musical people there, and Rimsky-Korsakov taught him how to write for the different instruments.
In 1905, he began to take twice-weekly private lessons from Rimsky-Korsakov, whom he came to regard as a second father.
These lessons continued until Rimsky-Korsakov's death in 1908.
In 1908 Rimsky-Korsakov died.
Stravinsky met Sergei Diaghilev, the ballet impresario.
Diaghilev wanted to put on performances of new operas and ballets.
He needed a composer to write the music and saw that Stravinsky might be the ideal person.
He asked him to write music for a ballet called The Firebird, which was a Russian fairytale.
Stravinsky wrote it at Rimsky-Korsakov’s country house and finished it in St Petersburg.
The ballet was first performed at the Paris Opéra on 25 June 1910 by the Ballets Russes who were very famous in Europe.
Mikhail Fokin was the choreographer.
It has remained one of Stravinsky’s most famous pieces of music.
Some of the music is often performed in a concert hall without the dancing.
This version is called a “suite” (literally “a collection of dances”).
It shows his love of Russian folk melody.
The success of The Firebird made Stravinsky world famous.
His music was especially well known in Europe, and in Paris where the Ballets Russes were based.
The next work Stravinsky wrote for them was Petrouchka.
It was the story of a puppet which comes to life.
It was performed in Paris on 13 June 1911 and became just as famous as The Firebird.
This music, too, is often performed as a concert piece.
Stravinsky also made an arrangement of three of the dances for piano solo.
It is very hard to play and needs a virtuoso pianist.
Stravinsky was becoming well known among musicians.
His friends included Debussy and Ravel.
He met Schoenberg in Berlin and was very impressed by his piece called Pierrot Lunaire.
He spent a lot of his time with his family in Switzerland where he had peace and quiet to compose.
On 29 May 1913 a new ballet by Stravinsky called The Rite of Spring was performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris.
It was an absolute sensation.
Some people loved it and others hated it.
There was a big fight in the theatre and the police were called in.
People were shouting so much that no one could hear the music.
Stravinsky became ill afterwards and spent some weeks to recover.
When the ballet was performed again people were quieter and listened to the music.
There were lots of new ideas in the music: harsh chords and very complicated rhythms.
The music of The Rite of Spring had an great influence on the development of music in the 20th century.
Stravinsky’s next idea for a ballet was Les noces, French for 'The Wedding'.
Stravinsky went back to Russia to collect some things that would help him to compose it.
When he returned to Switzerland World War I started.
The war years
Stravinsky’s family spent most of their time in Switzerland during the war.
He was short of money because there was no more income from the Russian estates.
The Ballets Russes could not perform any more in Paris.
Stravinsky spent a lot of time working at Les Noces.
He finished it in 1917 and played it to Diaghilev.
It was another six years before it was performed.
Stravinsky eventually chose to arrange it for four pianos, percussion, chorus and vocal soloists.
It was performed at the Théâtre de la Gaîté Lyrique on 13 June 1923.
Because Switzerland was neutral in the war, Stravinsky was able to travel.
He went to Italy where he met Gerald Tyrwhitt (who later became Lord Berners) and Prokofiev.
He wrote Reynard and Rag-Time.
He performed in America with Ballets Russes.
When the Russian Revolution broke out in February 1917 Stravinsky thought this would be good, but when the Bolshevik Revolution followed it became obvious that he would never be able to go back to Russia.
He wrote L’histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale).
It was performed in Lausanne with Ernest Ansermet conducting.
There would have been more performances but many people had influenza.
When the war ended Stravinsky decided to move to France.
He wrote a ballet called Pulcinella which was based on music by the 18th century composer Pergolesi.
It was performed at the Paris Opéra on 15 May 1920.
For some years Igor became interested in the music of the late 18th century, and the style of his work after 1920 is often described as neoclassical.
In 1920 Stravinsky’s family moved from Stravinsky to Brittany, then the following year they moved to Biarritz.
Stravinsky composed a piece called Symphonies for Wind Instruments.
It was soon performed in London at a concert which also included The Rite of Spring, conducted by Eugene Goossens in the Queen's Hall.
He met a theatre designer called Serge Soudeikine and fell madly in love with Vera, who would later become his second wife.
Meanwhile, his first wife, Katerina, was in a sanitorium suffering from tuberculosis.
Vera and Stravinsky saw one another as much as possible for the next 18 years.
Meanwhile, Stravinsky’s mother managed to get out of Russia and she joined Stravinsky’s family in Biarritz.
Stravinsky had to support a large family, and he decided he needed to work more as a conductor and pianist instead of composing large works.
He composed smaller pieces, including the piano version of three dances from Petrouchka.
Later, when his son was grown up, he composed a Concerto for two solo pianos for himself to play with his son.
He did not compose any more for the Ballets Russes, but he did compose Oedipus rex as a special tribute to them.
This work was a mixture of opera and oratorio.
The words were in Latin and were written by Jean Cocteau.
It was performed as a concert performance.
Although he did not write for Diaghilev any more, he accepted an invitation from Ida Rubinstein to write a ballet called Le baiser de la fée (The fairy’s kiss) which was based on music by Tchaikovsky.
Diaghilev was annoyed, but then he died in 1929 and the Ballets Russes company no longer carried on.
In 1926 Stravinsky, who belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church, had a deep religious experience which effected his music.
The best of these religious pieces is the Symphony of Psalms, written for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 50th birthday celebrations.
Stravinsky met the violinist Dushkin and composed a Violin Concerto as well as the Duo concertante for violin and piano which the two musicians played together at many concerts.
He became more and more in demand in the United States and wrote several works for American people.
He was offered a job as professor at Harvard University.
At this time a lot of his family were ill.
Then his daughter died, his wife died and his mother died.
He was ill himself.
Then, by September 1939, just as World War II started, he was well enough to travel to North America.
American years
Stravinsky was immediately invited to conduct many concerts in America.
Vera arrived in America four months later and she and Stravinsky were married in Bedford, Massachusetts.
They applied for American citizenship and settled in Hollywood.
He was quite short of money and he accepted any invitation to compose music.
He even accepted a private pupil.
Stravinsky composed a mass.
It was not commissioned, he just wanted to compose it.
It was performed in La Scala, Milan, in 1948 conducted by Ansermet.
He then decided to compose a full-length opera in English.
This was The Rake’s Progress.
It was first performed in Venice in 1951.
It is the best of his works in the neo-classical style.
Another work from this period is his Symphony in C. It shows a different way of composing tonal music to the tonal works of classical composers.
He met a musician called Robert Craft who came to live with the family and helped Stravinsky sort out his compositions and papers.
He was surprised to find that Stravinsky never visited Schoenberg, who only lived a few streets away.
After Schoenberg died in 1951 Craft encouraged Stravinsky to listen to Schoenberg’s serial music.
Soon Stravinsky started to use serialism in his own compositions.
Craft travelled with Stravinsky and helped him a great deal, for example, by conducting some of the concerts, or rehearsing the orchestras before Stravinsky came.
In 1962 he was invited to the White House by President Kennedy.
In the same year he returned to Russia for a visit.
He had not been there for nearly half a century.
It was a great success, and people in the USSR became more interested in Stravinsky’s music.
It made Stravinsky very happy to know that Russians were interested in him again.
During his last years he became rather ill.
Threni is one of his last compositions.
It is a setting of the parts of the Lamentations of Jeremiah for voices and orchestra.
He composed other religious works including Requiem Canticles.
In 1969 he moved with his family to New York where he died two years later.
Craft, Robert.
Stravinsky: glimpses of a life.
London: Lime Tree; New York: St Martins Press.
(Lime Tree);  (St.Martins).
Stravinsky: chronicle of a friendship, revised and expanded edition.
Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. .
Stravinsky, Igor.
An Autobiography.
New York: Norton. .
Originally published in French as Chroniques de ma vie, 2 vols.
Paris: Denoël et Steele, 1935; translated as Chronicle of my life.
London: Gollancz, 1936.
Reprinted as An Autobiography (1903–1934) London: Boyars, 1990  (cased);  (pbk).
Also published as Igor Stravinsky: an autobiography New York: Steuer, 1958.
Emilio de Villota Ruíz (born in Madrid, July 26, 1946) is a former racing driver from Spain.
He participated in 15 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on May 2, 1976.
Spanish sportspeople
The standard covers two TAE types: F ("Fernsprechgerät": for telephones) and N ("Nebengerät": for other devices such as answering machines and modems).
Pin-out
Electrical connectors
Because it has not happened yet, nobody really knows what the technological singularity will do, or if it will even happen.
Nonetheless, the technological singularity has been a subject in many science fiction works, such as The Terminator, The Matrix, and the Borg in Star Trek.
In most depictions of the singularity, machines have consciousness and humans are considered to be useless.
The futurist (who studies about the future) and inventor Ray Kurzweil believes the Singularity will happen about the year 2045.
The major impetus driving toward the singularity, according to Kurzweil, is that according to Moore's Law, computers are doubling in memory capacity every 18 months.
According to Kurzweil, by 2029, computers will be as intelligent as human beings (see artificial intelligence).
Technological Singularity subreddit
The Technological Singularity and Merging with Machines - BigThink.com
Mew (ミュウ, Myuu) is a fictional character from the Pokémon franchise.
In the Pokémon video games, it is a Psychic-type secret Pokémon that was discovered in the first group of Pokémon games: Pokémon Red and Blue, Green, and Yellow.
Mew is the Red/Blue/Green/Yellow counterpart to the Gold/Silver/Crystal Celebi and the Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald Jirachi.
The name "Mew" refers to the sound made by a cat.
Mew was secretly put in the game by one of the lead programmers, Shigeki Morimoto.
When the Game Freak president, Satoshi Tajiri, found out about it, he told about it being in the game.
Mew is #151 in the Pokédex and could only be obtained through special events or by using a cheating device like Gameshark, or a game-enhancing device.
Mew can also be obtained in the original issues of the Pokémon yellow and blue (US) by “cheat”.
If you get a Pokémon early on (before going to Misty’s gym or defeating man to the left of the nugget bridge) that has growl (charmander has it from the start) and an Abra or a Pokémon that can fly but you can’t fly this early in game (you can get an abra in the grass next to the nugget bridge but be careful not to battle the man standing above that grass he’s needed later.
After this go to the health center and heal, then go to the top of the nugget bridge and save.
Head down to Misty’s gym, go straight and take a right and challenge hit the guy trainer in a pool to the right use growl 6 times on his shelder then defeat him.
Go back to the top of the nugget bridge and take a left to engage in battle with that man but press start right when you do and he should have a ❗️ Over his head when you hit teleport (restart if you start the fight) and teleport back to the health center.
Then run up the nugget bridge making sure to have a load of poke balls and the last Pokémon you fought was that shelder after using growl on him 6 times, and you should have a random encounter with Mew.
Also if you fight a Pokémon that’s low enough in level not to level your Mew up to level 2, it will automatically level up to 100.
Mewtwo is a "Genetic" species of Pokémon that is number 150 in the Pokédex.
Mewtwo was cloned from Mew by scientists.
It is a Psychic type Pokémon.
Mewtwo appeared in two movies: Pokémon: The First Movie and Pokémon: Mewtwo Returns.
In Pokémon Red and Blue the player first learns of Mewtwo by research papers left in a ruined laboratory on Cinnabar Island.
Mewtwo is told to be a mutant child of Mew made after years of work by one scientist.
Mewtwo is obtainable in the Cerulean Cave, which opens after defeating the Elite Four.
In the remakes Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen the player now has to  get 60 Pokédex entries before they can go in the cave.
In Pokémon X and Y, Mewtwo can be found in the Unknown Dungeon after entering the Hall of Fame.
It can Mega Evolve into two different forms: Mega Mewtwo X using Mewtwonite X and Mega Mewtwo Y using Mewtwonite Y.
Mewtwo is a character in Super Smash Bros. Melee, and is one of eleven playable characters that can be unlocked in the game.
It uses the moves Shadow Ball, Confusion, Teleport, and Disable
Fictional characters introduced in 1996
da:Mew (Pokémon)
pl:Lista Pokémonów (141-160)#Mew
Avignon (; ) is a commune in southeastern France in the department of Vaucluse on the left bank of the Rhône river.
It is the capital (prefecture) of the Vaucluse department.
The historical centre, which includes the Palais des Papes, the cathedral, and the Pont d'Avignon, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.
The medieval monuments and the annual Festival d'Avignon have helped to make the town a major centre for tourism.
Аὐενιὼν = Auenion
Άουεννίων = Aouennion (Ptolemy II, x).
The Roman name Avennĭo Cavarum (Mela, II, 575, Pliny III, 36), i.e. "Avignon of Cavares" shows that Avignon was one of the three cities of the tribe of Cavares, along with Cavaillon and Orange.
Avignon is on the left bank of the Rhône river, a few kilometres above its confluence with the Durance, about  southeast of Paris,  south of Lyon and  northwest of Marseille.
It has an area of  and its average altitude is ; at the city hall, the altitude is .
Avignon is surrounded by the communes Sorgues, Le Pontet, Vedène, Morières-lès-Avignon and Caumont-sur-Durance and the departments Bouches-du-Rhône (communes of Noves, Châteaurenard, Rognonas and Barbentane) and Gard (communes of Les Angles and Villeneuve-lès-Avignon).
The Rhône, the Durance (tributary of the Rhône and the L'Anguillon (tributary of the Durance) are the rivers flow through the commune.
The Rhône passes the western edge of the city but is divided into two branches: the Petit Rhône for the part that passes next to Avignon, and the Grand Rhône for the western channel which passes Villeneuve-lès-Avignon in the Gard department.
The two branches are separated by an island, the Île de la Barthelasse.
The Durance flows along the southern boundary of the commune into the Rhône and marks the departmental boundary with Bouches-du-Rhône.
The average temperature for the year in Avignon is .
The average amount of precipitation for the year in Avignon is .
The month with the least precipitation on average is January with an average of .
The inhabitants of Avignon are known, in French, as Avignonnais (women: Avignonnaises).
With a population of 92,209, Avignon has a population density of  inhabitants/km2.
Avignon is the prefecture of the Vaucluse department since 1793.
It is also the capital of the arrondissement of Avignon and the administrative centre () of three cantons, all formed with part of the commune:
Avignon-1 : 30,134 inhabitants  (2014)
Avignon-2 : 34,426 inhabitants (2014)
Avignon-3 : 35,749 inhabitants (27,649 in Avignon and 8,100 in Morières-lès-Avignon) (2014)
It is part of the intercommunality Grand Avignon ().
Guanajuato (Mexico) since 1990.
Ioannina (Greece) since 1984.
New Haven (USA) since 1993.
Siena (Italy) since 1981.
Tarragona (Spain) since 1968.
Wetzlar (Germany) since 1960.
The Notre Dame des Doms cathedral (12th century).
The Palais des Papes ("Papal Palace") (14th century).
The Pont d'Avignon (the Pont Saint-Bénézet), a bridge best known for the famous French song Sur le pont d'Avignon.
Ville de Avignon - official website
Avignon Tourist Office
Avignon greater metropolitan area website
Avignon theatre festival website
Marseille (Occitan: Marselha) is a city in the south of France in the Bouches-du-Rhône department.
About 1.7 million people live in the metropolitan area, and about 850,000 in the city itself.
This makes it the second largest city in France by number of people.
Its commercial port  is the biggest in France and one of the most important in the Mediterranean sea.
Although part of the region of Provence, Marseilles has its own history.
This city is the oldest in France and probably the most complex.
The city was started around 600 BC by Greek sailors from Phocaea (modern day Foça, near İzmir).
This was a Greek colony in Asia Minor that is in what is now Turkey.
Marseille has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Csa in the Koeppen climate classification).
Halo 2 is an award winning first-person shooter video game made by Bungie Studios and published by Microsoft for its own Xbox console.
It was released all over the world on November 9, 2004.
It is the second game in the Halo series the first being Halo: Combat Evolved and the third being Halo 3.
A Windows Vista version of the game was released in 2007.
The game's story is based around a future war between a fictional confederation of alien races known as the Covenant and the human race.
The player takes the role of Master Chief, a genetically enhanced super soldier who fights for mankind.
The player is helped in their fight against the Covenant by human marines.
The game had many features that were not in the original Halo such as extra vehicles, weapons and a greatly improved multiplayer mode, including the ability to play over Xbox Live.
Halo 2 was the most popular Xbox Live game on its release.
It held that title until the release of Gears of War nearly two years later.
By June 20, 2006 over 500 million games of Halo 2 had been played over Xbox Live.
It was, and still is, the best selling Xbox game of all time with over 8 million copies sold worldwide.
It broke sales records in the US, many of which were only broken by its sequel Halo 3 in 2007.
The Windows Vista version in 2007 was less successful as the fact it was released 3 years after the Xbox version gained many negative reviews.
Halo 2 is a science fiction first-person shooter based mostly on foot but with vehicle combat sections.
Halo 2 has many features that were not in the original Halo.
In Halo 2 players have the option to use two weapons at once, called dual wielding.
This allows the player much more firepower but does not allow the throwing of grenades.
The player can hold up to two weapons at once or three when dual wielding.
Weapons range from normal human weapons such as pistols and shotguns up to heavy weapons like rocket launchers and sniper rifles.
The player can also carry alien weapons like plasma rifles and needlers.
The story mode continues the story started in Halo: Combat Evolved.
There are nine levels in the story, split between controlling Master Chief and the alien Arbiter.
There are four difficulties to the campaign easy, standard, heroic and legendary Completing them unlocks extras such as different dialogue in certain sections of the game, and extra weapons in split-screen multiplayer.
There are various 'skulls' at hidden parts of the levels, as in Halo 3.
These skulls unlock helpful and or strange differences in the levels such as confetti and balloons appearing when the player scores a head shot.
The story can be played two player on the same console but not over Xbox Live.
Halo 2 allows up to four players to play on the same console or up to sixteen over Xbox Live.
The game was influential in changing the way games played over the internet.
Before in most online multiplayer games, one player was the host who used their own connection for the game and chose the settings, game type etc.
In Halo 2, and most games since, players choose a type of game they want to play and the game matches them with players of their own ability on a randomly chosen map.
The game is set in the same fictional world as the rest of the Halo series.
Much of the game takes place in the future year 2552, over 500 years from now.
In the story line humans have developed faster than light travel, and now live on many planets  and moons of the Solar System.
On humanity's first try to build a settlement on a planet around another star they met the alien Covenant.
The Covenant declared religious war on humanity.
At the start of Halo 2 humans are losing the war and the Covenant have just discovered Earth.
The Halo of the game's title is the name of a series of planets 'built' by a mysterious race called the Forerunners a long time before the game.
The Halo's are the last defense against another alien race known as the Flood.
The Flood want to use every living thing in the galaxy for food.
The Halo's are actually giant super weapons, that when activated kill all life in the galaxy.
This is the only way to stop the Flood, to starve them by killing all their food.
The Covenant are not aware of this and are attempting to fire Halos as part of a false religious prophecy.
In the first Halo game, Halo: Combat Evolved, the humans and Master Chief manage  to stop the Covenant from firing one of the Halos.
They also destroy one of them in the process.
Just before Halo 2 begins the covenant discover another Halo that can only be got through a portal found near Earth.
The game opens with the torture of an alien, the leader of the Elites.
He is being tortured by the covenant because he failed to stop Master Chief destroying the first Halo in the original game.
The Elite commander is branded by the leader of the Brutes, another part of the Covenant.
The player then takes control of Master Chief, on board a spacecraft orbiting the Earth when the massive Covenant fleet arrives.
The Covenant have come to take the portal that will allow them to get to the new Halo so they can fire it.
The Covenant board the ship the player is aboard, and attempt to plant bombs to disable it and the other ships in the human fleet.
The player must fight through Covenant forces to disable the bombs.
Once this is complete the human ship heads off, following the Covenant flagship that just flew past.
Meanwhile, in the cutscene we see the former elite commander being made into a religious warrior known as the Arbiter to make up for his failure to stop Master Chief in the original Halo.
In another cutscene a human ship with Master Chief,Johnson and Cortana aboard follows the covenant ship through the portal to the new Halo.
The player must now take control of Chief as he battles to stop the Covenant from firing the ring.
Eventually the player kills the Prophet of Regret, a Covenant leader, and stops the Halo from being fired.
Unfortunately before the player can recover the Index, the control for firing the Halo, they are captured by the leader of the Flood, known as the Gravemind.
In a cutscene we see the new Arbiter sent down to the Halo to recover the Index before Chief can destroy it.
When he arrives though, he and his followers are betrayed and their former allies begin to attack.
Here the player must control Arbiter and his followers as they attempt to escape the betrayal and ambush.
The arbiter is eventually also captured by the Gravemind and meets up with Master Chief.
The two of them break free of Gravemind, whose Flood followers have now taken over a huge Covenant ship called High Charity.
Arbiter and Chief, now controlled by the player again, race to the Halo control to stop the Covenant from firing the ring one last time.
They are successful in stopping the Covenant, but the Prophet of Truth, the last of their leaders escapes on a spacecraft unharmed.
Chiefs AI companion Cortana stays behind on the Halo, promising to destroy it if any Covenant ever return.
Chief and the Arbiter part ways with Chief hiding out on a fleeing Covenant ship and the Arbiter and his followers returning to High Charity in an attempt to save it from the Flood.
Development and release
Halo 2 was officially announced in 2002.
A game play video was shown at E3 2003.
The video showed new features in the game such as dual wielding and the improved graphics.
According to Bungie, the cliffhanger ending of the games story was not originally intended but was a result of the rush to get the game out on time.
Reviews and Sales
Halo 2 was first released in North America and Australia on November 9, 2004.
It was launched in Europe a day later on November 10.
Demand was high for the game and over 1.5 million copies were sold on pre-orders alone.
It was the highest earning entertainment product launch of all time in the US, earning $125 million in its first 24 hours.
It held this record until the release of its sequel Halo 3.
Halo 2 has sold over 8 million copies in the US making it the best selling original Xbox game of all time.
From the day of its release until 2006, 2 years later, Halo 2 was the most played game on Xbox Live.
It was eventually beaten by the Xbox 360 game Gears of War.
The game was reviewed as excellent by most of the media.
The sound work such as the dialogue and soundtrack was often praised.
The game received an average score of 95% on Metacritic, a website that puts together many reviews from different sources.
The games multiplayer was often seen as a good point, making full use of the then new Xbox Live service.
Bad aspects pointed out included the short length of the story mode and the cliffhanger ending.
Hundreds of years ago, when people got sick or died, it cost a lot of money to take care of them or bury them.
People had the idea of joining their money together to help each other out.
This was called pooling.
Eventually, people started to make a business out of collecting enough money to help people who had big problems.
Figuring out how much money needed to be collected from people to be used if problems happened was not easy.
Over hundreds of years, the math needed for this was developed by many people from all over the world.
Actuaries now work in many places.
Most work for insurance companies, but others work in all kinds of finance companies.
Actuaries still figure out how much money needs to be paid for life insurance, as well as other kinds of money promises, like pensions, car insurance, house insurance, and similar.
People who want to be actuaries need to take many tests.
The tests are not the same in different parts of the world.
Financial occupations
A thesaurus is a dictionary of synonyms (words that have the same or similar meaning).
Thesauruses (or thesauri) often include related words that mean almost the same thing.
Some thesauruses also include antonyms (words that have the opposite meaning).
For example, by looking up the word "big" in a thesaurus, someone would find a list of other similar words such as "huge" and "massive".
If the thesaurus also has a list of antonyms, the user could also find words which mean the opposite, like "small" and "tiny".
Many students and writers use a thesaurus to help them find words when they are writing.
Using a thesaurus can help a person to improve their vocabulary (the number of words that they know).
Power Thesaurus - website with lists of synonyms and antonyms ordered by rating
Thesaurus.com - website with detailed options for each word
Visual Synonyms - website with visualization of synonyms and antonyms
A boom is a low-pitched sound, often reverberant.
The sound of thunder and the sound of an explosion are often called booms.
A boom is a long bar:
used in sailing and windsurfing to hold the sail.
used in waterskiing for the beginning skier to hold onto.
used in movies and television to hold microphones.
Boom is a municipality in Belgium
A rumble is a dull vibration.
It can also be the sound of one.
A rumble is another word for a fight.
Rumble strips are raised lines placed horizontally on a road.
They are usually used to tell drivers that they must slow down or stop ahead.
The strips make a rumbling sound when a car's tires cross them.
Rumble, the original title of Harlan Ellison's book Web of the City.
For other uses of the word "bass," see bass.
Bass is the name of some species (types) of fish that are often caught for food or sport.
There are freshwater bass (that live in rivers and lakes) and saltwater bass (that live in the ocean).
Many bass live in or near North America.
Bass are from the order of Perciformes or "perch-like fish".
Their name comes from the word for perch.
temperate basses such as the striped bass (Morone saxatilis) and white bass (M. chrysops), from the family Moronidae.
warm water basses, such as the largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides), smallmouth bass (M. dolomieu), spotted bass (M. punctulatus), Guadalupe bass (M. treculii) and rock bass (Ambloplites rupestris), from the sunfish family, Centrarchidae.
These basses are also called black basses.
The Australian bass, Macquaria novemaculeata, from the perch family, Percichthyidae.
The black sea bass, Centropristis striata, from the family Serranidae.
The giant sea bass Stereolepis gigas, also called the black sea bass, from the family Polyprionidae.
The Chilean sea bass, Dissostichus eleginoides, more commonly known as the Patagonian toothfish.
The European seabass, Dicentrarchus labrax.
Roxette is a Swedish pop music group formed in 1986.
The band had 2 members, Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson.
Their song "It Must Have Been Love" was one of the most sold singles by the duo.
It was released first as a Christmas song in 1987 and then as an "ordinary song" in 1990.
In 1991, Roxette release the very popular album Joyride.
For this album, they went on tour worldwide, playing 107 concerts. "
The Look" and "Listen To Your Heart", are other popular songs by Roxette.
They are very popular in South America and Europe.
They had released 8 studio albums and 9 compilation albums.
One album, Baladas En Español, was sung in Spanish.
1986 – Pearls of Passion
1987 – Dance Passion - The Remix Album
1988 – Look Sharp!
1991 – Joyride
1992 – Tourism
1994 – Crash!
1995 – Rarities
1995 – Don't Bore Us, Get to the Chorus!
Roxette's Greatest Hits
1996 – Baladas En Español
1999 – Have a Nice Day
2001 – Room Service
2002 – The Ballad Hits
2003 – The Pop Hits
2006 – Roxette Hits
2006 – The Rox Box / Roxette 86-06
2011 – Charm School
2012 – Travelling
1990s Swedish music groups
2000s Swedish music groups
2010s Swedish music groups
Swedish rock music groups
The Hindu scriptures are a number of books and other texts which tell about Hinduism and Hindu mythology.
They are sacred literature for Hindus.
Important Hindu scriptures include the following:
The Brahmanas
The Puranas
Besides the above, there are several other works that are sacred literature of Hindus.
Many of them are written in other languages of India such as Tamil and Hindi.
Om (also spelled Aum), is the most sacred symbol in Hinduism.
Hindu scriptures tell many things about this symbol.
In Hinduism, Om is like calling god's name towards you.
This name is generally said three times, before chanting any prayers.
Om is usually related to the Hindu God Shiva, who is the destroyer god.
Om Shinrikyo is a Japanese new religion or cult.
Norfolk Island (Norfuk: Norfuk Ailen) is a territory of Australia.
It is in the South Pacific Ocean between Australia, New Zealand, and New Caledonia.
It was one of the first British settlements in the Pacific.
Twice it was used as a penal colony.
People from Pitcairn Island were moved to Norfolk Island.
It is now a popular place for holidays.
Norfolk Island is a small volcanic island.
Its size is about  by .
It is about  northeast of Sydney, and  north of Auckland.
Most of the island is  above the level of the sea.
There are two high points on the island about  above sea level.
South of Norfolk are two smaller islands, Nepean Island and Phillip Island.
The first people to visit Norfolk Island were probably from New Zealand.
The first European settlers found parts of a canoe and stone axes.
Later work by archaeologists in 1995, found the remains of a house in the sand dunes at Emily Bay.
It was lived in from about 1200 AD to about 1600 AD.
Scientists do not know why the people left the island.
Norfolk Island was first discovered by Captain James Cook on October 10, 1774.
He was on his second trip around the world in his ship, the Resolution.
He landed on the island which was uninhabited (there was no one living there).
He found a flax plant (Phormium tenax) and large trees, now called Norfolk Island Pines (Araucaria heterophylla).
He thought the flax could be used to make cloth for ship sails and the pine trees would make good masts for ships.
He used one of the trees to make a new top mast for the Resolution.
Cook wrote about the island in his book, A Voyage towards the South Pole, printed in London in 1777.
The British government sent Captain Arthur Phillip with the First Fleet to start a penal colony in Australia in 1788.
He was told start a small settlement on Norfolk Island as soon as possible to stop other European countries from claiming the island.
The French ships, L'Astrolabe and La Boussole, commanded by La Pérouse, visited the island in early 1778.
They could not land because the waves were too big and rough.
La Pérouse thought the island was only suitable for "angels and eagles".
First settlement 1788 - 1814
The first European settlers on Norfolk Island arrived on March 3, 1788.
After two days looking around the island, the settlers landed at Emily Bay, part of Sydney Bay, on March 6.
This day is now celebrated as "Foundation Day".
They had come on the HMS Supply, from the new settlement at Sydney, New South Wales.
Philip Gidley King was in charge of a small group of 21 people, including 15 convicts, (9 men and 6 women).
The convicts were to be people of the best character and included Richard Widdicombe aged 72, and Charles McLennan aged 16.
The settlers were:
James Cunningham - master's mate from HMS Sirius
Thomas Jamison - surgeon's mate from HMS Sirius
John Turnpenny Altree - surgeon's assistant
Roger Morley - sailor from HMS Sirius
William Westbrook - sailor from HMS Sirius
Charles Heritage - marine
John Batchelor - marine
During the first year of the settlement, which was also called Sydney, more convicts and soldiers were sent from New South Wales.
A second village was started at Ball Bay, named after the captain of HMS Supply, Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball.
On January 8, 1789, the first child was born, Norfolk King, the son of Philip Gidley King and a convict, Ann Inett.
HMS Sirius wrecked
In March 1790, Governor Arthur Phillip decided to send King to England with important messages about the settlements in Australia.
Phillip sent Major Robert Ross, in charge of the soldiers at Sydney, to Norfolk Island to take over from King.
Food was running out in Sydney, so Phillip also sent two companies of soldiers, five free women and children, 183 convicts and 27 children of convicts.
Phillip hoped there would be more food on Norfolk Island.
They were sent on two ships, HMS Sirius and HMS Supply.
On March 19, HMS Sirius, smashed into one of the reefs in Sydney Bay, Norfolk Island.
No one was hurt, and Captain John Hunter was able to get all the people and most of the supplies safely to land.
HMS Supply went back to Sydney, and Major Ross was left with over 500 people on the island.
He quickly did things to make sure there would be enough food.
Anyone taking food, or killing animals for food, without his permission, would be hanged.
They were saved from starvation by the annual arrival of a sea bird, a petrel (Pterodroma melanopus), which nested in holes in the ground.
Between 2000-3000 birds were killed for food every night.
They were also able to eat their eggs.
They called the petrel the "Bird of Providence", because they thought God must have sent the bird to save them.
People also ate the tops of the palm trees.
In August, two ships arrived, the Justinian and the Surprize, which brought more food and 200 more convicts.
King returns
King got back to Norfolk Island in November 1791, and Ross went back to Sydney.
More convicts were sent to the island, and by September 1792 there were 1,115 people living there.
King started building another landing place at Cascade Bay, which meant ships had a choice, depending on which way the wind was blowing.
The convicts had difficulty in making things from the flax plants.
Two Maori men were captured in New Zealand and taken to Norfolk to teach the convicts how to use the flax.
The two men, Hoodoo and Toogee, did not know much about flax; in New Zealand this was a task done by the women.
King had the men taken back to New Zealand six months later.
By 1796,  had been cleared of trees and crops planted.
These crops included maize, wheat, potatoes, sugar cane, bananas, guavas, lemons, apples and coffee.
Farms animals included 12 cattle, 6 horses, 12 donkeys, 374 sheep, 772 goats and 14,624 pigs.
There were two schools and an orphanage for little girls.
King had been in poor health and went back to Sydney, and Captain Townson, from the New South Wales Corps, became the new Lieutenant-Governor.
End of the settlement
Lieutenant governors of the first settlement:
6 March 1788–24 March 1790: Lieutenant Philip Gidley King (1758–1808)
24 March 1790–Nov 1791: Major Robert Ross (c.1740–1794)
4 November 1791–Oct 1796: Lieutenant Philip Gidley King
October 1796–Nov 1799: Captain John Townson (1760–1835)
November 1799–Jul 1800: Captain Thomas Rowley (c.1748–1806)
26 June 1800–9 September 1804: Major Joseph Foveaux (1765–1846)
9 September 1804–January 1810: Lieutenant John Piper (1773–1851)
January 1810–15 February 1813: Lieutenant Thomas Crane (caretaker)
15 February 1813–15 February 1814: Superintendent William Hutchinson
When Joseph Foveaux arrived as Lieutenant Governor in 1800, he found the settlement quite run down.