the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
Many artists where punished for creating works that did not do what the socialist politicians expected of them.
Prokofiev had never been interested in politics, and he thought the politicians would leave him in peace so that he could write the kind of music he liked.
USSR: (1936-1953)
Back in Russia Prokofiev settled in Moscow.
He wrote several children’s pieces including Peter and the Wolf.
He was asked to write music for two important jubilees: the 20th anniversary of the Revolution and the centenary of Pushkin’s death.
He took great care over this music.
Much of what he wrote was to be directed by Meyerhold, but Meyerhold was arrested, later tortured and murdered so the whole project never happened.
Some of the music written for the Pushkin centenary was later used in his opera War and Peace, the Stone Flower ballet and Symphonic Waltzes.
He also wrote a very large piece called Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of the October Revolution, using words by Marx, Lenin and Stalin for a total of 500 performers.
The music included realistic effects such as gun shots, machine-gun fire and sirens.
However, many critics said that the music was vulgar, and it was not performed until 1966, long after Prokofiev’s death.
He tried to make the soviet authorities pleased by writing a "safe" opera called I am the Son of the Working People but the politicians stopped it during its early auditions.
The opera was going to be produced by Meyerhold, but again it never happened because Meyerhold was arrested and executed.
The World War II was a time of change for Prokofiev for several reasons.
In 1941 his marriage to Lina Llubera came to an end and his new companion Mira Mendelsohn, and later wife, saw him through his last years.
Lina was a foreigner and marriage to foreigners was made illegal (forbidden) at that time.
In 1948 she was arrested, charged with being a spy, and sent to a labour camp.
On the other hand, Mira had lived her entire life within the Soviet system and was much more aware of how to survive in the politacally-charged times.
In 1945, shortly after the premier of his Fifth Symphony, he had a stroke which was the beginning of a period of bad health.
He spent a lot of time away from Moscow where it was unsafe.
The first signs that his health was to be poor occurred in Alma-Ata in 1943 when he had a fainting spell.
He was an workaholic and this, plus the pressures placed upon him by the Soviet system, forced him to withdraw from an active social life in Moscow.
Prokofiev lived with Mira for the rest of his life.
Lina was freed from the labour camp after Stalin’s death.
Later she left the Soviet Union and she died in London in 1989.
During the war Prokofiev composed a lot of his best music.
He wrote his last piano sonatas as well as working on his operas Betrothal in a Monestary after Sherican, and War and Peace (based on the novel by Tolstoy) and writing his film music for both Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible and composing his Fifth Symphony.
The first performance of this symphony, given on 13 January 1945, was the last time he conducted in public.
He spent the rest of his life in a house in the country to the west of Moscow, although during his last winters he lived in Moscow close to his doctors.
Even in these last years he was not to find peace.
Stalin’s rule of terror had serious effects on all Soviet artists.
In 1948 a committee of the Communist Party spoke out against several Soviet composers including Prokofiev.
They said that his music was “formalist” and “alien” to the Soviet people.
His opera “War and Peace” was not allowed to be performed because it was neither lyrical nor patriotic enough.
The works he wrote in his last years were mostly ones which the politicians officially approved.
His last great work of this period is the Symphony-Concerto for cello and orchestra which used a lot of music from the unsuccessful Cello Sonata, and greatly revised with the help of the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.
Prokofiev died of a brain haemorrhage on 5 March 1953.
His death was hardly mentioned in the newspapers because the dictator Josef Stalin died on the same day.
Most Christian Arabs live in the Middle East, where Islam is the biggest religion.
The largest number of Arab Christians are in Egypt (around 8 millions).
Many Arabs have emigrated from the Middle East in modern times.
In some places such as the Americas, a big number of these Arabs are Christians.
In Brazil, there are more than 12 million Arabs, and most of these people are Christian.
Arab Christians faced significant persecution with the Muslim conquests of Christian countries after the death of the Prophet Muhammad.
Conversion was often required for those who could not pay a substantial tax known as the 'jizya'.
Furthermore, during various periods in the history of the Islamic world, Arab Christians were subject to at times brutal and humiliating persecution.
Despite this, many Christians chose not to change their religion to Islam.
Instead, they kept Christianity as their belief.
Muslims call them the "People of the Book" (with Jews).
In the early 21st century, persecution of Christians area increased.
In most countries they are required to obey Islamic "Shari'ah" law.
In some countries, notably Egypt, political approval is required for the construction or renovation of a church - such restrictions are not present in the construction of Mosques.
Countries in the Arabian Gulf, most notably Saudi Arabia, do not allow for the construction of churches or the public practice of Christianity - although that is slowly changing in progressive areas like the UAE.
Coptic Christians in Egypt continue to face significant discrimination in the workplace and have a hard time reaching to the upper echelons in universities, corporations, and government offices.
Arab Christians have been around before Arab Muslims.
This is because there were many Arab tribes that became Christians since the first century.
They were the Nabateans (whose ancestors were Aramean) and the Ghassanids (who were of Qahtani origin and spoke Yemeni-Arabic and Greek).
They protected the south-eastern parts of the Byzantine Empire in north Arabia.
Arab Christians made important contributions to the Arab world, and they still do.
Some of the best poem writers at certain times were Arab Christians, and many Arab Christians were doctors, writers, government staff, and people who knew a lot about literature.
A musical synthesizer is an instrument that uses electricity to make musical sounds.
They are the main instrument for making electronic music.
Many synthesizers have a keyboard like that of a piano.
When playing a piano keyboard, sounds are made by hitting soft hammers against strings pulled very tight.
When playing a synthesizer keyboard, sounds are made by turning electrical oscillators on and off.
Since "synthesizer" is such a big word, the word is usually shortened to "synth".
How synthesizers work
An oscillator is something that "vibrates", or repeats the same pattern.
The pendulum of a clock, for example, is a very slow oscillator.
A piano string "oscillates" when struck by a hammer.
Electric oscillators might be made using transistors.
They turn electricity into electrical patterns, or signals, that repeat over and over.
When different keys are pressed, different notes are heard.
This is done by making the signal from the oscillator repeat at different rates.
The signal can be boosted in strength and sent straight to a loudspeaker.
But the sound of a simple signal can be boring after a while.
Sounds can be made more interesting in many ways.
Signals are often shaped by changing how fast they get loud and then soft again.
This method, called "ADSR", helps synthesizers to sound more like older instruments — pianos, trumpets, flutes, and so on.
The signals from several different oscillators may be combined.
This helps to make a richer sound.
The signal can then be sent to one or more filters.
Filters are used to take away parts of the signal.
For example, they might make the signal sound "brighter" or "duller", "soft" or "harsh".
Many synthesizers use special oscillators called "LFOs".
For example, an LFO might control how loud and soft the signal is, or control the pitch of the signal.
An LFO might even control the actions of the filters.
By combining many of these methods, synths can now sound very much like older instruments.
For one example, special synths called "drum synths" are used just to make the sounds a drummer might make.
Synths can also make many new sounds never heard before.
In the early 2000s, computers got fast enough so "software synths" could be made.
These are computer programs designed to look and work like a synth.
They tend to be less expensive, so more can be used.
Most of these programs can be downloaded for free, however this may be illegal.
There are special tools available to play synths.
For example, a thing called a "wind controller" lets players of wind instruments use their special skills.
But there is still a need for more ways to control synths to make them more expressive.
Sonic State describing 3000 models of Synthesizers
Analog & Digital Synthesizers museum  - Synthesizers database, resources, user reviews, pictures
Vintage Synth Explorer - facts and photos of hundreds of old and new synths
The history of Electronic Music
120 years of Electronic Music
John Foxe (1516/1517 – 18 April 1587), is remembered as the author of Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
Education and Resignation from Oxford
Foxe was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, England into a prominent family.
In 1535 Foxe was admitted to Magdalen College School.
He became  a fellow in July 1539.
Foxe resigned from his college in 1545, after referring to it as "a prison."
During his time at Oxford he became an evangelical, meaning that he converted to Protestant beliefs not accepted by the Church of England under Henry VIII.
As he wanted to leave Oxford, Foxe looked to other evangelicals for help but received only advice and a little money.
Foxe married Agnes Randall on February 3, 1547.
Life in London under Edward VI
With the death of Henry VIII in January of 1547 Foxe's prospects (and those of the evangelical cause generally) changed for the better.
Foxe was ordained deacon by Nicholas Ridley on June 24, 1550.
Marian Exile
In 1559, when Mary I had died Foxe returned to England.
He lived for some time at Aldgate, London, in the house of his former pupil, Thomas Howard.
Foxe started publishing works of religious controversy and worked on a new martyrology, which would become the Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
Foxe was ordained priest by Edmund Grindal, now Bishop of London, on January 25, 1560, and he moved to Norwich to live with its bishop, John Parkhurst.
On March 23 of the following year the first edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs was published.
Foxe was one of the earliest students of Anglo-Saxon, and he and Day published an edition of the Saxon gospels with the help of Archbishop Parker.
Foxe's Book of Martyrs (Actes and Monuments) Variorum Edition Online , from the Humanities Research Institute of The University of Sheffield
Thomas Freeman, John Foxe: A Biography
1587 deaths
Evangelicals believe in spreading their faith, (evangelism), the need to be converted, also called being born again, believing what is in the Bible and the need to live a moral life both personally and in society.
In the past 200 years, people, churches and social movements have often been called evangelical.
This is different from Protestant liberalism although they may share some of the same goals.
Outside the United States, the word evangelical can mean different things.
In Europe and Latin America the word evangelical is often used to simply mean Protestant, as different from Roman Catholic religion.
Some Christian denominations have the word evangelical as part of their official name.
This may indicate that they are more conservative than other denominations with a similar name.
In 2016, there were thought to be about 619 million evangelicals in the world, meaning that one in four Christians would be an evangelical.
The United States has many evangelicals.
American evangelicals are about one fourth of the nation's population and its largest religious group.
There are also many evangelicals in Latin America, Africa, China and Korea.
Evangelicals make up most of the  Baptist churches, Pentecostals, a portion of Methodists, Presbyterians and other older denominations, and many independent Christian churches that do not belong to any larger group.
Billy Graham was probably the best known evangelical of the last 100 years.
He preached all around the world.
World Evangelical Alliance - list of evangelical organizations from various nations
Barna Research Group
925: Ferdowsi حکیم ابوالقاسم فردوسی توسی (died 1020), Persian poet
Saadia Gaon makes his siddur (Jewish prayer book) in Iraq.
Narita-san Temple is founded in Chiba, Japan.
The Liao Dynasty stops the rule that a younger sister replace an older sister who died in marriage.
Abu'l-Wafa, Iranian mathematician
Brian Boru, high king of Ireland
July 20 – Ibn Muqla, Abbasid vizier and calligrapher
December 25 – Makan ibn Kaki, Dailamite warlord
Taira no Masakado, leader of the Taira Clan
The Rus'-Byzantine War is fought.
Oda the Severe becomes Archbishop of Canterbury.
Charles d'Outremer, son of Louis IV of France
Brian Bórumha mac Cennétig, High-King of Ireland
April 21 – Bajkam, commander of commanders of the Abbasid Caliphate
The Chavda Kingdom is overthrown in Gujarat, India.
October 30 – Pope Marinus II succeeds Pope Stephen VIII as the 128th pope.
Pampa, Kannada poet in India
Genshin, Tendai scholar
King Idwal Foel of Gwynedd
December 17 – William I of Normandy
Gaozu of Later Jin, founder of the Later Jin Dynasty in China
Liu Yan of the Southern Han Kingdom
King Constantin II of Scotland retires and becomes a monk.
His cousin Malcolm I of Scotland becomes king.
Dayang Jingxuan, a Zen Buddhist monk
Wang Kon, founder of the Koryo dynasty
Emperor Liezu of Southern Tang
The city of Algiers is (re)founded by the Zirid king Buluggin ibn Ziri.
Abu Yazid starts a rebellion against the Fatimids in the Aures Mountains.
The Al-Askari Mosque is built in Samarra.
King Edmund I of England takes Northumbria from the Vikings.
Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos is deposed as Byzantine emperor.
It was by his own sons, Stephen Lekapenos and Constantine Lekapenos.
Otto, Duke of Burgundy
Minamoto no Yorimitsu
Fujiwara no Sukemasa
Fujiwara no Akimitsu
Flaithbertach mac Inmainén, abbot of Inis Cathaig, Ireland
Wilgred of Lindisfarne, Bishop of Lindisfarne
Abu Mansur Al Maturidi, Muslim theologian
Ngo Quyen, Vietnamese prefect and general
Wichmann the Elder, Saxon nobleman
Donnchad Donn, King of Ireland
The Buyid dynasty takes control of Baghdad.
The Min Kingdom is taken over by the Southern Tang Kingdom.
Edmund I of England conquers Strathclyde.
He makes an alliance with Malcolm I of Scotland and gives Cumberland and Westmorland to him.
Lothair II of Italy takes control of Italy.
Romanos I Lekapenos is overthrown.
Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII rules alone.
Abbo of Fleury, French monk
Igor of Kiev
King Krešimir I of Croatia
Eadred I becomes king of England.
Emperor Murakami becomes Emperor of Japan.
May 10 – Pope Agapitus II succeeds Pope Marinus II as the 129th pope.
May 17 – Al Qa'im, second Fatimid caliph.
May 26 – King Edmund I of England
The Later Jin Dynasty falls to the Later Han Dynasty in China.
Adelaide of Anjou, daughter of Fulk II of Anjou and Gerberg
May 18 – Emperor Taizong of the Liao Dynasty
Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl, Toltec ruler
Wulfgar of Lichfield, Bishop of Lichfield
Sexhelm of Lindisfarne, Bishop of Lindisfarne
Shi Chonggui, last Emperor of China from the Later Jin Dynasty
Uchtred of Lindisfarne, Bishop of Lindisfarne
Zoltán of Hungary, Grand Prince of the Magyars
The Nri Kingdom is started by Eri.
The kingdom was in what is now Nigeria.
The Nallur Kandaswamy temple is built.
Gang Gam-chan, Korean government official and military commander
Emperor Jingzong of Liao
December 16 – Romanos I Lekapenos, Byzantine Emperor
Gao Conghui
Gaozu of Later Han
The Byzantine Empire starts another expedition against the Emirate of Crete.
Emperor Yōzei, Emperor of Japan
Yunmen Wenyan, Chinese Zen Buddhist monk
construction begins on the first church at the monastery of Cluny
Canopic jars were used to store the internal organs of a mummy in Ancient Egypt.
The lid had the head of a baboon, human, falcon or a jackal—representing the sons of Horus.
These jars were used to store organs which were removed from a dead person, these were the stomach, the intestine, the liver and the lungs, because they were thought to be use less in the afterlife.
They only did the mummyfication process to important people.
The jars were placed in the tombs with the bodies.
A fellow is a member of a group of learned people who work together at university or other academic institutions.
However, there are no precise rules for how the title is used, and each academic institution grants the title as it sees fit.
Nationally Coveted College Scholarships, Graduate Fellowships and Postdoctoral Awards
Millipedes are a very long type of arthropod.
Millipedes are segmented.
Most have between 20 and over 100 segments, and have flattened bodies.
Except for the first few segments, each segment has 2 pairs of legs, as a result of each segment being the fusing (coming together) of two.
So far, about 12,000 different species of millipedes have been described.
with 10,000 identified, and there is an estimated 80,000 total species of millipede on Earth.
The animals are detrivores, they eat what is left over from plants.
Most of the time, their food is decaying leaves and other dead plant matter.
Millipedes are not poisonous, but many species have glands capable of producing irritating fluids that may cause allergic reactions in some individuals.
This protects them from being constantly eaten because of their slow movement.
Generally, they are not a pest, although young seedlings in greenhouses can be sometimes eaten by these creatures.
Xenobolus carnifex is known for its common infestation of thatched roofs in India.
Several species swarm houses and farms, causing damage.
The primary defense mechanism of millipedes is to roll up into a spiral-shaped circle, protecting their more delicate organs from being hurt by an armor-like skin.
Millipedes can secrete liquids that can burn their predators for protection.
A millipede species, Pneumodesmus newmani, was the first animal species to live constantly on land that lived 428 million years ago.
Millipedes are the most common in temperate, wet deciduous forests, but are also often found in coniferous forests and high-altitude alpine environments, some species live in deserts, and even fewer in caves.
Many live under stones, fallen leaves, and in woodpiles, plus other dark damp locations in forests.
Millipedes and People
Millipedes, due to their herbivore (plant-eating) and, with some species, limited omnivore capabilities, do not bite humans, although some of the defensive liquids that they give out might cause minor irritation and burns on human skin.
On the eyes, these can be much worse, and direct exposure can lead to very bad problems.
Millipedes
Edwy All-Fair or Eadwig (940/941 – 1 October 959) was the King of England from 955 until his death.
Edwy was the eldest son of King Edmund I and Saint Elgiva.
Edwy was chosen in 955 to succeed his uncle Edred as King.
His short reign as King was marked by conflict.
He had problems within his family, the Thanes, and the Roman Catholic Church, under the leadership of  Saint Dunstan and Archbishop Odo.
Edwy died at the age of eighteen or nineteen, and was succeeded by his rival brother, Edgar, who re-unified the kingdom.
941 births
959 deaths
Saint Oda or Odo, called the Good or the Severe (d. 958) was a 10th century Archbishop of Canterbury in England.
950s deaths
Archbishops of Canterbury
Roman Catholic archbishops
Magdalen College School is an independent school for boys.
It is on the edge of central Oxford, England.
It was founded as part of Magdalen College, Oxford by Thomas Becket in 1480
The school was originally founded by William Waynflete to educate the sixteen boy choristers of Magdalen College, Oxford University who sang in the college's chapel.
Important Old Waynfletes include William Tyndale, Sam Mendes, Alex Lennox, Tim Hunt, and Ben Goldacre.
Magdalen College School website
ISI inspection report
A history of the choristers of Magdalen College School, Oxford
Schools in England
1480 establishments
15th-century establishments in England
Edward was born at Westminster while his father, King Edward IV of England, was in exile in Burgundy.
The King, Henry VI, said his mother and his sisters would be safe if they stayed at the abbey.
When Edward IV came back and took over the throne again, Edward became his heir and was given the title "Prince of Wales".
Edward IV thought it would be right for the Prince of Wales to rule Wales, so he sent little Prince Edward to live in Ludlow Castle, where the Council of Wales met.
The prince was helped by his uncle, Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers, and began to learn how to be a ruler.
His mother, Queen Elizabeth, was often with him, and his father, the king, also visited.
The prince spent most of his time at Ludlow until he was twelve, when his father the king suddenly died.
The prince had to go straight to London to take the throne, and his uncle, Earl Rivers, went with him.
On the way, they were met by another of his uncles, Richard, Duke of Gloucester.
The Duke was a younger brother of King Edward IV, and the king had given him the title of "Lord Protector" in the hope that he would look after Prince Edward until he was old enough to be the real king.
Instead of arranging a coronation for the new king, Duke Richard decided to take the throne for himself, and became King Richard III.
He sent Prince Edward to live in the Tower of London and wait for his coronation.
He also got Edward's younger brother, Prince Richard, Duke of York, to come and live at the Tower.
Earl Rivers was executed by Richard.
Gloucester was able to convince people that the two young princes were not the legal heirs to the throne.
On 25 June 1483, the Parliament said that Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was the legal king.
This was because Edward and his other brothers and sisters was declared illegitimate.
After Edward IV had died, it was revealed that he had been engaged to a woman named Eleanor Butler, so Edward IV's marriage to his mother Elizabeth Woodville was seen as bigamy.
After a few months, the two boys disappeared, and what happened to them is still a mystery today.
Most people think that the two boys were murdered.
They became known as the Princes in the Tower.
It is most likely they were killed by their uncle, Richard III.
It is also possible that they were killed by Henry VII, who became king two years later.
In 1674, during building work at the Tower, a wooden chest was found under a staircase in the White Tower.
It contained the bones of two young boys.
It has never been proved that these are the missing princes, but King Charles II had the bones buried in Westminster Abbey.
In 1933 the bones were looked at again by scientists who believed that they were the two princes.
1470 births
Lincolnshire  ( or ; abbreviated Lincs) is a county in the east of England.
It borders Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Rutland, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire, the East Riding of Yorkshire, and (for just 19 metres or 20 yd, England's shortest county boundary) Northamptonshire.
Its county town is the ancient city of Lincoln.
Lincolnshire County Council website
Visitlincolnshire.com
Official Lincolnshire Flag site
Lincolnshire Life magazine
Extremehorizon a local resource for surfing in Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire Show official website
History of the Royal Air Force in Lincolnshire
Norfolk is a low-lying county in East Anglia in the east of southern England.
It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and with Suffolk to the south.
Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast, including The Wash. The county town is Norwich.
Norfolk is home to the Norfolk Broads, a famous tourist and wildlife spot.
Horatio Nelson (1758—1805), the English naval commander, was born at Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk.
Steve Flint (born 1961) in Thetford, at age 19 became, the first Norfolk athlete to run under four minutes for the mile.
He did this at the Inter-County Championships in Birmingham on May 26 1980.
Norfolk County Council
BBC Norfolk
NorfolkBroads.com
Guide to Norfolk businesses
Norfolk Guide
Norfolk And Norwich Online
Long Stratton Community Forum
Wymondham YFC
Norfolk Federation of Young Farmers Clubs
An online guided tour of Norfolk in pictures
Norfolk Photos
Norfolk Watermills & Windmills
ISO 3166-2 is part of the ISO 3166 standard.
It was made by the International Organization for Standardization.
For each country listed in ISO 3166-1, ISO 3166-2 defines its provinces with two or three letter codes, or numbers.
Entry — ISO 3166-2 entry for the country, indexed by its ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code
Country name — English short country name used by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA)
Subdivisions assigned codes — Subdivisions currently given codes in ISO 3166-2; if there are more than one level of subdivisions, the first-level subdivisions are shown in italics
Leicestershire (abbreviated Leics) is a county in central England.
It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, its traditional administrative centre, although the City of Leicester is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire.
The county borders onto Lincolnshire, Rutland, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, and Nottinghamshire.
Wartime Leicestershire
Official tourism website for Leicester & Leicestershire
The Jitty, an information site for young people in Leicestershire
Leicestershire Bands website
Northamptonshire (abbreviated Northants or N'hants) is a county in central England with a population of 629,676 (2001 census).
It has borders with Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Cambridgeshire, Peterborough, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire (including the Borough of Milton Keynes), Oxfordshire, and Lincolnshire (England's shortest county boundary: 19 metres).
The county town is Northampton.
Northampton is by far the largest town in the county, with a population of 194,122.
This is followed by Corby (53,174), Wellingborough (48,428), Kettering (47,000), Rushden (25,849) and Daventry (22,367).
Most of the county's population is concentrated in a central north-south.
Cherwell Edge in Northamptonshire () is near the River Cherwell, north-west of Banbury, England.
The once heavily wooded hill and valley was mostly cleared many years ago.
The area now also covers the nearby Cherwell Edge Golf Club that was recently built by it too.
The golf club is used by various local residents.
Brackley
Braunston
Oundle
Raunds
Rothwell
Rushden
Thrapston
Weedon Bec
Before nationalisation of the railways in 1948 and the creation of British Railways, Northamptonshire was home to three of the "Big Four" railway companies; the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, London and North Eastern Railway and Great Western Railway.
Only the Southern Railway was not represented.
Aynho
Aynho House
King's Sutton
King's Sutton Railway Station
1894/5 description
Northants Forum
An Earl (or Jarl) was a title for nobility used by Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians.
It originally meant "chieftain" and it referred especially to chieftains set to rule a territory in a king's stead.
In Scandinavia, it stopped being used in the Middle Ages, whereas, in Britain, it became synonymous with the continental count.
Today, an earl is a member of the British peerage, and is below a Marquess, but above a Viscount.
A British Earl is the same as a continental Count.
Since there is no feminine form of Earl, the wife of an Earl has the rank of Countess (the continental equivalent).
Lobsters are large crustaceans that live in the sea.
They form the family of Nephropidae, which is sometimes also called Homaridae.
People make a lot of money from catching lobsters and selling them to make seafood.
Lots of different kinds of animals that live in the sea are called lobsters.
When people talk about lobsters, most of the time they mean clawed lobsters.
One kind of clawed lobster is the American lobster.
Lots of animals that we call lobsters are not actually clawed lobsters.
Squat lobsters, spiny lobsters or slipper lobsters, are all different kinds of animal.
Some kinds of crayfish which live in fresh water and reef lobsters are very similar to clawed lobsters.
Smaller kinds of lobsters are sometimes called "lobsterettes".
Lobsters do not have bones.
They have hard shells which protect them.
This hard shell is made from a material called chitin.
The shell is so hard that lobsters must climb out of them before they can grow bigger.
When lobsters moult they are weak and easy to attack.
If they hide for long enough they will grow a new hard shell and the lobster will be bigger.
Some lobsters change color when they grow a new shell.
Lobsters can grow new parts of their body when they lose them.
Every time they moult the body part will get a little bit bigger and stronger until it is back to normal.
Lobsters live in the sea between the shore and the edge of the continental shelf.
They live underwater on rocky, sandy, or muddy ground.
They usually live alone in cracks or under rocks.
Lobsters usually eat live food like fish, molluscs, other crustaceans, worms, and some plants.
Lobsters sometimes scavenge (eat dead plants and animals).
Lobsters also eat other lobsters (cannibalism) when they are put together in small spaces where they cannot get out.
Lobsters do not usually eat other lobsters in the oceans.
People have found lobster skin in the stomachs of some lobsters.
This is because lobsters eat the skin they shed when they moult.
Lobsters grow all their lives.
Some lobsters live for over 100 years, and some become very big.
The Guinness World Records says that the largest lobster was from Nova Scotia, Canada and weighed 20.14 kg (44.4 lb).
Lobsters are usually the same on the left and right sides.
Lobsters have claws on their front legs, and one claw can be bigger than the other.
One reason they are different sizes is because they do different jobs.
Big strong claws can grab food, and little sharp claws can cut the food up so they can eat it.
When a fisherman catches a lobster, they like to keep them if the claws are big.
People like to eat lobsters with big claws because there is more good tasting meat in them.
The head end of the lobster is called the cephalon.
The middle part of the lobster is called the thorax.
These parts of a lobster are stuck together and can not move, so we put the words together and call them both the cephalothorax.
The bottom end of the lobster is called the abdomen, where the tail is.
At the end of the tail is a fan.
Lobsters have long thin body parts called antennae under their eyes which they can move around.
Lobsters use these to feel what is near them, and they also help them find food.
Lobsters have eyes but they cannot see very well.
Lobsters have three pairs of jaws.
All legs of a lobster have claws apart from the ones at the back.
Only the front two legs have big claws.
The little claws on the other legs help pick up food they find and put them in the jaws so the lobster can eat.
Lobsters usually move slowly by walking on the bottom of the sea floor.
When they are in danger and need to escape, they swim backwards quickly by bending their tail down and up.
The fan on the tail helps them to swim faster.
Lobsters can move at a speed of 5 metres every second when they do this.
Lobster Liberation
Spiny lobsters, also known as rock lobsters are a family (Palinuridae) of about 45 species of   crustaceans, in the Decapoda Reptantia.
Spiny lobsters are also called crayfish, sea crayfish or crawfish.
Although they superficially resemble true lobsters in terms of overall shape, and that they also have a hard carapace and exoskeleton, the two groups are not closely related.
Spiny lobsters can be easily distinguished from true lobsters by their very long, thick, spiny antennae, and by their complete lack of claws (chelae); true lobsters have much smaller antennae and claws on the first three pairs of legs, with the first being particularly enlarged.
Like true lobsters, however, spiny lobsters are edible and are an economically significant food source; they are the biggest food export of the Bahamas .
Spiny lobsters are found in almost all warm seas, including the Caribbean and the Mediterranean Sea, but are particularly common in Australasia, where they are referred to commonly as crayfish or sea crayfish (Jasus novaehollandiae and Jasus edwardsii), and South Africa (Jasus lalandii).
A new species, Palinurus barbarae was described in 2006.
Spiny lobsters tend to live in crevices of rocks and coral reefs, only occasionally venturing out at night to seek snails, clams, crabs, sea urchins or carrion to eat.
Sometimes, they migrate en masse, in long files of lobsters across the sea floor.
Potential predators may be deterred from eating spiny lobsters by a loud screech made by the antennae of the spiny lobsters rubbing against a smooth part of the exoskeleton .
Spiny lobsters usually exhibit social habit by being together.
However recent studies indicate that healthy lobsters move away from infected ones and leaving the diseased lobsters to fend for itself .
The furry lobsters (e.g. Palinurellus) are sometimes separated into a family of their own, the Synaxidae, but are usually considered members of the Palinuridae.
The slipper lobsters (Scyllaridae) are their next closest relatives, and these two or three families make up the Achelata.
Genera of spiny lobsters include Palinurus and a number of anagrams thereof: Panulirus, Linuparus, etc. (
Palinurus was also a helmsman in Virgil's Æneid.)
Bromeliads are a family of tropical plants which includes the pineapple and several colourful houseplants.
They are nearly all from Latin America and the Caribbean islands, except for Spanish moss from the southern United States, and a single kind from Africa.
Well-known kinds of bromeliad
Pineapples (Latin name: Ananas).
See Pineapple.
Air plants (Latin name: Tillandsia) are very curious because they do not need any roots to stay alive.
Instead they soak up moisture from the air around them through tiny, silvery scales on their leaves.
They have so many of these scales that the whole plant can look grey.
In the wild they grow on tree banches in rainy and misty areas.
In the Caribbean there is a kind that grows on telephone wires!
Urn plants (Latin name: Aechmea) are easy to keep.
They grow to about 60 cm across, but because the stiff, green-and-grey leaves have spiny edges, they need to be out of the way.
Urn plants got their name because they have a hole in the middle made by the ring-shaped arrangement of their leaves.
This central urn fills up with rainwater in the wild and is often home to insects and frogs.
Its flowers are held high on a single stem, and protected by a globe of small, pink leaves which lasts for several months.
Vriesias (Latin names: Vriesia and Guzmania) are like urn plants, but they have no spines and their leaves are softer.
They are often sold in flower shops (and sometimes in supermarkets) and are very easy to look after.
Their flowers grow on a single stem, protected by flattened, colourful leaves.
It is better not to fill the central space with water, as these soft-leaved plants might rot.
instead their soil should be watered.
Spanish moss
Spanish moss (Latin name: Tillandsia usneoides) is a grey plant found hanging from trees in the swamps of the southern United States, especially in Louisiana but as far east as coastal Virginia.
To the south it spreads as far as Chile and Argentina.
It gained its current name from Spanish and French colonisers in the Gulf of Mexico.
The French called it Barbe Espagnole ("Spanish beard") to insult their rivals, and the Spanish in turn called it Cabello francés ("French hair").
Today "Spanish moss" survives as a mild version of the French taunt, although some call the plant "Graybeard".
Other kinds of bromeliads
Bromelia, the plant which gives its name to the family, is the only other bromeliad with edible fruit.
Its berries taste a bit like pineapple, but are less tasty, and there are not very many on each plant.
Fascicularia is the only bromeliad that can be grown in frosty areas.
It is not killed by frost if it is kept dry in the winter.
Pitcairnia is the only wild bromeliad outside the Americas.
One species, Pitcairnia feliciana,  was discoved living in West Africa.
It is probably descended from seeds carried by migrating birds.
Puya is the largest bromeliad.
It can grow up to nine metres tall.
It lives in the Andes mountains, and is sometimes eaten by bears for its nectar.
In Chile the young leaves of some puyas are eaten in salads.
Eucalyptus is a genus of trees.
Eucalypt is also the common name for seven similar plants from the tribe Eucalypteae, all from Australasia.
They are  Eucalyptus, Corymbia, Angophora, Stockwellia, Allosyncarpia, Eucalyptopsis and Arillastrum.
There are over 700 species of eucalypts, and almost all of them are in Australia.
Eucalypts can be found in almost every part of the Australia, and they are adapted to many different habitats.
Many species, but not all, are known as gum trees because they put out lots of sap from any break in the bark.
Eucalypts have special flowers and fruits that no other trees have.
When it flowers a bud cap made of petals grows around the flower until it is ready to open.
Then the bud cap falls off to reveal a flower with no petals.
The woody fruits are called gumnuts.
They are roughly cone-shaped and open at one end to release the seeds.
Nearly all eucalypts are evergreen but some tropical species lose their leaves at the end of the dry season.
The leaves are covered with oil glands.
These oils are often used to treat coughs and colds.
Many eucalypts change the shape of their leaves as they get older.
Young eucalypts have round leaves.
When one to a few years old, the leaves of most kinds become longer and spearhead or sickle-shaped.
A few species keep the round leaf shape all their lives.
Most species do not flower until the adult leaves starts to appear.
The bark dies every year.
In smooth-barked trees most of the bark falls off the tree, leaving a smooth surface that is often colourfully marked.
With rough-barked trees the dead bark stays on the tree and dries out.
Many kinds of eucalyptus trees have smooth bark at the top but rough bark lower down.
These different kinds of bark are used to arrange the eucalypts into groups – this is useful because there are hundreds of kinds of eucalypts, and breaking down the group in this way makes the group easier to understand.
Stringybark – consists of strands which can be pulled off in long pieces.
It is usually thick with a spongy texture.
Ironbark – is hard, rough and deeply furrowed.
It is soaked with dried sap exuded by the tree which gives it a dark red or even black colour.
Tessellated – bark is broken up into many distinct flakes.
These flakes are like cork and can flake off.
Box – has short fibres.
Ribbon – this has the bark coming off in long thin pieces but still loosely attached in some places.
The pieces can be long ribbons, firmer strips or twisted curls.
Today, specimens of the Australian Mountain Ash are among the tallest trees in the world.
They grow at up to 92 metres in height, and are the tallest of all flowering plants: taller trees such as the coast redwood are all conifers.
There is evidence that at the time of European settlement of Australia some Mountain Ash were indeed the tallest plants in the world.
Most eucalypts cannot survive frost, or can only stand light frosts down to 3 °C to 5 °C.
The hardiest eucalypts are the so-called "snow gums" such as Eucalyptus pauciflora which can stand cold and frost down to about 20 °C.
Two sub-species (wild varieties) of this tree can survive even colder winters.
Several other kinds, especially from the high plateau and mountains of central Tasmania, have produced extreme cold-hardy forms.
It is seed from these hardy strains that are planted for ornamental trees in colder parts of the world.
Animals and eucalyptus
An oil found in eucalyptus leaves is a strong, natural disinfectant, which is used in some medicines, but can be poisonous if too much is taken.
Several marsupials, such as koalas and some possums, are partly resistant to it.
These animals can tell which plants are safe to eat by their smell.
Eucalypts have a habit of dropping entire branches off as they grow.
Eucalyptus forests are littered with dead branches.
The Australian Ghost Gum Eucalyptus papuana is sometimes called the "widow maker", due to the high number of tree-felling workers who were killed by falling branches.
Many deaths were actually caused by simply camping under them, as the trees shed whole and very large branches to save water during droughts.
For this reason, you should never camp under large eucalyptus branches.
On warm days eucalyptus oil vapour rises above the bush to create the well-known distant blue haze of the Australian landscape.
Eucalyptus oil catches fire very easily, and bush fires can travel quickly through the oil-rich air of the tree crowns.
The dead bark and fallen branches are also flammable.
Eucalypts are well adapted for periodic fires – in fact most species are dependent on them for spread and regeneration.
They do this in several ways: by sprouting from underground tubers, hidden buds under their bark and from seeds sprouting in the ashes after the fire has opened them.
How fire helped the spread of eucalypts
Eucalypts began between 35 and 50 million years ago, not long after Australia and New Guinea separated from the rest of Gondwana.
Their coming  coincides with an increase in fossil charcoal deposits (which might mean that fire was important to them even then).
They stayed a minor component of the rainforest until about 20 million years ago, when the gradual drying of the continent and lessening of soil richness led to the growth of a more open forest type, with mainly Casuarina and Acacia trees.
With the arrival of the first humans about 50 thousand years ago, fires became much more frequent and the fire-loving eucalypts soon came to account for roughly 70% of Australian forest.
The two valuable timber trees, Alpine Ash  and Mountain Ash, are killed by fire and only grow back from seeds.
The same fire which had little impact on forests around Canberra resulted in thousands of hectares of dead forests elsewhere.
Eucalyptus have many uses which have made them important.
Because of their fast growth, the main benefit of these trees is the wood.
They provide many uses, such as planting in parks and gardens, timber, firewood and pulpwood.
Fast growth also makes eucalypts suitable as windbreaks.
Eucalypts draw a very large amount of water from the soil.
They have been planted (or re-planted) in some places to lower the water table and reduce the amount of salt in the soil.
Eucalypts have also been used as a way of reducing malaria by draining the soil in such places as Algeria, Sicily mainland Europe and California.
Drainage removes swamps which provide a habitat for mosquito larvae, but such drainage can also destroy harmless habitats by accident.
Eucalyptus oil is refined from the leaves by steaming.
It can be used for cleaning, deodorising, and in very small amounts in food supplements, especially sweets, cough drops and decongestants.
Eucalyptus oil is an insect repellent (Fradin & Day 2002).
The nectar of some eucalyptus produces high quality honey.
In the western United States the flowering is in late January, before the flowering of other nut and fruit trees; this means that its nectar can be easily made into its own kind of honey, which is said to have a buttery taste.
The ghost gum's leaves were used by Aborigines to catch fish.
Soaking the leaves in water releases a mild tranquiliser which stuns fish, making them easy to catch.
Problems caused by eucalypts
Eucalypts were first introduced to the rest of the world by Sir Joseph Banks, botanist on the Cook expedition in 1770.
They have since been introduced to many parts of the world.
Several species have become invasive (spreading out of the area they were planted in) and may cause problems for local wildlife.
In Spain, they have been planted in pulpwood plantations, replacing native oak woodland.
As in other such areas, while the original woodland supports kinds of native animal life, the eucalypt groves cannot support the local wildlife, leading to silent forests and the decline of wildlife populations.
On the other hand, eucalypts help several industries, such as sawmilling, pulp, and charcoal making.
In the 1850s many Australians traveled to California to take part in the California Gold Rush.
Much of California has similar climate to parts of Australia, and some people had the idea of introducing eucalypts.
By the early 1900s thousands of hectares of eucalypts were planted with the encouragement of the state government.
It was hoped that they would provide a renewable source of timber for construction and furniture making.
However this did not happen partly because the trees were cut when they were too young and partly because the Americans did not know how to process the cut trees to prevent the wood from twisting and splitting.
One way in which the eucalypts, mainly the blue gum, proved valuable in California was in providing windbreaks for highways, orange groves, and other farms in the mostly treeless central part of the state.
Eucalyptus forests in California have been criticized because they drive out the native plants and do not support native animals.
Fire is also a problem.
The 1991 Oakland Hills firestorm which destroyed almost 3,000 homes and killed 25 people was partly fueled by large numbers of eucalyptus in the area close to the houses.
In some parts of California eucalypt forests are being removed, and native trees and plants restored.
Some people have also illegally destroyed some trees and are suspected of bringing in insect pests from Australia which attack the trees.
In 1910 eucalypts were introduced to Brazil for timber substitution and the charcoal industry.
Regrettably the long term effects were not studied, and in the present the eucalyptus is causing problems because of its high consumption of water.
This causes the soil to dry out, killing many local plants which the local animals need to survive.
Fradin, M. S., & Day, J. F. (2002).
Comparative efficacy of insect repellents against mosquito bites.
New England J. Med.
347: 13-18.
Jahn, G. C. (1991a).
Ant repellent activity of eucalyptus extracts in choice tests.
Insecticide & Acaricide Tests 16: 293.
Jahn, G. C. (1991b).
Evaluation of the repellent activity of eucalyptus oil to big-headed ants.
Insecticide & Acaricide Tests 16: 293-294.
Jahn, G. C. (1992).
Effect of Eucalyptus dives extracts on Pheidole megacephala (F.) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae).
Hawaiian Entomol.
31: 79-81.
EUCLID Sample , CSIRO
The Eucalyptus Page
EucaLink
Eucalyptus globulus Diagnostic photos: tree, leaves, bark
Duke, James A.  Handbook of Energy Crops.
Santos, Robert. "
The Eucalyptus of Califonia: Seeds of Good or Seeds of Evil?"
1997 Denair, CA : Alley-Cass Publications
Williams, Ted. "
America's Largest Weed" Audubon Magazine, January 2002
Trees of Australia
Cell theory is the historic scientific theory, now universally accepted, that living organisms are made up of cells.
Cells are the basic unit of structure in all organisms and also the basic unit of reproduction.
With continual improvements made to microscopes over time, magnification technology advanced enough to discover cells in the 17th century.
This discovery is largely attributed to Robert Hooke, and began the scientific study of cells, also known as cell biology.
Over a century later
Most of these debates involved the nature of cellular regeneration, and the idea of cells as a fundamental unit of life.
Cell theory was eventually formulated in 1839.
This is usually credited to Matthias Schleiden and Theodor Schwann.
However, many other scientists like Rudolf Virchow contributed to the theory.
By the mid-century cells were identified as being the substance in a body part containing what's called germs in A cell just like a fungi.
Silicones () are polymers that include any inert, synthetic compound made up of repeating units of siloxane.