the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
Ruhleben P.O.W. Camp was a camp near Berlin, Germany, where British prisoners of war were detained (kept) during World War I. Ruhleben itself was then a village 10 kilometres to the west of Berlin, but now it is part of the city of Berlin, in a district called Ruhleben in the borough of Spandau.
The camp was originally a horse racecourse.
Detainees
The detainees (people who were kept there) came from countries that were fighting against Germany in the war.
Most of them were British.
They were in Germany when the war broke out, which is why they were taken prisoner (detained).
Some of them were in Germany because they lived there, others were on holiday at the time.
Some of them were crew members of civilian ships that happened to be in German harbours at the time or who were captured at sea.
There were about 5,500 prisoners in the camp.
Most of them spent all four years of World War I there.
Books have been written about what it was like living in the camp.
These include To Ruhleben - And Back by Geoffrey Pyke, who successfully escaped from the camp in 1915.
The detainees were mostly treated quite well.
The guards had to obey the Geneva Conventions.
Although there were some people who found it very difficult being kept there, many others found lots of things to do to keep themselves occupied.
Letters, books, sports equipment and a printing press were all allowed into the camp and the detainees organised their own police force, magazine, library and postal service.
Some of the detainees were young people who later became famous.
They included the Canadian musician Ernest MacMillan who later became the conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
MacMillan had been on holiday in Germany to visit the Bayreuth Festival when war broke out.
Charles Ellis and James Chadwick later became famous scientists.
They used their time in Ruhleben to study.
They were able to build a laboratory and do some experiments.
There were famous footballers and athletes as well.
The Arts in Ruhleben
A lot of musical activities were organized in the camp.
There was a Ruhleben Musical Society.
Ernest MacMillan was a member and he gave concerts and lectures.
Together with the composer and pianist Benjamin Dale, he played piano duet versions of all Beethoven’s symphonies.
The society put on a performance of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera Mikado and a pantomime version of Cinderella.
They did not have the music for the Mikado, but someone had the libretto (the words), and four of the musicians wrote the music from what they could remember.
They wrote it out for whatever instruments they had in the camp.
There was also a Ruhleben Drama Society which put on productions of Shakespeare’s Othello and Twelfth Night and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.
Sports at Ruhleben
As well as music and drama, sports also played a big part in the life of the camp detainees.
Among the detainees were four people who had been England internationals: Fred Spiksley, Fred Pentland, Samuel Wolstenholme and Steve Bloomer, a Scotland international, John Cameron, a German international Edwin Dutton, and John Brearley, once of Everton and Tottenham Hotspur.
There was a Ruhleben Football Association.
Sometimes 1,000 detainees watched a game.
Cricket, rugby, tennis, golf and boxing were also popular.
The Ruhleben Story
Sir Ernest MacMillan at Ruhleben
1940s in Berlin
The M249 light machine gun is a machine gun which is the U.S. vesion of the Belgian FN Minimi light machine gun, used by the United States and Lebanon.
The main use of this weapon is to provide cover fire for other people in the group (the squad) The gun uses 5.56 NATO caliber ammunition.
The M249 was made because a lot of the squadrons of the U.S. Army did not have fully automatic weapons.
It has seen action in every war that the United States has been in since 1989.
Light machine guns
Machine guns of the United States
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra is a Canadian orchestra.
400,000 people go to its concerts each year and it is often broadcast over CBC Radio 2.
It was formed in 1922.
The concerts used to be given in the Massey Hall but since 1982 they have been in the Roy Thomson Hall.
The Orchestra often goes on tour and has had some famous conductors.
Luigi von Kunits (1922-1931)
Sir Ernest MacMillan (1931-1956)
Walter Susskind (1956-1965)
Seiji Ozawa (1965-1969)
Karel Ančerl (1969-1973)
Sir Andrew Davis (1975-1988)
Günther Herbig (1988-1994)
Jukka-Pekka Saraste (1994-2001)
Peter Oundjian (2003-)
Canadian musical groups
1922 establishments in North America
1920s establishments in Canada
It started as an unimportant race in 1996, but because cycling became very popular in Germany it was made a part of the UCI Road World Cup in 1998.
Since 2005, it is a part of the UCI ProTour.
The route of the race changes, but is about 250 km long.
During a number of laps through Hamburg, the Waseberg hill is climbed a several times.
The cyclists also race over Hamburg's highest bridge Köhlbrandbrücke.
Unlike many races the Cyclassic race almost never ends in a mass sprint, that is, with a lot of riders close together racing to the finish line.
There is an amateur part of the Cyclassics.
Earlier on the day of the race there are three Jedermann-Rennen.
Anybody (jedermann) with a ticket can take part in these races (rennen) over 55 km, 100 km and 155 km.
Tickets must be reserved months in advance.
In 2005 there were 20000 amateurs on the course.
The sponsor of the Cyclassics, was the Hamburg Electrizität Werke, Hamburg electricity plant or "HEW", after it became part of the big "Vattenfall" company the Cyclassic changed its name too, and from 2006 this cycling race has been known as the Vattenfall Cyclassics.
Official Cyclassics site
The Gothic language is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths.
It is the East Germanic language with the most texts surviving today.
It had died out by the 8th century or perhaps the early 9th century.
Probably, one of the best known works of the language is Wulfila's translation of the Bible, known as the Wulfila Bible or Gothic Bible or Codex Argenteus.
The translation was done in the 3rd century.
Project Wulfila, studies the Gothic language.
9th-century disestablishments in Europe
Sir Ernest MacMillan (born Mimico, Ontario, 18 August 1893; died 6 May 1973)  was a famous Canadian conductor and composer.
MacMillan's father was a Scottish Presbyterian minister and musician.
He gave his first organ recital in Massey Hall at the age of ten.
After studying in Britain and gaining the ARCO and FRCO diplomas at the Royal College of Organists, he studied modern history at the University of Toronto from 1911 to 1914.
Prisoner in Germany
In 1914 he went to Europe.
He wanted to study at the Paris Conservatoire but this was closed because of the political situation.
He went on to Germany to attend the Bayreuth Festival, but World War I started and he was taken prisoner and kept at the Ruhleben civilian detention camp near Berlin.
He helped the other people who were prisoners in the camp to put on concerts.
He gave talks about classical music and conducted a performance of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera Mikado as well as a pantomime version of Cinderella.
This helped him to get experience in conducting.
He also took part in the drama productions.
He studied hard and was given a BA degree from the University of Toronto (1915) and a D Mus from the University of Oxford (1918), although he was locked up in the camp all this time.
After the war he returned to Canada where he gave organ recitals and lectured about his experiences in Ruhleben.
From 1926 to 1942 he was principal of the Toronto Conservatory of Music, later to become the Royal Conservatory of Music.
He was the conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra between 1931 and 1956.
He did a lot for music in Canada,and he was knighted in 1935 by King George V. In 1969 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.
He died in Toronto in 1973.
When he conducted he often took the music very slowly.
This gave him the nickname "Lord Largo" ("Largo" means "slow and broad" in music).
He had an amazing musical memory and he could improvise very well.
MacMillan helped to record and preserve the traditional songs and music of Canada's aboriginal or First Nations people.
He had an important influence on almost every part of Canadian musical life.
Canadian musical entertainers
POW at Ruhleben
Canadian composers
Colin McRae (5 August 1968 – 15 September 2007) was a Scottish rally car driver.
He was one of the best rally drivers in the world.
He died with his son and two other friends when he crashed his helicopter near his home in Lanark, Scotland.
Accidental deaths in the United Kingdom
Scottish racecar drivers
Dale won many prizes at the Royal Academy of Music for composition when he was still very young.
He wrote a  Piano sonata in D minor which shows the influence of Romantic composers such as Liszt and Schumann.
It was played by pianists such as York Bowen and  Dame Myra Hess who were becoming famous.
He wrote music for viola for Lionel Tertis to play.
He was in Germany when World War I broke out and was a prisoner in the camp at Ruhleben.
There were other musicians there, including the  Canadian Ernest MacMillan who later became a famous conductor.
They organized a lot of musical events at the camp.
Ernest MacMillan gave lectures about each of the nine symphonies by Beethoven, after which he and Dale would play the whole symphony in a piano duet arrangement.
After the war he worked as an Associated Board examiner.
He became professor of harmony at the Royal Academy of Music.
He continued to compose music.
His ballade for violin was especially popular.
Dale’s music is not played much today, but there have been some attempts to make his music known again through CD recordings.
The Chaser’s War on Everything is a comedy television series.
It was shown on the ABC in Australia from 2006-2009.
The series is replayed on Friday nights and again (on a different channel) on Sunday nights.
The series is hosted by a group of men called The Chaser.
The series has the men doing stunts and tricks.
Sometimes these tricks have been known to be dangerous (such as in one episode, cutting across lanes of traffic to stay behind a mobile advertisement), causing the television program Today Tonight to show a story on how dangerous this stunt was.
At the end of each episode, there is a parody song performed, usually about the national government.
One of the most famous tricks that has been on the series was when the group tricked security at the APEC Meeting in Sydney in 2007.
They drove past two checkpoints in a fake motorcade, using fake access passes.
One member of The Chaser was dressed up as Osama bin Laden, causing a massive security scare just metres from where George Bush was staying.
13 crew members were arrested, charged and later released on bail.
Following a Mobile Advertisement until they left town
Making fun of call-in-quiz-shows Quizmania, Midnight Zoo and The Up-Late Game Show
Using Public Transport as a furniture moving truck.
Making fun of Kids with Cancer and the Make A Wish Foundation
Reality television series
2000s disestablishments in Australia
Illyria (Ancient Greek: Ἰλλυρία, Illyría or Ἰλλυρίς, Illyrís) was an ancient region in the western part of today's Balkan Peninsula in modern-day Epirus, Greece.
The people who lived there were called Illyrians and spoke the Illyrian languages.
The Illyrians settled in the Balkans approximately around 2500 BC along with other Indo Europeans.
The Illyrians became heavily romanised and a portion of them evolved into modern Albanians.
Illyria region in google map
The Battle of Kosovo was a battle between Serbian forces and the Ottoman Empire.
The result was huge losses on both sides, delaying Ottoman advance into Europe for many years.
The battle was fought on St Vitus' Day, 1389.
At the time this was June 15, but is now celebrated on the June 28.
Battle of Kosovo as National Narrative by Dr. Seth Ward
The Battle of Kosovo: Early Reports of Victory and Defeat  by Thomas Emmert
The Kosovo Legacy by Thomas Emmert alternate URL
The events Surrounding the Battle of Kosovo 1389 and its cultural, traditional effect on the Serbian people by Mark Gottfried
The Battle of Kosovo Serbian Epic Poems edited by Charles Simic Alternate URL
Worcester (pronounced Wuster) is a cathedral city and district in the West Midlands of England.
It is the county town of Worcestershire, a county of England.
In 2015, it had 101,328 residents.
The River Severn runs through the middle of the city.
Worcester Cathedral overlooks the river.
Famous composer Edward Elgar was from Worcester.
It is also where Worcestershire sauce originated.
Stoke-on-Trent is a city in Staffordshire in the West Midlands region of England.
It is also a unitary authority.
Stoke-on-Trent is sometimes known to be the home of the pottery industry in the United Kingdom and is commonly known as The Potteries.
The Armitage Shanks company has its headquarters here.
The company makes porcelain products, especially toilets.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council
BBC Stoke website
Local Information from The Sentinel newspaper
Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Archive Service
Exploring the Potteries
Triton, or Neptune I, is the largest moon of the planet Neptune.
It is the seventh-largest moon in the Solar System.
Triton is slightly smaller than Earth's Moon.
Triton has a complicated geological history, and it is thought to have a comparatively young surface compared to the age of the Solar System itself.
Triton is believed to be a captured Kuiper Belt object, and is the coldest-known body in the Solar System.
The surface temperature of Triton was recorded by Voyager 2 as -235 °C (-391 °F).
Triton has its own magnetic field and has a faint trace of an atmosphere.
Drag and tidal interaction cause Triton to fall slowly into lowered orbits.
This process is immensely slow.
3.6 billion years from now, Triton will pass within Neptune's Roche limit.
It will either collide with Neptune's atmosphere or break up, forming a ring system similar to that found around the planet Saturn.
The reason why Triton is thought to be a captured object is its orbit, which is unique in the Solar System.
It is both retrograde (see diagram) and highly tilted.
Although there are other satellites with retrograde orbits, they are much smaller than Triton, and much more distant from their host planets (their "primaries").
Triton, like our Moon, shows only one face to the planet: it rotates in synchrony to Neptune.
All we know about the surface of Triton comes from one fly-by of Voyager 2 in 1989.
There are few impact craters.
This suggests the surface is quite young in astronomical terms: estimates are six to 50 million years.
Despite its very cold temperature, the surface of Triton is geologically active.
There are events which look like geysers, volcanos and earthquakes.
All the materials involved are quite different from those on Earth.
Most of the gases are frozen most of the time.
Gases like nitrogen are frozen until something occurs to melt them, then it turns back into a gas.
A temperature increase of just 4 K () is enough to make this happen.
Past formation and capture
Like most TNOs, Triton is mostly icy.
While Triton's orbit does give us insight on its past, it is mostly unknown.
It is speculated that Triton formed in a binary system, like Pluto, and was moving at extremely high speeds.
However, when it passed through Neptune's Roche sphere the other body will have been flung out, reducing Triton's speed and allowing it to be captured.
Currently, Triton is the most massive TNO to ever have existed, and its effects on Neptune's moon system were cataclysmic.
All large moons were destroyed, flung out of orbit or crashed into Neptune itself.
Triton Profile  by NASA's Solar System Exploration
Kulykol is a lake in northeastern Kazakhstan.
Lake Aike is about  south.
The Russian border is   to the west.
Pierre Curie (15 May 1859 in Paris – 19 April 1906 in Paris) was a French physicist.
He shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with his wife, Marie Curie and Henri Becquerel, for the work on 'spontaneous radioactivity' which Becquerel discovered.
Pierre Curie is not as well known as Marie Curie, although Pierre and his brother had done a lot of work before Pierre's marriage and work with Marie.
They were the first to use the term 'radioactivity', and were pioneers in its study.
Pierre and his brother, Jacques Curie, built a special meter for measuring small amounts of electricity, piezoelectricity and ferromagnetism which Pierre and Marie used in their other discoveries.
Pierre died after a carriage accident in Paris on 19 April 1906.
His head was crushed under the wheels.
If he had lived he would probably have died by radiation poisoning, as Marie did.
As they were the first to study radioactivity, they did not know how dangerous it was.
Pierre and Marie Curie's daughter Irène Joliot-Curie and their son-in-law Frédéric Joliot-Curie were also physicists involved in the study of radioactivity, and were also given the Nobel prize for their work.
Their other daughter Ève wrote her mother's biography.
His granddaughter Hélène Langevin-Joliot is a professor of nuclear physics at the University of Paris and his grandson, Pierre Joliot, who was named after him, is a noted biochemist.
Nobel Prize in Physics (1903)
Davy Medal (1903)
Matteucci Medal (1904)
Pierre Curie's Nobel prize
Official Nobel biography
Nobel article about Marie Curie
Biography American Institute of Physics
Annotated bibliography for Pierre Curie from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
1906 deaths
Hindustani is a language.
It is made up of the common parts of Hindi and Urdu.
Hindi and Urdu have similar grammar, but somewhat different vocabulary and different scripts.
Urdu dialects
Masala or Massala or Masalo (,  , , ) is a word used in South Asia mainly in India.
When Indian people talk about cooking and they say masala, they mean a mixture of ground spices used in Indian cooking.
There are many different, popular spice mixtures that have been given their own name because they taste really good with one special ingredient.
The dish will often use masala in its name.
Some popular dishes are:
Masala Chai: tea flavoured with a special blend of spices
Chicken tikka masala: pieces of chicken cooked using a special blend of spices; very popular in the United Kingdom & Ireland
Chana Masala: a chickpea dish flavoured with a special mix of spices
Maggi masala noodles: a brand of noodles with a packet of dried spices for flavouring; very popular in India
The blend of spices or masala for these dishes is often sold in markets or packed by companies to be sold in shops.
Some spice blends, like Garam Masala, are so popular it is often used in many different recipes, not just one.
Also India is one of the only countries to have the highest variety in masalas.
Around 70% of the world's spice business and exports are handled by India.
Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million native Maya.
Most of them are in Guatemala, Mexico or Belize.
In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized 21 Mayan languages by name, and Mexico recognises eight others.
The Mayan languages are some of the best documented and most studied in the Americas.
Modern Mayan languages come from Proto-Mayan, a language that was probably spoken at least 5000 years ago.
It has been partly reconstructed.
Soconusco is a region of the Mexican state of Chiapas.
It is in the most southern part of the state.
It borders the Republic of Guatemala on the southeast, the regions Costa, Sierra and Fraylesca of Chiapas on the east and north, and the shore of the Pacific Ocean on the southwest.
It is a region of rich lowlands and foothills.
The economic center of Soconusco is Tapachula.
The name comes from the Nahuatl word xoconostle, meaning the fruit of the prickly pear cactus.
It was, under the Mexican culture, the farthest region of trade.
The area provided jaguar pelts, cacao, and quetzal feathers for the ruling classes in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.
The Soconusco region is the main coffee-producing region in Chiapas.
It has many plantations farther inland in the foothills of the Sierra Madre del Sur.
Chiapas is the southernmost state of Mexico.
It is towards the southeast of the country.
Chiapas is bordered by the states of Tabasco to the north, Veracruz to the northwest, and Oaxaca to the west.
To the east Chiapas borders Guatemala, and to the south the Pacific Ocean.
Chiapas has an area of .
The 2005 census population was 4,293,459 people.
In general Chiapas has a humid, tropical weather.
In the north, in the area bordering Tabasco, near Teapa, rainfall can be more than 3,000 mm (118 in) per year .
In the past, natural vegetation at this region was lowland, tall perennial rainforest, but this vegetation has been destroyed almost completely to give way to agriculture and ranching.
Rainfall decreases moving towards the Pacific Ocean, but it is still abundant enough to allow the farming of bananas and many other tropical crops near Tapachula.
On the several parallel "sierras" or mountain ranges running along the center of Chiapas, climate can be quite temperate and foggy.
This allows the development of cloud forests like those of the Reserva de la Biosfera el Triunfo, home to a handful of quetzals and horned guans.
The state capital is Tuxtla Gutiérrez.
Other cities and towns in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las Casas, Comitán, and Tapachula.
Chiapas is also home to the ancient Maya ruins of Palenque, Yaxchilan, Bonampak, Chinkultic, and Tonina.
Most people in Chiapas are poor, rural small farmers.
About one quarter of the population are of full or predominant Maya descent, and in rural areas many do not speak Spanish.
The state suffers from the highest rate of malnutrition in Mexico.
This rate is estimated to affect over 40% of the population.
Other social issues involve the increasing presence of the Central American gangs known as Maras, and illegal immigration from Central America in general.
This migration is mostly directed towards the United States, but it makes local poverty even worse.
Many times, there are abuse and Human Rights violations that touch these migrants.
In 1994, there was an outbreak of violence between the Mexican Government and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (the EZLN or Zapatistas).
Today, the EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, named in honour of Emiliano Zapata) has rejected the use of force and seek to be recognized as a voice of the poor.
There are currently 32 "rebel autonomous zapatista municipalities" (independent Zapatista communities, MAREZ in Spanish), controlled by the EZLN in Chiapas: examples of these communities are Ocosingo and Las Margaritas.
Urbanism is the study of cities.
Urbanists look at the different factors present in a city.
A city is different from rural areas.
There are certain things than make people come to a city, to live and work there.
There are also certain factors, like where the city is located, that have an influence on the economic, social and cultural development of that city.
Urban and regional sciences
Teotihuacán   was a city in pre-Columbian America.
At the time it was most populated, it was the largest known city there at the time, housing over 100,000.
This was from about the 1st century to about the 5th century.
The city is about 40 km away from Mexico City.
The civilization and culture lived around this city is also called Teotihuacán.
Its important position can be seen in various sites in Veracruz, and the area controlled by the Maya civilization.
The name Teotihuacán was given by the Nahuatl-speaking Aztec centuries after the fall of the city.
Although the original name of the city is unknown, it can be seen in hieroglyph inscriptions.
Nahuatl creation myths took place in the city.
The Nauhatl name,Teotihuacán, therefore translates to  'birthplace of the gods. '
The Maya seemed to have referred to it as puh, as place of reeds.
This is similar to other Central Mexican settlements that took the name 'Tollan' such as Tula-Hidalgo and Cholula.
It looks like Tollan was a general term, used for large settlements.
In the  concept of urbanism of the time, Tollan and other names seemed like a metaphor.
They linked the bundles of reeds and rushes that formed part of the environment of the Valley of Mexico and the large gathering of people in a city.
Speculation of Chronology
We still only know very little about the beginning of Teotihuacán.
We also have not dedicated much time to such periods like the Formative Period.
Some believe that this city was built by the Toltec people, but others believe that Tehuatican is much older than the Toltec Civilization.
Archeologists Sugiyama and Sarabia also recently discovered older structures and Patlachique ceramics in the Sun Pyramid’s fill.
Studies from their radiocarbon assays demonstrated that the construction of the pyramid was later than what many had thought before.
Many now think that the construction began at around 229-330 A.D. If the Patlachique and Tzacualli phases are now this late, the chronology of Teotihuacán will require some crucial changes.
No one has applied these changes yet to Teotihuacán's chronology, but it it important that these findings be noted.
What we do know about Teotihuacán chronology is that beginning 150-100 B.C. Teotihuacan grew rapidly due to regional dominance with those of Cuicuilio and relocation of much of the population.
Many settlements moved from the hinterlands to the valley floor.
Teotihuacán’s urbanism grew exponentially during the subsequent Patalachique Phase.
This is also where we see the Moon Pyramid being constructed, which is one of the earliest public structures in the city that still stands today.
The following listed chronology is the development and decline of Teotihuacán that is divided into six phases.
This is based on ceramic distinctions defined through test excavations throughout the city.
Chronological Phase                               Approximate Dates
Patlachique                                                       100 – 1 B.C.
Tzacualli                                                            A.D. 1-100
Miccaotli                                                            A.D. 100-170
Tlamimilolpa                                                      A.D. 170-350
Xolalpan                                                            A.D. 350-550
Metepec                                                            A.D. 550-650
Rapid population growth occurred within Teotihuacán during the Tzacualli and Miccaotli phase.
Many believe this is due to the relocation of settlements within the Basin of Mexico following volcanic activity, which impacted southern portions of the Basin.
With this population being reorganized, vast amounts of construction efforts began to shape the ceremonial core of the city.
Many have hypothesized that the Street of the Dead was established during this time, replacing earlier structures that now underlie this area, and large-scale construction occurred at the Sun Pyramid, the Moon Pyramid, and the Ciudadela complex.
During the Tlamimilolpa period, the city of Teotihuacán began to construct about 2,300 apartment compounds throughout the city.
Teotihuacan’s foreign interactions began to retract at around 450-500 A.D. Their level of economic and social power began to shrink by the Metepec Phase, as well as their population.
At first, people believed that sometime in the 7th and th century, Teotihuacán was attacked and burned by invaders The Toltecs might have invaded the city.
More recent research shows, that the fire damage and looting seems to be limited to the structures and houses of the higher class or those considered elite.
This evidence makes an uprising from the poor more likely than invasion.
The invasion theory is also not as accurate, because excavation and restoration work started with the temples, and palaces.
All these structures showed extreme fire damage.
The archaeologists then concluded, that the whole city was most likely burned.
The destruction seems to have been focused on structures along the Avenue of the Dead.
Some statues seem to have been destroyed in a rather methodical way.
The population in the city started to decline around the 6th century.
This supports the hypothesis that there was unrest in the city.
The decline in population is generally linked to drought and deforestation.
These were linked to climate change, occurring in 535-536 A.D. There also seem to be more skeletons of young people, and more evidence of malnutrition in city in the 6th century.
There is no conflict between the theories.
Both increased warfare and internal unrest can also be effects of a general period of drought and famine.
A major key that allowed Teotihuacán to become so powerful and large was due to the absence of nearby enemies.
However, due to sociopolitical chaos, environment issues that Tehuatican could recover from, and declining population, Teotihuacán became very weak in regards to defending itself from the outside world.
Other cities nearby tried to take the position of Teotihuacán.
These included Cholula, Xochicalco, and Cacaxtla.
They tried to take advantage of Teotihuacán of being weak.
Some believe they may have aligned themselves against Teotihuacán to reduce its influence and power.
The art and architecture at these sites show an interest in emulating Teotihuacán forms.
There is also  but also a broader mix of motifs and iconography from other parts of Mesoamerica, particularly the Maya region.
Teotihuacan Culture
Teotihuacán was a multi-ethnic city, with distinct Zapotec, Mixtec, Maya and what seem to be Nahua quarters.
Immigration played a key role in the city’s growth and its variety of ethnicity.
This then included ethnic barrios.
The well-known Oaxaca (Zapotec) Barrio and the Merchants’ Barrio continue to be the subject of research on the immigrants in Teotihuacán.
Due to these barrios, we have found that there was immigrants coming from western Mexico, Oaxaca, the Gulf Lowlands, and central Mexico.
The city was a center of industry.
Many potters, jewelers, and craftsmen lived there.
Many obsidian artifacts were produced in Teotihuacán.
However, no ancient Teotihuacan non-ideographic texts are known to exist (or known to have existed).
Mentions of the city in inscriptions from Maya cities show that Teotihuacán nobility travelled to local rulers, as far away as Honduras.
It might have conquered them.
Maya inscriptions mention an individual nicknamed by scholars as "Spearthrower Owl".
He seems to have been a ruler of Teotihuacán, who reigned for over 60 years.
He installed his relatives as rulers of Tikal and Uaxactúnin Guatemala Most of what we infer about the culture at Teotihuacán comes from the murals on the site and others, like the Wagner Murals, found in private collections, and from hieroglyphic inscriptions made by the Maya describing their encounters with Teotihuacan conquerors.
Religon
The religion of Teotihuacán is similar to those of other Mesoamerican cultures.
Many of the same gods were worshipped.
This includes the Feathered Serpent and The Rain god.
Teotihuacán was know to be a major religious center.
The priests most likely had a great deal of political power.
As with other Mesoamerican cultures, the people of Teotihuacán practiced human sacrifice.
Human bodies and animal sacrifices have been found during excavations of the pyramids at Teotihuacán.
When the buildings were expanded, sacrifices were probably made to dedicate the new building.
The victims could have been enemy warriors captured in battle.
They were then brought to the city to be ritually sacrificed so the city could prosper.
Some were decapitated, others had their hearts removed, still others were killed by being hit several times over the head.
Some were even buried alive.
Animals that were considered sacred and represented mythical powers and military might were also buried alive.
They were imprisoned in cages, though.
Cougars, a wolf, eagles, a falcon, an owl, and even venomous snakes were among those found.
Research on faunal and botanical remains from exploited apartment compounds found that there was a variety of resources for the city's diet.
What was found included maize, amaranth, beans, squash, chili peppers, tomatoes, maguey, huahzontle, purslane, Mexican hawthorn, and Mexican cherries.
A residue analysis from some ceramic vessels also demonstrated that a portion of Teotihuacán's dietary input was pulque, which was fermented from the sap of the maguey cactus.
Studies of faunal remains at various apartment compounds suggest that the primary animal species consumed included several species of rabbits, white-tailed deer, dog, waterbirds, fish, quail, turkey, dove, and turtle.
Egg fragments from these animals such as quail and turkey were also found to be a primary use of protein.
Due to the consumption of white-tailed deer, It is still argued whether or not the people of Tehuatican hunted more or relied on domestic animals.
The city's broad central avenue, called "Avenue of the Dead," is flanked by impressive ceremonial architecture, including the immense Pyramid of the Sun (second largest in the New World after the Great Pyramid of Cholula) and the Pyramid of the Moon.
Along the Avenue of the Dead are many smaller talud-tablero platforms.
The Aztecs believed they were tombs, inspiring the name of the avenue.
Now they are known to be ceremonial platforms that were topped with temples.
Further down the Avenue of the Dead is the area known as the Citadel, containing the ruined Temple of the Feathered Serpent.
This area was a large plaza surrounded by temples that formed the religious and political center of the city.
The name "Citadel" was given to it by the Spanish, who believed it was a fort.
One aspect that was unique to Teotihuacán's layout was their utilization of apartment compounds.
Over time, there were over 2,000 apartment compounds throughout city.
These compounds didn't just house one family, but housed multiple families.
These housed various people in all aspects of social classes as well.
However, these people were not sent to live in certain compounds at random.
Teotihuacán had a housing system which ensured that people and their families who had the same occupation would also live with other families with that same oppcupation.
Rabbit breeders lived with rabbit breeders and plasters lived with plasters.
However, it was also very common for people to do multiple specializations.
Many did lots of farm work or specialized in some other sort of craft specialty.
These compounds provided a standardized residential form but varied on the inside and expressed status, class, occupational, and ethnic differences between families.
In every compound, each family had its own suite of rooms for cooking, dining, storing their belongings, and sleeping.
They also had areas for directing funerals and burying their dead.
Patios were centers of household religious dedication focused on patron or domestic deities.
Pyramids and Burials
The Moon Pyramid was the first of the three major pyramids to be built.
It was constructed in several stages that had a fourth enlargement during the third century A.D. Four burial complexes were found with sacrificial victims and some wealthy objects, but none seemed to be anything important like a ruler or someone high in the religious or political realm.
The Sun Pyramid is near an artificial cave and is associated with the Storm God, time, astronomy, the sun, and the Pleiades.
This pyramid was mostly dedicated to investments and pilgrimage.
Due to the pyramid’s semi-detached platform, it was known as the area of New Fire ceremonies.
The New Fire ceremonies only happened at the end of a 52-year cycle at the time where new houses, temples, and cities were founded, and new rulers came into power.
The Feathered Serpent Pyramid was the last large temple added to the Street of the Dead.
This pyramid is linked to the creation of a watery world with sacred warfare, sacrifice, authority, and rulership.
Dedication of this temple included offerings of sacrificed warriors and some have theorized that other people who were sacrificed were captives.
A central tomb was found, but had been looted in prior times.
Many consider this tomb to be for someone that was a ruler or for someone of high importance.
Knowledge of the great ruins of Teotihuacán was never lost.
After the fall of the city, various squatters lived on the site.
During Aztec times, the city was a place of pilgrimage and identified with the myth of Tollan, the place where the sun was created.
Teotihuacán astonished the Spanish conquistadores during the post-conquest era.
Today Teotihuacán is one of the most noted archaeological attractions in Mexico.
Excavations and investigations
Minor archaeological excavations were conducted in the 19th century, and in 1905 major projects of excavation and restoration began under archaeologist Leopoldo Batres.
The Pyramid of the Sun was restored to celebrate the centennial of Mexican Independence in 1910.
Major programs of excavation and restoration were carried out in 1960-65 and 1980-82.
Recent projects at the Pyramid of the Moon and the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent have greatly expanded evidence of cultural practices.
Teotihuacán features museums and reconstructed structures.
Nado, Kristin.
Dietary Practices, Socioeconomic Status, and Social Mobility at Teotihuacan, Mexico.
Arizona State University, Dissertation.
Nichols, Deborah.
Nichols, Deborah L., HerausgeberIn.
Pool, Christopher A. 1959- HerausgeberIn.
The Oxford handbook of Mesoamerican archaeology.
ISBN 978-0-19-023080-7.
OCLC 974502393.
Teotihuacan Research Guide , academic resources and links, maintained by Temple University
Teotihuacán Photo Gallery, by James Q. Jacobs
Teotihuacán at Sacred Destinations
Did Teotihuacános Migrate to Southeastern U.S.?
Satellite View of Teotihuacán - at WikiMapia = Google maps + wiki
MesoAmerican Photo Archives: Teotihuacán , by David Hixson
Decoding Mexico's City of Gods July 2014 Scientific American
Deadwood is an American dramatic television series.
It was first shown in March 2004 on HBO.
The series is a Western set in the 1870s in Deadwood, South Dakota.
At the time, Deadwood was little more than a camp, but it was a popular place to go for those searching for gold in the Black Hills.
The series shows Deadwood's growth from camp to town.
It deals with ideas ranging from the creation of communities to western capitalism.
Deadwood features many historical people.
For example, Wild Bill Hickok, Seth Bullock, Sol Star, Calamity Jane, Al Swearengen, Wyatt Earp, E. B. Farnum, Charlie Utter and George Hearst have all been used in the series.
The stories that deal these characters include historical truths as well as fictional parts.
Some of the characters are fully fictional, but they may have been based on actual persons.
The series was created by David Milch (NYPD Blue).
He was also executive producer and head writer of the show.
The theme music was written by David Schwartz.
HBO's Deadwood
HBO television series
South Dakota in fiction
Western television series
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is a charity in England and Wales that promotes animal welfare.
Money for the group comes from donations.
It is one of the largest charities in the UK, with an income of £100 million in 2005.
The group began as the SPCA in 1824.
Since then, it has inspired the creation of similar, but independent organisations in other regions:
Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Northern Ireland
Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Scotland
Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Australia) in Australia
Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in New Zealand
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in the United States
Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals website
1824 establishments
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Tim Minear (born October 29, 1963) is an American screenwriter and director.
He was born in New York, grew up in Whittier, California.
He studied film at California State University, Long Beach.
Minear was an assistant director on the movie Platoon.
He wrote episodes for several television series including The X-Files and Lois and Clark.
He later wrote, executive-produced, and directed episodes of Strange World, Angel, Firefly, Wonderfalls, and The Inside (which he also created, with Howard Gordon).
Minear had another series, Drive, airing on FOX in April 2007, however it was cancelled by the network after only four episodes.
Drive was set to return with two additional episodes on July 4th, 2007, but these were rescheduled to July 13th and then cancelled.
Minear often works with Joss Whedon.
His work is usually includes a sharp, black humor.
He is known for his ability to create characters who are sympathetic, understandable and completely wrong.
The best example of this is his writing in Angel Season Two.
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
4x05 "Brutal Youth" (writer)
4x11 "'Twas the Night Before Mxymas" (writer)
4x14 "Meet John Doe" (writer)
4x20 "I've Got You Under My Skin" (writer)
5x08 "Kitsunegari" (co-writer)
5x16 "Mind's Eye" (writer)
1x02 "Lullaby" (writer)
1x04 "Spirit Falls" (co-writer)
1x05 "Sense & Sensitivity" (writer)
1x09 "Hero" (co-writer)
1x11 "Somnambulist" (writer)
1x15 "The Prodigal" (writer)
1x19 "Sanctuary" (co-writer)
2x02 "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been" (writer)
2x07 "Darla" (writer/director)
2x09 "The Trial" (co-writer)
2x10 "Reunion" (co-writer)
2x15 "Reprise" (writer)
2x16 "Epiphany" (writer)
2x21 "Through The Looking Glass" (writer/director)
3x03 "That Old Gang of Mine" (writer)
3x06 "Billy" (co-writer)
3x09 "Lullaby" (writer/director)
3x14 "Couplet" (co-writer/director)
3x20 "A New World" (director)
3x21 "Benediction" (writer/director)
4x22 "Home" (writer/director)
1x02 "The Train Job" (co-writer)
1x03 "Bushwhacked" (writer/director)
1x07 "Out of Gas" (writer)
1x12 "The Message" (co-writer/director)
1x02 "Karma Chameleon" (writer)
1x06 "Barrel Bear" (unaired) (co-writer)
1x01 "New Girl In Town" (final story & writer/director)
1x06 "Thief of Hearts" (co-writer)
1x10 "Little Girl Lost" (unaired in US, UK Airdate 03/17/2006) (co-writer)
1x13 "Skin and Bone" (unaired) (story)
TimMinear.net
PopGurls Quickie with Tim Minear
The Drive News Blog
A Lamella (plural: lamellae) is a soft, thin plate that is attached to the bony gill arches in a fish's gills.
Lamella of a fish.
Lamella of a cell.
Sütterlinschrift, Sütterlin or Suetterlin script is a form of German handwriting.
It was taught in German schools from 1915 to 1941.
In the 19th century the common form of German handwriting was German Kurrent.
It uses very thin lines and sharp edges.
Many students in primary school found it difficult to learn.
So in 1911 the German designer and teacher Ludwig Sütterlin was asked to design a simpler script.
Sütterlin script has thicker lines and rounder edges than German Kurrent.
It can be easily written with any pen.
The Sütterlin script at Omniglot
Freeware Sütterlin font
Learn Sütterlin, a lesson, with sample texts
The Runic calendar also Rune staff or Runic Almanac is a perpetual calendar based on the 19 year long Metonic cycle of the Moon.
An article on rune calendars
Bet Nahrain
Classical Latin is the form of Latin that was used by the ancient Romans in official Roman record-keeping, the Roman military, and Latin literature.
Its use helped the Golden Age of Latin literature during the 1st century BC and the early 1st century AD.
Classical Latin is a dead language, as is Vulgar Latin, the common speech of citizens in the Roman Empire.
Latin is no longer spoken as a first language, bit it is still spoken by church officials in the Vatican, where it is the official language.
Syriac ( leššānā Suryāyā) is an Eastern Aramaic language.
It was spoken long ago in the Fertile Crescent.
Most of the Aramaic writing that survives from the second to the eighth century AD is Syriac.
:en:Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium at English Wikipedia
Beth Mardutho — The Syriac Institute
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Bar Hebraeus Verlag (catalogue of Syriac books)
Gorgias Press (catalogue of Syriac books)
Ethnologue report on Syriac
The Syriac Maronites — Beith Souryoye Morounoye
Chaldean OCR - An optical character recognition software to extract text from images and PDFs
Napoleon Bonaparte created two monuments in the memory of Desaix; they are Desaix on the Place Dauphine and Place des Victoires in Paris.
1800 deaths
Monte Melkonian (born November 25, 1957 – June 12, 1993) was a well-known Armenian military commander in the Nagorno-Karabakh war.
He is largely known for major military victories against Azerbaijan from the late autumn of 1992, .
Melkonian had no prior service record in any country's army before being placed in command of an estimated 4,000 men in the war.
He had largely built his military education beginning from the late 1970s and 1980s where he fought against the various splintering factions in the Lebanese Civil War, against Israeli troops in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and was a member of the Armenian guerrilla organization ASALA.
2 part documentary video about Monte, including rare interviews, on Google Video: Part 1 and Part 2. (
In Armenian.)
5 part interview with Monte Melkonian, in English, on YouTube: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4,Part 5
The Israel Defense Forces (shortened: IDF) () , "Army for the Defense of Israel", known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym צה"ל, (Tzahal), is the name of Israel's military forces.
It includes the Israel Army, Israel Air Force and Israel Navy.
IDF Corps
Armored corps
Prime Minister: Benjamin Netanyahu
Defense Minister: Avigdor Lieberman (resigned mid-November 2018; ministerial position held by P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu)
Chief of General Staff: Gadi Eizenkot
BBC: Israel undercover
Israeli Weapons
Statistics about IDF ratio of thwarting suicide bombing attacks  (link to DOC file)
Defense-Update Online Magazine
Haaretz report: "From 40 attacks per quarter to 5 attacks per quarter" :English  - Hebrew  - Graph 1: Thwarted attacks (yellow) vs successful attacks (red) - Graph 2: Suicide bombing within the "green line" per quarter .
War Online - military analysis and military history of the Middle East, especially IDF
The Israeli Military and Israel's Palestinian Policy: From Oslo to the Al Aqsa Intifada  U.S. Institute of Peace, December 2002
Israel Military Forum
The Constitution of the Dominican Republic says that the country is a presidential democratic republic.
It is a republic because the chief of State is a president, and not a king, queen or emperor.
It is presidential because the president is also the head of government and there is not a prime minister as in other countries.
It is democratic because the president, vice-president and the members of Congress are elected by the people.
The Constitution also says that there are three branches of government with separation of powers.
They are the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch.
The three branches are independent from each other.
The executive branch is the part of the government that enforces the law.
The people elects a President (and a Vice-President) who is the leader of the executive branch, as well as the leader of the Armed Forces.
The President decides whether or not the bills that the Legislative branch passes will become laws.
He may also make "decrees" to govern the country and to name persons in different positions.
The President is in charge of many departments that control all of the different parts of the government.
These departments are called Secretaries of State because they help the President to govern the country.
For example, the Secretary of State of Agriculture takes care of the agriculture of the country.
The President may serve two 4-year terms, making 8 years in all.
The legislative branch is the part of the government that makes laws.
The legislative branch is made up of Congress, which is located in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic.
The Congress is divided into two groups or "chambers".
One group is the Chamber of Deputies (Cámara de Diputados).
The Chamber of Deputies is made up of Deputies, who are each elected by voters from their own province.
The number of Deputies a province has is based on how many people live there: the more people a province has, the more deputies it gets.
No province can have less than two Deputies.
Deputies serve 4-year terms.
The total number of Deputies for the period 2006-2010 is 178.
The other house is the Senate (Senado).