the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
Every year one of these services is recorded in a large English Church, often King's College Chapel, Cambridge, and is broadcast on radio and television to be enjoyed by people who love good music and carol singing, but particularly for people who cannot go to a Christmas service.
Public and commercial celebrations
Many cities and towns celebrate Christmas by putting up decorations.
These may be banners and bunting which are strung from buildings or lampposts.
They may be Christmas lights which can also decorate buildings and street trees.
Many large cities put up a huge Christmas tree in a public place, such as those in Trafalgar Square in London, Times Square in New York and Martin Place in Sydney.
This is often combined with an appeal to the people of the city to give money or gifts to help the poor and needy.
In many cities, the usual shopping hours are made longer before Christmas so that workers have more time to buy Christmas food and presents.
Shop windows are often decorated with Christmas scenes, with large department stores often having animated scenes to entertain children.
Shopping malls and big stores often have a Santa Claus, who sits on a throne, while children tell him what they want for Christmas, and have their photos taken.
Many towns hold Christmas parades, street entertainment and concerts.
Some towns have a tradition of carols with a choir and entertainers in the town hall, while in Australia and New Zealand, these concerts of Christmas entertainment and carols are usually held outdoors, in parks or even on beaches, with families bringing picnics.
The arrival of Santa Claus at the end of the evening is accompanied by a firework display.
A traditional part of Christmas is the theatre entertainment.
This includes the performance of classical music such as Handel's Messiah as well as orchestral concerts and band recitals.
Pantomimes are often played at Christmas and favourites include "Peter Pan and Wendy" and "Cinderella".
Many children's movies are released during the Christmas season.
Family celebrations
Family get-togethers
Most families think of Christmas as a time to get together with other members of the family.
People often travel from far away to be with other family members at Christmas.
Those people who cannot travel often make long-distance phone calls on Christmas Day.
Many people also see Christmas as a time to reach out to others that they know might be lonely, and invite them to dinner on Christmas Day.
Christmas is seen as a time for people of all ages to have fun together, for cousins to get to know each other, for grandparents to see their grandchildren and for the family to admire the babies that have been born during the year.
Big family parties are usually a time of joy, but some families often talk about their disagreements and have big fights at Christmas time.
Family traditions are very different.
Some families might all go off to church together, to a Carol Service, a Midnight Mass, or a Christmas Morning service.
Some families are pulled out of bed very early by children who want to open their presents.
In other families, presents are given on St. Nicholas Day, on Christmas Eve or not until after church on Christmas morning.
The Christmas feast might start on Christmas Eve, with a special breakfast on Christmas morning, or at midday on Christmas Day.
Some families have a tradition of carol singing, and might go around the streets, to hospitals and other such places singing with members of their church.
Other families like to watch certain television programs together, which might include carol services and the Queen's Message.
Some families use Christmas as a time to play music and sing together, or to read a favourite book such as "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens.
In countries in the Southern Hemisphere, a visit to the beach or a swim in a pool is often part of the Christmas Day tradition.
Christmas dinner
Christmas Dinner, usually eaten in the middle of the day, is an important part of the family celebration.
The food differs from country to country and also from family to family.
In the Northern Hemisphere, roasted meat and vegetables is generally the main course of the meal.
Usually one of  several types of meat are served, which may include turkey, chicken, ham, roast beef or lamb.
There are often several courses, with special treats that are usually only eaten at Christmas.
In English-speaking countries, the traditional dessert is Christmas plum pudding.
Nowadays these puddings are often bought from bakers, but many people make their own to a family recipe.
The tradition came from the Middle Ages when the pudding was used to preserve some of the fruit from the autumn until the mid-winter.
A traditional pudding is baked six weeks before Christmas and is left tied up in a cloth or basin with a cloth covering, in a cool place.
Stirring the pudding is sometimes a family tradition, with everyone making a wish as they stir.
Traditionally a silver coin would be stirred into the pudding, to bring luck to the person who found it.
Nowadays most coins cannot be used because they are not made of silver so taste horrible and may be poisonous.
Some families use old coins or silver charms.
On Christmas Day the pudding must be boiled in a pot for several hours.
When it is served, the cloth is cut off, brandy is poured onto the pudding, and it is set on fire before it is carried to the table.
Christmas crackers are  used to decorate and are often opened prior to serving dish or starter course.
It is usually served with hard sauce.
Many families have a Christmas cake or a special bread instead of a pudding (or as well as a pudding).
These are very different depending on the country, but often have marzipan which is made from almonds and is traditional in many countries at Christmas.
In France Buche de Noäl or gingerbread men and women are decorated and hung on the Christmas tree.
In Scotland a pastry biscuit called shortbread is made and has become a popular tradition in many countries.
A German tradition is pfeffernuss, spiced cookies rolled in powdered sugar.
Other Christmas food includes raisins, sultanas, ginger, Greek baklava, almonds, chocolates, caramel toffee, candy canes and oranges.
In the Southern Hemisphere, the traditional roast dinner is often replaced with cold cuts of meat, and served with salads.
The first course might be prawn cocktail or a cold soup like borsch.
The plum pudding might be served with ice cream.
White wine and beer are both served cold (beer is kept in a refrigerator).
Christmas dinner may be served on the veranda, or sometimes as a picnic.
Tree and decorations
In most homes when Christmas is celebrated, people set up a Christmas tree in the house.
This old Yuletide custom began in Germany as the "Tannenbaum" (German for Fir Tree).
These are traditionally evergreens, the best type being the Fir Tree which does not shed its needles or lose its fragrance.
The tree may be a cut tree that is bought from a plantation or taken from the forest.
Artificial trees are sometimes preferred to real trees.
The Christmas tree is decorated with lights, shiny coloured balls, sparkly tinsel and other ornaments.
A wreath of leaves or pine is often put on the front door of a house as a sign of welcome.
Other plants that have special significance at Christmas are holly which is used as decoration and mistletoe which is hung in the centre of a room.
The tradition is that people who meet under the mistletoe must kiss.
Many people decorate their homes at Christmas time.
These decorations and the Christmas tree are generally inside, but may be put where they can also be seen through a window by people passing by.
In the mid 20th century there grew up a custom for decorating the outside of houses as well.
These decorations may be just a few lights around the porch, or hundreds of lights and colourful Christmas figures decorating the whole house and garden.
Some neighbourhoods hold competitions for the best-decorated house, and driving around the streets to look at them has become another family tradition.
Cards and presents
The giving of gifts at Christmas comes from several different ideas.
One is that God gave his son, Jesus, to the world at Christmas.
There is also the story of the Wise Men who came to the baby Jesus with three gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh.
For many centuries it has been the custom for people to give small gifts at Christmas, and also to give generously to the poor and needy to help them through the winter.
Another tradition has become linked to this one, and the result is the tradition of Santa Claus, or Father Christmas as he is sometimes called, and who is nowadays thought by many children to be the bringer of presents and happiness.
In the 4th century, in a Greek village that is now part of Turkey, there was a good man who would secretly given presents to the poor to help them.
He became a bishop and is called Saint Nicholas.
Over the centuries, he became a very popular saint and lots of churches were named after him.
He was very popular in places where there were lots of sailors.
One of those places was the Netherlands.
In the Netherlands and many other European countries, presents are given on the feast of Saint Nicholas, 6 December.
Traditionally, the presents are not big, and are sometimes hidden, or have a funny joke or poem that must be read.
In many towns of Europe a man dressed in bishop's robes comes on a horse or in a boat, acting as St. Nicholas.
His name was often shortened to Sante Claus, or Santa Claus in English.
In English speaking countries, where presents are usually given on Christmas Day, not 6 December, Santa Claus, (or Father Christmas) is usually thought of as coming on Christmas Night, when his magic sleigh is pulled across the sky by reindeer, and he comes into houses through the chimney.
While in Europe, children put out their shoes for St. Nicholas, the English tradition is to hang up stockings (or long socks) in front of the fireplace.
Santa Claus would traditionally fill the socks or shoes with nuts, raisins, chocolates and an orange.
Nowadays children usually get much more expensive presents, and hang up pillow cases or have the presents in a big pile under the Christmas tree.
Another Christmas tradition is the sending of cards to friends and relatives.
These contain warm greetings and may also have a letter telling all the things that have happened to the person or family during the year.
& (Occitan) Traditional Christmas carols from County of Nice, France
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I like blue skies and fluffy clouds.
He is a nice man.
It was a ''very 'cold day.
My friend is very tall with brown eyes
They are good people.}}
An adjective is a word that describes a noun or pronoun.
Nouns are words that name a place, a person, a thing, or an idea.
An adjective is a word that gives more information about the noun that goes with it.
It is a part of speech.
Often, the adjective is before the noun it describes.
Sometimes an adjective is not followed by a noun:
The joke she told was so funny, I could not stop laughing all day.
It is still an adjective, because we could have "the blue sky", "the funny joke", and "the crazy man".
The adjective is still describing the noun though they are not side by side.
An adjective is a word that gives instant information about a noun to make a clear picture of the noun in the mind of the reader and create a feeling  to the writer.
Comparative and superlative
Sometimes there are different forms of the same adjective.
If one joke makes a person laugh more than another joke, then that joke is funnier.
This is called the comparative form.
The day that is colder than any other is the coldest day.
This is the superlative form of "cold".
Some adjectives need additional words when we want to compare them.
For instance, one car may be cheaper than another, but the second car may be more reliable (we use "more reliable", instead of "reliabler").
Reliable means worthy of trust.
For short adjectives ending in a consonant like "cold," "black," or "fast," one adds the suffix er to make a comparison of greater magnitude.
Example: "The North Pole is colder than Florida."
The greatest possible comparison is made by adding the suffix est.
Example: "The North Pole is the coldest place on the Earth."
For long adjectives like intelligent, conscientious, comprehensive, one uses the word more to make a comparison of greater magnitude.
Example: "Children are more intelligent than adults."
A superlative makes the greatest possible comparison.
One uses the word most.
Example: "She is the most conscientious person I have ever known."
Nouns as noun modifiers
In the English language, it is possible for a noun to modify (describe) another noun.
Example: take the noun "angel" and the noun "face."
Put them together and the result is "angel face."
The first noun is acting as an adjective, because it is giving us information about the second noun.
Adjectives and adverbs
Adjectives are words we use to describe the noun.
Simple words like "warm" and "fat" are adjectives commonly used in writing.
One can make adverbs from some adjectives by adding the suffix ly'''.
Example: take the adjective "beautiful," the adverb is beautifully.
One can do it the other way around: take an adverb like "presumably," the adjective is "presumable".
"Presumable innocence" means the accused is assumed to be innocent until proven guilty.
100 Adjectives used in Basic English
able • acid • angry • automatic • beautiful • black • boiling • bright • broken • brown • cheap • chemical • chief • clean • clear • common • complex • conscious • cut • deep • dependent • early • elastic • electric • equal • fat • fertile • first • fixed • flat • free • frequent • full • general • good • great • gray • hanging • happy • hard • healthy • high • hollow • important • kind • like • living • long • male • married • material • medical • military • natural • necessary • new • normal • open • parallel • past • physical • political • poor • possible • present • private • probable • quick • quiet • ready • red • regular • responsible • right • round • same • second • separate • serious • sharp • smooth • sticky • stiff • straight • strong • sudden • sweet • tall • thick • tight • tired • true • violent  • warm • wet • wide • wise • yellow • young
Adjective1.com
Modern paper is a thin material of (mostly) wood fibres pressed together.
People write on paper with a pencil or pen, and books are made of paper.
Paper can absorb liquids such as water, so people can clean things with paper.
There are many types of paper.
Paper making
Modern paper is normally made from wood pulp.
Wood is ground up and mixed with water and other chemicals to make a thin liquid called "paper pulp".
Paper pulp can be bleached to make paper more white, and dyes can be added to make colored paper.
This pulp is pressed into sheets of paper.
Printing is often done on paper before the paper is cut into sheets.
Newsprint paper (newspaper) comes in a huge roll, and goes through the printing process as one continuous sheet.
It is cut by a machine-driven guillotine blade later.
Folding comes last, then packing for distribution.
Sometimes paper is made heavier and more glossy (shiny) by adding clay, and by 'milling' it.
Milling is done by squeezing the paper through a series of rollers.
Sometimes paper is made from used or waste paper: this is recycling.
Not all paper is made from wood.
Other kinds of fiber can be used.
People still make paper from cotton, linen and hemp for special purposes.
History of paper
Writing started long before the invention of paper.
People wrote on many kinds of material.
They wrote on cloth, on the stone walls and on wood.
In Mesopotamia the Sumerians wrote on clay tablets, many of which have survived today.
In Europe, people wrote on vellum.
Many centuries ago – as early as the 3rd millennium BC (that's over 2000 BC) – people in Egypt made a kind of paper from the papyrus plant.
This is where the word 'paper' comes from.
The people of Greece and Rome learned to do this too.
The Romans wrote on parchment (made from animal skin), on waxed tablets and on wood (see Vindolanda).
In China 105 AD, the eunuch Cai Lun told his Emperor he had made paper.
They had previously used bamboo and silk.
The material used in this ancient paper included cotton rags, hemp, various plant fibres and old fish nets.
The oldest existing paper with writing on it was found in the ruins of a watchtower in the Great Wall of China.
It dates to about 150 AD.p5 Even earlier paper (but with no writing on it) has been claimed: "The oldest surviving piece of paper in the world is made of hemp fibers, discovered in 1957 in a tomb near Xian, China, and dates from between the years 140 and 87 BC".
Paper-making was regarded by the Chinese as so valuable that they kept it secret as long as they could.
Spread of paper
People in Japan learned how to make paper with fibres of the mulberry tree, around 610 AD.
This is called Japanese paper or Washi.
The Chinese invention spread to India, and then to the Middle East, and then to Italy.
An opportunity occurred after The Battle of Talas in 751.
Then an Arab army captured soldiers of the Chinese.
There were some paper makers among the captured soldiers.
From them, paper-making spread throughout the Islamic world.
In 757, a paper mill was built at Samarkand.
People learned to use linen as paper raw material and to use starch made from flour as an additive.
The Italians used hemp and linen rags.
In 1276 the first Italian paper mill was built at Fabriano and, until the 14 century, Italy was a paper supplier in Europe.
In 1282 the first watermark was introduced in Bologna.
Machine-made paper
Paper was hard to make.
It was cheaper than the old writing materials, but still expensive.
A mechanical paper maker was conceived in France 1798, but invented in England.
At least one paper mill was using them by 1812.
Now the process was cheaper but the raw material was still expensive.
In 1840 Friedrich Gottlob Keller Invented a machine that could make pulp for paper out of wood fibres (instead of the expensive rag paper).
Paper became cheap enough for everyone to buy.
Around the same time, other inventions were made, like the pencil, the fountain pen, and a printing press that used steam power.
With this new information technology, people wrote more letters, made more books and newspapers, and kept more records of what they did.
Today, some of the largest paper-producing countries are China, USA, Canada, Finland, Sweden and Russia.
Paper is produced in large factories called paper mills.
They produce hundreds of thousands of tons of paper each year.
Uses of paper
Paper is used for writing and printing.
Books, magazines and newspapers are printed on paper.
Paper is often used for money.
Paper used for money is made in special ways.
It does not use wood fiber.
It is mostly cotton with additives to make it hard for people to print their own money.
A piece of paper money is called a banknote, a bill or a note.
Paper can be used for cleaning.
Special forms of paper are used, such as paper towels, facial tissues or toilet paper.
Pretty paper can be used as decoration.
It can be pasted onto the walls of a room; this is called wallpaper.
Paper can be used to wrap gifts.
This is called wrapping paper or gift wrap.
Some kinds of paper are strong and can be used in boxes and other packaging material.
Sometimes several layers of paper are held together with glue, to make cardboard.
Power (physics), how fast energy can be changed into work
Electric power, electricity that comes from power plants or generators
In sociology, power is the ability of a person to make another person do something.
This might also be called influence or control.
Statistical power, how likely the test is to say something is true when it is really true
Exponentiation; in mathematics, "power" is multiplying a number by itself.
In the expression 23, where we multiply 3 2's together (  2 * 2 * 2 ) we say that 2 is raised to the power of 3
A life force, called chi by the Chinese and kiai by the Japanese.
In politics a great power is more powerful than other countries.
There are four common states of matter (or phases) in the universe: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma.
The state of matter affects a substance's properties.
Examples of those properties include density, viscosity (how well it flows), malleability (how easy it is to bend), and conductivity.
Changes between states of matter are often reversible.
Common states of matter
In a solid, the positions of atoms are fixed relative to each other over a long time.
That is due to the cohesion or "friction" between molecules.
This cohesion is provided by metallic, covalent or ionic bonds.
Only solids can be pushed on by a force without changing shape, which means that they can be resistant to deformation.
Solids also tend to be strong enough to hold their own shape in a container.
Solids are generally denser than liquids.
Solid becoming a gas is called sublimation.
In a liquid, molecules are attracted to each other strongly enough to keep them in contact, but not strongly enough to hold a particular structure.
The molecules can continually move with respect to each other.
This means that liquids can flow smoothly, but not as smoothly as gases.
Liquids will tend to take the shape of a container that they are in.
Liquids are generally less dense than solids, but denser than gas.
In a gas, the chemical bonds are not strong enough to hold atoms or molecules together, and from this a gas is a collection of independent, unbonded molecules which interact mainly by collision.
Gases tend to take the shape of their container, and are less dense than both solids and liquids.
Gases have weaker forces of attraction than solids and liquids.
Gas becoming a solid directly is called deposition.
Gases can sometimes turn directly into solids without passing through a fluid stage.
That is called desublimation.
You see it in the hoary frost which forms on window-panes in cold climates.
It is the reverse of sublimation.
Plasmas
Plasmas are gases that have so much energy that electrons of an atom cannot stay in orbit around one atomic nucleus.
The atomic ions and free electrons mix around like a hot soup.
Because the positive and negative charged particles are not stuck together, plasma is a good conductor of electricity.
For example, air is not good at conducting electricity.
However, in a bolt of lightning, the atoms in air get so much energy that they no longer can hold on to their electrons, and become a plasma for a brief time.
Then an electric current is able to flow through the plasma, making the lightning.
Plasma is the most common state of matter in the universe.
Both stars and the interstellar medium are mostly made of plasma.
Phase changes
Phases of matter can be changed by a number of things.
The most common ones are temperature and pressure.
Substances usually become a gas at warm temperatures and/or low pressures, become a solid at cool temperatures, and become a
plasma at extremely hot temperatures.
Substances often become liquid in between solid and gas, but when the pressure is very low (such as the vacuum of outer space) many substances skip the liquid phase, going directly from solid to gas or vice versa.
Scientists have created graphs called phase change diagrams to show the relationship between pressure, temperature, and phase of many substances.
When a solid becomes a liquid, it is called melting.
When a liquid becomes a solid, it is called freezing.
When a solid becomes a gas, it is called sublimation.
When a gas becomes a solid, it is called desublimation.
When a liquid becomes a gas, it is called evaporation.
When a gas becomes a liquid, it is called condensation.
The freezing point and the melting point are said to be the same, because any increase in temperature from that point will cause the substance to melt, while any drop in temperature will cause it to freeze.
Likewise, the vaporization and condensation points (or the sublimation and desublimation points) always match.
In most substances, as the pressure increases, the vaporization/condensation point also increases, or vice versa.
For example, the boiling point of water decreases as you go up a mountain, because the air pressure is lower.
The relationship for freezing and melting can go in different directions depending on the substance.
Other states
Many other states of matter can exist under special conditions, including strange matter, supersolids, and possibly string-net liquids.
Scientist work on experiments at very high or very low temperatures to learn more about phases of matter.
Condensates
Bose-Einstein condensates and fermionic condensates are phases of matter that apply to particles called bosons and fermions, respectively. (
More than one boson can exist in the same spot at the same time.
Only one fermion can exist in the same spot at the same time).
Bose-Einstein condensates and fermionic condensates occur at incredibly low temperatures.
All of the particles in these condensates begin to act like one big quantum state, so they have almost no friction or electrical resistance.
Degenerate matter
When the core of a star runs out of light elements (like hydrogen or helium) to sustain fusion, the core will collapse into a very dense state called degenerate matter.
Everything is packed very tightly and can barely move.
If the star isn't too heavy, it becomes a white dwarf.
In a heavier star, the pressure is so intense that even the protons and electrons are crushed, and it becomes a neutron star.
Quark-gluon plasmas
The protons and neutrons that make up atoms are made of even smaller things called quarks (which are "glued" together by things called "gluons").
At incredibly high temperatures over 2 trillion Kelvin, quarks and gluons turn into another state of matter.
Humans can make a little bit of quark-gluon plasma in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, but it doesn't last long before cooling down.
Supercritical fluids
When a substance has enough temperature and pressure at the same time, called the critical point, you can't tell the  difference between very dense gas and very energetic liquid.
This is a supercritical fluid, and it behaves like both liquid and gas.
Superfluids
Superfluids, on the other hand, only happen at very low temperatures, and only for a few special substances like liquid helium.
Superfluids can do things that regular liquids cannot, like flowing up the side of a bowl and getting out.
2005-06-22, MIT News: MIT physicists create new form of matter Citat: "... They have become the first to create a new type of matter, a gas of atoms that shows high-temperature superfluidity."
2003-10-10, Science Daily: Metallic Phase For Bosons Implies New State Of Matter
2004-01-15, ScienceDaily: Probable Discovery Of A New, Supersolid, Phase Of Matter Citat: "...We apparently have observed, for the first time, a solid material with the characteristics of a superfluid...but because all its particles are in the identical quantum state, it remains a solid even though its component particles are continually flowing..."
2004-01-29, ScienceDaily: NIST/University Of Colorado Scientists Create New Form Of Matter: A Fermionic Condensate
In geometry, perimeter is the distance around a flat object.
For example, all four sides of a square rhombus have the same length, so a rhombus with side length 2 inches would have a perimeter of 8 inches (2+2+2+2=8).
For a polygon, the perimeter is simply the sum of the length of all of its sides.
For a rectangle, the perimeter is twice the sum of its length and width ().
Perimeter can also be calculated for other planar figures, such as circle, sector and ellipse.
Real-life objects have perimeters as well.
A football field, including the end zones, is 360 feet long and 160 feet wide.
This means that the perimeter of the field is 360+160+360+160=1040 feet.
The perimeter of a circle is usually called the circumference.
It may be calculated by multiplying the diameter times "Pi".
Pi is a constant which is approximately equal to 3.14159; however, the places to the right of the decimal are endless.
The number of places used depends on the accuracy required for the result.
A nation is a group of people who share the same culture, history, language or ethnicity.
It can also be described as people living in the same country and government.
The word nation comes from a Latin language word meaning "birth" or "place of birth."
The adjective is  national.
Some nations are people with a particular belief, such as the Vatican City, or ethnic group, such as Armenia.
Others share an idea, such as Democracy in the United States or Communism in China.
Some of these may also be combined.
The highest lawful authority of most nations is a constitution, which is a document which states clearly what kinds of power the rulers have and how new laws must be made.
Many others are ruled by a single person who holds an "office" (position), such as a King or Pope, or from a long legal tradition without an official Constitution, such as the United Kingdom.
a framework or background, physical or abstract
a Matrix (mathematics), a mathematical object
matrix (geology), the fine-grained ground material of a conglomerate rock
Toyota Matrix, a model of car produced by the Toyota company
The Matrix and its sequels, movies with Keanu Reeves
Some chemical elements are called metals.
They are the majority of elements in the periodic table.
These elements usually have the following properties:
They can conduct electricity and heat.
They can be formed easily.
They have a shiny appearance.
They have a high melting point.
Most metals are solid at room temperature, but this does not have to be the case.
Mercury is liquid.
Alloys are mixtures, where at least one part of the mixture is a metal.
Examples of metals are aluminium, copper, iron, tin, gold, lead, silver, titanium, uranium, and zinc.
Well-known alloys include bronze and steel.
The ways that metals are alike (properties of metals)
Most metals are hard, shiny, they feel heavy and they melt only when they are heated at very high temperatures .
Lumps of metal will make a bell-like sound when they are hit with something heavy (they are sonorous).
Heat and electricity can easily pass through a metal (it is conductive).
A lump of metal can be beaten into a thin sheet (it is malleable) or can be pulled into thin wires (it is ductile).
Metal is hard to pull apart (it has a high tensile strength) or smash (it has a high compressive strength).
If you push on a long, thin piece of metal, it will bend, not break (it is elastic).
Except for cesium, copper, and gold, metals have a neutral, silvery color.
Not all metals have these properties.
Mercury, for instance, is liquid at room temperature, Lead, is very soft, and heat and electricity do not pass through iron as well as they do through copper.
Use of metals
Metals are very useful to people.
They are used to make tools because they can be strong and easy to shape.
Iron and steel have been used to make bridges, buildings, or ships.
Some metals are used to make items like coins because they are hard and will not wear away quickly.
For example, copper (which is shiny and red in color), aluminium (which is shiny and white), gold (which is yellow and shiny), and silver and nickel (also white and shiny).
Rare metals with high value, like gold, silver and platinum are often used to make jewellery.
Metals are also used to make fasteners and screws.
Pots used for cooking can be made from copper, aluminium, steel or iron.
Lead is very heavy and dense and can be used as ballast in boats to stop them from turning over, or to protect people from ionizing radiation.
Alloys of metals
Many things that are made of metals may, in fact, be made of mixtures of at least one metal with either other metals, or with non-metals.
These mixtures are called alloys.
Some common alloys are:
Steel (iron and carbon) (Carbon is a non-metal)
Brass (copper and zinc)
Bronze (copper and tin)
Duralumin (aluminium and copper)
Gunmetal (copper, tin, and zinc)
People first began making things from metal over 9000 years ago, when they discovered how to get copper from its ore.
They then learned how to make a harder alloy, bronze, by adding tin to the copper.
About 3000 years ago, they discovered iron.
By adding small amounts of carbon to iron, they found that they could make a particularly useful alloy – steel.
Metals in chemistry
In chemistry, metal is a word for a group of chemical elements that have certain properties.
It is easy for the atoms of a metal to lose an electron and become positive ions, or cations.
In this way, metals are not like the other two kinds of elements - the nonmetals and the metalloids.
Most elements on the periodic table are metals.
On the periodic table, we can draw a zigzag line from the element boron (symbol B) to the element polonium (symbol Po).
The elements that this line passes through are the metalloids.
The elements that are above and to the right of this line are the nonmetals.
The rest of the elements are the metals.
Most of the properties of metals are due to the fact that the atoms in the metal do not hold onto their electrons very tightly.
Each atom is separated from the others by a thin layer of valence electrons.
However, some metals are different.
An example is the metal sodium.
It is soft, melts at a low temperature, and is so light, it floats on water.
People should not try this though, because another property of sodium is that it explodes when it touches water.
Most metals are chemically stable, and do not react easily but some do react.
The reactive ones are the alkali metals like sodium (symbol Na) and the alkaline earth metals like calcium (symbol Ca).
When metals do react, they often react with oxygen.
The oxides of metals are basic.
The oxides of nonmetals are acidic.
Compounds, which have metal atoms combined with other atoms to make molecules, are probably the most common substances on Earth.
For example, common salt is a compound of sodium.
Metals in history
The use of metals is said to be one of the things that makes people different from animals.
Before they used metals, people made tools from stones, wood, and animal bones.
This is now called the Stone Age.
No-one knows when the first metal was found and used.
It was probably what is called native copper, which is sometimes found in large lumps on the ground.
People learned to make this into copper tools and other things, although, for a metal, it is quite soft.
They learned smelting to get copper from common ores.
When copper was melted over fire, people learned how to make an alloy called bronze, which is much harder and stronger than copper.
People made knives and weapons from bronze.
This time in human history, after about 3300 BC is often called the Bronze Age, that is, the time of bronze tools and weapons.
Around the year 1200 BC some people learned to make iron tools and weapons.
These were even harder and stronger than bronze and this was an advantage in war.
The time of iron tools and weapons is now called the Iron Age
Metals have been very important in human history and civilization.
Iron and steel were important in the making of machines.
Gold and silver were used as money in order to allow people to trade, that is, exchange goods and services over long distances.
Metals in astronomy
In astronomy, a metal is any element other than hydrogen or helium.
This is because these two elements (and sometimes lithium) are the only ones that form outside stars.
In the sky, a spectrometer can see the signs of metals and show the astronomer the metals in a star.
Biological role in humans
In humans, some metals are essential nutrients like iron, cobalt, and zinc.
Some metals can be harmless such as ruthenium, silver, and indium.
Some metals can be toxic in large amounts.
Other metals such as cadmium, mercury, and lead, are very poisonous.
Sources of metal poisoning include mining, tailings, industrial wastes, agricultural runoff, occupational exposure, paints and treated timber.
Anything related to Germany
Germans, people from Germany or one of the earlier countries in the same area
Germanic peoples, people who speak Germanic languages, including German and some other languages
the early people known as Franks
Holy Roman Empire (843-1806)
German Confederation (1815-1866)
German Empire (1871-1918)
Weimar Republic (1919-1933)
German Democratic Republic or East Germany (1949-1990)
German silver
Indonesia, () officially the Republic of Indonesia, (; ; ) is a nation in Southeast Asia and Oceania.
As the biggest archipelago country in the world, Indonesia has 18,108 islands.
The most important islands of Indonesia are Java, Bali, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Sumatra.
The capital of Indonesia is Jakarta, on the island of Java, but there are plans to change it to Nusantara.
The current president is Joko Widodo.
Modern Indonesia began on the 17th of August 1945.
At 10 o'clock on that Friday morning, Sukarno read Indonesia's Declaration of Independence.
Indonesia's Independence Day is a national holiday.
Indonesia is the fourth most populated country in the world with 238,452,952 people (2004 est.) .
Half of the population lives in Java, There are 111 people per km.
The land area is , or slightly smaller than Mexico.
The official national language of Indonesia is Bahasa Indonesia, but 749 native languages are also spoken in different parts of Indonesia, and widely native languages spoken in Indonesia include Javanese, Balinese, and Sundanese.
Indonesia's neighbors are Australia to the south, Singapore to the northwest, and Philippines to the northeast.
Other nearby countries are Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, and East Timor which share land borders with Indonesia.
Indonesia has the most active volcanoes of any country in the world.
It is also close to fault lines so there are many earthquakes and tsunamis.
Most people in Indonesia follow Islam, but Indonesia is not an Islamic country by law.
Indonesia has the largest Muslim population on earth.
Other religions Indonesians follow include Christianity (Protestanism and Catholicism), Hinduism, Buddhism and Kong Hu Cu.
Pre World War II
Indonesia has a written history as far back as the 7th century and a much longer oral history.
Before the colonial Dutch came in the 1596, much of what is now Indonesia was many different kingdoms.
Often they were fighting each other.
Indonesia was colonized by the Netherlands in the 17th century and renamed the Dutch East Indies.
During this time, the Dutch captured thousands of Malagasy people from Madagascar and forced them to work on pepper plantations in their colonies as slaves.
The Dutch treated the islands like their property until World War II.
During World War II, the Japanese drove out the Dutch and took control of Indonesia.
After Japan surrendered in the war, Indonesia claimed its independence on the 17th of August 1945.
The proclamation was read by Sukarno in Jakarta.
Sukarno later became Indonesia's first President.
British troops came into Indonesia to restore peace and to rescue Europeans who had been prisoners of the Japanese.
The British troops also had the job of shipping home 300,000 Japanese troops.
The Indonesian Republicans fought the British troops, because it was expected that the British would give Indonesia back to the Dutch.
The Indonesian Republicans killed many of the Japanese prisoners, before they could be sent home.
They also began killing people from minority groups who might be against the new Republic.
Many European and Indonesian European people were killed.
Many Chinese business people and other minority groups were killed or made homeless.
In Java there were many thousands of homeless people.
In 1946, the Dutch came back.
When the British left in 1947, there were 55,000 Dutch soldiers in Indonesia.
The Dutch action was called "Operatie Product" or "Politionele Acties".
The Indonesian Republicans fought the Dutch until 1949.
But the Indonesian Republicans were badly organised and often fought among themselves.
As the Dutch forced the Republican soldiers out of different areas, they moved in more troops until there were 100,000 Dutch troops.
The Dutch refused to obey the United Nations who said they should stop the fighting in Indonesia.
The United States of America organised for meetings between Dutch and Indonesian leaders.
The Dutch finally agreed to recognise Indonesia's independence in November 1949.
Because of the fighting and the bad organisation, it took a long time for the country to become peaceful, and for the economy to get better.
Many Indonesian soldiers had died, between 45,000 and 100,000.
Also, a very large number of civilians, Indonesians, Europeans and Chinese, had died; perhaps as many as 200,000.
Indonesia has 34 provinces.
Five of them have special status.
Each province has its own legislature and governor.
The provinces are divided into regencies (kabupaten) and cities (kota).
These are further divided into districts (kecamatan), and again into village groupings (either desa or kelurahan).
(Indonesian name in parentheses if different from English)
* are provinces with Special Status
Aceh* – Banda Aceh
North Sumatra (Sumatera Utara) – Medan
West Sumatra (Sumatera Barat) – Padang
Riau – Pekanbaru
Riau Islands (Kepulauan Riau) – Tanjung Pinang
Jambi – Jambi (city)
South Sumatra (Sumatera Selatan) – Palembang
Bangka-Belitung (Kepulauan Bangka-Belitung) – Pangkal Pinang
Bengkulu – Bengkulu (city)
Lampung – Bandar Lampung
Special Capital Territory of Jakarta* (Daerah Khusus Ibu Kota Jakarta)  – Jakarta
Banten – Serang
West Java (Jawa Barat) – Bandung
Central Java (Jawa Tengah) – Semarang
Yogyakarta Special Region* (Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta) – Yogyakarta (city)
East Java (Jawa Timur) – Surabaya
Bali – Denpasar
West Nusa Tenggara (Nusa Tenggara Barat) – Mataram
East Nusa Tenggara (Nusa Tenggara Timur) – Kupang
West Kalimantan (Kalimantan Barat) – Pontianak
Central Kalimantan (Kalimantan Tengah) – Palangkaraya
South Kalimantan (Kalimantan Selatan) – Banjarmasin
East Kalimantan (Kalimantan Timur) – Tenggarong Seberang
North Kalimantan ("Kalimantan Utara") –Tanjung Selor
North Sulawesi (Sulawesi Utara) – Manado
Gorontalo – Gorontalo (city)
Central Sulawesi (Sulawesi Tengah) – Palu
West Sulawesi (Sulawesi Barat) – Mamuju
South Sulawesi (Sulawesi Selatan) – Makassar
South East Sulawesi (Sulawesi Tenggara) – Kendari
Maluku – Ambon
North Maluku (Maluku Utara) – Sofifi
West Papua* (Papua Barat) – Manokwari
Papua* – Jayapura
There are people of many different cultural groups living in Indonesia, has more than 700 ethnic groups.
It is affected by Indians, Chinese people, Arabs, Malays and Europeans.
The Javan hawk-eagle is the national bird.
States and territories established in the 20th century
Property is something that is owned by someone.
If someone buys a car, the car becomes their property.
People who deal with buying or selling real estate will often talk about "properties", meaning houses, apartments, offices etc.
Welsh football clubs
The club was started in 1884.
They play at the Park Avenue stadium in Aberystwyth.
They play in the Welsh League.
They came third in the Welsh league in 1992 but have only had success at a regional level.
1884 establishments in the United Kingdom
1880s establishments in Wales
German (German: Deutsch) is a West Germanic language.
It is spoken in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg; natively by around 100 million people.
It is the most widely spoken mother tongue in the first language.
There are some people who speak German in Belgium and in the Netherlands and in France and Northern Italy.
There are people who speak German in many countries, including the United States and Canada, where many people emigrated from Germany.
It also spoken in Eastern Europe, Bulgaria, Romania, and Russia.
German is a part of the West Germanic language family and is much like English and Dutch.
Much of the vocabulary in German is related to English, but the grammar is more complicated.
German has a system of cases, and when helping verbs are used, the main part of the verb must be moved to the end of the sentence.
For example, "Someone has stolen my car" is Jemand hat mein Auto gestohlen ("Someone has my car stolen"), and "Someone called me last night" is Jemand hat mich letzte Nacht angerufen ("Someone has me last night called").
In writing, every noun must start with a capital letter.
German is the only language that still has that rule, but Danish and English did so a long time ago.
Standard German is an official language in Switzerland, but the Swiss dialect of German is difficult to understand for native speakers from Germany and even for Swiss who are not native to speaking German.
One reason that the dialects are still so different today is that even if Switzerland adopted Standard German, mostly as a written standard, German Swiss in World War II wanted to separate themselves from the Nazis by choosing to speak dialect over the Standard German.
Swiss German also has some differences in spelling, for example, the letter ß, which is used only in German, is replaced by ss.
Bavarian dialect
Low Saxon
Swiss dialect
Mannheimerisch dialect
Palatinate German
Russian (Siberian) dialect
German numbers
German numbers are similar to their English counterparts.
Like most languages, the German number system is based mainly on the first 10 numbers.
They will pop up over and over throughout all the higher numbers.
Online German Language Course An online German language course that includes lessons covering pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.
German phrasebook at Wikivoyage
Learn to Speak German  Student Resource
Free German Language Course
German Thesaurus
The Mississippi River is a river in the United States.
It is one of the longest rivers in the world.
Its largest city is Memphis, Tennessee.
The name "Mississippi" comes from a Native American name that means "big river."
The source of the Mississippi is Lake Itasca in Minnesota, near the border with Canada.
The Mississippi flows south through the middle of the United States.
It flows through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi.
The mouth of the Mississippi is in the state of Louisiana, south of the city of New Orleans.
The Mississippi flows into the Gulf of Mexico.
At the end of the Mississippi there is a zone in the Gulf of Mexico where very few animals can survive comfortably because of the fertilizer and other chemicals that run off of farms into the river and its tributaries.
The rivers then carry them into the gulf.
The Mississippi has been very important for transportation in the history of the United States.
In the 1800s, many steamboats traveled on the Mississippi River.
St. Louis, Missouri, Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans were important port cities.
The Mississippi has many large tributaries, or rivers that flow into it.
The watershed of the Mississippi covers much of the United States.
This means that the Mississippi and its tributaries drain much of the United States.
The Mississippi River in books
A big part of the book Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is set on the Mississippi River.
Twain also wrote a book called Life on the Mississippi, which had some stories about how he used to work on a steamboat.
Rivers of Minnesota
Rivers of Arkansas
Rivers of Illinois
Rivers of Iowa
Rivers of Louisiana
Rivers of Mississippi
Rivers of Missouri
Rivers of Tennessee
Rivers of Wisconsin
A tributary of a river is another river that flows into it.
If one river flows into a second river, then the first river is a tributary of the second river.
A tributary is a body of water that flows into another body of water.
The opposite of a tributary is a distributary.
A distributary is a  river that branches off from the main flow of water, for example in a river delta.
ja:流路形状#支川
The Missouri River is a river in the western United States.
It is a tributary of the Mississippi River.
It is longer than the Mississippi River.
It is, in fact, the longest river in North America.
The source of the Missouri River is in the Rocky Mountains, in the state of Montana.
The Missouri flows eastward, across Montana, south of the border with Canada.
It enters the state of North Dakota and then it turns south.
It flows through South Dakota.
Then it flows past Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, and Kansas.
Near the city of Kansas City, Missouri, the Missouri turns eastward into the state of Missouri.
It flows eastward across the state of Missouri.
It joins the Mississippi just north of the city of Saint Louis, Missouri.
The Missouri was very important for the Native Americans who lived on the Great Plains.
It was also very important in the history of the United States.