title: Zeno's paradoxes

paragraphs: Zeno's paradoxes are a famous set of thought-provoking stories or puzzles created by Zeno of Elea in the mid-5th century BC. Philosophers, physicists, and mathematicians have argued for 25 centuries over how to answer the questions raised by Zeno's Paradoxes. Nine paradoxes have been attributed to him. Zeno constructed them to answer those who thought that Parmenides's idea that "all is one and unchanging" was absurd. Three of Zeno's paradoxes are the most famous and most problematic; two are presented below. Although the specifics of each paradox differ from one another, they all deal with the tension between the apparent continuous nature of space and time and the discrete or incremental nature of physics.

paragraphs: In the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise, Achilles is in a footrace with the tortoise. Achilles allows the tortoise a head start of 100 metres, for example. Suppose that each racer starts running at a constant speed, one very fast and one very slow. After some finite time, Achilles will have run 100 metres, bringing him to the tortoise's starting point. During this time, the slower tortoise has run a much shorter distance. It will then take Achilles some further time to run that distance, by which time the tortoise will have advanced farther. It will then take still more time for Achilles to reach this third point, while the tortoise again moves ahead. Thus, whenever Achilles reaches somewhere the tortoise has been, he still has farther to go. Therefore, because there are an infinite number of points Achilles must reach where the tortoise has already been, he can never overtake the tortoise.

paragraphs: Suppose someone wishes to get from point "A" to point "B". First, they must move halfway. Then, they must go half of the remaining way. Continuing in this manner, there will always be some small distance remaining, and the goal would never actually be reached. There will always be another number to add in a series such as 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + ... So, motion from any point "A" to any different point "B" is seen as an impossibility.

paragraphs: This then is where Zeno's paradox lies: both pictures of reality cannot be true at the same time. Hence, either:

paragraphs: 1. There is something wrong with the way we perceive the continuous nature of time,

paragraphs: 2. In reality there is no such thing as a discrete, or incremental, amounts of time, distance, or perhaps anything else for that matter, or

paragraphs: 3. There is a third picture of reality that unifies the two pictures--the mathematical one and the common sense or philosophical one--that we do not yet have the tools to fully understand.

paragraphs: Few people would bet that the tortoise would win the race against an athlete. But, what is wrong with the argument?

paragraphs: As one begins adding the terms in the series 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 + ..., one may notice that the sum gets closer and closer to 1, and will never exceed 1. Aristotle (who is the source for much of what we know about Zeno) noted that as the distance (in the dichotomy paradox) decreases, the time to travel each distance gets exceedingly smaller and smaller. Before 212 BCE, Archimedes had developed a method to derive a finite answer for the sum of infinitely many terms that get progressively smaller (such as 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + ...).

paragraphs: Modern calculus achieves the same result, using more rigorous methods.

paragraphs: Some mathematicians, such as w:Carl Boyer, hold that Zeno's paradoxes are simply mathematical problems, for which modern calculus provides a mathematical solution.

paragraphs: However, Zeno's questions remain problematic if one approaches an infinite series of steps, one step at a time. This is known as a supertask. Calculus does not actually involve adding numbers one at a time. Instead, it determines the value (called a "limit") that the addition is approaching.


title: Mandrake

paragraphs: Mandrake is the common name of a number of plants in the Nightshade family, genus Mandragora. The roots often look like man or woman, or can be easily made to resemble them. The plant has been used in witchcraft for a long time.

paragraphs: According to this literature, the plant shrieks in pain, when it is pulled from the ground. This shriek is able to make a person deaf. He might also lose his mind, or even be killed, if he is unprotected.

paragraphs: Mandrake (Mandragora officinalis) has been used as an anaestethic for a long time. For this, it was usually prepared in an alcoholic solution.


title: Debian

paragraphs: Debian is a free operating system. It is a distribution of an operating system known as the GNU operating system, which can be used with various kernels, including Linux, kFreeBSD, and Hurd. In combination with these kernels, the operating system can be referred to as Debian GNU/Linux, Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, and Debian GNU/Hurd, respectively. Debian GNU/Linux is one of the most complete and popular GNU/Linux distributions, on which many others, like Ubuntu, are based.

paragraphs: The Debian Project officially started on August 16th, 1993, led by Ian Murdock. He was a computer programmer. Today, in this project, Debian is developed by more than 1,000 computer specialists all over the world.

paragraphs: The name "Debian" was taken after Ian Murdock and his wife Debra. Some people say or pronounce 'deb-ee-n' but others also say 'de-bi-an' or 'de-bai-an' and in Japan 'de-bi-a-n' and so on.

paragraphs: Software packages in development are either uploaded to the project distribution named "unstable" (also known as "sid"), or to the "experimental" repository. Software packages uploaded to "unstable" are normally versions stable enough to be released by the original upstream developer, but with the added Debian-specific packaging and other modifications introduced by Debian developers. These additions may be new and untested. Software not ready yet for the "unstable" distribution is typically placed in the "experimental" repository.

paragraphs: After a version of a software package has remained in "unstable" for a certain length of time (depending on how urgent the changes are), that package is automatically moved to the "testing" distribution. The package's move to testing happens only if no serious ("release-critical") bugs in the package are reported and if other software needed for package functionality qualifies for inclusion in "testing".

paragraphs: Since updates to Debian software packages between official releases do not contain new features, some choose to use the "testing" and "unstable" distributions for their newer packages. However, these distributions are less tested than "stable", and "unstable" does not receive timely security updates. In particular, incautious upgrades to working "unstable" packages can sometimes seriously break software functionality. Since September 9, 2005 the "testing" distributions security updates have been provided by the "testing" security team.

paragraphs: After the packages in "testing" have matured and the goals for the next release are met, the "testing" distribution becomes the next stable release. The latest stable release of Debian ("Buster") is 10.0, released on July 6, 2019. The next release is codenamed ""Bullseye"".

paragraphs: Due to an incident involving a CD vendor who made an unofficial and broken release labeled "1.0", an official 1.0 release was never made.

paragraphs: Debian has been ported to different architectures or platforms. One version, which is based on the developer release (sid) that has been ported to the Xbox is called Xebian.

paragraphs: Debian's official software package repository includes, for example, UNetbootin.


title: GNU

paragraphs: GNU is the name of a computer operating system. The name is short for "GNU's Not Unix". Richard Stallman leads the project working on GNU, known as the GNU Project. It was created to replace the UNIX operating system with all free and open source software. The popular Linux operating systems made using Linux kernel consist large number of GNU tools. Due to this reason, many projects and developers call the Linux based operating systems "GNU/Linux."

paragraphs: The GNU project was started by Richard Stallman in 1983. His aim was to create a computer system fully free to modify, share and publish modified work. He and a group of developers started with creating copies, of each piece of Unix software, which are free to modify and share. The remaining part of GNU was the kernel, called the GNU Hurd, which is not yet completely built. The more popular Linux kernel is used instead. Linux vs. Unix or BIOS


title: Serbia

paragraphs: The Republic of Serbia (Serbian: "Република Србија" / Republika Srbija), or usually just Serbia (Serbian: "Србија" / Srbija), is a country in Central Europe. The capital city is Belgrade. To the north of Serbia is the country Hungary. To the east of Serbia are the countries Bulgaria and Romania. To the south of Serbia are countries North Macedonia and Kosovo. To the west of Serbia are the countries Montenegro (the country that was once united with Serbia), Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.

paragraphs: The oldest form of writing comes from an ancient civilization which inhabited Serbia called the Vinča culture and the symbols are called the Vinča script. Serbia is also home to the earliest known copper smelting sites and the birth of the Copper Age which lead humanity out of the Stone Age and into regular use of metallurgy. The same culture contains the earliest evidence of tin alloy bronze which replaced the much weaker arsenic bronze.

paragraphs: White Serbs, an early Slavic tribe from Northern Europe, came to Northern Greece in the 6th century. By the 8th century they had created the Serbian Principality, a Serbian country, in the Balkans. The Serbs became Christian around the 10th century. For 200 years, the Nemanjić dynasty ruled. They made Serbia a kingdom, built new towns, monasteries, and forts, and made Serbia bigger. In 1371 the Nemanjic Dynasty died out. Serbia became unsafe and local leaders fought each other for control. In 1389 the Ottoman Empire invaded Serbia. They fought against Serbia, Bosnia, the Knights Hospitaller, and the forces of many other local leaders, and won. The Turks fought the Serbs for 70 years until in 1459 the Ottoman Turks conquered Serbia.

paragraphs: Once the Ottomans conquered Serbia, they got rid of the Serbian upper class. Most Serbs worked as farmers on land owned by Turks. They had to pay high taxes to the Turks. Some Serbs were forced to become Muslims. But the Serbs had their own laws in the Ottoman Empire through the millet system. During the 19th century Serbia gradually became independent. During World War I Austria conquered Serbia but lost the bigger war. Serbia joined other Balkan countries to form Yugoslavia.

paragraphs: Serbia is found in the Balkan peninsula and the Pannonian Plain. The Danube passes through Serbia. The Šar Mountains of Kosovo form the border with Albania. Over 31% of Serbia is covered by forest. National parks take up 10% of the country's territory. Serbia has 5 national parks and 22 nature reserves.

paragraphs: Serbia is classed as an upper-middle income economy.

paragraphs: The major processed vegetable crops in Serbia are potatoes, tomatoes and pepper. Serbia is one of the biggest world producers and exporters of raspberries. They are a leading exporter of frozen fruit.

paragraphs: There are five international airports in Serbia: Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport, Niš Constantine the Great Airport, Morava International Airport, Vršac International Airport and Pristina International Airport.

paragraphs: 89% of households in Serbia have fixed telephone lines. There are over 9.60 million cell-phones users. This is larger than the number of the total population of Serbia itself by 30%.

paragraphs: Serbia has a total of eight sites on the UNESCO World Heritage list: The Early Medieval capital Stari Ras and the 13th-century monastery Sopoćani, and the 12th-century monastery Studenica, and the endangered Medieval Monuments in Kosovo group, comprising the monasteries of Visoki Dečani, Our Lady of Ljeviš, Gračanica and Patriarchate of Peć (former seat of the Serbian Church, mausoleum of Serbian royalty) and finally the Roman estate of Gamzigrad–Felix Romuliana. There are two literary memorials on UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme: The 12th-century Miroslav Gospel, and scientist Nikola Tesla's valuable archive.

paragraphs: The most prominent museum in Serbia is the National Museum of Serbia. It was founded in 1844. It houses a collection of more than 400,000 exhibits, over 5,600 paintings and 8,400 drawings and prints, and includes many foreign masterpiece collections, including Miroslav Gospel.

paragraphs: The official language, Serbian, is written in both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets.

paragraphs: Composer and musicologist Stevan Stojanović Mokranjac is said to be one of the most important founders of modern Serbian music.

paragraphs: In the 1990s and the 2000s, many pop music performers rose to fame. Željko Joksimović won second place at the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest. Marija Šerifović won the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest. Serbia was the host of the Eurovision Song Contest 2008.

paragraphs: The most popular sports in Serbia are football, basketball, volleyball, handball, water polo and tennis.

paragraphs: The three main football clubs in Serbia are Red Star and Partizan, both from the capital city of Belgrade, and Vojvodina from Novi Sad.

paragraphs: Novak Djokovic, a multiple Grand Slam-winning tennis player and current number one, is from Serbia. Other tennis players from Serbia include Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic.


title: Cancer

paragraphs: Cancer is a type of disease where cells grow out of control, divide and invade other tissues. In a person without cancer, cell division is under control. In most tissues, healthy cells divide in a controlled way and copy themselves to create new healthy cells. With cancer, this normal process of cell division goes out of control. Cells change their nature because mutations have occurred in their genes. All the daughter cells of cancer cells are also cancerous.

paragraphs: If the abnormal cells do not invade, but just divide and swell up their original tissue, this is not called "cancer". It is called a tumour. Tumours are usually not a threat to life because they can be cut out. However, some tumours occur in places where they cannot be cut out, and they can be fatal. Some brain tumours are of this type.

paragraphs: The symptoms of cancer are caused by the cancerous cells invading other tissues. This is called metastasis. Metastasis is a process in which cancer cells move through the bloodstream or lymphatic system. When this happens, a person's cancer can be spread throughout his or her body. Eventually those other tissues cannot work as well, and the whole body begins to get worse, and may die.

paragraphs: Cancer can affect anybody at any age. Most types of cancer are more likely to affect people as they get older. This is because as a person's DNA gets older, their DNA may become damaged, or damage that happened in the past may get worse. One type of cancer that is more common in young men, rather than older people, is testicular cancer (cancer of the testicles).

paragraphs: Cancer is one of the biggest and most researched causes of death in developed countries. The study of cancer and its treatment is called oncology.

paragraphs: Cancer is one of the most common causes of death around the world. It causes about 12.5% (or one out of every eight) of all deaths worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

paragraphs: Different types of cancer have different causes. Some things are known to cause cancer in a specific body part; other things are known to be able to cause many different types of cancer. For example, using tobacco (smoked or smokeless) can cause many types of cancers, such as lung, mouth, tongue, and throat cancers. Other things that are known to be able to cause cancer - or make a person more likely to get cancer - include: radiation including sunlight and X-rays in large or many doses, and exposure to radiation (for example in a nuclear power plant); chemicals and materials used in building and manufacturing (for example, asbestos and benzene); high-fat or low-fiber diets; air and water pollution; eating very little fruits and vegetables; obesity; not enough physical activity; drinking too much alcohol; and certain chemicals commonly used at home. Some cancers can also be caused by viruses. Many people who are exposed to these things do get cancer - but some do not.

paragraphs: There are many different kinds of cancers. Some of the most common are:

paragraphs: There is no sure cure for cancer. It can only be cured if all of the cancerous cells are cut out or killed in place. This means that the earlier the cancer is treated, the better the chances are for a cure (because the cancer cells may not have had enough time to copy themselves and spread so much that the person cannot be cured).

paragraphs: There are a few different types of treatments that are used to try to kill cancer cells. These treatments are:

paragraphs: There are a few reasons why treating cancer is complicated. For example:

paragraphs: Many, many people in many countries study cancer and work on finding treatments. There has been some good progress in finding treatments, and many cancers are treated with success. Along with looking for different medical treatments to treat cancer, some studies also look for things that people with cancer can do themselves to try to make themselves healthier. For example, one study showed that if a person with lymphedema (a swelling of the arm linked to breast cancer) lifts weights, he may be able to fight his cancer better than somebody who does not lift weights.

paragraphs: Cancer has been around for many thousands of years. Today, a lot of the medical terms used to describe cancer come from ancient Greek and Latin. For example, the Latinized Greek word carcinoma is used to describe a malignant tumor - a tumor made up of cancer cells. The Greeks also used the word "karkinos", which would be translated by Aulus Cornelius Celsus into the Latin word "cancer". The prefix 'carcino' is still used in medical words like carcinoma and carcinogenic. A famous Greek doctor, Galen, helped create another word that is very important to medicine today by using the word ""onkos"" to describe "all" tumours. This is where the word oncology, the branch of medicine that deals with cancer, comes from.

paragraphs: Hippocrates (a very famous ancient doctor who is often called the father of modern medicine) named many kinds of cancer. He called benign tumours (tumors that are not made up of cancer cells) "oncos". In Greek, "onkos" means 'swelling'. He called malignant tumours "karkinos". This means crab or crayfish in Greek. He used this term because he thought that if a solid malignant tumor was cut into, its veins looked like a crab: "the veins stretched on all sides as the animal the crab has its feet, whence it derives (gets) its name". Hippocrates later added "-oma" (Greek for 'swelling') after the word 'carcinos'. This is how the word "carcinoma" came about.

paragraphs: Because the ancient Greeks did not believe in opening up dead bodies to study them, Hippocrates was only able to describe and make drawings of tumors he saw from the outside of the body. He drew tumors that had been on the skin, nose, and breasts.

paragraphs: Hippocrates and other doctors at that time treated people based on the humor theory. This theory said that there were four types of fluid in the body (black, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm). Doctors tried to figure out whether these four "humors" (or body fluids) were in balance. They would then use treatments like blood-letting (cutting the patient and letting him bleed so that he would lose blood); laxatives (giving the patient foods or herbs to make him go to the bathroom), and/or changing the patient's diet. The doctors thought that these treatments would work to get the patient's four humors back into the right balance. The humor theory treatment was popular until the 19th century (the 1800s), when cells were discovered. By this time, people had realized that cancer can happen anywhere in the body.

paragraphs: The oldest known document that talks about cancer was discovered in Egypt and is thought to be from about 1600 B.C. The document talks about using surgery to treat eight cases of ulcers of the breast. These were treated by cauterization - by burning them - using a tool called "the fire drill". The document also says about cancer, "There is no treatment".

paragraphs: Another very early type of surgery used to treat cancer was written about in the 1020s. In "The Canon of Medicine", Avicenna (Ibn Sina) said that treatment should involve cutting out all diseased tissue. This included the use of amputation (removing a part of the body completely) or removing veins that ran in the direction of the tumor. Avicenna also suggested that the area that had been treated should be cauterized (or burned) if needed.

paragraphs: In the 16th and 17th centuries (the 1500s and 1600s), doctors started to be allowed to dissect bodies (or cut them open after death) in order to figure out the cause of death. Around this time, there were many different ideas about what caused cancer. The German professor Wilhelm Fabry believed that breast cancer was caused by a clot of milk in the part of a woman's breast that produces milk. The Dutch professor Francois de la Boe Sylvius believed that all disease was caused by chemical processes. He thought that cancer, in particular, was caused by acidic lymph. Nicolaes Tulp, who lived at the same time as Sylvius, believed that cancer was a poison that slowly spreads and was contagious.

paragraphs: A British surgeon named Percivall Pott was the first person to figure out one of the real causes of cancer. In 1775, he discovered that cancer of the scrotum was a common disease among chimney sweeps (people who cleaned out chimneys). Other doctors started studying this topic and coming up with other ideas about what causes cancer. Doctors then started working together and coming up with better ideas.

paragraphs: In the 18th century (the 1700s), many people started to use the microscope, and this made a big difference in helping doctors and scientists understand more about cancer. Using the microscope, scientists were able to see that the 'cancer poison' spread from one tumor through the lymph nodes to other sites ("metastasis"). This was first made clear by the English surgeon Campbell De Morgan, between 1871 and 1874.

paragraphs: Before the 19th century (the 1800s), using surgery to treat cancer usually had bad results. Doctors did not understand how important hygiene (or keeping things clean) is for preventing disease, especially after surgery. Because things were not kept clean during or after surgery, patients often got infections and died. For example, one well-known Scottish surgeon, Alexander Monro, kept records and found that 58 patients out of every 60 who had surgery for breast tumors died within the next two years.

paragraphs: In the 19th century, surgical hygiene got better because of asepsis. Doctors realized that dirtiness and germs cause infections, so they started to keep things cleaner and do things to kill germs in order to prevent their patients from getting infections. It became more common for people to survive after having surgery. Surgical removal of the tumor (taking the tumor out of the body by doing surgery) became the first-choice treatment for cancer. For this kind of treatment to work, the surgeon doing the operation had to be very good at removing tumors. (This meant that even if people had the same kind of cancer, they could get very different results, with some getting good treatment that worked and others getting treatment that did not work, because of differences in how good different surgeons were.)

paragraphs: In the late 1800s, doctors and scientists started to realize that the body is made up of many kinds of tissues, which in turn are made up of millions of cells. The discovery started the age of cellular pathology (studying cells to learn about diseases and figure out what is wrong with the body).

paragraphs: In the 1890s, French scientists discovered radioactive decay. Radiation therapy became the first cancer treatment that worked and did not involve surgery. It required a new multi-disciplinary approach to cancer treatment (people doing different jobs were working together to treat patients). The surgeon was no longer working by himself - he worked together with hospital radiologists (people who gave and read X-rays) to help patients. This team approach meant changes in how they worked. The different people on the team had to communicate with each other and work together, which they were not used to doing. It also meant that treatment had to be done in a hospital rather than at the patient's home. Because of this, patients' information had to be put together into files kept at the hospital (called "medical records"). Because this information was now being kept and written down, scientists were able to do the first statistical patient studies using numbers to study questions like how many people who have a certain type of cancer or get a certain treatment survive.

paragraphs: Another important step forward in understanding cancer happened in 1926, when Janet Lane-Claypon published a paper on cancer epidemiology. (Epidemiology is a field of study which looks at how common a disease is, what patterns the disease takes in different kinds of people, and what this means for understanding and treating the disease.) This historic paper was a comparative study, which tries to find out what causes a disease by looking at a group of people who have the disease and figuring out how they are different from another group that does not have the disease. Lane-Clayton's study looked at 1000 people who all had the same background and lifestyle (or way of living): 500 people with breast cancer and 500 control patients (people without breast cancer). These people were the same in many ways, but some got breast cancer and some did not. To figure out what might be causing certain people to get breast cancer, the study looked at what was different about these people when they were compared to (or looked at alongside) the people who did not get cancer.

paragraphs: Lane-Clayton's study was published by the British Ministry of Health. Her work on cancer epidemiology was continued by Richard Doll and Austin Bradford Hill. They used the same ways of studying cancer as Lane-Clayton, but they looked at a different kind of cancer: lung cancer. In 1956, they published their results in a paper called "Lung Cancer and Other Causes of Death In Relation to Smoking. A Second Report on the Mortality of British Doctors" (also called the British doctors study). Later, Richard Doll left the London Medical Research Center (MRC), and started the Oxford unit for Cancer epidemiology in 1968. By using computers, this unit was able to do something new and very important: it brought together large amounts of cancer data (pieces of information about cancer). This way of studying cancer is very important to cancer epidemiology today, and it has also been very important in shaping what we now know about cancer and what the rules and laws about the disease and public health are today. Over the past 50 years, many different people have done a lot of work to collect data from different doctors, hospitals, areas, states, and even countries. This data is used to study whether different kinds of cancer are more or less common in different areas, environments (for example, in big cities compared to the countryside), or cultures. This helps people who study cancer to figure out what makes people more or less likely to get different kinds of cancer.

paragraphs: Before World War II, doctors and hospitals were getting better at collecting (or getting and keeping) data about their patients who had cancer, but it was rare for this data to be shared with other doctors or hospitals. This changed after WWII, when medical research centers found out that different countries had very different number of cases of cancer. Because of this, many countries created national public health organizations (which studied public health issues in an entire country). These national public health organizations began to bring together health data from many different doctors and hospitals. This helped them figure out some of the reasons why cancer was so much more common in certain places. For example, in Japan, people studying cancer found out that people who had survived the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had bone marrow that was completely destroyed. This helped them realize that diseased bone marrow could also be destroyed with radiation, which was a very important step in figuring out that leukemia (a blood cancer) can be treated with bone marrow transplants.

paragraphs: Since World War II, scientists have kept finding better cancer treatments. However, there are some things that still need to get better. For example, while there are good treatments for many kinds of cancer, there are still no treatments for certain kinds of cancer, or for some cancers once they progress (or get worse) to a certain stage of the disease. Also, the cancer treatments that do exist are not all standardized (there is not one agreed-upon way of giving every treatment which is used each time the treatment is given). Cancer treatments are also not available everywhere in the world. People need to keep studying cancer epidemiology and forming international partnerships (where different countries work together) to find cures and make cancer treatments available everywhere.


title: Photography

paragraphs: Photography is a way of making a picture using a camera. A person who makes pictures using a camera is called a "photographer". A picture made using a camera is called a photograph or photo. Photography became popular in the middle 19th century with Daguerreotype. Later wet plate and dry plate methods were invented. Most photography in the 20th century was on photographic film and most in the 21st uses digital cameras.

paragraphs: A "camera" is, in its simplest form, like a box with a hole in front of it. There is a special piece of glass in front of the hole called a lens. To take a photograph of something, the lens makes a small picture of the object inside the camera. The lens does this by focusing light. A lens in a camera works like a lens in glasses (spectacles) or a magnifying glass. One type of camera called the Pinhole camera has no lens but uses a very small hole to focus light.

paragraphs: To make a photograph with a camera the "shutter release" button is pressed. Pressing the button opens the "shutter". The shutter is like a door. It covers the hole in the camera box. The shutter is behind the lens. When the shutter is closed no light can enter the camera box. When the shutter is open light can enter the camera. When the button is pressed the shutter opens and then closes. This happens very fast. The amount of time the shutter stays open for is called the "shutter speed". The shutter speed can change between 1/1000th of a second (0.001 s) to a few seconds. Normally the time taken for the shutter to open and close is far less than 1 second.

paragraphs: Some cameras have an "aperture ring". It controls how much light enters the camera box.

paragraphs: The photograph in a camera may be made on film or, if it is a digital camera, using an electronic sensor.

paragraphs: The picture the lens makes is recorded on photographic film. Film is placed inside the camera box. Light coming through the lens, aperture and open shutter shines on the film. Photographic film is coated with chemicals that react when light shines on it. Letting light shine on the film is called "exposing" the film.

paragraphs: There are many different types of photographic film. There are films for taking colour photographs and films for taking black and white photographs. There are different sizes of film. The most common size is "35 mm". It is called 35 mm because the width of the film is 35 millimetres.

paragraphs: Another difference between films is how sensitive they are to light. Films have a code number, called an "ISO number". The number tells how fast a film reacts when light shines on it.

paragraphs: Once the film has been exposed it is "processed". Processing has to be done in total darkness or the film will be exposed too much and the picture will be lost. Processing stops the film reacting to light any more. After the film has been processed the picture can be seen on the film.

paragraphs: A photographic "print" is a photograph made on paper. A light sensitive paper is used. The picture on the film is placed in an "enlarger". An enlarger is a machine that shines light through the film and makes a bigger picture on the light sensitive paper. A chemical reaction happens in the paper, which turns the areas hit with light black when the paper is 'developed'. (The more light, the darker the area.) "Developing" makes the picture appear on the paper – now it is a photograph. Then the paper is put into other chemicals that make it not sensitive to light any more. This is called "fixing". Last, the paper is washed so that there are no more chemicals on it and then dried. Then it is finished.

paragraphs: Digital photography uses a digital camera. Sometimes it is called "digital imaging". Like other cameras a digital camera has a lens, aperture, and shutter. The picture the lens makes is recorded by a light-sensitive electronic sensor. A digital camera does not use photographic film to record a picture. Digital photographs are stored in storage devices such as SD cards. They can later be transferred to a computer. Paper prints can also be made from digital pictures. Digital cameras are also not expensive to use, as there is no film to buy.

paragraphs: One of the most important things when taking a photograph is focusing the lens. If the lens is not focused well, the photograph will be blurry. Autofocus cameras focus automatically when the shutter release is pressed. There are also "manual" focus cameras (usually older ones).

paragraphs: Three other things are important when taking a photograph. These control how bright or dark the photograph will be.

paragraphs: A slower shutter speed, a bigger aperture, and faster film/higher ISO sensor all make a brighter picture. A faster shutter speed, a smaller aperture, and a slower film/lower ISO sensor all make a darker picture. A good picture is not too bright and not too dark. When it is too bright it would be called "overexposed". An automatic camera changes these things by itself when the shutter release is pressed.


title: Acronym

paragraphs: An acronym is a word whose letters are the first letters of other words. People often create a short acronym that means the same thing as a much longer phrase (set of words). This is faster and shorter to say then the long phrase.

paragraphs: An acronym usually must be able to be spoken as word. Other abbreviations such as ASAP (as soon as possible), USA (the United States of America), ECU (European Currency Unit), FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), NBA (National Basketball Association) have combinations of letters that are not pronounced as a single word. People just say the letters, one after another.

paragraphs: These three-letter acronyms, and some more obscure four-letter ones such as ISDN are more often called initialisms.

paragraphs: The word "acronym" comes from the Greek acro ‘extreme’ and onymus ‘name’.

paragraphs: The world's longest acronym, according to the "Guinness Book of World Records" is NIIOMTPLABOPARMBETZHELBETRABSBOMONIMONKONOTDTEKHSTROMONT (). It is 56 letters long (54 in Cyrillic). It is from the "Concise Dictionary of Soviet Terminology" and means "the Laboratory for Shuttering, Reinforcement, Concrete and Ferroconcrete Operations for Composite-monolithic and Monolithic Constructions of the Department of Technology of Building Assembly Operations of the Scientific Research Institute of the Organization for Building Mechanization and Technical Aid of the Academy of Building and Architecture of the USSR."


title: Radio wave

paragraphs: Radio waves make up part of the electromagnetic spectrum. These waves are packets of energy with differing wavelengths, similar to visible light waves, X-rays or gamma rays, except longer.

paragraphs: A radio wave, like other electromagnetic waves, is similar to an ocean surface wave or any other type of wave. Both types of wave have a hill and valley shape, repeating over and over. A wavelength is measured as the distance from the top of one crest to the top of its neighboring crest. While the wavelength of visible light is very very small, less than one micrometer and much less than the thickness of a human hair, radio waves can have a wavelength from a couple centimeters to several meters. They also have a radio frequency.

paragraphs: The smallest radio waves are called microwaves. Shortwaves are not quite so small. There are also medium and long waves. Antennas designed to send and receive radio waves are usually similar in size to the wavelength they are to use. Many radio antennas (like those on cars) are made long because they receive signals of FM radio (a few meters, several feet) or AM radio (hundreds of meters, about a thousand feet).

paragraphs: Manmade radio waves have been used since the 19th century for communication. Radar was developed in the 20th century, using radio waves to 'see' distant objects by bouncing waves off an object and seeing how long it takes for the waves to return. Radios also use these waves to send and receive information.

paragraphs: Radio waves from other planets were first discovered in the 1930s by Karl Guthe Jansky, working for Bell Laboratories. Bell was detecting noise (electronics) on radio channels, and had Jansky try to find the source of this static, or interference. After identifying noise that came from lightning, he spent much time looking into the remainder. Surprisingly, some of the interference was coming from space! This discovery eventually led astronomers to look at radio waves along with light waves to find things in the sky. These radio astronomers use giant Radio telescopes, shaped like satellite dishes, to gather and study the waves.

paragraphs: Radio waves are used for many things today. Broadcasting and communications satellites and mobile phones and many computers communicate by radio waves.


title: Bridge

paragraphs: A bridge is a structure to cross an open space or gap. Bridges are mostly made for crossing rivers, valleys, or roads. Nowadays most big bridges are made to carry vehicles but people have also walked across bridges for thousands of years. Bridges called highway overpasses carry a road over another road.

paragraphs: Military bridges are portable, so that they may be easily moved to where they are needed. This makes them much more complex than most civilian bridges.

paragraphs: The first man-made bridges were probably made from cut wood or stones. Some stone bridges have lasted thousands of years. In recent centuries large bridges are made mostly of steel. They do not last as long. Many bridges are in a state of disrepair.

paragraphs: There are five major structural types of bridges:


title: Mysticism

paragraphs: Mysticism is the belief that people can "directly" experience God or true reality, rather than through books, ritual or other people. People who practice this are called "mystics".

paragraphs: Mystics exist within most religions, though not all people who practice religions are mystics. Mystics may experience visions or dreams, or hear God as a voice.

paragraphs: Islamic Mysticism is known as "Tassawuf" (or Sufism) and a detailed list of Muslim Sufi mystics is given on the Sufism page.


title: Ontario

paragraphs: Ontario is a province of Canada. It is in the eastern half of Canada, between Manitoba and Quebec. Ontario has the most people of any province, with 13,150,000 in 2009, and is home to the biggest city in Canada, Toronto, which is also the capital of the province. In the eastern part of the province, placed on the border with Quebec, is Ottawa, the capital of Canada, located on the Ottawa River.

paragraphs: Ontario also has the second largest land area, with 1,076,395 km²; only Quebec is larger by size. (Nunavut and Northwest Territories are also larger, but are called "territories" and not "provinces"). The province has one of the longest borders with the United States and there are several border crossings including the one at Niagara Falls. Along this border are 4 large lakes called Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake Superior. They each are partly in Ontario and partly in the United States, and the border runs through them, but not Lake Michigan, which is entirely in the United States. These five lakes are together are called the Great Lakes.

paragraphs: Ontario became part of Canada when it was created in 1867. Before 1840, it was known as Upper Canada, which was a colony in the British Empire. Between 1840 and 1867 it was known as Canada West. The government of Ontario sits at Queen's Park in Toronto. The leader of the government is called the "Premier", and the current Premier is Doug Ford. There is also a Lieutenant Governor who represents the Queen, and the current Lieutenant Governor is Elizabeth Dowdeswell.

paragraphs: Ontario is very big, so sometimes people break it into two. The two parts are called Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario. Most of the people in Ontario live in the south, and that is where the big cities are. The big cities in Southern Ontario are Toronto and the rest of the Greater Toronto Area, Ottawa and the National Capital Region, Hamilton, London, Windsor, and Sarnia. The cities in the north are smaller. In the far north of Ontario hardly any people live at all, and there are no roads or railways making it difficult to even get to those places.

paragraphs: Much of Ontario gets lots of snow in the winter. In the summer, it can get very hot in the south parts. In some big cities, there is smog in the summer.

paragraphs: There are a number of symbols that represent the province of Ontario. The flag is red with the British Union Jack in the top left corner and the provincial shield is on the right hand side of the flag. The provincial bird is the loon, and the provincial flower is the trillium. It has three flower petals and it is usually white but some times is pink or purple.

paragraphs: The province (like all provinces and territories in Canada) is handled by the province ministry. Public and Catholic elementary, middle and high schools are funded by the government. The Ontario Secondary School Diploma is also issued by the ministry.


title: Manitoba

paragraphs: Manitoba is a province of Canada. It lies roughly in the centre of Canada.

paragraphs: Manitoba is the 6th largest province with 647,797 km² area. It has the fifth largest number of people, with 1,150,000 in 2001. People from Manitoba are called "Manitobans".

paragraphs: The capital of Manitoba is the City of Winnipeg. Other big cities in Manitoba include Steinbach and Brandon.

paragraphs: The people of Manitoba elected a legislature. The leader of the government, who is called the "Premier", is the leader of the largest party in the legislature. There is also a Lieutenant Governor, who represents the Queen. Right now, the premier of Manitoba is Greg Selinger and the Lieutenant Governor is Philip S. Lee.

paragraphs: The main political parties in Manitoba are the New Democratic Party, the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba, and the Liberal Party.

paragraphs: People have been living in Manitoba for thousands of years. Both the Hudson's Bay Company from England and many people from France moved to Manitoba during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. It became part of the Northwest Territories in 1869. The Red River Rebellion, which was started by Louis Riel, began in Manitoba.

paragraphs: Manitoba became part of Canada on 12 May 1870. It included only the southern part which is nearest to the United States. But parts of the Northwest Territories were added to Manitoba later on.


title: Head of government

paragraphs: The head of government is the leader of the executive branch of a nation's government. This is not always the same person as the head of state. Official titles for heads of government include Premier or Prime Minister.

paragraphs: For example, in the United States, the president is both the head of state and the head of government. In the Republic of Ireland the president is the head of state but the Taoiseach is the head of government. In most modern monarchies the king (or queen) is the head of state but not the head of government, as is the case of Japan and the UK, for example.

paragraphs: The head of state of some countries has no power over law and justice, for example, the Bundespresident of Germany.


title: Saskatchewan

paragraphs: Saskatchewan is a province of Canada. About 1 million people live in Saskatchewan. Most of its population lives in the southern part of the province. The primary industry in Saskatchewan is agriculture (farming).

paragraphs: Saskatchewan is known for its wide horizons. The land is very flat in the south, so you can sometimes see far away. Not all the land is flat prairie. There are beautiful scenic woodlands and forests in the central and northern regions and parklands with lakes for fishing. The province is marked by and named after the North and South Saskatchewan rivers that run through it. The province is nicknamed "The Land of Living Skies".

paragraphs: The largest city in Saskatchewan is Saskatoon, followed by the province's capital, Regina. Saskatchewan is (approximately) a quadrilateral (four-sided object) bounded on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the American states of Montana and North Dakota.

paragraphs: Saskatchewan was founded on September 1, 1905, the same date that Alberta was founded. The province's colors are gold, red, green, white, brown, yellow, and black. Gold for the wheat, red for the Prairie Lily which is the provincial flower, green for the forests, white for the snow, brown for the fresh cut fields, yellow for the canola and sunflowers, and black for the coal and oil.


title: Classical music

paragraphs: Classical music is a very general term which normally refers to the standard music of countries in the Western world. It is music that has been composed by musicians who are trained in the art of writing music (composing) and written down in music notation so that other musicians can play it. Classical music may also be described as "art music" though it was not good in classical period that term also Includes types of serious modern music which are not classical. Classical music differs from pop music because it is not made just in order to be popular for time or just to be a commercial success. It is different from folk music which is generally made up by ordinary members of society and learned by future generations by listening, dancing and copying.

paragraphs: The word “classic” tends to mean: an art which is so good that it will always be enjoyed by future generations. It is something that has become a model for future artists. The period of Ancient Greece and Rome is known as the Classical Period because, many centuries later, people looked back to those ancient civilizations and thought they were perfect. In recent European history the 18th century was known as the Classical Period because musicians, artists, writers and philosophers were inspired by the art forms of the Classical Period of Ancient Greece and Rome. Something that is a “classic” is therefore something that will always be remembered as something great. Famous books such as the novels of Charles Dickens are called "classics". “Classical music” therefore tends to mean music that will not be forgotten soon after it is written, but is likely to be enjoyed by many future generations.

paragraphs: Although people sometimes think of classical music as the opposite of pop music, it can still be very popular. Like all kinds of music, classical music can be in many different moods: happy, sad, scary, peaceful, thoughtful, simple etc. Mozart wrote his serenades and divertimentos to entertain people at parties. Classical pieces of music can be quite short, but they can also be very long, like a big, musical story. A symphony by Mahler or Shostakovich can last for nearly an hour, and an opera is a whole evening’s entertainment.

paragraphs: Classical music is also different from jazz because true jazz is improvised. However, the differences are not always obvious. Classical music has often been inspired by jazz, and jazz by classical music. George Gershwin wrote music which is both jazz and classical. Classical music, too, can be improvised. The great composers Bach, Mozart and Beethoven often improvised long pieces of music on the organ, harpsichord or piano. Sometimes they wrote these improvistions down. They were, in effect, compositions which were composed in one go.

paragraphs: In Western countries a vast amount of music was written for Christian worship in churches and cathedrals. This is called “sacred” (religious) music. All other music is “secular” music. The word “secular” means things that are not sacred. Sacred and secular music have influenced one another in many ways during the course of music history. Secular music was largely influenced by dance, and this in turn changed the style of scared music. For example: the church music of the 16th century composer Giovanni da Palestrina has nothing to do with dance music, but both the sacred and secular music of Johann Sebastian Bach two centuries later is full of dance rhythms. At some times in music history there have been different styles of composing for sacred and for secular music. Claudio Monteverdi uses two different styles for his church and for his non-church music. When composers were experimenting with new ways of writing music they usually did this with secular music, and sacred music caught up later.

paragraphs: The term "classical music" was not used until the early 19th century. People then started talking about classical music in order to praise the great composers such as Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. In the 20th century many different ways of composing were used, including music played by electronic instruments or very modern music using strange sounds (experimental or "avant garde" music), for example the music of John Cage. Some people feel that this kind of music cannot really be described as "classical music".

paragraphs: Classical music can be for instruments or for the voice. The symphony orchestra is the most common group of instruments for the playing of classical music. It has four families of instruments: the string instruments which include the violins, violas, cellos and piano, the woodwind instruments which include flutes, oboes,clarinets and bassoons together with related instruments of different sizes, the brass instruments: trumpet, trombone, tuba and French horn, and percussion instruments which nearly always includes timpani as well as many other possible instruments which are hit or shaken. This is very different from a typical rock band which has a drummer, a guitarist, one or two singers and an electric bass and keyboard. Instruments that play classical music are not normally amplified electronically.

paragraphs: The same applies to the voice. Singers may be sopranos, altos, tenors or basses, depending on their vocal range. Their voices are not amplified. Opera singers, in particular, have to develop very powerful voices which will be heard over the orchestra and project right to the back of an opera house.

paragraphs: The instruments used in classical music developed at different times. Some of the earliest were known in Medieval music. The trombone and the triangle have hardly changed for hundreds of years, but the violin family developed from folk instruments such as fiddles and gradually replaced the viols to form the basis of the modern orchestra. This was happening by the beginning of the 17th century, which was the time when opera was invented.

paragraphs: In general, musical instruments have become louder as concert halls have become bigger. Violins are louder than viols. Modern violins are louder than the early 17th century violins, largely because of they have metal strings instead of gut strings. The piano developed from the clavichord which was very quiet indeed. Woodwind instruments developed from Renaissance instruments, while the clarinet was invented in the middle of the 18th century, and the saxophone and tuba came even later. Modern trumpets sound much brighter than the straight trumpets of the 18th century.

paragraphs: Most popular music is based on song form, but classical music has many different forms, some of which can be used over a long time span to make big compositions. Classical music can have many forms, including the symphony, concerto, oratorio, opera, sonata, fugue or any combination of dance movements such as suites. In many of the longer compositions, short tunes are developed and changed during the course of the piece. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is a good example of a piece which develops from just four notes into a large piece lasting about half an hour.

paragraphs: People who want to be good at performing classical music have to practice hard for many years. They normally have formal training at a music college or conservatoire and have lessons from well-known music teachers.

paragraphs: Classical musicians often spend a lot of time thinking carefully about pieces of music, especially about pieces of music that they perform. They study such things as harmony and counterpoint to help them understand the way that the composers were thinking when they put the piece together. When they look at pieces of music in this way this is called “musical analysis”. People who specialize in thinking and writing about music may become professors or lecturers of music at universities.

paragraphs: Classical music is often heard in popular culture. It is used as background music for movies, television programs, advertisements and even for mobile phone ringing tones. Most people in the Western world recognize many classical tunes, possibly without even realizing it. Some classical pieces of music have become enormously popular, e.g. the song "Nessun dorma" from Giacomo Puccini's opera "Turandot" which was sung by the three tenors Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo and José Carreras, and used as the theme tune for the 1990 Soccer World Cup. This made many people who had never been interested in opera start to become curious about it.

paragraphs: The history of classical music really started in the late Middle Ages. Music written for the church was almost always vocal (singing), because instruments were thought to be wicked. This is because the devil played them, and because they were used for dancing. There was a lot of dance music, but most of it is lost because it was never written down.

paragraphs: Medieval composers who are remembered today include Léonin, Pérotin and Guillaume de Machaut

paragraphs: The Renaissance was from the 15th century until the 17th century. This period saw a massive increase in the composition of music, both sacred and secular. Many great cathedrals had been built in Europe and composers wrote music for them, mostly vocal music. Secular music also became extremely popular, especially songs and madrigals, which would sometimes be accompanied by instruments.

paragraphs: The greatest composers of this period include: Giovanni da Palestrina, Orlando di Lasso, Thomas Tallis and William Byrd.

paragraphs: The Baroque period was from about the 17th century until the mid-18th century. This was the time when the modern orchestra was formed, more or less as we know it. It was also the time when opera was invented. Most musicians worked either for the church or for rich people who had their own orchestras. Many of them also started to work for opera houses.

paragraphs: The greatest composers of this time include: Claudio Monteverdi, Heinrich Schütz, Henry Purcell, Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach, Domenico Scarlatti and Georg Philipp Telemann

paragraphs: The years between 1760 - 1825 was known as the Classical period. Composers thought a lot about the forms of their pieces and were influenced by the classical art of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. The symphony was invented and various forms of chamber music including the string quartet.

paragraphs: The greatest composers include: Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Christoph Willibald Gluch, and Ludwig van Beethoven.

paragraphs: From 1820 to 1910 was known as the Romantic period. Composers continued to use the forms that had been invented in the 18th century, but they also thought that personal feeling and emotion were very important. Music for orchestra sometimes told a story (programme music). Musicians who played their instruments brilliantly (such as Paganini) were worshipped like heroes. Beethoven and Schubert belong, in many ways, to this period as well as to the Classical period. It was a time when there were a lot of changes in society. After the wars that Napoleon had waged, there were not so many ruling aristocratic families. There was a lot of feeling of nationalism as countries united. 19th century music is often nationalistic: composers wrote music that was typical of their own country.

paragraphs: Some of the greatest composers include: Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Hector Berlioz, Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, Anton Bruckner, Johannes Brahms, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Edward Elgar, Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss.

paragraphs: What is known as 20th century classical music (or “modern music”) is music from about 1910 onwards. At this time many composers felt that everything had already been done by the composers of the past, so they wanted to find new ways of composing. Claude Debussy, Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, in particular, found new ways of writing music which was not necessarily tonal (in any particular key). Classical music was influenced by jazz, especially with American composers. Later in the century people such as Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen experimented in many other ways, including with electronic music (tape recorders etc.). Today’s composers have combined some of these ideas to develop their own styles.

paragraphs: Some of the most important composers are: Claude Debussy, Jean Sibelius, Maurice Ravel, Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Aaron Copland, Benjamin Britten, Dmitri Shostakovich, Leonard Bernstein, Philip Glass, Dmitri Kabalevsky, James MacMillan, Judith Weir, Peter Maxwell Davies

paragraphs: It has never been possible to say exactly what is meant by “classical music”. Many different kinds of music influence one another. Since 1970 it has been even harder to make clear dividing lines between rock, pop, classical, folk, jazz and world music. This shows that classical music, like other kinds of music, continues to develop and reflect the society from which it comes.

paragraphs: The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie; 1980;


title: SNAFU

paragraphs: SNAFU or snafu is an acronym that the United States Military first used. Civilians now use it as well. It stands for Situation Normal: All (Fucked/Fouled/Francis) Up.

paragraphs: In modern times, it means a situation that was occurring normally but then suddenly began to go wrong. For example:

paragraphs: "The general's visit this week-end went well until we hit a snafu. Everything went wrong after that."

paragraphs: Snafu is used mostly as a noun. It can also be used as a verb but usually in the passive sense. For instance, someone would say:

paragraphs: "The general's visit this week-end went well until it snafued. Everything went wrong after that."

paragraphs: "The general's visit this week-end went well until we snafued it."


title: Atlanta

paragraphs: Atlanta is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is one of the South's largest cities. Atlanta is known as a major business city. It is the home of Coca-Cola Company, CNN, AT&T, and Home Depot, as well as many other Fortune 500 companies. Coca-Cola, which is made in Atlanta, is drunk all over the world and its factory is a favorite tourist destination. CNN is also a big tourist attraction. Atlanta's airport, called Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, is the busiest airport in the world. Atlanta is near the center of Georgia and is on the Chattahoochee River.

paragraphs: Atlanta has a high crime rate and murder rate. The city has a large African American population. Atlanta is considered a black mecca for African Americans.

paragraphs: Atlanta has a high HIV rate. Atlanta is a black LGBT mecca.

paragraphs: Atlanta was built on Cherokee Native American land. It was called Terminus until 1843, when the name was changed to Marthasville. In 1845 the name was changed again to Atlanta.

paragraphs: During the American Civil War, Atlanta was where several battles happened. Some of the battles were the Battle of Peachtree Creek, the Battle of Atlanta, and the Battle of Ezra Church. The city was burnt down and almost entirely destroyed. After the war, the city was built again, and got a nickname because it was built so fast: "the Phoenix City", after the bird which burns itself then rises from the ashes in old myths. A picture of the bird is on the city seal.

paragraphs: Atlanta became the state capital in 1868.

paragraphs: There have been racial problems in Atlanta. During riots in 1906, at least 12 people died and more than 70 other people were hurt. In 1913, a Jewish man named Leo Frank was tried in court for raping and killing a girl in a factory where he worked. He was found guilty, but then the government decided not to execute him because not everyone was convinced he had done it. This upset people who thought he had killed the girl, and there were more riots in 1915 and Frank was lynched (hanged with a rope until he died).

paragraphs: In the 1930s, the Great Depression came to Atlanta. Many people did not have jobs and were hungry. The city government was almost out of money and the Coca-Cola company gave the city some money to help. In 1935, the government built the first federal housing project in the United States.

paragraphs: Atlanta's airport is named Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. It is the busiest airport in the world. Delta Air Lines is an airline that has its main office in Atlanta, and it uses Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport for many of its flights.

paragraphs: Turner Broadcasting, which broadcasts CNN, has their main office in Atlanta. The Coca Cola Company also has their main office in Atlanta.

paragraphs: Atlanta is rich in African American history and hip-hop culture.

paragraphs: Famous rappers from Atlanta are Gucci Mane, Jeezy, Ludacris, Lil Yachty and 2 Chainz.

paragraphs: The City of Atlanta is home to two colleges. Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech for short, and Georgia State University.


title: Niccolò Machiavelli

paragraphs: Niccolò Machiavelli (Florence, Italy, 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was a Florentine official at the time of the Medicis.

paragraphs: He was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic. He also wrote comedies, carnival songs, poetry, and some of the best-known personal correspondence in the Italian language.

paragraphs: Machiavelli is known today as the author of "The Prince". This book has influenced politics.

paragraphs: In his best known book, "The Prince", he describes the way that a Prince (by which Machiavelli means a ruler) can control the people he rules. He looks especially at what he calls the "new prince", saying that a prince from a royal family has an easier job because the people are used to his family and the way of life. All that such a hereditary prince needs to do is carefully stick to the traditional ways of working that the people are used to. A new prince has a much more difficult job because he must get people used to his new power and build up new ways of working that people can get used to. This job means that the new prince has to act in a way people would not quickly criticize, but Machiavelli says this may mean doing bad but necessary things which people do not see or remember. Otherwise a new prince will find it difficult to get anything important done, or even to keep ruling.


title: Supply line

paragraphs: A supply line is a large line of military supply vehicles, usually in convoy format. The line is useful for transporting needed supplies (food, medical supplies, ammo) to the front line. Without the supply line, a deployed army far from home would not be able to fight for long, as supplies would soon run out.

paragraphs: The enemy is most likely to target the supply line if not heavily ed, since once the supplies are cut off, the army will soon be unable to fight, and unable to reinforce, and so they will be forced to surrender or die.


title: Michigan

paragraphs: Michigan is one of the fifty states in the United States of America. It is the11th largest state in the United States. It is made up of two peninsulas (connected by the Mackinac Bridge): the only state to be so. It borders the U.S. states of Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota, and Illinois. Its borders with Minnesota and Illinois are only by water. It also borders Canada by water. It was the 26th state to join the union on January 26, 1837. In 1847, Michigan became the first U.S. state to abolish the death penalty.

paragraphs: Michigan is noted as the place where many automobiles were made, and it still shows today. Michigan is 50% forest, which makes it very useful to the lumber industry. It also borders four of the Great Lakes, which are some of the largest reservoirs of fresh water in the world. Lake Superior is the largest body of freshwater in the world.

paragraphs: The state experiences four seasons, with the winter being predominant and severe in the north, while the south has more mild, equally long seasons. The northern areas are very popular for skiing in the winter. The National Ski Hall of Fame can be found in Ishpeming in the Upper Peninsula. It is surrounded by four of the five Great Lakes. It is also home to the largest mosque in North America, the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn.

paragraphs: Due to the large amount of water surrounding the state, boating is very popular in the warmer months. There are more private boats registered in Michigan than in any other state.

paragraphs: Many famous people have come from Michigan. They include the singer Madonna, the comedian Andy Richter, singer Stevie Wonder, Anthony Kiedis, former president Gerald Ford, singer Kid Rock, rapper Eminem, the former Reverend Jim Bakker, basketball legend Magic Johnson, Diana Ross, and Aretha Franklin. Also it was the home of Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company.

paragraphs: The capital city of Michigan is Lansing, and large cities include Detroit, Ann Arbor, Flint, Grand Rapids, and Saginaw. Marquette is the largest city in the Upper Peninsula.

paragraphs: Michigan has several state universities including Michigan State University, University of Michigan, Saginaw Valley State University, Grand Valley State University and Western Michigan University. The state also has many private colleges.

paragraphs: The current governor is Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who took office in January 2019, and its two national senators are Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, both Democrats. Out of its 14 congressmen, 7 are Democrats, 6 are Republicans and Justin Amash is a Libertarian. In any event, Michigan had once been reliably blue in presidential elections, having voted for the Democrat in presidential elections since 1988, but then in 2016 it swung red to support Donald Trump. It will be regarded in future as a Swing State.

paragraphs: Michiganian politics is representative of Midwest politics as a whole. In general, Michigan is more liberal than the states of Indiana, Wisconsin and Ohio, about as liberal as Pennsylvania and Iowa, and less liberal than Illinois and Minnesota. In the State Legislature, Republicans control both houses, although this is true even in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa and Ohio.


title: Caenorhabditis elegans

paragraphs: Caenorhabditis elegans is a species of roundworm or nematode. It is important because much research has been done on its genetics and development.

paragraphs: "C. elegans" is about 1 mm long. The worms are not parasites, they are free-living. They live in soil and feed on bacteria. "C. elegans" is a model organism, used to study animal development and behavior. It is the first multicellular organism for which scientists have been able to sequence its whole genome.

paragraphs: "C. elegans" has two types of sex: hermaphrodite and male. A hermaphrodite makes sperms when its in a larval stage and makes ova in an adult stage. A male can only make sperm. Males are a little smaller than hermaphrodites.

paragraphs: Study using "C. elegans" was begun in 1965 by Sydney Brenner. In laboratories, they are easy to keep alive. At 25ºC, they spend 14 hours as an embryo. Animals like "C. elegans" that do not take long to grow and are easy to feed are usually good organisms for research.

paragraphs: In 2002, the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to Sydney Brenner, Robert Horvitz, and John Sulston for their work on how "C. elegans's" genes cause it to grow and cause some of its cells to die.


title: Saxe-Weimar

paragraphs: Saxe-Weimar () was a duchy in Thuringia, Germany. The chief town and capital was Weimar.

paragraphs: Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Gotha were the two original Ernestine Duchies. They both gradually shrank in size as land in Thuringia was divided among sons..

paragraphs: In 1741 Duke Ernest Augustus I of Saxe-Weimar inheritated the Duchy of Saxe-Eisenach. Ernest Augustus II, who succeeded in 1748, died in 1758, and his young widow, Anna Amalia, became regent for her infant son, Charles Augustus. The regency of Anna Amalia and the reign of Charles Augustus were important in the history of Saxe-Weimar. Both intelligent patrons of literature and art, Anna Amalia and Charles Augustus attracted to their court the leading scholars in Germany, including Goethe, Schiller and Herder, and made Weimar an important cultural centre.

paragraphs: Charles Augustus joined Prussia in the Napoleonic Wars. After France won the Battle of Jena, Saxe Weimar was forced to join the Confederation of the Rhine in 1806. In 1809 Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach, which had been separate duchies with the same duke became one country as the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.

paragraphs: Merged with Saxe-Eisenach to form Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach


title: Oldham

paragraphs: Oldham is a town in the North West of England. It is to the north-east of Manchester. It is part of Greater Manchester. Oldham was part of Lancashire until 1 April 1974.

paragraphs: There were riots in Oldham in May 2001. It is the centre of the Borough of Oldham.

paragraphs: Oldham Council achieved dubious notoriety in 2009 when in ran up a bill of £8 million carrying out a failed prosecution of kitchen tycoon Vance Miller. The Judge threw out the case and lambasted the Council for the frivolity of the prosecution.

paragraphs: The town has an association football team, called Oldham Athletic. It also has a cricket club, called Oldham Cricket Club.

paragraphs: The composer, William Walton was born in Oldham.

paragraphs: The first test tube baby, Louise Joy Brown, was born in Oldham General Hospital on 25 July 1978.


title: Pakistan

paragraphs: Pakistan is a country in southern Asia. It is next to India, Iran, Afghanistan, and China. It is officially called the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. It has a long coastline along the Arabian Sea in the south. Pakistan has the fifth largest population (207.77 million) in the world. Pakistan has a total land area of (including the Pakistani controlled territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan). This makes Pakistan the 34th largest country in the world. Pakistan has the seventh largest army in the world. The capital of Pakistan is Islamabad. Before 1960, it was Karachi, which is now the country's largest city.

paragraphs: The name Pākistān means "Land of the Pure" in Persian and Urdu.

paragraphs: The name Pakistan ( or ;  ) means "Land of (the) Spiritually Pure" in both Urdu and Persian languages. Many South-central Asian states and regions end with the element -"stan," such as "Afghanistan," "Pakistan," "Balochistan," "Kurdistan," and "Turkistan." This -"stan" is formed from the Iranian root *STA "to stand, stay," and means "place (where one stays), home, country". Iranian peoples have been the main inhabitants of the various land regions of the Ancient Persian Empires now owned by the states for over a thousand years. The names are compounds of -"stan" and the name of the peoples living there. Pakistan is a bit different; its name was coined on 28 January 1933 as ' by Choudhary Rahmat Ali, a Pakistan Movement activist, who published it in his paper "Now or Never". by using the suffix -"istan" from "Baloch"istan preceded by the first letters of "P"unjab, "A"fghania, "K"ashmir and "S"indh. The name is actually an acronym that stands for the "thirty million Muslim brethren who lived in Pakistan—by which we mean the Five Northern units of India viz: Punjab, (Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sind, and Baluchistan"'". The letter "i" was incorporated to ease pronunciation and forms the linguistically correct and meaningful name. Interestingly, a word almost the same in form, etymology, and meaning to the Iranian suffix -"stan" is found in Polish, which has a word "stan" meaning "state" (in the senses of both polity and condition). It can be found in the example of a Polish name for the "United States of America," "Stany Zjednoczone Ameryki" (literally "States United of America").

paragraphs: The lyrics of the national anthem of Pakistan was written by Ahmed Ghulamali Chagla and was adopted as the country's national anthem on 13 August 1954. The music had actually been composed nearly three years before the lyrics were written to fit the tune.

paragraphs: The flag is a green field with a white crescent moon and five-rayed star at its centre, and a vertical white stripe at the hoist side. Though the green colour is mandated only as 'dark green', its official and most consistent representation is Pakistan green, which is shaded distinctively darker.

paragraphs: The flag was designed by Syed Amir uddin Kedwaii and was based on the original flag of the Muslim League. It was adopted by the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 11, 1947, just days before independence. The white colour on the flag represents the minorities and the green the Muslim majority. The crescent on the flag represents progress while the five-rayed star represents light and knowledge.

paragraphs: Pakistan has a federal parliamentary system. The head of state is an indirectly-elected ceremonial President. The Electoral college of the country, (composed of the Senate, the National Assembly, and the four Provincial Assemblies) chooses a leadership representing the President of Pakistan for a five-year term. The president is also the Commander in Chief of the Joint Armed Forces. The head of government is the Prime Minister, who is also indirectly elected.

paragraphs: The President's appointment and term are constitutionally independent of the Prime Minister’s term. The Prime Minister is usually the leader of the largest party in the National Assembly or of a coalition in the National Assembly.

paragraphs: The Prime Minister is the head of government. Pakistan's legislature is made of a 100-member Senate (upper house) and a 342-member National Assembly (lower house). The Chief Justice of Pakistan is the chief judge who oversees the judicature's court system at all levels of command.

paragraphs: On 17 August 2018 Ex-cricketer Imran Khan was elected as the New Prime Minister of Naya Pakistan. Because In 2018, Imran Khan (the chairman of PTI) Won the 2018 Pakistan general election with 116 general seats and so became the current 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan in election of National Assembly of Pakistan for Prime Minister by getting 176 votes against Shehbaz Sharif (the chairman of PMLN) who got 96 votes. Pakistan is also headed by a "President", the Prime Minister Acts as the Leader of Pakistan.

paragraphs: Pakistan is officially a federal republic, but during a long period in its history it changed to a democratic state and a military dictatorship. Military dictators include Ayub Khan in the 1960s, General Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s.

paragraphs: Pakistan's two largest political parties are the Pakistan People's Party and the government party Pakistan Muslim League (N). The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has also gained popularity in the past years.

paragraphs: On 27 December 2007, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated. The reason is yet to be determined.

paragraphs: Pakistan is made up of four provinces, two territories and two special areas. Both special areas are in Kashmir. The provinces and territories are divided into 26 divisions with now 147 districts directly divided from the provinces. Each district is divided into several tehsils and each tehsil is divided into several union councils. There are around 596 tehsils and over 6,000 union councils in Pakistan.

paragraphs: Among the four provinces, Punjab has the most people but Balochistan is the largest province by area.

paragraphs: Administrative Areas (Pakistan-administered Kashmir)

paragraphs: India, Pakistan and China separately control parts of the Kashmir region. India and Pakistan's parts are divided by a Line of Control. The Pakistan–China border is internationally recognised. Trade is common between the 2 countries.

paragraphs: Pakistan has a semi-industrialized economy. The growth poles of the Pakistani economy are situated along the Indus River. Diversified economies of Karachi and Punjab's urban centres, coexist with less developed areas in other parts of the country. Despite being a very poor country in 1947, Pakistan's economic growth rate has been better than the global average during the following four decades, but incautious policies led to a slowdown in the late 1990s.

paragraphs: Recently, large economic reforms have resulted in a stronger economic outlook and sped up growth especially in the manufacturing and financial services sectors. Since the 1990s, there has been great improvement in the foreign exchange market position and rapid growth in hard currency reserves.

paragraphs: The 2005 estimate of foreign debt was close to US$40 billion. However, this decreased with help from the International Monetary Fund and significant debt-relief from the United States. Pakistan's gross domestic product, as measured by purchasing power parity, is estimated to be $475 billion while its per capita income stands at $2,942. The poverty rate in Pakistan is estimated to be between 23% and 28%.

paragraphs: Pakistan became Independent in 1947 from the United Kingdom which was known as the British Raj. The first organised people in Ancient Pakistan lived 9000 years ago. These people were the ones who made up the Indus Valley Civilization, which is one of the oldest civilizations on Earth. After that, the Vedic period came. This also included parts of north-western Republic of India. Until 1971, Pakistan also included an area in the North-east India region. This is now called Bangladesh. It lost that area after a war with the Indian Army and the joint militant group of Indo-Bangladeshi alliance of Mitro Bahini of West Bengal. During recent times Pakistan has been in the centre of world politics. This is first because of its support to guerillas in Afghanistan, following a Soviet invasion 1979, and later during the 1990s because of its cooperation with and support for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. However, since 2000 Pakistan has supported the West in their war against fundamentalist terrorism, including the removal of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

paragraphs: Pakistan is a member of the Commonwealth. However, after the war in East Pakistan the country was excluded (between 1972-1989). It was also a member between 1999 and 2007, it was excluded in 2007 for a time but again became a member in 2008.

paragraphs: There are many earthquakes in the area. The earthquake in 2005 with its earthquake center in Kashmir is the strongest recorded so far. Over 100,000 people were killed or wounded on 8 October 2005.

paragraphs: Pakistan covers , roughly similar to the combined land areas of France and the UK. Its eastern regions are located on the Indian plate and the western and northern regions on the Iranian plateau and Eurasian landplate. Apart from the Arabian Sea coastline, Pakistan's land borders total — with Afghanistan to the northwest, with China to the northeast, with India to the south and east, and with Iran to the southwest.

paragraphs: The northern and western highlands of Pakistan contain the towering Karakoram and Pamir mountain ranges, which include some of the world's highest peaks, including K2 and Nanga Parbat . The Balochistan Plateau lies to the west, and the Thar Desert and an expanse of alluvial plains, the Punjab and Sindh, lie to the east. The Indus River and its tributaries flow through the country from the disputed territory of Occupied Kashmir to the Arabian Sea.

paragraphs: Pakistan has four seasons: a cool, dry winter from December through February; a hot, dry spring from March through May; the summer rainy season, or southwest monsoon period, from June through September; and the retreating monsoon period of October and November. The beginning and length of these seasons vary somewhat according to location. Rainfall can change radically from year to year, and consecutive patterns of flooding and drought are also not uncommon.

paragraphs: Urdu is replacing English as the national language of the country. English is still spoken among the Pakistani elite and in most government ministries. Many people also speak Saraiki, Punjabi, Hindko, Pashto, Sindhi, Balochi, Brahui and Khowar.

paragraphs: Shina is also one of the regional languages of Pakistan. It is spoken in Gilgit-Baltistan.

paragraphs: Most (97%) of the people are Muslim. Most of the Muslims in Pakistan are Sunni Muslims (>75%) and some are Shia Muslims (20%). However a few minority groups exist. Pakistan also has some Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Zoroastrians and animist minority groups in the northern parts of the country.

paragraphs: After the split from British India, Hinduism had much less importance in the newly created state of Pakistan, but has played an important role in its culture and politics as well as the history of its regions. In fact, Pakistan has the 5th largest population of Hindus, after Sri Lanka.

paragraphs: The word "Hindu" comes from the Sindhu (Indus River) of Pakistan. The Sindhu is one of the holy rivers of Hinduism. Thus, in many ways, the land which is today's heavily Muslim Pakistan has played an important part in the origin of Hinduism. There are about 3 million Hindus living in Pakistan.

paragraphs: Poverty in Pakistan is a growing concern. Although the middle-class has grown in Pakistan, nearly one-quarter of the population is classified poor as of October 2006.

paragraphs: The national sport of Pakistan is field hockey, although cricket is the most popular game across the country. The national cricket team has won the Cricket World Cup once (in 1992), were runners-up once (in 1999), and co-hosted the games twice (in 1987 and 1996). Pakistan were runners-up in the inaugural 2007 ICC World Twenty20 held in South Africa and were the champions at the 2009 ICC World Twenty20 held in England. The team also won two Asia Cups in 2000 and 2012. Lately however, Pakistani cricket has suffered heavily due to teams refusing to tour Pakistan after militants attacked the touring Sri Lankan team in March 2009, after which no international cricket was played until May 2015, when the Zimbabwean team agreed to tour. However, now, with increased security, the Sri Lankan cricket team came for a tour as recently as 2019.

paragraphs: In addition to sports like field hockey, cricket, squash rackets, football and others, Pakistanis are also very keen on equestrianism of various types,and equestrian sports such as Polo and the traditional Tent pegging are played by many. Other traditional rural sports include two types of Wrestling, Kabbadi and a martial art called Gatka.


title: New Zealand

paragraphs: New Zealand (known as in the Māori language) is an island country in Oceania. It is a sovereign state in the south-western part of the Pacific Ocean. It is made up of two large islands (the North Island and the South Island) and many smaller islands. These islands are located to the southeast of Australia. New Zealand was one of the last places in the world that humans discovered, because it is a long way away from most of the world. During its time without humans, New Zealand was a good place for an unusual range of plants and animals to develop.

paragraphs: The capital city of the country is Wellington, and the largest city is Auckland. Both of these cities are on the North Island. The largest city on the South Island is Christchurch.

paragraphs: The official languages are English, Māori and New Zealand sign language. English has never been granted official language status in the NZ laws, but it is used as a default official language due to its wide usage.

paragraphs: In 2010, a newspaper in NZ said that New Zealand was the 8th happiest country in the world.

paragraphs: In the Māori language, the country is called Aotearoa, which means "Land of the Long White Cloud". "Ao" means “cloud”, "tea" means “white”, and "roa" means “long”. The name "New Zealand" comes from “Zeeland” (which translates to "Sealand") in Dutch, after the islands were seen by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman. Zeeland is a province of the Netherlands.

paragraphs: New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II. The Prime Minister is Jacinda Ardern, leader of the Labour Party.

paragraphs: New Zealand has made itself a "Nuclear Free Zone": They do not use nuclear power and do not allow nuclear weapons or nuclear powered vessels in their territory.

paragraphs: As of the 2018 census, 4,699,755 people lived in New Zealand. Most of them have European ancestors. The indigenous people of New Zealand, the Māori, have a population of 775,836, or 16.5%.

paragraphs: The people of New Zealand often call themselves Kiwis. This name is derived from the kiwi, a flightless native bird that is considered the country's national bird.

paragraphs: The North Island is smaller than the South Island, but most people (more than 3 million) live there. This might be because the North Island is usually warmer, and has more big cities.

paragraphs: About half of the people in New Zealand are religious. As of the 2018 census, 48.2% had no religion. The main religion in New Zealand is Christianity. Just over 2 million New Zealanders are Christian. The second most common religion is Hinduism, with 2.6%.

paragraphs: Most New Zealanders live in urban areas, with the other 27% living in small towns or farming communities.

paragraphs: Wellington is the capital of New Zealand. Auckland is the largest city, with around 1 million people.

paragraphs: Other cities in the North Island include Hamilton, Tauranga, Napier/Hastings, , , and Palmerston North. South Island cities include Christchurch, Dunedin, Nelson, Invercargill and Timaru.

paragraphs: New Zealand sits at the boundary between the Australian and Pacific continental plates. When these two plates bumped into each other ('collided'), the Pacific plate moved under the Australian plate, north of the South Island. As a result, there has been lots of volcanic activity. South of the South Island, the Australian plate moves under the Pacific plate instead. The plates slide past each other in the South Island, where they have pushed up the Southern Alps. Because of these two colliding plates, New Zealand often has earthquakes. One of the best known is the 2010-2011 group of earthquakes that hit the Christchurch area.

paragraphs: The diagram shows that the North Island is on the Australian plate, but most of the South Island is on the Pacific plate. New Zealand is still geologically active, and will remain so as long as the islands are sitting above the plate boundary.

paragraphs: The oldest rocks in New Zealand date from the Cambrian period, 512 million years ago. New Zealand became part of the global supercontinent Pangaea. When that split (End-Triassic/early Jurassic), New Zealand became part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana. Finally Gondwana broke up, leaving the continents rather as they are today.

paragraphs: New Zealand was isolated from the rest of the world for a long time. It split from Australia 83 million years ago. Because of this, there are many plants and animals that only live in New Zealand. Before humans came to New Zealand, there were no mammals, except three species of bat and marine mammals such as seals, dolphins, and whales. Instead, New Zealand has many different kinds of bird. New Zealand has several species of flightless bird, including the kiwi and Kakapo. For the lizards, especially important is the Tuatara, the only living member of a whole order of reptiles.

paragraphs: New Zealand used to have more rare species, but some, mostly birds, were hunted to extinction early in its history. The giant Moa, "Dinornis", is a famous example. The group of birds which the moa belongs to had been in existence since the Cretaceous period. Humans arrived in New Zealand about a thousand years ago, when many moa were living, especially on the South Island. Archaeological sites with evidence of moa hunting are all over New Zealand. The moa became extinct about five hundred years ago. Extinctions closer to today have been caused by habitat change and introduced species like rats, dogs, cats, and possums, which kill the native birds and lizards, or eat their eggs.


title: South Korea

paragraphs: South Korea is a country in the southern part of the Korean peninsula, in the north east region of Asia. The capital city is Seoul. The official name of South Korea is the Republic of Korea in English, 대한민국 (Daehan Minguk) in Korean writing (Hangeul), and 大韓民國 in Chinese characters (Hanja). About half of the country's people live in its capital city, Seoul, or near the city in the metropolitan area. Korea's Seoul metropolitan area is one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. In fact, some sources say it is the second most populous after Tokyo, Japan.

paragraphs: South Korea's history began with Dangunwanggeom's Gojoseon. Gojoseon was conquered by Han China. After Gojoseon collapsed, there were a lot of countries such as Buyeo, Okjeo, Dongyae and Samhan. But Baekje, Goguryeo and Silla were the strongest. So their period began, and it is called the Three Kingdoms Period. Goguryeo and Baekje were conquered by Silla and Dang China's allied forces, and Silla unified the three kingdoms. There was another country, Balhae. Balhae was founded by Dae Jo-Young. Later Silla and Balhae's period is called South and North Countries Period. A rebellion in Later Silla caused the birth of a new nation: Goryeo, which was founded by Wanggeon. Mongolia's invaded Goryeo. Near the end of the Goryeo period, there was a great general Lee Seong-Gye. The king of Goryeo directed him to occupy Yodong, but he opposed. However, Lee Seong-Gye went to Yodong to occupy it, but he returned to Goryeo and he revolted. His revolt succeeded, and he founded the country Joseon. Joseon's first king, Taejo, moved the capital to Hanyang (Seoul). Joseon's fourth king, Sejong, made the Korean alphabet, "Hangeul". Joseon's twenty-second king, Jeongjo, built Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon. Joseon's twenty-sixth king, Gojong, changed the country's name to Daehanjeguk. When Daehanjaeguk's power weakened, Japan occupied it for 35 years until Japan's defeat in World War II in 1945. In 1950, there was a big war, the Korean War. As a result, Korea was split into two countries, North and South.

paragraphs: South Korea is in East Asia, bordering North Korea, and is surrounded by water on three sides, as it makes up the southern part of the Korean peninsula. It is separated from Japan by the Sea of Japan(East Sea). South Korea is mainly mountainous, and there are many islands off the south coast. The capital city, Seoul, is quite close to the North Korean border. The largest island is Jeju Island and the highest mountain is Hallasan, on Jeju. The country is slightly smaller than Iceland and Virginia.

paragraphs: South Korea is a democracy, meaning that people can vote for their government. The President of South Korea is elected to a five-year term, and cannot stand in a Presidential Election for a second time. The current president is Moon Jae-in since 10 May 2017. The previous president, Park Geun-hye, was impeached for corruption.

paragraphs: South Korea is a very rich country and is known for a lot of technology. This includes the car-makers Hyundai and Kia. The well-known global brand Samsung, which makes mobile phones, semi-conductors and electric devices, is also South Korean.

paragraphs: South Korea has been affected by both continental culture and marine culture because it is located on a peninsula. Ancient South Korean culture has developed with the culture of Siberia, the northern part of Central Asia, the southern part of Southeast Asia and neighboring countries like China.

paragraphs: South Korea's customary and official language is Korean. Many linguists says that it is linked with Altaic languages. Hangul, the alphabet which is used to write Korean, was published by King Sejong the Great of Joseon in 1446. It is the only alphabet in the word whose creator, invention day and invention principle is known.

paragraphs: A customary South Korean regular meal is made up of rice, Korean soup, kimchi and other various dishes. Generally, Korean dishes are seasoned with sesame oil, soy bean paste, soy sauce, salt, ginger and chilli pepper paste. The most famous traditional food of Korea, kimchi, is eaten with nearly every meal. There are lots of popular South Korean typical foods such as bibimbap, tteokbokki, and bulgogi.

paragraphs: In South Korea, 19.7% of people are Protestant, 6.6% are Catholic, 23.2% are Buddhist, 49.3% have no religion, and 1.3% either are a part of other religions or have beliefs that are unknown.

paragraphs: The most representative traditional music of Korea is Arirang and every region has its own folk song. Many South Korean singers are well known in world as K-pop is steadily developing. Famous K-pop artists include BTS, BLACKPINK, EXO, TWICE & NCT.

paragraphs: Hip hop artists such as Zico, Jvcki Wai, San E & Giriboy are also popular.

paragraphs: South Korea has 1 special city ("Teukbyeolsi"; 특별시; 特別市), 1 special self-governing city ("Teukbyeol-Jachisi"; 특별자치시; 特別自治市) 6 metropolitan cities ("Gwangyeoksi"; 광역시; 廣域市), and 9 provinces ("do"; 도; 道). The names below are given in English, Revised Romanization, Hangeul, and Hanja.


title: Republic of Ireland

paragraphs: Ireland ( ), also known as the Republic of Ireland is a European country on the island of Ireland. It is a member of the European Union. The country is sometimes called the "Republic of Ireland" in order to distinguish between the territory of the Irish state and island proper, but Ireland is its official name. It covers about five-sixths of the island of Ireland. The other sixth is called Northern Ireland, which is still part of the United Kingdom. The republic's capital is Dublin. Cork is the second largest city in the country and the third largest on the island of Ireland. The population of Ireland is 4.6 million. English is the main language spoken. The Irish language is widely taught in all schools, and it is still spoken as a first language in some areas of the country, known as the Gaeltacht. Irish is the first official language, followed by English.

paragraphs: Several hundred years ago, the English took over the country and made it part of the United Kingdom in 1801. Ireland left the United Kingdom in 1922 and has been an independent country since then. It was a neutral country during World War II.

paragraphs: The head of State, the President, is elected for seven years by the adult citizens. The same president can only be elected twice (14 years). Most of the president's tasks are representing and ceremonial ones. The president has little power over the government.

paragraphs: Ireland is a democracy and people vote for their representatives. The Taoiseach (equivalent to a prime minister) is selected by the parliament. The Taoiseach is usually the head of the biggest party.

paragraphs: The Oireachtas (equivalent to the parliament) consists of the Dáil Éireann (the lower House) and the Seanad (the 'upper House'). The system is similar to that of France or the United States, except that the President is not an executive.

paragraphs: The main political parties in Ireland are Fine Gael 25%, Sinn Féin 22%, Fianna Fail 18%, the Labour Party 7% and others, ref RED C poll 29 th June 2014.

paragraphs: ireann]] (the lower House) and the Seanad (the