title: Olympic Games

paragraphs: The Olympic Games () is an important international event featuring summer and winter sports. Summer Olympic Games and Winter Olympic Games are held every four years. Originally, the ancient Olympic Games were held in Ancient Greece at Olympia. The first games were in 776 BC. They were held every four years until the 6th century AD. The first "modern" Olympics happened in 1896 in Athens, Greece. Athletes participate in the Olympics Games to represent their country.

paragraphs: Over time the Olympics have become bigger. In old times, women were not allowed, but now there are women's events. The Winter Games were created for ice and snow sports. The Paralympic Games were created for athletes with physical disabilities. As well, the Olympics became bigger with the addition of the Youth Olympic Games for teenage athletes. World War I and World War II led to the cancellation of the 1916, 1940, and 1944 Games. As the decision-making body, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is responsible for choosing the host city for each Olympic Games. The IOC is also responsible for choosing what sports are in the games.The creator of modern Olympics is Baron Pierre Coubertin. The Frenchman is the father of modern Olympics.

paragraphs: The celebration of the Games includes many rituals and symbols, such as Olympic flag and torch, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies. The first, second, and third-place finishers in each event receive, respectively, gold, silver, and bronze medals.

paragraphs: The Olympics of Ancient Greece featured mainly athletic but also combat and chariot racing events. During the Olympic Games all struggles among the participating city-states were postponed until the games were finished. The origin of these Olympics is shrouded in mystery and legend According to legend, it was Heracles who first called the Games "Olympic" and established the custom of holding them every four years. The most widely accepted date for the beginning of the Ancient Olympics is 776BC; based on inscriptions of the winners of a footrace held every four years starting then. The Ancient Games featured running events, a pentathlon (consisting of a jumping event, discus and javelin throws, a foot race and wrestling), boxing, wrestling, and equestrian events.

paragraphs: There is no agreement on when the Games officially ended, but many historians think it is 393AD, when the emperor Theodosius I declared that all Pagan religious practices should end. Another date might be 426AD, when the next emperor Theodosius II ordered the destruction of all Greek temples. After the Olympics stopped, they were not held again until the late 19th century.

paragraphs: An attempt to copy the ancient Olympic Games was the "L'Olympiade de la République", a national Olympic festival held annually from 1796 to 1798 in Revolutionary France. The competition had several sports from the ancient Greek Olympics.

paragraphs: Greek interest in bringing back the Olympic Games began with the Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1821. It was first proposed by poet and newspaper editor Panagiotis Soutsos in his poem "Dialogue of the Dead", published in 1833. Evangelis Zappas, a wealthy Greek-Romanian philanthropist, first wrote to King Otto of Greece, in 1856, offering to fund a permanent revival of the Olympic Games. Zappas sponsored the first Olympic Games in 1859, which was held in Athens. Athletes from Greece and the Ottoman Empire participated. Zappas funded the restoration of the ancient Panathenaic stadium so that it could host all future Olympic Games.

paragraphs: Between 1862 and 1867, Liverpool held an annual Grand Olympic Festival. It was created by John Hulley and Charles Melly, with support from Dr. Brookes. These games were unfair in nature since only Men could compete. In 1865 Hulley, Dr. Brookes and E.G. Ravenstein founded the National Olympian Association in Liverpool, a forerunner of the British Olympic Association. Its articles of foundation provided the framework for the International Olympic Charter.

paragraphs: Dr. Brookes copied the sports which were in the Olympics held in Athens in 1859 in future Wenlock Olympian Games (Brookes created this first as a class in 1850 and then as an event in 1856.). In 1866, a national Olympic Games in Great Britain was organized by Dr. Brookes at London's Crystal Palace.

paragraphs: The Panathinaiko Stadium hosted Olympics in 1870 and 1875. Thirty thousand spectators attended that Games in 1870, although no official attendance records are available for the 1875 Games. In 1890, after attending the Olympian Games of the Wenlock Olympian Society, Baron Pierre de Coubertin created the International Olympic Committee. Coubertin built on the ideas and work of Brookes and Zappas with the aim of creating an Olympic Games that would occur every four years in a different country. He presented these ideas during the first meeting of the newly created International Olympic Committee (IOC). This meeting was held from June 16 to June 23, 1894, at the Sorbonne University in Paris. On the last day of the meeting, it was decided that the first Olympic Games, to be controlled by the IOC, would take place two years later in Athens. The IOC elected the Greek writer Demetrius Vikelas as its first president.

paragraphs: The first Games held under the IOC was hosted in the Panathenaic stadium in Athens in 1896. These Games brought 14 nations and 241 athletes who competed in 43 events. Zappas and his cousin Konstantinos Zappas had left the Greek government money to fund future Olympic Games. This money was used to pay for the 1896 Games. George Averoff paid for the refurbishment of the stadium in preparation for the Games. The Greek government also provided money, which was paid back through the sale of tickets. Money was also paid back through the sale of the first Olympic commemorative stamp set.

paragraphs: The Greek officials and public were excited about hosting these Games. This feeling was shared by many of the athletes, who even demanded that Athens be the host of the Olympic Games on a permanent basis. The IOC did not approve this request. The IOC stated that each games would be held in a different country.

paragraphs: Following the success of the 1896 Games, the Olympics entered a period of stagnation that threatened their survival. The Olympic Games held at the Paris Exposition in 1900 and the World's Fair at St. Louis in 1904 were side-shows. The Games at Paris did not have a stadium, however this was the first time women took part in the games. The St. Louis Games hosted 650 athletes, but 580 were from the United States. The homogeneous nature of these celebrations was a low point for the Olympic Movement. The Games rebounded when the Intercalated Games (so-called because they were the second Games held within an Olympiad, a period of time lasting four years) were held in Athens. These Games are not officially recognized by the IOC and no Intercalated Games have been held since. These Games were hosted at the Panathenaic stadium in Athens. The games attracted an international field of participants, and generated great public interest.

paragraphs: The Winter Olympics were created for snow and ice sports that were not part of the Summer Games. Figure skating (in 1908 and 1920) and ice hockey (in 1920) were Olympic events at the Summer Olympics. At the 1921 Olympic Congress, in Lausanne, it was decided to hold a winter version of the Olympic Games. A winter sports week (actually 11 days) was held in 1924 in Chamonix, France. The IOC ruled that the Winter Olympic Games be celebrated every four years on the same year as the summer games. This pattern continued until the 1992 Games in Albertville, France. After this, beginning with the 1994 Games, the Winter Olympics were held on the third year of each Olympiad.

paragraphs: Starting in 2010, Youth Games help to develop young athletes for the Olympic Games. Athletes between the ages of 14 and 18 compete. The Youth Olympic Games were created by IOC president Jacques Rogge in 2001 and approved during the 119th meeting of the IOC. The first Summer Youth Games were held in Singapore from 14–26 August 2010. The first Winter Games was hosted in Innsbruck, Austria, in 2012. These Games are shorter than the Olympic Games. The summer version will last twelve days and the winter version will last nine days. The IOC will allow 3,500 athletes and 875 officials to take part at the Summer Youth Games. 970 athletes and 580 officials will take part at the Winter Youth Games. The sports to be played will be the same as at the Olympic Games.

paragraphs: The Olympic Movement includes a large number of national and international sporting organizations and federations. As the group in charge of the Olympic Movement, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is responsible for selecting the host city. Overseeing the planning of the Olympic Games. Changing the sports involved. Agreeing sponsorship and broadcasting rights.

paragraphs: The Olympic Movement is made of three major elements:

paragraphs: French and English are the official languages of the Olympic Movement. The other language used at each Olympic Games is the language of the host country.

paragraphs: In 1998, it was uncovered that several IOC members had taken bribes from members of the Salt Lake City bid committee for the hosting of the 2002 Winter Olympics. This was done to make sure that Salt Lake City won. The IOC investigated and four members resigned and six people were sacked.

paragraphs: A BBC documentary entitled "Panorama: Buying the Games", aired in August 2004, investigated the taking of bribes in the bidding process for the 2012 Summer Olympics. The documentary claimed it was possible to bribe IOC members into voting for a particular candidate city. After being narrowly defeated in their bid for the 2012 Summer Games, Parisian Mayor Bertrand Delanoë accused the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the London Bid Committee of breaking the bid rules.

paragraphs: The Turin bid for the 2006 Winter Olympics was also shrouded in controversy. A prominent IOC member, Marc Hodler, strongly connected with the rival bid of Sion, Switzerland, alleged bribery of IOC officials by members of the Turin Organizing Committee. These accusations led to a wide-ranging investigation. The allegations also served to sour many IOC members against Sion's bid and potentially helped Turin to capture the host city nomination.

paragraphs: The Olympic logo also known as the Olympic rings, consists of five intertwined rings and represents the unity of the five inhabited continents (America, Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe). The colored version of the rings—blue, yellow, black, green, and red—over a white field forms the Olympic flag. The flag was adopted in 1914 but flown for the first time at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium. The flag has since been flown during every Games. The Olympic motto is "Citius, Altius, Fortius", a Latin expression meaning "Faster, Higher, Stronger".

paragraphs: Before each Games, the Olympic flame is lit in Olympia in a ceremony that reflects ancient Greek rituals. A female performer, acting as a priestess, lights a torch with the use of the sun. The woman then lights the torch of the first relay bearer. Starting the Olympic torch relay that will carry the flame to the host city's Olympic stadium. The flame has been an Olympic symbol since 1928 and the torch relay was introduced at the 1936 Summer Games.

paragraphs: The Olympic mascot was introduced in 1968. The mascot is either an animal or human figure representing the cultural heritage of the host country.

paragraphs: As mandated by the Olympic Charter, various elements frame the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. Most of these rituals were established at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp. The ceremony typically starts with the hoisting of the host country's flag and a performance of its national anthem. The host nation then presents artistic displays of music, singing, dance, and theater representative of its culture.

paragraphs: After the artistic portion of the ceremony, the athletes parade into the stadium grouped by nation. Greece is traditionally the first nation to enter in order to honor the origins of the Olympics. Nations then enter the stadium alphabetically according to the host country's chosen language. The host country's athletes are always the last to enter. During the 2004 Summer Olympics, which was hosted in Athens, Greece. The Greek flag entered the stadium first and last. When it came in to the stadium for the second time it was followed by the athletes. Speeches are then given formally opening the Games. Finally the athletes oath said. Following this the Olympic torch is brought into the stadium and passed on until it reaches the final torch carrier who lights the cauldron.

paragraphs: The closing ceremony of the Olympic Games takes place after all sporting events have concluded. Flag-bearers from each participating country enter the stadium. They are followed by the athletes who enter together without any national distinction.

paragraphs: Three national flags are hoisted while the corresponding national anthems are played. The flag of Greece to honor the birthplace of the Olympic Games. The flag of the current host country. The flag of the country hosting the next Summer or Winter Olympic Games is also flown.

paragraphs: The president of the organizing committee and the IOC president make their closing speeches. The Games are officially closed and the Olympic flame is put out.

paragraphs: In what is known as the Antwerp Ceremony (as this tradition was started in Antwerp), the mayor of the city that organized the Games transfers a special Olympic flag to the president of the IOC. The president then passes it on to the mayor of the city hosting the next Olympic Games.

paragraphs: After these compulsory elements, the next host nation briefly introduces itself with artistic displays of dance and theater representative of its culture.

paragraphs: A medal ceremony is held after each Olympic event is concluded. The winner, second and third-place competitors or teams stand on top of a three-tiered rostrum to be awarded their respective medals. After the medals are given out by an IOC member, the national flags of the three medalists are raised while the national anthem of the gold medalist's country plays.

paragraphs: The Olympic Games program consists of 26 sports, 30 disciplines and nearly 300 events. For example, wrestling is a Summer Olympic sport, comprising two disciplines: Greco-Roman and Freestyle. It is broken down into fourteen events for men and four events for women. Each event represents a different weight class. The Summer Olympics program includes 26 sports, while the Winter Olympics program features 15 sports.

paragraphs: Olympic sports are governed by international sports federations (IFs) recognized by the IOC as the global supervisors of those sports. There are 35 federations represented at the IOC. Changes can happen to the list of sports in the Olympics. Sports can be added or removed from the list on the basis of a two-thirds majority vote of the members of the IOC.

paragraphs: The 114th IOC meeting, in 2002, limited the Summer Games program to a maximum of 28 sports, 301 events, and 10,500 athletes. Three years later, at the 117th IOC Session, the first major change to the list was performed. This resulted in the removal of baseball and softball from the list of sports for the 2012 London Games. Since there was no agreement in the promotion of two other sports, the 2012 program will feature just 26 sports. The 2016 and 2020 Games will return to the maximum of 28 sports given the addition of rugby and golf.

paragraphs: The exclusion of professionals caused several controversies throughout the history of the modern Olympics. The 1912 Olympic pentathlon and decathlon champion Jim Thorpe was stripped of his medals when it was discovered that he had played semi-professional baseball before the Olympics. His medals were restored by the IOC in 1983 on compassionate grounds. As class structure evolved through the 20th century, the definition of the amateur athlete as an aristocratic gentleman became outdated. The advent of the state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete" of the Eastern Bloc countries further eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it put the self-financed amateurs of the Western countries at a disadvantage. Nevertheless, the IOC held to the traditional rules regarding amateurism.

paragraphs: Beginning in the 1970s, amateurism requirements were gradually phased out of the Olympic Charter. After the 1988 Games, the IOC decided to make all professional athletes eligible for the Olympics, subject to the approval of the IFs.

paragraphs: As of 2004, the only sport in which no professionals compete is boxing, although even this requires a definition of amateurism based on fight rules rather than on payment, as some boxers receive cash prizes from their National Olympic Committees. In men's football (soccer), only three professional players over the age of 23 are eligible to participate per team in the Olympic tournament.

paragraphs: There have been many countries deliberately missing the Olympics in order to make political statements. The most famous examples of countries missing the Olympics happened in 1980 and 1984. The Cold War opponents missed each other's Games. 65 nations refused to compete at the Moscow Olympics in 1980 because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union and 14 of its Eastern Bloc partners (except Romania) countered by missing the Los Angeles Olympics of 1984. The countries stated that they could not guarantee the safety of their athletes. Soviet officials defended their decision to withdraw from the Games by saying that "chauvinistic sentiments and an anti-Soviet hysteria are being whipped up in the United States".

paragraphs: The Olympic Games have been used as a platform to promote political ideologies almost from its inception. Nazi Germany wished to portray the Nationalist Socialist Party as benevolent and peace-loving when they hosted the 1936 Games. The Games were also intended to show the superiority of the Aryan (white) race. This goal was not met due in part to the achievements of athletes such as Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals at this Olympics.

paragraphs: Individual athletes have also used the Olympic stage to promote their own political agenda. At the 1968 Summer Olympics, in Mexico City, two American track and field athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who finished first and third in the 200meter sprint race, performed the Black Power salute on the podium. The runner up Peter Norman wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge in support of Smith and Carlos. IOC President Avery Brundage then told the United States, to either send the two athletes home or withdraw the track and field team. The United States chose to send the pair home.

paragraphs: In the early 20th century, many Olympic athletes began using drugs to improve their athletic abilities. For example, the winner of the marathon at the 1904 Games, Thomas J. Hicks, was given strychnine and brandy by his coach. The only Olympic death linked to doping happened at the Rome Games of 1960. During the cycling road race, Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen fell from his bicycle and later died. A coroner's inquiry found that he was under the influence of amphetamines. By the mid-1960s, sports federations were starting to ban the use of performance-enhancing drugs. The IOC did likewise in 1967. The IOC created the World Anti-Doping Agency in 1999. The IOC-established drug testing regimen (now known as the Olympic Standard) has set the worldwide benchmark that other sporting federations around the world attempt to emulate. The first Olympic athlete to test positive for the use of performance-enhancing drugs was Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall, a Swedish pentathlete at the 1968 Summer Olympics, who lost his bronze medal for alcohol use.

paragraphs: The Olympics have not brought lasting peace to the world, even during the Games. Three Olympic Games were not held due to war. The 1916 Games were cancelled because of World War I, and the summer and winter games of 1940 and 1944 were cancelled because of World War II. Terrorism has also threatened the Olympic Games. In 1972, when the Summer Games were held in Munich, West Germany, eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage by the terrorist group Black September. This event is now known as the Munich massacre. The terrorists killed two of the athletes soon after they had taken them hostage and killed the other nine during a failed rescue attempt. A German police officer and 5 terrorists also died. During the Summer Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta, a bomb was detonated at the Centennial Olympic Park, which killed 2 and injured 111 others. Eric Robert Rudolph is currently serving a life sentence for the bombing.

paragraphs: The host city for an Olympic Games is chosen seven years ahead of the event. The process of selection is carried out in two phases that span a two-year period. The process starts when a city wanting to host the games applies to its country's Olympic group. If more than one city from the same country gives a proposal to its NOC, the national group chooses which city will run for host. The first step once the deadline passes (To tell the IOC that you want to hold the Games), is to ask the cities to complete a questionnaire which covers many key points in the organization of the Olympic Games. The evaluation of the filled questionnaires by a group provides the IOC with an idea of each cities project and their potential to host the Games. On the basis of this evaluation, the IOC chooses the applicants that will proceed to the candidature stage.

paragraphs: Once the candidate cities are chosen, they must give to the IOC a bigger presentation of their project as part of a candidature file. Each city is analyzed by an evaluation group. This group will also visit the cities. The group give a report on its findings one month prior to the IOC's final decision. During the interview process the candidate city must also guarantee that it can fund the Games. The IOC members gathered in the meeting have the final vote on the host city.

paragraphs: By 2016, the Olympic Games will have been hosted by 44 cities in 23 countries. The United States has hosted four Summer and four Winter Olympics, more than any other nation. Among Summer Olympics host nations, the United Kingdom has been the host of three Games, and hosted its third Olympics in 2012 in London. Germany, Australia, France, and Greece are the other nations to have hosted the Summer Olympics twice. Among host cities, only Los Angeles, Paris, Athens and London have played host to the Olympic Games more than once, with each holding that honor twice. With the 2012 Games that took place in London, the British capital holds the distinction of hosting the modern Olympics Games three times, more than any other city. Paris will be the second city to host the modern Olympics Games three times in 2024, while Los Angeles will be the third city in 2028.

paragraphs: In the Winter Olympics, France has hosted three Games, while Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Japan, and Italy have hosted twice. The most recent Games were held in Pyeongchang, South Korea's first Winter Olympics and second overall. The next Winter Games will be in Beijing, China in 2022, which will be the first time this nation has hosted.

paragraphs: And Youth Olympic Games in a separate list.


title: Iron Age

paragraphs: The Iron Age is the period after the Bronze Age. Iron production took place in Anatolia at least as early as 1200 BC, with some evidence pointing to even earlier dates.

paragraphs: In the Mesopotamian states of Sumer, Akkad and Assyria, the use of iron reaches far back, to perhaps to 3000 BC. One of the earliest smelted iron artifacts known was a dagger with an iron blade found in a Hattic tomb in Anatolia, dating from 2500 BC. The widespread use of iron weapons which replaced bronze weapons rapidly disseminated throughout the Near East (North Africa, southwest Asia) by the beginning of the 1st millennium BC.

paragraphs: Before this time, people used bronze or flint tools, and pottery. They farmed, and lived in communities. Most of Europe, Africa and Asia reached the Iron Age by 500 BC. It is a period of prehistory because, though iron and steel continue to be important even today, the "Iron Age" is defined as ending when people began to write their history.

paragraphs: Iron is easy to find, but hard to make into tools. It melts at a higher temperature than bronze. When blacksmiths learned how to make iron tools, they were able to make many of them. With more and better tools, people could do more. For example, more people could own a metal plough. They could farm their fields better and grow more crops. Some people invented coins to help buy and sell their crops and their iron tools.

paragraphs: Bronze weapons and armor were no match for those made of iron, so many peoples who did not have iron were conquered by those who did. Soldiers used iron shields and helmets in battle.


title: Entertainment

paragraphs: Entertainment is something that gives pleasure, or distracts a person from daily life, like a sport or game that excites people and keeps their attention. Some entertainment, like horror movies, can also make people feel sad or scared. Other entertainment, like comedy shows, are funny.

paragraphs: Entertainments is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience, or gives pleasure and delight. it can be an idea or an activity or even a task.


title: Open Site

paragraphs: Open Site is a free internet encyclopedia created by many editors. Anyone can apply to become an editor or donate content.

paragraphs: At Open Site all the content is separated into categories. There are eleven main categories which each have many subcategories. These are the main categories:

paragraphs: Open Site claims to have encyclopedias in many languages e.g. Romanian, but there are very few articles.

paragraphs: Open Site started an encyclopedia for children in August 2004. The writing and pictures on the children's' encyclopedia are simpler and easier to understand than other encyclopedias, like this one. The encyclopedia contains tools and facts as well as articles.


title: Coca-Cola

paragraphs: Coca-Cola, is a carbonated, sweetened soft drink and is the world's best-selling drink. A popular nickname for Coca-Cola is Coke. The Coca-Cola Company claims that the beverage is sold in more than 200 countries. The company's headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia. Coca-Cola's main rival is Pepsi because of the similar taste of their main product. Coca-Cola has 7 cubes of sugar, whereas Pepsi has 8 cubes of sugar. The Coca-Cola Company is proud to have a long history of sponsoring major events, organizations and projects around the world. Among their most well known sponsorships are American Idol, Apple iTunes, BET Network, NASCAR, NBA, NCAAmarvel and the Olympic Games. After their products were put back on sale in Myanmar in 2012, the only countries that Coca-Cola can not be bought officially are Cuba and North Korea, due to trade bans with the US.

paragraphs: Coca-Cola was first made in the 1800s by John Pemberton. The first sales were at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886. They sold it there for five cents a glass, it was very strong tasting because they did not mix it with water. Coca-Cola was first made the way it is now in Columbus, Georgia. It was called Pemberton's French Wine Coca at first, and was sold as a medicine to help cure colds and give people more energy. The drink used to be sold at soda fountains in the United States. It was also created to stop addictions to morphine.

paragraphs: Coca-Cola was first sold in bottles in Atlanta on March 12, 1894 with actual cocaine content. It was first sold in cans in 1955. During the first year, sales were about only nine drinks per day. Dr. Pemberton did not think he could make a lot of money with the drink he invented, so he sold parts of his business to different people. Just before he died in 1888, he sold the rest of his Coca-Cola business to Asa G. Candler. Mr. Candler, together with some other businessmen, started the Coca-Cola Company.

paragraphs: Candler became mayor of Atlanta and gave most of his shares of Coca-Cola to his children. In 1919 the family sold control of Coca-Cola to Ernest Woodruff.

paragraphs: In 1923 Woodruff's son Robert Winship Woodruff became president of Coca-Cola,replacing Asa Candler's son Charles Howard Candler.

paragraphs: The drink is called "Coca-Cola" because of the coca leaf and kola fruits that were used to add flavor. Dr. Pemberton's partner and bookkeeper, Frank Robinson, suggested the name "Coca-Cola" because he thought using the letter C twice would look better than if they used a K in the word "Cola". He then wrote down the name to use as a logo that is now very famous. The recipe was altered after a short while, after the cocaine/coca leaf reportedly caused cases of hallucinations. Coca has not been used in the formula since 1903.

paragraphs: Coca-Cola was the first ever sponsor of the Olympic Games. This was for the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam.

paragraphs: The company sells many other products, including other sorts of Coca-Cola, such as Diet Coke (1981), Cherry Coke (1985), Diet Cherry Coke (1986), Diet/Coke with Lemon (2001), Diet Vanilla Coke (2002), Diet/ Coke with Lime (2004), Coke Zero (2006), Coca-Cola with Orange (2007), Diet Coke Citrus Zest (2007). Based on Interbrand's best global brand 2011, Coca-Cola was the world's most valuable brand.


title: Sulfur

paragraphs: Sulfur (or sulphur) is a chemical element. The symbol for sulfur is S, and its atomic number is 16.

paragraphs: Sulfur is a yellow solid that is a nonmetal. It is brittle (easily broken) and crystalline. It burns easily, releasing toxic fumes of sulfur dioxide. It has a very faint odor. If it is melted and cooled very quickly, it makes a rubbery form of sulfur that is called "plastic sulfur". It gradually turns back into the yellow brittle form. It does not dissolve in water. The smell normally known as "sulfur" comes from hydrogen sulfide and similar chemicals. These sulfides are produced when things decay without air.

paragraphs: Sulfur compounds are chemical compounds containing sulfur ions. Sulfur comes in several forms: oxidation states of -2 (hydrogen sulfide), +4 (sulfur dioxide, sulfites) and +6 (sulfuric acid, sulfates) are most common, although there are other oxidation states.

paragraphs: Sulfur can be found in the earth near volcanoes. Many minerals contain sulfur ions. Coal contains sulfur ions which are released when it burns. Hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide are some sulfur compounds that are released when coal burns. They are reacted to make sulfur. Sulfur in the ground in melted, then forced up through pipes by compressed (squeezed) air.

paragraphs: Sulfur is commonly used in gunpowder, medicine, and matches. Matches release sulfur dioxide when they burn, giving them their smell. Sulfur is an essential component to living cells. Many proteins contain sulfur. It is also used as a pesticide on organic farms.

paragraphs: Powder sulfur is said to be left after an occurrence of a supernatural being.

paragraphs: Sulfur is not toxic, but the chemical compounds formed when sulfur burns can be very toxic. Sulfuric acid, for example, can make paper turn black!

paragraphs: The ancient name for sulfur is "brimstone". Sulfur was used in fumigation (making fumes) and medicine in ancient Greece. In 1777, Antoine Lavosier convinced the scientific community that sulfur was an element.


title: Aluminium

paragraphs: Aluminium (in American and Canadian English also: aluminum) is a chemical element. The symbol for aluminium is Al, and its atomic number is 13. Aluminium is the most abundant metal. It is a mononuclidic element.

paragraphs: People have tried to produce aluminium since 1760. The first successful attempt, finished in 1824 by Danish physicist and chemist Hans Christian Ørsted. He reacted anhydrous aluminium chloride with potassium amalgam, yielding a lump of metal looking similar to tin. He presented his results and showed a sample of the new metal in 1825. In 1827, German chemist Friedrich Wöhler repeated Ørsted's experiments but did not identify any aluminium. (The reason for this inconsistency was only discovered in 1921.) He conducted a similar experiment in the same year by mixing anhydrous aluminium chloride with potassium and produced a powder of aluminium. In 1845, he was able to produce small pieces of the metal and described some physical properties of this metal. For many years thereafter, Wöhler was credited as personewho discovered of aluminium.

paragraphs: Aluminium is a very good conductor of electricity and heat. It is light and strong. It can be hammered into sheets (malleable) or pulled out into wires (ductile). It is a highly reactive metal, although it is corrosion resistant.

paragraphs: A fresh film of aluminium is a good reflector of visible light and an excellent reflector of medium and far infrared radiation.

paragraphs: Aluminium prevents corrosion by forming a small, thin layer of aluminium oxide on its surface. This layer protects the metal by preventing oxygen from reaching it. Corrosion can not occur without oxygen. Because of this thin layer, the reactivity of aluminium is not seen. As a powder it burns hot. Uses include fireworks displays and rocket fuel.

paragraphs: Pure aluminium is made from bauxite, a kind of rock that has aluminium oxide and many impurities. The bauxite is crushed and reacted with sodium hydroxide. The aluminium oxide dissolves. Then the aluminium oxide is dissolved in liquid cryolite, a rare mineral. Cryolite is normally produced artificially though. The aluminium oxide is electrolyzed to make aluminium and oxygen. The largest producer of aluminium is China. China produces about 31,873 thousand tonnes of aluminium.

paragraphs: Aluminium was once considered a precious metal that was even more valuable than gold. This is no longer true because, as technology improved, it became cheaper and easier to make pure metal.

paragraphs: It is the 12th most abundant of all elements. It is the 3rd most abundant among the elements that have odd atomic numbers. The only stable isotope of aluminium is aluminium-27. It is the 18th most abundant nucleus in the Universe. It is created after fusion of carbon in massive stars that will later become Type II supernovae: this fusion creates magnesium-26, which, when capturing free protons and neutrons becomes aluminium. Essentially all aluminium now in existence is aluminium-27; aluminium-26 was there in the early Solar System but is now extinct. The trace quantities of aluminium-26 that do exist are the most common gamma ray emitter in the interstellar gas.

paragraphs: Overall, the Earth is about 1.59% aluminium by mass. In the Earth's crust, aluminium is the most abundant metallic element by mass (8.23%). It is also the third most abundant of all elements in the Earth's crust. A lot of silicates in the Earth's crust contain aluminium. But, the Earth's mantle is only 2.38% aluminium by mass. Aluminium also occurs in seawater at a concentration of 2 μg/kg.

paragraphs: Feldspars, the most common group of minerals in the Earth's crust, are aluminosilicates. Aluminium also occurs in the minerals beryl, cryolite, garnet, spinel, and turquoise. Native aluminium has been reported in cold seeps in the northeastern continental slope of the South China Sea.

paragraphs: Aluminium forms chemical compounds in the +3 oxidation state. They are generally unreactive. Aluminium chloride and aluminium oxide examples. Very rarely are compounds in the +1 or +2 oxidation state.

paragraphs: Many things are made of aluminium. Much of it is used in overhead power lines. It is also widely used in window frames and aircraft bodies. It is found at home as kitchenware, soft drink cans, and cooking foil. Aluminium is also used to coat car headlamps and compact discs. It is used in electrical transmission lines because of its light weight. It can be deposited on the surface of glass to make mirrors, where a thin layer of aluminum oxide quickly forms that acts as a protective coating. Aluminum oxide is also used to make synthetic rubies and sapphires for lasers. Aluminum can now be produced from clay, but the process is not economically feasible at today.

paragraphs: Pure aluminium is very soft, so a harder metal is almost always added. The harder metal is usually copper. Copper/aluminium alloys are to make ships, because the aluminium prevents corrosion, and the copper prevents barnacles.

paragraphs: Aluminium compounds are used in deodorants, water processing plants, food additives, and antacids. Lithium aluminium hydride is a really strong reducing agent used in organic chemistry.

paragraphs: Aluminium sulfate is used in water treatment. It is also used as a mordant in dyeing, in pickling seeds, deodorizing of mineral oils, in leather tanning, and in production of other aluminium compounds.

paragraphs: Anhydrous aluminium chloride is used as a catalyst in chemical and petrochemical industries, the dyeing industry, and in synthesis of many inorganic and organic compounds.

paragraphs: Aluminium hydroxychlorides are used in purifying water, in the paper industry, and as ￼￼antiperspirants￼. Sodium aluminate is used in treating water and as an accelerator for drying of cement.

paragraphs: Aluminium acetate in solution is used as an astringent.

paragraphs: Aluminium phosphate is used to make glass, ceramic, pulp and paper products, cosmetics, paints, varnishes. Aluminium hydroxide is used as an antacid, and mordant. It is used also in water purification, the manufacture of glass and ceramics, and in the waterproofing of fabrics.

paragraphs: Aluminium is used in automobiles, trucks, railway cars, marine vessels, bicycles, spacecraft. Aluminium is used in making doors, siding, building wire, sheathing, roofing and other building materials.

paragraphs: Since aluminium needs to be made by electrolysis, it requires a very large amount of electrical power. Recycling aluminium would be much cheaper. That's why recycling plants were opened. The cost of recycling aluminium is much less than the cost of making it from bauxite.

paragraphs: Recycling involves melting the scrap. This is a process that only needs 5% of the energy used to produce aluminium from ore. But, 15% of the input material part is lost as dross (ash-like oxide). An aluminium stack melter makes a lot less dross, about 1%.

paragraphs: White dross from primary aluminium production and from secondary recycling processes still contains useful amounts of aluminium that can be extracted industrially. The process produces aluminium billets, together with a very complex waste. This waste is difficult to manage. It reacts with water, releasing a mixture of gases (including, hydrogen, acetylene, and ammonia), which ignites on contact with air. Even with these difficulties, the waste is used as a filler in asphalt and concrete.

paragraphs: Aluminium is not used in the human body, although it is very common. People debate whether its use in deodorants and water treatment is healthy. Aluminium ions slow down plant growth in acidic soils. Aluminium may be a factor in Alzheimer's disease (a disease when the brain stops working and the patient is confused). But the Alzheimer's Society says overwhelming medical and scientific opinion is that studies have not convincingly demonstrated a causal relationship between aluminium and Alzheimer's disease.

paragraphs: In most people, aluminium is not as toxic as heavy metals. Aluminium is classified as a non-carcinogen by United States Department of Health and Human Services. There is little proof that normal exposure to aluminium is a risk to healthy adult. There is proof of no toxicity if it is taken in amounts not greater than 40 mg/day per kg of body mass. Most aluminium taken will leave the body in feces. Most of the small part that enters the blood, will be excreted via urine.

paragraphs: Aluminium rarely causes vitamin D-resistant osteomalacia, erythropoietin-resistant microcytic anemia, and central nervous system changes. People with kidney insufficiency are at a risk the most. Chronic ingestion of hydrated aluminium silicates may result in aluminium binding to the things in the intestines. It also increases the removal of other metals, like iron or zinc. Really high doses (>50 g/day) can cause anemia.

paragraphs: A small percentage of people have contact allergies to aluminium and experience itchy red rashes, headache, muscle pain, joint pain, poor memory, insomnia, depression, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, or other symptoms when touching products containing aluminium.

paragraphs: Exposure to powdered aluminium or aluminium welding fumes can cause pulmonary fibrosis. Fine aluminium powder can also explode.

paragraphs: Food is the main source of aluminium. Drinking water has more aluminium than solid foods. Aluminium in food may be absorbed more than aluminium from water. Major sources of human exposure by mouth to aluminium include food (because of its use in food additives, food and beverage packaging, and cooking utensils), drinking water (because of its use in water treatment), and medicines that have aluminium in it. Very high exposure of aluminium are mostly limited to miners, aluminium production workers, and dialysis patients.

paragraphs: Taking of antacids, antiperspirants, vaccines, and cosmetics give possible ways of exposure. Eating acidic foods or liquids with aluminium increases aluminium absorption. Maltol has been shown to increase the build up of aluminium in nerve and bone tissues.

paragraphs: In case of suspected sudden consumption of a large amount of aluminium, the only treatment is deferoxamine mesylate. It may be given to help remove aluminium from the body by chelation. But, this should be applied with caution as it not only reduce aluminium in the body, but can also reduce those of other metals such as copper or iron.

paragraphs: High levels of aluminium occur near mining sites. Small amounts of aluminium are released to the environment at the coal-fired power plants or incinerators. Aluminium in the air is washed out by the rain or normally settles down. But, small particles of aluminium remain in the air for a long time.

paragraphs: Acid rain is the main natural factor to move aluminium from natural sources. It is also the main reason for the effects of aluminium on the environment. The main factor for the presence of aluminium in salt and freshwater are the industrial processes that also release aluminium into air.

paragraphs: In water, aluminium acts as a toxiс agent on animals that with gills like fish by causing loss of plasma- and hemolymph ions leading to osmoregulatory failure.

paragraphs: Aluminium is one of the primary factors that reduce the growth of plants on acidic soils. In acid soils the concentration of toxic Al cations increases and disturbs the growth and function of the root. It is generally harmless to plant growth in pH-neutral soils. Wheat has developed a tolerance to aluminium. It releases organic compounds that bind to harmful aluminium cations. Sorghum is thought to have the same method of tolerating aluminium.

paragraphs: Aluminium production has its own problems to the environment on each step of the production process. The major problem is the greenhouse gas. These gases are caused by the electrical consumption of the smelters and the byproducts of processing. The strongest of these gases are perfluorocarbons from the smelting process.

paragraphs: A Spanish scientific report from 2001 claimed that the fungus "Geotrichum candidum" eats the aluminium in compact discs. The better studied bacterium "Pseudomonas aeruginosa" and the fungus "Cladosporium resinae" are commonly found in aircraft fuel tanks that use kerosene-based fuels, and laboratory cultures can decompose aluminium. However, these types of bacteria do not eat the aluminium; but rather, the metal is corroded by microbe waste products.


title: Drawing

paragraphs: Drawing is a way of making a picture. Drawings are created by making lines on a surface. Long lines make up the shapes and small lines make the textures. Drawings can be images of real life or abstract images showing ideas cannot be seen in the real world.

paragraphs: A drawing is the art created this way. Examples of things used to mark with are pencils, chalk, charcoal, crayons, pastels, markers, wax colored pencils, pen and ink.

paragraphs: Artists have been drawing for many centuries. They draw on paper or on other surfaces which the marks show up on.


title: Texas

paragraphs: Texas is the second largest state in the United States by both area and population. Nearly 29 million people live there. In 1845, it became the 28th state in the United States.

paragraphs: Texas has been controlled by Spain, France, the Confederate States of America, and Mexico. It declared its independence from Mexico in 1836. It was its own country, the Republic of Texas, for 9 years (1836-1845).

paragraphs: The largest cities in Texas are Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, El Paso, and Austin. Austin is the capital city of Texas.

paragraphs: There are many tourist attractions in Texas. Fort Worth is known for its stockyards. Amarillo is known for the cattle business and stockyards. In Dallas, industrial technology companies including Texas Instruments and EDS have their home offices.

paragraphs: San Antonio has The Alamo. Houston has the Johnson Space Center. Austin has the University of Texas at Austin. Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Baylor University in Waco and the University of North Texas in Denton are other important universities in the state.

paragraphs: The state's name derives from táyshay, a word in the Caddoan language of the Hasinai (a Native American tribe), which means "allies" or "friends."

paragraphs: Texas was first explored in 1528 by Spanish explorers on accident (they were shipwrecked on the coast). It did not become a colony until 1685, when France claimed it. In response, Spain started a rival colony in 1691 by setting up a religious outpost in the eastern part of Texas. Spain did not come back to Texas until 1716 to protect its colonies in the west from French forces. Two years later, San Antonio was started.

paragraphs: The pressure between the Spaniards and Native Americans in East Texas stopped many settlers from coming to Texas. To stop the violence and the increasing Native American raids, Spain called a truce between many tribes in 1745 and 1789.

paragraphs: Tensions rose in Texas after the United States bought a large amount of nearby land from France in 1803. This land was called the Louisiana Purchase. People began wondering whether Spain or the United States could claim Texas.

paragraphs: Mexico won the Mexican War of Independence in 1821. Mexico, including Texas, was free from the Spanish Empire. Americans and other settlers came into Texas when Mexico allowed non-Spanish settlers to settle here. After many settlers came to Texas, Mexico started taxing non-citizens. This outraged many settlers.

paragraphs: Those from the South were even more outraged because Mexico banned all slavery in 1829. Many southerners saw slavery as a way of life. They brought enslaved African Americans to work as field hands in the production of cotton, corn, and sugar.

paragraphs: On March 2, 1836, Texas declared independence from Mexico and soon they were at war. Texas won, but Mexico refused to recognize Texas as an independent. Texas soon asked to become a state of the United States. Years later, in 1845, the US added Texas as a state, and Mexico broke off diplomatic relations. Mexico resisted offers by the U.S. to buy land extending from Texas to the Pacific Ocean. In 1846, a dispute over the border between Texas and Mexico resulted in armed conflict, and the Mexican-American War began. The United States won the war, and by the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo won lands that later formed the states of California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, southwestern Colorado, and southwestern Wyoming. Mexico received 15 million dollars and gave up its claims to Texas.

paragraphs: After Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States, Texas joined the newly formed Confederate States of America in 1861 and fought in the American Civil War in an attempt to become independent from the United States. The Confederates lost to the Union (the United States) in 1865. Texas was restored to full representation in Congress on March 30, 1870.

paragraphs: On January 10, 1901, oil was found in Texas, leading to the founding of a richer economy. During a time when the economy was bad, many people left Texas. Texas did not regain its population it lost until the 1950s and 60s. In recent years, Texas has been exploring technology and computers.

paragraphs: Texas is the second biggest state in the Union (after Alaska) and is bigger than every European country except Russia. It has mountains, forests, deserts, plains, and coasts. The largest river in Texas is the Rio Grande, which forms the border between Mexico and the United States throughout south Texas. The highest mountain in Texas is Guadalupe Peak.

paragraphs: Most of Texas is in Central Time, but El Paso in Western Texas is in Mountain Time.


title: Prussia

paragraphs: Prussia (; , , Old Prussian: "Prūsa" or "Prūsija") was a series of countries. Originally it was a historically prominent German state that originated in 1525. Mostly, the name is used for the Kingdom of Prussia, which was in northern Europe. It was part of Germany for a while, and it included land in Poland, France, and Lithuania. The name "Prussian" has had a lot of different meanings in the past and now:

paragraphs: In 1934, Germany stopped using the name Prussia for that area, and in 1947 the Allies abolished the state of Prussia and divided its territory among themselves and the new States of Germany. Today, the name is only for historical, geographical, or cultural use.

paragraphs: The name Prussia comes from the Borussi or Prussi people who lived in the Baltic region and spoke the Old Prussian language. Ducal Prussia was a fiefdom of the Kingdom of Poland until 1660, and Royal Prussia was part of Poland until 1772. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, most German-speaking Prussians started thinking of themselves as part of the German nation. They thought the Prussian way of life was very important:

paragraphs: From the late 18th century, Prussia had a lot of power in northern Germany and throughout central Europe; it was the strongest in politics and economics, and it had the most people. After Chancellor Otto von Bismarck dissolved the German Confederation, Prussia annexed almost all of northern Germany. In 1871, after the Franco-Prussian War, von Bismarck created the German Empire, and Prussia was the center of the empire, with the Kings of Prussia being the Emperors of Germany.

paragraphs: Prussia's borders have changed over time. It has not always been the exact same place. Mostly, Prussia was a small part of what is today northern Poland. After a small number of Prussian people moved there to live, Germans came to live there too. In 1934, Prussia's borders were with France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Lithuania. Some parts of Prussia are in eastern Poland. Before 1918, a lot of western Poland was also in Prussia. Between 1795 and 1807, Prussia also controlled Warsaw and most of central Poland.

paragraphs: Before 1934, these regions were also in Prussia:

paragraphs: However, some regions were never part of Prussia, such as Oldenburg, Mecklenburg, and the Hanse city-states.

paragraphs: Northeast Germany was Protestant, so Prussians were mostly Protestant. But there were a lot of Catholic people in the Rhineland, East Prussia, Posen, Silesia, West Prussia, and Ermland. The states of south Germany (especially Austria and Bavaria) were Catholic, so they did not want Prussians to rule them. Prussia was mostly German, but in the late 18th century, the new Polish areas had a lot of Polish people too. In 1918, these Polish areas were given to Poland, and in 1945, Pomerania and East Prussia were given to Poland. Northern East Prussia, specifically Kaliningrad, was given to Russia.

paragraphs: In 1226, Polish Prince Conrad of Mazovia (Mazovia is a place in Northern Poland) asked the Teutonic Knights from Transylvania to come to Mazovia. He wanted them to fight the Prussian tribes on his borders. They fought for more than 100 years. Then they created a new state. After some time, this state controlled most of today's Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and parts of northern Poland. In 1466, the Knights were under the King of Poland and Lithuania. In 1525, the leader of the Knights became a Protestant. He made part of the Knights' land into the Duchy of Prussia, which was then part of the Kingdom of Poland.

paragraphs: At that time, the Duchy of Prussia was only the area east of the place where the Vistula River enters the sea. In 1618, the new Duke of Prussia was the Elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg. He was also Margrave of Brandenburg. Brandenburg was ruled by the Hohenzollern family. The Duchy of Prussia was important to the Hohenzollern family because it was not part of the Holy Roman Empire. The name for the new state was "Brandenburg-Prussia". In the middle of the state was Polish land, but Brandenburg-Prussia was moving away from Poland. Under Frederick William, who was called "the Great Elector," Prussia took some new land in Magdeburg and areas west of the Rhine.

paragraphs: In 1701, the Holy Roman Emperor and Polish King allowed Brandenburg-Prussia to call itself "Kingdom of Prussia" with Frederick I ("the Great") as its king. Under Frederick II, Prussia waged war against Austria and took Silesia. The wars ended in 1763; Prussia was then the most powerful state in eastern Germany. Other parts of Germany, including Pomerania, went to Prussia because of marriage or death.

paragraphs: During this time, the Prussian army got bigger, and so did the administration system. Until 1945, these were at the most important parts of the German state. Between 1772 and 1795, Prussia, Russia and Austria divided Poland into parts (the Partitions of Poland). Prussia controlled land in the far east, including the city of Warsaw.

paragraphs: Frederick William II had Prussia join the war with France in 1792. He lost at Valmy and gave his western land to France. Frederick William III started a new war, but lost at Jena. He gave more land to France at the Treaty of Tilsit.

paragraphs: In 1813, Prussia again started war with Napoleonic France. In 1815, Prussia won back the land it lost in earlier wars and also all the Rhineland and Westphalia and some other land. This land in the west was very important, especially the Ruhr valley. It was the new center of Germany's industrialization and the home of the weapons industry. After the Napoleonic Wars, Prussia was the strongest power in Germany and more powerful than Austria.

paragraphs: In the early 19th century, there were two political groups in Germany. The liberals wanted a democratic system with one strong central government. The conservatives wanted Germany to be made of a group of independent, weak states . In 1848, revolution came to Europe. Frederick William IV was worried. He allowed a National Assembly and a constitution. The new Frankfurt Parliament wanted to give Frederick William the crown of all Germany, but he did not want it. He said that revolutionaries could not name kings. Now Prussia had a semi-democratic constitution, but really the nobility with land (the Junkers) had the power, especially in the east.

paragraphs: In 1862, Prussian King Wilhelm I appointed Otto von Bismarck as the prime minister of Prussia. Bismarck wanted the liberals and the conservatives to lose. He wanted to create a strong, united Germany, but he wanted to do so under the Junker, not under the western German liberals. So, he started three wars:

paragraphs: This was Prussia's high moment. The economic and political future looked good. But after 99 days, in 1888, the state had a new leader, Kaiser Wilhelm II. He fired Bismarck, who lost his job in 1890, and Wilhelm II started a new foreign policy. He made the army bigger, and the navy much bigger, and he took risks. This is part of why Germany entered World War I. When the Germans and their allies lost that war, the Prussian Junkers lost power. The Prussian king and the other German kings had to leave. Germany became the Weimar Republic. In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles re-created the Polish state, and Prussia had to give up much of its land. The Polish Corridor was split between East Prussia and Germany.

paragraphs: At the end of World War I, the Treaty of Versailles separated West Prussia from the rest of Germany to make the Free City of Danzig and Polish Corridor, so Poland would have access to the ocean instead of being landlocked. Some people also wanted to break Prussia into smaller states, but this did not happen. Prussia became the "Prussian Free State" "(Freistaat Preußen)," the largest state in the Weimar Republic. The Prussian Free State made up more than 60% of all the land in the Weimar Republic. The Prussian Free State contained the industrial Ruhr area the city of Berlin, so many people with left-leaning political ideas lived there. The Social Democrats and the Catholic Centre had power for most of the 1920s.

paragraphs: In 1932, Germany's conservative Chancellor Franz von Papen took control of Prussia, ending the state's democratic constitution. It was the end of German democracy too. In 1933, Hermann Göring became Interior Minister of Prussia; he was now very strong. In 1934, the Nazis took the German states' power.

paragraphs: In 1945, the Soviet Union's army captured all of eastern and central Germany (and Berlin). Poland took everything east of the Oder-Neisse line, e.g. Silesia, Pomerania, eastern Brandenburg, and East Prussia. The Soviet Union took the northern third of East Prussia, including Königsberg, now Kaliningrad. About ten million Germans had to run away from these areas. Polish and Russian people moved in in their place. Because of this, and because the Communists took control of land in the GDR, also called East Germany, the Junker and Prussia were finished.

paragraphs: In 1947, the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union formally agreed the end of Prussia. In the Soviet Zone (which was called the GDR starting in 1949), which included Prussian lands, were now the states of Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt. The Prussian parts of Pomerania went to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In 1952, the GDR government stopped using states and used districts instead. In 1990, the end of the GDR, the states returned. In the West, (called the Federal Republic of Germany or West Germany starting in 1949), the Prussian lands went to North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Schleswig-Holstein. Baden-Württemberg took the Hohenzollern land.

paragraphs: The idea of Prussia is not completely dead in Germany. Some people want to put together the states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Berlin and call them Prussia. But German politicians are not interested in the idea. The constitution of Berlin allows for Berlin and Brandenburg to become one state, but the people of Berlin voted against doing this on May 5, 1996.


title: Apocrypha

paragraphs: The Apocrypha are religious texts that are in some versions of the Catholic Bible. Other versions omit them. The word comes from Ancient Greek "" (apokrypha). Apocrypha means "those that were hidden". Generally, the term is applied to writings that were not part of the canon. There are several reasons why these texts were not included in the canon. The texts might only have been known to few people, or they might have been left out because their content does not fit well into that of the other books of the Bible. Some of the apocrypha were written at a later date, and were therefore not included.

paragraphs: The Authorized King James Version called these books ‘Apocrypha’. It separated them, because the Bible said so in 2 Esdras 14:46, "But keep the seventy last, that thou mayest deliver them only to such as be wise among the people: For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the stream of knowledge."

paragraphs: Roman Catholic Bibles have these books in the Old Testament. They do not call them Apocrypha. They call them deuterocanonical, which means that they belong to the second canon. Canon just means an official list of literary works accepted as representing a field. The first list is of books first written in Hebrew. This second list is of books first written in Greek.

paragraphs: These books were kept in Catholic Bibles because it is believed that the Bible which Jesus read was a Bible that included the books of the "Apocrypha," the deuterocanonical books. It is known that the most popular Bible at the time of Jesus was the Greek Septuagint version - which includes these extra books. That is why early Church fathers quoted from Bibles including these books.

paragraphs: Christians disagree about the ‘Apocrypha’. Others point out that the ‘Apocrypha’ was in every Christian Bible until 1828.

paragraphs: In 1828 these books were taken out of some Bibles. The translators of the King James Bible said that these books were written to prepare the people for Jesus, in the same way as John the Baptist did. They said that the apostles used these books. And modern day members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (sometimes referred to as Mormons) also have hints in the Book of Mormon.

paragraphs: There is no question that these books have always been part of the Bible in Oriental Orthodox Churches, so they were definitely not added in the 1500s. Around the year 80 AD, the Jewish Council (Sanhedrin) decided to cut the books from the Hebrew Bible, but they stayed in the Christian Bible. Then soon after Christianity became the only religion of Roman Empire in the 4th century, the Romans decided to cut out all of the same books that the Sanhedrin had cut out, and they moved some of them to the "apocrypha".

paragraphs: Books of the Apocrypha (they may not be in order):

paragraphs: Note: Other candidates for Apocryphal scriptures include supposedly lost portions of Esther and Sirach.

paragraphs: There are also Apocrypha candidates for the New Testament:


title: Sodium

paragraphs: Sodium (symbol Na, from the Latin name "natrium") is the chemical element number 11 in the periodic table of elements. It follows that its nucleus includes 11 protons, and 11 electrons orbit around it (according to the simplified model known as "Niels Bohr atom"). Even if many isotopes can be artificially made, all decay in a short time. As a result, all sodium found in nature (mainly in sea water) has the composition Na, meaning that the nucleus includes 12 neutrons. The atomic mass of sodium is 22.9898; if it is rounded, it would be 23.

paragraphs: Sodium is a light, silver-coloured metal. Sodium is so soft that it can be easily cut with a knife. When it is cut, the surface will become white over time. This is because it reacts with air to form sodium hydroxide and sodium carbonate. Sodium is a little lighter than water; when it reacts with water it floats. This reaction is very fast. Hydrogen and sodium hydroxide are produced. The hydrogen may ignite. Since sodium melts at a low temperature, it melts when it reacts with water. It has one valence electron which is removed easily, making it highly reactive.

paragraphs: Compared with other alkali metals (metals in the first column of the periodic table), sodium is usually less reactive than potassium and more reactive than lithium.

paragraphs: These are chemical compounds that contain sodium ions. Sodium only exists in 1 oxidation state: +1.

paragraphs: Sodium was discovered by Sir Humphrey Davy, an English scientist, back in 1807. He made it by the electrolysis of sodium hydroxide. It is named after soda, a name for sodium hydroxide or sodium carbonate.

paragraphs: It is used in the preparation of organic compounds. It is also used in the street lights that are orange, and ultra violet lights.

paragraphs: Sodium compounds are used in soaps, toothpaste, baking and antiacids.

paragraphs: Sodium does not exist as an element in nature; its easily removed valence electron is too reactive. It exists as an ion in chemical compounds. Sodium ions are found in the ocean. It is also found as sodium chloride in the earth's crust, where it is mined.

paragraphs: Sodium is normally made by electrolysis of very hot sodium chloride that was melted.

paragraphs: Sodium ion in the form of sodium chloride is needed in the human body, but large amounts of it cause problems, which is why one should not eat too much salt and other food items with huge sodium amount (such as biscuits with baking soda). Many organisms in the ocean depend on the proper concentration of ions in sea water to live.


title: Dice

paragraphs: Dice are objects used in games when something random needs to be done, such as moving a piece a random number of places on a board. Most dice are cubes that have the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 on the faces. Dice are sometimes made in other polyhedral shapes than cubes, but the six-sided die ("die" is the singular of "dice") is the most common. A die is usually rolled by the player’s hand. When adding together opposite sides of typical cubical dice, the sum is always 7.

paragraphs: Some games are played with two or more dice and some use only one. Some games that use dice are Monopoly, Yahtzee, Risk, and many more. Dice with different numbers of sides, like those used in Dungeons & Dragons, are called polyhedral dice.

paragraphs: Weights can be put inside a die to make it only land on a certain number once it is rolled.


title: Matrix (mathematics)

paragraphs: In mathematics, a matrix (plural: matrices) is a rectangle of numbers, arranged in rows and columns. The rows are each left-to-right (horizontal) lines, and the columns go top-to-bottom (vertical). The top-left cell is at row 1, column 1 "(see diagram at right)".

paragraphs: Matrices are often represented by capital roman letters such as formula_1, formula_2 and formula_3, and there are rules for adding, subtracting and "multiplying" matrices together, but the rules are different than for numbers. As an example, the product formula_4 does not always give the same result as formula_5, which is the case for the multiplication of ordinary numbers. A matrix can have more than 2 dimensions, such as a 3D matrix. Also, a matrix can be one-dimensional, as a single row or a single column.

paragraphs: Many natural sciences use matrices quite a lot. In many universities, courses about matrices (usually called linear algebra) are taught very early, sometimes even in the first year of studies. Matrices are also very common in computer science, engineering, physics, economics, and statistics.

paragraphs: The horizontal lines in a matrix are called rows and the vertical lines are called columns. A matrix with "m" rows and "n" columns is called an "m"-by-"n" matrix (or "m"×"n" matrix) and "m" and "n" are called its dimensions.

paragraphs: The places in the matrix where the numbers are is called "entries". The entry of a matrix "A" that lies in the row number "i" and column number "j" is called the "i,j" entry of "A". This is written as "A"["i,j"] or "a".

paragraphs: We write formula_6 to define an "m" × "n" matrix "A", with each entry in the matrix called "a" for all 1 ≤ "i" ≤ "m" and 1 ≤ "j" ≤ "n".

paragraphs: is a 4×3 matrix. This matrix has m=4 rows, and n=3 columns.

paragraphs: The sum of two matrices is the matrix, which ("i","j")-th entry is equal to the sum of the ("i","j")-th entries of two matrices:

paragraphs: The two matrices have the same dimensions. Here, formula_9 is true (and is true in general for matrices of equal dimensions).

paragraphs: The multiplication of two matrices is a bit more complicated:

paragraphs: There are some matrices that are special.

paragraphs: A square matrix has the same number of rows as columns, so m=n.

paragraphs: This matrix has 3 rows and 3 columns: m=n=3.

paragraphs: Every square dimension set of a matrix has a special counterpart called the "identity matrix", represented by the symbol formula_15. The identity matrix has nothing but zeroes except on the main diagonal, where there are all ones. For example:

paragraphs: is an identity matrix. There is exactly one identity matrix for each square dimension set. An identity matrix is special because when multiplying any matrix by the identity matrix, the result is always the original matrix with no change.

paragraphs: An inverse matrix is a matrix that, when multiplied by another matrix, equals the identity matrix. For example:

paragraphs: The formula for the inverse of a 2x2 matrix, formula_20 is:

paragraphs: Where formula_22 is the determinant of the matrix. In a 2x2 matrix, the determinant is equal to:

paragraphs: A matrix, that has many rows, but only one column, is called a column vector.

paragraphs: The determinant takes a square matrix and calculates a simple number, a scalar. To understand what this number means, take each column of the matrix and draw it as a vector. The parallelogram drawn by those vectors has an area, which is the determinant. For all 2x2 matrices, the formula is very simple:

paragraphs: For 3x3 matrices the formula is more complicated:

paragraphs: There are no simple formulas for the determinants of larger matrices, and many computer programmers study how to get computers to quickly find large determinants.

paragraphs: There are three rules that all determinants follow. These are:


title: British Isles

paragraphs: The British Isles are an archipelago (a group of islands) in north-western Europe. They have a long geographical and geological history. The first people were in Britain by 800,000 years ago (Happisburgh footprints).

paragraphs: The biggest islands are called Great Britain and Ireland, followed by the Isle of Man. Great Britain, the biggest island, is home to three countries. These are England, Wales and Scotland. The island of Ireland is divided into Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Great Britain is the biggest island in Europe and Ireland is the third biggest.

paragraphs: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland join together to make the United Kingdom.

paragraphs: Some people include the Channel Islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Sark in the term "British Isles", but they are a lot closer to France than to Great Britain. In politics, they are British islands but in geology they are French islands.

paragraphs: The term tends not to be used in the Republic of Ireland because many people feel it implies that Ireland is politically British. Given that the term "British Isles" has its roots in the long history of British invasion and colonisation of Ireland, the use of the term is deeply offensive to many Irish people.


title: Mandarin Chinese

paragraphs: Mandarin Chinese or simply Mandarin (; ) is the language of government and education of the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, with the notable exceptions of Hong Kong and Macau where a local dialect of Chinese called Cantonese is more often used.

paragraphs: Mandarin is one of five major regional languages of China. It spreads wider than any other regional variety, from the whole northern part of China to Yunnan Province in the southwest corner of China. In that big area there are many regional differences in vocabulary, so somebody who moves from Beijing to Yunnan could not understand people there who were speaking their own dialect, Yunnanhua. The problem is bigger than for a person in Great Britain or the United States to go to Australia. Therefore, starting in the 1920s, the Chinese government set up a national language based on the Beijing dialect and on the most widely understood words and pronunciations.

paragraphs: Mandarin is a standard language. It is nobody's native language, but a good average between various language forms and a common language everyone can understand and communicate with. Although it is based on the Beijing dialect, it is not the same as Beijing dialect.

paragraphs: Schools use a dialect called Standard Mandarin, "Putonghua" (普通话/普通話) meaning "common (spoken) language" or "Hanyu" (汉语/漢語) meaning "language of the Han". In places such as Malaysia, it is known as "Huayu" (华语/華語). In Taiwan, it is known as "Guoyu" (国语/國語) meaning "national language." There are some minor differences in these standards.

paragraphs: Mandarin is spoken by over 800 million people around the world, more than any other language. Most people emigrating from the Greater China region now speak Mandarin, while in past centuries most spoke Cantonese or Taishanese, another local Chinese dialect.

paragraphs: Standard Mandarin is one of the six official languages at the United Nations. The others are English, French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic.

paragraphs: Mandarin is written with Chinese characters called "Hànzì" (漢字 or 汉字) which literally means "Han characters". Each "Hànzì" has its own pronunciation and meaning. An ordinary dictionary will contain about 10,000 characters. Spoken Mandarin uses very many compound words, words that combine meanings the way English does in such terms as "machine gun," "fire truck," "playground," etc.

paragraphs: The Hanzi are ideograms: one character means one "idea". The various concepts are derived from the ideograms by combining them. Mandarin can be also written phonetically (that is: written as it is spoken) with the Latin alphabet as you really cannot see the spelling from Hanzi characters. That is called transliteration. The most popular transliteration system is called Pinyin.

paragraphs: Some Chinese characters were originally fairly concrete pictures of the things they represent. As time went on, people chose to write simpler versions that are easier to write but do not look so much like the real thing, just as people sometimes draw stick men rather than drawing people with real-looking bodies, arms, legs, etc. Here are some examples:

paragraphs: Most characters, however, are made by combining pictures, using one to give a general meaning, and the other to represent a sound. For instance, "媽 mā" (mom) is made by adding 女 (nǚ, human female) to 馬 (mǎ, horse). The "ma" part is only there to represent the sound.

paragraphs: In most dialects of ancient Chinese, one character was generally enough for one word, but modern spoken Mandarin uses mostly compounds like "媽媽 māma," which is just "mama,"

paragraphs: Other examples show different ways of combining components:

paragraphs: Just as the English used in Great Britain favors "petrol" but the English used in the United States almost always uses "gasoline," different regional languages in China may use different compound words to name the same thing.

paragraphs: In Spoken Mandarin, most words are character compounds because over time Mandarin lost many sounds that existed in earlier forms of Chinese. Due to the loss of sounds, many Chinese words ended up becoming homophones, thus more characters were added to words to tell them apart. For example, the Chinese title of the poem "Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den" 施氏食狮史 is pronounced ""Shī Shì Shí Shī Shǐ"", and every character in the poem is pronounced with the same syllable, but with different tones. In older forms of Chinese, one could have been to tell apart the different characters making up the title, as they could have sounded noticeably different from each other.

paragraphs: Thus, one-character words in Classical Chinese like

paragraphs: to clearly distinguish such words from their homophones, otherwise the already mentioned characters could be mistaken for similar sounding characters like

paragraphs: thus making spoken language difficult to understand without the compound words.

paragraphs: Mandarin is defined and designed based on Beijing accent. In China, there are over 600,000 dialects and more accents although they all use Chinese language and characters, but their pronunciation and some expressions are totally different. China must find a standard pronunciation to allow all people to understand each other and communicate. Beijing has been the capital city of China for more than 1,000 years, so China defined Beijing Accent as standard Mandarin.

paragraphs: Beijing also has some local dialects that are not included by Mandarin or standard Chinese language yet. But with Beijing being the capital city as well as the political, economic, cultural and education center of China, more and more new Beijing dialects have been or will be accepted as Mandarin or standard Chinese language. The other dialects, such as Shanghainese, Cantonese, Hakka etc., have few opportunities to be included into Mandarin or standard Chinese language or be accepted by the whole of China.

paragraphs: The following samples are some Beijing dialects which are not yet accepted as standard Mandarin. 倍儿: bèi'ér means 'very much'; 拌蒜: bànsuàn means 'stagger'; 不吝: bùlìn means 'do not worry about'; 撮: cuò means 'eat'; 出溜: chūliū means 'slip'; 大老爷儿们儿: dàlǎoyérmenr means 'men, males';

paragraphs: The following samples are some Beijing dialects which have been already accepted as Mandarin in recent years. 二把刀: èrbǎdāo means 'not very skillful'; 哥们儿: gēmenr means 'good male friends'; 抠门儿: kōuménr means 'parsimony'; 打小儿: dǎxiǎo'ér means 'since childhood'


title: Algeria

paragraphs: Algeria ( or ), officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a former French colony and the largest country in Africa. It is part of the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa. Algiers is the capital. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea in the north, Tunisia in the northeast, Libya in the east, Niger in the southeast, Mauritania and Mali in the southwest, Western Sahara in the west and Morocco in the northwest.

paragraphs: People have lived in Algeria for for thousands of years, which can be seen in the cave paintings at Tassili National Park that date to around 7000BC. By 600 BC, Phoenicians were in Hippo Regius (now called Annaba), Rusicade (now Skikda), and Tipasa in the central coastal part of the country. The Romans would annex (take over) the region by the conclusion of the Punic Wars in 146BC, with what is now modern day Algeria staying in Roman hands till the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century and the region being taken over by the Germanic Vandals.

paragraphs: Algeria would become part of the islamic world when the first Muslim Arabs came to Algeria in the mid-7th century, resulting in many people converting to the new religion of islam. In the 11th century, the Arab tribes of Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym were living between Tunisia and eastern Algeria (Constantois). The famous mathematician, Fibonacci (1170—1250) lived in Algeria as a teenager. This is where he learned the Hindu–Arabic numeral system and realized it was simpler to use. In the 1500s and 1700s, the Spanish Empire ruled a lot of Algeria. Algeria was made part of the Ottoman Empire in 1517.

paragraphs: France colonized Algeria starting in 1830. In 1954, the National Liberation Front (Front de Libération Nationale or FLN) wanted freedom from France. They fought a war. It became independent from France in July 5, 1962.

paragraphs: In 1963 Ahmed Ben Bella became the first President of Algeria.

paragraphs: The Algerian Civil War started in 1991. It ended in 2002. the government stopped the state of emergency on 24 February 2011.

paragraphs: A large part of southern Algeria is the Sahara Desert. The Aures and Nememcha mountain ranges are in the north. The highest point is Mount Tahat (3,003 m).

paragraphs: The official languages of the country are Arabic as a first language and Berber as a second language. Many people speak French, too.

paragraphs: Algeria's population is about 39.5 million people. There are over 40 cities with more than 100,000 people.

paragraphs: The Parliament of Algeria is made up of two chambers:

paragraphs: There are 48 provinces (since 1983) in Algeria, they are:

paragraphs: There are several UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Algeria including Al Qal'a of Beni Hammad, the first capital of the Hammadid empire; Tipasa, a Phoenician and later Roman town; and Djémila and Timgad, both Roman ruins; M'Zab Valley, a limestone valley containing a large urbanized oasis; also the Casbah of Algiers is an important citadel. The only natural World Heritage Sites is the Tassili n'Ajjer, a mountain range.


title: Plymouth, Devon

paragraphs: Plymouth is a city in Devon, South West England. It is on the south coast. It has a large port at Devonport used by the Royal Navy. Nearly 250,000 people live in Plymouth and it is the largest place in Devon. West of Plymouth is the mouth of the River Tamar which is called the Hamoaze. Plymouth means mouth of the River Plym.

paragraphs: The Roman Catholic Bishop of Plymouth has his cathedral here. Plymouth was badly affected by German bombing during the Second World War, when many buildings were destroyed. The Plymouth Fathers and the Plymouth Brethren were both named after Plymouth. Plymouth is linked to Saltash in Cornwall by two bridges across the River Tamar: the Royal Albert Bridge (built in 1859) carries the railway line to Penzance and the Tamar Bridge the A38 main road. On Plymouth Hoe is the third lighthouse which formerly stood on the Eddystone Rock in the English Channel.

paragraphs: It has a football team called Plymouth Argyle and a rugby football team called Plymouth Albion.


title: Plymouth

paragraphs: Other meanings of the word Plymouth are:


title: George Washington

paragraphs: George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) was the first President of the United States (1789–1797), the commander in chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

paragraphs: Washington's mother was Mary Ball and his father was Augustine Washington. They owned a plantation with slaves in Virginia.

paragraphs: Washington became a farmer like his father. His plantation was called Mount Vernon. He also worked as a surveyor, measuring land. Washington always wanted to be a soldier and was active in the colonial militia of Virginia. He was sent several times to the "forks of the Ohio River", now called Pittsburgh. His job was to get rid of the French who were trying to take control of the Ohio River Valley.

paragraphs: He failed and many of his men were killed. The fight opened the French and Indian War, bringing Britain into the Seven Years' War. In 1758 he was elected to the Virginia legislature.

paragraphs: In 1759, Washington married a widow named Martha Custis. The marriage produced no children.

paragraphs: Washington was a delegate to the First Continental Congress, which was created by the Thirteen Colonies to respond to various laws passed by the British government. The Second Continental Congress chose him to be the commanding general of the Continental Army. Washington led the army from 1775 until the end of the war in 1783. After losing the big Battle of Long Island, and being chased across New Jersey, Washington led his troops back across the Delaware River on Christmas Day, 1776, in a surprise attack on Hessian mercenaries at the small Battle of Princeton and Trenton, New Jersey. The British had more troops and more supplies than Washington, however, Washington kept his troops together and won these small battles.

paragraphs: Overall, Washington did not win many battles, but he never let the British destroy his army. With the help of the French army and navy, Washington made a British army surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, as the final major battle of the Revolutionary War. The war officially ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

paragraphs: When the Revolutionary War ended, Washington was considered a national hero. He was offered a government position that would have been considered a dictatorship over the colonies, but in a surprising move, Washington refused, left the army, and returned to Mount Vernon. He wanted the colonies to have a strong government but did not wish to head that government, nor did he want the colonies to be run by a tyrant. In 1784 George Washington asked Luis de Unzaga to intercede in the free trade affairs of the former General Charles Stewart as he had already mediated in the financial aid matters previously requested by him and other founding fathers of the United States, such as Robert Morris or Patrick Henry, to Luis de Unzaga y Amézaga.

paragraphs: Washington was one of the men who said the country needed a new constitution. The Constitutional Convention met in 1787, with Washington presiding. The delegates wrote the Constitution of the United States, and all the states ratified it and joined the new government.

paragraphs: In 1789, Washington was elected president without any competition, making him the first President of the United States. While Washington did not belong to any political party, he agreed with certain Federalist policies, such as the country should have a standing army and a national bank. He was re-elected to a second term. After his second term, Washington decided not to run for reelection, despite his popularity remaining high. His decision, to stop at 2 terms, set a precedent that every president followed until Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940.

paragraphs: In Washington's farewell address, he warned the country not to divide into political parties and not to get involved in wars outside of the United States. Washington's non-intervention foreign policy was supported by most Americans for over one hundred years. His advice to avoid political parties was completely ignored, as parties were already forming at the time of his speech.

paragraphs: Washington went back home to Mount Vernon (Virginia) after his second term ended in 1797. He died 2 years later, on December 14, 1799, in Mount Vernon, at the age of 67, from pneumonia.

paragraphs: From his marriage, George Washington owned a substantial amount of farm land, where he grew tobacco, wheat, and vegetables. Washington also owned more than 100 slaves, who were freed upon his death. He did not have much money in cash and had to borrow money while he was president. At his death, Washington's estate was worth over $500,000.

paragraphs: It is a common misconception that George Washington had wooden teeth, as false teeth made from wood. He did, however, try many different ways to replace his teeth, including having teeth carved from elk's teeth or ivory. Ivory and bone both have hairline fractures in them, which normally cannot be seen, but started to darken due to Washington's use of wine. The darkened, thin fractures in the bone made the lines look like the grain in a piece of wood. George Washington's teeth started falling out when he was about 22 years old, and he had only one tooth left by the time he became president. It was difficult for him to talk or to eat. At one time, he had false teeth with a special hole so the one tooth he still had could poke through. He tried to keep them smelling clean by soaking them in wine, but instead they became mushy and black. In 1796, a dentist had to pull out George Washington's last tooth, and he kept his tooth in a gold locket attached to his watch chain. When the time came for the president to have his portrait painted, cotton was pushed under his lips to make him look as if he had teeth. The cotton made his mouth puff out, as is seen on the picture on the US $1 bill.


title: Abraham Lincoln

paragraphs: Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809  – April 15, 1865) was an American politician. He was the 16th President of the United States. He was president from 1861 to 1865, during the American Civil War. Just five days after most of the Confederate forces had surrendered and the war was ending, John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln. Lincoln was the first president of the United States to be assassinated. Lincoln has been remembered as the "Great Emancipator" because he worked to end slavery in the United States.

paragraphs: Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in Hodgenville, Kentucky, United States. His parents were Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks. His family was very poor. Abraham had one brother and one sister. His brother died in childhood. They grew up in a small log cabin, with just one room inside. Although slavery was legal in Kentucky at that time, Lincoln's father, who was a religious Baptist, refused to own any slaves.

paragraphs: When Lincoln was seven years old, his family moved to Indiana. Later they moved to Illinois. In his childhood he helped his father on the farm, but when he was 22 years old he left home and moved to New Salem, Illinois, where he worked in a general store.

paragraphs: Later, he said that he had gone to school for just one year, but that was enough to learn how to read, write, and do simple math. In 1842, he married Mary Todd. They had four children, but three of them died when they were very young.

paragraphs: Abraham Lincoln was sometimes called Abe Lincoln or "Honest Abe" after he ran miles to give a customer the right amount of change. The nickname "Honest Abe" came from a time when he started a business that failed. Instead of running away like many people would have, he stayed and worked to pay his debt.

paragraphs: Lincoln started his political career in 1832 when he ran for the IGA Illinois General Assembly, but he lost the election. He served as a captain in the Illinois militia during the Black Hawk War, a war with Native American tribes. When he moved to Springfield in 1837, he began to work as a lawyer. Soon, he became one of the most highly respected lawyers in Illinois.

paragraphs: In 1837, as a member of the Illinois General Assembly, Lincoln issued a written protest of its passage of a resolution stating that slavery could not be abolished in Washington, D.C.

paragraphs: In 1841, he won a court case (Bailey v. Cromwell). He represented a black woman who claimed she had already been freed and could not be sold as a slave. In 1847, he lost a case (Matson v. Rutherford) representing a slave owner (Robert Matson) claiming return of fugitive slaves. After he moved to Illinois, he worked as a shopkeeper and  postmaster. He rode the circuit of courts for many years. When he was 21, he worked on a flatboat that carried freight. He joined the Independent Spy Corp. At first, he was a member of the Whig Party. He later became a Republican. Lincoln ran for senate against Stephen A. Douglas. Douglas won.

paragraphs: In 1846, Lincoln joined the Whig Party and was elected to one term in the House of Representatives. After that, he ignored his political career and instead worked as a lawyer. In 1854, in reaction to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Lincoln became involved in politics again. He joined the Republican Party, which had recently been formed in opposition to the expansion of slavery. In 1858, he wanted to become senator; although this was unsuccessful, the debates drew national attention to him.

paragraphs: The Republican Party nominated him for the Presidential election of 1860.

paragraphs: Lincoln was chosen as a candidate for the elections in 1860 for different reasons. Among these reasons were that his views on slavery were less extreme than those of other people who wanted to be candidates. Lincoln was from what was then one of the Western states, and had a bigger chance of winning the election there. Other candidates that were older or more experienced than him had enemies inside the party. Lincoln's family was poor, which added to the Republican position of free labor, the opposite of slave labor. Lincoln won the election in 1860, and was made the 16th President of the United States. He won with almost no votes in the South. For the first time, a president had won the election because of the large support he got from the states in the North. During his presidency Lincoln became well-known because of his large stovepipe hat. He used his tall hat to store papers and documents when he was traveling.

paragraphs: After Lincoln's election in 1860, seven States (South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Texas and Louisiana) formed the Confederate States of America. When the United States refused to surrender Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, the Confederates attacked the fort, beginning the American Civil War. Later, four more states (Arkansas, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina) joined the Confederacy for a total of eleven. In his whole period as President, he had to rebuild the Union with military force and many bloody battles. He also had to stop the "border states", like Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland, from leaving the Union and joining the Confederacy.

paragraphs: Lincoln was not a general, and had only been in the army for a short time during the Black Hawk War. However, he still took a major role in the war, often spending days and days in the War Department. His plan was to cut off the South by surrounding it with ships, control the Mississippi River, and take Richmond, the Confederate capital. He often clashed with generals in the field, especially George B. McClellan, and fired generals who lost battles or were not aggressive enough. Eventually, he made Ulysses S. Grant the top general in the army.

paragraphs: With the Emancipation Proclamation begun on January 1, 1863, Lincoln ordered the freedom of all slaves in those states still in rebellion during the American Civil War. It did not actually immediately free all those slaves however, since those areas were still controlled by the rebelling states of the Confederacy. Only a small number of slaves already behind Union lines were immediately freed. As the Union army advanced, nearly all four million slaves were effectively freed. Some former slaves joined the Union army after 1862.

paragraphs: The Proclamation also did not free slaves in the slave states that had remained loyal to the Union (the federal government of the US). Neither did it apply to areas where Union forces had already regained control, as in Tennessee. Until the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865, only the states had power to end slavery within their own borders, so Lincoln issued the proclamation as a war measure.

paragraphs: The Proclamation made freeing the slaves a Union goal for the war, and put an end to movements in European nations (especially in Great Britain and France) that would have recognized the Confederacy as an independent nation. Lincoln then sponsored a constitutional amendment to free all slaves. The Thirteenth Amendment, making slavery illegal everywhere in the United States, was passed late in 1865, eight months after Lincoln was assassinated.

paragraphs: Lincoln made a famous speech after the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 called the Gettysburg Address. The battle was very important, and many soldiers from both sides died. The speech was given at the new cemetery for the dead soldiers. It is one of the most famous speeches in American history.

paragraphs: Lincoln was re-elected president by a slim margin in 1864 and re-inaugurated March 4, 1865. Soon afterwards, it appeared likely that the Union would win the Civil War. Lincoln proposed lenient terms for restoring self-government in the states that had rebelled. On April 9, 1865, the leading Confederate general, Robert E. Lee, surrendered his armies. On April 11, 1865, Lincoln gave a speech in which he promoted voting rights for black American citizens.

paragraphs: During the day on April 14, 1865, Lincoln signed the legislation that created the secret service, the US President's security force. On the evening of April 14, Lincoln went to attend a play with his wife, Mary Todd at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C.. He had invited Ulysses S. Grant to attend the play with him and his wife Mary Todd, and Grant planned to attend. As a general, Grant would have brought his own extra military security force, but he did not attend the play because his wife Julia and Mary Todd did not get along well.

paragraphs: During the third act of the play, John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and a Confederate spy from Maryland, entered the presidential box and shot Lincoln at point-blank range, mortally wounding him, and shouted ""Sic semper tyrannis"" ("Thus always to tyrants"). An unconscious Lincoln was carried across the street to Petersen House. He was placed diagonally on the bed because his tall frame would not fit normally on the smaller bed. He remained in a coma for nine hours before dying the next morning. According to some accounts, at his last drawn breath, on the morning after the assassination, he smiled broadly and then expired. Lincoln was the first American president to be assassinated.

paragraphs: Booth escaped, but died from shots fired during his capture on April 26.

paragraphs: Lincoln has been consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as one of the greatest U.S. presidents. He is often considered the greatest president for his leadership during the American Civil War and his eloquence in speeches such as the Gettysburg Address.