title: Navel piercing

paragraphs: A navel piercing is type of piercing to the bellybutton. It is the second most popular piercing, next to ear piercing. It is considered a form of body art. There can be multiple piercings and it is possible to change rings, depending on how you pierce it.


title: Flag of Brazil

paragraphs: The Brazilian Flag is the flag of Brazil. It is the flag that has gone through the most changes and the current flag was made and used in May of 1992, and still use it today.

paragraphs: It has gone through changes many times, changes including stars, colour and other things.

paragraphs: A list of constellations and stars on the map:


title: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1995 movie)

paragraphs: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is a 1995 television movie based on E.L. Konigsburg's novel "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler". The story is about a girl and her brother who run away from home to live in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and find what they think is a lost treasure. The children, Claudia and Jamie, are amazed with the treasure and would not leave without knowing what its secret is. Lauren Bacall stars in the title role.

paragraphs: Before this movie, the book was made into a 1973 feature movie starring Ingrid Bergman, later released on home video as "The Hideaways".


title: 624 Hektor

paragraphs: 624 Hektor is the biggest of the Jovian Trojan asteroids. It was found in 1907 by August Kopff.

paragraphs: Hektor is a D-type asteroid, dark and reddish in colour. It lies in Jupiter's leading Lagrangian point, L, called the 'Greek' node after one of the two sides in the legendary Trojan War. Ironically, Hektor is named after the Trojan hero Hektor, and is thus one of two Trojan asteroids that is "misplaced" in the wrong camp (the other being 617 Patroclus in the Trojan node).

paragraphs: Hektor is one of the most stretched bodies of its size in the solar system, being 370 × 200 km. It is thought that Hektor might be a contact binary (two asteroids joined by gravitational attraction) like 216 Kleopatra. Hubble Space Telescope sightings of Hektor in 1993 did not show an obvious stretched shape because of a limited angular resolution. On July 17, 2006, the Keck-10m II telescope and its Laser guide star Adaptive Optics (AO) system indicated a stretched shape for Hektor. Additionally, since this AO system provides an excellent and stable correction (angular resolution of 0.060 arcsec in K band), a 15-km moon at 1000 km from Hektor was found. The moon's provisional designation is S/2006 (624) 1. Hektor is, so far, the only known binary Trojan asteroid in the L point and the first Trojan with a moon. 617 Patroclus, another big Trojan asteroid in the L, is made of two same-sized asteroids.


title: Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards

paragraphs: The Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards or simply Golden Horse is a movie festival and awards ceremony held annually in Taiwan. The ceremony usually takes place in November or December in Taipei.

paragraphs: The awards, contested by movies submitted from Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and elsewhere, are generally held to be the most prestigious for Chinese language movies outside the People's Republic of China. The awards ceremony is held after the month-long movie festival, which showcases some of the nominated movies for the awards.

paragraphs: Winners are selected by a jury of judges during the week before the ceremony is held. Winners are awarded with a golden horse statuette.

paragraphs: Under current rules and regulations, every movie made primarily in any dialect of Chinese language is eligible for competition. Since 1996, almost any artist or movie from mainland China was allowed to enter the movie festival.


title: Golden Melody Awards

paragraphs: The Golden Melody Awards () or sometimes shorted to just Golden Melody are music awards annually presented in Taiwan. The Awards began in 1990.


title: Ella Koon

paragraphs: Ella Koon, real name Ianna Koon, is a Chinese singer, actress and model. She was born in Tahiti, French Polynesia, and was raised in Hong Kong, where she is currently based.

paragraphs: She speaks Cantonese, English, French and Mandarin languages.

paragraphs: After finishing high school in Birmingham, England, she began her career as a model in 2000. She debuted into the film industry in the romance movie "I Do".

paragraphs: In 2004, she started her singing career and released her debut Original (album). In early 2005, She participated in the TVB show "Hotel Situation". Her second album "Ellacadabra" was released in late 2005. In mid-2005, Koon starred in the TVB's series "Revolving Doors of Vengeance (酒店風雲)", making her a well-known actress as well. She also starred in "Survivor's Law II" in 2007.


title: Survivor's Law II

paragraphs: Survivor's Law II is a Chinese TV drama series. It aired in Hong Kong starting 24 December 2007 and ending 18 January 2008. It is the sequel to the 2003 series "Survivor's Law". However, three members of the original cast did not appear in this sequel due.

paragraphs: MK Sun (real name Sun Man Kwan) was a teenager who once stopped a drug smuggler, but then was wrongly accused of being the one taking drugs. Despite his background, he hired a famous lawyer to help him and not surprisingly, he won. The lawyer, named Brandon, became his idol, and MK Sun grew up to be a lawyer.

paragraphs: Years later, MK was trying to get a job in his idol's company, T&B. He beats Brandon's wife, Brenda in a case, and started working there. There he meets a stubborn, rich, and spoiled girl named Lily, who only cares about her self and appearnace. They became enemies because of each other's backgrounds and attitudes.

paragraphs: MK then meets Vincent. Vincent thought of MK as ghetto, but soon realizes he was wrong. After having a fight with him in soccer, Vincent punched the umpire but MK Sun took the blame. Soon, they become friends.

paragraphs: After splitting with his former girlfriend Jessica, Vincent falls in love with a coffee shop girl called Choi Yuk. Vincent had his license for being a lawyer taken away for three years and could not get his license back yet. After getting a chance to work again and start a new refreshing career, he started only caring for himself. He was so determined that he went against Choi Yuk and her family, and even MK. Choi Yuk thought he betrayed them and only cared about himself so she ended the relationship.

paragraphs: After a while, Lily and MK start to have feelings for each other and eventually get married in court.

paragraphs: Soon, Choi Yuk gets into hospital after taking a beating in the head by someone and falling into a coma, and gives birth to a baby boy Jophy. Vincent then gets hit in the head when Choi Yuk wakes up and loses his memory. However, to prevent Choi Yuk from despairing too much from not remembering her and Jophy, he proposes and they get married.

paragraphs: Vincent never regains his memory and ends up working in the shop with Choi Yuk. MK and Lily share a happy and playful relationship.


title: Younha

paragraphs: Younha (Korean: 고윤하; Hanja: 高允河 Go Yoon Ha Japanese: ユンナ Yunna), born 29 April 1988 in Seoul, Korea, is a Korean pop singer.

paragraphs: Younha made her debut at the age of sixteen. Nicknamed the "Oricon comet" for her success in Japan, she has currently released eight singles and one album in that country with varying degrees of success. Also, many of her songs have been featured in TV shows.

paragraphs: Younha was signed to Epic Records, a branch of Sony Music Entertainment Japan, from 2004 to 2008. She then moved to Sistus Records, a Geneon Entertainment label. In South Korea, she is signed to Lion Media and Stam Entertainment.

paragraphs: Born in South Korea to musical parents, Younha began to play the piano at the age of 4. She developed an interest in Japanese drama shows and began to teach herself Japanese. Before long, she was skilled enough to translate to her school friends what happened on recent Japanese TV episodes. What began as an interest in Japanese dramas developed into an interest in Japanese music. At the recommendation of an older student in her school's broadcasting club, she listened to such artists such as Utada Hikaru and Misia. Younha began to dream about debuting as a singer alongside her favorite artists.

paragraphs: In order to seek her dreams, she began to try out in auditions within Korea. She claimed that she went through as many as 20 auditions. She also commented in her interview that certain companies refused to sign her to their labels because they believed she was not "pretty" enough, although she sang very well. Her mother also discouraged her dream and even locked her bedroom door to prevent Younha from leaving the house. Younha, however, climbed out the window and made it to the audition. At one audition, she made an overwhelming impression and signed a contract with a Korean company. Soon after, Younha's voice was heard by a company in Japan. In order to make her childhood dream of debuting in Japan come true, Younha underwent recording while going back and forth between Korea and Japan. Quickly, Younha's Japanese skills advanced so much that she surprised even the staff around her.

paragraphs: After a TV drama producer heard her demo tape, her song "Yubikiri" was chosen as the insert song for the Fuji TV Monday drama show "Tokyo Wankei ~Destiny of Love~". In October of that same year, she debuted with her official first single "Yubikiri".

paragraphs: Younha's second single "Houkiboshi" was used as an ending song for the popular anime show "BLEACH". It became a hit - debuting on the Oricon chart at #18, it peaked at #12 and propelled Younha into the limelight. With this single, she became only the second Korean, after BoA, to have broken the Oricon chart's top 20. Between "Touch / Yume no Tsuzuki" and "Houki Boshi", she released "Motto Futari de". It flopped massively, only reaching #117 on the Oricon Charts possibly due to a lack of promotion. Her later single, "Touch / Yume no Tsuzuki", first charted at the #15, with the tie-in and went as high as #11. After releasing five singles, Younha released her first album entitled "Go! Younha". It reached the #10 spot on the Oricon weekly charts.

paragraphs: "My Lover" was a re-cut single from Go! Younha, her debut album, and was re-cut because it was the theme to the "Bleach GC: Tasogare Ni Mamieru Shini Kami". It was limited to 70,000 copies and flopped, selling only about 2,000 copies, ranking at #58. Because of the limited print, however, it has become extremely valuable and rare to the fans. Younha was also chosen to sing the ending theme to the anime "Jyu Oh Sei". "Tewo Tsunaide" only did slightly better than "My Lover", peaking at #50.

paragraphs: Younha began to compose her own music. The song "Kaerimichi" released on "My Lover" is the first song released for which she wrote the lyrics and composed the music for. In addition, she composed the music for the song "homegirl", the B-side released on "Te wo Tsunaide".

paragraphs: "Imaga Daisuki" was released, with more live performances than "Te wo Tsunaide", and a tie-in. It seemed that Younha has a bigger budget on this single. It did significantly worse, as her second worst ranking single, at #71. "Imaga Daisuki" was also used as an opening song for the animation Jang Geum's Dream while the b-track "Inori" was used for the animation's ending song.

paragraphs: Younha released a digital Korean single titled "Audition". The single includes "Audition (Time 2 Rock)" and "Waiting (기다리다)". Although it was released as a digital single, very limited hard copies of the single were available as well. Many performances for this song were shown on Korean TV, unusual for Younha as her last appearance on TV was with her single "Touch." Much promotion occurred for this single and it helped for a long charting life for "Audition", lasting well over 3 months in all the Korean charts. She stayed in Korea during this release, as well as January.

paragraphs: Younha was once again chosen to be an anime theme singer for "Kiba". The song "Hakanaku Tsuyoku" was used as the second opening for the show. The single was released on 17 January 2007. This single, unlike her other singles, has only 3 tracks. Surprisingly, this single appeared on the Top 20 Daily Charts for exactly one day, at #16. The Weekly rank was at an above-average #36, but sales were only slightly better. This single did not have a PV because Younha was in Korea during the month before and most likely January as well.

paragraphs: Exactly two months after "Hakanaku Tsuyoku", Younha went back to her home country to release her first Korean Album entitled "고백하기 좋은 날" (Go Baek Ha Gi Jo Eun Nal, translated "The Perfect Day to Say I Love You" or literally translated "Good Day to Confess"). She recorded a MV for the third track "비밀번호 486" (Bi Mil Bun Ho 486, translated "Password 486") which stars fellow Stam artist Yoon Ji Hoo. The video featured many image changes for Younha which include her first ever kiss. The album also features a collaboration with Wheesung.

paragraphs: With the single welcomed well into the market, Younha proceeded to release her Korean debut album. The album received excellent success, peaking at #1 on the charts. The first song to be promoted from the album was 비밀번호 486 (Bi Mil Bun Ho 486, translated "Password 486"). She won the SBS Inkigayo Mutizen award twice for Secret Number 486. This song was also well received by the Korean audience. The second song to be promoted from this album was 연애조건 (Yeonae Jogeon, translated "Love Condition").

paragraphs: On July 14th 2007, Younha appeared on the Korean GomTV MSL Grand Finals (Starcraft tournament) and played in the opening ceremony.

paragraphs: Younha has also been picked as publicity envoy for the anti-corruption Clean Wave Campaign for her pure and clean image.

paragraphs: At the 2007 MKMF held on November 17th 2007, Younha won the Best New Solo Artist award.

paragraphs: With Younha's success rising, she released a new version of Go! Younha, all re-recorded in Korean. The album, with tracklist changes, is now called 혜성 (Comet), and was released on October 23.

paragraphs: On January 18th, Younha left Korea to continue her music career in Japan. She is expecting to release a new Japanese Album/Music Video DVD, "SONGS-Teen's Collection. " This Collection is expected to include all of her music videos so far, plus a 32 page photobook, in the limited edition of the disk. The release date of this album is March 26th, and on-line Music Shops already have started getting pre-orders. For information about pre-ordering, contact http://www.jkm.co.kr or http://www.leesmusic.co.kr/ (both Korean)

paragraphs: Younha sang the song "Boku wa Koko ni Iru" on the tribute album to Masayoshi Yamazaki, ""One More Time, One More Track"". (12.21.05)

paragraphs: Younha was selected as one of 14 female artists to perform in the omnibus album ""14 Princess ~Princess Princess Children~"", a collection of the most famous songs by the top girls band Princess Princess of late 80's and early 90's. Younha performed the song "Diamonds", which was the number 1 seller of the year 1989 in Japan. (03.08.06)

paragraphs: This is the discography of pop artist 'Younha'.


title: Benedictine

paragraphs: The word Benedictine usually refers to a follower of the Order of Saint Benedict. These people usually lead a life in an abbey. They follow the rule of Benedict of Nursia. Benedict lived in the 6th century. He made some rules, called the Rule of St Benedict these people follow. The rules can be summed up by "pax" ("peace") and "ora et labora" ("pray and work").

paragraphs: Most Benedictines see themselves as part of the Catholic Church. Some can also be found in the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Anglican Church. Officially, the order is known as "Ordo Sancti Benedicti" ("OSB").


title: Franciscan

paragraphs: The word Franciscan refers to followers of one of the religious orders that follow the Rule of St Francis. Saint Francis of Assisi lived in the 13th century. Franciscans usually lead simple lives without much money. Today, there are three main branches of these orders. They mostly see themselves as part of the Roman Catholic or Anglican Church. There are also small communities in the Old Catholic and Protestant Church.


title: Cistercian

paragraphs: The term Cistercian is used to refer to an order of Roman Catholic monks. Officially the order is called "Ordo Cisterciensis" ("OCist"), or "Sacer Ordo Cisterciensis" ("SOC"). These people follow the same rules as the Benedictines, that is to say those of St Benedict. Over time, the Benedictines made some changes to the rules and the way of life.

paragraphs: The Cistercians reject these. They went back to what St Benedict had taught. Sometimes their rules were more strict than those St Benedict had given. They also went back to manual labour, especially work in the fields. Because of this, the Cistercians helped spread technologies around Medieval Europe. In 1882 certain monasteries formed a new order, called the Trappists. With time, they split completely from the Cistercians.


title: Langston Hughes

paragraphs: Langston Hughes (1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright and short story writer. Hughes was one of the writers and artists whose work was called the Harlem Renaissance.

paragraphs: Hughes grew up as a poor boy from Missouri, the descendant of African people who had been taken to America as slaves. At that time, the term used for African-Americans was "negro" which means a person with black skin. Most "negroes" did not remember or think about their link with the people of Africa, even though it was a big influence on their culture and, in particular, their music. Hughes was unusual for his time, because he went back to West Africa to understand more about his own culture. Through his poetry, plays, and stories, Hughes helped other black Americans to see themselves as part of a much bigger group of people, so that now the term "African-American" is used with pride.

paragraphs: Hughes became a famous writer, but all his life he remembered how he started out, and he helped and encouraged many other struggling writers.

paragraphs: Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. His parents were James Hughes and Carrie Langston Hughes who was a teacher. Langston's father, James Hughes, was so upset about the racism towards African-Americans that he left his family and moved to Mexico. During his childhood, Hughes was cared for by his grandmother, in Lawrence, Kansas while his mother worked to support the family. Langston's grandmother was a great story teller. She told stories that made him feel proud to be an African-American.

paragraphs: After his grandmother died, Hughes and his mother moved about 12 times until settling in Cleveland, and then, as a teenager went to live in Lincoln, Illinois with his mother, who had remarried. He was often left alone because his mother was at work. Even though his childhood was difficult and had lots of changes, he was able to use these things in the poetry that he started to write while he was at school. He never forgot the stories of his grandmother and tried to help other African-Americans when they were having problems. These were the people that he later wrote about in his own stories.

paragraphs: When Hughes went to school in Lincoln, there were only two African-American children in the class. The teacher talked to them about poetry. She said that what a poem needed most was rhythm. Langston later said that he had rhythm in his blood because, "as everyone knows", "all" African-Americans have rhythm. The children made him the "class poet".

paragraphs: At high school in Cleveland, Ohio, Langston learned to love reading. He loved the poetry of the American poets Paul Laurence Dunbar and Carl Sandburg. He wrote articles for the school newspaper, he edited the school yearbook and he wrote his first short stories and plays.

paragraphs: When Langston Hughes was 17, he went to spend some time with his father in Mexico. He was so unhappy while he was there that he thought about committing suicide. Hughes could not understand how his father felt. He said: "I had been thinking about my father and his strange dislike of his own people. I didn't understand it, because I was a Negro, and I liked Negroes very much!"

paragraphs: When he was finished at high school in Lincoln in 1920, he went back to Mexico, to ask his father to pay for him to go to university. Hughes' father was a lawyer and a wealthy landowner. He could afford to send his son to university but he made difficulties about it. He said that Hughes could only go to university if he went overseas and studied engineering. Hughes wanted to go to a university in the US. After a time, they made an agreement that he should go to Columbia University but study engineering, not an arts degree. He went to Columbia in 1921 but left in 1922, partly because of the racism in the university.

paragraphs: Until 1926 Hughes did many different types of work. In 1923 he went as a crewman on the ship "S.S.Malone" and went to West Africa and Europe. He left the ship and stayed for a short time in Paris where he joined several other African-Americans who were living there. In November 1924, Hughes returned to the U.S. to live with his mother in Washington, D.C.. In 1925 he got a job as an assistant to Carter G. Woodson who worked with the "Association for the Study of African American Life and History". Hughes did not enjoy his work because he did not have enough time to write, so he left and got a job as a "busboy", wiping tables and washing dishes at a hotel. Hughes is sometimes called "The Busboy Poet". Meanwhile, some of his poems were published in magazines and were being collected together for his first book of poetry. While he was working at the hotel he met the poet Vachel Lindsay, who helped to make Hughes known as a new African-American poet.

paragraphs: In 1926 Hughes began studying at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. He had help from patrons, Amy Spingarn, who gave him $300 and "Godmother" Charlotte Osgood Mason. Hughes graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1929 and became a Doctor of Letters in 1943. He was also given an honorary doctorate by Howard University. For the rest of his life, except when he travelled to the Caribbean or West Indies, Hughes lived in Harlem, New York.

paragraphs: Langston Hughes sometimes went out with women, but he never married. People who have studied his life and poetry are sure that he was homosexual. In the 1930s it was harder to be open about being gay than it is nowadays. His poetry has lots of symbols which are used by other homosexual writers. Hughes thought that men who had very dark skin were particularly beautiful. It seems from his poetry that he was in love with an African-American man. He also wrote a story which might tell of his own experience. "Blessed Assurance" is the story of a father's anger because his son is "queer" and acts like a girl.

paragraphs: Hughes' life and work were an important part of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, alongside those Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Countee Cullen, Richard Bruce Nugent, and Aaron Douglas, who together started a magazine "Fire!! Devoted to Younger Negro Artists". Hughes and these friends did not always agree with the ideas of some of the other African-American writers who were also part of the "Harlem Renaissance" because they thought their ideas were Middle class and that they treated others who had darker skin, less education and less money with discrimination. All his life, Hughes never forgot the lessons that he learned about poor and uneducated African-Americans in the stories that his grandmother told.

paragraphs: In 1960, the "NAACP" awarded Hughes the "Spingarn Medal" for "distinguished achievements by an African American". Hughes became a member of the "National Institute of Arts and Letters" in 1961. In 1973, an award was named after him, the "Langston Hughes Medal", awarded by the City College of New York.

paragraphs: Hughes became a famous American poet, but he was always ready to help other people, particularly young black writers. He was worried that many young writers hated themselves, and expressed these feelings to the world. He tried to help people feel pride, and not worry about the prejudice of other people. He also tried to help young African-Americans not to express hatred and prejudice towards white Americans.

paragraphs: On May 22, 1967, Hughes died in New York City at the age of 65 after having surgery for prostate cancer. His ashes are buried under the floor of the "Langston Hughes Auditorium" in the "Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture" in Harlem. Over his ashes is a circle with an African design called "Rivers." At the centre of the design are words from a poem by Hughes: ""My soul has grown deep like the rivers."


title: Geographic coordinate system

paragraphs: A geographical coordinate system is a coordinate system. This means that every place can be specified by a set of three numbers, called coordinates.

paragraphs: A full circle can be divided into 360 degrees (or 360°); this was first done by the Babylonians; Ancient Greeks, like Ptolemy later extended the theory.

paragraphs: Today, degrees are divided further. There are minutes, and seconds; 1 minute (or 1') in this context is 1/60 of a degree; 1 second (or 1") is 1/60 of a minute.

paragraphs: The first concept needed is called "latitude" (Lat, or the Greek symbol "phi", formula_1). For it, the Earth is cut up into 180 circles, from the Equator at 0°. The poles are at 90°, the North Pole is at 90° N(orth), the South Pole is at 90° S(outh). Places with the same latitude are on a circle, around the Earth.

paragraphs: The other concept is called "longitude" (Long, or the Greek symbol "lambda", formula_2), sometimes referred to as "meridian". The 0° longitude line (or zero meridian) goes through the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. Greenwich is a part of London. Then lines are drawn in a similar way; the opposite (or "antipodal") meridian of Greenwich is considered both 180°W(est), and 180°E(ast).

paragraphs: The third number is the height, altitude, or depth. This is given with respect to some fixed (usually easily calculable point). One of these is called mean sea level.


title: Altmarkkreis Salzwedel Rural District

paragraphs: Altmarkkreis Salzwedel is a district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.

paragraphs: The old Altmark region, included parts of the neighbouring district of Stendal. In the 10th century it was the eastern border of the Holy Roman Empire.

paragraphs: In the Late Middle Ages many towns were members of the Hanseatic League.

paragraphs: The modern district was established in 1994 by joining the former districts of Gardelegen, Klötze, Salzwedel and part of Osterburg.


title: Sankt Pauli

paragraphs: Sankt Pauli (or St. Pauli) is a district of Hamburg. About 27,000 people live in St. Pauli. St. Pauli is a district where many people go to have fun. There are theatres, cinemas, and a red-light district (around the Reeperbahn) in St. Pauli. This quarter is called the Kiez. There, there are no closing times imposed for shops and restaurants. Most of St. Pauli is different, though. In the St. Pauli quarter of Hamburg based an important German football club (Fußball-Club St. Pauli).


title: Anhalt-Bitterfeld

paragraphs: Anhalt-Bitterfeld is a district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Its capital is Köthen.

paragraphs: This district was established by putting together the former districts of Bitterfeld, Köthen and a large part of Anhalt-Zerbst as part of the Saxony-Anhalt border reforms of 2007.


title: Reeperbahn

paragraphs: The Reeperbahn is the central street in the district St.Pauli in Hamburg. Parts of it are considered to be a red-light district, but there are also theatres and cinemas near it.


title: Börde Rural District

paragraphs: Börde is a district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.

paragraphs: The district was formed in the 2007 boundary changes by joining the old districts of Ohrekreis and Bördekreis.


title: Scale (zoology)

paragraphs: In zoology (the study of animals), a scale is a small, hard plate that grows out of an animal's skin to give it protection. Fish and reptiles have scales. In animals such as butterflies and moths, scales are plates on the surface of the insect wing. They are often beautifully coloured.


title: Weighing scale

paragraphs: Scales are used to measure the weight of an item. To use a scale, the item which needs to be weighed is put on one side of the scale. Then, weight stones are put on the other side. Once the scale balances (that is the indicator between the two scales is in the middle), the correct weight is chosen.

paragraphs: There are also modern scales, where the item is simply put on the scale. Its weight can then be read from an electronic or analogue display.

paragraphs: Weighting Scales are used to measure the weight of an item. To use a scale, the item which needs to be weighed is put on one side of the scale. Then, usually stones are put on the other side to compare the weight of the stone with the weight of the object you have chosen. If both cups are in the middle, it means that the weights of the objects are equal. If one cup is more up while the other one is down, it means that the one that is down is the heavier one. For example: If you place a small stone in one cup, and a watch in the other cup, and the cup with the watch goes down and the stone obviously goes up, it means that the watch has a greater weight than the stone.


title: Burgenlandkreis

paragraphs: Burgenlandkreis is a district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It was formed by joining the old districts of Burgenlandkreis and Weißenfels as part of the boundary changes of 2007.

paragraphs: On 16 July 2007 the district parliament decided to change the name back to Burgenlandkreis from 1 August 2007.


title: Harz (district)

paragraphs: Harz is a rural district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.

paragraphs: The district was made by joining the old districts of Halberstadt, Wernigerode and Quedlinburg as well as the city of Falkenstein (from the district of Aschersleben-Staßfurt). This was part of the reform of all districts in 2007.


title: Jerichower Land

paragraphs: Jerichower Land is a district ("Kreis") in the north-east of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.

paragraphs: After World War II the old Prussian districts of Jerichow were changed. Some areas were given to the neighbouring districts of Havelberg, Rathenow, Brandenburg, Loburg and Zerbst. The two districts were also renamed after their chief town. Jerichow became Burg, and Jerichow II became Genthin. In 1952 the district of Burg was split into two parts, Loburg and Burg.

paragraphs: In 1994 the two districts of Burg and Loburg were merged, and took the old name of Jerichow. In 2007, 6 municipalities from the former district of Anhalt-Zerbst (Hobeck, Lohburg, Lübs, Prödel, Rosian and Schweinitz) were added to Jerichower Land.

paragraphs: The name is from a group of tribes of early Slavic. The name is not connected with how the . city of Jericho.


title: Mansfeld-Südharz Rural District

paragraphs: Mansfeld-Südharz is a district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.

paragraphs: The district was made by joining the old districts of Sangerhausen and Mansfelder Land as part of the boundary changes of 2007.


title: Saalekreis

paragraphs: Saalekreis is a district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.

paragraphs: The district was established by merging the former districts of Merseburg-Querfurt and Saalkreis as part of the boundary changes of 2007.


title: Salzlandkreis

paragraphs: Salzland is a district in the middle of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.

paragraphs: The district was made by joining the old districts of Bernburg, Schönebeck and Aschersleben-Staßfurt (except the town Falkenstein) as part of the boundary changes of 2007


title: Stendal (district)

paragraphs: Stendal () is a district ("Kreis") in the north-east of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It was formed in 1994 by joining the old district of Stendal with the districts Osterburg and Havelberg.

paragraphs: The districts has twin town agreements with


title: Wittenberg (district)

paragraphs: Wittenberg is a district ("Kreis") in the east of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.

paragraphs: In 1994 the district was merged with the district of Jessen and a small part of the district of Gräfenhainichen. In 2007, 27 municipalities from the former district Anhalt-Zerbst were added to the district of Wittenberg.

paragraphs: Population figures are as at 30 June 2005.

paragraphs: After the resolution of 6 October 2005, as part of municipal reform, the 27 towns and communities of the Verwaltungsgemeinschaften of Coswig and Wörlitzer Winkel, formerly in the Anhalt-Zerbst district, were assigned to Wittenberg district on 1 July 2007.


title: STS-122

paragraphs: STS-122 is the name of the 121st flight of the Space Shuttle, taking seven people into outer space to visit the International Space Station. The flight delivered a module to the space station, called "Columbus". The Space Shuttle "Atlantis" carried the module. The flight started at 19:45 UTC, on 7 February 2008, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The flight ended on 20 February, at 14:07 UTC, when the Shuttle went back to the Kennedy Space Center.

paragraphs: Seven people were aboard the Space Shuttle. They are; Stephen Frick, who was the Commander, the man in charge of the Space Shuttle, Alan G. Poindexter, who was the Pilot, the man who flied the Shuttle, Leland D. Melvin, Rex J. Walheim, Hans Schlegel and Stanley G. Love, who were there to fit the "Columbus" onto the space station. Léopold Eyharts was also on board. He lived on the Space Station for a month. Daniel M. Tani, who was on the space station came home aboard the Soyuz spacecraft.

paragraphs: The flight was originally scheduled to launch, on 6 December 2007. A problem with a part of the fuel tank used to work out how much fuel was left went wrong, which meant the start of the flight had to be delayed. After the same part went wrong in an attempt to start the flight on 9 December, the start of the flight was moved to January 2008, and later to February. The flight started on 7 February 2008. Some people at NASA were worried that bad weather might stop the launch, but the bad weather cleared up in time for a good launch.

paragraphs: At 13:00 UTC, a 2-minute-43-second de-orbit (opposite of making an orbit) burn was conducted. Then it entered in the atmosphere at 13:35 UTC. "Atlantis" touched down on Runway 15 of the Kennedy Space Center at 9:07:10 EST (14:07:10 UTC). The wheels of the orbiter stopped at 09:08:08 EST (14:08:08 UTC).

paragraphs: The people aboard STS-122 had several jobs to do. The main job was to add the new room, or module, "Columbus", to the space station. To do this, a robot arm, called a Remote Manipulator System, or RMS, will be used to lift "Columbus" out of the Space Shuttle, and move it over to a gap in the side of the space station. Two of the crew will then go outside, and fit parts to the module. "Columbus" will be used for scientific research.


title: Silverwing (novel)

paragraphs: Silverwing is a best-selling novel, written by Kenneth Oppel and published in Simon & Schuster. It follows the journey for a group of silver-haired bats. The tone and artistic honor for bestsellers were compared to "Watership Down". The four novels became part of the series. The first book was adapted into an animated television miniseries on Teletoon and Jetix. It was also released on DVD.

paragraphs: The series has four novels for the series, including the original one, "Sunwing", "Firewing" and "Darkwing".

paragraphs: Long ago, the rest of the animals banished the bats for not taking sides in the great war. Years later, the bats often roam outside at night to avoid the sun (the backstory inspired by Aesop's fable). When Shade breaks the law for the colony, the owls destroy their home, forcing the bats to migrate. Shade befriends Marina and learns an echo projection from Zephyr. Shade and Marina meet Goth and Throbb, two cannibal bats (Vampyrum spectrum) who were captured from South America and escaped from the laboratory. After Shade and Marina reunite with the colony, the bats resolve conflicts with the animals. After finding Cassiel, the owls allow the bats to roam outside anytime. Shade's son, Griffin, travels to the underworld, along with his friend Luna. After Shade sacrifices himself to foil the plan of Cama Zotz (a bat god opposing Nocturna), Griffin and Luna return home.

paragraphs: Shade Silverwing: A silver-haired bat who uses echo projection.

paragraphs: Marina Brightwing: A red bat living in the island.

paragraphs: Frieda: A wise bat making decisions and having a silver band. She later dies in "Sunwing".

paragraphs: Ariel: Shade's mother and Cassiel's mate.

paragraphs: Goth: One of the cannibal bats living in the jungle and the servant of Cama Zotz and Nocturna, the goddesses of bats.

paragraphs: Throbb: Goth's brother-in-law who is killed by a thunderstorm in the novel.


title: Drive-through

paragraphs: A drive-thru (or drive-through) is for quick service, generally at restaurants. There are also drive-thrus at other places, such as banks or coffee shops.


title: Space Shuttle Columbia

paragraphs: The Space Shuttle "Columbia" (OV-102)was a spacecraft used by NASA to fly into outer space. It was the first Space Shuttle to fly into space, on April 12, 1981. It broke apart while re-entering the Earth's atmosphere on February 1, 2003, killing all seven people who were on it at the time. The shuttle flew a total of 28 missions. The Columbia was named after a US Navy ship that circumnavigated the world in 1836. It was also the name of the Apollo 11 Lunar Excursion Module.

paragraphs: A piece of insulating foam from the external fuel tank peeled off during the launch 16 days earlier and struck the shuttle's left wing.

paragraphs: A hole was punctured in the leading edge of the wing. During the intense heat of re-entry, hot gases entered the interior of the wing, destroying the support structures and causing the rest of the shuttle to break apart.


title: MADtv

paragraphs: MADtv was a television show that aired on FOX from October 14, 1995 to May 16, 2009. It is a comedic show where they perform sketches, improv and songs. It is rated TV-14 because of profane language and sexual substances. It was on air for fourteen seasons. It showed at 23:00/22:00 central.

paragraphs: It has been nominated for Emmy Awards, Image Awards and Young Artist Awards.

paragraphs: On November 12, 2008, it was announced that their 14th season is the last season. In July 26, 2016, MADtv come back until September 27, 2016.


title: Atlas V

paragraphs: Atlas V is an orbital launch vehicle used by the United Launch Alliance (made of two companies, Boeing and Lockheed Martin) to place satellites into orbit. It is a rocket tall, and wide. It has flown 79 times, since its first flight on August 21, 2002. It was developed from the Atlas (missile). Unlike the Space Shuttle, Atlas V is only used once, with a new rocket being built for each flight.

paragraphs: The rocket is made of the first stage, a Common Core Booster with an RD-180 engine from Russia. Every Atlas V has this as the first stage. The second stage is called Centaur, and has one/two RL-10 engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne. On top is a wide fairing covering the spacecraft during launch.

paragraphs: As of the end of 2018, the Atlas V has made 79 flights. The most famous ones carried the New Horizons, Mars Science Laboratory (which had the Curiosity rover in it), Juno, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter/LCROSS, and the Boeing X-37B.

paragraphs: The Atlas V has a special way of naming the different kinds. The first number says how wide the fairing is. A 400 series Atlas V has a 4-meter wide fairing. A 500 series Atlas V has a 5-meter wide fairing. The second number says how many strap-on solid rocket boosters the rocket has. An Atlas V 501 has no strap-on boosters, but an Atlas V 421 has 2 strap-on boosters. The last number says how many engines the Centaur second stage has. All of the Atlas V rockets flown have had only 1 engine on the Centaur, but in the future other Atlas V rockets will have 2 engines on the Centaur second stage. There is also the HLV which has two of the first stage (Common Core Booster) strapped on like strap-on boosters, but it has never flown.


title: Barnim

paragraphs: Barnim is a district in Brandenburg, Germany.

paragraphs: The district was made in 1993 by joining the old districts of Bernau and Eberswalde.

paragraphs: The district is in the same place as the area of forest where noblemen started hunting in the 13 ury, but is smaller than the old region.


title: Dahme-Spreewald

paragraphs: Dahme-Spreewald is a district in Brandenburg, Germany.

paragraphs: The Spreewald region has always been a centre of Sorbian culture.

paragraphs: When the state of Brandenburg was newly founded in 1990, the districts of Lübben, Luckau and Königs Wusterhausen were formed. In 1993 the three districts were merged.


title: Elbe-Elster

paragraphs: Elbe-Elster is a "Kreis" (district) in the southern part of Brandenburg, Germany.

paragraphs: The district was established in 1993 by merging the former districts ("Kreise") of Finsterwalde, Bad Liebenwerda and Herzberg.

paragraphs: The district is named after two rivers: The Elbe river forms the western border with Saxony. The Schwarze Elster ("Black Elster") is a tributary of the Elbe and runs through the district. The district is part of the Lusatia region. The fens along the Black Elster are a habitat of several rare animals, like kingfishers, beavers and otters.


title: Jennifer Hudson

paragraphs: Jennifer Kate Hudson (born September 12, 1981 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American Academy and Grammy Award-winning singer and actress. She gained fame on "American Idol". She is the most successful "American Idol" contestant who did not win.

paragraphs: She went on to star as Effie White in the 2006 motion picture musical "Dreamgirls". Her awards include an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and a SAG Award. She is native to Chicago, Illinois. Hudson is married to WWE professional wrestler, David Otunga.

paragraphs: In 2020, she will star as Aretha Franklin in "Respect".


title: Heinrich Sutermeister

paragraphs: Heinrich Sutermeister (born Feuerthalen, 12 August, 1910 – died Vaux-sur-Morges, 16 March, 1995) was a Swiss composer.

paragraphs: When he was young he was a student at the main music school in Munich, Germany, where the famous German composer Carl Orff was his teacher. Orff strongly influenced his music. Later he returned to Switzerland, where he lived as a composer.

paragraphs: His most important works are "Romeo und Julia" and "Die Schwarze Witwe (The Black Widow)". "Romeo und Julia" has been played the first time in Dresden in 1940, under the famous conductor Karl Böhm. During the following years Sutermeister made operas for the radio and television.


title: Joseph Fourier

paragraphs: Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (21 March 1768 – 30 May 1830) was a French mathematician and physicist. He is best known for starting the investigation of Fourier series. He used them for work on problems of heat flow. Fourier also helped the discovery of the greenhouse effect, by suggesting the atmosphere might act as an insulator.

paragraphs: Fourier was born at Auxerre as the son of a tailor. He lost both his parents at the age of 9. He then went on to study at the Convent of St Mark.

paragraphs: He joined the military academy in Auxerre. Aged sixteen, he became a teacher. At age 26, he entered the École normale supérieure in Paris. People like Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Gaspard Monge, and Pierre-Simon de Laplace were among his teachers.

paragraphs: He took part in the French Revolution of 1789. During the Reign of Terror he was almost executed at the guillotine, but the death of Robespierre saved him this fate. He later took part in the French campaign in Egypt and Syria.

paragraphs: Later, as a diplomat, he is put in charge of the scientific background of the Institut d'Égypte. On his return, Napoleon put him in charge of the Isère department.

paragraphs: In 1810, Fourier created the university in Grenoble, and becomes its first head. In 1817, Fourier became a Member of the Académie des Sciences. On the death of Jean-Baptiste Joseph Delambre in 1822 he became head of the mathematics section. In 1826, Fourier was elected to the Académie française.


title: File server

paragraphs: A file server is a computer joined to a web network or to a home network, and that can store many files in the server's hard disk(s).

paragraphs: The file server can be a normal computer, or a Network Attached Storage, which is a special computer created to only be a file server. Often people recycle their old computer and they modify it to become a file server which can hold photos, songs, films, and backups. Sometimes web servers that are "hand made" are used as a media center, people put things on the file server (for example movies) and then watch (or use) the things on the file server, often on a Television (like how a DVD player works).


title: Adliswil

paragraphs: Adliswil is a municipality of the district Horgen in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland.


title: Aesch, Zürich

paragraphs: Aesch is a municipality of the district Dietikon in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland.


title: Aeugst am Albis

paragraphs: Aeugst am Albis is a municipality of the district Affoltern in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland.


title: Affoltern am Albis

paragraphs: Affoltern am Albis is a municipality of the district Affoltern in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland.


title: Gino Severini

paragraphs: Gino Severini (7 April 1883 – 26 February 1966), was an Italian painter. He was a founding member of the Futurist movement.

paragraphs: As a young man, he was introduced to Impressionism. This is a type of painting that was popular in the late 1800s. In the early 1900s, he became interested in Cubism. In the 1920s, he started to paint more traditionally and painted a few murals in Switzerland. In the 1940s, he started painting more abstractly again. He died in 1966 in Paris.


title: Impressionism

paragraphs: Impressionism is a style of painting which began in France in the late 19th century. Impressionist painting shows life-like subjects painted in a broad, rapid style, with brushstrokes that are easily seen and colours that are often bright. The term 'impressionism' comes from a painting by Claude Monet, which he showed in an exhibition with the name "Impression, soleil levant" ("Impression, Sunrise"). An art critic called Louis Leroy saw the exhibition and wrote a review in which he said that all the paintings were just "impressions".

paragraphs: Impressionist painters are mostly known for their work in oil paint on canvas. Some impressionist painters also made watercolours and prints. There is also some impressionist sculpture.

paragraphs: In the 19th century, most artists learned to paint by attending an art school or academy. The academies were very strict about the way that young artists learnt to paint. The popular style of painting was called classicism. Classical paintings were always done inside a studio. They often showed stories from mythology. An artist would prepare for a painting by doing lots of drawings. The paintings were very smoothly and carefully painted.

paragraphs: At the same time there were several painters who loved to paint the French landscape and the village people in a realist way, different from Classicism. They would often make small quick paintings out of doors, and then finish them in the studio. These artists include Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste Corot. Edgar Degas wrote in 1883: "There is one master, Corot. We are nothing in comparison, nothing". A group of young painters who admired the work of these artists became friends and started painting together. These artists were Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Frédéric Bazille, Camille Pissarro, Paul Cézanne, and Armand Guillaumin.

paragraphs: Every year the academy in Paris would hold a big exhibition (art show) called the "Salon de Paris". In 1863 an artist called Edouard Manet put a picture into the show called "Lunch on the Grass" ("Le déjeuner sur l'herbe"). The judges at the Salon refused to hang this work in the gallery because it showed a naked woman sitting on the grass with two men wearing clothes. If the painting had been about Ancient Greek mythology, this would not be a problem but these men were wearing ordinary suits, and the woman's dress and hat were lying on the grass. Perhaps she was a prostitute! The judges said that the painting was indecent (very rude). Monet and his friends also had their paintings turned away. They were angry and they met with Manet to discuss this. The Emperor Napoleon III gave permission for another exhibition called the "Salon des Refusés" which showed all the pictures that had been "refused". Many people went to see this exhibition and soon discovered that there was a new "movement" in art, quite different from the style that they were used to.

paragraphs: In 1872 Monet and his friends formed a society called the ""Cooperative and Anonymous Association of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers"". They began to organize their own art show. In 1874 thirty artists held their first exhibition. The critic Louis Leroy made fun of their work and wrote an article called "The Exhibition of the Impressionists". The public who came to the exhibition also began to use this name. The painters themselves soon started to use the name "Impressionists" and they have been called by that name ever since. They had eight exhibitions between 1874 and 1886. They paid a dealer called Paul Durand-Ruel to organise exhibitions, and he arranged shows in London and New York. Bit by bit, their paintings became popular. Some of the Impressionists, Monet and Renoir, lived to be old and famous, but others died very poor. The main artists who are called "Impressionists" include Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Armand Guillaumin, Mary Cassatt, Gustave Caillebotte and Frederic Bazille.

paragraphs: Many artists worked with the Impressionists for a short time, but then began to try out new ideas. These artists all painted in different ways, but together are called the Post-Impressionists. They include Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vincent van Gogh.

paragraphs: While the French Impressionist painters were at work in France, painters in other countries were also beginning to paint outdoors in a broader style. Eventually the Impressionist style spread to many countries across Europe, to North America and Australia. Some artists continued to paint in the Impressionist style right through the 20th century.

paragraphs: Before the time of the Impressionists, many artists worked by painting portraits. Before the invention of the camera, painted portraits were the main way to record a person's "appearance" (what they looked like). But by the time the Impressionists started painting, there were many photographers who had studios where people could go to be photographed. As cameras improved, photographers started taking "snapshots" of scenery and people outdoors.

paragraphs: Photography had two effects on painters. Firstly, it meant that it was much harder for them to live by painting portraits. Many artists became very poor. Secondly, the image taken by a camera often has interesting angles and viewpoints that are not usually painted by artists. Impressionist painters were able to learn from photographs. Many Impressionist paintings make the viewer feel as if they were right there, looking at the scene through the eyes of the artist.

paragraphs: Impressionist painters did not paint from their imagination, from literature, history or mythology like most other painters of the 19th century. They painted what they saw in the world around them: the town where they lived, the landscape where they went on holiday, their family, their friends, their studios and the things that were around their home. Sometimes they were "commissioned" (given a job) to paint a portrait of someone.

paragraphs: Impressionist painters liked to paint "ordinary" things that were part of everyday life. They painted women doing the washing and ironing, ballet dancers doing exercises, horses getting ready for a race and a bored-looking waitress serving a customer. Nobody, before the Impressionists, had ever thought that these subjects were interesting enough to paint.

paragraphs: Even though many Impressionist artists painted people, they are thought of mainly for their landscape painting. Impressionist painters were not satisfied with doing some drawings or quick painted sketches outdoors and then making grand pictures in the studio. Impressionist painters were not satisfied with painting the shape of the land, the buildings and trees. They wanted to capture the light and the weather.

paragraphs: The Impressionist painters looked for a "technique" (a way of doing something) to paint landscapes that showed the light and the weather. The light and the weather change all the time. The light of the sun on the landscape changes every minute as the Earth turns. Impressionist painters looked at the works of earlier French artists such as Camille Corot and Gustave Courbet. Courbet often took his paints outdoors and made quick coloured sketches that he could then use to make large paintings in his studio. The Impressionist painters were more interested in the sketches than the finished paintings.

paragraphs: Another artist, Eugene Boudin, used to sit on the beach at Deauville with his oil paints, and make quick paintings of the people on holiday. They would sometimes buy his paintings as souvenirs.

paragraphs: Claude Monet met Boudin and learnt that the only way to "capture" the way that a landscape looked at a particular time was to paint small pictures, very quickly, and without bothering to mix the paints up to make nice smooth even colours. Impressionist painters would use big brushstrokes of different bright colours and let them get mixed up on the canvas, instead of carefully mixing them up on a palette first. By painting in this way, without bothering with the details, Impressionist painters capture a realistic "impression" of a the world that they saw around them.

paragraphs: Some of the things that they painted were: snow gently falling over a town, mist rising on a river in the pink morning light, people walking through a field of wheat with bright red poppies growing in it, sunlight dappling through leaves onto people dancing, a train sending up clouds of smoke in a big railway station, and water lillies floating on a pool under drooping willows.

paragraphs: Most Impressionist landscape paintings are small, so that the artist could carry them outdoors. Some artists, particularly Claude Monet, would take several canvases, and as the day went on and the light changed, he would put down one and take up another. He rented a room from which he could see Rouen Cathedral so that he could paint it from the window at different times of day. Monet also did a series of "Haystack" paintings, showing them standing in the field from different angles and in all sorts of weather, bright sunshine, morning frost and snow. Paintings that are done outdoors are called "plein air" paintings. The Impressionist painters often used to go out together on painting trips, so there are many pictures that can be compared.

paragraphs: The term "impressionism" has been used for other forms of art, such as writing and music. Octave Mirbeau is often described as an impressionist writer. In 1887, music critics said the works of Claude Debussy were impressionist. Later, other composers were also described as impressionist, including Maurice Ravel, Paul Dukas, Erik Satie and Albert Roussel.

paragraphs: Click on each image to enlarge it, to see the way each artist has used brush-strokes and colour.


title: New York Jets

paragraphs: The New York Jets are an American football team. They are a part of the National Football League (NFL). Even though they are called the New York Jets they play in New Jersey. They hail from the same stadium as the New York Giants. They have many fans in New York and New Jersey. The New York Jets started playing in 1960. They have only won one championship.

paragraphs: The Jets were originally called the New York Titans. They played their games in the Polo Grounds. When they moved to Shea Stadium in 1964, they were called the Jets. That was a more modern-sounding name, and it also rhymed with "New York Mets", the other team that played its games at Shea. The New York Jets have won only one super bowl in 1969 , this victory was guaranteed by their QB, Joe Namath, in the media in the weeks leading up to the game.


title: Ouida

paragraphs: Ouida was the pen name of the English writer Maria Louise Ramé (although she preferred to be known as Marie Louise de la Ramée). Ramé was born in Bury St. Edmunds, England, to a French father and an English mother. Her pen name came from the way she pronounced her name when she was a child.


title: Théodore Géricault

paragraphs: Théodore Géricault (September 26, 1791 – January 26, 1824) was an important French painter, known for "The Raft of the Medusa" and other paintings. He was one of the people who started the Romantic movement.

paragraphs: Born in Rouen, France, Géricault was schooled in English sporting art by Carle Vernet and in classical figure composition by Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, who saw that he had talent.

paragraphs: His first big work, "The Charging Chasseur", shown at the Paris Salon in 1812, showed the influence of the style of Rubens and an interest in contemporary topics.


title: Giada De Laurentiis

paragraphs: Giada Pamela De Laurentiis is an Italian-American chef and host for Food Network TV shows. She was born on August 22, 1970. She is the granddaughter of movie director Dino De Laurentiis. She was born in Rome and grew up in Los Angeles.

paragraphs: De Laurentiis studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, France.

paragraphs: On May 25, 2003, she married Todd Thompson. The two had been dating since July 1989. The couple's only child is Jade Marie De Laurentiis-Thompson. She was born on March 29, 2008. On December 29, 2014, De Laurentiis announced on her website that she and Todd separated in July, and have decided to end their marriage.

paragraphs: In 2008, she won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lifestyle Host.

paragraphs: She is also the voice of "Paulette", a character on the animated children's show "Handy Manny".


title: Space Shuttle Challenger

paragraphs: Space Shuttle "Challenger" (OV-099) was the second space shuttle used by NASA to fly into outer space. The shuttle broke up 73 seconds after take-off from Cape Canaveral on 28 January 1986.

paragraphs: All seven astronauts who were on it at the time were killed. The crash happened because a rubber tube called an o-ring did not expand to fill a gap in one of the booster rockets, due to cold weather.

paragraphs: The Challenger was named after a Royal Navy ship that explored the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans from 1872 to 1876. Challenger was also the name of the Apollo 17 Lunar Excursion Module.


title: New Horizons

paragraphs: New Horizons is a space probe launched by NASA on 19 January 2006, to the dwarf planet Pluto and on an escape trajectory from the Sun. It is the first man-made spacecraft to go to Pluto. Its flight took nine years. It arrived at the Pluto-Charon system on July 14, 2015. It flew near Pluto and took photographs and measurements while it passed. At about 1 kilobit per second it took 15 months to transmit them back to Earth.

paragraphs: Instruments include a Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), a Ralph telescope of 75 mm aperture, an Alice ultraviolet imaging spectrometer, a Particle Spectrometer Suite to study solar wind and particles, a student dust counter (VBSDC), and a Radio Science Experiment (REX)

paragraphs: The primary mission of New Horizons is to study Pluto and its system of moons. The secondary mission is to study any objects in the Kuiper Belt, if something became available for a flyby.

paragraphs: The space probe set the record for the fastest man-made object ever launched, with the Earth-relative speed of about 16.26 km/s, although, arguably, the Helios probes got a faster Sun-relative speed. It used a gravity assist from Jupiter to get its high speeds without having to burn as much monopropellant (weak rocket fuel) as needed to fly directly to Pluto.

paragraphs: On January 1, 2019 the probe few by (486958) 2014 MU a small Kuiper Belt object nicknamed "Ultima Thule". Propellant is now scarce, but a target for a third flyby might be found. It will continue to report about its environment.


title: Simlish

paragraphs: Simlish is a made-up language spoken on the "Sims" console games. It was created because changing the Sims' words into the players' language would cost a lot of money and would make the Sims say the same words all the time. Simlish is spoken by Sims, the characters in "The Sims", "The Sims 2", "The Sims 3" and "The Sims 4".

paragraphs: All of these phrases are from "The Sims".

paragraphs: Written Simlish is seen on "The Sims 2", "The Sims 3", and ‘‘The Sims 4’’. It looks similar to Zodiac symbols taken from the Wingdings font on a computer. Text such as the names of Sims, hints and tips and on-screen messages are all in the selected language (i.e. English, French, Spanish), and are usually written in the Comic Sans MS font.


title: Antonio Tejero

paragraphs: Antonio Tejero Molina (born Alhaurín el Grande, Malaga, Spain, 1932) was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Civil Guard ().

paragraphs: On 23 February 1981, he stormed into the parliament building with fellow military and Civil Guard officers, and held the Spanish government hostage During that time, Spain was going from dictatorship to democracy. Tejero did not want democracy and wanted Spain to stay in the dictatorship.

paragraphs: His coup failed thanks to King Juan Carlos I. Tejero thought the King would support him because the King had been trained by Spain's old dictator, Francisco Franco. Instead King Juan Carlos I went on television dressed in his uniform as commander-in-chief of the Spanish Army and said the coup was wrong. The coup soon stopped, and Spanish television had pictures of the coup leaders trying to escape by climbing out of the windows of the parliament building


title: Conanthera

paragraphs: Conanthera is a genus of 3-4 species of small Chilean bulbous plants with small panicles of blue, purple or white and purple flowers. The plant reproduces by offsets or seed.


title: Fátima, Portugal

paragraphs: Fátima () is a city in Portugal. It is famous for the religious visions that took place there in 1917. The town itself has a population of 10,302 (2001). It is in the municipality of Ourém, in the Centro Region and sub region of Medio Tejo. It is in the district of Santarém and included in the urban agglomeration of Leiria, in central Portugal, south of Porto and north of Lisbon.


title: Bodyguard

paragraphs: A Bodyguard is a security guard who physically protects a person against injury. Very often, important people, like heads of state, religious leaders (i.e. the Pope), actors, and powerful or rich people have bodyguards.


title: Mehmet Ali Ağca

paragraphs: Mehmet Ali Ağca (born January 9, 1958) is a Turkish criminal. He is known for shooting and wounding Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981. For this assassination attempt, he served 19 years of his life sentence in prison in Italy for attempted murder. In 2000, he was extradicted to Turkey, where he was convicted of two robberies he committed in 1979. He was sentenced to seven years four months for the robberies, and continued serving his sentence for the murder of Abdi İpekçi (1929-1979), a left-wing journalist whom he shot. Ağca has described himself as a mercenary with no political orientation. He has made many different claims about the shooting of the Pope. He used to be a member of the Turkish ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves organization. He was released on January 18, 2010 and diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.


title: Bayonet

paragraphs: A bayonet (from French "baïonnette") is a knife- or dagger-shaped weapon. It is designed to be attached to a rifle barrel or similar weapon. This will turn the gun into a spear. It is a close-combat or last-resort weapon.

paragraphs: 18th and 19th century military tactics included the use of a bayonet fixed on the infantryman's musket. These were used with massed troop formations. One of the more notable of these was the "bayonet charge". This was an attack by a formation of infantrymen with fixed bayonets, usually over short distances. It was to overrun enemy strong points, capture artillery batteries, or break up enemy troop formations.

paragraphs: With the use of the bayonet, the pike was no longer used because infantry could now defend themselves from cavalry without sacrificing firepower per man. The Russian Army used the bayonet frequently during the Napoleonic wars. A Russian saying coined by Russian General Alexander Suvorov was "The bullet is foolish, the bayonet wise". Given Russia's often poorly trained armies and inaccurate smoothbore muskets, Russian officers preferred to use the bayonet charge instead of musket volley fire where possible.


title: Marcel Lefebvre

paragraphs: Marcel-François Lefebvre (November 29 1905 – March 25 1991), better known as Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, was a French Roman Catholic bishop. For a long time, he worked as a missionary in Africa with the Holy Ghost Fathers. After returning, he started to be against the changes within the Church. These changes were introduced after the Second Vatican Council.

paragraphs: In 1970, Lefebvre founded the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), which is still the world's largest Traditionalist Catholic priestly society. In 1988, Lefebvre made four new bishops to continue his work with the SSPX. He took this step against the orders of Pope John Paul II. Because of this, the Holy See announced the following day that he had been excommunicated from the Catholic Church. Those who supported Lefebvre think, this declaration was not valid.


title: Second Vatican Council

paragraphs: The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, or Vatican II, was the twenty-first Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church. An Ecumenical Council is a meeting of the bishops of the Church to discuss matters of Church doctrine and practice. Pope John XXIII started Vatican II in 1962 and it lasted until 1965, when Pope Paul VI ended it. Four future popes took part in the council's opening session: Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, who on succeeding Pope John XXIII took the name of Paul VI; Bishop Albino Luciani, the future Pope John Paul I; Bishop Karol Wojtyła, who became Pope John Paul II. Father Joseph Ratzinger, who was only 35 at the time, was there as a theological consultant. More than forty years later, he became Pope Benedict XVI.

paragraphs: Different things were discussed. These aimed at modernizing the church and opening a dialogue with other religions. Many people see these meetings as the most important event in the Catholic Church in the 20th century. They let Mass be said in different languages, instead of just Latin.


title: Veronica Guerin

paragraphs: Veronica Guerin (5 July 1958 - 26 June 1996) was an Irish journalist who was born in Dublin. She was murdered by Irish drug dealers. Her death made many Irish people angry, which brought down many drug dealers on the island. The criminal John Gilligan was later convicted of her murder and sentenced to 28 years in prison, though Gilligan said in High Court that it was his friend John Traynor who murdered Guerin.


title: Umayyad Mosque

paragraphs: The Grand Mosque of Damascus, also known as the Umayyad Mosque (Arabic: جامع بني أمية الكبير, transl. "Ğām' Banī 'Umayyah al-Kabīr"), is one of the largest and oldest mosques in the world.It is in one of the holiest sites in the old city of Damascus. It is also very important because of its architecture.

paragraphs: The mosque holds a shrine which is said to contain the head of John the Baptist (Yahya), honored as a prophet by Muslims and Christians alike. The head was supposedly found during the excavations for the building of the mosque. The tomb of Saladin stands in a small garden adjoining the north wall of the mosque.

paragraphs: In 2001, Pope John Paul II visited the mosque, primarily to visit the relics of John the Baptist. It was the first time a pope paid a visit to a mosque.


title: Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria

paragraphs: The Orthodox Church of Alexandria () is one of the Eastern Orthodox Churches.

paragraphs: It is sometimes called the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria to distinguish it from the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria. In Egypt, members of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate were also known as Melkite, because they remained in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople after the schism that followed the Council of Chalcedon in 451.


title: Lourdes

paragraphs: Lourdes () is a town and commune in the southwest of the Hautes-Pyrénées department. It is in the first Pyrenean foothills in the Occitanie region, in southwestern France.

paragraphs: Lourdes was originally a small unremarkable market town lying in the foothills of the Pyrenees. At that time the most prominent feature was the fortified castle which rises up from the centre of the town on a rock. Following the claims that there were apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858, Lourdes has developed into a major place of Christian pilgrimage.

paragraphs: Today Lourdes has a population of around 15,000 inhabitants but is able to take in some 5,000,000 pilgrims and tourists every season. Lourdes has the second greatest number of hotels in France after Paris with about 270 establishments.

paragraphs: It is the joint seat of the diocese of Tarbes-et-Lourdes.

paragraphs: Lourdes is overlooked from the south by the Pyrenean peaks of Aneto, Montaigu, and Vignemale (3,298m), while around the town there are three summits reaching up to 1,000 m, which are known as the Béout, the Petit Jer and the Grand Jer.

paragraphs: It has an area of and its average altitude is ; at the city hall, the altitude is .

paragraphs: The inhabitants of Lourdes are known, in French, as "Lourdais" (women: "Lourdaises").

paragraphs: Lourdes has a population, in 2014, of 14,361, and its population density is of inhabitants/km.


title: Palindromic prime

paragraphs: A palindromical prime number is a prime number that reads the same when reversed.

paragraphs: Out of the above list, 2 is the only number that is not an odd number. Almost all palindromic numbers are composite, for any base.

paragraphs: 11 is the only palindromic prime with an even number of digits because all palindromic numbers with an even number of digits can be divided by 11, which means they are not primes.


title: Shrine

paragraphs: A shrine is a holy or sacred place with something important inside it, such as the tomb of a religious person. Shrines are built in the surroundings of the grave of pious men. These are built to show respect and love for the one who died. People visit the shrines to pray for themselves and also for the dead. Shrines are common in Muslim countries. However other countries also have shrines; in Japan, Shinto 'Jinja' are called shrines in English.

paragraphs: Originally, the word "shrine" referred to a container, usually made of gold or silver and was used to store relics.

paragraphs: The most famous type of shrines are the Buddhist shrines


title: Embargo

paragraphs: An embargo is when a government refuses to trade with a country or a certain part of a country. This is usually because of a political problem inside the country. It differs from a blockade in not requiring a state of war or obliging other countries to stop trading.

paragraphs: As with other economic sanctions, an embargo stops trade between countries. This means that the countries in question will get poorer. The hope is that the problem within the country will stop.


paragraphs: The Supreme Governor of the Church of England is a title which British Monarchs have to show their leadership over the Church of England. The title was first granted to Queen Elizabeth I after she passed the Act of Supremacy, which required all officials in the Church of England to state an oath of allegiance to her.


title: Havelland

paragraphs: Havelland is a district in Brandenburg, Germany.

paragraphs: The district was established in 1993 by joining the old districts of Nauen and Rathenow.

paragraphs: Havelland is the name for the regions on the banks of the Havel river between the city of Berlin and the Elbe river. This region also includes the cities of Brandenburg and Potsdam, that are not part of the district. The Havelland district mainly consists of the areas north of the Havel river.


title: Knock, County Mayo

paragraphs: Knock ("An Cnoc" in Irish, meaning "The Hill" – but now more generally known in Irish as "Cnoc Mhuire", "Hill of (the Virgin) Mary") is a small town in east County Mayo in Ireland. Knock's notability comes from the Knock Shrine Apparition of 1879. At 8:00PM on 21 August 1879, it was reported that the Virgin Mary, together with St Joseph and St John the Evangelist, appeared to local people.

paragraphs: In the 20th century it became one of Europe's major Roman Catholic Marian shrines, alongside Lourdes and Fatima. One and a half million pilgrims visit Knock Shrine annually. It was visited by Pope John Paul II, a supporter of devotion to the Virgin Mary, in 1979 to commemorate the centenary of the apparition.


title: Licheń Stary

paragraphs: Licheń Stary is a village. 1200 people live there. It is on the Lichen Lake in the Greater Poland Voivodeship, 15 km north of Konin, Poland. It is often referred to as simply Licheń. Legends trace the name to the ancient Slavic pagan deity Licho, whose sanctuary was allegedly located nearby.

paragraphs: It is the home of the famed Sanctuary of Our Lady of Licheń hosting Our Lady of Sorrows, Queen of Poland.


title: Märkisch-Oderland

paragraphs: Märkisch-Oderland is a "Kreis" (district) in the eastern part of Brandenburg, Germany.

paragraphs: Much of the district is mainly agricultural land, but there is a swampy area along the Oder called the "Oderbruch". The Oderbruch is about in length and in width. It was partially drained in the 18th century, and people started to live in the new area.

paragraphs: The districts of Lebus and Oberbarnim were both created in 1816. In 1952 the districts were split into three parts, the districts Bad Freienwalde, Seelow and Strausberg. In 1993 the three parts were joined together to form the current district.


title: Oberhavel

paragraphs: Oberhavel is a "Kreis" (district) in the northern part of Brandenburg, Germany.

paragraphs: The district was formed on 6 December 1993 by joining the old districts of Gransee and Oranienburg.


title: Oberspreewald-Lausitz

paragraphs: Oberspreewald-Lausitz is a "Kreis" (district) in the southern part of Brandenburg, Germany.

paragraphs: The Spree river runs through the district; along its banks there is the Spreewald, a wooded area and home of several rare animals. The district is part of the historic region of Lusatia.

paragraphs: The district was made in 1993 by joining the old districts Calau and Senftenberg and small part of the district Bad Liebenwerda.


title: Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria

paragraphs: The Eastern Orthodox Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and all Africa is the head of the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria. This has been Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria since 2004.


title: Oder-Spree

paragraphs: Oder-Spree is a "Kreis" (district) in the eastern part of Brandenburg, Germany.

paragraphs: The district is named after the two major rivers in the district - the Spree, and the Oder river which is the eastern border.

paragraphs: The district was created in 1993 by joining the districts of Eisenhüttenstadt, Beeskow and Fürstenwalde, and the independent city Eisenhüttenstadt.


title: Cockburn Island, Ontario

paragraphs: Cockburn Island is an island in the Canadian province of Ontario, found in the Manitoulin District. It has the least number of people living in it while still being a municipality of Canada. It had a population of 2 people in 2006. There is an Indian reservation, or place where Indians live, on Cockburn Island.


title: Ostprignitz-Ruppin

paragraphs: Ostprignitz-Ruppin is a "Kreis" (district) in the northwestern part of Brandenburg, Germany.

paragraphs: The modern district was made in 1993 by joining the old districts Kyritz, Neuruppin and Wittstock. The district roughly covers the same territory as the two historic districts Ostprignitz and Ruppin.


title: Thomas Morley

paragraphs: Thomas Morley (born at Norwich?, 1557 or 1558; died at London, October 1602) was an English composer, music theorist and organist. He was the most important English composer of madrigals. He studied the madrigals by Italian composers and created the tradition of the English madrigal, a tradition that became extremely popular, but which only lasted about 30 years.

paragraphs: Morley’s father was a brewer who lived in Norwich, so it is likely that Morley was born there. He may have been a choirboy in Norwich Cathedral. We know that in 1583 he got the job of organist there. In a book he published later in his life he said that William Byrd was his master. If this means that he had lessons from Byrd he must have travelled away from Norwich. In 1588 he got a degree from Oxford, and soon afterwards he became an organist at St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

paragraphs: In 1588 Nicholas Yonge published a book called "Musica transalpina". It was a collection of Italian madrigals with words translated into English. Soon after this Morley started to publish his own madrigals. In 1592 he became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal.

paragraphs: In London Morley lived near Shakespeare. We do not know whether the two men worked together, but Morley did set Shakespeare’s words "It was a lover and his lass" from "As You Like It". We do not know whether it was ever used in a performance of Shakespeare's play. It is quite possible, because Morley was well-known.

paragraphs: From 1593 onwards Morley published a great deal of music and also made a lot of money out of music publishing, both of his own and other composers’ music.

paragraphs: It is thought that Morley died in October 1602.

paragraphs: Morley wrote sacred music as well as madrigals. His church music is strongly influenced by William Byrd.

paragraphs: His madrigals are his most important works. They are often very lively and have tunes that are easy to sing. One of his best known madrigals is called "Now is the Month of Maying". He started by using the Italian style and changed it to make it sound English. The madrigals of Thomas Weelkes and John Wilbye are usually more serious.

paragraphs: As well as madrigals, Morley wrote music for instruments, including keyboard music. Some of his pieces are in the famous collection called "Fitzwilliam Virginal Book"). He also wrote music for the typically English combination of two viols, flute, lute, cittern and bandora.

paragraphs: Morley wrote a book about music theory called "Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke". It was published in 1597 and was read by many people for two centuries after his death. It tells us a lot about how music was performed in Morley’s


title: Hans Sebald Beham

paragraphs: Hans Sebald Beham (1500–1550) was a German printmaker who did his best work as an engraver. He also designed woodcuts, painted and worked as a miniaturist. He is one of the most important of the "Little Masters", a group of German artists making old master prints in the generation after Albrecht Dürer.

paragraphs: Beham was born in Nuremberg in 1500 into a family of artists. In 1525, he and his brother were banished from Nuremberg because they were thought to have not accepted the Churches ideas (heresy) and blasphemy. They came back to the city in 3 months, but Beham was banished again in 1528 for publishing a book which was plagiarised from an unpublished manuscript by Albrecht Dürer.

paragraphs: From 1532 he lived mostly in Frankfurt until he died in 1550.

paragraphs: Most people know him as "Sebald Beham". However, he signed some of his prints before 1532 with "HSP". After he moved to Frankfurt, he signed his prints with "HSB".

paragraphs: Beham made about 252 engravings, 18 etchings and 1500 woodcuts. He worked on small, very detailed engravings (sometimes as small as a postage stamp). This makes him part of the German printmaking school called the "Little Masters", since their works were so small. He created and published his works himself, but his larger works were mostly commissioned work to be sold.

paragraphs: He also made prints to be used as cards, wallpaper, coats of arms, designs for other artists and designs for stained or painted glass. He also painted a table top (now in the Louvre ) for Cardinal Albrecht, Archbishop of Mainz.

paragraphs: Beham mostly engraved pictures of peasants and scenes from myths or history, sometimes with erotic scenes as well. Since he was working at the same time as Dürer, the most recognised artist at the time, one of his early woodcuts, "Head of Christ", was thought to have been done by Dürer. Beham also worked with his brother Barthel, and shared ideas with him. Later, he re-drew some of Dürer's works like gus Melancholia of 1539.

paragraphs: After publishing a book about drawing horses, for which he was exiled, he wrote a book on drawing the human figure. His book was mostly just a simplified book of Dürer's own books, but his book was easier to use and cheaper than Dürer's books, so artists preferred to buy his.


title: Potsdam-Mittelmark

paragraphs: Potsdam-Mittelmark is a "Kreis" (district) in the western part of Brandenburg, Germany.

paragraphs: The district was created in 1993 by joining the old districts Belzig, Brandenburg-Land and Potsdam-Land.


title: Skinny jeans

paragraphs: Skinny jeans are a style of denim jeans that have straight legs and tend to crumple around the ankles. They are called "skinny jeans" because they give you a thin figure. This style was started in the 1980s to make a retro-punk look. This style came to life again in late 2006 by Avril Lavigne in one of her music videos. They are usually used for a gothic-punk look or retroand hip-hop


title: John Wilbye

paragraphs: John Wilbye (pronounce: “WIL-bee”), (born Diss, Norfolk, baptised 7 March 1574; died Colchester, between September and November 1638), was an English composer who was famous for his madrigals.

paragraphs: Wilbye was the son of a tanner. He was supported financially by a rich family called Kytson. The Kytsons were very musical and had lots of musical instruments and sheet music in their house. It is thought that he went with Elizabeth Cornwallis to Hengrave Hall near Bury St. Edmunds in around 1594 when she married Sir Thomas Kytson the Younger. When Elizabeth died, Wilbye moved to Colchester where he lived with Elizabeth’s youngest daughter with whom he had a long friendship. When Wilbye died he was quite rich.

paragraphs: A book of madrigals by him appeared in 1598 and a second in 1608. It is often called the finest book of English madrigals. There were a total of 64 madrigals in these two books.

paragraphs: Wilbye was influenced by Morley’s madrigals, and also learned directly from the madrigals of Italian composers such as Alfonso Ferrabosco. He wrote many madrigals which have become extremely popular, including "Weep, weep o mine eyes" and "Draw on, sweet night". He was very good at making his music match the meaning of the words. He often used a mixture of major and minor modes.


title: Prignitz

paragraphs: Prignitz () is a "Kreis" (district) in the northwestern part of Brandenburg, Germany.

paragraphs: The present district was formed in 1993 by joining the old districts of Pritzwalk and Perleberg and some municipalities from the district of Kyritz. The westernmost part of the district was a part of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and changed to be part of Brandenburg on August 1, 1992.


title: Spree-Neiße

paragraphs: Spree-Neiße is a "Kreis" (district) in the southern part of Brandenburg, Germany.

paragraphs: The district-free city of Cottbus is completely surrounded by the district. To the east is Poland.

paragraphs: The district was started in 1993 by joining the old districts Cottbus-Land, Forst, Guben and Spremberg.


title: Kharijite

paragraphs: "Kharijites" were a movement during the early years of Islam. This movement has no followers today. At first they accepted the rule of Ali, but rejected him to later support the view that Abu Bakr, and his successors were the rightful Caliphs. The only group of Kharijites that still exists are the Ibadi. The Ibadi do not consider themselves to be Kharijite. Most Ibadis live in Oman. Smaller numbers live in Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Zanzibar.

paragraphs: Sometimes, the term "Kharijite" (or "Neo-Kharijite") is also used for some Islamic terrorist groups. Examples of such groups are the Groupe islamique armé in Algeria, or the Takfir wal-Hijra in Egypt.


title: Thomas Weelkes

paragraphs: Thomas Weelkes (baptised in Elsted, Sussex, 25 October 1576; died London, buried 1 December 1623) was an English composer and organist. He is one of the greatest composers of madrigals of his time as well as great composer of church music.

paragraphs: Thomas Weelkes was baptised in the little village church of Elsted in Sussex on 25 October, 1576. His father may have been the rector at that church. There is no information about Weelkes' childhood.

paragraphs: We know that in 1597 he published his first volume of madrigals, and that he was a young man then. After working for a short time at the house of Edward Darcye, he got the job of organist at Winchester College. He was paid 13s 4d (almost 67p in modern money) per quarter (i.e. every three months), but was given food and somewhere to live. He stayed there for two or three years.

paragraphs: During his time in Winchester Weelkes composed two more volumes of madrigals, published in 1598 and 1600. He got his B. Mus. Degree from New College, Oxford in 1602, and moved to Chichester to take up the job of organist and choir master at the Cathedral.. He was also a lay clerk at the Cathedral, and was paid £15 2s 4d (£15.11 in modern money) in addition to having food and lodgings. The next year he married Elizabeth Sandham, who came from a rich family. They had three children.

paragraphs: Weelkes' fourth and final volume of madrigals, published in 1608, has a title page where he says that he was a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. However, his name does not appear in the records at the Chapel Royal, so it is likely that he was only there for a short time until someone else was found for the job.

paragraphs: In later years Weelkes got into trouble with the Chichester Cathedral authorities because of his heavy drinking and bad behaviour. In 1609 he was in trouble because he was absent from work. In 1616 he was in trouble again for swearing. In the end he lost his job because he was drunk at the organ and used bad language during the service. However, he got his job back, but his behaviour was still bad.

paragraphs: Thomas Weelkes died in London in 1623, a year after his wife died. He was buried in St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street, London. In Chichester Cathedral there is a memorial stone to him.

paragraphs: Thomas Weelkes is best known for his vocal music, especially his madrigals and church music. Weelkes wrote more Anglican services than any other important composer of the time, mostly for evensong. Many of his anthems are verse anthems, which would have suited the small choir he was writing for at Chichester Cathedral.

paragraphs: Weelkes was friends with the madrigalist Thomas Morley. When Morley died in 1602, Weelkes wrote an anthem called "A Remembrance of my Friend Thomas Morley", (also known as "Death hath Deprived Me".) Weelkes’s madrigals are very chromatic and use counterpoint and unusual rhythms.


title: Teltow-Fläming

paragraphs: Teltow-Fläming is a "Kreis" (district) in the southwestern part of Brandenburg, Germany. The district was made in December 1993 by joining the old districts of Luckenwalde, Jüterbog and Zossen, but also including small parts from other former districts such as Luckau.

paragraphs: "Fläming-Skate" is a 160 km long route specially for inline skating, the only such route in Germany.

paragraphs: Curiously, the town of Teltow is not a part of the district Teltow-Fläming, just as the town of Dahme is not a part of the district of Dahme-Spreewald.


title: Uckermark

paragraphs: Uckermark is a "Kreis" (district) in the northeastern part of Brandenburg, Germany. The district has the biggest area of any district in Germany.

paragraphs: The current district Uckermark was made in 1993 by joining the old districts of Angermünde, Prenzlau and Templin and the city of Schwedt.


title: Black Knight

paragraphs: A black knight is a character fictional stories. They are soldiers or knights who do not have a lord, or the lord is secret. They do not have any heraldic standards or have painted them over with black paint. In these stories, black knights are usually evil knights that are good at fighting and usually work alone.

paragraphs: In Arthurian legend Black Knight was a magical knight summoned by Sir Calogrenant. The Black Knight never told his name. He defeated Sir Calogrenant. Later The Black Knight was killed unfairly by Yvain in a act of revenge for his cousin, Sir Calogrenant.


title: Paladin

paragraphs: A paladin or paladine was a person with a lot of power in many countries during the medieval and in early modern Europe.

paragraphs: The word paladin was first used in Ancient Rome for a chamberlain of the Emperor, and also for the imperial palace guard, called the Scholae Palatinae by Constantine. In the early Middle Ages, the meaning changed and the word was used for one of the highest officials of the Catholic Church in the pope's service and also for one of the big nobles of the Holy Roman Empire, who was then named Count Palatine. The word paladin was also used in 19th century Hungary and in the German Empire and United Kingdom during the early 20th century.

paragraphs: In medieval literature, the paladins or Twelve Peers were known in the Matter of France as the retainers of Charlemagne. Because of the way that this word was used in books, paladin was then known to be a knight with honor.

paragraphs: The paladins of the imperial guard were named after the Scholae Palatinae.

paragraphs: In the beginning, the word paladin was applied to the Chamberlains and to some soldiers guarding the palace of the Roman emperor. In Constantine's time, the word was also used for the best infantry of the army, the Praetorian Guard, that might guard the Roman Emperor during wars.

paragraphs: After the Middle Ages, the word palatine was put onto many different people of power across Europe. The most important of these was the "comes palatinus", the count palatine, who in Merovingian and Carolingian times, was an official of the lords' household and court of law.

paragraphs: During the 800s, Carolingean rule came to an end and the title of Holy Roman emperor with it. About a century later, the title was made alive again by Otto I, though the new empire was now centered in Germany rather than France. The term palatine is found again under Charles IV, but they were less powerful than the previous palatines.

paragraphs: In the early days of England, the word "palatinate", or county palatine, was also used in counties of lords who could use powers normally used by the crown.

paragraphs: In Britain and Germany, paladin was an official rank and was a very good title for one in the service of the emperors. It was a Knight with additional honours, they were allowed to use powers normally used by the crown.

paragraphs: The word "paladin" is still used to describe a good, heroic person, or a defender of a good cause.

paragraphs: Some role playing games now use paladins as a character class that you can choose when starting a new game.


title: IC50

paragraphs: The IC is a measure of how effective a drug is. It indicates how much of a particular drug or other substance is needed to inhibit a given biological process (or component of a process, i.e. an enzyme, cell, cell receptor or microorganism) by half. In other words, it is the half minimal (50%) inhibitory concentration (IC) of a substance (50% IC, or IC). It is commonly used as a measure of antagonist drug potency in pharmacological research. Sometimes, it is also converted to the pIC scale (-log IC), in which higher values indicate exponentially greater potency. According to the FDA, IC represents the concentration of a drug that is required for 50% inhibition "in vitro".

paragraphs: It is comparable to an EC for agonist drugs. EC also represents the plasma concentration required for obtaining 50% of a maximum effect "in vivo".


title: Komitas Vardapet

paragraphs: Soghomon Gevorki Soghomonyan - Komitas Vardapet (also "Gomidas Vartabed") (September 26 1869 in Kütahya, Ottoman Empire - October 22 1935, Paris, France), was an Armenian priest, composer, choir leader, singer, music ethnologist, music teacher and musicologist, known as the founder of modern Armenian classical music.

paragraphs: He was born into a family whose members were deeply involved in music and were monolingual in Turkish. His mother died when he was one and ten years later his father died. In 1895 he became a priest and obtained the title Vardapet (or Vartabed), meaning a "priest" or a "church scholar".

paragraphs: He established and conducted the monastery choir till 1896 when he went to Berlin, to the Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm University. Here he studied music at the private conservatory of Prof. Richard Schmidt. In 1899 he acquired the title "doctor of musicology" and returned to Echmiadzin. He traveled extensively around the country, listening and recording details about Armenian folk songs and dances performed in various villages. This way he collected and published some 3000 songs, many of them adapted to choir singing.

paragraphs: His major work is Badarak (Divine Liturgy), still used today as one of the two most popular musical settings of the Armenian Church liturgy.

paragraphs: He was the first non-European to be admitted into the International Music Society of which he was a co-founder.

paragraphs: On April 24, 1915, said to be the day when Armenian Genocide officially began, he was arrested. The next day he was put on a train with 180 other Armenian notables and sent to the city of Çankırı in northern Central Anatolia, at a distance of some 300 miles. His good friend, Turkish nationalist poet Emin Yurdakul, the authoress Halide Edip, and the U.S. ambassador Henry Morgenthau intervened with the government and, by special orders from Talat Pasha, Komitas was sent back to the capital. In autumn 1916, he was taken to a Turkish military hospital and he moved to Paris in 1919 where he died in a psychiatric clinic "Villejuif" in 1935. Next year his ashes were transferred to Yerevan and buried in the Pantheon.

paragraphs: The Yerevan State Musical Conservatory is named after Komitas. There also a world famous string quartet named after Komitas.


title: Oberägeri

paragraphs: Oberägeri is a municipality in the canton of Zug in Switzerland.

paragraphs: It can be found on a plain on the northern shore of the Ägerisee.


title: Unterägeri

paragraphs: Unterägeri is a municipality in the canton of Zug in Switzerland.


title: Menzingen

paragraphs: Menzingen is a municipality in the canton of Zug in Switzerland.


title: Baar, Switzerland

paragraphs: Baar is a municipality in the canton of Zug in Switzerland.


title: Cham, Switzerland

paragraphs: Cham is a municipality in the canton of Zug in Switzerland.


title: Hünenberg

paragraphs: Hünenberg is a municipality in the canton of Zug in Switzerland.


title: Steinhausen, Switzerland

paragraphs: Steinhausen is a municipality in the canton of Zug in Switzerland.


title: Risch-Rotkreuz

paragraphs: Risch-Rotkreuz is a municipality in the canton of Zug in Switzerland. Risch-Rotkreuz is well known because of the headquarter of Roche Diagnostics, two nice castles, "Buonas" and "Freudenberg", the one of the most important train station in Switzerland, and of the Swiss Guard.


title: Walchwil

paragraphs: Walchwil is a municipality in the canton of Zug in Switzerland.


title: Neuheim

paragraphs: Neuheim is a municipality in the canton of Zug in Switzerland.


title: Women's rights

paragraphs: The women's rights movement is a feminist movement, where women act to get what men have but what women have been denied. The women's rights movement has fought for things such as letting women vote, giving women access to jobs (such as doing construction work) that only men were allowed to do before, and even the right to same-sex marriage. Women and men can both stand for this movement. Women's rights leaders such as Susan B. Anthony encouraged many women to join the women's rights movements. In different societies throughout history, women have had different amounts of rights. The movement fighting for women's rights to vote is called women's suffrage. While there has been a ton of progress, many countries still do not allow women to vote, among other basic rights.


title: Canton of Solothurn

paragraphs: Solothurn is a canton of Switzerland. It can be found in the northwest of Switzerland. The capital is Solothurn.