title: Tibetan Book of the Dead

paragraphs: The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a religious text from Tibet, written as a guide for persons attending someone who is dying or recently dead, to bring comfort and " ". It includes prayers, instructions for both dying persons and their attendants, and descriptions of the afterlife. (Roman Catholicism has comparable rituals, called or Last Rites.) The book has been translated into many languages, including English.

paragraphs: In the 1960s, professors Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert (later known as Baba Ram Dass) collaborated on a book titled "", which adapted portions of the "Book of the Dead" as a guide for use in LSD experiences. They hoped to give users of LSD a simulation of death and , to "liberate" them from past problems or mistakes in their lives. Many persons did have positive results from their book. Others pursued it like a , and were not helped or changed for the better.

paragraphs: John Lennon of The Beatles adapted the adaptation in turn, using many of the book's ideas for his song "Tomorrow Never Knows". He later "The Psychedelic Experience", calling it "that stupid book of Leary's," but his song spread its influence. This book has real life experiences between life and death situations.


title: ChalkZone

paragraphs: ChalkZone is an American animated television series. It is about a boy named Rudy. Rudy has magic chalk. When Rudy draws on the board with the magic chalk, it lets him go to a chalk world called Chalk Zone. Whatever he draws on the chalk board, or in Chalk Zone, comes to life.


title: Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor

paragraphs: The F-22 Raptor is a fighter plane made by Lockheed Martin. It first flew in 1990, and entered service in the United States Air Force in 2005. Because it is expensive, there will not be as many of them as earlier fighter planes. It uses stealth, which means it cannot be seen on radar. It can hold 6 radar-guided medium-range AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles and 2 heat-seeking, short-range AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles. Its top speed is 2.4 times the speed of sound and it features thrust vectoring, where the plane's thrust nozzles turn to help turn it faster.

paragraphs: The Plane is a 5th generation Fighter and is a very expensive plane to produce, and the USAF say they will provide the plane to other countries but in a "watered down state"


title: Edom

paragraphs: Edom is a name given to Esau, the brother of Jacob, in the Hebrew Bible. It also means the nation that came from him. The nation's name in Assyrian was Udumi. In Syriac it was '. In Greek, it was ' (Idoumaía). In Latin, it was ' or '.

paragraphs: The Edomite people were a Semitic-speaking tribal people. They lived in the Negev Desert and the Arabah valley. The Arabah valley is now the south of Dead Sea and next to the Jordan. The area has much red sandstone. This may have made the name "Edom". The nation of Edom is known to have existed back to the 8th or 9th century BC. The Bible dates it back several centuries further. Recent archaeological proof may show an Edomite nation as long ago as the 11th century BC. However, people are not completely sure. Others argue that the 8th or 9th century dates are right. The nation stopped being a settled state after the Jewish-Roman Wars.


title: Hollywood (song)

paragraphs: Hollywood is the fourth single from Jay-Z's latest solo album Kingdom Come. The song features Jay-Z's longtime girlfriend, R&B singer Beyoncé. The song is also featured on Beyoncé's B'Day Deluxe Edition with more of Beyoncé's vocals and less of Jay-Z's under the title "Welcome To Hollywood".

paragraphs: A video for Jay-Z's album version does not exist but an official video was created for "Welcome to Hollywood" using clips of different Beyoncé videos (much like the "Lose My Breath" megamix on the Destiny's Child Fan Pack II). The video is played as an interlude on Beyoncé's B'Day Tour, The Beyoncé Experience.


title: Summertime (song)

paragraphs: Summertime is a single released by R&B singer Beyoncé featuring rapper P. Diddy in 2003. The song was the second and final single released to promote the movie "The Fighting Temptations", in which Knowles plays the leading lady. The song is not featured in the movie but is part of the official soundtrack. It first appeared as a B-side to Knowles' 2003 smash hit "Crazy in love".

paragraphs: As it was released just seven days after the third single from Knowles' "Dangerously in Love", "Me, Myself and I", the song did not become a big hit and an official music video was never shot for it. The song however was part of the set list on Knowles' Dangerously in Love World Tour.


title: Fabaceae

paragraphs: Fabaceae is the systematic name of the plant family that is commonly known as the Pea family. It consists of three subgroups: Caesalpinioideae, Mimosoideae and Papilionoideae (or better Faboideae). In modern systems like APG II this family Fabaceae is closely related to Quillajaceae, Polygalaceae or milkworts (including the families Diclidantheraceae, Moutabeaceae, and Xanthophyllaceae), and Surianaceae.

paragraphs: The leaves are usually alternate and compound, in the Mimosoideae and the Caesalpinioideae commonly bipinnate (e.g. "Acacia", "Mimosa"). In many species the leaves have structures evolved to attract ants, that, being predatory, protect the plant from herbivore insects. Extrafloral nectaries -a gland secreting nectar -are common among the Mimosoideae and the Caesalpinioideae and are also found in some Faboideae (e.g. vetches "Vicia sativa"). Fabaceae are typically entomophilous plants (i.e. they are pollinated by insects) and the flower are usually showy to attract the pollinators.

paragraphs: In the Mimosoideae the flowers are radial symmetric or actinomorphic. In the Caesalpinioideae and Faboideae (see diagram) are most often zygomorphic or bilateral in simmetry.


title: Federal Convention (Germany)

paragraphs: The Bundesversammlung, or "Federal Convention", is a special federal body in Germany.

paragraphs: It is made up of all of the members of the Bundestag, plus an equal number of delegates elected by the parliaments of the Länder. Those delegates don't have to be memebers of the Länder parliaments; sometimes celebrities are chosen.

paragraphs: The convention usually has for about 1200 members. The only task of the Bundesversammlung is to elect the Federal President.

paragraphs: The Bundesversammlung is called to meet by the President of the Bundestag, and the President of the Bundestag acts as Chairman of the Bundesversammlung.

paragraphs: The Bundesversammlung meets at least thirty days before the end of the Federal President's term of office ends, in order to elect the next president. If the Federal President dies or is impeached, the Bundesversammlung meets within 30 days.

paragraphs: The Bundesversammlung does not hold debates or question any of the candidates for president.

paragraphs: It chooses the next Federal President by an absolute majority vote. If no-one has an absolute majority on the first and second ballot, then they hold a third ballot, and the winner is the person who has the highest number of votes.


title: Friedrich Ebert

paragraphs: Friedrich Ebert (4 February 1871 in Heidelberg – 28 February 1925 in Berlin) was a German politician (SPD). He died on 28 February 1925 from Septic Shock.

paragraphs: He was Chancellor of Germany and its first president during the Weimar period.


title: Walter Simons

paragraphs: Walter Simons (24 September 1861 in Elberfeld - 14 July 1937 in Nowawes) was a German politician. He was president of the German Supreme Court from 1922-1929. After the death of Friedrich Ebert in February 1925 he was the second acting president of the Weimar Republic from 12 March 1925 until 12 May 1925 (the first acting president was Hans Luther) when the next president, Paul von Hindenburg, was elected and assumed office.


title: Full Moon (album)

paragraphs: Full Moon is the third studio album by R&B singer Brandy Norwood. It contains the hit songs like "What About Us", "Another Day In Paradise" and "Full Moon".


title: U Don't Know Me (Like U Used To)

paragraphs: U Don't Know Me (Like U Used To) – The Remix EP is the first EP by American R&B singer Brandy Norwood, released in 1999 (see 1999 in music). It was released for promotional use only.

paragraphs: During 1999, her record company, Atlantic Records, released a 9-track remix EP entitled "U Don't Know Me... Like U Used To – The Remix EP". The album contains remix versions with Da Brat, Ma$e, Fat Joe, Big Pun, Darkchild, DJ Premier and many other artists and producers. The album is seen as a maxi-single so the peak positions are the same as the peak positions of the single. The songs on "U Don't Know Me" did not have much success with a peak position of #79 on the U.S. Hot 100, 50 in Canada and 25 in the UK. The album's lead single was "U Don't Know Me (Like U Used To) [Remix]".


title: The Boy Is Mine

paragraphs: The Boy Is Mine is an R&B song by singers Brandy and Monica. It was written by LaShawn Daniels, Fred Jerkins III, Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins and Brandy Norwood for Norwood's second studio album "Never Say Never" (1998) but eventually released as the lead single off of both singers' second albums during the second quarter of 1998 (see 1998 in music). Co-produced by Darkchild, Brandy and Dallas Austin, "The Boy Is Mine" has become one of the most successful R&B singles of all time. The song's lyrics tell a story about two women disputing the love of a man and were inspired by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson's 1982 duet "The Girl Is Mine."

paragraphs: The song was number one on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 for 13 weeks in a row. It finished as the second-best performing song of 1998 on that chart.


title: ETA (separatist group)

paragraphs: ETA was one of Europe’s most notorious and long-running terror groups. It was founded in 1959 from what was left of EKIN, another radical Basque separatist group. Both EKIN and ETA were created because of discontent with the moderate nationalism of the main Basque party, the Basque National Party. ETA committed hundreds of attacks in Spain. It had ties with other terrorist groups both inside and outside the Basque region. These included the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Colombia’s FARC.

paragraphs: Most of ETA’s terror attacks targeted businesses and Spanish government officials, especially members of the security services and the judiciary, but it also targeted civilians. Its most common tactics were bombing and assassination. Its attacks took place mostly in the Basque Country, Madrid and Catalonia. Similar to the IRA, ETA sometimes issued warnings before the attacks.

paragraphs: The group assassinated Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco in December 1973. At the time, Blanco was seen by many as the most likely successor to Spain’s dictator, Francisco Franco. He was killed when an underground bomb exploded underneath his car. More than twenty years later, ETA nearly assassinated Jose Maria Aznar, an opposition politician who later became prime minister. In 1987, ETA killed 21 people in Barcelona using a car bomb.

paragraphs: The status of the Basque homeland changed significantly with the end of Francisco Franco's regime and the return of democracy in 1979. Franco tried to suppress Basque nationalism and separatism. The new democratic government, on the other hand, offered significant autonomy to the Basque provinces. In a deal struck in 1980, the Basque region acquired its own parliament similarly to the other regions in Spain. It was also allowed to have its own independent tax legislation. In addition, the language Euskara became more prominent in public culture and education. However, the new autonomous region did not deter the radical separatists that comprised ETA. ETA has committed approximately 900 murders and dozens of kidnappings.

paragraphs: ETA’s level of activity has changed over the years. The group has attempted several ceasefires, including a 14-month one that lasted until December 1999. While there have been a number of ETA attacks since 2000, the group has claimed fewer victims. It is believed to be shrinking. Spanish officials believe that recent crackdowns have led to a serious weakening of the group and sense that its future as a terrorist organization may be limited. There are more than one hundred suspected ETA members in Spanish prisons today.

paragraphs: In the past several years, ETA has done sporadic attacks, including bombings in September 2004, December 2005, and early 2006. However, these bombings were generally preceded by warnings and did not result in any deaths.

paragraphs: In March 2006, ETA declared a permanent ceasefire and expressed a willingness to join the political process. The decision may have been linked to the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which killed nearly 200 people. The attack was originally blamed on ETA, though it was soon discovered to be the work of militant Islamists linked to al-Qaeda. Like the IRA, ETA leaders may have felt that the mass casualty terrorism practiced by some radical Islamist groups discredited its violent tactics—though this is not known for certain. ETA had a secretive leadership structure.

paragraphs: In June 2007, ETA declared its March 2006 ceasefire null-and-void, though many had seen ETA’s December 2006 bombing of an airport parking garage as an indication that the truce would not hold. An ETA spokesperson accused the Spanish government of interfering in Basque local elections as well as continuing with the prosecution and conviction of ETA members during the ceasefire.

paragraphs: It must be noted that ETA did not officially renounce violence or initiate steps to decommission its weapons (as the IRA did in July 2005) as part of its ceasefire declaration. ETA ceasefires have deteriorated into violence before.

paragraphs: On 20 October 2011, ETA announced publicly its permanent cease of activity. It was announced in 2 prominent nationalist newspapers, Gara and Berria.


title: Petr Eben

paragraphs: Petr Eben (Žamberk, 22 January 1929; died Prague 24 October 2007) was a Czech composer and organist. Many musicians think of him as the most important Czech composer of the late 20th century. He was known world wide for his organ playing. He was especially good at improvisation.

paragraphs: Eben grew up in Český Krumlov in south Bohemia. He learned to play the piano, and later the cello and organ. Because his father was a Jew he had to leave school in 1943 and spent the rest of the war years in concentration camp in Buchenwald. In the camp he saw many terrible things, including graves into which the Nazis were throwing lots of murdered Jews. These terrible things influenced his music in later years. He had a strong faith and this helped him to survive during 40 years of living in Czechoslovakia under communist rule.

paragraphs: After the war he went to Prague Academy for Music where he studied the piano with František Rauch and composition with Pavel Bořkovec. In 1955 he got a job as lecturer at Charles University in Prague. He stayed there until 1990. He was the country’s best composer, and he should have had promotion, but the communist politicians did not allow this. He went to church every Sunday with his family. This did not help his career in a communist state.

paragraphs: After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, when his country became free from the Soviet Union, he started to become a national hero. He was made Professor of Composition and president of the Prague Spring Music Festival. Many music festivals performed his compositions, and he traveled to hear the concerts in spite of the fact that he was starting to become ill. His music was often played in England, where he had spent two years as professor of composition at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester from 1978 to 1979. In March 2007 the BBC Symphony Orchestra under their Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek performed his "Vox Clamantis", a work he had written in 1968 which shows the Czech people’s longing to be free.

paragraphs: Eben continued during his lifetime to develop the style of music in which he wrote. He was interested in Czech folk music and he wrote down many folk songs that he heard in Moravia. He listened to plainchant in church music. All this helped him to develop his own style of composition. He is best-known abroad for his organ music, especially works such as "Musica Dominicalis" ("Sunday Music") which includes a popular piece called "Moto Ostinato". Other organ works include "Faust" (1980), "Job" (1987) and "A Festive Voluntary" which is a set of variations on the tune of "Good King Wenceslas", written for the reopening in 1986 of the organ at Chichester Cathedral which had just been restored. He also wrote a lot of music for orchestra as well as chamber music. He composed some beautiful music for children’s choir, including church music called "Liturgical Songs".


title: Totalitarianism

paragraphs: Totalitarianism is when regimes (political systems) control all public behaviour and as much of private behaviour as they can. No elections are held, or if they are, candidates must be approved by the ruling group. Physical force and/or arrests and detentions are used on people who protest against the regime. There are events such as parades or rallies. These suggest to the people that the ruling group is in complete control.

paragraphs: For some, totalitarianism is as old as history. However, their main examples in modern times are Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, North Korea, the Soviet Union, Eritrea and China.

paragraphs: There are other countries which had dictatorships, but never reached full totalitarianism. Italian fascism under Benito Mussolini, Spain under General Franco, Portugal under Dr. Salazar, China under Mao Zedong, and many Latin American countries for periods were dictatorships with some aspects of totalitarianism. Some African countries have been dictatorships for long periods (e.g. Zimbabwe). The Empire of Japan (predecessor state of the modern nation-state of Japan) was a well-known example of a totalitarian military dictatorship during World War II. The satire "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell was about such a society taken to extremes.

paragraphs: The list is long: it is not true that most countries today are democratic.

paragraphs: According to some, authoritarianism "does not attempt to change the world and human nature". In contrast, a totalitarian regime attempts to control virtually all aspects of the social life, including the economy, education, art, science, private life and morals of citizens.


title: Gothic metal

paragraphs: Gothic metal is a heavy metal genre. It is fusion of gothic rock, doom metal and death metal.


title: Lüneburg

paragraphs: Lüneburg is a city in Lower Saxony in north Germany. It is about 50 km southeast of Hamburg. It is the capital of the District of Lüneburg. About 102,660 people live there.

paragraphs: The Ilmenau River, a tributary of the Elbe, flows through Lüneburg.

paragraphs: In medieval times the town was very rich due to the salt trade. Salt used to be transported along the Old Salt Route to the Baltic Sea from where it was sent by ship to other countries. There were salt mines near the town for a thousand years. Salt mining stopped in 1980. The salt mining caused a lot of deforestation. The countryside changed into heathland which is called the Lüneburger Heide (Lüneburg Heath).

paragraphs: On May 23, 1945 the Nazi war criminal Heinrich Himmler committed suicide in Lüneburg after he had been captured by the British Army. He swallowed a potassium cyanide capsule before his interrogation could begin.

paragraphs: Lüneburg is twinned with Scunthorpe, England.


title: Paul von Hindenburg

paragraphs: Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a German field marshal and statesman.

paragraphs: Hindenburg retired from the army in 1911. He rejoined the army at the start of the First World War. He became famous when he won the Battle of Tannenberg in 1914.

paragraphs: Hindenburg retired again in 1919, but returned to public life one more time in 1925 to be elected as the second President of Germany.

paragraphs: He was 84 years old and in poor health, but had to run for re-election in 1932 as the only candidate who could defeat Adolf Hitler. He tried to stop the Nazi Party's rise to power, but had to appoint Hitler as Chancellor in January 1933. In March he signed the Enabling Act of 1933 which gave special powers to Hitler's government. Hindenburg died the next year, after which Hitler declared the office of President vacant and made himself Head of State.

paragraphs: The famous zeppelin "Hindenburg" that was destroyed by fire in 1937 had been named in his honour, as is the causeway joining the island of Sylt to mainland Schleswig-Holstein, the Hindenburgdamm, built during his time in office.

paragraphs: In 1925, Hindenburg had no interest in running for public office. After the first round Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, one of the leaders of the DNVP, visited Hindenburg and asked him to run.

paragraphs: Hindenburg eventually agreed to run in the second round of the elections as a non-party independent, although he was a conservative. Because he was Germany's greatest war hero, Hindenburg won the election in the second round of voting held on 26 April 1925.

paragraphs: He was helped when the Bavarian People's Party (BVP), switched its support from Marx, the SPD candidate and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) to did not withdraw its candidate, Ernst Thälmann. If they had their supporters would most likely have voted for the SPD and Hindenburg may not have won.

paragraphs: Hindenburg tried to stay out of day-to-politics, and be a ceremonial president. He liked the monarchy, but took his oath to the Weimar Constitution seriously.

paragraphs: Hindenburg often complained that he missed the quiet of his retirement and, that politics was full of ideas like economics that he did not understand.

paragraphs: His advisers included his son, Oskar, his old army aide General Wilhelm Groener, and General Kurt von Schleicher. The younger Hindenburg served as his father's aide-de-camp and controlled politicians' access to the President.

paragraphs: Schleicher came up with the idea of "Presidential government", and the "25/48/53 formula".

paragraphs: Under a "Presidential" government the chancellor is responsible to the president), and not the Reichstag. The "25/48/53 formula" was the three articles of the Constitution that could make a "Presidential government" possible:

paragraphs: Schleicher's wanted to have Hindenburg appoint a chancellor that Schleicher chose. If that chancellor needed any laws he could use article 48. If the Reichstag should threaten to cancel any of those laws, Hindenburg could threaten a dissolution, and call new elections. Hindenburg did not like the idea, but was pressured into going along with them by his son and his other advisors.

paragraphs: The first try at "presidential government" in 1926–1927 failed for lack of political support. During the winter of 1929–1930, Schleicher had a series of secret meetings with Heinrich Brüning, the leader of the Catholic Center Party ("Zentrum").

paragraphs: Schleicher then set about splitting the "Grand Coalition" government of the Social Democrats and the German People’s Party. As a result, the government fell in March 1930 and Brüning was named Chancellor by Hindenburg.

paragraphs: Brüning's first act was to introduce a budget calling for steep spending cuts and sharp tax increases. When the budget was defeated in July, Brüning had Hindenburg sign the budget as an emergency law under Article 48. When the Reichstag voted to cancel the budget, Brüning had Hindenburg dissolve Reichstag only two years into its mandate, and had the budget passed again by Article 48. The Nazis got 17% of the vote in the September 1930 elections. The Communist Party of Germany also made gains.

paragraphs: Brüning ruled through Article 48; the Social Democrats never voted not to cancel his Article 48 bills in order not to have another election that could only benefit the Nazis and the Communists.

paragraphs: In the first round of the election held in March 1932, Hindenburg was the frontrunner, but did not have an absolute majority. In the runoff election of April 1932, Hindenburg beat Hitler for the Presidency.

paragraphs: After the presidential elections had ended, Schleicher held a series of secret meetings with Hitler in May 1932, and thought that Hitler had agreed to support the new "presidential government" Schleicher was building.

paragraphs: In May 1932 Schleicher had Hindenburg sack Groener as Defence Minister to humiliate both Groener and Brüning. On 31 May 1932, Hindenburg sacked Brüning as Chancellor and replaced him with Schleicher's suggestion, Franz von Papen.

paragraphs: von Papen's government openly wanted to destroy German democracy. Like Brüning's government, von Papen's government was a "presidential government" that governed through the use of Article 48.

paragraphs: As Schleicher wanted, Hindenburg dissolved the Reichstag and set new elections for July 1932. Schleicher and von Papen both believed that the Nazis would win the majority of the seats and would support von Papen's government.

paragraphs: The Nazi party did become the largest party in the Reichstag, and expected Hitler would be Chancellor. When Hindenburg met Hitler on 13 August 1932, in Berlin, Hindenburg rejected Hitler's demands for the Chancellorship.

paragraphs: The minutes of the meeting were kept by Otto Meißner, the Chief of the Presidential Chancellery. According to the minutes:

paragraphs: Hindenburg issued a press release about his meeting with Hitler that seemed to say that Hitler had demanded absolute power and that the President had refused. Hitler was enraged by this press release.

paragraphs: When the Reichstag met in September 1932, its first and only act was to pass a massive vote of no-confidence in von Papen’s government. In response, von Papen had Hindenburg dissolve the Reichstag for elections in November 1932. In the 1949 constitution, a vote of no confidence must be accompanied by the election of a new chancellor, so this could not happen.

paragraphs: In the second Reichstag elections of 1932 the Nazis lost some support, but stayed the largest party in the Reichstag. There ensued another round of talks between Hindenburg, von Papen, von Schleicher on the one hand and Hitler and the other Nazi leaders on the other.

paragraphs: Hitler still demanded that Hindenburg give him the Chancellorship. Hindenburg could not accept this, so von Papen suggested Hindenburg declare martial law and do away with democracy.

paragraphs: Von Papen got Oscar Hindenburg to support the plan, and they persuaded the president to ignore his oath to the Constitution and go along with this plan. Schleicher saw von Papen as a threat so he blocked the martial law plan by saying it would make the Nazi SA and the Communist Red Front Fighters rebel, and that the Poles would invade and the Reichswehr would be unable to cope.

paragraphs: Hindenburg hated the idea of Hitler as Chancellor, but under pressure from Meißner, von Papen and Oskar Hindenburg the President decided to appoint Hitler Chancellor. On the morning of 30 January 1933, Hindenburg swore Hitler in as Chancellor at the Presidential Palace.

paragraphs: Hindenburg played key role in the Nazi "Machtergreifung" (Seizure of Power) in 1933. He was not involved in the planning, but did not stop Hitler. In the "Government of National Concentration" headed by Hitler, the Nazis were in the minority. Most of the ministers were from the von Papen and von Schleicher governments. Besides Hitler, the only other Nazi ministers were Hermann Göring and Wilhelm Frick.

paragraphs: Hindenburg thought that the Nazis' power was limited, especially as his favourite politician, von Papen, was the Vice-Chancellor and the Reich Commissioner for Prussia.

paragraphs: Hitler's first act as Chancellor was to ask Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag so that the Nazis and D.N.V.P. could increase their number of seats, Hindenburg agreed.

paragraphs: In early February 1933, von Papen had an Article 48 bill signed into law that limited the freedom of press. After the Reichstag fire, Hindenburg signed into law the "Reichstag Fire Decree".

paragraphs: At the opening of the new "Reichstag" on 21 March 1933, at the Kroll Opera House, the Nazis staged an elaborate ceremony, in which Hindenburg played the leading part, that was meant to mark the continuity between the Prussian-German tradition and the new Nazi state.

paragraphs: The ceremony at the Kroll Opera House had the effect of reassuring many Germans, especially conservative Germans, that life would be fine under the new regime. On 23 March 1933, Hindenburg signed the Enabling Act into law.

paragraphs: Hindenburg was still very popular, but his health was getting worse. The Nazis made sure that whenever Hindenburg did appear in public Hitler was with him, and that Hitler was always very respectful to the President. The Nazi propagandists hoped people would think Hindenburg liked Hitler, and Hitler would become more popular.

paragraphs: The only time Hindenburg ever tried to stop a Nazi bill was in early April 1933. The Reichstag had passed a "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service". This said that all Jewish civil servants working for the "Reich", the "Länder", or the local districts should be sacked immediately.

paragraphs: Hindenburg refused to sign this bill into law unless all Jewish veterans of World War I, Jewish civil servants who served in the civil service during the war and those Jewish civil servants whose fathers were veterans were allowed to stay in office. Hitler agreed, in order to get the law signed, even though he believed that the Jews had tried to undermine Germany during the Great War. It was Hindenburg who said that Germany lost the First World War because of politicians and others "stabbing the Army in the back". Hindenburg did not believe the story. He said it so that his wartime deputy Erich von Ludendorff would not write bad things in his memoirs. But Hitler did believe the story, and used it to gain power.

paragraphs: Hindenburg stayed president until he died from lung cancer at his home in "Neudeck", East Prussia on 2 August 1934.

paragraphs: One day before Hindenburg's death, Hitler flew to "Neudeck" and visited him. Hindenburg, old and senile, thought he was meeting Kaiser Wilhelm II, and called Hitler "Your Majesty".

paragraphs: He would be Germany's last president until 1945, when Karl Dönitz was appointed president in Hitler's last will. Following Hindenburg's death, Hitler declared the office of President to be permanently vacant, effectively merging it with the office of Chancellor under the title of Leader and Chancellor ("Führer und Reichskanzler"), making himself Germany's Head of State and Head of government.

paragraphs: Hindenburg was buried in the Tannenberg memorial near Tannenberg, East Prussia (today: Stębark, Poland). But Hindenburg always said he wanted to be buried next to his wife. In 1945, German troops removed his and his wife's coffins, to save them from the approaching Soviet troops.


title: Sharon Osbourne

paragraphs: Sharon Osbourne (born 9 October 1952) is a British music manager, television personality, and talent show judge. Osbourne first became famous on "The Osbournes" which was a reality show that showed Osbourne and her family in their daily lives.

paragraphs: She has also been a judge on the talent shows "The X Factor" and "America's Got Talent". Her autobiography, "Extreme", which Osbourne wrote about her life, was very successful and has sold 2 million copies.

paragraphs: She has recovered from colorectal cancer. She is married to the rock singer Ozzy Osbourne and she has three children with him named Kelly Osbourne, Jack Osbourne and Aimee Osbourne.


Full Moon


title: Summertime

paragraphs: Summertime means a time in Summer, one of the temperate seasons, and it could also mean:


title: Cy Young

paragraphs: Denton True "Cy" Young (March 29, 1867 – November 4, 1955) was an American baseball player. He was a pitcher for five different professional baseball teams from 1890 to 1911. He set many pitching records during his 22-year career in Major League Baseball (MLB), some of which have stood for 100 years. When Young retired from baseball, he had won a total of 511 games in his career, the most in MLB history and 94 more wins than Walter Johnson, who is second on the list.

paragraphs: In 1956, the MLB created the Cy Young Award. The award is given each year to the pitcher who is voted the most effective in each of the two leagues. Young was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939. During his professional career, Young won 30 or more games in a season five times, with ten other seasons of 20+ wins. He also pitched three no-hitters, including the first perfect game of baseball's "modern era."

paragraphs: In addition to wins, Young holds the MLB records for most career innings pitched (7,355), most career games started (815), and most complete games (749). He also retired with 316 losses, the most in MLB history (the only other pitcher with more than 300 career losses was Pud Galvin). Young also had 76 career shutouts, the fourth most in history.

paragraphs: In 1999, 88 years after his final Major League appearance and 44 years after his death, editors at "The Sporting News" ranked Cy Young 14th on their list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players". That same year, baseball fans named Young to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

paragraphs: Young was born in Gilmore, Ohio, a farming community in eastern Ohio. Young went by the name "Dent Young" in his early years.

paragraphs: He was raised on a farm and was sometimes called "Farmer Young" and "Farmboy Young". Young stopped going to school after he finished 6th grade.

paragraphs: Young began his professional career in 1889 with the Canton, Ohio team of the Tri-State League, a professional minor league. The catcher who warmed up Young gave him the nickname "Cyclone" because of the speed of his fastball. Reporters then shortened the name to "Cy". "Cy" became the nickname which he used the rest of his life.

paragraphs: In 1890, Young signed for $500 with the Cleveland Spiders, which had moved up from the American Association to the National League the previous year.

paragraphs: Two years later, the National League moved the pitcher's mound from away from the home plate (where it had been since 1881) to . In the book "The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers", sports journalist Rob Neyer wrote that the reason for the move was that pitchers like Cy Young, Amos Rusie, and Jouett Meekin threw too fast at the shorter distance.

paragraphs: On September 18, 1897, Young pitched the first no-hitter of his career in a game against the Cincinnati Reds. Although Young did not walk a batter, the Spiders committed four errors while on defense.

paragraphs: Before the 1899 season, Frank Robison, the owner of the Spiders, bought the St. Louis Browns, thus owning two clubs at the same time. Just weeks before the start of the season, most of the better Spiders players were transferred to St. Louis, including three future Hall of Famers: Young, Jesse Burkett and Bobby Wallace. Despite the changes in the team members, St. Louis finished fifth in both 1899 and 1900. The Spiders lost 134 games, the most in MLB history, before folding.

paragraphs: In 1901, Young left St. Louis and joined the American League's Boston Americans for a $3,500 contract. Young stayed with the Boston team until 1909.

paragraphs: Young was traded back to Cleveland before the 1909 season, this time to the Cleveland Naps of the American League. He split 1911, his final year, between the Naps and the Boston Rustlers.

paragraphs: On September 22, 1911, Young shut out the Pittsburgh Pirates and their pitcher Babe Adams 1-0, for his last career win. However, two weeks later, Young's 906th and final game ended badly: the last eight batters of Young's career combined to hit a triple, four singles and three doubles.

paragraphs: Young retired after the 1911 season with 511 career wins. His win total set the record for most career wins by a pitcher. At the time, Pud Galvin had the second most career wins with 364. Walter Johnson, then in his fourth season, finished his career with 417 wins and is now second on the list. However, Johnson broke Young's career record for strikeouts.

paragraphs: Cy Young's career is seen as a bridge from baseball's earliest days to its modern era. When Young's career began, pitchers delivered the baseball underhand and fouls were not counted as strikes. The pitcher's mound was not moved back to its present position of 60 feet, six inches until Young's fourth season. He did not wear a glove until his sixth.

paragraphs: Particularly after his fastball slowed, Young's success relied upon his great control. Young said:

paragraphs: By habit, Young restricted his practice throws in spring training. "I figured the old arm had just so many throws in it," said Young, "and there wasn't any use wasting them." Young once described his approach before a game:

paragraphs: Young also said that his offseason farming chores, including wood chopping, kept his pitching arm in good shape until he was 44. Even at the time of his retirement, his arm was healthy, but Young had gained weight and was unable to field his position anymore. In three of his last four years, he was the oldest player in the league.

paragraphs: The first Cy Young Award was voted on in 1956, and was given to Brooklyn's Don Newcombe. Originally, it was a single award covering the whole of baseball. The honor was divided into two Cy Young Awards in 1967, one for each league.

paragraphs: Young was saluted in the poem "Lineup for Yesterday" by Ogden Nash:


title: Arabic alphabet

paragraphs: The Arabic alphabet is an abjad that is used to write several languages of the Middle East such as Arabic, Persian, Pashto and Urdu. The script is the third most widely used script in the world, after the Latin and Chinese scripts.

paragraphs: The script is written from right to left. When it is used to write the Arabic language, the script has 28 different characters. Usually only consonants are written in an abjad. Vowels are omitted most of the time. The Arabic script is a cursive script. This means that letters of a word are joined together, both in handwriting and in print. Each letter can have up to four different forms. Which of the forms is used depends on the letters before and after it. There is no different form for uppercase letters and lowercase letters.

paragraphs: There are two basic modern variants of the Arabic script. One is called Naskh, it is the one commonly used for printing. The most common script in everyday life is called Kufic, after the city Kufa, in Iraq, where it was developed. There are several variants of both scripts.

paragraphs: The alphabet can also be used to write numbers, which was common in the Middle Ages. They are less used today and usually replaced by Latin-alphabet ("Arabic") numbers.

paragraphs: When the alphabet is used to write numbers, ' is 1, ' is 2, ' is 3 and so on until ' = 10, ' = 20, ' = 30, …, ' = 200, …, ' = 1000. That is sometimes used to produce chronograms in which specific letters, interpreted as numerals, stand for a particular date when they are rearranged.

paragraphs: For dictionaries, it is necessary to put the letters into a predetermined sequence, which is usually called sort order, or alphabetical order. The Arabic script has two sort orders: The one, "abjid", derives from the position of the letters in the Phoenician alphabet. The other, "hijā," sorts letters by similarity of shape.

paragraphs: As Islam spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, Arabic spread along with it. Islam requires its followers to learn Arabic because it states that Gabriel (Jibril) spoke the words of Allah to Muhammad in Arabic. The language is used for Muslim rituals such as prayer and the reciting of Quranic verses. As Arabic spread, the Quran's script also spread. It replaced the Pahlavi writing system as Islam conquered Persia.

paragraphs: Another alphabet, the Uighur alphabet, was based on the shapes of Arabic letters. However, the Uighur alphabet always has vowel letters, unlike in Arabic.

paragraphs: After the fall of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, use of the Arabic language and alphabet, became less common in the Muslim world. The Turkic states and other Muslim-majority states controlled by the Soviet Union did not favour Arabic script. In 1928, Turkey passed a law that banned the use of the Arabic alphabet for writing Turkish, which is now written with the Latin alphabet.

paragraphs: Around the same time, the Soviet Union created a Latin alphabet for the Central Asian states that it occupied: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. The decision to replace the Arabic alphabet was amdre to remove religious influence in Central Asia and to modernise the region. For a time, Soviet leaders, including Vladimir Lenin, believed the Latin alphabet was the "world alphabet" because it was the writing system of most developed countries. However, the Soviet Union then required the Central Asian states to write only in the Cyrillic script. That was to influence local cultures and languages to become more like those of Russia.

paragraphs: Although the Soviet Union fell, none of the Central Asian nations returned to using the Arabic alphabet. They either kept using Cyrillic, like Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, or adopted a new Latin alphabet, like Azerbaijan. Only Tajikistan is considering switching back to using the Arabic alphabet. Tajik was once a dialect of Persian.

paragraphs: In Southeast Asia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Brunei have all adoptedfor Malay the Latin alphabet, which is called "Rumi" in Malay. The British and Dutch colonialists introduced the Latin alphabet. The Arabic alphabet ("Jawi" in Malay) is still used in Malaysia but much less than Rumi. Brunei is the only Southeast Asian country in which both the Latin and Arabic alphabets are co-official.


title: Brandenburg Gate

paragraphs: The Brandenburg Gate () is a structure in Berlin, Germany. It is the only remaining gate through which people used to enter Berlin. It was built between 1788 and 1791. It is located between the Platz des 18. März and the Pariser Platz. Nearby to the north is the Reichstag building. During the Cold War, the Reichstag was in West Berlin, and the Brandenburger Tor in East Berlin.

paragraphs: The Brandenburg Gate has twelve columns, six on the entrance side and six on the exit. The columns form five roadways, citizens originally were allowed to use only the outer two. This is rather like Admiralty Arch in London, the central roadway is reserved so that royal and important traffic is not delayed. On top of the gate is the Quadriga. This is Viktoria, the goddess of victory driving a Quadriga, a type of horse-drawn chariot.

paragraphs: After 1806, when Prussia was defeated at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, Napoleon stole the Quadriga and took it to Paris. When Napoleon was beaten in 1814 Prussian General Ernst von Pfuel occupied Pais and took the Quadriga back to Berlin, the olive wreath was changed to an Iron Cross. The Goddess Viktoria became Nike, goddess of victory.

paragraphs: When the Nazis came to power, they used the Gate as their symbol. The Gate was damaged but not destroyed during World War II. The governments of East Berlin and West Berlin restored it but it was closed when the Berlin Wall was built in 1961. The gate was in the middle of the death strip.

paragraphs: In 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate. The Soviets hung large banners across it to prevent him from looking into the East. In the 1980s West Berlin mayor Richard von Weizsäcker said:

paragraphs: In 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan gave his famous speech "Tear down this wall!" outside of the gate.

paragraphs: Von Weizsäcker was the President of Germany at the reunification.

paragraphs: The Gate then symbolized the freedom to unite the City of Berlin. On the 22nd of December 1989, the Brandenburg Gate re-opened when Helmut Kohl, the West German Chancellor, walked through to be greeted by Hans Modrow, the East German Prime Minister.

paragraphs: On December 21, 2000, the Brandenburg Gate was privately refurbished at a cost of US$3 million.


title: Languages of the Caucasus

paragraphs: The languages of the Caucasus are languages spoken by more than ten million people in the Caucasus region of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.

paragraphs: Some of those language families have no known members outside the Caucasus area. The term Caucasian languages can mean only these families or all languages historically spoken in that area.


title: Lake Urmia

paragraphs: Lake Urmia () is a salt lake in northwest of Iran. It is in the provinces of East Azarbaijan and West Azarbaijan, and is southwest of the close shaped Caspian Sea. It is the largest lake inside Iran, and the second biggest salt lake of the world. It is the largest lake in the Middle East.

paragraphs: The location of Lake Urmia is at . It has a surface area of about 5,200 km² (2,000 mile²). At its biggest extent, it is about 140 km (87 miles) long, and 55 km (34 miles) wide. Its deepest point is approximately 16 m (52 ft) deep. It receives water from thirteen rivers coming from the near mountains, and it has no output.

paragraphs: Lake Urmia lies between West Azarbaijan and East Azarbaijan provinces. Tabriz is the biggest city to its east, and Urmia is the biggest city to its west. The shortest way between these cities is to go round the lake. In 1970s a project was started to create a bridge across the lake. This project was canceled when Islamic Revolution happened in 1979. However, the project was started again in 2000s; it is planned to be finished by the end of 2007.

paragraphs: The lake has a very salty water. The concentration of salt is different in each season of the year; it may be 26-28% in the late Autumn.

paragraphs: Lake Urmia is getting smaller and smaller each year. This is because the rivers which bring water to it have become smaller.

paragraphs: This lake was historically named Chaychast (Persian: چیچست). Later, it was named "Urmia" by the Assyrian people. The word "Urmia" consists of two parts: "ur" means city and "mia" means water. "Urmia" was the name given to the city of Urmia, which is near this lake. The lake was then named Lake Urmia, after the name given to the city. In the early years of the 20th century, it was named "Rezaiyeh Lake" after the name of Reza Pahlavi, the king of Iran. After the Islamic Revolution, its name was changed back to "Urmia Lake".

paragraphs: Different creatures live inside or near this lake, including some species of shrimps, amphibians and birds like flamingos and pelicans.

paragraphs: Urmia Lake has shallow borders with lots of mud. Different creatures live inside the mud, including frogs, snails and worms. The mud is said to have good effects in treatment of some diseases of the joints.

paragraphs: Lake Urmia has 102 islands. Their names are as follows :

paragraphs: Aram, Arash, Ardeshir, Arezu, Ashk, Ashk-Sar, Ashku, Atash, Azar, Azin, Bahram, Bard, Bardak, Bardin, Bastvar, Bon, Bon-Ashk, Borz, Borzin, Borzu, Chak-Tappeh, Cheshmeh-Kenar, Dey, Espir, Espirak, Espiro, Garivak, Giv, Golgun, Gordeh, Gorz, Iran-Nezhad, Jodarreh, Jovin, Jowzar, Kabudan, Kafchehnok, Kakayi-e Bala, Kakayi-ye Miyaneh, Kakayi-e Pain, Kalsang, Kam, Kaman, Kameh, Kariveh, Karkas, Kaveh, Kazem-Dashi, Kenarak, Khersak, Kuchek-Tappeh, Magh, Mahdis, Mahvar, Markid, Mehr, Mehran, Mehrdad, Meshkin, Meydan, Miyaneh, Nadid, Nahan, Nahid, Nahoft, Nakhoda, Navi, Naviyan, Omid, Panah, Penhan, Pishva, Sahran, Samani, Sangan, Sangu, Sarijeh, Sepid, Shabdiz, Shahi (Eslami), Shahin, Shamshiran, Shur-Tappeh, Shush-Tappeh, Siyavash, Siyah-Sang, Siyah-Tappeh, Sorkh, Sorush, Tak, Takht, Takhtan, Tanjeh, Tanjak, Tashbal, Tir, Tus, Zagh, Zar-Kaman, Zarkanak, Zar-Tappeh, Zirabeh.


title: Giuseppe Piazzi

paragraphs: Giuseppe Piazzi (July 7, 1746 – July 22, 1826) was an Italian astronomer who was famous for discovering the asteroid, now dwarf planet "Ceres".


title: Vesta (mythology)

paragraphs: Vesta was the virgin goddess of the hearth, home, and family in Roman mythology. She rarely appeared in art, as her presence was symbolized by the sacred fire that burned at her temple. The temple was forbidden to all except her priestesses, the Vestal Virgins. The Roman equivalent of the Greek Hestia, Vesta was seen to protect everything that was most important to people's survival. She was not an central figure of many myths. The Roman Empire was governed by men. Independent women would have threatened that system. Vesta was an example of what the Romans thought a woman should be. They thought that women should be modest and not share their views.


title: Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers

paragraphs: Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers (October 11, 1758–March 2, 1840) was a German astronomer, physician and physicist.


title: Minstrel

paragraphs: A minstrel was a composer of the medieval time period. Other names for them are minnesinger, troubadour and trouvere. A minstrel was also a name for black musicians in America of the 19th century and white musicians who appeared in blackface.


title: Gnathostomata

paragraphs: Gnathostomata is the group of vertebrates with jaws.

paragraphs: The group was meant to include all jawed fish, but in modern fashion it also includes all the tetrapods as well, since they evolved from jawed fish. It is the sister group of the Agnatha, the jawless vertebrates.

paragraphs: The Gnathostomata first appeared in the Ordovician period and became diverse in the Devonian period, the 'Age of Fishes'. Land vertebrates appeared in the Carboniferous period.


title: Niger River

paragraphs: The Niger River is the main river of western Africa. It is over 4180 km (2500 miles) long. It has a crescent shape and it goes through Guinea, Mali, Niger, on the border with Benin and then through Nigeria. Finally, it reaches the sea at a large delta, called the Niger Delta of the Oil Rivers. This part of the Atlantic Ocean is called the Gulf of Guinea. The Niger is the third-longest river in Africa. Only by the Nile and the Congo are longer. Its main tributary is the Benue River.

paragraphs: No-one knows the origin of the name Niger. Many people think that it comes from the Latin word for "black", "niger", but there is no evidence for this, and Portuguese explorers would probably have used their own word ("negro") on their maps. Also, the Niger is not a blackwater river (see Rio Negro). Some people think that 'black' may mean the color of the people in this area, but this did not happen with any other river in Africa.

paragraphs: Therefore, most people think the name is from the original people of the area in the middle of the river where early European maps used the name "Quorra". One possibility is the Tuareg phrase "gher n gheren" "river of rivers", shortened to "ngher" or "niger", from the middle of the river near Timbuktu.

paragraphs: The Tabula Peutingeriana says "Flumen Girin" (River Girin) and "Hoc flumen quidam Grin vocant, alii Nilum appellant dicint enim sub terra Etyopium in Nilum ire Lacum.", which means "This river which some are naming Grin is called Nile by others and is thought to flow under the ground of Ethiopia (i.e. modern Africa) into the Nile Lake."

paragraphs: Nigeria and Niger take their names from the river. The people who live beside the river have many names for it, such as "Jeliba" or "Joliba" ("great river" in Manding), "Isa Ber" ("big river" in Songhay), "Oya," (a Yoruba River Niger goddess), and "Kworra" or "Quorra." The last name was the name that Europeans used for the lower part of the river before they knew that the upper and lower parts were connected.

paragraphs: The Niger River is quite a clear river. It has only 10% as much sediment as the Nile because the Niger's source is in very old rocks that have little silt. Like the Nile, the Niger River has a flood every year; this starts in September, becomes strongest in November, and finishes by May.

paragraphs: An unusual feature of the river is the Niger Inland Delta. This forms where the river suddenly becomes less steep. This makes a region of connected streams, marshes, and lakes over an amount of land the same size as Belgium. The yearly floods make the delta very good for fishing and farming.

paragraphs: The Niger takes an unusual route. It is a boomerang shape and this confused Europeans for 2000 years. Its source is only 240 km (150 miles) from the Atlantic Ocean, but the river flows away from the sea into the Sahara Desert, then turns near the ancient city of Timbuktu (Tombouctou). From here, it goes southeast to the Gulf of Guinea.

paragraphs: Ancient Romans thought that the river near Timbuktu was part of the Nile River and Ibn Battuta had the same opinion. Early 17th-century European explorers thought that it flowed west and joined the Sénégal River. Many local people probably knew the real route, but Europeans only knew it in the late 19th century, when it was mentioned in the book "Travels in the Interior of Africa" by the Scottish explorer Mungo Park. This unusual route happened because the Niger River is two ancient rivers which are joined together. The upper Niger, from the source, past Timbuktu, to the bend in the river, used to empty into a lake, but the lake has now gone. However, the lower Niger started in hills near the lake and flowed south into the Gulf of Guinea. The Sahara Desert dried up in 4000-1000 BC, and the two rivers changed their routes and they joined (some people disagree, but most people think this is true).

paragraphs: The northern part of the river, which is called the "Niger bend", is important because it is the Sahara Desert's closest big river. Therefore, trade across the west of the Sahara came here, and it became the center of the Sahelian kingdoms of Mali and Gao.


title: Flag of Mali

paragraphs: The flag of Mali has three equal vertical stripes. Starting from the flagpole, the colours are green, gold, and red, which are the pan-African colours.

paragraphs: The flag became official on March 1, 1961. The original flag became official on April 4, 1959, when Mali joined the Mali Federation. This flag was the same, but the golden stripe had a human "stick figure", called a "kanaga", in black, with its arms pointing to the sky. The figure was removed because of an Islamic belief against making pictures of humans. (Mali is about 90% Muslim.)


title: Coat of Arms of Mali

paragraphs: On 20 October, 1973, the coat of arms of the Republic of Mali was made. The motto of the Republic of Mali is "Un Peuple, Un But, Une Foi" (One People, One Goal, One Faith).

paragraphs: The coat of arms of the Republic of Mali is a circle. There is a light blue background:


title: Pour l'Afrique et pour toi, Mali

paragraphs: "Pour l'Afrique et pour toi" (French: "For Africa and for you, Mali") is the national song of Mali. Seydou Badian Kouyate wrote the words and Banzoumana Sissoko wrote the music. It became Mali's national song in 1962 and it is a normal song of love of the country. It is about how the people of Mali would sacrifice their lives for their nation and for freedom. A common theme in the song is wanting to unite Africa. The chorus is written below:


title: French Sudan

paragraphs: French Sudan (Fr.: "Soudan") was a colony in French West Africa.

paragraphs: It existed at two separate times. The first time was from 1890 to 1899, and the second was from 1920 to 1960. In 1960 it became the independent nation of Mali.

paragraphs: It was created as a French territory on September 9, 1880 and its name was "Upper Senegal".

paragraphs: The name changed to the "French Sudan Territory" on August 18, 1890, and its capital was Kayes. On October 10, 1899, French Sudan was broken into pieces: 11 southern provinces became part of French Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire and Dahomey. However, two provinces were returned in 1900.

paragraphs: In 1902 the parts of the colony which were not organised into military districts became Senegambia and Niger, then the name changed to Upper Senegal and Niger in 1904. Finally, the old name of French Sudan returned in a reorganisation in 1920.

paragraphs: In 1933, Upper Volta stopped existing (It began again in 1947.) and French Sudan gained some of its provinces.

paragraphs: After the October 4, 1958 French vote about the constitution, the "République Soudanaise" joined the French Community, again with the name French Sudan, and it gained complete domestic control on 25 November, 1958.

paragraphs: On April 4, 1959, French Sudan was joined with Senegal to form the Mali Federation. This became fully independent but still inside the French Community on June 20, 1960. This union finished on August 20, 1960, when Senegal left. On 22 September, French Sudan changed its name to the Republic of Mali and left the French Community.


title: Cunnilingus

paragraphs: Cunnilingus is when a man or another woman has oral sex with a woman. He (or she) licks her sex organs with his (or her) lips and tongue. The word comes from a Latin word for the vulva ("cunnus") and from the Latin word for tongue ("lingua").

paragraphs: The clitoris is the main part of the woman's sex organs that brings the most feeling. Often, a woman reaches an orgasm during cunnilingus.

paragraphs: In the past, some thought cunnilingus to be taboo (bad). People in some countries still think of it as taboo. However, many people in western and other cultures have oral sex.


title: Agnatha

paragraphs: The Agnatha (Greek = 'no jaws') are a superclass of vertebrates. They are jawless fish.

paragraphs: The Agnatha as a whole may be paraphyletic. This means it is a convenient holdall term, which does not follow the rules of cladistics. For example, most extinct agnathans belong to the stem group (ancestral group) of gnathostomes. But according to the rules, one sister group should not contain ancestors of another sister group,

paragraphs: The living Agnatha (lampreys and hagfish) are known as cyclostomes. Recent molecular data from rRNA, and from mtDNA, show that these living agnathans are monophyletic. There are about 100 species. Hagfish are vertebrates but do not have vertebrae. It is believed that they lost their vertebrae during their lifestyle adaptations.

paragraphs: The lifestyle of the lamprey (an ectoparasite on other fish) and hagfish (a scavenger) means that they are not typical of the fossil groups, which were free-swimming and often armoured.

paragraphs: Agnathans do not have jaws, and have a cartilaginous skeleton. There is a notochord in both larvae and adults. They do not have paired fins. They have seven or more paired gill pouches.

paragraphs: Agnatha have no identifiable stomach and are cold-blooded. The heart is simple, with two chambers.

paragraphs: There is a light-sensitive pineal eye. Fertilization and development of young are both outside the body, and there is no parental care.

paragraphs: The oldest fossil agnathans are found in Cambrian deposits.

paragraphs: Many Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian agnathans were armoured with heavy bony-spiky plates. The first armoured agnathans were the Ostracoderms ("shell-skinned"). By the upper Silurian the agnathans had reached the high point of their evolution. They declined in the Devonian and never recovered.


title: Henry Cavendish

paragraphs: Henry Cavendish FRS (10 October 1731-24 February 1810) was a British scientist. He is famous for discovering hydrogen. Cavendish measured the Earth's mass, density and gravitational constant with the Cavendish experiment. He studied at Peterhouse, which is part of the University of Cambridge, but he left without graduating.

paragraphs: He built a laboratory in his father's house in London, where he worked for nearly fifty years, but he only published about 20 scientific papers. Even so, he is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of his time.

paragraphs: Cavendish claimed that the force between the two electrical objects gets smaller as they get further apart. If the distance between them doubled, the force would be one quarter what it was before. This was the basis of the inverse-square law. He explained the concept of electric potential, which he called "the degree of electrification". He developed the thought of all points on a good conductor's surface have the same potential energy beside a common reference point. Having no way to measure electric current, he used his body as a machine which measures strength of electric current. All Cavendish's explorations in his notebook was found and confirmed by James Clerk Maxwell.

paragraphs: Cavendish’s electrical papers from the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London" have been reprinted, together with most of his electrical manuscripts, in "The Scientific Papers of the Honourable Henry Cavendish, F.R.S." (1921).


title: Ornamentation (music)

paragraphs: In music, ornaments are notes which are added to the main notes of a piece of music in order to make it more interesting. There are several types of ornaments, including trills and slides. Music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods have lots of ornaments. The composer usually shows what ornaments are needed by little signs written above the notes. In some pieces, especially in slow movements, the composers often did not show the ornaments that are needed: they expected the performers to put them in themselves. Understanding the correct way of ornamenting music used to be a very important part of the art of singing or playing a musical instrument.

paragraphs: The correct way of ornamenting music varied a lot from one country to another and from one century to another. Ideas about how music should be performed kept changing. It is important for musicians today, who want to play music from these older periods, to know as much as possible about historical musical styles. Sometimes we have to make guesses about what a composer might have wanted. Fortunately several composers and music theorists wrote books about how to play ornaments. This enables us to understand the different performing styles. Sometimes composers wrote a preface (introduction) in their music to explain to the performer how to play the ornaments they had written.

paragraphs: There are different kinds of ornaments. A “grace note” is a note written in smaller print, to show that its note value (how long it lasts) does not count as part of the total time value of the measure.

paragraphs: In Spain, these ornaments were called "diferenzias". They were used as early as the 16th century, when the first books with music for the guitar were produced. In French music they were called "agréments".

paragraphs: Ornaments were still written in music from the Classical music period although they are gradually used less and less as composers started to write precisely all the notes that were to be played. By the Romantic period they were hardly being used except for “tr” meaning “trill”.

paragraphs: A trill is a quick alternation between the main note and the note above it. It was also known as a "shake". Usually, if the music was written before 1800 the trill is played by starting a note above the written note. If the music was written after 1800 then the trill is usually played by starting on the note written and going up to the note above. This was not, of course, a firm rule: changes in performance style happened gradually.

paragraphs: Sometimes the trill ends with a turn (the note above, the main note, the note below, the main note).

paragraphs: The trill is shown in musical notation by either a formula_1 or a formula_1~~, with the ~ representing the length of the trill, above the staff.

paragraphs: The mordent is like a very short trill, usually just the main note, the note above, and the main note again. If the middle note is the note below, this is called an “inverted mordent” or “lower mordent”.

paragraphs: The upper mordent is indicated by a short squiggle (which may also indicate a trill); the lower mordent is the same with a short vertical line through it:

paragraphs: As with the trill, the exact speed with which the mordent is played will depend on the speed of the piece, but at a moderate speed the above might be played like this:

paragraphs: A short figure consisting of the note above the one indicated, the note itself, the note below the one indicated, and the note itself again. It is marked by a mirrored S-shape lying on its side above the staff.

paragraphs: The lower added note may or may not be chromatically raised (turn into a sharp)

paragraphs: An "inverted turn" (the note below the one indicated, the note itself, the note above it, and the note itself again) is usually indicated by putting a short vertical line through the normal turn sign, though sometimes the sign itself is turned upside down.

paragraphs: An Appoggiatura literally means a “leaning note”. The word comes from the Italian word "appoggiare", "to lean upon". It is a note which wants to fall down to the next one which is part of the harmony. Composers often wrote an appoggiatura in small print. This usually means it must be played by taking half the time value of the next note (for example: an appoggiatura in front of a quaver (eighth note) turns both notes into two semiquavers (sixteenth notes). During the 18th century composers stopped writing them in small print and just wrote them as normal notes.

paragraphs: An acciaccatura is a note which is played as fast as possible. It means a “crushed note” (in Italian "acciaccare" means "to crush"). It is normally written in small print but with a slash through it to show that it is not an appoggiatura. Most performers play acciaccaturas exactly on the beat, but sometimes it is better to play it just before the beat so that the main note is exactly on time on the beat.


title: Endocrine system

paragraphs: The endocrine system includes those organs of the body which produce hormones.

paragraphs: It helps to regulate metabolism, growth and development, tissue function, and plays a part also in mood.

paragraphs: The field of medicine that deals with disorders of endocrine glands is endocrinology.

paragraphs: In physiology, the endocrine system is a system of glands, each of which secretes a type of hormone directly into the bloodstream to regulate the body.

paragraphs: The endocrine system is in contrast to the exocrine system, which secretes its chemicals using ducts. The endocrine system is an information signal system like the nervous system, yet its effects and mechanism are different.

paragraphs: The endocrine system's effects are slow to start, and long-lasting in their response. The nervous system sends information quickly, and responses are generally short lived. Hormones are complex chemicals released from endocrine tissue into the bloodstream where they travel to target tissues and trigger a response.

paragraphs: Features of endocrine glands are, in general, they have no ducts, they have a good blood supply, and usually they have vacuoles or granules inside their cells, storing their hormones.


title: Sponge (tool)

paragraphs: A Sponge is a tool that is used for cleaning and washing. The sponge is made of a special material, with many holes. By rubbing the sponge against dirty surfaces, the dirt can be removed.

paragraphs: Today, there are also artificial sponges.

paragraphs: Most natural sponges used for cleaning today come from the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. Today Izmir and Tripolis are the main markets where natural sponges are sold.

paragraphs: Sponges have medicinal potential. This is because of antimicrobial compounds in either the sponge itself or their microbial symbionts.

paragraphs: Bottlenose dolphins have been seen using live sponges. This was in Shark Bay. Shark bay is in Western Australia. The behaviour has only been observed in the bay. Most likely adult dolphins teach it to their children. The only other marine mammals that use tools are Sea otters.


title: Tyne and Wear

paragraphs: Tyne and Wear is a metropolitan county in North East England.

paragraphs: It was created in 1974, and consists of the five metropolitan boroughs:

paragraphs: Like all metropolitan counties, the county council was abolished in 1986, and its functions given either to the individual boroughs or shared by new joint committees of the five boroughs.

paragraphs: Schools are now controlled by each borough. The fire brigade is one of several services run on a county-wide basis by a committee made up of members from each borough.

paragraphs: The people from Sunderland and the people from Newcastle did not like being joined in one county. The Royal Commission that recommended changing the county councils of England could not even find a name that the people of the two place liked. Their report just called the new county "area D".


title: Osteichthyes

paragraphs: Osteichthyes are a taxonomic superclass of fish, also called "bony fish", that includes the ray-finned fish (Actinopterygii) and lobe finned fish (Sarcopterygii). The split between these two classes occurred around 440 million years ago. The Osteichthyes are paraphyletic with land vertebrates. This is why some classification schemes put the tetrapods into the Osteichthyes. Osteichthyes are the most various group of vertebrates, consisting of over 29,000 species, making them the largest superclass of vertebrates in existence today.


title: Aquarium (group)

paragraphs: Aquarium (Аква́риум in Russian) is a Russian rock band. It was formed in Leningrad in 1972 by Boris Grebenshchikov and Anatoly "George" Gunitsky.

paragraphs: Until 1987 Aquarium recorded all of their albums in a self-assembled underground studio. Despite those hard conditions, the recording quality was rather high and Aquarium's albums between 1980 and 1987 are considered by most fans as their best.

paragraphs: In 1987 they recorded their first album for the state-owned Melodiya record label. With official backing and legalized distribution the album was a hit in USSR, selling well over a million copies within a few months. Aquarium today consists of Boris Grebenshchikov, Boris Rubekin (keyboards), Andrey Surotdinov (violin), Igor Timofeyev (guitars, saxophones and flutes), Andrey Svetlov (bass), Oleg "Shar" Shavkunov (drums and percussion).


title: Chondrichthyes

paragraphs: Chondrichthyes or cartilaginous fishes are jawed fish with paired fins, paired nostrils, scales, two-chambered hearts, and skeletons made of cartilage rather than bone. They are divided into two subclasses: Elasmobranchii (sharks, rays and skates) and Holocephali (chimaera, sometimes called ghost sharks).


title: Alexey Ekimyan

paragraphs: Alexey Ekimyan (, (April 10, 1927, Baku - April 24, 1982, Moscow) was a famous Armenian-Russian composer, and author of popular songs. Ekimyan was also a General of Soviet militsia (police) and was the head of Criminal Investigation Department of Moscow region. He was considered the only popular composer in the world who ruled a law-enforcement department at the same time. Ekimyan awarded by the ""Renowned Master of the Arts"" Armenian SSR official title.

paragraphs: Ekimyan's first song for the Moscow International Festival (1957) was approved by Vano Muradeli ("I don't know if you would become a general, but you would become a composer!"). His songs were performed and recorded by prominent Soviet singers that include Lyudmila Zykina, Iosif Kobzon, Lusine Zakaryan. Some hits by Ekimyan were chosen for the "Song of the Year" all-Soviet festivals during the 1970s-'80s.

paragraphs: The documentary film-concert "Paths of My Memory" (1979, 27 min.) by Yerevan Studio is dedicated to the Alexey Ekimyan.

paragraphs: Ekimyan died on April 24, 1982. He is buried in Yerevan, Armenia.


title: Mikael Tariverdiev

paragraphs: Mikael Tariverdiev (15 August 1931, Tbilisi, Georgia – 24 June 1996, Sochi, Russia) was a prominent Soviet composer. He was born of Armenian parents in Georgia but lived in Russia.

paragraphs: He is an author of over 100 romances and 2 operas. But most of all he is known for his music in many popular Soviet movies.

paragraphs: Mikael Tariverdiev was a recipient of multiple awards, including the USSR State Prize (1977) and the prize of the American Academy of Music (1975). He was made People's Artist of Russia in 1986.

paragraphs: The Best Music prize at the largest Russian national film festival Kinotaur is named after Tariverdiev.


title: Bergen

paragraphs: Bergen is the second largest city and municipality in Norway. The city has a population of 275,000 in the municipality, and 238,098 in the urban area. Bergen was a county until 1972, when it was merged with Hordaland. The old wharf "Bryggen" is a World Heritage Site.

paragraphs: Bergen is on the west coast of Norway, and it exports a lot of fish. It has a temperate oceanic climate, with high rainfall every month.


title: Winchester

paragraphs: Winchester is a city in the county of Hampshire, England. It was the capital of Saxon England. It is the home of Winchester College, the oldest continually living public school in England. Winchester was made the capital city of Wessex by King Egbert in 827, and later made the capital of England. It is around 10 miles from neighbouring city, Southampton.


title: Axial tilt

paragraphs: In astronomy, axial tilt is the angle between a planet's rotational axis at its north pole and a line perpendicular to the orbital plane of the planet. It is also called axial inclination or obliquity. The axial tilt of Earth is the cause of seasons like summer and winter on Earth.

paragraphs: The axial tilts of Venus, Uranus and Pluto are greater than 90 degrees for the following reasons:


title: Dollhouse (TV series)

paragraphs: Dollhouse was an hour-long American television series. The series is written by producer Joss Whedon and stars Eliza Dushku. Whedon and Dushku both worked together on the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and its darker spin-off " Angel". Tim Minear, who also worked with "Buffy" and "Angel" is also involved. The series is made by 20th Century Fox Television. Twelve episodes of "Dollhouse" aired on FOX. Two more episodes that were not shown on television will be on the DVD collection of episodes.

paragraphs: In "Dollhouse", Eliza Dushku plays a young woman named Echo. She is one of a group of men and women who can have "personality packages" put into their minds. These packages can include many things, for example, memory, skills, language and muscle memory. These people live in a futuristic dormitory/laboratory named the "Dollhouse". They are given special personas as part of the personality packages. These are used to do many different types of assignments. For example, the jobs could be romantic, adventurous, strange, or illegal. After the assignment, the information is removed from their minds and they are left in a child-like state with no memories. The series follows Echo as she begins to remember things even though her mind is constantly being erased and new memories implanted into it.


title: Hydrostatic equilibrium

paragraphs: Hydrostatic equilibrium happens when the pull of gravity is balanced by a pressure gradient which creates a pressure-gradient force in the other direction. The balance of these two forces is known as the hydrostatic balance. It flattens the surface of undisturbed liquids.


title: Right ascension

paragraphs: Right ascension (abbrev. RA; symbol α) is the astronomical word for one of the two coordinates of a point on the celestial sphere when using the equatorial coordinate system. It is the celestial counterpart to Longitude. The other coordinate is the declination.

paragraphs: The moon, planets and stars all have their own RA. Many of them are listed in an almanac. With a little arithmetic, the object’s RA and declination indicate where to look in the sky to see the object.


title: Declination

paragraphs: Declination (abbrev. dec or δ) is a word used in astronomy to describe one of the two coordinates of the equatorial coordinate system, the other being either right ascension or hour angle. Dec is comparable to latitude, projected onto the celestial sphere, and is measured in degrees north and south of the celestial equator.


title: Retrograde and direct motion

paragraphs: Direct motion is the motion of a planetary body in a direction similar to that of other bodies within its system, and is sometimes called prograde motion. Retrograde motion is motion in the opposite direction. In the case of celestial bodies such as the retrograde Carme group of moons, such motion may be real, defined by the natural rotation or orbit of the body.

paragraphs: Every so often a planet seems to change direction and go the other way for a short period of time (in relation to the fixed stars), making a "retrograde loop" or squiggle in its track before carrying on as normal. This apparent retrograde motion, however, is seen because the Earth is moving. It is only seen when outer planets are near opposition.

paragraphs: A common analogy for the principle of apparent retrograde motion is that of turning on a circle. If two cars are travelling at the same constant speed from the same point on concentric circles "next to each other" such that one car is on the "outside" and the other on the "inside", then the car on the inside will complete its circle before the car on the outside, because it has a shorter distance to travel. Thus, it will seem to the driver of the car on the inside, that, although the speed of the cars is the same, the car on the outside is slower. The outside car will appear to "fall behind" the inside car. The same concept is the basis of retrograde motion.


title: Planetesimal

paragraphs: Planetesimals are small, solid objects thought to exist in protoplanetary disks around a young or forming star. Planetesimals are created when dust particles collide.


title: Achondrite

paragraphs: An achondrite is a stony meteorite that is made of material similar to terrestrial basalts or plutonic rocks. Compared to the chondrites, they have all been differentiated and reprocessed to a lesser or greater degree from the effects to melting and recrystallization on or within meteorite parent bodies.


title: Basalt

paragraphs: Basalt is an extrusive volcanic rock that contains olivine and pyroxene minerals that make the rock dark-colored. It is usually fine-grained because of its rapid cooling of lava on the Earth's surface. Flood basalts are commonplace, formed by lava pouring out and solidifying.

paragraphs: Unweathered basalt is black or grey. Basalt blocks are often used for roads and pavements (sidewalks). It is hard-wearing and heat resistant.

paragraphs: On Earth, most basalt magmas have formed by melting of the mantle. Basalt has also formed on Earth's Moon, Mars, Venus, and even on the asteroid Vesta.

paragraphs: The crustal portions of oceanic tectonic plates are composed mostly of basalt, produced from upwelling mantle below mid-ocean ridges.

paragraphs: Basalt can be made into fiber. Basalt fiber is often used as a safe replacement for asbestos.


title: Aswan

paragraphs: Aswan (, population 200,000) is a city in the south of Egypt and the capital of the Aswan Governorate. It is on the east bank of the Nile and is a busy market and tourist center.

paragraphs: Aswan is one of the driest places in the world where people actually live; as of early 2001, the last rain there was 6 years earlier. As of October 13, 2007, the last rainfall was a thunderstorm on May 13, 2006. In Nubian settlements, the people often do not put a roof over all of the rooms in their houses.


title: Carl Barks

paragraphs: Carl Barks (March 27, 1901 - August 25, 2000) was a famous cartoonist. He was the inventor of Scrooge McDuck, the Beagle Boys, Gyro Gearloose and many other Walt Disney characters. He was often called the most important artist in Disney comics.

paragraphs: Carl Barks was born on March 27, 1901, near Merrill, Oregon, as part of a farming family. At the age of 10, he became interested in art for the first time. When he was 15, his mother died, and he began to help his father on the family's farm. In 1935, he took a contract with Disney and started as one of the studio's artists. Some months later, he become a part of Ted Sears "Story Department" at the Disney studios, where he wrote more than two dozen stories for short films with Donald Duck and other characters until 1942.

paragraphs: In 1942 he went to "Western Publishing". There he started drawing comics with Donald Duck and later with other characters - most of them he created by himself. He held this job until 1966, when he retired.

paragraphs: By the early 1990s, Carl Barks had become a comic legend. In 1994, at the age of 93, for the first time in his long life, he traveled to Europe and visited around a dozen countries. Some months earlier, his third wife, Margaret, called Garé, had died at the age of 75.

paragraphs: In 1999, leukemia began to destroy Barks' body. The "Duck Man" died, aged 99, on August 25, 2000, at his home in Grants Pass, Oregon.


title: Jay-Z

paragraphs: Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969), better known by his stage name JAY-Z (formerly Jay-Z and Jay Z), is an American rapper, record producer and entrepreneur. He is the former CEO of Def Jam Recordings and Roc-A-Fella Records. Jay-Z co-owns The 40/40 Club and the Brooklyn Nets NBA team. He is one of the most financially successful hip-hop artists and businessmen in America. Jay-Z has several nicknames, "Jigga", "Hova", "Young Hov", and "The Greatest Rapper Alive".

paragraphs: In June 2019, it was reported that Jay-Z had become the first billionaire rapper.

paragraphs: Jay-Z had a really rough adolescence. At the age of 11 his father left the family, so he was raised by his mother, Gloria Carter. Like he said in a lot of his autobiographical songs, Jay-Z was involved with a lot of drug deals and gun violence. Jay-Z went to Eli Whitney High School, in Brooklyn, where he met the well-known The Notorious B.I.G.

paragraphs: Jay-Z started to rap at a very young age. He thought it was a way to escape from violence, drugs and poverty. At the age of 20, Shawn met Jaz-O, who was an old performer. He was a sort of mentor for Jay-Z. He recorded a song with him called “The Originator”. This song gave them the opportunity to go on the MTV raps show and this was the first step to glory for him. After this show he needed to find a stage name. He chose Jay Z, to thank his mentor Jaz-O, but also at his high school he used to be called “Jazzy”. Jay-Z had a good start, but he wasn’t mainstream enough to be a famous star of hip-hop, so he decided to create his own label record with two of his friends called the Roc-A-Fella Records. His career took a step higher, in 1998, when he won his first Grammy with his song Hard-Knock-Life. From 1998 to 2003, Jay-Z produced a lot of good songs and albums, but his most famous album was "The Blueprint". It was claimed by critics to be one of the albums of the decade. He was now considered as one of the biggest in the game.

paragraphs: In 2003, Jay-Z stopped rapping, because he found that there were not enough good rappers to compete with him. He said that the game was too easy for him. He decided to concentrate more on his producer career than his rap career. He became the president of Def Jam Recordings. He signed a lot of great artists such as Rihanna, Ne-Yo and Kanye West. He also became a businessman by creating his own clothing company, Rocawear, and owning a part of the Brooklyn Nets, an NBA basketball team.

paragraphs: After a step back in his career, he made a decision in 2006 to come back into the game. He created the albums "Kingdom Came" and the year after "American Gangster". In 2009, he released Blue print 3, but in 2011 he teamed up with Kanye West to do an LP called "Watch the Throne". This album went triple hit, made the top rap charts for August and also nominated for the Grammy for the best rap Album. Now, he is known to be one of the best rappers of all time. In April 2011 Jay-Z started a website called "Life+ Times". He also took part in Barack Obama’s last elections. Jay-Z's twelfth album, "Magna Carta Holy Grail", was released in July 2013. The album topped the chart to number one. It was nominated for Album of the Year at the 2013 BET Hip Hop Awards. The first single on the album, "Holy Grail", features Justin Timberlake singing in it. It reached number four on the US "Billboard" 100. In South Korea it reached number one. Jay-Z's wife Beyoncé sings on "Part II (On the Run)". In December 2013 Jay-Z was nominated for nine Grammy Awards. This was more than anyone else that year. He rapped on his wife Beyoncé Knowles' fifth album "Beyoncé".

paragraphs: Together with Beyoncé, Jay-Z has three children: daughter Blue Ivy (born 2012) and twins Rumi and Sir Carter, who were born in June 2017.

paragraphs: JAY-Z has released the following albums during his career:


title: Ripon

paragraphs: Ripon is a small cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England. In the 2001 census Ripon had a population of 15,922. In England only Wells, Ely and the City of London are smaller.

paragraphs: Ripon was one of the boroughs reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835. It stayed a borough in the West Riding of Yorkshire until 1974. Under the Local Government Act 1972 it became a parish in the borough of Harrogate, North Yorkshire. Because it is an urban (town) parish Ripon can call its parish council Ripon City Council, the chairman of its parish council is called the City Mayor.


title: What's It Gonna Be

paragraphs: What's It Gonna Be is a single by Beyoncé from the Japanese edition of her debut album "Dangerously in Love" (2003), the bonus CD of her first DVD "Live at Wembley" (2004), and the Wal-Mart edition of Destiny's Child's fourth studio album "Destiny Fulfilled" (2004). A 7" promo single containing three different versions of the song plus three different versions of Faith Evans' cover of Donna Summer's 1978 "Heaven Knows" (which was part of the official soundtrack to "The Fighting Temptations") was released. The song was used in Knowles' adds for L'Oréal.


title: Senegal River

paragraphs: The Senegal River is a river in West Africa. It is 1,800 km long and is the border between Senegal and Mauritania. Pliny the Elder called it "Bambotus" (from a word meaning "hippopotamus") and Claudius Ptolemy called it "Nias". Hanno the Carthaginian went to the river in about 450 BC when he was going from Carthage to Mount Cameroon in the Gulf of Guinea. Carthage was destroyed in 146 BC, but before that time there was probably trade from here to the Mediterranean Sea.

paragraphs: The Semefé River and Bafing River meet in Bafoulabé and this forms the Senegal River. The Semefé and Bafing rivers' sources are in Guinea. The Bafing River flows through Mali and the Semefé is the Mali-Senegal border.

paragraphs: Near the river's mouth, the Senegal goes through Biffeche and there is an island in the river. The city of Saint-Louis is on this island. The river then turns south. There is a thin line of sand and this separates the river from the Atlantic Ocean. The line of sand is called the Langue de Barbarie. After this, the river enters the Atlantic Ocean. The river has two large dams: the Manantali Dam in Mali, and the Maka-Diama Dam on the Mauritania-Senegal border, near the sea. The Manantali Dam makes a reservoir. The Maka-Diama Dam stops salt water going deep into the countryside.

paragraphs: The Senegal River takes its water from 483,181 km² of land. About 8 000 000 km³ of water goes along the river every year. The Faleme River, Karakoro River, and Gorgol River join the Senegal River.

paragraphs: In 1972, Mali, Mauritania and Senegal made the Organisation pour la mise en valeur du fleuve Sénégal (OMVS). This organisation manages the land around the river. Guinea joined this organisation in 2005.


title: Diprotodont

paragraphs: The Diprotodontia is a large order of about 120 Australasian marsupial mammals. It includes the kangaroos, wallabies, possums, koala, wombats, and many others.

paragraphs: Extinct members include the giant Diprotodon family, and "Thylacoleo", the so-called "marsupial lion".

paragraphs: † means extinct family, genus or species.


title: Live in Atlanta

paragraphs: Destiny's Child: Live in Atlanta features Destiny's Child performing live in Atlanta, Georgia at Philips Arena on July 15, 2005 during their "Destiny Fulfilled ... And Lovin' It" tour which sponsored by McDonald's, it was also known as the last tour of Destiny's Child. It was released on March 28, 2006 in the United States. The DVD debuted at #1 on the "Billboard" Music DVD charts breaking record sales about 500,000 copies at first week, instead of those numbers Nielsen SoundScan tracked sales of 50,000 because the restrictions about retail, international deliveries and e-packages, RIAA already certified the DVD as Platinum.

paragraphs: This was also released as a two-disc CD but only in Japan.


title: Bambara language

paragraphs: Bambara is a language from Mali. More than 6 000 000 people (including second language users) speak it. It is called Bamanankan in Bambara. Bambara is very similar to Dioula. Dioula is not spoken by as many people, but it is used in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, and Gambia. The Bambara language is spoken mainly by people in the Bambara racial group. About 2,700,000 people are in this group, but Bambara is also used by other racial groups in Mali.

paragraphs: Bambara is in the Manding language family. These languages are similar to each other. This family of languages is in a larger language group. This group is called the Mandé group. It is an SOV language (Subject-Object-Verb) and it has two tones (pitches).

paragraphs: There are seven vowels: a, e, , i, o, and u.

paragraphs: Writing started during the period of French rule. There is not much written work, but there is a lot of oral literature, which is often stories about kings and heroes. The people who tell these stories are called "Griot". They also sing religious songs. Many of their songs are very old and some people think the songs are as old as the old Mali Empire.

paragraphs: Bambara is a national language of Mali, and it is also the most widely understood language in Mali.

paragraphs: Bambara has many local dialects. Somono, Segou, San, Beledugu, Ganadugu and Wasulu and Sikasso are some dialects.


title: Proboscidea

paragraphs: Proboscidea (meaning "trunked beast") is an order containing only one familiy of living animals, Elephantidae, the elephants, with three living species (African forest elephant, African bush elephant, and Asian elephant).

paragraphs: During the period of the last ice age there were more, now extinct species, including a number of species of the elephant-like mammoths and mastodons.

paragraphs: The oldest proboscidean dates from the early Palaeogene period, over 50 million years ago. The evolution of the elephant-like animals mainly concerned the proportions of the cranium and jaw and the shape of the tusks and molar teeth.

paragraphs: Present-day elephants are the survivors of a once larger and more varied family.


title: Adrar des Ifoghas

paragraphs: The Adrar des Ifoghas is a sandstone high area in the Kidal Region of Mali. Is has an area of about 250,000 km².

paragraphs: There are wide, shallow valleys, and many granite rocks. The Tamesna Plain is to the east. The Telemsi Fosse is to the west The low, western part of the Azaouak Valley is to the south. Tanezrouft is to the north. Kidal, Aguel'hoc, Boughessa, Essouk and Tessalit are cities in this area.

paragraphs: The Adrar des Ifoghas is called "Adagh" in the local language. "" is the Berber word for mountain, and "Ifogha" is the short name of a rich Tuareg family. This family (the "Kel Ifoghas") has been very powerful in this area for a long time. They are nomads and they eat and sell camels, goats and sheep.

paragraphs: The area has many old archaeological places. The rock drawings showing men hunting, farming, and looking after cows are very important. Asselar Man's bones were also found here by Théodore Monod. Recently, the Adrar des Ifoghas has become popular for hiking.


title: Kokoreç

paragraphs: Kokoreç is a Turkish meal. It is made of lamb intestines. Intestines of suckling lambs (süt kuzusu) is most favored for this dish. It is not a standard menu item in restaurants. It can be found in any street.

paragraphs: Kokoreç can be cooked in many ways. One way is to cook it similar to Döner; with a horizontal skewer (see also Rotisserie). The intestine parts are stacked together. This sort can be found in street vendors mostly. The most popular heating method is charcoal fire which gives it an extra rich flavour. After it is cooked, it is cut and put in a half or quarter portion of Turkish bread (somun). Tomatoes or spices can be added to it.

paragraphs: Another way to cook is to cut it after cleaning, mixing it with cut tomatoes and green peppers. After that, it is cooked on a big griddle in large quantities, and then it is added hot red pepper and oregano. It is constantly mixed and cut by the cooker using two spatulas in his hands during cooking. When done, the dish is kept warm.

paragraphs: Kokoreç can be served in many ways. It is usually served as a sandwich in form of Yarım Ekmek Kokoreç (Half-Bread) or Çeyrek Ekmek Kokoreç (Quarter-Bread). At the same time, it could be served without bread, on a plate, as a normal meal. Kokoreç is usually served with Ayran, Beer or Cola.


title: Ub Iwerks

paragraphs: Ubbe Ert Iwwerks (March 24, 1901 - July 7, 1971), better known as Ub Iwerks, was an American animator. He is best known for creating Mickey Mouse, together with Walt Disney.

paragraphs: Ub Iwerks was born in 1901 in Kansas City. His father Eert Ubbe was an immigrant from Germany. In 1919 he met Walt Disney the first time. Some months later, Disney founded his first studio. Ub Iwerks was his first artist, and at this time the only one. Iwerks was called "the fastest animator" of Hollywood, because he could drew more than 700 pictures a day. In fact, he finished the first Mickey Mouse cartoon which was produced in just two weeks.

paragraphs: Disney, the man with money and Iwerks, the man with talent, had often differences. As a result of this differences, Iwerks left Disney in 1930 and founded his own studio. It closed in 1936, after that, Iwerks worked some months for Columbia Pictures, in 1940 he went back to Walt Disney. He did not draw anymore, but became the head of the "Special Processes Department". There he invented the Multiplane camera. For this camera he was awarded in 1960 with a special Oscar.

paragraphs: At the end of his life, Ub Iwerks worked for popular directors, like Alfred Hitchcock, too. In 1963 he was nominated for his work on "The Birds" for a second Oscar.

paragraphs: Ub Iwerks died at age 70 in Burbank, California. His sons Don Iwerks and David Iwerks worked for Disney, too. Ub's great grandson, Michael Iwerks, works at Disney also


title: Endocrine gland

paragraphs: Endocrine glands are glands that secrete their product (hormones) directly into the blood. This group contains the glands of the endocrine system.

paragraphs: The main endocrine glands are the pituitary gland, the pancreas, the gonads, the thyroid gland and the adrenal glands. Other organs which are not so well known for their endocrine activity include the stomach, which produces such hormones as ghrelin.


title: Thyroid

paragraphs: The thyroid is one of the largest endocrine glands in the body. This gland is found in the throat. The thyroid controls how quickly the body burns energy, makes proteins, and how sensitive the body should be to other hormones.

paragraphs: The principal hormones it makes are thyroxine (T4) an triiodothyronine (T3), which is more active. These hormones regulate the growth of many systems in the body. T3 and T4 are synthesised from iodine and tyrosine. The thyroid also makes calcitonin, which plays a role in calcium homeostasis.


title: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols

paragraphs: Never Mind the Bollocks: Here's the Sex Pistols is an album by English punk band the Sex Pistols. It was released on 28 October 1977 in the UK and 10 November 1977 in the USA.