title: Ophiuchus

paragraphs: Ophiuchus (Οφιούχος: say it 'Ofi-youkus'), is one of the 88 listed constellations. In Latin, it means "serpent-holder". It is near the celestial equator, and northwest of the center of the Milky Way. Ophiuchus is on the ecliptic, but is generally not considered to be in the zodiac. Its brightest star is Rasalhague.

paragraphs: The Voyager 1 probe is within the borders of Ophiuchus.


title: George Boleyn

paragraphs: George Boleyn (1504? - May 17 1536) was the brother of his famous sister Anne Boleyn and his other sister Mary Boleyn. His parents were Thomas Boleyn and Elizabeth Howard.

paragraphs: George was born in 1504, probably in Blickling, although it is unsure. George Boleyn was well known for serving the King (Henry VIII ), he was most favored by him. His sister, Anne, became queen because of the help of his Uncle (The Duke of Norfolk) and his Father (Thomas Boleyn). His two sisters, Anne Boleyn (Second wife of Henry VIII), and Mary Boleyn (Mistress of the King) were his only two friends. They spent much time together. He married Jane Parker, also known as Lady Jane Rochford. He was not happy with his marriage, he was only engaged to her by their Uncle. As a Boleyn/Howard (Howard, Mothers maiden name) he had to obey. His obedience towards his family made him unhappy. He refused to sleep with his wife, so instead spent many nights with his sisters in Anne's rooms. Mary would be there, for she was Anne's lady in waiting. All three of the Boleyns were very close.

paragraphs: George Boleyn had a very close relationship with his sister Anne. He was also close with his other sister, but Mary focused more on her family with her husband (William Stafford). George and Anne's downfall happened when Henry VIII accused them of incest. Mary Boleyn was not with them at the time of their exile. She chose to hide because of her children. If she had not hidden herself, she too would have been killed. It was likely a false charge by Henry VIII so he could get rid of Anne Boleyn. George's wife claimed that George and Anne had an affair. At her own execution, Lady Jane Rochford claimed that "God has permitted me to suffer this shameful doom as punishment for having contributed to my husband's death. I falsely accused him of loving in an incestuous manner, his sister, Queen Anne Boleyn. For this I deserve to die."


title: Tsitsernakaberd

paragraphs: Tsitsernakaberd () is a memorial for the victims of the Armenian Genocide. It is on a hill overlooking Yerevan, Armenia. Every year on April 24, Armenians gather here to remember the victims of the 1915 Armenian Genocide that took place in the Ottoman Empire carried out by the Turkish government. In 1965 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Genocide after a million people demonstrated for 24 hours; the demonstrations are now known as the 1965 Yerevan Demonstrations. In response, the genocide memorial construction began in 1966 and it was completed in 1968. In Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, crowds of people walk to the Tsitsernakaberd Genocide Memorial to lay flowers at the eternal flame.


title: Mary Boleyn

paragraphs: Mary Boleyn (about 1499 – 19 July 1543) was the elder sister of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII. They had a brother called George Boleyn.

paragraphs: Mary was born around 1499 or 1500 as the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn and Lady Elizabeth Howard at Blickling Hall in Norfolk. Her brother George and her sister Anne were brought up along with her by members of the Boleyn household in the courtyside at Hever Castle in Kent. She had golden blonde hair, dark brown eyes, and a creamy complexion. Mary was considered to be the most beautiful of the Boleyn sisters, but she lacked Anne's brilliance and charisma.She was also demure, easy-tempered, and obedient while Anne was lively, opinionated, and passionate.

paragraphs: During her childhood Mary's academic education had been limited to arithmetic, basic reading and writing, her family genealogy, grammar, history, religion, and the Scriptures. She had developed domestic skills such as dancing,embrodiery, good manners and morals, household management, music, needlework, and singing, excelled at playing several musical instruments including the harp, the lute, the viol, and the virginals, and was fluent in French from learning it from her French governess Mademoiselle Semmonet. Mary learned to play games such as cards, chess, and dice and outdoor pursuits such as archery, falconry, horseback riding, and hunting. Like her sister Anne, Mary was also taught to have obedience to the men in her life which was first to her father and then to her husband once she was married. Most of the time Mary would either be having constant lessons, dress fittings,or etiquette lessons in order for her to learn to be a proper lady or playing childhood games with Anne and George in the manor grounds.

paragraphs: Mary was kept in England until 1514 when she was either fourteen or fifteen. She was sent to be a maid of honor to Mary Tudor, the sister of King Henry VIII. Mary Tudor was going to be married to King Louis XII of France. Only a few months after the wedding, Louis died and Francis I became king. It is thought that Mary Boleyn became Francis I's mistress for a while.

paragraphs: Mary was sent back to England when her parents found out about her affair in France, but she ended up being the lover of King Henry VIII. Some people think that King Henry was the father of Mary's children, Catherine Carey and Henry Carey, but it is more likely that her husband, William Carey, was the true father. Mary married William Carey in 1520.

paragraphs: After Mary's husband died, Mary's luck ran out. Her sister Anne took Mary's place as King Henry's favourite lover, and Henry divorced his wife in order to marry Anne. After this, Mary became really poor. Her first husband died, but she met another man, William Stafford, who was also poor. They married for love and this upset Anne Boleyn, who banished Mary from court. Mary and William Stafford had two children, but both of them died.

paragraphs: After Anne Boleyn had been married to King Henry for a short time, he grew tired of her. She was accused of having had other lovers and was executed. George Boleyn, the brother of Anne and Mary, was also executed, but Mary and her husband William Stafford were not blamed for anything as they were not at the royal court. They lived happily together until Mary died in 1543.


title: Cubic centimetre

paragraphs: A cubic centimetre (symbol cm³ or cc) (U.S. spelling: cubic centimeter) is a commonly used unit of volume extending the derived SI-unit cubic metre and corresponds to the volume of a cube measuring 1 cm × 1 cm × 1 cm. One cubic centimetre corresponds to a volume of of a cubic metre, or of a litre; therefore, 1 cm³ = 1 mL. In many scientific fields, the use of cubic centimetres has been replaced by the millilitre. The medical and automotive fields are two of the few fields wherein the term cubic centimetre was never discontinued in the United States. In the United Kingdom millilitres are used in preference to cubic centimetres in the medical field.

paragraphs: One cubic centimetre of water is equal to 1 gram.


title: Geometric albedo

paragraphs: The geometric albedo of an astronomical body is the ratio of its actual brightness at zero phase angle (i.e. as seen from the light source) to that of an "idealized" flat, fully reflecting, diffusively scattering (Lambertian) disk with the same cross-section.

paragraphs: The visual geometric albedo refers to the geometric albedo quantity when accounting for only electromagnetic radiation in the visible spectrum.


title: Welcome to the Black Parade

paragraphs: "Welcome to the Black Parade" is the first single and fifth track from My Chemical Romance's third studio album, "The Black Parade". It was released on September 11, 2006 on iTunes and October 9, 2006 on CD. It is the band's ninth single. The studio version was available on MySpace on September 2, 2006. The song became the group's first number one in the UK on October 15, 2006, and later rose to number one on the Modern Rock Tracks on October 26, 2006, where it would stay for seven weeks. It was originally intended to be called "The Five Of Us Are Dying."

paragraphs: The song ranked at #17 on Rolling Stone's "The 100 Best Songs of 2006".


title: Remembrance Day

paragraphs: Remembrance Day (in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom) is a day to remember people who fought and died in wars. It is on November 11. On that day in 1918 came the end of World War I with Armistice with Germany.

paragraphs: Remembrance Day was started in 1919 by King George V of the United Kingdom. On the same day, other countries also have days to remember war and soldiers. There is Veteran's Day in the United States, and Armistice Day in France, Belgium, New Zealand and other countries.

paragraphs: There are some things that people do on Remembrance Day at 11:00 AM. That is when World War I ended. At a ceremony for Remembrance Day, a tune called "The Last Post" is played on a bugle (or sometimes a trumpet). Then there are two minutes of silence. At the end of the silence, the bugle plays a tune called "Reveille".

paragraphs: In many countries, many people wear a poppy on Remembrance Day, and for a few days before. The remembrance poppy is an artificial flower to commemorate those who died in war. People bring wreaths made of poppies to Remembrance Day ceremonies. The poppy is a symbol to show they remember the wars and the soldiers who fought in them. Poppies were chosen as a symbol because they often grew in battlefields after the soldiers stopped fighting.


title: Division (botany)

paragraphs: In biology, a division is the equivalent of a phylum in a kingdom. Botanists use the word "division" where zoologists use the word "phylum".


title: Leona Lewis

paragraphs: Leona Lewis (born 3 April 1985) is a British singer-songwriter.

paragraphs: Lewis first became famous when she won a television talent contest in Britain called "The X Factor". When she won "The X Factor" in 2006, Lewis got a £1 million contract to make more music. She then released a song, as part of "The X Factor" contract, called "A Moment Like This" which was the number 1 song in the charts at Christmas after selling 571,253 copies in the shops and on download.

paragraphs: Lewis then released her second song on 22 October 2007 called "Bleeding Love" which was the number 1 song again in Britain, and also reached number 1 in the United States. It sold 218,805 copies in the first week of release. She released her first album called "Spirit" in November 2007. Her second album is "Echo", which was released 9 November 2009.

paragraphs: Her first concert tour called "The Labyrinth" was in 2010.

paragraphs: Her songs include "Better in Time" and "Bleeding Love".


title: Trinny Woodall

paragraphs: Trinny Woodall (born Sarah-Jane Woodall on 8 February 1964) is an English expert in fashion, author, television presenter and journalist.

paragraphs: Trinny Woodall first became famous when she presented a reality show called "What Not to Wear" with Susannah Constantine on the BBC. She then was on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in 2004 and helped American people with their clothes and appearance. She then presented "Trinny & Susannah Undress" on ITV in 2006 and "Trinny & Susannah Undress The Nation" in 2007.

paragraphs: She has also written lots of fashion books with Constantine in Britain and America which have been made into many languages. Their first major book, "What Not to Wear", sold 670,000 copies and won a British Book Award.


title: Susannah Constantine

paragraphs: Susannah Caroline Constantine (born June 3, 1962) is an English television presenter, fashion expert, author and journalist. In her early career, Constantine worked with famous fashion designers like John Galliano. She met Trinny Woodall in 1994 at a party and wrote about fashion in a newspaper called "The Telegraph". Susannah Constantine also dated the member of the British royal family, David, Viscount Linley, in the 1980s.

paragraphs: Constantine and Woodall became famous when they presented a reality show in Britain called "What Not to Wear". In 2002, they won a Royal Television Award for being the best presenters. In 2006 Constantine hosted another fashion show on ITV called "Trinny & Susannah Undress". She has also been on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" with Trinny Woodall, and helped women with their clothes. They have made many fashion books which have been successful in America and Britain, and have been translated into many languages. It is thought that the books have sold 2.5 million copies around the world.


title: Anna Wintour

paragraphs: Dame Anna Wintour (born 3 November 1949) is the English editor-in-chief of American "Vogue", a position she has held since 1988.

paragraphs: Anna Wintour stopped going to school at 16 and started her career in fashion. She worked on magazines in America called "New York" and "Home & Garden". She then went back to Britain and worked on a British magazine known as "Vogue". She later worked on the American version, making them both more popular and successful. Wintour supports young fashion designers and is sometimes called "Nuclear Wintour" because of her demanding personality.

paragraphs: It is thought that Anna Wintour was the inspiration behind the demanding editor, Miranda Priestly, in the novel "The Devil Wears Prada". The author of the book, Lauren Weisberger, had worked as the personal assistant of Anna Wintour at "Vogue". It has been suggested that the setting and Priestly were based on "Vogue" and Wintour, but Weisberger denies this, and says that Wintour is given her own appearance near the end of the book.

paragraphs: The similarities between Priestly and Wintour are:

paragraphs: Before the book started selling, Wintour told the "New York Times", "I always enjoy a great piece of fiction. I haven't decided whether I am going to read it or not."

paragraphs: It is also said that a character in the TV series of "Ugly Betty" is based on Wintour. The character Fey Sommers, is very similar to Anna Wintour:

paragraphs: Wintour is also mentioned in "Ugly Betty" when Wilhelmina Slater is going to get a better job at "MODE" (the magazine) after Bradford Meade is arrested. She does not accept a lunch invitation from Anna Wintour, saying she should have called back in 1998, not 2007.

paragraphs: Wintour has been a supporter of the Democratic Party going back to Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate run and John Kerry's 2004 presidential run and serving Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 presidential runs as a lot of contributions. In 2008 and 2012, she co-hosted fundraisers with Sarah Jessica Parker, the latter being a 50-person, $40,000-a-plate dinner at Parker's West Village town house with Meryl Streep, Michael Kors, and Trey Laird, an advertising executive, among the attendees. She has also teamed with Calvin Klein and Harvey Weinstein on fundraisers during Obama's first term and Donna Karan has been amongst the attendees.


title: Kingdom of Saxony

paragraphs: The Kingdom of Saxony (), existed from 1806 until 1918.

paragraphs: From 1871 it was part of the German Empire, and after World War I it became part of the Weimar Republic. Its capital was the city of Dresden, and its modern successor state is the Free State of Saxony.

paragraphs: Before 1806 Saxony was the Electorate of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire. This meant that the princes who ruled Saxony were prince-elector and could help elect a new Holy Roman Emperor.

paragraphs: When Emperor Francis II was defeated by Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz and the empire was dissolved the electorate became an independent kingdom. The last elector of Saxony became King Frederick Augustus I.

paragraphs: After the Battle of Jena in 1806, Saxony joined the Confederation of the Rhine, and remained within the Confederation until it broke up in 1813 when Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Leipzig.

paragraphs: The Catholic ruler of Saxony was one of the few German leaders to support the French. Saxony was put under Russian occupation and 40% of the Kingdom, including the historically significant Wittenberg, home of the Protestant Reformation, was taken by Prussia, but Frederick Augustus was allowed back to rule the remainder of his kingdom, which still included the major cities of Dresden and Leipzig. The Kingdom also joined the German Confederation, the new organization of the German states to replace the Holy Roman Empire.

paragraphs: During the 1866 Austro-Prussian War, Saxony sided with Austria. The Saxon army was the only large army to help Austria. At the peace talks Austria said Saxony should not be punished. The other states in north Germany including the large Kingdom of Hanover were annexed ("taken over") by Prussia after the war. These states had promised help to Austria but did little, so Austria did not try to help them at the peace talks.

paragraphs: Saxony joined the Prussian-led North German Confederation the next year in 1867. When Prussia beat France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, the Confederation was turned into the German Empire by Otto von Bismarck, with Wilhelm I as its Emperor.

paragraphs: John I, as Saxony's king, was below the Emperor, although he, like the other German princes, kept some of the rights of a sovereign ruler, including sending ambassadors other states.

paragraphs: Wilhelm I's grandson Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated in 1918 after Germany's defeat in the First World War. King Frederick Augustus III of Saxony followed him into abdication and the Kingdom of Saxony became the Free State of Saxony inside the newly-formed Weimar Republic. The Kingdom of Saxony had lasted only 112 years.


title: Saxe-Meiningen

paragraphs: The Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen was one of the Ernestine duchies.

paragraphs: The dukes were never very important in forming the history of Europe, and unlike their relative in the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha never set out to form a long lasting dynasty.

paragraphs: Like all of the German monarchies the duchy became part of the Weimar Republic after World War I.

paragraphs: In the reshuffle of Ernestine territories after the death of the Saxe-Gothaducal line in 1825, Saxe-Meiningen got the territories of Hildburghausen and Saalfeld. The state of Saxe-Meiningen was merged into the new state of Thuringia in 1920.

paragraphs: The capital of Saxe-Meiningen was Meiningen; it had an area of 2,468 km² and a population of 269,000 (1905). The summer residence was Altenstein.

paragraphs: The present head of Head of the Ducal House of Saxe-Meiningen is Prince Frederick Konrad (born 1952).


title: Eilenburg

paragraphs: Eilenburg is a town in the north of the state of Saxony (eastern Germany). The town lies on the banks of the river Mulde ca. 20 kilometres northeastern the city of Leipzig. It belongs to the Nordsachsen Rural District and is subdivided into the urban districts "Mitte", "Ost" and "Berg" (Stadtteile) and the villages "Behlitz", "Hainichen", "Kospa", "Pressen", "Wedelwitz" and "Zschettgau" (Ortsteile).

paragraphs: Eilenburg occupies and has about 17.000 inhabitants as of 31 December 2009.

paragraphs: The castle of Eilenburg was first mentioned at 29 July 961 in a document by Otto I. as "civitas Ilburg". The name has Slavic origin and means "town in clay deposits". Probably in the 11th century there has developed a settlement of purchase people in the advance of the castle, that forms the origin of the today's town of Eilenburg.

paragraphs: In the 16th century Eilenburg was a centre of the reformation events. Even George, Duke of Saxony, called this town a "nominated place" ("namhaftigen Ort"). Martin Luther was total seven times in Eilenburg and called it a "blessed lard pit" ("gesegnete Schmalzgrube"). It is passed that he took it into consideration to set here in the old.

paragraphs: The Thirty Years' War left hard mark in Eilenburg. First the town was spared of fighting, but it already suffered from the catastrophic economic effects of the war. From the year 1631 the town was directly involved in the war. In 1632 the body of Gustav II Adolf, King of the Swedish, was laid out in "Red Deer Inn" ("Gasthof Roter Hirsch") after he had been killed in the Battle of Lützen the 16 November 1632. In 1639 Eilenburg was conquered by the troops of Georg von Derfflinger. In 1646 peace negotiations between Saxony and Sweden began in Eilenburg to extend the expiring Armistice of Kötzschenbroda. The 14 September 1648 the Treaty of Eilenburg was made and meant the end of the Thirty Years' War for total Saxony. Subsequently the town recovered.

paragraphs: The slow onset of economic recovery got a sudden end by the began of the Seven Years' War. Virtually each male in Eilenburg had to serve in the armed forces. The city was occupied alternately by the Austrians and Prussians. In the following Eilenburg turned into an impoverished and squandered town. In the end of the 18th century the economy stagnated and Eilenburg became an insignificant town.

paragraphs: In 1813 during the Napoleonic wars shortly before the Battle of Leipzig Napoleon was in Eilenburg and took the last view on his and the allies Saxon troops eastern Eilenburg. After Napoleon's defeat, Saxony had to cede large territory to Prussia under the provisions of the Congress of Vienna. Eilenburg now belonging to the very modern Prussian state. Thereby the transition of Eilenburg to an industrial city was advanced significantly.

paragraphs: Because of the founding of numerous textile factories Eilenburg next to Berlin became most important centre of Prussian textile production. The ascent to an important industrial city came mainly from the nearby Saxony. Saxon industrialists settled in Eilenburg for having duty-free access to the Prussian market. Onset urbanization caused a rapid rising of the population. The social tensions resulting from the industrialization and the huge growth of population promoted a strong labour movement. In 1849 the "health insurance support association" ("Krankenkassenunterstützungsverein") was founded. In 1850 the "food association of Eilenburg" ("Eilenburger Lebensmittelassociation") as first food cooperative of Germany and "Darlehnskassenverein" as first Credit union in Germany were founded. Carl Degenkolb, owner of a factory in Eilenburg and member of Frankfurt Parliament, instituted first German works councils voluntarily at his factory.

paragraphs: In 1872 Eilenburg received its first railway. The 30 June Halle-Eilenburg-Falkenberg route was opened. Two years later transport services started on the new built Eilenburg-Leipzig route. Industrial development continued rapidly by settlement of chemical, wood and metal processing industry. The "German Celluliod Factory" ("Deutsche Celluliod-Fabrik") that settled in 1887 characterized the city's business for more than a hundred years.

paragraphs: During World War I hundreds of Eilenburg people were called up for military service. The 21 October 1917 Wilhelm Pieck, the later President of GDR escaped from a military transport at Eilenburg station. Total about 800 people from Eilenburg were killed during the war.

paragraphs: About two weeks before the end of the World War II the city was almost completely destroyed. 17. April 1945 the American troops reached Eilenburg. It was ordered defense to extremes. Three days and three nights the town was under heavy artillery fire, that destroyed most of the buildings of the city. The meaningless defense killed two hundred people, 90 percent of the City Centre (65 percent of the buildings of the whole city) were destroyed while the American associations had nearly no losses. Eilenburg was one of the hardest destroyed cities in Germany.

paragraphs: The city centre was rebuilt in the 1950s. In 1952 the city became the seat of the Eilenburg Rural District newly formed by the administrative reform in the GDR. In the east part of Eilenburg large new housing areas emerged. In autumn 1989 up to seven thousand inhabitants formed peaceful demonstrations reaching a change ("Wende") especially on political level. After the German reunification some long-established companies got out of business. Dismantling of jobs could only be partially offset by new business settlements on newly created industrial areas outside the city. In 1994 Eilenburg Rural District got merged with Delitzsch Rural District in the course of district reform. So the city lost the seat of district.

paragraphs: In 2002 Eilenburg was hit hard by flood of the river Mulde. The thereby caused damages amounted to EUR 135 million. The construction of flood protection facilities was intensified after the flood. In 2008 the construction measures ended after investments amounting to EUR 35 million. Eilenburg was the first city in Saxony that is completely protected against flood. Since 1 August 2008 Eilenburg lies approximately in the middle of the newly formed Nordsachsen Rural District.


title: The Misfits

paragraphs: The Misfits were a punk rock band from New Jersey. They are usually classified as a hardcore punk or horror punk band. They often played in theatrical makeup to look spooky. They had themes mostly from old movies, especially horror movies. The lead singer was Glenn Danzig. Danzig later formed Samhain and then Danzig. Other members went on to form a new version of the Misfits in the late 2000s. That version eventually included members of the Ramones and Black Flag.

paragraphs: The Misfits had many of their records released in limited collectible versions. Sometimes they were released through their fan club called The Fiend Club. They had a huge influence on everything from the way punk is marketed (the Misfits rival Kiss in marketing of their skull logo) to the many celebrities wearing their T shirts.


title: Vistula

paragraphs: The Vistula (Polish: Wisła) is the longest river in Poland. It is 1,047 km (678 miles) long.

paragraphs: The following is the list of right and left tributaries and the name of a city close by, listed from source to mouth:


title: Sunnah

paragraphs: The word Sunnah (Arabic: سنة) is an Arabic word meaning "tradition" or "way." For Muslims, Sunnah means "the way of the prophet". Sunnites try to follow his words, actions and teachings.

paragraphs: Muslim scholars learn about the Sunnah by studying thousands of stories about Muhammad, his family, and his first followers. These stories are called Hadith.


title: Al-Aqsa Mosque

paragraphs: Al-Aqsa Mosque ("The Farthest Mosque") is a mosque, or a place where Muslims go to worship, and it is in Baitulmaqdis. Abdul Malik ibn Marwan asked for the mosque to be built, but he died before they finished building it, and it was finished by his son in 705 AD. The Al-Aqsa Mosque is a part of the Al-Haram al-Qudsi al-Sharif, or "The Noble Sanctuary". This area is known as the Temple Mount by Jews, and it is believed to be the location where the Jewish Temple was built. The mosque is the 3rd most important place in Islam.Muslims believe that Muhammad went from the Sacred Mosque in Mecca to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the story of the "Night Journey". Also, some Islamic traditions say Muhammad led prayers there before his ascension.

paragraphs: People have planned to attack the mosque, and some people have actually attacked it. In 1969 Michael Dennis Rohan set the mosque on fire, destroying a lot of the mosque. Some members of the Gush Emunim Underground planned to blow up the mosque, but they never blew it up.

paragraphs: In September of 2000 Ariel Sharon visited Al-Aqsa, and Palestinians who were at the mosque threw objects at the police force that was with Sharon. In return the police shot rubber bullets at the group of Palestinians. Palestinians said Sharon visited the mosque to make people angry, but Sharon said he had gone there with a message of peace. This visit is what some believe caused the Second Intifada.

paragraphs: "Al-Aqsa Musjid" means "the farthest musjid". The masjids name comes from a story in the Quran called "The Night Journey". In the story Muhammad goes from Makkah to Jerusalem, where the Al-Aqsa Musjid is. Then he went up to Heaven (Jannah).

paragraphs: The mosque was first built in 705 AD. The first mosque was destroyed in an earthquake in 748 AD and had to be built again. We do not know when it was built again, but it was probably in 771 AD, and this mosque was destroyed soon after they finished building it. The third mosque was built around 780 AD. In 1033 AD there was another earthquake, and the mosque had to be built again.

paragraphs: Jerusalem was taken over by the Crusaders in 1099. Instead of taking down the mosque, the crusaders used the mosque as a palace. In 1119 it was changed into the headquarters for the Templar Knights.


title: Balkh Province

paragraphs: Balkh () is a province in the northern part of Afghanistan. Its capital is Mazar-i-Sharif. Most of its people are Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks.


title: Dwight Hicks

paragraphs: Dwight Hicks was born April 5, 1956 in Mount Holly, New Jersey. He was a professional American football player. He played the defensive back position for the Toronto Argonauts in 1978. He also played in the National Football League (NFL) for the San Francisco 49ers from 1979 to 1985 and for the Indianapolis Colts in 1986. Before that, Dwight Hicks played for the University of Michigan. He is a four-time Pro Bowl selection from 1981 to 1984. He helped the 49ers to win 2 NFL Championships in Super Bowl XVI and Super Bowl XIX.

paragraphs: Hicks led the NFL in interceptions in the 1981 season, and return yards. He went on to be very important in the Super Bowl. After the 49ers lost a fumble on the opening kickoff, the Cincinnati Bengals got the football to San Francisco 5-yard line. Hicks made an interception and stopped the Bengals from scoring.

paragraphs: In Hicks eight NFL seasons, he had 32 interceptions, 602 interception return yards, 14 fumble recoveries, 112 fumble return yards, and 4 touchdowns.

paragraphs: Hicks went on to become a popular character actor in movies such as "The Rock", "Jack", "Armageddon", and "In the Mix" after his football career. He also made appearances on many television programs. Some shows that he appeared on include "Nash Bridges", "The Pretender", "The Practice", "The X-Files", "ER" and "The O.C."


title: Surface gravity

paragraphs: The surface gravity, "g", of an astronomical or other object is the gravitational acceleration experienced at its surface. The surface gravity may be thought of as the acceleration caused by the gravity experienced by a hypothetical test particle which is very close to the object's surface and which, in order not to disturb the system, has negligible mass.

paragraphs: Surface gravity is measured in units of acceleration, which, in the SI system, are meters per second squared. It may also be described as a multiple of the Earth's gravity, "g" = 9.80665 m/s. In astrophysics, the surface gravity may be expressed as log "g", which is obtained by first expressing the gravity in cgs units, where the unit of acceleration is centimeters per second squared, and then taking the base 10 logarithm.


title: Rotation period

paragraphs: In astronomy, a rotation period is the time an astronomical object takes to complete one revolution around its rotation axis relative to the background stars. For the Earth this is a sidereal day. It is different from a solar day, which is measured by the passage of the Sun across the local meridian.


title: Angular size

paragraphs: Angular size is a measurement of how large or small something is using rotational measurement. It is useful for measuring things that are so far away that they appear two dimensional.


title: Albedo

paragraphs: The albedo of an object is the extent to which it reflects light, defined as

paragraphs: the ratio of reflected to incident electromagnetic radiation. It is a unitless measure indicative of a surface's or body's diffuse reflectivity. The word is derived from "albus", a Latin word for "white".


title: Robin Olds

paragraphs: Robin Olds (born July 14, 1922, died June 14, 2007) was a member of the United States Air Force. He was one of the first jet fighter pilots. In World War II, he flew a P-38 Lightning and a P-51 Mustang. In the Vietnam War, he was a commander and was angry about lack of dogfight training. He flew an F-4 Phantom II. In 1973, he retired from the Air Force at the rank of brigadier general. He had made 16 kills (12 in World War II, 4 in Vietnam). He had prostate cancer and died of heart failure.


title: Lady Mary Grey

paragraphs: Lady Mary Grey (1545- 20 April 1578) was the sister of Lady Jane Grey and Lady Katherine Grey. Her parents were Lady Frances Brandon and Henry Grey.

paragraphs: Mary Grey's parents were disappointed with her birth, because she was a girl and a hunchback. She was described as "four foot tall and hunchbacked".

paragraphs: Mary's life was not as exciting as her sisters, Jane and Katherine Grey. But after their death she was the last surviving grandchild of Mary Tudor, and therefore some people thought she might be heiress to the English throne. She married the royal gatekeeper Thomas Keyes in 1565 but this was without Queen Elizabeth's permission. But like her sister Katherine's marriage to Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, Queen Elizabeth was angry. Elizabeth claimed that she wanted "no bastard Keyes". Elizabeth put Mary under house arrest. She was released after the death of her husband in 1572 and was permitted to attend Court occasionally.


title: German-speaking Community of Belgium

paragraphs: The German-speaking Community of Belgium (, short "DGB") is one of the three federal communities in Belgium. It is the main part of the so-called East Cantons () of Belgium. It has an area of , and a population of over 73,000, of which almost 100% are German speaking (traditionally Ripuarian-speaking).

paragraphs: Its capital is Eupen; it is part of the province of Liège and borders on the Netherlands, Germany, and Luxembourg.

paragraphs: The area was known as Eupen-Malmedy, and is now called the East Cantons. It is made up of the German-speaking Community and the municipalities of Malmedy and Waimes (Weismes), which belong to the French-Speaking Community of Belgium.

paragraphs: The East Cantons were part of the Rhine Province of Prussia in Germany until 1920 but were annexed by Belgium following Germany's defeat in World War I and the subsequent Treaty of Versailles. Thus they also became known as the "cantons rédimés", "redeemed cantons". The peace treaty of Versailles demanded the "questioning" of the local population about their political status.

paragraphs: This was not a secret vote, and anyone who did not want to become Belgian had to register their full name and address. Many locals feared reprisals or even expulsion after enlisting.

paragraphs: In the mid-1920s the kingdom of Belgium seemed to want to sell the region back to Germany. The French government told the Belgians to stop the Belgian-German talks about the deal.

paragraphs: In 1940 the new cantons were retaken by Germany in World War II. They had only been in Belgium for 20 years, so the majority of people of the east cantons still thought of themselves as German. Following the defeat of Germany in 1945 the cantons were once again taken over by Belgium.

paragraphs: In the early 1960s Belgium was divided into four language areas, the Dutch speaking Flemish area, the French speaking area, the bilingual capital of Brussels, and the German speaking area of the east cantons. In 1973, three communities and three regions were established and granted internal autonomy. The legislative Parliament of the German-speaking Community, "Rat der Deutschsprachigen Gemeinschaft", was set up. Today the German-speaking Community has a degree of self government, especially in language and cultural matters, but it still part of French speaking Wallonia.

paragraphs: Some people want the German-speaking Community to be its own region. One of these is the current Minister-President Karl-Heinz Lambertz.

paragraphs: The German-speaking Community has its own government, which is appointed for five years by its parliament. The Government is headed by a Minister-President, who acts as the "prime minister" of the Community, and is assisted by the Ministry of the German-speaking Community. The government currently formed by four Ministers:


title: County Durham

paragraphs: County Durham is a county in north-east England. There are four different types of county:

paragraphs: The form of the county name is unique in England. Many counties are named after their principal town, and the expected form here would be "Durhamshire". But County Durham did not become a Shire/County until after the language of government was changed from Anglo-Saxon to Norman French in 1066. Previous to that it was a semi-independent Bishopric.

paragraphs: Durham County Council promotes the non-metropolitan county for tourism purposes as "The Land of the Prince Bishops" in reference to the former palatine jurisdiction of the bishops.

paragraphs: The historic county covered from the Pennines in the west, the River Tees in the south, the North Sea in the east and the Rivers Tyne and Derwent in the north.

paragraphs: The county several had a number of exclaves: Bedlingtonshire, Islandshire and Norhamshire within Northumberland, and Craikshire within the North Riding of Yorkshire. The historic boundaries were used for parliamentary purposes until 1832, and for law courts and local government until the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844, which merged most remaining exclaves with their surrounding county.

paragraphs: In 1889, under the Local Government Act 1888 England and Wales was divided into administrative counties and county boroughs. Administrative counties, governed by an elected county council, were based on the historic boundaries, less larger towns which became self-governing as county boroughs.

paragraphs: In 1889 the administrative county of Durham consisted of the historic county less the county boroughs of Gateshead, South Shields and Sunderland. The boundary with the North Riding of Yorkshire was adjusted: the part of the town of Barnard Castle that was in Yorkshire was added to County Durham, but the part of the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees in Durham was given to the North Riding. For all non-administrative purposes, such as lieutenancy, the County of Durham comprised the administrative county and associated county boroughs.

paragraphs: Over its existence, the administrative county lost territory, both to the existing county boroughs, and also due to the creation of county boroughs at West Hartlepool in 1902 and Darlington in 1915. In 1967 the borough of Hartlepool was removed from the administrative county when it merged with West Hartlepool to form a new county borough of Hartlepool, and in 1968 Billingham was included within the boundaries of the county borough of Teesside, associated with the North Riding.

paragraphs: The administrative county was abolished in 1974.

paragraphs: In 1974 Durham was divided between three counties. The boroughs of Hartlepool and Stockton-on-Tees became a part of the new non-metropolitan county of Cleveland. The metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear became responsible for Gateshead, Sunderland and South Tyneside. The new non-metropolitan county of Durham also covered the former area of Startforth Rural District, a part of the historic North Riding of Yorkshire, and south of the historical boundary of the River Tees.

paragraphs: The Department for Communities and Local Government has said that the seven district councils and the County Council will be abolished and a new unitary authority for the whole of the existing County Council area will be created. The change will be on 1 April 2009 at the latest. The successful Durham County Council bid referred to the new authority as County Durham Council.

paragraphs: In 1997 the non-metropolitan county (including unitary Darlington), together with that part of the former county of Cleveland north of the River Tees became a ceremonial county. Lord-lieutenants and high sheriffs are appointed to the ceremonial county of Durham. they have no job in local government.

paragraphs: This is a list of the main towns in County Durham. The area covered is the entire ceremonial county, hence the inclusion of towns which are no longer administered by Durham County Council.


title: Balkan Mountains

paragraphs: The Balkan mountain range (Bulgarian and Serbian: Стара планина, "Stara planina", "Old Mountain") is an extension of the Carpathian mountain range, separated from it by the Danube River.

paragraphs: The Balkan range runs 560 km from eastern Serbia eastward through central Bulgaria to Cape Emine on the Black Sea.

paragraphs: The highest peak on the Balkan peninsula is Musala in the Rila mountains near Sofia (Rila range), with 2,925 m, closely followed by Mount Olympus in Greece and Vihren (Pirin range).

paragraphs: The highest peaks of the Stara planina itself are in central Bulgaria. The highest peak is Botev (2,376 m), in the Central Balkan National Park (established 1991).

paragraphs: There are paved roads crossing Stara Planina at the following passes (listed from west to east):


title: Carpathian Mountains

paragraphs: The Carpathian Mountains are the eastern wing of the great Central Mountain System of Central Europe, curving 1500 km (~900 miles) along the borders of Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine, Austria, Serbia, and northern Hungary.

paragraphs: The Carpathians begin on the Danube near Bratislava. They surround Transcarpathia and Transylvania in a large semicircle, sweeping towards the south-west, and end on the Danube near Orşova, in Romania. The total length of the Carpathians is over 1,500 km, and the mountain chain's width varies between 12 and 500 km.

paragraphs: The Carpathians are separated from the Alps by the Danube.

paragraphs: A major part of the western and northeastern Outer Carpathians in Poland, Ukraine and Slovakia is traditionally called Beskids.

paragraphs: What follows is a practical outline of the Carpathian subdivisions (clockwise from the west, numbers refer to the map):


title: Squamata

paragraphs: Squamata ("scaled reptiles") is the order of reptiles which includes lizards and snakes.

paragraphs: Their skins have overlapping horny scales. They also have movable quadrate bones, which make it possible to move the upper jaw relative to the braincase. This is particularly visible in snakes, which are able to open their mouths very wide to accommodate comparatively large prey.

paragraphs: They are the most variably-sized order of reptiles, ranging from the 16 mm (0.63 in.) Dwarf gecko ("Sphaerodactylus ariasae") to the 8 m (26 ft.) Green Anaconda ("Eunectes murinus").

paragraphs: This is the only living reptile group which has both viviparous and ovoviviparous species, as well as the usual oviparous (egg-laying) reptiles.

paragraphs: The Squamata does not include the Tuataras from New Zealand. They are a sister group to the squamates. The Crocodilia are much more distantly related.

paragraphs: Squamates are a monophyletic group that is a sister group to the tuatara. The squamates and tuatara together are a sister group to crocodiles and birds, the living archosaurs.

paragraphs: Squamate fossils first appear in the early Jurassic, but a mitochondrial phylogeny suggests that they evolved in the late Permian. The evolutionary relationships within the squamates are not yet completely worked out, with the relationship of snakes to other groups being most problematic.

paragraphs: From morphological data, Iguanid lizards have been thought to have diverged from other squamates very early, but recent molecular phylogenies, both from mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, do not support this early divergence. Because snakes have a faster molecular clock than other squamates, and there are few early snake and snake ancestor fossils, it is difficult to resolve the relationship between snakes and other squamate groups.

paragraphs: Recent research suggests that the evolutionary origin of venom lies deep in the squamate phylogeny. 60% of squamates are venomous Toxicofera.

paragraphs: Venom in the families Caenophidia, Anguimorpha, and Iguania evolved once, then the three families diverged. All three lineages share nine common toxins. The fossil record shows that the divergence between anguimorphs, iguanians, and advanced snakes dates back roughly 200 MYA to the Upper Triassic/Lower Jurassic.

paragraphs: Snake venom evolved by the duplication of a gene encoding for a normal regulatory or bioactivity protein. Then the copy was expressed in the venom gland.

paragraphs: Different toxins have been recruited from different proteins and are diverse as the functions themselves.

paragraphs: Natural selection has driven the diversification of the toxins to counter the defences of the prey. Venom genes form large multigene families, and evolve by protein evolution. This leads to a diversification of toxins that let sit-and-wait predators attack a wide range of prey.

paragraphs: The rapid evolution and diversification is the result of a prey/predator evolutionary arms race where each adapts to counter the other.

paragraphs: Classically, the order is divided into three suborders:

paragraphs: Of these, the lizards form a paraphyletic group. In newer classifications the name Sauria is used for reptiles and birds in general, and the Squamata are divided differently:


title: Pingu

paragraphs: Pingu is a cartoon series for children about a penguin called Pingu. The series is popular in many countries because the characters only make sounds instead of saying words.

paragraphs: "Pingu" was made in Switzerland in 1988. The show was made by Otmar Gutmann.

paragraphs: The cast of "Pingu" includes the family and friends of Pingu.


title: Tatra mountains

paragraphs: The Tatra Mountains, Tatras or Tatra (Tatry in both Slovak and Polish), constitute a mountain range which forms a natural border between Slovakia and Poland. They occupy an area of 750 km², the major part (600 km²) of which lies in Slovakia. The highest Tatra peak, at 2655 m, is Gerlachovský štít, located in Slovakia. Rysy, at 2499 m, is the highest Polish peak.

paragraphs: The Tatra Mountains are the highest mountain range in the Carpathian Mountains. Although considerably smaller than the Alps, they are classified as having an alpine landscape. Their high mountain character, combined with great accessibility, makes them popular with tourists and scientists.

paragraphs: Ján Lacika, "Tatras" (2nd edition), Bratislava 2006.


title: Frank G. Wells

paragraphs: Franklin G. Wells (March 4, 1932 - April 3, 1994) was the former President of Warner Bros. (1973-1977) and the Walt Disney Company (1984-1994). He climbed the highest mountain of every continent, but he did not reach the summit of the Mount Everest.

paragraphs: Frank Wells was born in 1932. At age 37, he became the Vice President of Warner Brothers, in 1973 the President and in 1977 the Vice Chairman. In 1982 he left Warner Bros. to pursue his dream of climbing to the top of the highest mountain on each continent. In 1984, he became part of the Disney concern as the second man behind Michael Eisner. Since 1984 he was the President and the Chief Operating Officer (COO). With Wells and Eisner at the top Disney became again one of the leading entertainment companies.

paragraphs: Frank Wells died in a helicopter crash at April 3, 1994 at age 62 while returning from a ski trip. The Disney animation movie, The Lion King, is dedicated to him.


title: Bodhi Tree

paragraphs: The Bodhi Tree was a large and very old sacred fig tree ("Ficus religiosa"). It was at the Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya. Siddhartha Gautama, the spiritual teacher and founder of Buddhism, later known as Gautama Buddha, achieved "Bodhi" (spiritual enlightenment) while sitting under this tree. The Bodhi tree is easily recognised because of its heart-shaped leaves.

paragraphs: The word "Bodhi tree" is also applied to some existing trees, particularly the Sacred Fig growing at the Mahabodhi Temple, which is probably a direct descendant of the original tree. This tree is a frequent place for pilgrims to visit, being the most important of the four holy sites for Buddhists.

paragraphs: The Bodhi tree at the Mahabodhi Temple is called the Sri MahaBodhi. According to Buddhism, after his Enlightenment, Buddha spent a whole week in front of the tree, standing with unblinking eyes, gazing at it with gratitude. A shrine was later built where he had stood.

paragraphs: The spot was used as a shrine even in the lifetime of Buddha, the only shrine that could be so used. King Asoka held a festival every year in its honor in the month of Kattika. His queen, Tissarakkhā was jealous of the Tree, and three years after she became queen (i.e., in the nineteenth year of Asoka's reign), she caused the tree to be killed by means of mandu thorns. The tree, however, grew again, and a great monastery was attached to the Bodhimanda called the Bodhimanda Vihara. Among those present at the foundation of the Mahā Thūpa are mentioned thirty thousand monks from the Bodhimanda Vihara, led by Cittagutta.

paragraphs: Some Part of Bodhi Tree was sent to Sri Lanka by Ashoka which was planted in 288 BC, making it the oldest verified specimen of any plant. In this year (the twelfth year of King Asoka's reign) the right branch of the Bodhi tree was brought by Sanghamittā to Anurādhapura and placed by Devānāmpiyatissa in the Mahāmeghavana. Buddha, on his death bed, had resolved "Mahavamsa" From Gayā, the branch was taken to Pātaliputta, then to Tāmalittī, where it was placed in a ship and taken to Jambukola, across the sea; finally it arrived at Anuradhapura, staying on the way at Tivakka. Those who assisted the king at the ceremony of the planting of

paragraphs: According to the Ceylon Chronicles (e.g., Mhv.xv), branches from the Bodhi trees of all the Buddhas born during this kalpa were planted in Ceylon on the spot where the sacred Bodhi tree stands today in Anurādhapura. The branch of Kakusandha's tree was brought by a nun called Rucānandā, Konagamana's by Kantakānandā (or Kanakadattā), and Kassapa's by Sudhammā.


title: Bob Hope

paragraphs: Sir Leslie Townes Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003), better known as Bob Hope, was an American-English actor, comedian and entertainer. He was the only person who received five honorary Oscars.

paragraphs: Bob Hope was born on May 29, 1903, in London, England to a Welsh mother and English father. In 1908, the Hopes migrated to Cleveland, Ohio. In 1920, at age 17, Hope became a U.S. citizen.

paragraphs: Before he was an actor, Hope became a professional boxer. In this time he was called "Packey East". Years later, he was popular because of some musicals he played in. He was also part of some television and radio shows. At the same time, Bob Hope became a comedian. Hope visited the United States armed forces between 1941 and 1991 during the conflicts in that time period. These shows made Hope a household name and well liked by most Americans. Hope also entertained eleven U.S. Presidents.

paragraphs: In 1939, Bob Hope married Dolores DeFina (May 27, 1909 - September 19, 2011). The couple adopted four children: Eleanora, Anthony, Linda, and Kelly.

paragraphs: Bob Hope was honored with more than 1500 awards. Among them are five special Oscars in 1941, 1945, 1953, 1960, and 1966. Between 1940 and 1978 he hosted the Academy Awards record seventeen times.

paragraphs: And in 1998 he was appointed an honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II. Upon accepting the appointment, Hope quipped, "I'm speechless. 70 years of ad lib material and I'm speechless."

paragraphs: Bob Hope died of pneumonia on July 27, 2003, 2 months after his 100th birthday. He was buried 3 days later, reburied on July 22, 2005 in custom made grave in California.


title: Dawn French

paragraphs: Dawn French (born 11 October 1957) is a British comedian and actress.

paragraphs: French studied acting at the London Central School of Speech and Drama, and met Jennifer Saunders there in 1977. French and Saunders became famous when they appeared on a comedy series called "The Comic Strip". They wrote the famous comedy series "French & Saunders" which was first on BBC TV in 1987. She has been nominated for seven BAFTA Awards and also won a Fellowship BAFTA along with Saunders.

paragraphs: French is also well known for appearing as Geraldine Granger in British sitcom "The Vicar of Dibley". In her career in movie, French played "The Fat Lady" picture in the movie "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" and voiced the beaver in "".

paragraphs: French is known for her larger figure. She tries to promote the idea that "big" can be beautiful. As a result, she has her own line of clothes, Sixteen47. The name is from the statistic that 47% of British females are at least a size 16. The clothes are made to look good on larger women.

paragraphs: French and Saunders won the Golden Rose of Montreux award in 2002 and in 2003. She was listed in "The Observer" as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. In a 2006 poll French was named as the most admired female celebrity amongst women in Britain.


title: Port-au-Prince

paragraphs: Port-au-Prince (Pòtoprens in Kréyòl) is the capital city of Haiti. Haiti is also divided into ten "Départements"; Port-au-Prince is the capital of the Ouest "Département."

paragraphs: Port-au-Prince is Haiti's largest city. According to the country's 2015 census, over 2.6 million people lived there.

paragraphs: Port-au-Prince was built in 1749. At that time, Haiti was a French colony called "Saint-Domingue". Before 1770, "Cap-Français" (now Cap-Haïtien) was the capital of Saint-Domingue. In 1770, Port-au-Prince replaced "Cap-Français" as the capital of Saint-Domingue.

paragraphs: In 1804, the people of Haiti won the Haitian Revolution, and Haiti became an independent country. Port-au-Prince became the capital of this new country. During the French and Haitian Revolutions, it was called "Port-Républicain", before Jean-Jacques Dessalines renamed it Port-au-Prince.

paragraphs: Shortly after it won its independence, Haiti's new leaders divided the country between a kingdom in the north and a republic in the south. Port-au-Prince remained the capital of the republic.

paragraphs: Port-au-Prince is the cultural centre of Haiti. The State University of Haiti ("L'Université d'État d'Haïti," or UEH, in French); the Université Quisqueya; and the "Université Caraïbe" are all located in the city.

paragraphs: Port-au-Prince is the nation's largest centre of economy and finance. It has the most important port in the country, where coffee and sugar are exported. Port-au-Prince has soap, textile, and cement factories, and others to process foods.

paragraphs: There is also an international airport about north of the city. It is named "Aéroport International Toussaint L'ouverture" after national hero Toussaint L'ouverture.


title: Hamelin

paragraphs: Hameln (English name sometimes "Hamelin") is a city in Germany. In 2005, about 58,000 people lived there. A very well-known story from there is called The Pied Piper of Hamelin ("Der Rattenfänger von Hameln"). The story dates from the Middle Ages.


title: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25

paragraphs: The MiG-25 Foxbat is a fast fighter plane made made by Russian airplane company Mikoyan. Its primary goal is to attack enemies at high speed and altitude. It first flew in 1964 and was introduced in 1970. In 1976, a Soviet MiG-25 pilot left the Soviet Union and flew his plane to Japan, where it was looked at. It is very fast, and can go Mach 3.2 (3.2 times the speed of sound). However, the engines could be destroyed if the plane is flown this fast. It can carry 4 radar guided missiles and 4 heat seeking missiles. It is now being replaced by the MiG-31 Foxhound, but is used a little in other countries.


title: Semi-major and semi-minor axes

paragraphs: In geometry, the semi-major axis is the distance from the center of an ellipse to the farthest point on the perimeter of the ellipse. The semi-major axis is half of the major axis, which goes all the way across the ellipse at the widest part. The semi-minor axis is a line segment that is at 90 degrees with the semi-major axis. For the circle, the lengths of the semi-axes are both equal to the radius.


title: Apsis

paragraphs: In astronomy, an apsis, plural "apsides" (IPA: //) is the point of greatest or least distance of the elliptical orbit of an astronomical object from its center of attraction, which is generally the center of mass of the system.

paragraphs: The point of closest approach is called the periapsis or pericentre and the point of farthest excursion is called the apoapsis (Greek από, "from", which becomes απ before a vowel, and αφ before rough breathing), apocentre or apapsis (the latter term, although etymologically more correct, is much less used). A straight line drawn through the periapsis and apoapsis is the "line of apsides". This is the major axis of the ellipse, the line through the longest part of the ellipse.

paragraphs: Similar words are used to identify the body being orbited. The most common are perigee and apogee, referring to orbits around the Earth, and perihelion and aphelion, referring to orbits around the Sun (Greek ‘ήλιος "hēlios" sun). During the Apollo program, the terms pericynthion and apocynthion were used when referring to the moon.

paragraphs: The perihelion is the point in the orbit of an object that is nearest to the Sun. The aphelion is the point in the orbit of an object where it is farthest from the Sun.

paragraphs: All planets, comets and asteroids in our solar system have approximately elliptical (a kind of non-circular) orbits. Thus, they all have a closest and a farthest point from the sun: a perihelion and an aphelion. Orbital eccentricity measures the flatness of the orbit. Any single revolution of a body around the sun is only approximately elliptical, because the precession of the perihelion prevents the orbit from being a simple closed curve such as an ellipse. This causes Milankovich cycles.

paragraphs: Earth comes closest to the sun every year around January 3. It is farthest from the sun every year around July 4. The difference in distance between Earth's nearest point to the sun in January and farthest point from the sun in July is . Earth is about from the Sun in early January, in contrast to about in early July.

paragraphs: When Earth is closest to the Sun, it is winter in the northern hemisphere and summer in the southern hemisphere. Thus it is possible to see that Earth's distance from the Sun does not noticeably cause the seasons to change; the relatively minor effects of differences in distance is somewhat masked by the mainly oceanic southern hemisphere vs the half-continental northern hemisphere. Therefore, the Earth's seasons come and go mainly because Earth does not rotate with its axis exactly upright with respect to the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the sun. Earth's axial tilt is 23.5 degrees. This puts the Sun farther south in December and January, so the north has winter and the south has summer. Thus winter falls on that part of the globe where sunlight strikes least directly. Summer falls on that part of the globe where sunlight strikes most directly.


title: Orbital eccentricity

paragraphs: In astrodynamics, orbital eccentricity shows how much the shape of an object's orbit is different from a circle.

paragraphs: Eccentricity (formula_1) is defined for all circular, elliptic, parabolic and hyperbolic orbits. It can take the following values:

paragraphs: Where e is the eccentricity, r is the apoapsis (far point) of the object's orbit, and r is the periapsis (near point) of the object's orbit. The near and far points are the apsides.


title: Astronomical unit

paragraphs: The astronomical unit (AU) is a unit of length derived from the Earth's orbit. It is the average distance the Earth gets from the Sun "on the long axis of the ellipse". Its definition is: the length of the semi-major axis of the Earth's elliptical orbit around the Sun. "Semi-major" means half the long axis.

paragraphs: The AU is about 150 million kilometers or 93 million miles. Astronomers usually measure distances within the Solar System in astronomical units. Mars is about 1.4 AU from the Sun, Jupiter lies at roughly 5.2 AU, and Neptune is roughly 30 AU from the Sun. Light travels an AU in about 8.317 minutes.

paragraphs: From 1976 to 2012 the AU was defined as “the radius of an unperturbed circular Newtonian orbit about the Sun of a particle having infinitesimal mass, moving with a mean motion of 0.01720209895 radians per day (known as the Gaussian constant)”. In 2012, the IAU redefined it to be simply .

paragraphs: In the IERS numerical standards, the speed of light in a vacuum is defined as "c" = , in accordance with the SI units. The time to cover an AU is τ = , resulting in the astronomical unit in metres as "c"τ = . It is very roughly the distance from the Earth to the Sun.


title: Degree (angle)

paragraphs: In mathematics, a degree is a common way to measure plane angle. It is written with the symbol formula_1, where formula_2 corresponds to the entire circle.

paragraphs: It is not an SI unit. The SI uses radian to measure plane angle. However, according to the SI brochure, it is an accepted unit by SI.

paragraphs: The actual reason of choosing the degree as a way to measure plane angle is unknown. One theory says that it is related with the fact that a year is approximately 360 days. Some ancient calendars, for example the Persian calendar and the Babylonian calendar, used 360 days for a year.

paragraphs: Another theory says that the Babylonians divided the circle using the angle of an equilateral triangle. The angle was then divided into 60 parts. This is because they used sexagesimal or base-60 numeral system.


title: Epoch (astronomy)

paragraphs: In astronomy, an epoch (or sometimes epochal moment) is a moment in time for which the position or the orbital elements of a celestial body are specified.

paragraphs: The position at other times can be measured by taking into account proper motion or orbital motion. In the case of orbital elements for a solar system body, these change due to perturbation by other bodies in our solar system.


title: Julian day

paragraphs: The Julian day or Julian day number (JDN) is the number of days that have passed since the initial epoch defined as noon Universal Time (UT) Monday, 1 January 4713 BC in the Julian calendar. That noon-to-noon day is counted as Julian day 0. Thus the multiples of 7 are Mondays. Negative values can also be used, although those predate all recorded history.

paragraphs: Now at the JDN is (-0.5) round 0 (). The remainder of this value divided by 7 is ((-0.5) round 0)% 7, an integer expression for the day of the week with 0 representing Monday.

paragraphs: The Julian date (JD) is a continuous count of days and fractions elapsed since the same initial epoch. Currently the JD is . The integral part (its floor) gives the Julian day number. The fractional part gives the time of day since noon UT as a decimal fraction of one day or fractional day, with 0.5 representing midnight UT. Typically, a 64-bit floating point (double precision) variable can represent an epoch expressed as a Julian date to about 1 millisecond precision.

paragraphs: A Julian date of 2454115.05486 means that the date and Universal Time is Sunday 14 January 2007 at 13:18:59.9.

paragraphs: 0.1 = 2.4 hours or 144 minutes or 8640 seconds

paragraphs: 0.01 = 0.24 hours or 14.4 minutes or 864 seconds

paragraphs: 0.001 = 0.024 hours or 1.44 minutes or 86.4 seconds

paragraphs: 0.0001 = 0.0024 hours or 0.144 minutes or 8.64 seconds

paragraphs: Almost 2.5 million Julian days have elapsed since the initial epoch. JDN 2,400,000 was November 16, 1858. JD 2,500,000.0 will occur on August 31, 2132 at noon UT.

paragraphs: The Julian day number can be considered a very simple calendar, where its calendar date is just an integer. This is useful for reference, computations, and conversions. It allows the time between any two dates in history to be computed by simple subtraction.

paragraphs: The Julian day system was introduced by astronomers to provide a single system of dates that could be used when working with different calendars and to unify different historical chronologies. Apart from the choice of the zero point and name, this Julian day and Julian date are not directly related to the Julian calendar, although it is possible to convert any date from one calendar to the other.


title: Meatball

paragraphs: A meatball is meat that is ground up (finely cut), mixed with other ingredients, then shaped like a ball. Most meatballs are made out of beef. Meatballs can also be made out of chicken, fish, or other kinds of meat. The other ingredients (parts) are usually bread, onion, and eggs. Meatballs can be cooked by frying, baking, or steaming them. Meatballs are sometimes served with pasta or in a sauce. Meatballs originated from Turkey.

paragraphs: Italian meatballs have 250 calories (170 fat calories). One big meatball has 85 calories in it. Some meatballs may have 219.2 calories in it.


title: Mandé people

paragraphs: Mandé is a ethnic group of West Africa. These people speak Mande languages and they live in Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Mali, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Burkina Faso, and Côte d'Ivoire. The Mande languages is its own language family. These people made the largest west African empires.


title: Amadou Toumani Touré

paragraphs: General (ret) Amadou Toumani Touré (born November 4, 1948 in Mopti, Mali) was the president of Mali. He took power from a military ruler, Moussa Traoré in 1991, then he gave power to civilian (non-military) authorities in 1992. He won the presidential election in 2002. He won the next election easily in 2007.


title: Ghana Empire

paragraphs: The Ghana Empire was in what is now southeastern Mauritania, Western Mali, and Eastern Senegal. It is also sometimes called the Wagadu Empire. It started in about 750 and ended in about 1076.

paragraphs: They had two sides; Muslim and Non-muslim what divided them was a 6 mile boulevard (street).

paragraphs: Ghana sat on top of a gold mine and was a very wealthy empire. Its capital was Koumbi Saleh. Surrounded Modern Northern Senegal and Southern Mauritania. Traded with Saharans in gold and salt.


title: Mali Empire

paragraphs: The Mali Empire was a West African country from 1235 to 1645. The Mandinka people lived there. It is also called the Manding Empire or Manden Kurufa. Sundiata Keita started the empire and the empire became famous because its rulers were very rich, especially Mansa Musa I. The Mali Empire had many important cultural effects on West Africa, spreading language, laws and customs along the Niger River. This was because of the spread of Islam by verbal wording.

paragraphs: For such a prolific empire, there are few written accounts of its greatness. Most of the written accounts that do exist came from Arab scholars who traveled through the region. In lieu of written accounts, most of the stories from the locals were passed down through oral histories, songs and poems. Until this day, ‘griots’ still tell stories of the ancient history in the area. Architects in the Mali Empire combined styles of the Sahel region and Middle East together, particularly after Emperor Musa’s pilgrimage to Mecca. There were several royal palaces built during the time, many of which are still standing. Mud bricks, log beams and plaster helped these palaces to remain standing. The most famous work of architecture from the time period is the Great Mosque of Djenné, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The mosque was rebuilt in 1907 and can still be visited in Djenné. However, if you aren’t a Muslim, you can’t go inside.

paragraphs: The Mali Empire had one of the richest leaders in history. The richest and most famous of all the leaders of the Mali Empire was Mansa Musa. It is thought by some that Mansa Musa could have been the wealthiest person in history. According to stories, he took 60,000 people on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 along with camels loaded down with gold.

paragraphs: Islam was very important to the Mali Empire. Most of the kings of the Mali Empire eventually converted to Islam, with their people subsequently practicing as well. However, unlike many empires, they didn’t make their subjects convert, and the version of Islam that they practiced was combined with the local traditions of the villages. You can still see many relics in cities like Bamako, Djenné and Timbuktu.

paragraphs: The Mali Empire's most important industry was gold. People in the ancient world were drawn to it. The Mali Empire (Timbuktu in particular) was a huge trading center for the gold industry. Camel caravans would come to the area before leaving across the trans-Saharan trade routes. The empire had so much gold that it caused the market to crash for a period of time when Mansa Musa brought almost a ton of gold to Cairo. The army of the Mali Empire was massive.

paragraphs: During the height of the Mali Empire, the army numbered around 100,000 men and 10,000 cavalry, making it one of the largest in the world at the time. The empire used this army to gain new lands.


title: Timbuktu

paragraphs: Timbuktu is a city in Tombouctou Region, Mali. Sankore University and other madrasas are in the city. The city was important for thinking and for religion in the 15th and 16th centuries. It was important in spreading Islam through Africa at that time. There are three great mosques: Djingareyber, Sankore and Sidi Yahya. They are reminders of Timbuktu's golden age. They are always being fixed, but are threatened because the desert is spreading.

paragraphs: Songhay, Tuareg, Fulani, and Mandé people live in Timbuktu. It is about 15 km north of the Niger River. There is a route across the Sahara Desert from east to west and this is used for trade. There is another from north to south. These two routes meet in Timbuktu. It is an "entrepôt" for rock salt from Taoudenni. This means that the salt is brought here and sold to other people to take it somewhere else, but no tax is charged.

paragraphs: Its location helped different people meet, so local people, Berbers and Arabs met here. It has a long history of mixed African trade, so it became famous in Europe for this reason. Therefore, western people often thought of Timbuktu as being exotic. It has a hot desert climate ("BWh" in the Koeppen climate classification).

paragraphs: Timbuktu has given a lot of research and study to Islam and to the world. Important books were written and copied in Timbuktu in the 14th century. This made the city become the center of writing in Africa.


title: Jeanne Demessieux

paragraphs: Jeanne Demessieux (born Montpellier, France, 13 February 1921; died Paris, 11 November 1968), was a French organist and composer.

paragraphs: She started to learn the piano when she was very young, before taking up the organ. Her family moved to Paris so that she could continue to have music lessons there. She became an organ student at the Conservatoire in 1933. In the same year she got a job as organist of the St. Esprit church in Paris. She had this job for 29 years.

paragraphs: Between 1936 and 1939, she studied organ privately with the great Marcel Dupré, and in 1939 she joined his organ class at the Conservatoire. After receiving a first prize in organ performance and improvisation in 1941, she studied five more years with Dupré in Meudon, before she played her first recital at Salle Pleyel in Paris in 1946. This was the beginning of her career as an international recitalist. She played more than 700 concerts in Europe and the United States.

paragraphs: Gifted with an amazing musical memory, she could play more than 2,500 pieces from memory, including all the organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach, César Franck, Franz Liszt, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Dupré.

paragraphs: She was also a remarkable improviser. When she gave her first solo concert in Paris at Salle Pleyel in 1946, she was given four musical themes and improvised a symphony in four movements.

paragraphs: A teacher of the organ at Nancy and Brussels, she made several LP recordings, of which those of music by Franck are probably the best known. She had plans to record all the organ works of Olivier Messiaen. However, she died relatively young, at age 47, of cancer, before she was able to finish this task.

paragraphs: She wrote many compositions, especially for the organ. These include: "Nativité", "Six Études", "Sept Méditations sur le Saint-Esprit", "Triptyque", "Twelve Choral-Preludes on Gregorian Chant Themes", "Te Deum", "Répons pour les Temps Liturgiques", and "Prélude et fugue en UT".


title: House mouse

paragraphs: House mouse ("Mus musculus") the common mouse is one of the species of the genus "Mus". Often, it is just called a mouse. It is a small rodent. In most parts of the world, they live close to humans. Laboratory mice are types of house mice and are some of the most important organisms used for research in biology and medicine. They are the most commonly used laboratory mammal for experiments.

paragraphs: They are quite small, but are not the smallest mammals. House mice have an adult body length (nose to base of tail) of 7.5–10 cm (3.0–3.9 in) and a tail length of 5–10 cm (2.0–3.9 in). The weight is typically 10–25 g (0.4–0.9 oz). In the wild they vary in color from light to dark agouti (light to dark brown). Selected strains of mice can be got in various other colours.

paragraphs: It is a small, scaly-tailed mouse with a distinct notch in the cutting surface of upper incisors (seen best in side view). Its hair short; ears moderately large and naked.

paragraphs: The main problem of small mammals is their high surface to weight ratio: they have a big surface area for such a small mass. Since heat is radiated from the surface, they have adaptations to help them keep their temperature up to normal. They need to eat frequently, and live in areas where they are protected from the coldest weather. Easy access to high-quality vegetable food (such as grains) and a protected habitat helps them survive and multiply. That is why they are found in numbers living in human settlements.

paragraphs: Their life-span in the wild averages about a year. They are eaten by a variety of small carnivores, but they reproduce rapidly, so that keeps the numbers up. Females have 314 babies in a litter, and can have 5 to 10 litters a year. In good conditions, the mouse population rises quickly.

paragraphs: Although not native to North America, the house mouse was introduced accidentally to seaport towns. It is now widespread throughout the United States. It occurs either as a commensal or feral animal in practically all parts of the U.S.

paragraphs: As commensal animals, house mice live in close association with man – in houses, outbuildings, stores, and other structures. Where conditions permit, feral mice may be found in fields, along watercourses, and in other places where vegetation is dense enough to hide them.


title: Scientology

paragraphs: Scientology is a movement based on a system of beliefs. These beliefs are based on written words by L. Ron Hubbard. A few other people have added, but almost all of it is his. He started it in 1954. Hubbard contributed until his death in 1986.

paragraphs: Different people understand the words Hubbard wrote differently. In some countries, there are Churches of Scientology. Some people are suspicious of the Church. They feel that it is a cult, and a business to make money. Scientology has been controversial since it began.

paragraphs: Scientology teaches that people are immortal spirits who have forgotten their true nature. Scientologists say that, through a system called "auditing", they help people remember their true nature by re-experiencing painful events in their past and understanding them better.

paragraphs: There are many organizations that are linked to Scientology. For example, some help people stop using harmful drugs or to get back into society after they served a prison term.

paragraphs: Scientology says that psychiatry is bad, and should not be allowed to exist.

paragraphs: The Church of Scientology says that 13-15 million people are a part of the Church. Critics disagree with that figure, however. They say the organization probably does not have more than 100,000 followers, mostly in the United States. They say that in 1960, there were probably 50,000 to 100,000 followers in the U.S. In the 1990s, a representative survey claimed there were only about 45,000 followers left. These figures seemed to have increased a bit, by 2004, where there were an estimated 55,000 followers.

paragraphs: The Church of Scientology was started by the American writer and philosopher L. Ron Hubbard in the year 1954. It is not as well known as Christianity or Islam, but it is newer. Scientologists believe their movement is growing. They claim it has thousands of churches, some of which are very small. The largest is in Clearwater, Florida.

paragraphs: L. Ron Hubbard wrote about the goals of Scientology, saying:

paragraphs: This means the goals of Scientology are to create a civilization where:

paragraphs: In 1972, Hubbard told a group of Scientologists: "You are the people the planet obeys. You are the people who own the planet."

paragraphs: Scientologists say that the book Dianetics was the first self-help book ever written. It was written by L Ron Hubbard in the year 1950. Some key concepts in the book are:

paragraphs: Another basic teaching of Scientology is that understanding comes from three things together:

paragraphs: Hubbard called this the "ARC Triangle." Scientologists use this in their everyday lives. It is based upon the idea that making one of these three things better makes the other two better.

paragraphs: The tone scale is a way to rate an emotion as bad, better, or good. The scale goes from -40 ("Total Failure") to +40 ("Serenity of Being"). Positions on the tone scale started from the idea that one way of feeling is better than a worse way of feeling. But Hubbard described many other things that go along with emotion, such as health, mating behavior, survival potential, and ability to deal with truth. The tone scale is frequently used by Scientologists to understand people. According to Scientology, the lower the individual is on the tone scale, the more complex his problems are.

paragraphs: Many well-known people are followers of Scientology. They include:


title: Mike Gravel

paragraphs: Maurice Robert Gravel, better known as Mike Gravel (born May 13, 1930) is an American Democratic politician. He was member of the Libertarian Party from 2008 to 2010 when he re-joined the Democratic Party. He served as a United States Senator from Alaska (1969-1981) and, previously, as member of the Alaska House of Representatives (1953-1966, speaker from 1965-1966). Gravel was a two-time presidential candidate in 2008 and in 2020.

paragraphs: Gravel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He studied at Assumption College, American International College and at Columbia University. He moved to Alaska in 1956.

paragraphs: From 1953 to 1966, Gravel was a member of the Alaska House of Representatives. From 1965 to 1966, Gravel was Speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives. In 1969, he was elected United States Senator from Alaska.

paragraphs: Gravel is best known for his successful effort to end military draft during the Vietnam War and put the Pentagon Papers into the public record in 1971. He was seen as a possible running mate for George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign.

paragraphs: Gravel lost to Clark Gruening in the Democratic Party for re-election in the 1980 Senate election.

paragraphs: As a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008 he wanted withdrawal of US Armed Forces from Iraq, more health care and social security, and preventing global warming. He is also one of the earliest and the most famous supporters of direct democracy in the United States.

paragraphs: On March 19, 2019, Gravel created an exploratory committee to run for President once again in the 2020 election. He said he would run not to win the nomination, but to raise awareness of bigger issues. On April 2, 2019, Gravel filed to officially run for office. He dropped out of the race on July 31, 2019 after failing to qualify for the debates. He endorsed Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard for President on August 5. His campaign manager was a 17 year old high school student.


title: Iva Zanicchi

paragraphs: Iva Zanicchi (born 18 January 1940) is a Italian singer and politician. She was a Member of the European Parliament from 2004 - 2014.


title: North German Confederation

paragraphs: The North German Confederation (), was first a military alliance of 22 states of northern Germany, and later a federal state. It was preceded by a Zollverein, a customs union that allowed free trade among most German states. The Confederation started in August 1866, and the Kingdom of Prussia was the leading state. On July 1st 1867, the North German Constitution made the alliance a federal state.

paragraphs: An Austrian-Prussian rivalry, starting in the 1700s, had led to the Austro-Prussian War of July/August 1866. Immediate causes for the war had been the unsettled question of Slesvig-Holstein (which Prussia intended to annex) and a reform of the German Confederation. After a victory in summer 1866, agreements with Austria and France allowed Prussia to reshape the political landscape in Northern Germany (north of the river Main). The leading politician of Prussia was minister president Otto von Bismarck, serving under king William I.

paragraphs: On 18 August 1866, Prussia and most of the north German states signed the August Treaty. They agreed on a military alliance and declared their intention to create a federal state. (Some other states joined soon.) A federal state is different from an alliance as it has a federal government and legislation, and it is different from a unitary state as there are still rather powerful states below the federal level. Plans for a federal state in Germany had existed since the year 1848.

paragraphs: The allied governments led by Bismarck made a proposal for a North German constitution. An organ was elected to represent the people of Northern Germany, the "konstituierender Reichstag". The election took place in February 1867. After some modifications of the proposal, the states' governments and parliaments accepted the final draft. On July 1st, the constitution came into force.

paragraphs: According to the constitution, legislation was the matter of two organs. The "Reichstag" was the parliament, elected by all men above the age of 25. The Federal Council was an organ representing the governments of the states. The holder of the "Bundespräsidium" was the king of Prussia (the 'republican' term 'president' had been avoided intentionally). The holder of the "Bundespräsidium" installed the Federal Chancellor. Not by name, but factually this was the (only) federal minister, the head of the executive.

paragraphs: In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, the South German states joined the North German Confederation. The new constitution of January 1st, 1871, renamed the country from 'North German Confederation' to 'German Empire'. The holder of the "Bundespräsidium" received the additional title of an Emperor. The political system as described in the constitution, and the flag, remained the same. (The final constitution of the Empire stems from April/May 1871; as a result, nearly all terms that included 'federal' were changed to 'imperial'.)

paragraphs: The modern national state of Germany is, as an international subject and as a legal entity, identical to the North German Confederation. Law and international treaties of the era 1867-1870 are in principle still valid. In a conservative-liberal cooperation lasting from 1867 to 1878, Germany saw a remarkable modernisation and unification. The North German Confederation introduced the metric system, a modern penal code (Strafgesetzbuch), same rights for all denominations, a postal union etc.

paragraphs: The federation handled the mail and issued postage stamps, after 1 January 1868. But the federation did not issue its own money, so different stamps had to be issued. Stamps valued in groschen were used in the north, stamps in kreuzer in the Southern District. All of these stamps were marked "NORDDEUTSCHER POSTBEZIRK" (North German Postal Area).

paragraphs: A third set of stamps were printed for Hamburg. These were also marked "STADTPOSTBRIEF HAMBURG".


title: MiG Alley

paragraphs: MiG Alley was a place during the Korean War that had a lot of North Korean MiG-15 Fagots in the area. It was over north west North Korea, near China. F-86 Sabres mainly fought the MiGs. Some of the pilots were Russian fighter pilots from World War II and were very well trained. They were called "honchos" (Japanese for "big shot"). The top kills were scored by Soviet aces, so it was said that the Soviets won.


title: NetBackup

paragraphs: Veritas' NetBackup is a data backup software for Windows and Linux.


title: Argument of periapsis

paragraphs: In astronomy, the argument of periapsis (ω) is a way of talking about the orbit of a planet, asteroid or comet. It is also known as the argument of perihelion or the argument of perifocus. It is the angle (starting from the center of the orbit) between an orbiting body's periapsis and its ascending node. Periapsis is the point when the orbiting object comes the closest to the thing it is orbiting around; for example, the moon is at periapsis when it is closest to the Earth. The ascending node is one of two places where an orbiting object passes through the reference plane, an imaginary flat surface which runs through the object being orbited around. The size of the angle depends on which way the object is orbiting.

paragraphs: The angle is measured in the orbital plane and in the direction of motion. For specific types of orbits, words such as "perihelion" (for Sun-centered orbits), "perigee" (for Earth-centered orbits), "pericenter" (general), etc. may replace the word "periapsis".

paragraphs: An argument of periapsis of 0° means that the orbiting body will be at its closest approach to the central body at the same moment that it crosses the plane of reference from south to north. An argument of periapsis of 90° means that the orbiting body will reach periapsis at its northmost distance from the plane of reference.

paragraphs: Argument of perihelion and Longitude of ascending node of planets.


title: Longitude of the ascending node

paragraphs: The longitude of the ascending node (☊ or Ω) is one of the orbital elements used to specify the orbit of an object in space. It is the angle from a reference direction, called the "origin of longitude", to the direction of the ascending node, measured in a reference plane.


title: Mean anomaly

paragraphs: In the study of orbital dynamics the mean anomaly of an orbiting body is the angle the body would have traveled about the center of the orbit's auxiliary circle. Unlike other measures of anomaly, the mean anomaly grows linearly with time. Because of the linear growth with time, the mean anomaly makes calculating the time of flight between two points on the orbit very easy. The mean anomalies for the two points are calculated and their difference is found. Knowing this, the ratio of this difference relative to the entire formula_1 encompassing one orbit is simply equal to ratio of the time of flight to the orbital period of one whole orbit (i.e. formula_2).


title: Orbital period

paragraphs: The orbital period is the time taken for a given object to make one complete orbit around another object. The year and month are orbital periods.

paragraphs: When mentioned without further qualification in astronomy this refers to the sidereal period of an astronomical object, which is calculated with respect to the stars. Other periods include the synodic period, which is the interval between conjunctions.


title: Orbital speed

paragraphs: The orbital speed of a body, usually a planet, a natural satellite, an artificial satellite, or a multiple star, is the speed at which it orbits around the barycenter of a system, usually around a more massive body. It can be used to refer to either the mean orbital speed, the average speed as it completes an orbit, or instantaneous orbital speed, the speed at a particular point in its orbit.

paragraphs: The orbital speed at any position in the orbit can be computed from the distance to the central body at that position, and the specific orbital energy, which is independent of position: it equals the the kinetic energy plus the potential energy, divided by the mass. It is also given by Kepler's Second Law.


title: Continental drift

paragraphs: Continental drift is a historical, scientific theory. The theory was first proposed by Abraham Ortelius in 1596. It was fully developed by the German geologist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener in 1915.

paragraphs: The theory said that parts of the Earth's crust move slowly on top of a liquid mantle of higher density. The theory has now been included in the wider theory of plate tectonics.

paragraphs: The theory was supported by finding the same minerals and fossils in western Europe and eastern North America. There are also similar fossils on the western coast of Africa and the eastern South America. The shapes of these continents nearly fit together. The theory was plausible (believable), but there was no known mechanism to drive these great movements. This problem was later solved by plate tectonics.

paragraphs: The pattern of volcanic activity, mountain building (orogeny) and earthquakes is explained by continental drift. The existence of identical rocks widely apart supports the theory.

paragraphs: The basic machine driving continental movement is heat moving from the Earth's mantle through the crust and out of the planet. The effect of this it to cause convection, and plate movement.

paragraphs: Two events in particular are of huge importance:


title: Saxe-Altenburg

paragraphs: Saxe-Altenburg () was one of the Ernestine duchies of the House of Wettin.

paragraphs: Altenburg was independent for most of the 1600s until 1672. This is when the last male ruler died. Because only men could rule the Ernestine duchies Altenburg began to be ruled by the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, who had married the last ruler’s daughter.

paragraphs: In 1825 the ruler died, and he also had no male heirs. Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg was split up. Gotha was given to the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and Altenburg to the Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen, who in exchange gave up Saalfeld and Hildburghausen to the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. This family ruled in the duchy until the end of the monarchies in 1918. Saxe-Altenburg became part of the new state of Thuringia in the Weimar Republic in 1920.

paragraphs: Saxe-Altenburg had an area of and a population of 207,000 (1905). Its capital was Altenburg.

paragraphs: The Saxe-Altenburg line became extinct following the death of Prince George Moritz in 1991.

paragraphs: In 1991 the Saxe-Altenburg line became extinct.

paragraphs: Two branches descend from duke Ernest the Pious, the father of the progenitor of this Saxe-Altenburg branch: Saxe-Meiningen and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; according to old Wettin family law, they would have divided the actual territories between them (as happened to Gotha and Altenburg in 1826). The senior male agnate descending from duke Ernest the Pious, in 1991 , was prince Frederick-Alfred of Saxe-Meiningen (a monk, 1921-1997), and thus technically succeeded then as titular duke of Saxe-Altenburg and head of the whole branch; but, because he renounced all his succession rights in favor of his uncle Bernhard, was him instead Frederick-Alfred the general heir of the line of Saxe-Meiningen. His successor was Konrad, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, the present head of that branch.


title: Porcupine

paragraphs: A porcupine is a rodent with a coat of sharp spines, or quills, that defend them from predators. The porcupine is the third biggest rodent, after the capybara, and beaver, and are not to be confused with hedgehogs. Most porcupines are about 60–90 cm long, with a 20–25 cm long tail. Weighing between 12-35 pounds (5–16 kg), they are rounded, large and slow. Porcupines come in various shades of brown, grey, and the unusual white. The name "porcupine" comes from Middle French "porc d'épine" "thorny pork", hence the nickname "quill pig" for the animal. The correct term for a baby porcupine is a porcupette. A porcupette has soft quills made of hardened hair. This protects the mother from injury as she gives birth.

paragraphs: The animal's quills or spines take on many forms, depending on the type, but all are hairs coated with thick plates of keratin, and they are in the skin musculature. Old World porcupines (Hystricidae) have quills in clusters, whereas in New World porcupines (Erethizontidae) single quills are mixed with bristles, underfur, and hair.

paragraphs: Porcupine quills are as sharp as needles, can be removed very easily, and will stay stuck in an attacker. Unlike needles, however, the quills of New World porcupines have small, backwards-facing barbs on the tip that catch on the skin making them hard and painful to pull out. Quills are about 75 mm long and 2 mm wide. If a quill becomes put in the tissues of an attacker, the barbs act to pull the quill farther into the tissues with the normal muscle movements of the attacker, moving up to many millimeters in a day. Animals who try to eat porcupines have been known to die because of quill penetration and infection. Quills can still penetrate animals and humans even after death. The ancient belief that porcupines can throw their quills at an enemy has long been proved to be incorrect.

paragraphs: Porcupines can live in a wide range of places in tropical and mild parts of Asia, Italy, Africa, and North and South America. Porcupines live in forests, deserts and grasslands. Some live in trees, others stay on the ground.

paragraphs: Porcupines in search of salt sometimes live in human places, eating plywood cured with sodium nitrate, certain paints, and tool handles, footwear, clothes and other items that have been coated in salty sweat. Porcupines like going near roads in areas where rock salt is used to melt ice and snow, and are known to gnaw on vehicle tires or wiring coated in road salt. Salt licks placed nearby can stop porcupine damage.

paragraphs: Natural sources of salt used by porcupines include different salt-rich plants (such as yellow water lily and aquatic liverwort), fresh animal bones, outer tree bark and mud in salt-rich soils.


title: The Silvia Night Show

paragraphs: The Silvia Night Show is a 2007 Icelandic television series following the controversial fictional character Silvia Night. It is the English version that was made to promote her participation in the Eurovision Song Contest.

paragraphs: The show followed Silvia Night during her appearance in Eurovision Song Contest 2006, and her tantrums after she realised she did not qualify for the final.

paragraphs: Silvia also received a lot of attention from media when she, on the premiere day of her own television program, protested against it on the streets of Reykjavík saying that "the show is total junk". The show will be available on DVD sometime soon.

paragraphs: "The Silvia Night Show" started airing in Sweden on the channel TV400 on October 10, 2007.


title: Jakten på Billie Jo

paragraphs: The winner was Alexandra Sapot. The winner was chosen by Swedish viewers' televotes and the production company Jarowskij.