title: Mustard gas

paragraphs: Mustard gas or sulfur mustard is a chemical compound which has been used as a chemical weapon. It was used in World War I by the German Army against British and Canadian soldiers near Ypres, Belgium, in 1917. Later it was also used against the French Second Army.

paragraphs: Most sulfur mustards are squishy liquids with no color and no smell when they are at room temperature. When used in warfare, they have a color yellowish to brown. Some of them smell like culinary mustard (the type used for food), horseradish or garlic. They got their name from the smell, but are completely unrelated to culinary mustard.

paragraphs: Sulfur mustard (in its form mustard gas) was synthesized by Frederick Guthrie in 1860. It may have been discovered as early as the 1820s, by M.Depretz.

paragraphs: Its use during warfare was prohibited by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. This protocol outlawed the use of poison gas (which was widely used in the First World War). An additional agreement, the Chemical Weapons Convention, was ratified in 1993. It also outlaws the production and stockpiling of such agents. Despite these prohibitions it has been used in several wars.

paragraphs: Sulfur mustard is the organic compound with formula (ClCHCH)S.

paragraphs: It is a viscous liquid at normal temperatures. The pure compound has a melting point of 14 °C (57 °F) and decomposes before boiling at 218 °C (424 °F).


title: Amelia Earhart

paragraphs: Amelia Mary Earhart (born July 24, 1897 – disappeared July 2, 1937, declared dead January 5, 1939) was an American aviator, one of the first women to fly a plane long distances. She was the first woman to fly a plane by herself across the Atlantic Ocean. She broke many records and showed how air travel had moved forward. She also wrote books, most of them were about her flights. Earhart vanished over the South Pacific Ocean in July 2, 1937 while trying to fly around the world. She was declared dead on July 3, 1937.

paragraphs: Many theories stand in place about Amelia's end. Some believe she was a spy for the U.S government and was captured by the Japanese on Gardner Island, others say she faked her death. The most plausible though is many researchers believe, which is that the Electra ran out of fuel and that Earhart and Noonan ditched at sea. The "crash and sink" theory is often the most widely accepted explanation of Earhart’s and Noonan’s fate.

paragraphs: However, there is a range of documented, archaeological, and anecdotal evidence supporting the hypothesis that Earhart and Noonan found Gardner Island, uninhabited at the time, landed the Electra on a flat reef near the wreck of a freighter, and sent sporadic radio messages from there. It has been surmised that Earhart and Noonan might have survived on Nikumaroro for several weeks before succumbing.


title: Situation comedy

paragraphs: A situation comedy, usually called a sitcom, is a type of comedy program. Sitcoms were first on radio, before television was invented, but are now on television and are a large part of the programs shown. Sitcoms usually have the same characters in the same places (for example; a home, a workplace, a bar, a city or town) on every episode.


title: Frank Sinatra

paragraphs: Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer, musician, actor and filmmaker. His singing career was 60 years long, and more than 250 million records of his have been sold worldwide. Extremely regarded as one of the best and most acclaimed popular singers in history of America standards.

paragraphs: He is also well known by the nickname "Old Blue Eyes". "The New York Times" said he was "the first modern pop superstar". At first, he was mostly known as a "crooner", a singer of love songs. By the 1950s and 1960s, he was singing swing and jazz songs as well.

paragraphs: Sinatra was also part of the Rat Pack, a group of entertainers (musicians and actors), in the 1950s and 1960s. The name was informal, and the group was not an official organization of any sort, but a group of friends. Members of the Rat Pack included Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop, as well as (more loosely) Humphrey Bogart, Judy Garland, Lauren Bacall, Sid Luft, and Shirley MacLaine.

paragraphs: He was born in Hoboken, New Jersey to Italian immigrants.

paragraphs: Sinatra was also an actor. He was in movies such as "The Manchurian Candidate", "From Here to Eternity", and "The Man With The Golden Arm". He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in "From Here To Eternity".

paragraphs: Sinatra was married 4 times. He was married to Nancy Barbato from 1939 to 1951, to Ava Gardner from 1951 to 1957, to Mia Farrow from 1966 to 1968, and to Barbara Marx from 1976 until his death on May 14, 1998.

paragraphs: Sinatra died on May 14, 1998 at 10:50 pm at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, after suffering a heart attack. His wife Barbara was at his side. The words "The best is yet to come" are written on his gravestone.

paragraphs: • , "The Voice - Vita e italianità di Frank Sinatra", Coniglio Press, Roma 2011


title: Bing Crosby

paragraphs: Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby (May 3, 1903 - October 14, 1977) was an American singer and actor. His singing career was around fifty years long and more than 1 billion records of his have been sold worldwide. Crosby is known for creating the style of music that Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin , Elvis Presley, John Lennon would later copy. Crosby said that he was inspired by Al Jolson.

paragraphs: He sang "White Christmas" and it became "the best-selling record of all time." Irving Berlin wrote this song. In 1962, Crosby became the first person ever to receive the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

paragraphs: Crosby anote 41 No. 1 hits on the charts more than The Beatles (24) and Elvis Presley (18) records.

paragraphs: Crosby won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his role in "Going My Way".

paragraphs: Crosby was a Roman Catholic. He died of a heart attack in Madrid, Spain.


title: Felt

paragraphs: Felt is a type of cloth that is made by matting wool fibers, either with water and soap, or by poking the fibers with barbed needles. Felt can be made by hand, or by machine.

paragraphs: People have been making felt longer than any other kind of fabric. Felt can be of any color, and made into any shape or size. Felt is used to make many things like clothing, hats, and rugs. Nomadic people in many countries live in tents made of felt.

paragraphs: Felt is used for many different things. Today people use felt for hat-making, insulating (making warm), sound-proofing, and cushioning.

paragraphs: The difference between felt and most fabrics, like denim, is that most fabrics have a regular criss-cross, in-and-out weaving pattern, but felt is a messy jumble of fibers.

paragraphs: Most fabrics are woven for strength and smoothness: they need carding to straighten the fibers, spinning to turn fibers into long threads and weaving to make fabric.

paragraphs: Felt only needs a carding comb. Because of this, felt was often used by nomadic people.


title: Dean Martin

paragraphs: Dean Martin (born Dino Crocetti June 7, 1917 - December 25, 1995) was an American singer and actor.

paragraphs: Martin was born in Steubenville, Ohio. His mother was Italian American; his father was Italian.

paragraphs: Martin's career as a singer really began when he met comedian Jerry Lewis at a club and they decided to team up as a comedy-music pair. They became successful at clubs. They then acted in the movie "My Friend Irma", which made them famous. They worked together for ten years. They had a popular radio show. They made more movies. Martin became a huge success on his own when he sang "That's Amore". His partnership with Lewis ended on July 26, 1956. Their last movie, "Hollywood or Bust", was released that December in the United States.

paragraphs: Martin was part of the Rat Pack, a group of entertainers (musicians and actors), in the 1950s and 1960s. Their unofficial "leader" was Frank Sinatra. (Sinatra personally called the group "The Summit".) They made movies and performed live shows together, many in Las Vegas, Nevada.

paragraphs: Martin later had his own television show. He made recordings for Reprise Records, a record label started by Frank Sinatra. At the height of the rock and roll era, Martin still had hit records. His "Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime" even knocked The Beatles off the top of the "Billboard" sales charts.

paragraphs: Martin made movies on his own, which were mostly comedies. Four of them starred him as "Matt Helm", a spy like James Bond. Martin also appeared in dramatic movies, like "Rio Bravo" and "Airport". When he sang onstage or on television, he always had a cocktail glass with him. Most people thought he was drinking whiskey as he performed. However, he actually drank apple juice the whole time. Offstage, Martin enjoyed Jack Daniels whiskey, and red wine.

paragraphs: His television show was cancelled in 1975, but he continued on television with "The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts", a series of specials that mocked celebrity testimonial dinners. Other comedians and actors would appear, and instead of praising the guest of honor, would make fun of them. None of the mocking was serious, though, and everyone usually had fun at the roasts. The specials ran until 1984.

paragraphs: Martin was more or less retired in the early 1990s. He did record a new collection of his best songs, which were sold through television commercials. In early 1987, his son Dean Paul ("Dino") Martin was in the United States Air Force, and his airplane crashed during a mission. His body was later recovered. Losing Dean Paul broke Martin's spirit. He never seemed happy after that.

paragraphs: Martin joined Sinatra and other Rat Packers for a reunion tour, but he quit after just a few shows. Sinatra was very angry. The two did not speak for years. They later made their peace, after members of the Rat Pack began to die off. Martin lived in retirement. He watched movies at home, and went to dinner at a nearby restaurant.

paragraphs: During the 1990s, Martin developed emphysema from years of cigarette smoking. He also had trouble with his liver. His health became bad. He began to think about death. He and his wife Jeanne were divorced years earlier, but had remained close. She encouraged him not to worry about dying, and to think about his parents, and their son Dean Paul, waiting for him.

paragraphs: Martin died in Beverly Hills, California over the Christmas holidays in 1995, watching television in bed. As a tribute, the lights on the Las Vegas Strip were dimmed for one minute, in his memory. His was the title of his best-remembered song: "EVERYBODY LOVES SOMEBODY SOMETIME".


title: Sammy Davis, Jr.

paragraphs: Sammy Davis, Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American entertainer. He was a dancer, singer and instrumentalist (playing vibraphone, trumpet and drums), comedian and actor. He was born in Harlem, New York City. Davis became hugely successful as a stage singer and recording artist and when asked to play at segregated places (where African-Americans were not allowed) he refused. Because of this some popular venues began to allow African-Americans to attend just so they could have Davis and other popular black musicians play. Before that black singers like Davis and Nat King Cole could play at the hotels and casinos but not stay or gamble there.

paragraphs: Davis led an unhealthy lifestyle of drinking, smoking and cocaine use but was one of the most popular musicians and actors of the time. He converted to Judaism while in the hospital in 1954 and 1955. He was also a member of the Rat Pack with friends Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

paragraphs: The Kennedy Center honored Davis in 1987.

paragraphs: Davis died of throat cancer in Beverly Hills, California.


title: Racial segregation

paragraphs: Racial segregation means separating people because of their races. Segregation was legal and normal in many countries across the world, for many years. For example, until 1964, it was still legal to separate white and African-American people in some states. In South Africa, from the 1940s until the 1990s, a system called apartheid kept white and black South Africans separate. Racial segregation has happened in many other countries, throughout history.

paragraphs: Segregation is not as simple as having "separate but equal" places for people of different races. Segregation happens when a country or a society views one race as better than another. The goal of segregation is to keep the "inferior" race away from the "better" race. Because one race is seen as "inferior," people of that race are not treated well. They go through discrimination. Often they are not given basic rights, like the right to vote. As a United States Supreme Court judge said in a case about segregation in schools: "separate facilities are [always] unequal." Things did stop segregation, like Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. They helped a lot by speaking up for their side, even though they knew that they would get in trouble. Rosa Parks made every black person stop using the buses until the bus company ran out of money (most of their money came from black people). This worked and the black people were allowed to use the buses without separation.

paragraphs: Segregation may have existed in early Anglo-Saxon England. When the Anglo-Saxons arrived in England in the 4th century, they may have created an "apartheid-like society," according to some historians. They may have treated the native British people like slaves, and had rules against marrying them. Some historians say Anglo-Saxons were much richer and had a higher social status than Celtic Britons.

paragraphs: From the early 1800s to the late 1980s, the Australian government took many Aboriginal children away from their families. Their families had not agreed to let their children go. However, the government had decided to force Aboriginal children to "assimilate" into Australian society. The children where placed in white homes or on missions. There, they were forced to learn Christianity, leave behind their Aboriginal culture, become a part of white society, and marry white people. The goal of this program was to "breed out" Aboriginal traits so that they no longer existed in Australia. Later, in 1951, the United Nations would define this type of program as genocide.

paragraphs: From about 1900 to the 1970s, Australia followed what became known as the "White Australia Policy." This policy kept non-white people from immigrating to Australia by making immigration tests too hard to pass.

paragraphs: In the early- to mid-twentieth century, many Aborigines were forced to live on missions. The goal of this policy was to get the Aborigines off their lands, because white settlers wanted to use them.

paragraphs: In the 1960s, Australia changed its official policy to "integration." This meant that the Aborigines had to be able to live in Australian society or on missions. However, many Aborigines refused to follow these orders and kept living far away from cities. In these areas, they were segregated from the rest of Australian society, and were also poorer. At the time, some people called the situation "apartheid," and even suggested that the Australian government's policies inspired the apartheid program in South Africa.

paragraphs: In 1366, the King of England passed thirty-five laws called the Statutes of Kilkenny. Their goal was to prevent English settlers in Ireland from mixing with the Irish people or becoming too much like the Irish. The laws made it illegal the English to marry native Irish people, have Irish children, adopt Irish children, use Irish names or clothes, or speak anything but English.

paragraphs: In 1830, France took control of Algeria from the Ottoman Empire. For over a hundred years, Algeria was a French colony. The French rulers kept an apartheid-like system in Algeria. For example, Arab and Berber Algerians were allowed to apply for French citizenship (which would give them the right to vote and other rights) only if they abandoned their Muslim religion and culture.

paragraphs: Algerian Muslims were not willing to go along with this "system of apartheid," and this system was one of the main causes of the Algerian War in 1954.

paragraphs: In fifteenth-century north-east Germany, "Wendish" (Slavic) people were not allowed to join some guilds. According to Wilhelm Raabe, "into the eighteenth century no German guild accepted a Wend."

paragraphs: In 1935, after the Nazi Party had taken control of the German government, they passed the Nuremberg Laws. The Nazis, led by Adolf Hitler, believed that the "Aryan" race was better than any other races. The Nuremberg Laws made it illegal for "Aryan" and "non-Aryan" people to marry or have sex. At first, the laws were mostly meant to keep "Aryans" from mixing with Jewish people (who the Nazis viewed as an inferior race). However, the Nazis later added "Gypsies, Negroes and their bastard [children]" to the Laws. Aryans who broke these laws could be sent to concentration camps; non-Aryans could be executed. To keep German blood "pure," after World War II began, the Nazis made it illegal for any non-German to marry or have sex with a German person.

paragraphs: In 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland and took it over. They divided the Polish people into different ethnic groups. Based on how "Germanic" they were, each group had different rights. For example, the different groups were allowed different amounts of food; and were only allowed to live in certain places and use certain public transportation.

paragraphs: During the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazis made Jews wear yellow ribbons or stars of David with the word ""Jude"" ("Jew") on them. Racial laws discriminated against Jews and Roma people (Gypsies). For example, Jewish doctors were not allowed to treat Aryan patients; Jewish professors were not allowed to teach Aryan students. Jews were not allowed to use any public transportation, besides the ferry; ride bicycles; or ride in cars. They were allowed to shop only from 3:00pm to 5:00pm, and only in stores owned by Jews. They could not go to theaters, swimming pools, or any other places for entertainment.

paragraphs: During the Holocaust, the Nazis tried to kill all of the Jews and Roma in Europe. They also killed millions of Slavic people (including Ukrainian, Soviet, and Polish people), because they saw Slavs as an inferior race. First the Nazis forced Jews and Roma to live in ghettoes, apart from everyone else. Then they sent millions of Jews, Roma, and Slavs to concentration camps and death camps.

paragraphs: Also, between 1939 and 1945, at least 1.5 million Polish people were deported to Nazi Germany for forced labour. Nazi Germany also used forced laborers from Western Europe. However, Polish people and other Eastern Europeans who the Nazis viewed as racially inferior were treated much worse. They were forced to wear a cloth tag on their clothing with the letter "P" on it, which showed that they were Polish. They had to follow a curfew and could not use public transportation. Usually, they had to work longer hours, for lower pay, than Western Europeans. In many cities, they had to live in segregated barracks, behind barbed wire. They were not allowed to talk to Germans outside of work. If they had sexual relations with Germans, they would be executed.

paragraphs: During the Tang Dynasty, the Han Chinese passed several laws that segregated non-Chinese people from Chinese people. In 779, the Tang Dynasty made a rule which forced Uighurs to wear their traditional ethnic clothing, not Chinese clothing. It also banned them from 'pretending' to be Chinese, and from marrying Chinese women. The Han Chinese disliked the Uighurs because they loaned money for interest.

paragraphs: In 836, when Lu Chun was appointed governor of Canton, he was disgusted to find Chinese living with foreigners and marrying them. Lu made segregation the law. He made it illegal for non-Chinese people to marry Chinese people or to own property. The law specifically banned Chinese from forming relationships with "Dark peoples" or "People of color." This meant foreigners like "Iranians, Sogdians, Arabs, Indians, Malays, Sumatrans", and others.

paragraphs: In 1938, Italy was ruled by a fascist regime led by Benito Mussolini. The regime was allied with Nazi Germany. Under pressure from the Nazis, the regime passed several laws that said the Italian Empire would now practice segregation. They called these laws the 'provvedimenti per la difesa della razza' (norms for the defence of the race).

paragraphs: The laws especially targeted Jews. For example, Jews could not:

paragraphs: Because of these laws, Italy lost some of its best scientists. Some were fired. For example, Rita Levi-Montalcini, who would later win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, was told she could no longer work at her university. Others left Italy because of the laws. For example, Enrico Fermi, who worked on the first nuclear reactor and won the Nobel Prize for Physics, left the country. (His wife was Jewish.) Many other well-known scientists, physicists, mathematicians, and other scholars lost their jobs or left Italy because of the race laws.

paragraphs: Albert Einstein resigned from his honorary membership at the Accademia dei Lincei, an Italian science academy, to protest the race laws.

paragraphs: After 1943, when Northern Italy was occupied by the Nazis, Italian Jews were taken to Nazi concentration camps and death camps.

paragraphs: For centuries, Jews in Europe were often forced to live in segregated ghettos and shtetls (small towns where mostly Jews lived). In 1204, the Pope ordered Jews to segregate themselves from Christians and to wear clothing that marked them as Jews. Forced segregation of Jews spread throughout Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries.

paragraphs: In the Russian Empire, starting in the 1790s, Jews were only allowed to live in the Pale of Settlement. This was the Western frontier of the Russian Empire, about where Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine are today. By the early 20th century, most European Jews lived in the Pale of Settlement.

paragraphs: In Morocco, beginning in the 15th century, Jewish people were segregated in "mellahs". In cities, a "mellah" was a separate area for Jews, surrounded by a wall with a fortified gateway. Rural "mellahs" were separate villages where only Jews lived.

paragraphs: In the middle of the 19th century, historian J.J. Benjamin wrote about the life of Persian Jews:

paragraphs: When Spanish people came to the Americas and made Latin American countries into colonies, they created a caste system based on race. They came up with fifteen different categories of people based on their race mixtures, including categories like "mulatto" and "mestizo". People who were "whiter" or more "Spanish" had a higher social status than people who were "darker" or more Native American. People who were "darker" were treated as inferior and faced discrimination for example, they had to pay higher taxes than "whiter" people.

paragraphs: Usually, when they won their independence from Spain, most Latin American countries made laws against caste systems. However, prejudice based on race remains.

paragraphs: Racial segregation in South Africa began when the country was a Dutch colony. The Dutch landed at Cape Town in 1652 and gradually took over more and more of the country. Segregation continued when the British Empire took over the Cape of Good Hope in 1795.

paragraphs: Slavery existed in South Africa until 1833. However, two years later, the government passed a law that changed slaves into indentured servants. This system was not very different from slavery. Throughout the rest of the 1800s, the South African colonies passed laws that limited these worker's rights and freedoms.

paragraphs: In 1894 and 1905, the government passed laws saying that "Indians" and 'blacks" had no right to vote. Other laws discriminated against non-whites, but were not as bad as the apartheid laws that would come within the next 50 years.

paragraphs: Apartheid in South Africa started in 1948. At that time, the National Party won control of the South African government. This political party was made up of Afrikaner people. Afrikaners are the descendants of Dutch settlers who came to South Africa in the 1600s and 1700s. The National Party believed in Afrikaner nationalism.

paragraphs: The National Party passed apartheid laws to make racial segregation the law in South Africa. Some of the most important laws included:

paragraphs: Under these apartheid laws, between 1960 and 1983, 3.5 million non-white South Africans were forced to leave their homes and move into segregated neighborhoods. This is one of the largest mass removals in modern history.

paragraphs: Other laws made it illegal for a person to marry or have sex with a person of a different race. Then, in 1969, the government took away "Coloured" people's right to vote. Since "Indians" and "blacks" had not been allowed to vote for decades, this meant that whites were the only people in South Africa who were allowed to vote.

paragraphs: In 1970, non-whites were banned from having representatives in the government. That same year, black people's South African citizenship was taken away.

paragraphs: Protests against apartheid started right after apartheid did. As early as 1949, the youth wing of the African National Congress (ANC) suggested fighting against racial segregation using many different strategies. Over the next 45 years, hundreds of anti-apartheid actions occurred. They included protests by the Black Consciousness Movement; student protests; labor strikes; and church group activism. In 1991, the Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act was passed, reversing laws about racial segregation, including the Group Areas Act. In 1990, President Frederik Willem de Klerk started trying to end apartheid. Nonwhites were given the right to vote in 1993. South Africa had its first multiracial elections (where non-whites were allowed to be candidates in 1994. Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress won. Mandela and de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for working together to end apartheid.

paragraphs: The United States has a long history of racial segregation, starting when the first European settlers came to North America. First through slavery, then through racist laws, and then through racist attitudes, African-American people in the United States have faced segregation for centuries. People of other races have been segregated too. For example, during World War II, the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, ordered almost the entire Japanese-American population to be segregated in internment camps.

paragraphs: People of all races have fought against segregation and discrimination in the United States. Thanks to movements like the Civil Rights Movement, segregation is now against the law in the United States. However, prejudice against minority groups still exists. This has led to new types of segregation caused by people's prejudices and behavior.


title: Torrance, California

paragraphs: Torrance is a city in southwest Los Angeles, California. Jared Torrance founded it in 1911. In 2003, there were 142,621 people living in Torrance. It is the sixth biggest city in Los Angeles county.


title: Chuck Berry

paragraphs: Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter. He is one of the original musicians who helped to create rock and roll.

paragraphs: In 1955 Berry met Muddy Waters who told him of a record company that would release his first song. In 1957 he joined the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly and other popular musicians on a tour around the United States. Over the next few years he became more and more popular and had many popular songs on the radio. "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958) were massive hits.

paragraphs: He has influenced many rock and pop musicians who came after him. Berry has influenced many music artists, like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, and Bob Dylan. Berry tried to help an Apache waitress cross the US-Canadian border, but was caught by police and charged for prostitution. This dented his career: he served 18 months. When released, his first recording was "Nadine", (1964) also a huge hit.

paragraphs: Berry was a favorite with "The Beatles", "The Rolling Stones" and "The Beach Boys", who adapted and recorded a number of his songs.

paragraphs: In 1986 a documentary film, "Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll", was made. It featured a celebration concert for Berry's sixtieth birthday, organized by Keith Richards.

paragraphs: Berry died at his home in Wentzville, Missouri on March 18, 2017 from a congestive heart failure, aged 90.


title: Nagamaki

paragraphs: Nagamaki is a Japanese pole weapon with a large and heavy blade. It is very much like a glaive. It was introduced and used primarily during the Kamakura (1192 - 1333), Nanbokucho (1334 - 1392) and early Muromachi (1392 – 1573) periods. It was a long sword with 2–4 foot blade and a handle with 2–3 foot length. The blade was single-edged. It was also sharpened along the back edge to reduce its weight. It looks similar to a traditional naginata, but the main difference was that the handle (tsuka) of the nagamaki was not constructed of wood; it was made more like a katana handle. Even the name "nagamaki" is given by the tradition of handle wrapping. The word "nagamaki" means "long wrapping". The nagamaki handle was wrapped with cords in criss-crossed manner, very similar to the wrapping that is made on katana. The nagamaki is considered to be a type of the no-dachi sword. This one was a variation of long samurai sword.

paragraphs: The way to hold nagamaki was also very specific. It was held with the two hands in a fixed position in the same way a katana sword is held. Unlike the naginata, the hands did not change when handling the weapon and the right hand was always the closest to the blade. While handling nagamaki not too many sliding actions on the handle were performed as it was in naginata's case, where you use the entire length of the shaft. The nagamaki was not spread and developed until much later like the naginata sword. During the middle of the Muromachi period (1336-1600 A.D.) it reached its peak of usage.

paragraphs: The nagamaki is designed for large sweeping and slicing strokes. It also works as a spear. Traditionally, it was used as an infantry weapon. Warriors used the weapon against horsemen. Still, it required more time and materials to create a nagamaki than a spears or a naginata sword, this is why it was not so widely spread.

paragraphs: The closest exemplar of real nagamaki you can see today is nagamaki-naoshi. It appears to be like a long katana-shaped glaive but straighter and thinner, with a very long handle. In contrast to it naginata is shorter, wider and more curved to the tip.


title: Naginata

paragraphs: Naginata is a Japanese bladed weapon with a long shaft (wooden handle). The weapon looks like a pole and is often mistaken with one. The word "naginata" means "mowing down sword" or "reaping sword". The length of the blade can be anywhere from 1 to 3 feet. The blade's shape looks like 'leaf' being more curved to the point. The naginata's blade is attached to a long wooden shaft. The shaft itself is between 6 and 9 feet. The part that goes inside the handle (tang) is almost as long as the blade itself. This makes sure the blade is attached tightly onto the shaft. The shaft has a sharp end-cap, or ishizuki, which is made for piercing between the plates of armor.

paragraphs: It is said naginata have first been used in China in around 3 B.C. The first source it was mentioned in was the Kojiki (A Record of Ancient Matters, 712). Later, it is shown in the paintings of battlefield scenes made during the Tengyo no Ran (Tengyo Insurrection), in 936 A.D. The sword was used and improved during the Nara period (approx. 710-784 A.D.), and by the 11th century it was widely used in battles.

paragraphs: The naginata was also used by warrior-monks for temple defense against invaders. Around the 1400's A.D. this weapon was no more used by monks because the temples were no longer a target. The samurai used the naginata only when fighting against many enemies or on horseback.

paragraphs: Still, naginata was most commonly used when the samurai was too young to handle a full length katana and when he was mostly an archer. By the Edo period (1603-1867), the naginata was no more used in combat. It became the symbolic weapon of samurai women, who trained for self-defense, defense of their children, and for building virtue. The fashion developed further and there were samurai families who hung naginata in important places of their houses. Later the naginata was even given as present to the bride.

paragraphs: There are three main theories why the naginata was made. One of the most spread is the belief that naginata evolved from a farming tool used for chopping. The tools were made as long staffs with sharp stones attached to one of the ends. The tool was used in the 3rd century B.C. Later, the stones were replaced with metal pieces. Thus, when the crops and lands of the farmers were under attack they defended it with their farming tools, which proved to be effective weapons and were later improved..

paragraphs: The Chinese theory is based on the idea that Chinese halberds were brought to Japan during early migrations, (around 200 B.C.). Most of the weaponry experts believe that even if the Chinese invented the weapon, but it was improved by the Japanese.

paragraphs: Another theory says that the naginata evolved directly as a weapon. The blade of naginata ancestors was made of bronze. Later, the discovery of steel made it even more effective. This theory affirms that the naginata development was far later than the appearance of metal in Japan from the Asian continents (around 200 B.C.).

paragraphs: The naginata was meant for foot soldiers to use; whereas the military elite (samurai) used the katana sword. There are evidences that naginata was also used by the Sohei (Buddhist warrior monks).

paragraphs: The naginata was also considered a women's weapon. It gave women a major advantage because its long shaft could keep the enemy at a safe distance. One of the most famous Japanese women warriors was Itagaki. Her naginata skills were better than even the most trained samurai. During the Edo period (1600-1800 AD), Japanese women were taught to handle the naginata by the age of 18.

paragraphs: The naginata was also considered an effective weapon against horsemen. The way naginata was handled required specific motions because of its length. Usually, it was sweeping and circular motion, because it was inconvenient to use striking methods like with a traditional sword. In order to use the naginata well, the handler has to quickly change hand positions along the length of the shaft.

paragraphs: This weapon did very well in cavalry battles, acting like medieval spears. Infantry used the naginata to cut the horse's legs. After this the disoriented rider was easily killed.

paragraphs: Naginata is also known as a Japanese martial art performed by men, women, and children. The roots of this fighting technique come for over 1,000 years ago. This martial art has as its centerpiece a Japanese sword - Naginata. The weapon is very efficient against riders as well as against foot soldiers. The sword is very well balanced and weighted which makes it possible for women and children to use it. The naginata way of fighting is very graceful due to circular swinging of the naginata sword.

paragraphs: Today Naginata is a combat system that teaches respect, patience, etiquette, self-confidence, and self-control. The practice of Naginata teaches perfect control and balanced movements of the body. When into this art, discipline and concentration are needed to reach the grace and effectiveness of the movements. Moreover, it establishes person's character by developing a moral code based on honor.

paragraphs: The modern naginata has changed its shape during history. Now, it is more like a European halberd or glaive. The blade looks more like a scimitar moreso rather than of a wakizashi. Naginata went through the influence of westernization after the Meiji Restoration (1868-1912), when the value of martial arts dropped, and survived till the Showa period (1912 – 1926), when naginata became a part of the public school system.

paragraphs: Different styles of naginata handling were developed creating world known schools (ryu). The Atarashii Naginata School and Jikishin-kage ryu are the most popular. There are also known schools like Tendo ryu and Toda Ha Buko ryu. Despite the differences between these schools, the Naginata martial art has at its base the art of wielding one of the most original weapons and their goal is to develop the traditional etiquette and spiritual training of a person.


title: Ainu language

paragraphs: The Ainu language is the language of the Ainu people in northern Japan. It was not written until the 19th century. Since then, it has been written in katakana or the Latin alphabet.

paragraphs: In the 19th century, Ainu was spoken in Ezo (including Hokkaidō Island and the southern part of Chishima Islands), the southern part of Karapto (Sakhalin) and the northern part of Chishima Islands (Kuril Islands). Now it is only spoken in Hokkaidō.

paragraphs: Ainu had many dialects, including "Chitose", "Saru", and "Karapto". Now only the Hokkaidō dialect survives. The dialects were so different from one another that a speaker of one dialect could not understand a speaker of another dialect.

paragraphs: Historically, speakers of Ainu lived near speakers of Japanese and Itelmen (from Kamchatka). The Nivkh, which was spoken in the northern part of Sakhalin, is another isolated language.

paragraphs: Ainu has subject-object-verb word order, like Japanese. Ainu phrases have left-branching structures: the word for a property is before the word for a person or thing.

paragraphs: The word "ainu" means "human being" and is the name used by the Ainu to refer to themselves. In contrast, "kamuy" means "god". The Ainu think that all existence that has mind and plays a role in this world are "kamuy". Sparrows or standing trees are "kamuy". In the Ainu perspective of the world, all goes well and human being can also be happy if "ainu" and "kamuy" help each other.

paragraphs: Most linguists think that the Ainu numeral system is based on twenty.

paragraphs: The Ainu language is classificated as language isolate, althought there exist several theories about a genetic relation. Some linguists suggest a relation to Altaic languages while others suggest a link to Indo-European languages. Some similarities also exist with northern native american languages.


title: Tenacious D

paragraphs: Tenacious D is a band. The members of the band are the actor Jack Black and his best friend Kyle Gass. The band started in Los Angeles, California in 1994. Their songs have lots of profanity. Including Tribute, Beezleboss and so on.


title: Saurischia

paragraphs: Saurischia is one of the two orders of dinosaurs. In 1888, Harry Seeley classified dinosaurs into two main orders. Their hip structure was why they were put into these orders. Saurischians ('lizard-hipped') and the ornithischians ('bird-hipped') have differences in the ways bones in the hip are put together.

paragraphs: All carnivorous dinosaurs (the theropods) are saurischians, and so are the sauropods like "Diplodocus" and "Brachiosaurus".

paragraphs: Birds are direct descendants of a group of theropod dinosaurs, so they are a sub-clade of saurischian dinosaurs in modern classification.


title: Stethoscope

paragraphs: A stethoscope is a instrument used by doctors and other medical people. It is used to measure peoples heartbeat and their breathing. It is placed on the area where the heart is or on the back.

paragraphs: The modern stethoscope is made up of a Y-shaped flexible plastic tube. An earpiece is attached to each end of the Y and a sound-detecting device at the other end. The sound-detecting device has a thin plastic sheet on one side and a bell shape with a hole in on the other. The diaphragm is used to listen to a patient's chest for high-pitched sounds. The bell end is used to detect lower-pitched sounds. The lung sounds have a higher frequency than heart sounds.


title: Gouda (cheese)

paragraphs: Gouda is a kind of soft cheese made from cows' milk. The cheese is named after the city of Gouda, which is famous for it. The name "Gouda" is not protected, so Gouda is made all over the world. There is also a protected designation of origin "Noord-Hollandse Gouda" (Gouda from North Holland). This may seem inaccurate, because the city of Gouda is in South Holland. Most of the cows however graze in North Holland.

paragraphs: There are two varieties of Gouda for export: Young gouda, which is between one and six months old. Young gouda is usually sold with a yellow or red coating of paraffin wax.

paragraphs: Gouda that is older, is usually sold with a black coating. It is more brittle, and has a stronger scent.

paragraphs: There are other variations, like "Smoked Gouda", which is a processed cheese, and Leyden Gouda.

paragraphs: There is also spiced gouda which has spices in it to make it have more flavour.


title: Passion bearer

paragraphs: In Russian Orthodox Christianity, a passion bearer is someone who faces their death in a Christian or Christ-like way. They were not killed because of their religion, unlike martyrs, but they love God and show good virtues.


title: Tile

paragraphs: A tile is a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, porcelain, metal or even glass. Tiles are generally used for covering roofs, floors, and walls. They have been made for thousands of years.

paragraphs: Tiles can be simple square tiles or arranged in complex mosaics. Tiles are most often made from ceramic, with a hard glaze finish.

paragraphs: At the end of the 20th century, the technology of porcelain and glass tiles advanced, making them cheaper. They became more commonplace.

paragraphs: Roof tiles are designed mainly to keep out rain, and are traditionally made from locally available materials such as clay or slate. Modern materials such as concrete and plastic are also used and some clay tiles have a waterproof glaze.

paragraphs: A large number of shapes (or "profiles") of roof tiles have evolved.

paragraphs: Fired roof tiles are found as early as the 3rd millennium BC in the "House of the tiles" in Lerna, Greece. Debris found at the site contained thousands of terracotta tiles having fallen from the roof. In the Mycenaean period, roofs tiles are documented for Gla and Midea.


title: Bellini

paragraphs: Bellini can mean several people or things, including


title: Porcelain

paragraphs: Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating clay-type materials to high temperatures. It includes clay in the form of kaolinite.

paragraphs: There is a distinction between hard-paste porcelain, fired at 1400 degrees Celsius, and soft-paste porcelain, fired at 1200 degrees Celsius. Bone china is soft-paste porcelain made from bone ash and kaolinite.

paragraphs: The raw materials for porcelain are when mixed with water and form a plastic paste. The paste is worked to a required shape before firing in a kiln.

paragraphs: Porcelain originated in China, and 'china' is the common name of the product. By the Eastern LV Han Dynasty period (196–220 AD) glazed ceramic wares had developed into porcelain. Porcelain manufactured during the Tang Dynasty (618–906 AD) was exported to the Islamic world, where it was highly prized. Early porcelain of this type includes the tri-colour glazed porcelain, or "sancai" wares. Porcelain items in the sense that we know them today could be found in the Tang Dynasty, and archaeological finds have pushed the dates back to as early as the LV Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). By the Sui Dynasty (581–618) and Tang Dynasty (618–907), porcelain was widely produced.

paragraphs: In 1712, many of the Chinese porcelain secrets were revealed in Europe by the French Jesuit father Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles, and published in "Lettres édifiantes et curieuses de Chine par des missionnaires jésuites".

paragraphs: Early in the 16th century, Portuguese traders returned home with samples of kaolin clay, which they discovered in China to be essential in the production of porcelain wares. However, the Chinese techniques and composition used to manufacture porcelain were not yet fully understood.

paragraphs: In the German state of Saxony, the search concluded in 1708 when Ehrenfried von Tschirnhaus produced a hard, white, translucent type of porcelain with kaolin clay and alabaster, mined from a Saxon mine in Colditz. It was a closely guarded trade secret of the Saxon enterprise.

paragraphs: Von Tschirnhaus and his assistant Johann Friedrich Böttger were employed by Augustus the Strong and worked at Dresden and Meissen in Saxony. A workshop note records that the first specimen of hard, white and vitrified European porcelain was produced in 1708. At the time, the research was still being supervised by Tschirnhaus, but he died in October of that year. Böttger reported to Augustus in March 1709 that he could make porcelain. He usually gets the credit for the European discovery of porcelain.

paragraphs: The first important French soft-paste porcelain was made at the Saint-Cloud factory before 1702. Soft-paste factories were established at Chantilly in 1730 and at Mennecy in 1750. The Vincennes porcelain factory was established in 1740, and moved later to larger premises in Sèvres. in 1756. Vincennes soft-paste was whiter and more perfect than any of its French rivals, which put Vincennes/Sèvres porcelain in the leading position in France.

paragraphs: The first soft-paste in England was demonstrated by Thomas Briand to the Royal Society in 1742, and is believed to have been based on the Saint-Cloud formula. In 1749, Thomas Frye took out a patent on a porcelain containing bone ash. This was the first bone china, later perfected by Josiah Spode.

paragraphs: In the twenty-five years after Briand's demonstration, half a dozen factories were founded in England to make soft-paste table-wares and figures. Some famous factories were:

paragraphs: William Cookworthy discovered deposits of kaolin clay in Cornwall. This helped the development of porcelain and other whiteware ceramics in England. Cookworthy's factory at Plymouth, 1768, used kaolin clay and china stone. He made porcelain with a composition similar to the Chinese porcelains of the early 18th century.


title: Kiln

paragraphs: A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber or oven in which a controlled temperature regime is produced.


title: ChuChu

paragraphs: ChuChu is a comic magazine that is written for teenage girls. It is published by Syougakukan（Japan).


title: Mettā

paragraphs: Metta is a Buddhist term translated as loving kindness or friendliness.

paragraphs: The opposite is wanting others to be unhappy: anger, hatred.


title: Oxide

paragraphs: An oxide is a chemical compound containing at least one oxygen atom and at least one atom of one other element. Most of the Earth's crust consists of oxides (mainly silica). Oxides can be made when elements are oxidized by air (when oxygen in the air reacts with the element).


title: Proposal

paragraphs: A Proposal is when people suggest an idea. It is usually used when someone suggests an idea of marriage, when they ask the person they like to marry them.


title: Versailles, Yvelines

paragraphs: Versailles is a French city. It is in the western suburbs of Paris, 17.1 km. (10.6 miles) from the center of Paris. It is the "capital" of the Yvelines département. This city is very important for the History of France because it was formerly the capital of the kingdom of France.

paragraphs: Its name comes from the Latin word "vertere", meaning to turn the soil.

paragraphs: Versailles is made world-famous by the Palace of Versailles (Château de Versailles), where Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI lived.

paragraphs: In 2004, about 85,900 people lived here.

paragraphs: This is where the Treaty of Versailles was signed at the end of The Great War.


title: Major

paragraphs: Major is a rank that is given for a mid-level command officer (higher than the rank of Captain and lower than the rank of Lieutenant Colonel). In Canada, it is shown by a thick bar followed by a thin bar and again by a thick bar. In Great Britain it is represented by a single crown. In the United States, it is shown by a gold oak leaf. The pay grade for the rank of major is O-4.


title: Sibling

paragraphs: The siblings are the sisters and brothers of a person.

paragraphs: There are several different types of siblings.


title: Silicate

paragraphs: In chemistry, a silicate is a chemical compound consisting of one or more central silicon atoms that are surrounded by electronegative anions.

paragraphs: The most common silicate species consist of silicon with oxygen as the anion. Silicate anions, with a negative net electrical charge, must have that charge balanced by other cations to make an electrically neutral compound.

paragraphs: In geology and planetary science, the term silicate is used to denote types of rock that consist predominantly of silicate minerals.

paragraphs: On Earth, a wide variety of silicate minerals occur in an even wider range of combinations as a result of the processes that form and re-work the crust. These processes include partial melting, crystallization, fractionation, metamorphism, weathering and diagenesis. Living things also contribute to the silicate cycle near the Earth's surface. A type of plankton known as diatoms construct their exoskeletons, known as tests, from silica. The tests of dead diatoms are a major constituent of deep ocean sediment


title: Newton metre

paragraphs: The Newton metre is the unit of moment in the SI system. It is abbreviated N·m, and sometimes written with hyphen "newton-metre". It is a compound unit of torque corresponding to the torque from a force of one newton applied over a distance arm of one metre.

paragraphs: A newton metre is dimensionally equivalent to a joule.


title: Gamma ray

paragraphs: Gamma rays (γ-rays) are electromagnetic waves with the smallest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. They were discovered in 1900 by Paul Villard, and named in 1903 by Ernest Rutherford.

paragraphs: Gamma rays are like x-rays, but the waves are smaller in wavelength. Both gamma rays and x-rays are photons with very high energies, and gamma have even more energy. They are also a type of ionizing radiation. Gamma rays can travel through thicker materials than x-rays can.

paragraphs: Gamma rays are produced by some types of radioactive atoms. Cobalt-60 and potassium-40 are two isotopes that emit gamma rays. Cobalt-60 is created in accelerators and is used in hospitals. Potassium-40 occurs naturally. Small amounts of potassium-40 are in all plants and animals. Gamma rays from potassium-40 each have an energy of 1460 thousand electron volts (keV).

paragraphs: Gamma rays and X-rays can also be distinguished by their origin: X-rays are emitted by electrons outside the nucleus, while gamma rays are emitted by the nucleus.

paragraphs: Gamma rays can also go through the skin to kill cells, such as cancerous cells.

paragraphs: Doctors can use radiation therapy machines which produce gamma rays in hospitals to treat people with some types of cancer.

paragraphs: Doctors also use gamma rays to find disease. In hospitals, doctors can give patients radioactive medicine which emits gamma rays. Doctors can find some types of disease by measuring gamma rays which come from a patient afterward. Hospitals can also use gamma rays to sterilise (clean) things as disinfectants do.


title: Cynicism

paragraphs: Cynicism is a philosophy started by the Cynics, Ancient Greek philosophers. It was started by Antisthenes in the 5th century BC. The main points the cynics wanted to make was that man had no needs. At the same time, they were against possessing material goods. They also were against prejudices such as being ashamed of being naked. Diogenes of Sinope made the cynics extend their views and combine them with that of other schools of philosophy, like the stoa. They also integrated elements of Greek mythology.

paragraphs: Today, the word 'cynicism' generally describes the opinions and actions of those who believe that self-interest is the primary motive of human behavior. These persons, called "cynics", shy away from relying upon sincerity, human virtue, or altruism as motivations.


title: Sonic the Hedgehog (TV series)

paragraphs: Sonic the Hedgehog is the name of a cartoon series, starring Sonic the Hedgehog. It is more popularly known as "SatAM Sonic", especially to distinguish itself from other similarly-named animated shows that also star Sonic.

paragraphs: This series was made by DiC Entertainment, and originally ran on ABC from September 18, 1993 to June 3, 1995, and had a total of 26 episodes, at 13 episodes per season.

paragraphs: The show starred Sonic the Hedgehog, and the Knothole Freedom Fighters, a group of woodland animals united to fight the evil Doctor Robotnik, who has taken over the entire planet.


title: Roman Servile Wars

paragraphs: The Servile Wars were a series of three slave revolts in the late Roman Republic. See:


title: Plutarch

paragraphs: Mestrius Plutarchus (; "c." 46 – 127), better known in English as Plutarch, was a Greek historian, and writer of biographies and essays.

paragraphs: Plutarch was born into a well-known family in "Chaeronea", "Boeotia" Greece, a town about twenty miles east of Delphi. His works are "Parallel Lives" and "Moralia".


title: Crassus

paragraphs: Marcus Licinius Crassus (c. 115 BC – 53 BC) was a Roman general and politician.

paragraphs: He commanded the left wing of Sulla's army at the Battle of the Colline Gate. It was he who finally suppressed the slave revolt led by Spartacus. The Third Servile War began with three defeats of Roman armies against Spartacus and his followers. The revolt was finally destroyed by the concentrated military effort of a single commander, Marcus Licinius Crassus.

paragraphs: The last stage of his career was as a "triumvir", one of the First Triumvirate, with Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Gaius Julius Caesar. One of the richest men of the era, he was killed after a defeat at the Battle of Carrhae. His death led to the civil wars between Julius Caesar and Pompey, the other two triumvirs.

paragraphs: When Crassus formed his army, in addition to six new legions, he was given other legions which had been beaten by Spartacus. He decimated them. This was the brutal method of executing "one man in ten" to encourage the others to fight harder. Each group of ten men drew lots to decide who would die. This punishment had not been used since the early days of Rome.

paragraphs: Crassus's punishment of Spartacus's surviving men was just as brutal. They were crucified.

paragraphs: Crassus arranged to govern the Roman province of Syria, with the transparent intention of going to war with Parthia. In fact, he set out on a war against Parthia, using his own money, and without the Senate's official approval.

paragraphs: After being informed of the presence of the Parthian army, Crassus panicked. His general Cassius recommended that the army be deployed in the traditional Roman fashion, with infantry forming the center and cavalry on the wings. At first Crassus agreed, but he soon changed his mind and redeployed his men into a hollow square, each side formed by twelve cohorts. This formation would protect his forces from being outflanked, but at the cost of mobility.

paragraphs: The day went badly for the Romans, who were repeatedly outflanked by the Parthian cavalry. The next day they received a message, offering to negotiate with Crassus. A truce was proposed, allowing the Roman army to return to Syria safely, in exchange for Rome giving up all territory east of the Euphrates. Crassus was reluctant to meet with the Parthians, but his troops threatened to mutiny if he did not. At the meeting, a Parthian pulled at Crassus' reins, sparking violence. Crassus and his generals were murdered. After his death, the Parthians allegedly poured molten gold down his throat, in a symbolic gesture mocking Crassus' renowned greed. The remaining Romans at Carrhae attempted to flee, but most were captured or killed. Roman casualties amounted to about 20,000 killed and 10,000 captured, making the battle one of the costliest defeats in Roman history. Parthian casualties were minimal.


title: Pompey

paragraphs: Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), otherwise known as Pompey () or Pompey the Great, was an important military and political leader of the late Roman Republic.

paragraphs: Coming from an Italian provincial background, he secured a place for himself in the ranks of Roman nobility, and was given the nickname "Magnus" ("the Great") by Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

paragraphs: Pompey was a rival of Marcus Licinius Crassus and an ally to Gaius Julius Caesar. Together, the three politicians would dominate the Late Roman republic through a political alliance called the First Triumvirate. After the deaths of Julia and Crassus (54 BC), disputes between Pompey and Caesar over the leadership of the Roman Republic lead to civil war. Pompey was decisively beaten by Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC, whereupon he fled to Egypt, where he was assassinated.

paragraphs: In the beginning, Pompey said he could defeat Caesar and raise armies merely by stamping his foot on the soil of Italy, but in the spring of 49 BC, Caesar crossed the Rubicon and his legions swept down the peninsula. Pompey abandoned Rome, and took his legions south towards Brundisium. Pompey intended build up his army, and wage war against Caesar in the east. Neither Pompey nor the Senate thought of taking the vast treasury with them, probably thinking Caesar would not dare take it for himself. It was left in the Temple of Saturn when Caesar and his forces entered Rome.

paragraphs: Barely escaping Caesar in Brundisium, Pompey crossed over into Epirus. There, during Caesar's Spanish campaign, Pompey had gathered a large force in Macedonia, with nine legions plus contingents from the Roman allies in the east. His fleet controlled the Adriatic. Nevertheless, Caesar managed to cross over into Epirus in November 49 BC, and captured Apollonia.

paragraphs: Pompey fought Caesar at the Battle of Dyrrhachium (48 BC), in which Caesar lost 1000 men and Pompey lost 2000. Because he failed to pursue at the moment of Caesar's defeat, Pompey threw away the chance to destroy Caesar's much smaller army. As Caesar himself said, "Today the enemy would have won, if they had a commander who was a winner" (Plutarch, 65).

paragraphs: According to Suetonius, it was at this point that Caesar said that "that man (Pompey) does not know how to win a war". With Caesar on their backs, the conservatives led by Pompey fled to Greece. Caesar and Pompey had their final showdown at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC. The fighting was bitter for both sides, and although Pompey was expected to win, due to advantage in numbers, the brilliant tactics and the superior fighting abilities of Caesar's veterans led to a victory for Caesar. Pompey met his wife Cornelia and his son Sextus Pompeius on the island of Mytilene. He then wondered where to go next. He ran to Egypt.

paragraphs: After he got to Egypt, Pompey's fate was decided by the advisors of the young king Ptolemy XIII. While Pompey waited offshore, they argued the cost of offering him refuge with Caesar already en route to Egypt; the king's eunuch Pothinus won out. According to Plutarch, Cornelia watched anxiously from the trireme as Pompey left in a small boat with a few comrades, and headed for a welcoming party on the Egyptian shore. As Pompey got off the boat, he was stabbed to death by men following the orders of Pothinus.

paragraphs: Pompey died one day after his 59th birthday. His body remained on the shoreline, to be cremated by his loyal freeman Philip on the rotten planks of a fishing boat. His head and seal were presented to Caesar, who, according to Plutarch, mourned this insult to the greatness of his former ally. Caesar punished his assassins and their Egyptian co-conspirators, putting both Achillas and Pothinus to death. Pompey's ashes were eventually returned to Cornelia, who carried them to his country house near Alba.

paragraphs: Cassius Dio describes Caesar's reactions with scepticism. He thinks Pompey's own political misjudgements, rather than treachery, was the cause of his downfall. In Appian's account of the civil war, Caesar has Pompey's severed head buried in Alexandria, in ground reserved for a new temple to the goddess Nemesis. The divine functions of Nemesis (~fate) included the punishment of hubris (pride). For Pliny, the humiliation of Pompey's end is contrasted to his oversized portrait-head, studded with pearls, and carried in procession during his greatest Triumph.


title: Italia (Roman province)

paragraphs: Italia, under the Roman Republic and later Empire, was the name of the Italian peninsula.

paragraphs: Italia was the home of the capital of the Roman Empire - Rome itself.


title: Shift key

paragraphs: The shift key is a key on a computer keyboard. It is used to type capital letters (like this: "ABC") instead of lowercase ("abc").

paragraphs: The shift key is also used to type with keys that have more than one symbol on them, such as the number keys and those for punctuation marks. In this case it is used to type the "upper" characters, that is, the symbol that appear above the other. The symbol below does not need the shift key to be pressed. On an English keyboard, these are some of the characters that need the shift key to be pressed down in order to type them:

paragraphs: The way the shift key works is that it needs to be held down while the other key is pressed. Because of this, there are usually two shift keys, on the left and right sides of the keyboard, and they are held down using one of the little fingers while the other finger presses the other key.

paragraphs: Instead of using the shift key, one can also use the caps lock or shift lock keys. This lets one type many uppercase letters at once without having to hold down the shift key all the time.


title: 2000 United States Census

paragraphs: The Twenty-Second United States Census, known as Census 2000 was a count of the population of the United States. It was done by the Census Bureau. It found that the population of the United States on April 1, 2000 was 281,421,906. This was an increase of 13.2% over the 248,709,873 people counted during the 1990 Census. This was the twenty-second federal census. It was the largest single administrative effort in the history of the United States that was not done during wartime.

paragraphs: About 16 percent of households received a "long form" of the 2000 census. It had over 100 questions.


title: Police procedural

paragraphs: A police procedural is a type of crime story. In a police procedural, the main characters are police officers. The story usually shows how they solve crimes with teamwork, using their specialised knowledge of criminals and the city or other area where they are.

paragraphs: Police procedurals have always been popular on television. Some of the best-known TV shows of this type are "Dragnet", "Law & Order", "Hill Street Blues", "NYPD Blue" and "The Shield".


title: Girth

paragraphs: Girth is the circumference of a cylindrical object, such as a tree trunk.

paragraphs: Girth is sometimes used by postal services and delivery companies as basis for pricing. For example, (for at least one delivery company), if one has a box to ship, it has three sides: length (the longest side) and height and width. The girth in this case is 2 * (height + width).


title: Circumference

paragraphs: In geometry, circumference is the distance around a closed curve; for example, a circle. It is a special kind of perimeter. The length of the circumference of a circle is often written as formula_1, with:

paragraphs: where "d" is the diameter of the circle.


title: Girth (tack)

paragraphs: A girth is a piece of equipment for riding a horse, used to keep the saddle in place.


title: Lusatian Neisse

paragraphs: The Lusatian Neisse is a river in the Czech Republic ("Lužická Nisa"), Germany ("Lausitzer Neiße") and Poland ("Nysa Łużycka"). It is part of the Oder-Neisse line.


title: Anton Rubinstein

paragraphs: Anton Rubinstein (born Vikhvatinets 28 November 1829; died Petershof 20 November 1894) was a Russian pianist and composer. Rubinstein and Franz Liszt were thought to be the greatest pianists of the 19th century. He was very important as a teacher and influenced many Russian musicians. He composed lots of music, although hardly any of it is heard nowadays. As a composer he is best remembered today by a little piece of piano music called “Melody in F”.

paragraphs: Rubinstein gave his first piano concert when he was ten. Between 1840 and 1843 his piano teacher took him on long concert tours of Europe. He met Chopin and Liszt and was received in London by Queen Victoria. Between 1844 and 1846 the family lived in Berlin. His friends there included Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer.

paragraphs: In 1846 his father died and Anton went to Vienna where he gave piano lessons to try to earn some money. When he returned to Russia in 1848 the tsar’s sister-in-law let him live in her palace. He played for lots of parties. Often the tsar came.

paragraphs: In 1854 he toured Europe again. Then he returned to Russia. He wanted to improve music education in Russia so he started the Russian Musical Society and then he started the St Petersburg Conservatory. During his long career he spent many years as director of the Conservatory as well as conducting concerts.

paragraphs: He wrote a lot of music, but although his compositions often started off with good ideas they often become rather boring. His opera "Tom the fool" was not a success. He was annoyed and wrote an article in a music magazine saying that it was not possible to write operas using Russian stories. He criticized several composers who were writing music which used Russian folktunes. This included the composer Mily Balakirev and his friends who were called The Mighty Handful. He said that they had not learned how to compose properly.

paragraphs: Rubinstein very much wanted to be famous as a composer as well as a teacher, but this made him very narrow-minded. However, it was as a pianist and conductor that he was important. He helped to improve the standard of music making in Russia by teaching and performing, and by starting the conservatory in St Petersburg.


title: Plane (tool)

paragraphs: A plane is a tool for shaping wood. Planes are used to flatten, reduce the thickness of, and impart a smooth surface to a rough piece of lumber. As the name implies, the tool turns the worked surface into a smooth plane, a level, even surface.

paragraphs: Hand planes are generally the combination of a cutting edge, such as a sharpened metal plate, attached to a firm body, that when moved over a wood surface, take up relatively uniform shavings, by nature of the body riding on the 'high spots' in the wood, and also by providing a relatively constant angle to the cutting edge, render the planed surface very smooth.

paragraphs: Hand planes are ancient, originating thousands of years ago. Early planes were made from wood and blades first from bronze and later from iron and even later from steel. The cutting blade or iron was held in place with a wooden wedge.

paragraphs: Two styles of plane are shown with some parts labeled. The top of the image is a bench plane; the bottom is a block plane.

paragraphs: Different types of bench planes are designed to perform different tasks, with the name and size of the plane being defined by the use. They are designed to be used in order:

paragraphs: Planes may also be classified by the material of which they are constructed:


title: Lumber

paragraphs: Lumber (or timber) is wood that has been cut for use in building.

paragraphs: Dimensional lumber is a term used in North America for lumber that is finished/planed and cut to standardized width and depth specified in inches.

paragraphs: Examples of common sizes are 2×4 (also two-by-four and other variants), 2×6, and 4×4. The length of a board is usually specified separately from the width and depth. It is thus possible to find 2×4s that are four, eight, or twelve feet in length. In the United States the standard lengths of lumber are 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, and 24 feet.

paragraphs: Outside North America sizes of timber vary slightly. Sizes are, in some cases, based on the imperial measurement and referred to as such; in other cases the sizes are too far removed from the imperial size to be referred to by imperial measurement. Lengths can be sold at every 300 mm (a metric approximation of 1'). Common sizes are similar to the North American equivalent; 2.4, 2.7, 3.0, 3.6, 4.2, 4.8, 5.4, 6.0. But also in running lengths, where each plank in a given packet is different, from 2500mm to 5500mm, though shorter and longer may be present.

paragraphs: In North America sizes for dimensional lumber made from hardwoods varies from the sizes for softwoods. Boards are usually supplied in random widths and lengths of a specified thickness, and sold by the board-foot (144 cubic inches).

paragraphs: Engineered lumber is lumber created by a manufacturer and designed for a certain structural purpose.


title: El Puerto de Santa María

paragraphs: El Puerto de Santa María (commonly called El Puerto) is a city on the banks of the Guadalete River in the province of Cádiz, Spain. As of the 2005 census, the city has 82,306 people. 50,000 of these people live in the urban center. The others live in the area around the urban center.

paragraphs: The city of El Puerto de Santa Maria is northeast of Cadiz across the Bay of Cadiz. It is best known for its ferry, El Vaporcito, which has been used for 76 years. It takes passengers to and from Cadiz to El Puerto.

paragraphs: In the Odyssey of Homer, legend says that, after the Trojan War, a Greek official named Menestheus escaped with his troops through the Straits of Gibraltar. They got to the Guadalete River and created a port. They called the port "Menestheus's port".

paragraphs: In 711, Arab (Moors) from the North of Africa invaded southern Spain. They changed the name to "Alcante" or "Alcanatif". The name means Port of Salt. They chose that name because of the old salt industry of Phoenicians and Romans.

paragraphs: In 1260, Alfonso X of Castile took the city from the Moors. He renamed it "Santa María del Puerto".

paragraphs: Columbus began his second voyage to the New World from El Puerto. His pilot, Juan de la Cosa, created the first map of the world to include the coast of the New World in El Puerto in 1500. In the nineteenth century, the city became the General Headquarters for the French Army during the Spanish War of Independence under the reign of Joseph Bonaparte (1808–1813). The city is has much history, museums and monuments. It is also near the very historical cities of Seville and Cádiz.

paragraphs: El Puerto has a famous bull ring. It dates back to 1880. The bull ring has space for 15,000 to watch. Bull fighting is still enjoyed during the Feria season, which is during the month of August, and during the Feria de la Primavera, which is in early May. This Feria is dedicated to sherry. 180,0000 half bottles of sherry get drunk in 4 days. There are several bodegas in the town centre. All of these can be visited by the public. The most famous bodega is the Osborne and Terry Bodegas. They export sherry and brandy worldwide . In the cellars in El Puerto, sherry is made using the traditional method called “solera”. This method makes the pale dry sherries to the sweet Muscatel sherry, Amontillados and the older Olorosos.

paragraphs: El Puerto is a very good place to taste local tapas and seafood, for which it is famous. Food is an important reason why many tourists go to El Puerto de Santa Maria. The Bay of Cadiz is famous for its fresh fish. The fish and plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables lead to very good restaurant menus. There are many different types of places to eat all in walking distance in the town centre.


title: Bearing (mechanical)

paragraphs: A bearing is a device to permit fixed direction motion between two parts, typically rotation or linear movement. Bearings may be broadly grouped by the way they work. The most common of the many types are plain bearings and rolling-element bearings.

paragraphs: The two main types of rolling-element bearings are ball bearings and roller bearings. In ball bearings, the rolling elements are spherical balls. In roller bearings, the rolling elements are cylindrical, taper or spherical rollers. Ball bearings are shown in the pictures.


title: Bush (mechanical)

paragraphs: A bush is a mechanical fixing between two, possibly moving, parts, or a strengthened fixing point where one mechanical assembly is attached to another.

paragraphs: In a car or other vehicle's suspension, bushes are used to connect the various moving arms and pivot points to the chassis and other parts of the suspension. In machines, bush provide mechanical strength to the rotor.


title: Suspension (vehicle)

paragraphs: Suspension is the term given to the system of springs, shock absorbers and linkages. The suspension acts as an intermediate between the car and the road and solves several problems:

paragraphs: So a car suspension is not just a set of components for connecting wheels and body or frame, but a complex system that makes normal and comfortable movement on car driving.

paragraphs: Springs are elastic elements of a car suspension that work in conjunction with shock absorbers. The main functions of the springs are:

paragraphs: Shock absorbers, as a damping element of a modern suspension, convert vibrational energy into heat. The amount of energy absorbed depends on the mass of the car, the stiffness of the spring and the vibration frequency.

paragraphs: The principle of operation of dampers is based on the displacement of fluid by a piston through special holes. In various modes, fluid is displaced through openings of different diameters. Due to this, the oscillations are absorbed both during compression and during rebound. As a result, these car suspension parts provide:

paragraphs: Using these elements, the suspension parts are fastened together, and also the suspension is attached to the body or frame of the car. The fasteners can be either a regular bolted connection (like other types of rigid joints), or a connection using special elastic elements - rubber-metal hinges (or silent-blocks).


title: Suzuki method

paragraphs: The Suzuki method, (or Talent Education, or the Mother Tongue method, or the Suzuki movement) is a way of teaching. It teaches people to be morally better through a caring environment. It normally uses a musical instrument such as the violin or piano to do this. It can also use other musical instruments like the flute, recorder, piano, guitar, cello, viola, bass, organ, harp and voice. The Suzuki method uses the same environment that people have when they learn their mother-tongue. This means that each student sees and hears music and good moral character all of the time. Other people tell them that they will do well. The students learn one thing at a time. They learn new things when they are ready. The term "Suzuki method" is also used to mean only the Suzuki sheet music books and songs.

paragraphs: It was created in Japan in the mid-20th century by Dr. Shin'ichi Suzuki. He was a violinist who wanted to bring some beauty to the lives of children in his country after World War II. Dr. Suzuki saw that all children learn their own language very quickly. Even dialects which adults thought were hard to learn are spoken with ease by 5 or 6 year old children. He thought that if a person can speak their mother tongue, then they can learn to play a musical instrument. He came up with the idea that any pre-school age child could begin to play the violin.

paragraphs: Just as a child learns to speak before reading, Suzuki students learn by ear and generally only learn to read sheet music at a much later age.

paragraphs: Suzuki students will always play with a "beautiful tone and a beautiful heart".


title: Pará

paragraphs: Pará is one of the states of Brazil. It is in the northern part of the country.

paragraphs: The capital city is Belém. Other cities include:


title: Constituent (linguistics)

paragraphs: In syntactic analysis, a constituent is a word or a group of words that functions as one unit within a hierarchical structure.

paragraphs: Phrases (noun phrases, verbal phrases, etc.) are usually constituents of a clause, but clauses may also be combined into a bigger structure. For example, in the phrase "I didn't hear what you said," the subordinate clause "what you said" is combined into the main clause and is syntactically its object; this can be demonstrated by substituting the pronoun "it" for the subordinate clause "I didn't hear it."


title: Spindle (textiles)

paragraphs: A spindle (sometimes called a drop spindle) is a wooden spike (or shaft) that has at one end a weight, mostly a circular whorl.

paragraphs: Sometimes it has a hook at either end of the spike. It is used for spinning wool and other fibres into thread. Spindles or parts of them have been found in very, very old archaeological sites; they may represent one of the earliest pieces of technology available to humankind.


title: Spike

paragraphs: A number of famous people are named Spike, including:

paragraphs: A number of fictional characters have been named Spike, including:

paragraphs: A number of cartoon dogs have been named Spike:


title: Whorl

paragraphs:
Whorl is a type of spiral pattern.
Other meanings of whorl include:


title: Flywheel

paragraphs: A flywheel is a heavy disk or wheel that is attached to a rotating shaft. Flywheels are used for storage of kinetic energy. The momentum of the flywheel causes it to not change its rotational speed easily. Because of this, flywheels help to keep the shaft rotating at the same speed. This helps when the torque applied to the shaft changes often. Uneven torque can change the speed of rotation. Because the flywheel resists changes in speed, it decreases the effects of uneven torque. Engines which use pistons to provide power usually have uneven torque and use flywheels to fix this problem.

paragraphs: It takes energy to get a wheel (any wheel) to rotate. If there is little friction (good bearings) then it will keep rotating a long time. When energy is needed, it can be taken from the wheel again. So it is a simple mechanical means of storing energy. The amount of energy stored is a function of the weight and the speed of rotation - making a heavier wheel rotate faster takes more energy. Another factor is the radius (size) because the farther from the axis a part of the wheel is, the more energy it takes to make is rotate. These three factor can be represented by M (mass), formula_1 (angular velocity) and R (radius). Combining the two equations below gives formula_1MR/4. A fly-wheel is not just any wheel, but specifically designed to store energy. So it should be heavy and/or rotate fast. For example, some buses have a fly-wheel that is used for stopping and starting. When the bus stops (e.g. for a traffic light), the fly-wheel is connected to the wheels, so the rotational energy is transferred to it, so the bus will slow down while the fly-wheel speeds up. Then, when the bus has to start driving again, it is connected again and the energy is transferred back. Of course, you wouldn't want to lug a heavy wheel around on a bus, so it is made of a lighter material that can withstand extremely fast rotation.

paragraphs: The kinetic energy of a rotating flywheel is

paragraphs: Where the moment of inertia of center mass is equal to

paragraphs: where formula_5 is the moment of inertia of the mass about the center of rotation and formula_1 (omega) is the angular velocity in radian units.

paragraphs: The flywheel has been used since ancient times, the most common traditional example being the potter's wheel. In the Industrial Revolution, James Watt contributed to the development of the flywheel in the steam engine, and his contemporary James Pickard used a flywheel.

paragraphs: In the world of venture capital, the term "flywheel" is used to represent the recurrent, margin-generating heart of a business.


title: Potter's wheel

paragraphs: The potter's wheel, also known as the potter's lathe, is a machine used in the shaping of round ceramic wares.

paragraphs: However, the name potter's lathe is also used for the machine used for another shaping process, turning, which is similar to that used for the shaping of metal and wood articles. The wheel may also be used during the process of trimming excess body from dried wares and for applying incised decoration or rings of colour.

paragraphs: Many early ceramics were hand-built using a simple coiling technique in which clay body was rolled into long threads that were then pinched and beaten together to form the body of a vessel. In the coiling method of construction, all of the energy required to form the main part of a piece is supplied directly by the hands of the potter. This changed with the introduction of the fast-wheel, early forms of which used energy stored in the rotating mass of the heavy stone wheel itself.

paragraphs: In Ancient Egyptian mythology, the god Chnum was said to have formed the first humans on a potter's wheel.

paragraphs: The way in which clay is shaped on a potter's wheel seems, even today, to have a magical quality to it; the clay body has the appearance of being a living thing that is being created or shaped by the potter. The potter and clay have long served as a metaphor for creation, and for the relationship of God to humankind:

paragraphs: The "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" make sustained use of this metaphor. In FitzGerald's translation, a number of quatrains are collected into a "Book of Pots", in which the pots engage in theological speculation:

paragraphs: And, strange to tell, among that Earthen Lot<br>

paragraphs: Some could articulate, while others not:<br>

paragraphs: And suddenly one more impatient cried–<br>

paragraphs: “Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?”<br>

paragraphs: Another said–“Why, ne'er a peevish Boy,<br>

paragraphs: “Would break the Bowl from which he drank in Joy;<br>

paragraphs: “Shall He that made the vessel in pure Love<br>

paragraphs: “And Fancy, in an after Rage destroy?”<br>

paragraphs: None answer'd this; but after Silence spake<br>

paragraphs: “They sneer at me for leaning all awry;<br>

paragraphs: “What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?”


title: Nikolai Rubinstein

paragraphs: Nikolai Grigoryevich Rubinstein (born Moscow, 2 June 1835; died Paris, 23 March 1881) was a Russian pianist and composer. He was the younger brother of Anton Rubinstein and a close friend of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

paragraphs: The Rubinstein family were middle-class Jewish people. Like his brother Anton, Nikolai soon showed great talent as a pianist. The family spent some time in Europe including three years in Berlin where they made friends with Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer.

paragraphs: Anton founded (started) the famous Conservatoire in St Petersburg where students could study music. Nikolai co-founded the Conservatoire in Moscow with Prince Nikolai Petrovitch Troubetzkoy. Both brothers were directors of the Conservatoires they had founded.

paragraphs: During his lifetime Nikolai Rubinstein was thought of as one of the greatest pianists of his time. As pianists the two brothers were very different. Anton was very fiery like Franz Liszt. Nikolai was quieter and more thoughtful, preferring lyrical Romantic music.

paragraphs: Anton liked to compose in the same way as composers from Western Europe. He was critical of Russian composers like Mily Balakirev and others from the group called The Mighty Handful who tried to make their music very Russian. Nikolai was much more broad-minded. He supported Balakirev and his group. He was a great friend of Tchaikovsky and encouraged him much more than his brother Anton had done. Nevertheless, he still criticised Tchaikovsky’s . He said he would not play it until Tchaikovsky had changed it. Tchaikovsky refused to change it. Years later Nikolai decided he liked it after all.

paragraphs: Although Nikolai wanted to be a successful composer he was aware that he was not a great one. When asked why he did not compose more he once replied that his brother “composed enough music for three”.

paragraphs: Nikolai died in Paris while on his way to Nice where he had wanted to improve his health. He always liked his food and on his deathbed he ate twelve oysters. Tchaikovsky wrote his "Piano Trio in A minor" in Rubinstein's memory.

paragraphs: Among his most popular works are his "Tarantella" in G minor and the "Fantasia on a Theme by Schumann", both for piano solo.


title: Okinawan language

paragraphs: The Okinawan language (沖縄口, "Uchināguchi") is a Ryukyuan language that is spoken in the Okinawa Islands of Japan.

paragraphs: Most linguists say that it branched off from Proto-Japonic, which is the ancestor of Japanese and the Ryukyuan languages. The Japanese government says Okinawan is a dialect of Japanese because of politics.

paragraphs: When a group of people called the Yayoi came into the Ryukyu Islands, they brought over a language called Proto-Japonic. This language over time turned into the modern Ryukyuan languages. Proto-Japonic was also spoken in mainland Japan, which turned into Japanese, meaning Japanese and the Ryukyuan languages are related/have the same origin.

paragraphs: Okinawan and other Ryukyuan languages were discriminated by Japan during the Meiji period, making the number of speakers go down. Before that, Okinawan was the official language of the Ryukyu Kingdom.

paragraphs: Okinawan belongs to the Ryukyuan languages. It is in the northern group with both Kunigami and Amami. Sometimes, Kunigami is listed as a dialect of Okinawan but that view is rare.

paragraphs: Most older Okinawans speak Okinawan while younger Okinawans speak Japanese. This is why UNESCO lists Okinawan and the other Ryukyuan languages as “endangered”, meaning it’s possible for the language to die out in the future.

paragraphs: There are many sound changes between Japanese (Standard) and Okinawan (Shuri-Naha variety):

paragraphs: Japanese “o” - Okinawan “u” (Okinawa = Uchinaa)

paragraphs: Japanese “k” - Okinawan “ch” (Okinawa = Uchinaa)

paragraphs: Japanese “mi” - Okinawan “nn” (minato = nnatu)

paragraphs: Similar sound changes are in other Ryukyuan languages. Kunigami also uses “u” instead of Japanese “o”.


title: Imbolc

paragraphs: Imbolc is a festival belonging to Brigid, the Celtic goddess who, in later times, became famous as a Christian saint. At first, her festival on February 1 was known as "Imbolc" or "Oimelc", two Gaelic names which refer to the lactation of the ewes. Lactation is the flow of milk that happens when the baby lambs are born in the spring, and Gaelic languages are those spoken in countries like Ireland and Scotland.

paragraphs: Imbolc was, and still is, a time to celebrate that winter would soon be over. Sometimes in Ireland, the first flowers are coming up at the time of this festival, even when there is still snow on the ground.

paragraphs: Later, the Roman Catholic Church replaced this festival with Candlemas Day on February 2, a day that now belongs to the Virgin Mary. On this day, people may have ceremonies or processions by candlelight - walking together in the dark, with the only light coming from candles they carry. The may also sing songs to Brigid, or say poems or prayers to her.

paragraphs: In both Pagan and Christian celebrations, Brigid is celebrated as a powerful female figure, who brings light, inspiration, and healing to the world.


title: Baseball (ball)

paragraphs: A baseball is a ball used in the sport of the same name, baseball. It is between 9 inches (22.9 cm) and 9¼ inches (23.5 cm) in circumference (around). The ball weighs 8 ounces. Different size balls may be used in children's leagues.

paragraphs: The balls can be made in many different, but similar ways. The center of most balls is cork, rubber, or a mixture of the two. It is sometimes layered. Yarn and twine and sometimes wool are wrapped around the center core. A leather cover is put on, in two pieces, and stitched together using 108 stitches of waxed red cotton thread. Official Major League balls sold by Rawlings are made to the exact MLB specifications (5 ounces, 108 stitches).


title: Battle of Worcester

paragraphs: The Battle of Worcester was the final battle of the English Civil War. Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentarians defeated the Royalist, mainly Scottish, forces of King Charles II on September 3, 1651 at Worcester, England. The 16,000 Royalist forces were defeated by the 28,000 strong "New Model Army" of Cromwell.


title: James Marsters

paragraphs: James Marsters (born August 20, 1962) is an American guitarist, singer, and actor. His is best known for playing the part of Spike on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".


title: Emma Caulfield

paragraphs: Emma Caulfield (born Emma Chukker in San Diego, California on April 8, 1973) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as ex-demon Anya on the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".


title: Michelle Trachtenberg

paragraphs: Michelle Christine Trachtenberg (born October 11, 1985) is an American television and movie actress. She is best known for her role as Dawn Summers from the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Trachtenberg was born in New York City, New York. She is of Russian Jewish descent on her mother's side of the family.

paragraphs: Trachtenberg has been acting since 1988 at the age of four. She has acted in several television shows and many movies.


title: Summer Glau

paragraphs: Summer Glau (born July 24, 1981 in San Antonio, Texas) is an American dancer and actress. She is best known for playing as River Tam in the science fiction television series "Firefly" and movie "Serenity".

paragraphs: Glau has appeared in several other series and movies including:

paragraphs: In February 2007, it was announced that Glau would be playing a role of Cameron Phillips in "The Sarah Connor Chronicles", a spin-off of the Terminator series of movies. This character is a Terminator infiltration unit sent back to protect John Connor and Sarah Connor from Skynet.

paragraphs: Summer Glau has been in a relationship with Cooper Gross. She is currently married to Val Morrison and has two children.


title: Band (anthropology)

paragraphs: In anthropology, bands are the tiniest societies, consisting typically of 5-80 people, most or all of them close relatives by birth or by marriage. In effect, a band is an extended family or several related extended families. Today, autonomous bands are almost confined to the most remote parts of New Guinea and Amazonia, but there were many others that have only recently fallen under state control or been assimilated or exterminated. They include many or most African Pygmies, southern African San hunter-gatherers (so-called Bushmen), Aboriginal Australians, Eskimos (Inuit), and Native Americans of some resource-poor areas of the Americas such as Tierra del Fuego and the northern boreal forests; all these modern bands are or were nomadic hunter-gatherers rather than settled food producers. Until at least 40,000 years ago, probably all humans lived in bands, and most still did as recently as 11,000 years ago.

paragraphs: Bands have no permanent single base of residence, instead land is used jointly by the whole group, as opposed to being partitioned among subgroups or individuals. There is no regular economic specialization, except by age and sex: all able-bodied individuals forage for food. There are no formal institutions, such as laws, police, and treaties, to resolve conflicts within and between bands. Organization is often described as "egalitarian" in the sense that there is no formalized social stratification into upper and lower classes, no formalized or hereditary leadership, and no formalized monopolies of information and decision making. However, this definition of egalitarian should not be taken to mean that there is equality in prestige and the decision-making process among band members. Instead "leadership" should be thought of as informal and acquired through qualities such as personality, strength, intelligence, and fighting skills.

paragraphs: Our closest biological relatives, the gorillas and chimpanzees and bonobos of Africa, also live in bands. All humans presumably did so too, until improved technology for extracting food allowed some hunter-gatherers to settle in permanent dwellings in some resource-rich areas. The band is the political, economic, and social organization that we inherited from our millions of years of evolutionary history. Our developments beyond it took place within the last few tens of thousands of years.


title: Infertility

paragraphs: Infertile means not able to have children or other offspring. Humans can be infertile, but animals and plants can too. When a human couple is infertile, they sometimes have fertility treatment to have children. This can be insemination or IVF. They also sometimes adopt a child.


title: Betrayal

paragraphs: Betrayal is when a person breaks the trust and faith of others that trust them.

paragraphs: In an article made by Rodger L. Jackson, it says that "there is not much definition for this word". In psychology, they say betrayal is the breaking of a social (friendship) related things. But for some people, for example, philosophers called Judith Shklar and Peter Johnson, a person can understand the word better by literature (writings).

paragraphs: Betrayal trauma happens when someone that a person trusts betrays their trust, and it messes up their memory because of anger. An example of betrayal trauma is childhood physical or childhood problems. Betrayal trauma is similar to post traumatic stress disorder. The difference is that post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is made by fear. Betrayal trauma makes a person fight, and also get into serious crimes for example, discrimination or bullying.


Destruction


title: Crane (machine)

paragraphs: A crane is a lifting machine that has hoists, wire ropes and sheaves on it. It can be used both to raise and lower things or to move them left and right. Cranes are often used in the construction industry (building houses or buildings) and in creating or moving heavy things.


title: Data mining

paragraphs: Data mining is a term from computer science. Sometimes it is also called knowledge discovery in databases (KDD). Data mining is about finding new information in a lot of data. The information obtained from data mining is hopefully both new and useful.

paragraphs: In many cases, data is stored so it can be used later. The data is saved with a goal. For example, a store wants to save what has been bought. They want to do this to know how much they should buy themselves, to have enough to sell later. Saving this information, makes a lot of data. The data is usually saved in a database. The reason why data is saved is called the first use.

paragraphs: Later, the same data can also be used to get other information that was not needed for the first use. The store might want to know now what kind of things people buy together when they buy at the store. (Many people who buy pasta also buy mushrooms for example.) That kind of information is in the data, and is useful, but was not the reason why the data was saved. This information is new and can be useful. It is a second use for the same data.

paragraphs: Finding new information that can also be useful from data, is called data mining.

paragraphs: For data, there a lot of different kinds of data mining for getting new information. Usually, prediction is involved. There is uncertainty in the predicted results. The following is based on the observation that there is a small green apple in which we can adjust our data in structural manner. Some of the kinds of data mining are:


title: Japanese sword-making

paragraphs: Japanese schools of sword making can be divided into two categories: by the provinces where they were developed and by the masters who created a specific tradition of sword making.

paragraphs: The late Kamakura period is often referred to as the greatest period of sword making in Japanese history. The Soshu tradition was one of the dominant traditions. Smiths like Kunitsuna and Sukezane combined their knowledge with methods from Yamashiro and Bizen traditions. Finally, a group of famous sword smiths culminated with Masamune (1264-1343 AD) and his school.

paragraphs: The rare swords were made out of five separate pieces and heat-treated at high temperatures. The swords of the Masamune School were harder than any of the swords made before. Masamune trained a group of at least ten followers. Two of his students (Kanemitsu and Nagayoshi) were from the Bizen province. In this way, during the early 14th century, the Masamune school attracted many smiths from other schools. Kanemitsu is believed to be the one who created the Soden School, which combined Bizen and Soshu techniques.

paragraphs: At the same time Chogi was developing his school. The Chogi works show a stronger influence of the Soshu tradition than Kanemitsu swords.

paragraphs: There are several famous schools created by sword masters: