title: Roraima

paragraphs: Roraima is one of the states of Brazil. It is in the northern part of the country. It shares borders with the states of Pará and Amazonas, as well as the countries Venezuela and Guyana. Roraima is both the northernmost and least populated state of Brazil.

paragraphs: The climate is tropical with an average temperature of 26 °C. Most of the state is in the Amazon rainforest. A small part of the state is a small strip of savanna to the east. The state has many mineral deposits - especially gold, diamonds, cassiterite, bauxite and copper. These create constant fights with the native people. The Yanomami are the most well-known of the native people, but they are greatly out-numbered by the Macuxi.

paragraphs: The Monte Roraima National Park is near one of the highest mountains of Brazil, the 9220 ft (2727 m) high table-top Mount Roraima.

paragraphs: In 1943, the federal government separated the area from the state Amazonas. The territory was first named Rio Branco after the main river. In 1962, it was renamed "Roraima." In 1988, it became a state. The name of the state was taken from Monte Roraima, whose name comes from the Pemon words "roroi" (cyan) and "ma" (large).


title: Santa Catarina (state)

paragraphs: Santa Catarina is a state in Southern Brazil. It has with one of the highest standards of living in the country. Its capital is Florianópolis, which partly lies on the Santa Catarina Island.

paragraphs: Santa Catarina shares borders with the states of Rio Grande do Sul to the south and Paraná to the north. It is bordered on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, and to the west it borders the province of Misiones, Argentina.

paragraphs: Santa Catarina is the most "European" state of Brazil. Most of the people that live there are descendants of Portuguese, German and Italian immigrants.

paragraphs: European colonies began with the Spanish settlement of Santa Catarina island in 1542. The Portuguese took control in 1675. The captaincy of Santa Catarina was created in 1738. Large numbers of European immigrants, especially from Germany, began arriving in the early 19th century. Immigrants from Italy, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Japan and other parts of Europe later came. This led to many small, family held farms in the state.

paragraphs: In late March 2004, the state was hit by the first ever hurricane recorded in the South Atlantic. Because there is no naming system for such an event in Brazil, Brazilian meteorologists called it Catarina, after the state.

paragraphs: Santa Catarina is one of the Brazilian states that shows the most signs of recent European colonization. Most of the population are descendants of European settlers.

paragraphs: The Portuguese started arriving in the 1750s. The came mainly from the Azores islands, and colonized the coast. In the late 18th century, half of Santa Catarina's population was Portuguese-born. These Portuguese created many important towns of the State, such as Florianópolis, the capital.

paragraphs: Germans started arriving in 1828. They were peasants that came to Brazil to get their own lands. They did this since Germany had many people and many people had no lands to work. German immigration was very low, until the 1850s, when many Germans started arriving in Southern Brazil. To create more German colonization in Southern Brazil, the Brazilian government created many "German colonies." Many of these German colonies became big towns, such as Blumenau and Joinville, the largest city in Santa Catarina.

paragraphs: Germans had kept to themselves in these communities for decades. They did not have much contact with other people of Brazil. For generations they were able to speak German and keep their German traditions in Brazil. This changed in the 1930s, when Brazil declared war against Germany in 1942. The German immigrants learned Portuguese and followed a "Brazilian way of life."

paragraphs: Nowadays, the German influence in the State of Santa Catarina is still very strong. Many towns still have many parts of the German culture. For example, Pomerode is a small town where 90% of the people are German-Brazilian. Most of the people speak German fluently. Another example is the Oktoberfest of Blumenau and many other towns in the region. The architecture and food also show German influence.

paragraphs: Italian settlers started arriving in Santa Catarina in 1875. They came in large numbers until the 1910s. They were peasants from Northern Italy. They created Italian colonies close to the coast. In the beginning, the Italian settlement had failed. This was because many Italians died of tropical diseases or left the colonies to find better conditions. However, in southern Santa Catarina, they found cooler weather and better lands, and the colonies did very well. Many Italians worked in the coal industry.


title: Trail

paragraphs: A trail is a pedestrian path or road mainly used for walking, but often also for cycling, cross-country skiing or other activities. Some trails are off-limits to everyone other than hikers, and few trails allow motorized vehicles.

paragraphs: In the United States, the word footpath is also used to mean a trail; however in Australian English, New Zealand English, Indian English, and Irish English this word means "sidewalk" (American English) or "pavement" (British English).

paragraphs: In Australia, the word track can be used interchangeably with trail, and can refer to anything from a dirt road to a pedestrian walkway (generally also unpaved). The term "trail" gained popularity during World War II, when many servicemen from the United States were stationed in Australia, which probably influenced its being adopted by elements of the Australian media at the time (see Kokoda Track). In New Zealand, the word track is used almost exclusively except in reference to cross-country skiing, where trail is used.

paragraphs: Trail use has become very popular for a wide variety of users. Some trails are meant as nature trails, and are used by people learning about the natural world. Many trails are day trails, what means that they are generally used by people out for a short hike, less than a day. Some trails are backpacking trails, or long-distance trails, and are used by both day hikers and by backpackers. Some of the trails are over a thousand miles (1,500 km) long and may be hiked in sections by backpackers, or completed in one trip by dedicated hikers. Some trails are specifically used by other outdoor enthusiasts to gain access to another feature, such as good climbing sites. Many runners also favor running on trails rather than pavement, as giving a more vigorous work-out and better developing agility skills, as well as providing a more pleasant exercise environment. See trail running.

paragraphs: Stairway is another way to ascend higher slopes. Stairway trails are usually for walking only. The stairs are constructed using cuts in dirt, rocks or concrete. Popular stairway trails include Stairway Trails in Bernal Heights East - San Francisco, Stairs at many hill top Hindu temple (Tirumala, Palani) used during Pilgrimage & Machu Picchu.

paragraphs: Recent decades have seen an explosion of interest in cycling, both street-type and off-road type. A common term for these facilities is simply "bike trail". These trails may be built to a different set of standards than foot trails, requiring more stable, harder surfaces, less strenuous grades, longer sight visibility, and less sharp changes in direction. On the other hand, the cross-slope of a bike trail may be significantly greater than a foot trail, and the actual treadway may be narrower in some cases.

paragraphs: Horseback riding has continued to be a popular activity for many trail users. Again, horse trails must be built to different standards than other trails. Sight distance is an important issue with horse trails, as is overhead and side clearance. While trail surface types are a relatively unimportant issue with hikers, they may be an important issue with horses.

paragraphs: In cross-country skiing, a trail (also called a 'track' or 'piste') refers to the parallel grooves cut into the snow, one for each ski.

paragraphs: Motorized trail use also remains very popular with some people. Such terms as "ORV", "four-wheeling", "all-terrain vehicle", and others actually have highly specific meanings.


title: The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale

paragraphs: The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale is a story that is a part of "The Canterbury Tales" by English writer, Geoffrey Chaucer.

paragraphs: The Pardoner went on a journey to the town of Canterbury from Rouncivalle with his friend the Summoner.

paragraphs: The Pardoner had hair as yellow as wax which fell on his head smoothly wisp by wisp. He has piercing black eyes and his face was as smooth as he had just shaved. He had a thin and feeble voice yet he was hardly an old spiritual man.

paragraphs: Although the Pardoner was a priest he lived a life that was far from the word of Jesus Christ. He often broke many of the seven deadly sins including greed, gluttony, and pride. He earned a living through preaching and selling fake relics to his supporters. He lies to people and promises them salvation and prosperity for a price. He has even taken money from a poor widow with starving children in order buy himself more luxuries.

paragraphs: The tale describes him getting money from the crowd as he cared more about money than a holy life.

paragraphs: The host asks the Pardoner to tell a happy story after the sad tale that the Franklin told. The other people object to this and hope that he will tell a tale that is rich in morals.

paragraphs: He starts his tale by talking about three young men who, like him, do sinful things like drink alcohol and sleep with young women. The Pardoner goes on to talk about the sins of the men in detail especially gambling, drunkenness, and gluttony. These three young men are rioters from the town of Flanders.

paragraphs: One night the three drunken men were at a tavern when they saw a corpse being carried to a grave. They ask who had died and find out it is one of their friends who has been killed by a murderous thief named "Death". The three men plan to avenge their friend's death and kill Death themselves.

paragraphs: On their way to find Death they see an old man that says Death will not take him even in his old age and suffering. The man says that he had left Death under an oak tree and that he was sure to still be there. They run to the tree and instead of seeing Death, they see lots of gold under the tree. They want to bring the gold back under the cover of night so that nobody will think they have stolen it. They sat down and sent the youngest to fetch 3 pies and 3 bottles of wine.

paragraphs: The remaining two come up with a plan to kill the third when he comes back so that the money could be split between only the two of them. At the same time the third man has the same thoughts as the other two and wants to have all of the money for himself. So he went and bought poison and poured it between the two bottles making sure he kept an un-poisoned bottle for himself. When he got back the other two men jumped out and killed the third man. But in celebration they decide to drink the wine unknowing that the poison was still in the wine, the choked to death due to the poison.

paragraphs: So in the end the moral to this story is that, the gold was the Death that the old man said was beneath the tree and due to their greed and gluttony they all died with nothing.

paragraphs: The love of money is the root of all evil, but also the divide between right and wrong.

paragraphs: The irony in this story has to do with the person telling it. The pardoner himself is a greedy man, but he goes on saying that greed is the root of all evil.


title: Final Fantasy XII

paragraphs: Final Fantasy XII is a fantasy role-playing video game for the Playstation 2. It was released in 2006 by Square Enix.

paragraphs: "Final Fantasy XII" has six characters you can play as: Vaan, an orphan who wants to be a sky pirate; Ashe, a princess; Basch, who is charged with killing the King; Balthier, a sky pirate who has an airship called the "Strahl"; Fran, Balthier's friend and Penelo, who has been Vaan's "friend" since they were little children.

paragraphs: "Final Fantasy XII" takes place in Dalmasca. Princess Ashe of Dalmasca and Prince Rasler of Nabradia had been married for a short time when the Archadian Empire invaded Dalmasca. A war started thereafter, and Archadia took over Dalmasca in no time, for the small country of Dalmasca stood no chance against the massive Archadian Empire. While the war was going on, Prince Rasler died, leaving Princess Ashe alone. The king of Dalmasca, Ashe's father, decided to surrender to Archadia, clinging to dreams of peace. However, Archadia's ruler wanted him dead as soon as the treaty was signed. Knights from Dalmasca tried to rescue him, but one of the captain of the knights, Basch, was replaced by his twin brother, who then killed king Raminas of Dalmasca, and the main character's older brother Reks. Basch's twin brother is a "Judge" who works for Archadia. The real Basch is accused of high treason and is supposedly killed. Princess Ashe went into hiding afterwards, and was deemed dead.

paragraphs: Two years later, Vaan, Reks' little brother, sneaks into the royal palace. When he was sneaking in, there was a banquet going on to celebrate the election of a new Consul, Vayne. Vaan meets the sky pirates Balthier and Fran in the palace as they were trying to steal the same thing he himself had taken. When Resistance forces broke into the palace, Vaan and his new friends had to hide in the waterways beneath the palace. While they were in the sewers, they met the leader of the Resistance, named Amalia.

paragraphs: This led to Vaan, Balthier and Fran getting put into the Nalbina Dungeons. What became of Amalia is yet unknown.

paragraphs: In the dungeons, Vaan, Balthier and Fran, find Basch. The Captain deemed a traitor by the people. They free Basch from the cage he is being held in and they go away from the Nalbina Dungeons to the Barheim Passage far below. There in the Barheim Passage, they fight creatures that can imitate treasure chests called Mimics, and they battle a Mimic Queen. After, the wall collapses, and Balthier, Vaan, Fran and Basch go back into the city of Rabanastre, which is the capital of Dalmasca. There, they learn that Vaan's friend Penelo was kidnapped by a head-hunter who was looking for Balthier. The kidnapper is named Ba'Gamnan, and he has taken Penelo to Bhujerba, a city in the sky. Balthier lets Vaan use his airship, which is like an airplane except different in shape, and they fly to Bhujerba to rescue Penelo

paragraphs: When they get to Bhujerba, they go to the Lhusu Mines. The Lhusu Mines have a lot of magicite, but also have a lot of dangerous monsters. They go inside with a person who calls himself Lamont, and when they get to the end they see Ba'Gamnan. He chases them but does not reach them and they manage to get away safely.


title: Final Fantasy IX

paragraphs: Final Fantasy IX is a fantasy role-playing video game for the Playstation. It was released in 2000 by Square Enix.


title: Final Fantasy (video game)

paragraphs: Final Fantasy is a fantasy role-playing video game. It was made by Squaresoft, now called Square Enix. It was released in 1987.


title: Final Fantasy II

paragraphs: Final Fantasy II is a fantasy role-playing video game. It was made by Squaresoft, now called Square Enix. Instead of getting stronger by getting points by killing monsters and using these to gain levels, for each attack you make there is a chance a stat (strength, health, agility...) will be increased.


title: Final Fantasy III

paragraphs: Final Fantasy III is a fantasy role-playing video game. It was made by Squaresoft, now called Square Enix. Final Fantasy III is notably the first Final Fantasy game to make use of the job feature. For each battle you win you get points, you can spend these points on job classes, each job class has different commands in its menu during battle.


title: Final Fantasy IV

paragraphs: Final Fantasy IV is a fantasy role-playing video game. It was made in 1991 by Squaresoft, now called Square Enix. It was first played on the Super Famicom in Japan, and Super Nintendo in the United States. It was called "Final Fantasy II" when it was on the Super Nintendo. You can also play it on the Sony PlayStation, Wonderswan Color, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS (with 3D graphics).

paragraphs: The most important person in the game is Cecil. He is a Dark Knight for the Kingdom of Baron. You help Cecil beat Golbez, an evil person who steals strong crystals from the world. Many different people help Cecil out during the game.

paragraphs: "Final Fantasy IV" helped make later "Final Fantasy games". This was the first game to use an Active Time Battle, where players and enemies take turns to fight instead of having all players fight at the same time. The player makes the character do actions in real time. This way of playing was also used in later "Final Fantasy" games.

paragraphs: "Final Fantasy IV" did quite a lot to impact role-playing video games. It introduced battles fought using Square-Enix's ATB system and had great graphics for the time.


title: Final Fantasy V

paragraphs: Final Fantasy V is a medieval fantasy role-playing video game. It is developed and published by Square (now Square Enix). It was first made in 1992 as a part of the "Final Fantasy" series. The game first appeared only in Japan on Nintendo's Super Famicom. It has been remade with little differences to Sony's PlayStation and Nintendo's Game Boy Advance.

paragraphs: The original video animation produced in 1994 called "" is a sequel to the game. It was released on the PlayStation Network on April 6, 2011 in Japan. The game was released for iPhone and iPad on March 28th, 2013.

paragraphs: A version of the game was created for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance in 2006. It has many weapons, items, armors and 22 jobs. Some jobs are secret and can only be unlocked in the GBA version.

paragraphs: The game begins when a wanderer named Bartz investigates a fallen meteor. He meets several characters. One tells him about the danger the four Crystals that control the world's elements. These Crystals act like a seal on Exdeath. Exdeath is an evil magician. Bartz and his friends have to keep the Crystals from being used by Exdeath.

paragraphs: "Final Fantasy V" has been praised for its character customization. This is possible because of the large Job System. The first Super Famicom version sold more than two million copies. The PlayStation version has earned "Greatest Hits" status. It has sold more than 350,000 copies.


title: Final Fantasy VI

paragraphs: Final Fantasy VI (also known as Final Fantasy III for the US-SNES version) is a fantasy role-playing video game. It was made by Squaresoft, now called Square Enix. In this game, the story is about a half human, half Esper named Terra who must stop an evil empire led by Emperor Gestahl.

paragraphs: The game allows you to control 14 playable characters, the most of any part of the Final Fantasy Main Series.

paragraphs: When "Final Fantasy VI" was released it was highly praised by critics. Meanwhile, it is seen as one of the landmark games in the role - play genre; ING even ranked it as number on RPG of all time.

paragraphs: It was available for Super Nintendo and Playstation and sold 3.48 million times as stand-alone game worldwide, in addition to 750,000 copies of the Japanese "Final Fantasy Collection".


title: Final Fantasy VIII

paragraphs: Final Fantasy VIII is a fantasy role-playing video game. It was released for the PlayStation in 1999 and Windows computers in 2000. It was made by Square (now Square Enix). It is the eight title of the "Final Fantasy" series. It removed magic point-based spell-casting. It was the first title to consistently use realistically proportioned characters. The game became available on PlayStation Network as a PSone Classics title in 2009.


title: Final Fantasy X

paragraphs: Final Fantasy X is a fantasy role-playing video game made by Square Enix. It is the 10th game in the "Final Fantasy" video game series. The game was released in 2001, and is the first "Final Fantasy" game that was made for the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console.


title: Final Fantasy X-2

paragraphs: Final Fantasy X-2 is a fantasy role-playing video game released for the PlayStation 2 in 2003. It was made by Square Enix. It is a direct sequel to the game "Final Fantasy X", the first direct sequel in the "Final Fantasy" series.


title: Final Fantasy XI

paragraphs: Final Fantasy XI is an online fantasy role-playing video game. It was made by Square Enix.


title: Ditch

paragraphs: A ditch is created to channel water and can be described as a small or moderate depression. A ditch can be used for drainage, to drain water from low-lying areas, alongside roadways or fields, or to channel water from a more distant source for plant irrigation. A trench can be defined as a long narrow ditch.

paragraphs: Ditches are commonly seen around farmland, especially in areas that have required drainage, such as The Fens in the UK and the pro-water management The Netherlands.

paragraphs: Roadside ditches can provide a hazard to motorists, especially in poor weather conditions.

paragraphs: In military engineering and fortification, a distinction is made between a ditch and a trench. A ditch is a barrier, designed to slow down or break up an attacking force, while a trench is a cover, intended to provide protection to the defenders. In Medieval fortification, a ditch was often constructed in front of a defensive wall. When filled with water, such a defensive ditch is called a moat. Today ditches are of no importance as an obstacle for persons, but are still often used as anti-vehicle obstacles.


title: Flags of Brazilian states

paragraphs: This gallery of flags of Brazilian states shows the flags of the 26 Brazilian States and the federal district.


title: Chobits

paragraphs: The story is mostly about the life of Hideki Motosuwa who did not make it into a university, and so is called a 'ronin', a repeat student. Hideki tries to get into a university by moving from his farm and studying at Seki, a cram school in Tokyo. He is not used to women, but likes to imagine that he is. He wants to have a girlfriend and a 'Persocom'. A Persocom is a kind of robot that looks like a person, but can be used like a computer, phone, and a "partner" in some cases.

paragraphs: One evening when Hideki is walking home from the grocery store, he finds a unique Persocom on a curb. It is a beautiful young girl with long blonde hair, wrapped in white cloth, lying against a pile of trash bags. He takes the Persocom home. Hideki looks all over the Persocom's body for a switch to turn her on, and finds it between her legs. He turns her on and asks her questions, but all she can say is "chi", so Hideki names her Chi.

paragraphs: The anime has 26 episodes and was broadcast across East Asia and Southeast Asia by the anime television network, Animax. Episodes 9, 18, and an extra 27th OVA episode are used as "recap" episodes, looking back on the events that happened previously. The episodes were given different numbers for the DVD release because the original recap episodes were not included as part of the main anime, instead being published together on the final DVD and re-numbered as 8.5, 16.5 and 24.5 making the series only 24 episodes.

paragraphs: There is a 6-minute special episode: "Sumomo and Kotoko on a Quest", or "Chibits", which is about Sumomo and Kotoko.

paragraphs: The series was supervised by Morio Asaka, and Hisashi Abe was the character designer and the animation director. The ending to the anime series is different from the manga. One thing that is different is that there is no allusion to Hideki never having Chi because of where her switch is, and the new part of Freya taking over Chi's body and asking her mother Chitose to shut them down, saying the Chobits series is a failure, and the activation of the program after all, although the effect on Persocons is not the same as in the manga.


title: Brossard, Quebec

paragraphs: Brossard is a city near Montreal in the Canadian province of Quebec. Brossard is also near the Saint Lawrence River. About 70,000 people live in the city of Brossard. Paul Leduc is the mayor of Brossard since 2009. Brossard was created on February 14, 1958.

paragraphs: Brossard has a lot of people from different places. For example, there are lots of Chinese people who live in Brossard, more so than in any other city in Quebec.


title: Master of Puppets

paragraphs: Master of Puppets is Metallica's third album. It was released by Elektra Records on February 21 1986. The album has 8 songs, which many feel made a permanent impact on heavy metal music. Several of its songs are still played on the radio. It is the last album to feature bassist Cliff Burton, who died in a bus accident on September 27, 1986 while touring in Sweden to promote the album. It is one of the best selling heavy metal albums.


title: Anton Bruckner

paragraphs: Anton Bruckner (born Ansfelden, Austria, 4 September 1824; died Vienna, 11 October 1896) was an Austrian composer. He is especially famous for his nine symphonies. They are all very long and are written in a late Romantic style for a large orchestra. He was also an organist and teacher.

paragraphs: Bruckner’s father was an organist and schoolmaster in a small village in Austria. By the age of four Bruckner was showing musical talent. He played hymn tunes on a tiny violin and then found the chords to go with them on the family spinet. When he was ten he sometimes played the village organ for services. After his father’s death in 1837 he became a choirboy at the monastery school of St Florian where, in 1848, he became the organist of the abbey church. He started composing at this time and wrote a "Requiem in d minor". He liked the music of Schubert and Mendelssohn and they influenced the way he composed.

paragraphs: Although he was happy at St Florian his friends told him he ought to look for a better job. They made him apply for the job of organist at the cathedral of Linz which he got easily. Meanwhile, he was trying to learn more about harmony and took a course with a famous teacher Simon Sechter. He then took a course in orchestration with the teacher Otto Kitzler. He became very interested in the music of Romantic composers like Liszt, Berlioz and especially Wagner. In 1864 he wrote a "Mass" in d minor for chorus and orchestra which clearly showed Wagner’s influence. In 1866 he finished the first of his nine symphonies. He also wrote some very beautiful motets which are among the best music of the 19th century written for the Roman Catholic church.

paragraphs: In 1866 he spent three months in a sanatorium after a nervous collapse. During his later years he often suffered from depression.

paragraphs: In 1868 he became professor at the Vienna Conservatoire where he taught harmony and counterpoint. This was an excellent job. The last 25 years of his life he spent his time teaching and composing his symphonies. He also travelled and gave organ recitals at Notre Dame in Paris and the Royal Albert Hall and Crystal Palace in London.

paragraphs: His music was very modern for its time and some people, including the famous music critic Eduard Hanslick, did not like it. Hanslick said that Bruckner composed like Wagner, but although Bruckner had learned from Wagner he did not simply copy him. Bruckner’s music shows his own strong personality. Hanslick, who preferred the symphonies of Brahms, did Bruckner a lot of harm by writing bad reviews of his music. He was Dean of the Music Department at the university in Vienna and did not want Bruckner to be appointed lecturer at the University. However, Bruckner did get that job in 1875. He became more and more famous, especially after the great conductor Arthur Nikisch conducted the first performance of his "Symphony no 7" in the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1884. He was given many honours. At the time of his death he had not yet finished his "Symphony no 9". He was buried in St Florian.

paragraphs: Bruckner always remained a simple person who dressed and behaved like someone from a small village. He never felt very self-confident and was always asking other people whether he was good enough for his job. He never married or had a proper relationship with anyone although he fell in love with several young women.

paragraphs: Bruckner’s symphonies show a wonderful ability to develop ideas slowly over a long period of time. Some of the slow movements last about 30 minutes. His music builds up in stages to big climaxes in a similar way to organ music. His scherzos (third movements) are tuneful dance movements which often sound like country dances. His music shows great harmonic and polyphonic skills. Bruckner often made revisions (changes) to his music. This often makes a problem for conductors today as they have to decide which version to use. Many musicians think that often Bruckner’s first versions were the best. The revisions were often cuts to make a symphony shorter so that orchestras would be more likely to play it, but the cuts spoil the flow of the music. Nowadays we recognize Bruckner as one of the greatest writers of symphonies as well as a great composer of choral music.


title: Rondo

paragraphs: In music a rondo is a piece of music which has one main theme, which is heard several times, and other musical ideas in between each time. If we give the main theme a label "A" and the other musical ideas "B", "C", "D" etc. then the form of a rondo can be described as ABACADA. The sections in between the main "A" section are called "episodes". Rondos can vary in length, e.g. a rondo might be ABACADAEAFA. Each episode is normally in a different key from the main key.

paragraphs: The word "rondo" is sometimes given the French spelling: rondeau.

paragraphs: Composers from the Baroque period onwards often write movements which are in rondo form. In the Classical music period the last movement of a symphony or sonata is very often a rondo. Rondos are normally fast and lively. They are a good way of finishing a long piece of music with something that is happy.

paragraphs: The word "rondo" is related to the word "ritornello" meaning: something that keeps returning.

paragraphs: Rondo form is sometimes combined with sonata form to make something which is called "sonata rondo form". In sonata rondo form the second tune is treated like the second subject in sonata form where it comes back in the main key the second time.


title: Military engineering

paragraphs: A military engineer uses his skills in construction to build many different structures for warfare. These different structures can be made for either offense or defense. Other jobs include building and taking apart minefields and bridges. In some cases an engineer may have to destroy something that he has built before. This may be to stop the enemy soldiers following them across the river for example. In many armies the military engineers are also called pioneers or sappers.

paragraphs: Today a military engineer that operates during battle is called a combat engineer.

paragraphs: Perhaps the first people who had a special force of military engineering specialists were the Roman army. Roman military engineering was very good in its time. They were able to build a double-wall of fortifications that was thirty miles (50 km) long in total (both walls together) to besiege a city in Gaul, in just six weeks

paragraphs: The design, construction, and destroying of the works shown would be the task of a military engineer.


title: Melisma

paragraphs: In music, a melisma is the technique of singing one syllable to a lot of notes. They are often called vocal runs or simply runs. Music which uses melismas can be called melismatic.

paragraphs: In Western music melismas are often used in operas or any other music which is written for the singer to show off the voice. Melismatic music is the opposite of music where each syllable has its own note. In the "Alleluia Chorus" from Handel's "Messiah" each syllable of the word "Alleluya" has its own note. But in other parts of the "Messiah" there are often melismas, e.g. in "Thus saith the Lord" the word "shake" ("and I will shake the heavens and the earth") is set to a run of 25 fast notes. This example can also be described as "word painting". Handel uses the melisma to make it sound like someone shaking something.

paragraphs: Melismas are used a lot in music from many different cultures.


title: Spinet

paragraphs: A spinet is a small kind of harpsichord. In Renaissance and Baroque times, and even later, people often had a spinet in their homes. The advantage of a spinet was that it was cheaper than a harpsichord and it also took up less room.

paragraphs: Sometimes the word used to be spelt differently, e.g. "spinnet" or "spinnit".

paragraphs: The spinet is different from a harpsichord because of the angle of the strings which run at an angle to the right. The whole instrument is a bit like a triangle in shape. The strings are arranged in pairs and the jacks (the quills which pluck the strings) are also in pairs in the wider gaps, plucking the string next to them.

paragraphs: Harpsichords may have several sounds (in the same way that an organ has several stops making different sounds. This is not possible on a spinet, which has one sound only. It is always an 8-foot sound (the notes sound at the normal pitch, never an octave higher). Spinets were useful for accompanying.


title: United Artists

paragraphs: United Artists is a Hollywood movie company. The original company was created in 1919 by actors by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks. This group did not want to depend on commercial studios.

paragraphs: In 1967, United Artists was bought by Transamerica Corporation. In 1981, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and United Artists merged to form MGM/UA Entertainment Co.. In 1985, Turner Broadcasting System announced it would buy MGM/UA. Then in 1986, MGM split from Turner (while keeping MGM's library of pre-May 1986 films, television and cartoons to make way for Turner Entertainment Co.) and renamed to MGM/UA Communications Co.. In 1990, MGM/UA was bought out by Pathé and renamed to MGM-Pathé Communications. In 1992, MGM-Pathé was bought by Crédit Lyonnais and reverted to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1997, MGM was sold to Tracinda Corporation. In 2005, MGM/UA formed the new company MGM Holdings.

paragraphs: The current United Artists formed in November 2006. It was a partnership between producer/actor Tom Cruise and his production partner, Paula Wagner, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. from 2012 to 2015. It is a fully owned subsidiary of MGM. In 2015 it was owned by DHX Media until sold back to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, while handling UA's movies from 1952 to 2016. However, MGM decided to purchase United Artists back from DHX. They sold UA's stake to Amblin Partners in 2017, with newer movies produced by UA, under a partnership between MGM and Amblin.

paragraphs: United Artists Records was a record label founded by Max E. Youngstein in 1957. It was started in order to distribute records of its movie soundtracks. Later the label began recording music of other types.


title: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

paragraphs: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., or MGM, is an American media company. They mainly make movies and television programs. On April 8, 2005, the company was bought by a group led by Sony and Comcast along with Texas Instruments and Warner Bros. until emerged from bankruptcy on December 20, 2010, due to Spyglass Entertainment founders, Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum becoming co-chairs and co-CEOs of the company.

paragraphs: The company is named after three companies which were combined in 1924 to start the MGM movie company. They were Metro Pictures, Samuel Goldwyn Productions, and Louis B. Mayer Productions.

paragraphs: From the 1920s through World War II, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the largest movie studio in Hollywood. They made more money than any other studio. At its busiest, MGM made about one movie a week and also made many short movies and cartoons. By the mid-1930s MGM had 4,000 employees. It had 23 Sound stages on their 117-acre lot. In 1939 MGM's assets were worth $144 million USD. In the 1940s the studio had problems. Movie theatre attendance was declining and television was starting to draw people away from the movies. In 1948, the Supreme Court decision United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. put an end to movie studios owning their own theatres. Lowes continued to be the parent company of MGM. But in 1954 Lowes Theatres was formed to control most of the movie theatres. In the late 1960s and 1970s, MGM sold off most of their back lot. They sold MGM's British studios and MGM Records.

paragraphs: In 1981 MGM's major stockholder, Kirk Kerkorian bought United Artists. In 1983 MGM and United Artists merged as MGM/UA Entertainment. On August 7, 1985, Turner Broadcasting System announced that they would buy MGM/UA. Turner saw the value of acquiring pre-May 1986 MGM's film library for his superstation WTBS. Under the terms of the deal, Turner would immediately sell MGM's United Artists back to Kerkorian. As a result of the MGM split from Turner, both MGM and UA became merely brands of MGM/UA Communications Co. in late 1986.

paragraphs: In late 1986 after Turner Broadcasting System split into two companies; Turner Broadcasting System and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Turner continued to release the pre-May 1986 MGM film and television library on video known as Turner Home Entertainment. Turner sold the MGM lot for $190 million to Lorimar-Telepictures.

paragraphs: In 1990, Giancarlo Parretti, the owner of The Cannon Group, bought MGM/UA for $1.2 billion. He then merged Cannon with MGM and named it MGM-Pathé Communications. In 1991 there were a number of lawsuits and he defaulted to Crédit Lyonnais, his financial backer. Parretti also faced securities fraud charges in the United States and Europe. The company name was changed back to Metro-Goldwin-Mayer Inc. US bankruptcy laws forced Crédit Lyonnais to sell MGM. It was acquired again by Kerkorian for $1.3 billion.

paragraphs: "The Wizard of Oz" is one of the most famous movies made by MGM. It was made in 1939. The star of the movie was Judy Garland.


Apostle


title: Intercontinental Cup

paragraphs: The European/South American Cup, commonly called the Intercontinental Cup or Toyota Cup, was a football competition by UEFA and CONMEBOL. The competition was between the winners of the European Champions League and the South American Copa Libertadores in a match played each year.

paragraphs: The Cup was called the World Club Championship until the first FIFA Club World Cup was held in 2000. It was played by representatives clubs of most developed continents in the football world.

paragraphs: From 2005, the Intercontinental Cup was replaced by the FIFA Club World Cup. The FIFA Club World Cup also includes North American, Asian, African and Oceanian winners.

paragraphs: In 2017 FIFA officially recognized all of them as club world champions (de jure) with the same status to the FIFA Club World Cup winners or official world champions FIFA. In synthesis FIFA has two types of world champions, those deriving from the Intercontinental Cup and those deriving from the Club World Cup, the two competitions confer the same title.The football experts agree that the intercontinental cup is the most fascinating football competition ever existed thanks to the great balance in the field given by the lower economic gap of the time and rules on foreign players who gradually favored the European teams and weakened the South American teams; also the statistics confirm this.

paragraphs: "See also:" Clubs of football world champions


title: Hafizullah Amin

paragraphs: Hafizullah Amin (, August 1, 1929 – December 27, 1979) was the second President of Afghanistan. He was president during the time of the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The Soviets got information from their KGB spies that Amin's rule was a threat to the stability of Afghanistan. They also were not certain about Amin’s loyalty to the Soviet Union. The Soviets found some information about Amin's trying to become closer to Pakistan and China. The Soviets also believed that Amin was behind the death of president Nur Muhammad Taraki. Finally, the Soviets decided to remove Amin.


title: Paraíba

paragraphs: Paraíba is one of the states of Brazil. It is in the northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic coast. It is the easternmost point of the Americas. João Pessoa is the capital city.

paragraphs: In the mid-1500s, Portuguese settlers from Pernambuco founded Filipéia de Nossa Senhora das Neves (today João Pessoa) at the mouth of the Paraíba do Norte River.

paragraphs: The area was found to be perfect for making sugar. The French, the Dutch and the Portuguese all fought to have the Paraíba region to grow sugarcane in. The fortress of Santa Catarina, near João Pessoa, was built to protect the city from the Dutch.

paragraphs: In late 1989 a team looking for gemstone and led by Heitor Dimas Barbosa found what some people believe are the best tourmaline crystals ever found. Copper in the crystals gives the tourmalines a bright turquoise color that had never been seen before in the gems. The mountains have been searched after this, but no more crystals have been found.

paragraphs: The word "nego" is Portuguese for "I deny". It refers to protests in the 1920s in Paraíba against Júlio Prestes becoming the President of Brazil. State president João Pessoa supported these protests. João Pessoa joined the alliance to the overthrow of the federal government. This group caused Getúlio Vargas to become president. The rebellion lead to João Pessoa being killed.

paragraphs: The official government site of the state of Paraíba says that the red is for the blood of the assassination of João Pessoa. The black is for the mourning after the assassination.


title: Mato Grosso do Sul

paragraphs: Mato Grosso do Sul is one of the states of Brazil. It shares borders with the states of Mato Grosso, Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Paraná. It also borders the countries of Paraguay and Bolivia to the west. Campo Grande is the capital of the state

paragraphs: Mato Grosso do Sul means "Southern Thick Forest". The name comes from its northern neighbour state of Mato Grosso. Mato Grosso do Sul was a part of Mato Grosso until they were split in the 1970s. Many people wrongly refer to Mato Grosso do Sul as simply "Mato Grosso". This has caused the government to consider changing its name to "Pantanal", the world's largest wetlands which is in the state.

paragraphs: Mato Grosso do Sul's economy is based mainly on farm products. Cattle-raising is the most important product of the state. Other products include sugarcane, wheat, soybeans, manioc, rice and cotton.

paragraphs: The state is located in western Brazil, in an area of the country that is mostly marshes of the Pantanal.

paragraphs: Mato Grosso do Sul is divided into 11 regions. It has 78 municipalities. Larger cities include:

paragraphs: The highest elevation is the 1,065 m high Morro Grande.

paragraphs: In 1977 the state was created by dividing the state of Mato Grosso. It officially became a state two years later on January 1, 1979.

paragraphs: Mato Grosso do Sul's flag was made by Mauro Michael Munhoz. White is for hope, green is for the state's plantlife, blue is for the sky and the yellow star adds balance, force and serenity.


title: Swimming pool

paragraphs: A swimming pool is a tank or large basin that is filled with water and intended for recreational or competitive swimming or diving. Pools are also used for other bathing activities, such as playing, wading, water exercising, floating on inner tubes, or cooling off on hot days. The chemical chlorine is usually used to killing germs and algae. Sometimes sea water is also used to maintain pool algae free. The filtration system is used to keep algae and other hazardous contaminants at bay. Pump and Filter are two main components of a swimming pool filtration system.

paragraphs: There are different types of swimming pools. The most common pool styles are play pool, freeform pool, geometric pool, lap pool, diving pool, infinity pool, spool, and the perimeter overflow pool.


title: Danny Elfman

paragraphs: Daniel Robert "Danny" Elfman (May 29, 1953 in Los Angeles, California) is an American singer-songwriter and composer. He is Jewish (of British Jewish, Polish Jewish and Russian Jewish descent). He wrote music for many movies and television series. From 1973 until 1995 Elfman was a member of the rock band Oingo Boingo. In 2003, he married actress Bridget Fonda. They have one child, Oliver Elfman (born January 21, 2005).

paragraphs: Elfmans has written music for dozens of movies, for video games and for me. Some of his famous works include:

paragraphs: Elfman has been nominated for many awards in the music and movie business.


title: FIFA 07

paragraphs: FIFA 07 is a Sony PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Xbox, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable and Microsoft Windows game that features world beat music and fun football action. The object is to score more goals that the opponent. The game can be played in either English or Spanish, these modes have different announcers. There is an exhibition mode, a manager mode, a practice mode, and a tournament mode.


title: Ralph Waldo Emerson

paragraphs: Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American author, poet, and philosopher.

paragraphs: Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1803. His father was a Unitarian minister. He chose not to follow the beliefs of the Unitarians and instead, created his own world view, Transcendentalism. He first wrote about this view in an essay called "Nature" in 1836. Emerson's father died when he was only eight years old. He studied at school in Boston and went to Harvard University, one of the most well-rated universities in the country.

paragraphs: Many men were heads of a town church in Emerson’s family history. His father wanted him to be one, too. In 1817, at the age of 14, he began his education at Harvard College. He finished in 1821 and started to teach in a local school. In 1825, he continued studies at Harvard Divinity School to be a minister. By 1829, he was the head of a church in Boston. Then some events happened that made him change the direction of his life.

paragraphs: In 1831, his wife died. Soon after that, Emerson left America to go on a journey through Europe. He returned after almost a year, then married again in 1833. Emerson didn’t want to continue to be the head of a church. Instead, he began speaking in halls and schools. He began writing his thoughts in short writings and speeches. His first essay was “Nature.” It would become one of his most popular essays. Then, many scholars know about him after he gave a speech at Harvard Divinity School in 1837. Emerson became an author instead of a head of a town church by creating his own, instead of following someone else's, plan for his life.

paragraphs: Emerson’s days as a child, when he was the son of a head of a town church, shaped his religious views. He also formed his way of thinking about spiritual topics from his education at Harvard. These views are present in his philosophy of Transcendentalism, a way of thinking about the connections between man, nature, and the highest being. Church leaders of Emerson’s time focused on religious topics. Emerson instead focused on the everyday lives of people. Even though his father died when he was eight, and his first wife died a few years after marriage, Emerson wrote in a good way about his subjects. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an author who lived during the same time as Emerson, also affected him.

paragraphs: Emerson had several effects on Americans during his time. The first effect he had was on the value of the individual. He once wrote, “Let us unfetter ourselves of our historical associations and find a pure standard in the idea of man.” Up to this time, Americans still looked to England and other European countries for ideas on fashion and ways of thinking. Emerson’s writings gave impulse to Americans to be free of European ideas on what is right or good. Along with individualism, Emerson is best known for starting the Transcendentalist movement. This philosophy made important the ideas of self-discovery and the connections between nature, all persons as a group, and the highest being.

paragraphs: In his later life, Emerson was a close friend of many other important authors and thinkers, including William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Stuart Mill, and Thomas Carlyle. He traveled the world, including France, England, Italy and the Middle East. Emerson was active in writing and speaking into the 1870s. However, he started to forget things. He would only read from detailed notes or scripts. By 1879, his memory was so bad that he stopped making public appearances and speeches. He still socialized at private events, but never with the amount of talking that he once did. Walt Whitman described him at a party in 1881 to be a careful listener but he didn’t join in any conversations. Within six months, in early 1882, Emerson died of pneumonia in Concord, Massachusetts.


title: Bushranger

paragraphs: A bushranger was a thief who lived in the Australian bush. Bushrangers often stole expensive things from banks or coaches. There were more than 2000 bushrangers during Australia's past. Most were simply criminals and thieves. A few bushrangers became famous and were seen as heroes. They are part of a long history that has men such as Robin Hood and Dick Turpin in England, or Jesse James and Billy the Kid in the US.

paragraphs: The word "bushranger" was first used in Australia in 1805. It described three men who had stopped a cart near Sydney. Then, the word was used for criminals who attacked people on the roads or in the bush (the Australian countryside away from towns).

paragraphs: The first bushrangers were escaped convicts. One of the last bushrangers was Ned Kelly who was captured in 1880.

paragraphs: Criminals who escaped stole things from farms far away and people walking on the roads. Sometimes they sold the stolen things to other free settlers.

paragraphs: John "Black" Caesar was the first bushranger. He ran away from Sydney Cove many times before he was shot dead in 1796.

paragraphs: Bold Jack Donahue appeared in newspapers around 1827 for bushranging on the road between Sydney and Windsor. In the 1830s he was seen as the worst bushranger in the colony. Leading a gang of escaped criminals, Donahue became an important person in Australian folklore as the Wild Colonial Boy.

paragraphs: Bushranging happened all over Australia, but Van Diemen's Land (later known as Tasmania) produced the most violent and serious bushrangers. Hundreds of criminals were at large in the bush, farms were given up, and the army was brought in to try and capture the bushrangers. Indigenous Australian bushranger Musquito led attacks on settlers.

paragraphs: The bushrangers were busiest during the Gold Rush years of the 1850s and 1860s. Gold can be easily carried and also it can easily be turned into cash. The goldfields were in remote places and there were not very many police to guard the gold.

paragraphs: George Melville was killed by hanging in front of many people for stealing from the McIvor gold escort near Castlemaine in 1853.

paragraphs: Bushranging numbers grew in New South Wales with the rise of the colonial-born sons of poor, often ex-convict farmers, who wanted a more exciting life than mining or farming.

paragraphs: Much of the bushranging in these years was in the Lachlan Valley, around Forbes, Yass and Cowra.

paragraphs: Frank Gardiner, John Gilbert and Ben Hall led the most notorious gangs of the period. Other active bushrangers included Dan Morgan, based around the Murray River, and Captain Thunderbolt, killed outside Uralla, New South Wales.

paragraphs: The increasing push of settlement, increased police efficiency, better rail transport and communications, such as telegraphy, made it increasingly difficult for bushrangers to evade capture.

paragraphs: Among the last bushrangers was the Kelly Gang led by Ned Kelly, who were captured at Glenrowan, Victoria in 1880, two years after they were outlawed.

paragraphs: In 1900 the Governor Brothers scared many people in the north of New South Wales.

paragraphs: In Australia, bushrangers often attract public sympathy.

paragraphs: In the same way that outlaws feature in many movies of the American western genre, bushrangers regularly feature in Australian literature, movie, music and television. These include:

paragraphs: Some bushrangers became famous as a result of their activities. They include:


title: Cybernetics

paragraphs: Cybernetics is the study of control and communication in the animal and the machine. Norbert Wiener added: "Information is information, not matter or energy".

paragraphs: Ross Ashby defined it as: "the art of steermanship... co-ordination, regulation and control will be its

paragraphs: themes, for these are of the greatest biological and practical interest... it treats, not things but ways of

paragraphs: behaving. It does not ask “what is this thing?” but “what does it

paragraphs: Louis Couffignal said cybernetics was "the art of ensuring the efficacy of action".

paragraphs: Cybernetics was from the first an inter-disciplinary field of study. It included people from at least a dozen academic disciplines. There were two events which sparked it off after World War II. The first was that scientists from different backgrounds had, during the war, worked together on various military projects. They learned a good deal about how to cooperate with their various partners. The second event was the invention of computers during the war.

paragraphs: The countries which started cybernetics were Britain and the United States, but the idea spread quickly to France, Russia and other countries. Another, more famous, example of 'interdisciplinary studies' was molecular and cell biology.

paragraphs: Imagine a simple system such as a central heating system.

paragraphs: A goal-directed or control system has these four parts:

paragraphs: The device which does this is called a thermostat.

paragraphs: Cybernetics started rapidly, and some of the greatest thinkers of the post-war era were interested in it. When this generation died, and some of the hopes for artificial intelligence and robotics were slow to produce results, cybernetics fell somewhat out of favour.


title: Complexity

paragraphs: Complexity is a property of something with many parts and a complicated arrangement. It is also the state of being complex. Its opposite is simplicity. In science, complexity is also the name for systems science.


title: Complex system

paragraphs: A complex system is one where smaller elements make complex things happen. These smaller elements can be simple elements or they can be complex systems within themselves. Any such complex elements can be interrelated in simple or complex ways and may be hard to identify as distinct.

paragraphs: 'Complex systems' is a field which studies the common properties of systems considered complex in nature, society and science. It is also called "complex systems theory", "complexity science", "study of complex systems" and/or "sciences of complexity".

paragraphs: The key problems of such systems are difficulties with their formal modeling and simulation. From such perspective, in different research contexts complex systems are defined on the base of their different attributes.


title: Control theory

paragraphs: Control theory is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering and mathematics. It deals with the behavior of systems. The desired output of a system is called the "reference".

paragraphs: A system is a model used to describe the behaviour of something in the real world that takes inputs and produces outputs. For example, a car is a system in that the driver chooses how hard to press on the gas pedal (the input) and the car drives along the road at a certain speed (the output). In the case of a car, the input to the gas pedal does not fully determine the speed of the car. The weight in the car, the incline of the road, the traction of the tires, the current speed of the car, and other factors can all change the output received for a particular input. Control theory attempts to determine what inputs will result in a desired output, or reference. This is accomplished using differential equations, linear algebra, and other branches of math. Control theory relies heavily on computational models and software.

paragraphs: In a control system a controller manipulates the inputs to a system. In the control systems one or more output variables of a system need to follow a certain reference over time. By manipulating the input, the controller wants to obtain the desired effect on the output of the system. If we were to take a system without a controller it would simply have an input and an output. As there is no way to track the output relative to the input then the system is practically useless. If we add a controller, by feeding the output through the controller back to the input the output can be manipulated to meet the desired criteria. For example, if a kettle did not have a controller and it were switched on it would continue to boil the water indefinitely. By adding a controller, the boiling water (reference) is fed back to the input through the controller. The controller then tells the input to turn off the power as the water is already boiling. The system without the controller is called the open-loop system. When you add a controller in a feedback loop you create a closed-loop system. Open-loop systems are rarely ever considered stable as they cannot be controlled based on their output. Closed-loop systems incorporate a controller or series of controllers which, depending on the current output, configure the input such that the output will have the desired response.


title: Acura

paragraphs: Acura is the luxury brand of the car company Honda. It has been used in the United States, Canada and Hong Kong since March 1986. The brand has been used to market Honda's luxury cars and high performance models. Before Acura, most Japanese cars were economical in design.


title: Cabal Online

paragraphs: Cabal Online is a free Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) created by ESTsoft Corporation.

paragraphs: There are eight characters players can choose from in Cabal Online. They are: Warrior, Blader, Magician, Force Archer, Force Blader, Force Shielder, Force Gunner and Gladiator.


title: Blackletter

paragraphs: Blackletter or Gothic script is an old way to write. Blackletter in writing or print was used in Western Europe from about 1150 to the 17th century. It was used for printing in Germany until the 20th century.

paragraphs: Letter shapes in printing were copied from letter shapes in a style of handwriting. So, the Gothic script of northern Europe and the Latin script used in Italy were both copied into print typography.

paragraphs: Some people call blackletter Old English. This is not right, because Old English is a language, not a script, and many centuries older. Also "Gothic" script has nothing to do with the Goths. They lived in central Europe from the 3rd to 6th century and wrote in runes. Blackletter must not be confused either with the ancient Gothic alphabet or with the sans-serif typefaces that are also sometimes called "Gothic".

paragraphs: The term "Gothic" was first used to describe this script in fifteenth century Italy, in the midst of the Renaissance. Scholars thought it was a barbaric script: "Gothic" was a synonym for "barbaric".

paragraphs: Not only were blackletter forms called "Gothic script", but any other seemingly barbarian script was also labeled "Gothic". In contrast, the humanists preferred the Carolingian minuscule, a highly legible script. They called it "littera antiqua", "the ancient letter", believing that it was the script used by the Romans. But actually it was invented in the reign of Charlemagne.

paragraphs: Carolingian minuscule was the direct and linear ancestor of blackletter. Blackletter came from Carolingian when Europe in the twelfth century needed new books in many different subjects when more and more people learned to read. New universities were founded, each writing books for business, law, grammar, history, and other topics, not only religious books, where earlier scripts were used.

paragraphs: These books needed to be produced quickly to keep up with demand. Carolingian, though legible, was time-consuming and labour-intensive to produce. It was large and wide and took up a lot of space on a manuscript in a time when writing materials were very costly. As early as the eleventh century, different forms of Carolingian were already being used, and by the mid-twelfth century, a clearly distinguishable form, able to be written more quickly to meet the demand for new books, was being used in north-eastern France and the Low Countries.


title: Super Smash Bros.

paragraphs: In the game, the players can control every characters from the video game series, including "Mario", "Pokémon", "The Legend of Zelda" and many others. The games are very different compared to other fighting games. Other characters include Ike, Marth, Zelda/Sheik, Kirby, Ganondorf, Sonic the Hedgehog, Solid Snake and Jigglypuff among others.

paragraphs: Super Smash Bros. has 12 characters. 8 starters and 4 unlockables. Pit, King Dedede, Mewtwo, Meowth, Bowser and Princess Peach were going to be in "Super Smash Bros.", but were removed. They all made it in either "Super Smash Bros. Melee" or "Super Smash Bros. Brawl". Meowth does appear in "Super Smash Bros." and "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" but only as a Pokéball Pokémon. Master Hand is a character that you will always fight last.

paragraphs: The point of the game is to beat the character(s) that you are fighting. To beat them you must hit them again until they are very hurt. Once they are very hurt, you have to knock them off of the stage in some way.

paragraphs: In 1P mode, you have to fight all of the characters in the game (including the one you are using) and Master Hand. You also play some mini-games along the way. In this mode, you can unlock characters and stages by doing certain things. It does not work like that with Master Hand, though. With Master Hand, you have to hit him again and again until he dies. You do not have to knock him off the stage. It's impossible to knock him off the stage.

paragraphs: In multiplayer mode, up to 4 people can play against each other non-stop. If there are fighters that have died at the same time, they will fight in a sudden death battle. In that battle, they are badly hurt and they have to fight other fighters who made it into the sudden death battle as well.

paragraphs: The two mini-games are "Break The Targets" and "Board The Platforms". In Break The Targets, you have to break 10 targets. It's very hard to get all 10 of the targets. The same goes for Board The Platforms except you have to just simply land on all of the platforms. Board The Platforms is a little bit harder than Break The Targets. Characters can be unlocked in these mini-games.

paragraphs: "Super Smash Bros." was made by HAL Laboratory in 1998. It was first called , and it did not have all those characters from different Nintendo games. Later, Sakurai had an idea of having characters from different Nintendo games to make it very fun. Lots of people liked it so he began making the game with some people. At first, it was only sold in Japan. Sakurai saw how many people bought the game and liked it so the game was sold in other countries as well.

paragraphs: "Super Smash Bros." became very popular, and quickly became a Player's Choice game (which means it's very good). In Japan, 1.97 million Super Smash Bros. CDs were sold, and 2.93 million Super Smash Bros. CDs have been sold in the United States.


title: Falkland Islands wolf

paragraphs: The Falkland Islands wolf or warrah used to live on the Falkland Islands. They were blamed for killing sheep, but it is not known if they did or not. The last fox died in 1876. This species probably fed on penguins, seals and vegetation.

paragraphs: It is unclear how they got to the Falkland Islands. The most common theory was that the warrah descended from domestic dogs brought to the Falkland Islands by the Yaghan of Tierra del Fuego. This explained the lack of their fear of humans.

paragraphs: However, this theory was seen as implausible because the Falkland Islands are far from mainland South America and the sea between the mainland and the islands is very windy, making it impossible to cross in simple canoes. Now, the accepted theory is that the warrah crossed into the Falkland Islands on a former ice bridge connecting the mainland and the islands.


title: SNoW

paragraphs: SNoW (born June 11, 1985 in Tokyo, Japan) is a J-Pop singer. She is now studying at Santa Monica College in California. She was raised in a two language environment. Her favorite artists include Ani DiFranco, Iggy Pop, Talking Heads, and Jack Johnson.

paragraphs: Her first single "Yes" was released under an indie record label in November 2004. In 2005, she changed labels to Sony Music Entertainment Japan. With Sony, she released "Hanabi made Ato Sukoshi" (花火まであとすこし - unofficial translation: "A Little Longer Until the Fireworks") in July. Her third single, "Sakasama no Chō" (逆さまの蝶, "The Inverted Butterfly"), was released on January 25, 2006. "Sakasama no Chō" was the opening theme of the 2005/2006 anime "Jigoku Shoujo" (地獄少女). It will also be used in the movie "Humoresque" to be released in February 2006. The opening theme for "Jigoku Shōjo"'s second season, "NightmaRe", was also performed by SNoW. It was released as a single on December 6, 2006.


title: Funnel cloud

paragraphs: A funnel cloud is a funnel-shaped cloud of condensed water droplets. They usually appear with a rotating column of air. These extend from the bottom of a cloud that does not touch the ground or a water surface. A funnel cloud can usually be seen as a cone or needle shaped cloud that extends out from the main cloud base. Funnel clouds, very often, develop when supercell thunderstorms happen.

paragraphs: If a funnel cloud touches the ground, it becomes a tornado. Most tornadoes begin as funnel clouds. Many funnel clouds that appear do not actually touch the ground, and do not become tornadoes. Tornadoes can only be seen when they pick up stuff off the ground (debris), but one can see them from a distance of many miles.

paragraphs: A funnel cloud that makes contact with water is called a waterspout.

paragraphs: A funnel cloud that touches the ground in front of a snow squall is called a winter waterspout.

paragraphs: Cold-air (or cold-core) funnel clouds are usually short-lived and are usually much weaker in strength than the tornadoes produced by supercells. Cold-air funnel clouds usually do not touch the ground, but here have been reports that it can happen. Then, they become weak tornadoes or waterspouts.

paragraphs: They are a common sight along the Pacific Coast and USA, usually seen in the spring or autumn.


title: Wallington High School

paragraphs: Wallington Jr/Sr High School is a six-year public high school that serves students in seventh through twelfth grade from Wallington, in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States, as part of the Wallington Public Schools.


title: Waterspout

paragraphs: A waterspout is a funnel cloud over water. It is a nonsupercell tornado over water. Waterspouts do "not" suck up water; the water seen in the main funnel cloud is actually water droplets formed by condensation. It is weaker than most of its land counterparts.

paragraphs: Waterspouts that are not associated with a rotating updraft of a supercell thunderstorm, are known as "nontornadic" or "fair-weather waterspouts", and are by far the most common type.

paragraphs: Fair-weather waterspouts occur in coastal waters and are associated with dark, flat-bottomed, developing convective cumulus towers.

paragraphs: A winter waterspout, also known as a snow devil, an icespout, an ice devil, a snonado, or a snowspout, is a very rare meteorological phenomenon in which a vortex from snow develops that looks like a waterspout. One does not know much about this rare happening and there are only six known pictures of this event so far.

paragraphs: There are three main things that produce a winter waterspout:


title: Bob Jones University

paragraphs: Bob Jones University (BJU) is a private Protestant Christian university in Greenville, South Carolina. The university was founded in 1927 by Bob Jones, Sr. (1883-1968), an evangelist. The school has around 3,000 students attending it, and there are 2,755 undergraduate students attending.


title: Mordecai Ham

paragraphs: Mordecai Ham (1877-1961) was an American evangelist. He entered his ministry in 1901. In 1936, he started his Christian radio evangelism career. He continued working as an evangelist until shortly before his death in 1961.


title: Charles Templeton

paragraphs: Charles Bradley Templeton (October 7 1915 - June 7 2001) was a Canadian cartoonist, evangelist, agnostic, politician, newspaper editor, inventor, broadcaster and author. At the age of 17 during the Great Depression, "Chuck Templeton" (as he was then known) got his first job as a sports cartoonist for "The Globe and Mail". This would be the first of many of his careers. In the late 1990s, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He died from problems with the disease in 2001.


title: Billy Graham Evangelistic Association

paragraphs: The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) is an organization founded by Rev. Billy Graham in 1950. The purpose of the "BGEA" is to tell the gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as they can. They have done this through crusades, evangelism training, youth outreach, television broadcasts, and radio programs, just to name a few. The current President of BGEA is Graham's son Franklin.


title: Washington National Cathedral

paragraphs: The Washington National Cathedral is a cathedral of the Episcopal Church in the United States. Congress officially made it the non-denominational National House of Prayer. Located in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, it is the sixth largest cathedral in the world and second largest in the United States. It was built between 1907 and 1990.

paragraphs: On Tuesday, August 23, 2011, the central tower on the Cathedral was damaged by an earthquake. A 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck northern Virginia, about from Washington D.C. The earthquake knocked off some of the cross-shaped finial stones. Finials are the decorative top of the pinnacles or towers. One pinnacle is leaning to the side. The inside of the cathedral did not receive any serious damage from the earthquake.

paragraphs: Officials have stated that it will cost millions of dollars to repair the damage. The cost of repairs will not be covered by insurance. There are many cracks in the limestone exterior. There was concern that the landfall of hurricane Irene would cause more damage. The hurricane did not cause any additional damage to the cathedral.

paragraphs: State funerals for three American Presidents have been held at the cathedral:

paragraphs: Memorial services were also held for presidents Warren G. Harding, William Taft, Calvin Coolidge, Harry S Truman, and Richard M. Nixon.


title: United States Postal Service

paragraphs: The United States Postal Service (USPS) was founded in 1971, replacing the United States Post Office Department. It is in Washington D.C. In the United States, it is referred to as "the post office", "the postal service", or just "the mail". Its job is to deliver letters, packages, and other items to people.


title: Parkinson's disease

paragraphs: Parkinson's disease (or PD, sometimes simply "Parkinson's") is a disease that slowly damages the central nervous system. The central nervous system is made up of the brain and spine. When a person gets Parkinson's disease, the cells that make dopamine in a part of the brain die. Dopamine cells send information to other cells which makes us do the actions we do. Because of this, Parkinson's disease mainly affects the body's motor system.

paragraphs: Parkinson's disease is a disease that gets worse over time. People normally get Parkinson's disease when they are over 50 years old. It is sometimes very hard for doctors to detect.

paragraphs: Doctors are studying the exact causes of Parkinson's. It is said that Parkinson's develops through a combination of genetic errors and several possible influences, but not much is known. Doctors have discovered some clues about the cause(s). It is caused by the destruction of specialised ganglions in the brain. The production of dopamine, a neurotransmitter, reduces. Parkinson's can also be genetic. But research shows that genetic Parkinson's is not normal, and is uncommon. Parkinson's disease is more frequent among those who work with pesticides or have had a history of head injuries.

paragraphs: Research suggests that people are slightly less likely to get Parkinson's disease if they smoke cigarettes.

paragraphs: Parkinson's disease can cause the brain to not respond. The patient may become paralyzed. The disease can give the patient slow reaction time and poor coordination between the hand and the brain.

paragraphs: It hurts the patient's movement skills and their speech. It can also affect mood, behavior and thinking. A common symptom of Parkinson’s disease is tremors. Tremors cause people's hands, legs, and arms to shake. Some symptoms include skin problems, depression, and difficulty swallowing.

paragraphs: The symptoms of Parkinson's disease include stiff muscles and trouble with movement. This disease gives patients slow reaction time. It makes it hard for them to do simple things like walking and talking. It also causes depression and other emotional changes.

paragraphs: Parkinson's disease cannot be completely cured yet. Still, people have tried to cure it with drugs. One treatment is to put back the lost dopamine. A group of drugs called dopamine receptor agonists acts similarly to dopamine when put in the brain. There are four different drugs included in that group. Many patients take one of those with another drug. That other drug is called L-dopa. Unlike the dopamine, the L-dopa can enter the brain. The dopamine cannot enter the brain. This is why many patients take L-dopa and dopamine together. In the beginning, L-dopa helps a lot. But as the disease develops, the L-dopa doesn't work as well. Two other drugs used are anticholinergics and selegiline. They both help lessen symptoms. Anticholinergics help the patient stop shaking. Selegiline is meant to protect the nerves in the central nervous system. Selegiline is not often used. This is because there is no real proof that it helps.

paragraphs: Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is a surgery that is used some people who suffer from Parkinson's disease.


title: Samford University

paragraphs: Samford University is a private, Southern Baptist-related university in Homewood, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. Samford ranked 118 out of 262 institutions in "U.S. News and World Reports' " college rankings.

paragraphs: "Samford University" was founded as "Howard College" in 1841 and opened its doors to students on January 3, 1842, in Marion, Alabama. In 1887 the school moved to Birmingham.

paragraphs: Women were first admitted to "Howard College" in 1895. In 1920 the school joined the "Southern Association of Colleges" and in 1927 it added its pharmacy school. In 1965, "Howard" got back its master's degree program. This led to the college's becoming a well-known college by November 9, 1965. The school was renamed in honor of "Frank Park Samford", chairman of the Board of Trustees and most generous personal supporter, because there was already a "Howard University" in Washington, D.C..


title: Hainanese chicken rice

paragraphs: Hainanese chicken rice is a dish created by the people of Hainan. Hainan is an island that is to the south of China. It is a plate of chicken served with rice cooked in chicken oil.

paragraphs: Boil a large pot of water. Stuff the body of the chicken with scallion and ginger. Add chicken to boiling water, breast side-down. Lower the heat to a simmer just under boiling point and cook, covered until just cooked through, about 40 minutes. Bathe the chicken in an ice water bath till chicken is cold to create a nice texture. Heat oil in a rice cooker, add garlic, stir fry till fragrant. Add uncooked rice, stir fry for two minutes, add salt and enough chicken soup to cover 1/2 inch above the top of the rice. Boil on high heat, lower heat when steam holes form, cover and steam for 30 minutes till rice is cooked. Chop chicken and serve with steaming hot rice and chili sauce. Dark soya sauce is the ideal accompaniment.


title: Vortex

paragraphs: A vortex (pl. "vortices") is a spinning, often turbulent,

paragraphs: flow of fluid. The motion of the fluid swirling rapidly around a center is called a vortex. The speed and rate of rotation of the fluid are greatest at the center and become smaller with distance from the center.


title: Libertia

paragraphs: Libertia is a genus of monocotyledenous plants in the family "Iridaceae". There are 15 species in the genus. The plants can be found growing in the southern hemisphere.


title: Alan Dawazhouma

paragraphs: Alan Dawazhouma (known as alan) or 阿兰 is a Tibetan-Chinese singer and erhu player from Sichuan province who debuted in 2005 with 声声醉如兰. As well as Tibetan and Mandarin, she speaks some English and Japanese. Her first release in Japanese was the single, 明日への讃歌.

paragraphs: alan was born on 25 July 1987. Her stage name "alan" is pinyin for 阿兰, which is her surname. In Japan, she is also known as あらん. Her real name is Alan Dawa Dolma (阿兰达瓦卓玛 in Chinese, which is pronounced in pinyin as Alan Dawazhuoma).

paragraphs: alan grew up in the Meiren valley in the Danba County of Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in China. Her father is a civil servant, while her mother was a former singer. She learned singing from a young age and started to learn how to play the erhu at the age of eight. At nine years old, alan was selected for the leading role in the TV drama Tai Yang Nu Shen and first pursued a career as an actress.

paragraphs: After graduating from her musically oriented high school, she enrolled in a relatively well known music school in China, the China National Chinese Opera and Dance Drama Company (解放軍芸術学院), where two members of 12 Girls Band were also being taught. Later in 2005, alan debuted with a cover album titled Sheng Sheng Zui Ru Lan under a Chinese independent label. Currently, the album has sold over 50,000 copies.

paragraphs: In October 2006 at the Shanghai International Art Festival, alan won second place (tied with Filipino singer Jimmy Layo Marquez) at the 9th Asia New Singer Competition. In July 2007 she graduated the China National Chinese Opera and Dance Drama Company with excellent grades.

paragraphs: alan was discovered when the Japan-based record label Avex Inc. held auditions in Beijing. Her first single was in November the same year. It was called "Ashita e no Sanka", which can be translated as "a song for tomorrow." She is currently still studying Japanese and only has a basic grasp of the language.


Tibetan


title: V/Line

paragraphs: V/Line is a regional train operator in Victoria, Australia. They operate all regional trains outside the Connex network, as well as some bus services that take people a long way.


title: Carpool

paragraphs: Carpooling is sharing a car with other passengers to help share the cost of operating the car. Besides being cheaper than driving many cars at the same time, it also reduces traffic congestion. There are many companies that provide carpooling services such as Ola, MyCotra, Quickride, and Uber.


title: Middleweight

paragraphs: In boxing, the term Middleweight is used for a specific group of people based on weight. A middleweight is a boxer weight does not exceed 160 pounds (73 kg).

paragraphs: Boxing organizations created many divisions so that fighters could fight people of the same size.

paragraphs: The first heavyweight champion under modern rules was Irish boxer Jack (Nonpareil) Dempsey.

paragraphs: Famous heavyweight champions have include Bob Fitzsimmons, Nino Benvenuti, Rocky Graziano, Marvin Hagler, Bernard Hopkins, Roy Jones Jr., Jake LaMotta, Carlos Monzon,

paragraphs: Sugar Ray Robinson, Tony Zale and Sugar Ray Leonard.


title: Moneymore

paragraphs: Moneymore is a village in Northern Ireland, in the United Kingdom. It is from Cookstown and from Magherafelt.

paragraphs: On 29 April 2001 the United Kingdom government had a census and saw that there were 1,369 people living in Moneymore. They also saw that:


title: Denpasar

paragraphs: Denpasar is the capital city of the province of Bali, Indonesia. It is also the site of Ngurah Rai Airport, the main gateway to Bali. It has a population of 491,500 (2002).


title: Toome

paragraphs: Toome (or Toomebridge) is a village in Northern Ireland, in the United Kingdom. It is from Magherafelt and from Antrim. It is close to the River Bann.

paragraphs: On 29 April 2001 the United Kingdom government had a census and saw that there were 722 people living in Toome. They also saw that:


title: Kuta

paragraphs: Kuta is a town in southern Bali, Indonesia. Once it was a fishing village. It was one of the first towns on Bali to become popular with tourists. It is one of Indonesia's major tourist destinations. It has a long sandy beach, and many restaurants and bars. It is near Bali's Ngurah Rai Airport.

paragraphs: On October 12, 2002, a series of bombings killed more than 200 people in Kuta. The bombings happened outside two nightclubs.


title: An Inconvenient Truth

paragraphs: An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary movie about global warming directed by Davis Guggenheim, presented by former United States Vice President Al Gore. The movie was first shown at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. It opened in New York and Los Angeles on May 24, 2006. The movie was released on DVD on November 21, 2006. A companion book by Gore reached Number 1 on the paperback nonfiction New York Times bestseller list on July 2, 2006. The movie won Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature and for Best Original Song.

paragraphs: "An Inconvenient Truth" is the story of Al Gore and his efforts to tell people about the climate change concerns. Gore says, "I've been trying to tell this story for a long time and I feel as if I've failed to get the message across." The movie closely follows a "slide show" presentation that Gore has shown throughout the world. It shows Gore's exploration of the global warming data, and predictions regarding climate change and its potential for disaster.


title: Gary Megson

paragraphs: Gary Megson (born: 20 June 1960) is an English former football player and manager. He is best known for being the manager of the West Brom team which gained promotion to the Premier League.


title: Matt Hardy

paragraphs: Matthew "Matt" Moore Hardy (born September 23, 1974) is an American professional wrestler. He currently works for OMEGA Championship Wrestling and Ring of Honor (ROH). He is best known for working for World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. He is known for teaming with his younger brother Jeff Hardy.


title: Kerobokan Prison

paragraphs: Kerobokan Prison is a prison in the town of Kerobokan in Bali, Indonesia. In addition to local criminals, a number of foreigners are held there, notably Schapelle Corby and the Bali Nine — all convicted of drug smuggling.


title: Edmund Spenser

paragraphs: Edmund Spenser (; c. 1552 – 13 January 1599) was an important poet from England. He is most famous for his epic poem "The Faerie Queene", which talks about different knights who fight against evil. The poem also praises Queen Elizabeth I of England. He wrote also many sonnets and poems. The sonnets were collected under the name of Amoretti.

paragraphs: Edmund Spenser invented a new rhyme-scheme for sonnet (abab bcbc cdcd ee) and a nine-line stanza (ababbcbcc). These forms are today called Spenserian sonnet and Spenserian stanza. Spenserian stanza was later used by many poets, among others by George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats and Alfred Tennyson.


title: Papuan languages

paragraphs: The term Papuan languages means languages of the western Pacific which are neither Austronesian nor Australian. That is, the term is defined negatively and does not mean a linguistic relationship.

paragraphs: The majority of the Papuan languages are spoken on the island of New Guinea (which is divided between the country of Papua New Guinea and Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Irian Jaya), with a number spoken in the Bismarck Archipelago, Bougainville Island, and the Solomon Islands to the east, and in Halmahera, Timor, and the Alor archipelago to the west. One Papuan language, Meriam Mir, is spoken within the national borders of Australia, in the eastern Torres Strait. The only Papuan languages with official recognition are those of East Timor.

paragraphs: New Guinea is perhaps the most linguistically diverse region in the world. Besides the Austronesian languages, there are some 800 languages divided into perhaps sixty small language families, with unclear relationships to each other or to anything else, plus a large number of language isolates.


title: Lombok

paragraphs: Lombok (population 2,950,105 in 2005) is an island in West Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. It is to the east of Bali on the other side of the Lombok Strait. The capital and largest city on the island is Mataram.

paragraphs: The Gili Islands are very popular with tourists. There are many places to dive and the beaches are lovely.

paragraphs: Mount Rinjani, 3,726 m (12,224 ft), is the third-highest volcano in Indonesia.

paragraphs: In the summer of 2018, two major earthquakes, in July (6.4 magnitude) and in August (6.9 magnitude) hit the city killing nearly 270 people all together.


title: The Faerie Queene

paragraphs: The Faerie Queene is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. The poem was first published in 1590. A longer version of the poem was published in 1596. This version of the poem is in six parts or books.

paragraphs: "The Fairie Queene" is about different knights who fight against evil. It is an allegorical work, and each book of the poem is about a different virtue. The poem also praises Queen Elizabeth I of England and her family, the Tudors. Queen Elizabeth liked the poem so much that she gave Spenser a pension as a reward.


title: Torres Strait Islanders

paragraphs: Torres Strait Islanders are the indigenous people of the Torres Strait Islands, part of Queensland, Australia. They are culturally related to the coastal peoples of Papua New Guinea. They are regarded as being distinct from other Aboriginal peoples of the rest of Australia. There are also two Torres Strait Islander communities on the nearby coast of the mainland.

paragraphs: There are 6,000 Torres Strait Islanders who live in the area of the Torres Strait, and 42,000 others who live outside of this area, mostly in the north of Queensland, particularly in Townsville and Cairns.

paragraphs: The indigenous people of the Torres Strait have a distinct culture which has slight variants on the different islands where they live. They are a sea-faring people, and engaged in trade with peoples of Papua New Guinea. The culture is complex, with some Australian elements, some Papuan elements, and some Austronesian elements, just like the languages. The Islanders seem to have been the dominant culture for many centuries, and neighbouring Aboriginal and Papuan cultures show some Island influence in religious ceremonies and the like. Archaeological, linguistic and folk history evidence suggests that the core of Island culture is Austronesian. Unlike the indigenous peoples of mainland Australia, the islanders were traditionally agriculturalists although they supplemented their food supplies through hunting and gathering.


title: Australian megafauna

paragraphs: Australian megafauna is a word used to describe a number of animal species in Australia that are quite a bit bigger than their closest living relatives. These species became extinct during the Pleistocene (16,100±100 - 50,000 years before present), but exact dates for their extinction have only been discovered recently.

paragraphs: Some mythological creatures from the Aboriginal dreamtime look a bit like animals from the prehistoric Australian megafauna.

paragraphs: Scientists have been unable to agree on the reasons the megafauna became extinct. It is possible when humans came to Australia (around 48,000-60,000 years ago), and began hunting and using fire, they may have caused the extinction of the megafauna. Climate change, which made the country much drier during an Ice Age about 18,000 years ago, may have also have led to the extinction of the megafauna. Some scientists say that climate change alone caused the extinction of the megafauna. This argument does not allow for the fact that the megafaunal species had lived through two million years of climate changes. They had lived through a number of dry times before their sudden extinction.

paragraphs: Scientists have got new evidence, based on new and better ways of finding dates, using optically stimulated luminescence and Uranium-thorium dating of megafaunal bones. This suggests that humans were the main cause of the extinction of megafauna in Australia. The dates show that the last of the megafauna became extinct around the same time, about 47,000 years ago. This was the time in which humans first arrived in Australia. The dates suggest the main reason for extinction was human burning of the land. Many plants were not able to survive regular fires, and so the types of plants changed. Scientists have studied oxygen and carbon isotopes from teeth of megafauna. These show sudden, dramatic, non-climate-related changes in plants, and in the diet of surviving marsupial animals, as well as the loss of megafaunal species. Further study of the teeth of megafauna shows the climate was dry at the time of extinction, similar to the dry climate of today, and that the megafauna were able to live in dry climates.

paragraphs: The following is a list of some of the Australian megafauna. It shows:

paragraphs: Mammals are set out by size with largest at the top.


title: Omagh bombing

paragraphs: The Omagh bombing was a bomb attack by the Real Irish Republican Army in Omagh, Northern Ireland, on 15 August 1998. 29 people died and over 300 people were hurt.


title: Themis (hypothetical moon)

paragraphs: On April 28, 1905, the American astronomer William H. Pickering said that he had found a tenth moon of the planet Saturn. Pickering named the moon Themis. No other astronomer has ever seen the moon that Pickering said he saw. Because of this, astronomers do not count Themis as an official moon of Saturn.

paragraphs: Pickering tried to figure out an orbit for Themis. He thought that Themis had an inclination of 39.1° to the ecliptic, with 0.23 eccentricity (0.23) and a semi-major axis distance of 1,457,000 km. This meant that Themis had an orbit like the moons Titan and Hyperion. Pickering believed that it took Themis 20.85 days to orbit Saturn, in a prograde motion.

paragraphs: Pickering thought that the diameter of Themis was about 38 miles (61 km). Pickering had also discovered the moon Phoebe, but modern astronomers know that Pickering made a mistake when he gave 42 miles (68 km) as the diameter of Phoebe. Because astronomers know how Pickering made his mistake, they can say that if Themis existed, it would have a diameter of 200 km.

paragraphs: In April 1861, Hermann Goldschmidt also thought he discovered a new satellite of Saturn between Titan and Hyperion. Goldschmidt called this moon Chiron. The moon Chiron also does not exist, but the name was used much later for the comet/asteroid 2060 Chiron.

paragraphs: In 1906, the French Academy of Sciences gave Pickering the Lalande Prize of the French Academy of Sciences for his "discovery of the ninth and tenth satellites of Saturn".

paragraphs: The actual tenth satellite of Saturn (in order of discovery) was Janus, which was discovered in 1966 and confirmed in 1980. Its orbit is far from the supposed orbit of Themis.

paragraphs: There is also an asteroid named 24 Themis.


title: Real Irish Republican Army

paragraphs: The Real Irish Republican Army (or Real IRA) is a group from Ireland who want Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic of Ireland, and want it to leave the United Kingdom. The group started after they left the Provisional Irish Republican Army, after an argument. On 15 August 1998 they did the Omagh bombing, which killed 29 people and hurt over 300 people. They have shot police officers and have also bombed places in England, such as London and Birmingham. It is against the law to be a member of the Real IRA.


title: The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck

paragraphs: The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a comic book painted and written by Don Rosa. To make it, Rosa needed to see Carl Barks's stories and the more important facts of Scrooge's fictional life.

paragraphs: The story has 12 original parts, with more added later, that tell Scrooge's life:


paragraphs: The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is a set of exams taken in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and other British territories. They are usually taken by students aged 15–16, after two years of study. Some pupils can take their exams early if their teachers think the students are capable. Most students taking their GCSEs study between 5 and 12 subjects.

paragraphs: All pupils have to study English, mathematics and science until they are 15-16. They do not have to take the GCSE exams, but the large majority do so. In Wales, students must also study Welsh until they are 14.

paragraphs: Most schools require that a pupil passes 5 or more GCSE exams at grades 4 or 5 or above before they can move on to study A-levels.

paragraphs: Many of the subjects in this list are not offered by every school.

paragraphs: In all schools students have to study Mathematics, Science, and English lingustics and literature.


title: Edo

paragraphs: The site of the city, on what is now known as Tokyo Bay, had been settled for several centuries, but first became historically significant with the building of Edo Castle in 1457 by order of Ōta Dōkan. Kyoto was the site of the Japanese emperor's residence and the capital of Japan for many centuries, until the Tokugawa shogunate was established in 1603 and Edo became its seat of government. From that point Kyoto remained merely the formal capital of the country, while the "de facto" capital was now Edo, the center of real political power. Edo consequently rapidly grew from what had been a small, virtually unknown fishing village in 1457 to a big city of 1,000,000 residents by 1721, the largest city in the world at the time.

paragraphs: In 1868, when the shogunate came to an end, the city was renamed "Tokyo", meaning "eastern capital", and the emperor moved his residence to Tokyo, making the city the formal capital of Japan.


title: Renault Vel Satis

paragraphs: The Renault Vel Satis was a large automobile created by the French car manufacturer Renault. It has five seats and four doors. It was produced from 2001 to 2009· It was known for its daring styling and was sold in the UK from 2002 to 2005 but was dropped there due to poor sales. Renault also produced another big car with bold styling called the Avantime which was a coupe/grand tourer but it was a poor seller with only 8,557 made between 2001 and 2003.


title: Korean food

paragraphs: Korean food came from very old traditions in Korea. It has developed through many environmental, political, and cultural changes. There are special rules for eating meals in Korea.

paragraphs: Korean food is mostly made up of rice, noodles, vegetables, and meats. Most Korean meals have many side dishes (called "banchan") along with their steam-cooked rice. Kimchi is usually eaten at every meal. Sesame oil, "doenjang", soy sauce, salt, garlic, ginger, pepper and "gochujang" are ingredients that are often used in the food.

paragraphs: In different provinces of Korea, its ingredients and dishes are different, too. The Korean royal court cuisine used to serve all the best dishes from each province for the royal family. People follow special rules when they eat meals in Korea.

paragraphs: Traditional rice cakes like "tteok" are eaten as treats during holidays and festivals. "Tteok" means all rice cakes made from pounded rice (메떡, "metteok"), pounded glutinous rice (찰떡, "chaltteok"), or glutinous rice that has not been pounded. It is usually filled or covered with sweet mung bean paste, red bean paste, raisins, or a sweet, creamy filling made with sesame seeds, pumpkin, beans, pine nuts, and honey. "Tteok" is usually eaten for dessert or as a snack.

paragraphs: The oldest people are usually served first, and it is thought rude to pick up chopsticks or eat before the oldest people do so. In Korea, unlike in China and Japan, the rice bowl is not lifted up from the table. Spoons should not hit bowls while eating. You must not talk about dirty things. Some rules are now not important. For instance, talking used to be discouraged, but today people usually talk together at meals. Also, men usually ate at a different table than women, but now they eat all together. In Korea, they have both spoons and chopsticks, and together they are called "sujeou" (pronounced soo-juh - 수저). Usually, before they eat, people say, "Jalmukgessemnidah (잘 먹겠습니다)", and after they are finished, they say, "Jalmuggussemnidah (잘 먹었습니다)." Soups and stews must be set on the right side of the person who is eating.

paragraphs: These dishes are usually made with rice.

paragraphs: These simple foods can be bought at shops on the street and are usually thought of as snacks rather than meals.