title: Willy Brandt

paragraphs: Willy Brandt (18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992) was a German chancellor from 1969 until 1974. He was born "Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm" in Lübeck, Germany. He was the leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany 1964–1987 and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (1971). He died on 8 October 1992 in Unkel on the Rhine.

paragraphs: He was born as son of Martha Frahm and John Möller in 1913 in Lübeck. He never met his father and grew up with his mother and his grandfather.

paragraphs: He fled to Norway when the Nazis took over government in Germany. He led a contact office for the resistance against the Nazi regime. After he lost his German citizenship, he became Norwegian. The Germans arrested him when they occupied Norway. He fled to Sweden. In 1945, Brandt returned to Germany as writer for Scandinavian newspapers.

paragraphs: His political career started in 1948. He became a representative for the SPD in the Bundestag for a district of Berlin. He was member of the state parliament of Berlin from 1950 until 1971.

paragraphs: He became president of the Parliament of Berlin (1955) and Mayor of Berlin (1957). Willy Brandt started to campaign for the position as Chancellor (Bundeskanzler) for the Social Democrats (SPD) in 1961. In 1966, he became Vice-Chancellor of the "Grand Coalition" of SPD and the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) under Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger. He started the social-liberal coalition between the SPD and the Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP). Willy Brandt became Chancellor in 1969.

paragraphs: He made many changes in several political areas. For example:

paragraphs: He travelled to East Germany, Warsaw and Moscow to improve relationships. His acceptance the Oder-Neisse Line and many of controversies in the Parliament and society followed.

paragraphs: In 1971, he got the Nobel Peace Prize for his politics.

paragraphs: In 1972, Rainer Barzel of the CDU believed he could end the Brandt administration, but he failed to win the vote of no-confidence. Brandt was re-elected to a second term later that year. In 1974, Günther Guillaume who worked in Brandt's office was discovered to be a spy. Brandt resigned and Helmut Schmidt became chancellor.

paragraphs: Brandt stayed leader of the SPD, and later of the Socialist International too. He was member of the European Parliament from 1978 to 1983. He gave up the position as chief of the SPD in 1987. Willy Brandt died of colon cancer at his home in Unkel, a town on the River Rhine, on 8 October 1992, at the age of 78. He was given a state funeral and was buried at the cemetery at Zehlendorf in Berlin.


title: Saint Margaret

paragraphs: There are several saints named Margaret:


title: Saint Thomas

paragraphs:
Saint Thomas can mean a person:
Saint Thomas can mean a place:


title: Konrad Adenauer

paragraphs: Konrad Hermann Josef Adenauer (born 5 January 1876 in Cologne; died 19 April 1967 in Rhöndorf (part of Bad Honnef)). From 1949 to 1963 he was the first Bundeskanzler (chancellor) of the Federal Republic of Germany and from 1951 to 1955 was foreign secretary the same time.

paragraphs: Adenauer was the third of five children of a court secretary in Cologne. His family was Catholic. Konrad Adenauer started his political career in 1906 in the city assembly of Cologne. From 1917 to 1933 and again in 1945 he was mayor of Cologne.

paragraphs: Adenauer was a member of the Catholic Zentrum Party. When the Nazi Party took power he lost his job. At first he worked with the Nazis, but after the conspiracy to kill Hitler failed in 1944 he hid for his own safety.

paragraphs: After the war he became mayor of Cologne again, but lost the job after a few months.

paragraphs: In the Parlamentarischer Rat of West Germany, he was one of the top politicians and the President. He founded the CDU at the same time.

paragraphs: He was important in making Bonn the West German capital instead of Frankfurt am Main.

paragraphs: In 1949 he was elected as the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.

paragraphs: He made sure West Germany joined the side of the western capitalist countries in the Cold War. He also helped West Germany join NATO. He was reelected three times.

paragraphs: In 1964 he stopped being chancellor. He was a member of the Bundestag until his death at 91 years old.


title: Miri Ben-Ari

paragraphs: Miri Ben-Ari is a hip-hop violinist. She was born in Israel in 1978 and was brought up in a small town near Tel Aviv. She was trained as a classical violinist. She was a prodigy and was praised by famous violinists like Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern.

paragraphs: At the age of 16 she took herself to the United States. She spoke no English at the time. In New York City, she met several musicians such as the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis who supported her. She became interested in contemporary R&B (Rhythm and Blues) and hip-hop. In January 2001 she appeared in the Carnegie Hall with the rapper Wyclef Jean. Later that year her TV performances on "Showtime at the Apollo" added to her fame. Her second jazz album, entitled "Song of The Promised Land" features the dance single "Peace in the Middle East" as well as two tracks together with Wynton Marsalis. She has now sold millions of records, and is known as “the hip-hop violinist”. This was the title of a record released in 2005 by Universal which includes the single “Sunshine to the Rain” featuring Scarface and Anthony Hamilton. In 2004 she toured world-wide with rapper Kanye West. She has a very personal sound which is a mixture of Classical, jazz, hip-hop, R&B and world music. She won her first Grammy award in 2005 for co-writing “Jesus Walks” which received a trophy for the “Best Rap Song” in 2005.


title: Furry

paragraphs: ""Furry" is also a word for something covered in fur."

paragraphs: A fursona is a fictional (make-believe) animal character who has human traits. It can walk on two legs or talk.

paragraphs: People who like this art are also called furries. This group make up the furry fandom. Another word for furry is "anthropomorphic", which means "people-like."

paragraphs: Many different stories have furry characters. Fairy tales and mythology often have animal characters who talk or do other human things. Books, comics, children's books, video games, and toys can have furry characters too. Some of the most popular cartoon characters are furries: Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Disney's Robin Hood, and Scooby-Doo.

paragraphs: To be a furry character, an animal needs to look or act like a human in some way. Here are some of the ways:

paragraphs: Humans are good at reading human body language, but less good at reading animal body language. Art showing animals smiling or frowning like humans makes it easier for humans to know how the character is feeling.

paragraphs: Because humans have been around animals for a long time, humans expect certain animals to act certain ways. Art that gives humans animal traits tells people what to expect from those characters. For example, many cultures see foxes as clever, so many people will assume a fox furry character is clever.

paragraphs: For thousands of years, people have told stories and made art with furry characters. Egyptian mythology has many gods who are part animal and part human. Roman mythology has a story about a minotaur, which is part bull and part human. The werewolf of European mythology is part wolf and part human.

paragraphs: Many cartoons have furry characters. Here are some examples: Looney Tunes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Kung Fu Panda, and .

paragraphs: Many video games also have furry characters. Some of these are: Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, Sonic the Hedgehog, Star Fox 64, and .

paragraphs: In the modern day, people from all around the world make up the furry fandom. Many of them meet and talk to each other the Internet, but they also meet in real life. Furry websites like FurAffinity and DeviantArt let people share pictures, stories, music, games, and animations that have furry characters.

paragraphs: Fans of furry characters sometimes make up a furry character to represent themselves. This is called a "fursona." Often, the fursona's species is that person's favorite animal. These people sometimes talk to each other while pretending to be their fursonas. This is called a "role-play," because each person is playing a role, like in a television show or stage play. These role-plays usually happen over instant messaging or forums, but sometimes happen in real life.

paragraphs: People who like furry art sometimes meet to talk about their favorite characters, buy books or art, and show off their costumes. These meetings may also have music, dancing, and parties. Conventions are usually held in large hotels, so there is enough room for hundreds or even thousands of people.

paragraphs: The largest furry conventions are Anthrocon, Midwest FurFest, Further Confusion, RainFurrest, Furry Weekend Atlanta, and Eurofurence. Many others happen all around the world each year. Furry conventions are similar to science fiction conventions.

paragraphs: Some people who like furry characters wear toy ears and tails for fun. Others dress up in "fursuits," which are costumes that look like furry characters. Fake fur is used to make these costumes, so they can be many different colors. Some fursuits look very much like real animals; other fursuits look like cartoon characters or legendary creatures.

paragraphs: A person who wears a fursuit is called a fursuiter. Fursuits may cover the person's whole body, or just part of it. A fursuit that covers the whole body is called a "full suit." A suit that covers only part of the body (usually the head, arms, and feet, plus a tail) is called a "partial suit" or "partial." With a partial suit, the rest of the body is covered by clothes to hide the person inside.

paragraphs: Fursuits are almost always one-of-a-kind. This is because they are often based a specific fursona and usually made one at a time. Some are made by the person who will wear them, others are made by artists who make them for money.

paragraphs: People usually wear fursuits for fun. Sometimes people feel less shy in a fursuit because no one can see who they are. This can make them feel more comfortable dancing, playing, cuddling, meeting people, or being silly. People may also wear fursuits to be a mascot for a charity or event, usually one related to animals.

paragraphs: Inside a fursuit, it can be difficult to see and hear. Fursuiters often have a friend help them cross traffic or use stairs. In hot weather, fursuiters must be careful not to overheat.

paragraphs: Like many groups, the furry fandom has its own slang. "Murr" is a word used to show you like something or find it attractive sexually. "Scritching" is gentle scratching; in the furry fandom, this is a way to show you like someone, like hugging. "Yiff" is a slang word for sex. A "fursuit" is a costume that looks like a furry character. A "fursona" is a furry character someone makes up for himself or herself. "Anthro" is short for anthropomorphic (human-like) and can mean either a furry character (example: "an anthro bear") or the genre (example: "anthro art"). The word “snoot” is slang for snout.

paragraphs: Some people in the furry fandom find that attraction to furry characters or people in fursuits is an important part of their sexuality, and some do not. In one survey 37%, some people answered that it was important to their sexuality, while 24% said that it was not. Other surveys said that only a small minority of people in furry fandom say that they are sexually attracted to animals.


title: Alderaan

paragraphs: Alderaan is a fictional planet found in the "Star Wars "series of movies created by George Lucas. It is the home of the characters Princess Leia Organa and Senator Bail Organa. The surface of Alderaan is only seen for a short time at the end of "" (2005). The entire planet is destroyed in "" (1977) when the Death Star fires a laser beam at the planet, which then explodes, killing everyone on it.


title: San Francisco Municipal Railway

paragraphs: MUNI is the public transit agency that runs bus, cable car, trolley, and subway service in the city of San Francisco, California, USA. Its name is short for Municipal Railway. MUNI runs many different bus lines that go all through the city of San Francisco, three Cable Car lines that run through the Financial District and Chinatown (with service to Fisherman's Wharf) and the Market Street surface and subway trolley lines.


title: Cartilage

paragraphs: Cartilage is a flexible connective tissue found in many parts of the body. It can bend a bit, but resists stretching.

paragraphs: Its main function is to connect bones together. It is also found in the joints, the rib cage, the ear, the nose, the throat and between the bones of the back. Another function of cartilage is to create a place on which bones can form when they are first developed. It also helps to protect the places where bones work against each other: the joints. In some fish like sharks (Chondrichthyes), cartilage forms the whole of the skeleton.

paragraphs: Unlike other connective tissues, cartilage does not contain blood vessels. The cells are supplied by diffusion. So, compared to other connective tissues, cartilage grows and repairs more slowly. Cartilage also does not contain nerves, making the hard tissue painless if damage is caused. However, the breaking of a cartilage often results in damage to tendons and muscles, which certainly does cause pain.

paragraphs: There are many diseases caused by defects in cartilage. One of the most common is osteoarthritis, where the cartilage wears so thin that bone rubs against bone. Cartilage acts as a barrier, preventing the entry of lymphocytes or diffusion of immunoglobulins. This allows surgeons to transplant of cartilage from one person to another without fear of tissue rejection.

paragraphs: Cartilage is made of special cells (called chondroblasts) that produce a large amount of matrix outside the cells. The matrix is composed of


title: Dokkyo University

paragraphs: Dokkyo University is a university in Soka city of Saitama Prefecture, Japan. This university is well known for its Foreign Language Department.


title: Munich Airport

paragraphs: Munich International Airport (IATAcode "MUC") is an airport 28 km north east of the city Munich, Germany. It is mainly used by Lufthansa and the Star-Alliance, which Lufthansa is in. In 2008, 34.53 million passengers used the airport. After Frankfurt am Main Munich is the second most important airport in Germany. It is the 8th largest in Europe.

paragraphs: Munich Airport was opened in 1992. Before that the airport was in Riem. Building was started in 1980.

paragraphs: Because Frankfurt am Main was so busy, Lufthansa began to use Munich for international flights. The Airport was named after "Franz-Josef Strauss", a politician who was very interested in aeroplanes. People in Munich usually just call it "München Flughafen" or "der Flughafen".

paragraphs: In 2003 the second airport terminal was opened, for people travelling on Lufthansa and Star-Alliance only.

paragraphs: A third runway is planned, because there is much traffic on Munich Airport, but people who live near the airport do not want it.

paragraphs: You can use the Munich S-Bahn lines S1 and S8 to go to the city. They both cost €8,80 and take about forty minutes. Taxis to Munich cost €50 and can get stuck because of traffic congestion.

paragraphs: The cities near the airport are Erding and Freising. They can be reached by Bus (~3-4 €) or Taxi (~€18).

paragraphs: The Munich Airport center (MAC) is between the two terminals but it is not so far. It has many shops and restaurants.

paragraphs: There is a Hilton Hotel near the airport and a second hotel is planned.

paragraphs: Munich Airport has two terminals. Terminal 2 is newer and larger.

paragraphs: Terminal 1 is used by the non-Star Alliance airlines. The halls or areas are numbered A-F. It was opened on 17th May 1992 20 million passengers can use it every year. At the moment the terminal is being renovated, giving more room for shops and other things. The first halls have already been finished.

paragraphs: Hall F is a secure terminal used by Israeli airlines only.

paragraphs: Terminal 2 is used by all Star Alliance flights. It was opened on 29th June 2003 and nearly 20-25 million passengers can use it every year. Many passengers like the terminal because connections are easy and fast. The time needed for a connection inside the terminal is only 25 minutes, the airport and Lufthansa say.

paragraphs: The central area is a shopping-mall that is in between the two terminals; the older part which belongs to terminal 1 is an indoor area. The newer part which was built as the same time as the 2nd terminal is a big outside area.

paragraphs: The airport also has a cargo area. It is used by:


title: Helmut Schmidt

paragraphs: Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt (23 December 1918 – 10 November 2015) was a German politician. He was Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1974 to 1982.

paragraphs: Helmut Schmidt was born in Hamburg in 1918. He finished school in 1937 with the Abitur. Afterwards he had to join the working service and later the army. At the end of World War II, he was a First Lieutenant. He became a prisoner of war in 1945.

paragraphs: After he was set free, he started to study macro economy. He finished his studies in 1949. Then he started to work for the administration of Hamburg.

paragraphs: Schmidt joined into the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1949. In 1953, he became a member of the Bundestag first time. From 1961 to 1965, he was Senator in the state government of Hamburg.

paragraphs: From 1969 to 1972, he was Minister of Defence of West Germany. From 1972 to 1974 he was Minister of Finance.

paragraphs: After Willy Brandt gave up his job as "Bundeskanzler", Helmut Schmidt was elected as new chancellor.

paragraphs: In July 2013, it was discovered that Schmidt bought 38,000 cigarettes due to a fear of them being banned in Europe.

paragraphs: Schmidt died in Hamburg on 10 November 2015 from complications of surgery he had to cure a blood clot in his left left. He was 96 years old.


title: Glinde

paragraphs: Glinde is a town in the province of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, about 20 km away from Hamburg.

paragraphs: The name Glinde is found in a document from March 25 1229 for the first time. In the document, Earl Adolf IV. of Schauenburg and Holstein gave the village to a Cistercian convent. (The convent moved to today's town of Reinbek.) The King of Denmark and Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, Frederick I of Denmark, got all the convent had during the Protestant Reformation. In 1544 his son Christian III gave a part of it to each of his brothers. The owner changed again several times.

paragraphs: In 1948, the town administration of Glinde, Oststeinbek, Havighorst and Schönningstedt were brought together to the Amt Glinde. Schönningstedt left that combination in 1949 and Havighorst left it in 1973. So Glinde und Oststeinbek became independent villages.

paragraphs: On June 24, 1979, (on the 750th anniversary of the village), Glinde became a town.


title: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

paragraphs: Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov, was a Russian composer. He was one of the most famous composers of his time and influenced a lot of other composers. Like so many Russian composers in the 19th century, he was an amateur composer. His main job was in the navy.

paragraphs: Rimsky-Korsakov was born near Novgorod, 18 March 1844, and died in Lybensk, near St Petersburg, 21 June 1908. He is best known for his operas, orchestral music and songs. He was brilliant at writing music for orchestras and wrote an excellent book about orchestration. He loved to write music about fairy-tale stories and legends. His best-known work is "Scheherazade", an orchestral piece which describes in music the stories told by Scheherazade in the book of "One Thousand and One Nights". He also completed or re-orchestrated several works by Modest Mussorgsky which had been left unfinished.

paragraphs: Rimsky-Korsakov was born in 1844. Several people from his family had careers in the Russian army and navy. Both his grandmothers, however, were simple people who had lived in the country. When he was young he showed a great interest in music. He sang every tune he heard and knew, without looking, the names of the notes that he heard being played on the piano. When he was six he started piano lessons. The opera "Life for the Tsar" by Glinka made a big impression on him. However, he wanted to join the navy, so in 1862 he entered the College of Naval Cadets, where his brother (who was 22 years older) was the director.

paragraphs: He continued to learn the piano while he was at Cadet school. He was never a brilliant pianist, but he enjoyed playing tunes from operas on the piano. He got to know several young composers who were already becoming famous: Balakirev, Cui and Mussorgsky. Balakirev gave him advice about his compositions. He started to write a symphony, but then he had to go to sea for two-and-a-half years. He sailed on a clipper called "Almaz". The boat went to Gravesend, the Baltic Sea, New York, Rio de Janeiro and the Mediterranean When he got back, Balakirev made him finish the symphony.

paragraphs: Rimsky-Korsakov now worked about two or three hours a day for the navy. He spent the rest of the time composing or visiting friends. He met more composers, including Borodin and Dargomïzhsky, and he composed songs and piano music, although he was not good enough to play the piano to audiences. However, his friends realized that he was very good at writing for orchestras and he was asked to orchestrate several pieces. Dargomïzhsky, who was dying, had not yet orchestrated his opera "The Stone Guest", so he asked Rimsky-Korsakov to do it.

paragraphs: Although he had not had any formal musical education he was offered a job as professor of composition at the Petersburg Conservatory. In 1872 he married a girl called Nadezhda. She was a beautiful woman and an excellent pianist, and she helped him a lot, especially in making piano arrangements of his orchestral music.

paragraphs: He wrote three symphonies and an opera "The Maid of Pskov", but in 1897 he stopped composing for several years. He spent his time inspecting naval bands and studied in great detail how musical instruments worked. Then, in 1880 he produced a new opera "May Night". It was performed in the Mariinsky Theatre. One of the main parts was sung by Fyodor Stravinsky, who was the father of Igor Stravinsky. Rimsky-Korsakov had by now become really interested in Russian folktunes and fairy tales. His next opera was "Snow Maiden". Then his friend Mussorgsky died, leaving lots of compositions unfinished. Rimsky-Korsakov spent a lot of time preparing them for publication. He made changes to some of Mussorgsky’s harmonies so that it suited his Romantic tastes. Nowadays many people think that Mussorgsky’s versions are better and that Rimsky-Korsakov had not understood properly what Mussorgsky had been trying to do. He also completed and orchestrated Borodin’s opera "Prince Igor" after Borodin died. He composed two very popular orchestral works: "Spanish Capriccio" (1887) and "Sheherazade" (1888). After this he hardly ever wrote any music which was just for orchestra, he concentrated instead on writing operas, e.g. The Tsar's Bride (1899).

paragraphs: He became even more interested in opera after Karl Muck had conducted Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle four times in St Petersburg, but Wagner’s music did not influence his own style. However, he also had lots of worries, particularly about the health of some members of his family. He started to become depressed and worried about losing his ability to compose. He became more relaxed after he moved to a new home in the country. He composed the operas "Christmas Eve" and "Sadko". He wrote many beautiful songs and made changes to some of his earlier music. He also wrote an autobiography.

paragraphs: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov died of heart trouble in 1908.

paragraphs: Rimsky-Korsakov is best known in the west for a few orchestral works, especially: "Scheherazade", "Spanish Capriccio" and "Easter Festival" overture. The way he arranges the music for the different instruments of the orchestra is brilliant (for example: in "Scheherazade" his use of the trombones for the evil Sultan, the violin for the beautiful Scheherazade, or the bassoon for the beggar. His operas are also full of wonderful effects and brilliant writing for the singers, but are often hard to translate well into other languages. One of his most famous piano works is "The Flight Of The Bumblebee".


title: Modest Mussorgsky

paragraphs: Modest Petrovitch Mussorgsky (born Karevo, Pskov district, 21 March 1839; died St Petersburg, 28 March 1881) was a Russian composer.

paragraphs: Mussorgsky is famous for his operas and songs. He discovered new ways of writing for the voice which were very tuneful but which also suited the Russian language. His most famous opera is "Boris Godunov". He wrote an overture called "Night on a Bare Mountain". Another very famous piece is called "Pictures at an Exhibition". He wrote it for the piano, but many years after his death another composer called Maurice Ravel orchestrated it and this is the version people usually hear today. Some of his works were re-orchestrated and "improved" by the composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. In recent years people have started to think that what Mussorgsky wrote originally was better.

paragraphs: Mussorgsky was born in Toropets, 250 miles south of Saint Petersburg. His family were very rich and owned a lot of land and servants (known as “serfs” in Russia). He probably got to know the serfs well. Later, in his operas, we can see that he had a lot of sympathy for the ordinary, poor people. When Mussorgsky was six he started to have piano lessons from his mother. He learned very quickly, and when he was nine he performed a concerto by John Field and works by Franz Liszt for the family. When he was 10 he and his brother went to a private school: St Peter’s School. When he was 12 he composed a polka. His father paid for it to be published.

paragraphs: When he was 13 he was sent to the Cadet School of the Guards. His parents wanted him to be in military service, like his ancestors had been. It was a hard life at the school. There was a lot of bullying. He learned to drink alcohol and this eventually led to his alcoholism which was to kill him. He played the piano for the cadets to dance to. He was interested in history and German philosophy.

paragraphs: In October 1856, when he was 17 years old, he met the 22-year-old Alexander Borodin. They were both working in a military hospital in Saint Petersburg. The two men were soon good friends. He also met Alexander Dargomyzhsky who was then the most important Russian composer after Mikhail Glinka. Dargomyzhsky liked Mussorgsky's piano playing, and Mussorgsky often went to musical parties at Dargomyzhsky’s home. Here he met many other important Russian musicians: the critic Vladimir Stasov and the composers César Cui and Mily Balakirev. He had a very special relationship with Balakirev who was like a teacher to him and gave him a lot of advice and encouragement, introducing him to a lot of music he did not yet know. In 1858 Mussorgsky decided to give up his job and spend all his time on music.

paragraphs: The following years were difficult for Mussorgsky. He had a lot of depression. He composed some piano pieces and some songs. It was also a difficult time for his family who lost a lot of their wealth in 1861 when the new tsar of Russia ordered that the serfs could be free. Mussorgsky became a member of a group of five composers who became known as the Mighty Handful. The other four were Balakirev, Borodin, Cui and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The five were not together for very long. The others became too busy with careers outside music, or their musical tastes became very different from Mussorgsky’s. In 1863 he started to compose an opera "Salammbô" but he never finished it.

paragraphs: Mussorgsky was very upset when his mother died in 1865. He started to drink heavily.

paragraphs: In 1867 he finished the original orchestral version of his "Night on Bald Mountain". Balakirev did not like it and refused to conduct it, so it was never performed during Mussorgsky’s lifetime.

paragraphs: Mussorgsky continued his career as a civil servant, but often he was not paid. He was very impressed by Dargomïzhsky’s new opera "The Stone Guest" and composed eleven scenes for an opera called "The Marriage". This, too, remained unfinished. However, he learned a lot from working at these unfinished works, and developed his own style which was to be used in his greatest work: "Boris Godunov". He learned a way of setting words to music that would keep the words flowing in a natural way which heightened their meaning. It was very different from the old-style operas where music was divided sharply into arias and recitatives with a few choruses.

paragraphs: When he was 29 he was encouraged to write an opera on the historical story of Boris Godunov. He based his opera on a play by Alexander Pushkin, but he also read history books by Nikolay Karamzin. He worked at the opera for a year while living with friends and working for the Forestry Department. In 1871 he had finished it, but it was not allowed to be performed in the theatre because it did not have an important part for a female. Mussorgsky changed the opera, adding a whole new act with a love scene with a Polish princess. He made other changes as well. The new version was accepted. The first performance of the complete opera took place in February 1874. Mussorgsky was then at the height of his fame.

paragraphs: After this Mussorgsky’s life became gradually worse. He was depressed, and had fits of madness. He was drinking heavily. He still managed to compose. He wrote a song cycle

paragraphs: "Sunless", a piano suite "Pictures at an Exhibition" and started two operas: "Khovanschina" and "The Fair at Sorochyntsi". A lot of his friends were drinking, and many of them died. He was lucky to keep his job: his boss was very keen on music and allowed him a lot of time off work. However, in 1880 he eventually lost his job. He was very poor. A group of friends got together to give him money so that he could finish the two operas he was composing. He almost managed to finish "Khovanschina" but "The Fair at Sorochyntsi" remained unfinished. He became ill. The famous painter Repin made a painting of the composer, showing him with a red nose and glazed eyes. He died a week after his 42nd birthday.

paragraphs: Mussorgsky's music uses Russian musical themes. His music influenced later composers such as Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev. His greatest work was the opera "Boris Godunov" which was about an historical character who illegally made himself tsar of Russia, but dies when he feels guilty about the murder he had committed.

paragraphs: "Khovanshchina" was left unfinished and was completed by Rimsky-Korsakov. It was first performed in 1886 in Saint Petersburg. This opera, too, was revised by Shostakovich. "The Fair at Sorochyntsi" remained unfinished. It includes a dance, a Gopak, which is very well-known.

paragraphs: Perhaps his best-known work is "Pictures at an Exhibition". It was written for piano, but later the French composer Maurice Ravel arranged it for orchestra, and this version is very often performed today at concerts. A short orchestral piece "Night on Bald Mountain" is also very often performed.

paragraphs: Mussorgsky wrote a number of songs including three short song cycles: "The Nursery" (1872), "Sunless" (1874) and "Songs and Dances of Death" (1877). One very well-known song is "Mephistopheles' Song of the Flea".


title: Provost

paragraphs: In the United States, the Provost is the chief academic officer of a college or university. Different schools have different rules for what the Provost does, but most Provosts deal with issues about hiring and dismissing professors and giving out tenure, handling complaints about academic programs, and deciding what the general academic policies are for the school. In other countries, the Provost is sometimes the leader of the whole college or university.


title: Robert Kocharian

paragraphs: Robert Kocharian is the president of Armenia. He is the second president Armenia has had since it left the Soviet Union. On August 31 1954 Robert Kocharian was born in Nagorno-Karabakh, in the city of Stepanakert. As president of Armenia, Kocharian has been talking to the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, about what to do with the land of Nagorno-Karabakh, which the two countries had a war over.


title: Armenians

paragraphs: The Armenians are an ethnic group from the Caucasus. Their country is Armenia. The Armenian culture is very old. Armenia was the first country to be Christian, when the Armenian king Tiridates III changed his religion by St. Gregory the Illuminator. Because of this, many Armenians are Christians.

paragraphs: In the Assyrian period, the Armenian people of Nairi formed the kingdom of Ararat (well known in Assyrian as Urartu). One of the earliest record of Armenians is from a text which says "Armani", Արման (most common Armenian name Arman, the older variant of Armen, Արմեն) together with Ibla, as land conquered by Naram-Sin (2300 BC) identified with an Akkadian colony in the Diarbekr region. To this day the Assyrians speak about Armenians by saying "Armani". Another record is by Thutmose III of Egypt, says the people of "Ermenen" in 1446 BC, and says in their land "heaven rests upon its four pillars". (Thutmose was the first Pharaoh to cross the Euphrates to reach the Armenian Highlands). To this day Kurds and Turks refer to Armenians by "Ermeni".

paragraphs: Historically, the name "Armenian" has come to internationally designate this group of people from the most common Armenian names: Arman, Արման (Armenians use Arman, the older variant of Armen, Արմեն), Armen, and Armin'e (female name). Armenians call themselves "Hay" (Հայ, pronounced "Hye"; plural: Հայեր, "Hayer"). The word has traditionally been linked to the name of the legendary founder of the Armenian nation, Haik, which is also a popular Armenian name.

paragraphs: Some scholars believe, for example, that the earliest mention of the Armenians is in the Akkadian inscriptions dating to the 28th-27th centuries BC, in which the Armenians are referred to as the sons of Haya, after the regional god of the Armenian Highlands.


title: Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore)

paragraphs: The Mass Rapid Transit or MRT (Chinese: 大众快速交通 or more commonly known as 地铁; Malay: "Sistem Pengangkutan Gerak Cepat"; Tamil: சிங்கை துரிதக் கடவு ரயில்) is a rapid transit system in Singapore.

paragraphs: It is a rapid transit system which links the different places of Singapore together using a network, or different connections of trains. When a person travels from one place to another, he or she boards a train in a train station and then the train moves until the train reaches the place he or she wants to come out, or alight from. Sometimes he or she has to change trains.

paragraphs: About 3.3 million passengers use the MRT everyday. The system is 199.6 km long and has 119 stations. Trains run from 5:30 am to 1:00 am every day except for the festive periods, such as Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve and Chinese New Year's Eve. A train comes every 2–3 minutes in peak hours, every 7 minutes during off-peak hours and 5–6 minutes for the weekend service. It is operated by Singapore's SMRT Corporation and SBS Transit.

paragraphs: There are currently 5 lines in the MRT system, where they are connected by special stops called interchanges. The lines are North South Line, East West Line, North East Line, Circle Line and Downtown Line. The Circle Line opened in four stages from 28 May 2009 to 14 January 2012. Stage 1 of Downtown Line opened on 22 December 2013 with its official opening made on 21 December 2013 by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

paragraphs: On 16 December 2011, the MRT network suffered what is likely to be the worst breakdown in its 24-year operating history. 'A power rail problem' made North-South Line trains suddenly lose power and stopped in darkness and without air conditioning for up to an hour accompanied only by light from mobile phones.

paragraphs: The MRT system only had two lines, the North South and East West Lines, for more than ten years until the opening of the North East Line in 2003. While plans for these lines, as well as those being built, were made long before, the Land Transport Authority's (LTA) proposal named ""A World Class Land Transport System"" in 1996 showed that the government wanted to greatly expand on the existing system. The plans allow for the long-term replacement of the bus network by rail-based transportation as the main way of public transportation. It called for the expansion of the 67 kilometres of track in 1995 to over 360 in the year 2030. It was expected that daily ridership in 2030 would have grown to 6.0 million from the current 1.4 million passengers.

paragraphs: On 1 August 2014, the Land Transport Authority said that Canberra MRT station will be built. The station will let people in the area take 10 minutes less to travel to the city centre or Jurong East. The station will open on 2 November 2019.

paragraphs: The 43-kilometre Thomson-East Coast Line is planned to be completed by 2024 and consists of 32 stations. It will connect to the North South Line at Woodlands station, Orchard and Marina Bay, to the Circle Line at Thomson, Caldecott and Marina Bay, to the Downtown Line at Stevens and Sungei Bedok, and to the East West and North East lines at Outram Park. The first part, or stage, will open by the end of 2019.

paragraphs: The Thomson-East Coast Line was a result of a joining of two separate lines, the Thomson Line and the Eastern Region Line, which was announced on 15 August 2014. The Thomson Line consisted of the part from Woodlands North to Marina Bay, while the Eastern Region Line consisted of the rest of the joined line.

paragraphs: A new extension to the line was announced on 25 May 2019. The new extension will connect the line to Singapore Changi Airport, allowing people arriving from the airport to go to the city without changing to another train. The tracks of the East West MRT line that currently go to the airport will also be used by this extension, which means that trains on the line will go all the way to Tanah Merah station, and there will be no more East West line trains using these tracks. This extension will open by 2040.

paragraphs: To be opened by 2023, the 2-kilometre extension will run from Punggol through Punggol North including the new Punggol Downtown. The extension is for future residents in Punggol North to have train access to the city centre as well as other parts of Singapore.

paragraphs: The Downtown Line was built in three stages, with the first opening in 2013, the second in 2015, and the third in 2017. An extension to the third stage, known as Stage 3e, will open in 2024, being 2.2 kilometres long and with two more stations. On 7 March 2015, Senior Minister of Stage for Transport Janil Puthucheary said that there will be a new station called Hume, to be built between the already open stations of Hillview and Beauty World. This station will open in 2025. When Hume opens, the line will be 42 kilometres long and have 37 stations.

paragraphs: On 25 May 2019, the Land Transport Authority announced another extension to the second stage of the line to a new station, Sungei Kadut MRT station. This extension will open in the mid-2030s.

paragraphs: To be opened by 2025, the 4-kilometre extension will run from Marina Bay through Keppel, ending at HarbourFront, making the Circle Line a full continuous circle.

paragraphs: First proposed as a LRT line when originally announced in 2001, the Jurong Region Line is now going to be a medium capacity line. The new plan will serve West Coast, Tengah and Choa Chu Kang and Jurong. The line will open in stages from 2026.

paragraphs: The 50-kilometre Cross Island Line will go across the island of Singapore, passing through Tuas, Jurong, Sin Ming, Ang Mo Kio, Hougang, Punggol, Pasir Ris and Changi. The addition of the new line brings commuters with another way for east–west travel to the current East West Line. It will also connect to all the other major lines to serve as a key transfer line, adding to the role currently fulfilled by the orbital Circle Line. The first stage will open by 2029, and other stages are expected to open by 2031.

paragraphs: On 25 May 2019, the LTA announced two new stations to be built on the North South line. Brickland station will be built between Bukit Gombak and Choa Chu Kang, while Sungei Kadut will be built between Yew Tee and Kranji. Both stations will open in the mid-2030s.

paragraphs: In the LTA's Land Transport Master Plan (LTMP) 2040, there will be studies to see if a new line can be built, between Woodlands, and Greater Southern Waterfront areas. If the line is built, it will be about 30 kilometres long, and will be completed as early as 2040. The line could serve around 400,000 houses, and lower the time needed for travel to the city by up to 40 minutes.

paragraphs: Every station has ticket machines, restrooms (toilets), a passenger service center, which controls what is happening in the train station and has wired radio with the train operator, payphones (public phones) and access for disabled. Some of them have automated teller machines, kiosks and a bus interchange nearby.

paragraphs: All stations in Singapore are either elevated or underground, with the exception of Bishan. Underground stations and trains are air-conditioned and have full-height platform screen doors. Elevated stations have half-height platform screen doors.

paragraphs: A total of 11 types of rolling stock are used on the MRT lines. Almost all of them are powered by 750 voltage current from a third rail, except those on the North East MRT Line, which uses 1500 voltage current from overhead wires.

paragraphs: For the East West and North South Lines, six types of rolling stock are used. The oldest is the C151, built in 1986-89 by a collaboration between Kawasaki Heavy Industries and three sub-companies, Kinki Sharyo, Nippon Sharyo and Tokyu Car Corp. 66 trainsets are in operation, which were upgraded between 2006 and 2008. 19 more C651s were purchased in 1994 from Siemens AG, followed by 21 more C751B sets, built in 1999-2000 by Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Nippon Sharyo. Two companies, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and CSR Sifang, have collaborated to build 3 types of rolling stock. The fourth rolling stock in operation is the C151A. They were built between 2010 and 2014, and started operations in 2011. The next rolling stock that started operations is the C151B, which began operations on 16 April 2017. The newest rolling stock, being built between 2017 and 2018, is the C151C, and it began operations on 30 September 2018.

paragraphs: On the North East Line, 25 six-car trainsets of the C751A were built from 1999 to 2002 by Alstom. A further 18 trainsets, the C751C, were built by Alstom and Shanghai Electric and entered operation on 1 October 2015.

paragraphs: For the fourth MRT line, the Circle Line, 40 three-car trainsets of C830s were built from 2005 to 2008 and began operations in 2009. Together with the C751Cs, the same companies made 24 C830C trainsets which began operations on 26 June 2015.

paragraphs: For the fifth MRT line, the Downtown Line, 73 three car C951s were built by Bombardier Transportation and began operations in 2013. An additional 15 trains and a final 4 trains were ordered, bringing the total number of C951s to 92 trainsets.

paragraphs: For the future Thomson-East Coast Line which is being built, 91 four-car trainsets of CT251 rolling stock are being built and will be delivered between 2018 and 2021, and will begin operations from 2019.

paragraphs: Stations are divided into two areas, "paid" and "unpaid", which allow the rail operators to collect fares by controlling entry only through the fare gates, also known as "access control gates". These gates, connected to a computer system, are able to read and change electronic tickets that can store data, and can store information such as the initial and destination stations and the duration for each trip. General Ticketing Machines sell tickets for single trips or allow the customer to purchase more value for stored-value tickets. Standard tickets can be used up to 6 times within 30 days from the day of purchase. The machines also allow the customer to buy more credit for stored-value tickets. Such tickets require a minimum amount of stored credit.

paragraphs: As the fare system has been connected together by TransitLink, commuters need to pay only one fare and pass through two fare gates (once on entry, once on exit) for an entire journey, even when transferring between lines operated by different companies. Commuters can choose to extend a trip mid-journey, and pay the difference as they exit their destination station.

paragraphs: The ticketing system uses the EZ-Link and NETS FlashPay contactless smart cards based upon the System for e-Payments (SeP) system for public transit built on the Singapore Standard for Contactless ePurse Application (CEPAS) system. This system allows for up to 4 card issuers in the market. The EZ-Link card was introduced on 13 April 2002 as a replacement to the original TransitLink farecard while its competitor the NETS FlashPay card entered the smart card market on 9 October 2009. The adult EZ-link card is at S$15 while the NETS FlashPay card is at S$13.

paragraphs: Assurance has been given by both operators and authorities, that many actions have been taken in an effort to ensure the safety of passengers, with SBS Transit having to make greater efforts in actively publicising its safety considerations on the driverless North East Line before and after its opening. Safety campaign posters are highly visible in trains and stations, and the operators frequently play safety announcements to passengers and to commuters waiting for trains. Fire safety standards are about the same as the strict guidelines of the US National Fire Protection Association. Platform screen doors are installed at all underground stations, with half-height platform screen doors installed at all above-ground stations. These doors prevent suicides and disallowed access to restricted areas, as well as keeping normal temperatures in stations. Bylaws reduce uncivil, disruptive and dangerous acts, such as smoking, the consumption of food and drink, using safety features in an evil way, and unlawfully going onto the railway tracks. Penalties ranging from fines to jail are given for these offences.

paragraphs: Safety concerns were raised among the public after several accidents on the system during the 1980s and 1990s, but most problems have been fixed. On 5 August 1993, two trains collided at Clementi MRT Station because of an oil spillage on the track, which resulted in 132 injuries. There were calls for platform screen doors to be installed at above-ground stations after several incidents in which passengers were killed by oncoming trains when they fell onto the railway tracks at above-ground stations. The people in charge initially rejected such proposals as they felt that the functional purposes were not worth the high cost of installation, but changed their minds when the government announced plans to install half-height automatic platform gates in a speech on 25 January 2008, reasoning that worldwide installations of these gates reduced the market price for them.

paragraphs: Security concerns related to crime and terrorism were not the biggest priority of the system's planners at its original creation. However, after the Madrid train bombings in 2004 and the failed plan to bomb the Yishun MRT Station, the operators deployed private, unarmed guards to patrol station platforms and check the belongings of commuters.

paragraphs: Recorded announcements are frequently made to remind passengers to report suspicious activity and not to leave their belongings unattended. Digital closed-circuit cameras (CCTVs) have been upgraded with recording software at all stations and trains operated by SMRT Corporation. Trash bins and mail boxes have been removed from station platforms and concourse levels to station entrances, to remove the risk that bombs will be placed in them. Photography without prior allowance was also banned in all MRT stations since.

paragraphs: On 14 April 2005, the Singapore Police Force announced plans to improve rail security by creating a specialised Police MRT Unit, now known as Public Transport Security Command (Transcom). These armed officers began patrols on the MRT and LRT systems on 15 August 2005, conducting random patrols in pairs in and around rail stations and within trains. They are trained and allowed to use their firearms if they need to, including killing if necessary.


title: Hampshire College

paragraphs: Hampshire College is a private college in Amherst, Massachusetts. The current president of the college is Ralph Hexter. The motto of the college is "Non Satis Scire", which is Latin for "to know is not enough".

paragraphs: Hampshire was created in 1965 by four other colleges as an experiment in higher education. The campus opened and the first class of students arrived in 1970. The Presidents of Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and the University of Massachusetts got together in the 1950s and early 1960s and realized that there were things their own schools did not do very well. They also thought that the world was changing a lot and needed a college where students would have a lot of responsibility for their own education to be successful in the future.

paragraphs: Franklin Patterson and Charles Longsworth were chosen by these schools and wrote a book called "The Making of a College" that said how Hampshire was to be run and what kind of programs it would offer. Today, this book is considered an inspirational document by Hampshire students and faculty who try to live up to its ideals.

paragraphs: Hampshire College describes itself as an experimenting college because it is always changing and improving how it does things, rather than doing the same thing as other colleges. Students usually do individual projects in order to move towards graduation. There is some required coursework, but it is not the main point of the school. Students also do not receive grades for completing their work. Instead, they get something called a "narrative evaluation", which is a long written explanation of what they did right and what they did wrong. There are also no specific required classes for graduation, but students must take classes in different areas depending on where they are in their studies.

paragraphs: The program is divided into three "Divisions" rather than four years, and students complete each Division as they show that they are capable of harder work. Most students graduate in four years, but not everyone takes the same amount of time for each Division.

paragraphs: The Hampshire College faculty are not organized in traditional departments but in loosely collected Schools. The Schools' names and subjects have changed over the years, but there have always been between three and five of them. Since 2005, the Schools are:


title: Heather McCartney

paragraphs: Heather McCartney (born Heather See on December 31, 1962 in Tucson, Arizona) is the daughter of Linda McCartney, and the adopted daughter of former Beatle Paul McCartney.

paragraphs: When Linda, a magazine photographer, visited England on an assignment, she brought along daughter Heather, who soon had babysitters like guitarist Eric Clapton. When Linda began a relationship with McCartney, Heather's presence was a plus, as McCartney loved children and was eager to start a family.

paragraphs: Six-year-old Heather makes a brief appearance in the movie "Let it Be", visiting McCartney in the studio while the Beatles were at work. She dances around as they play, jumps out at Ringo Starr from behind a cymbal (Starr, a father himself, pretended to be scared), and sits on McCartney's lap, while he checks a microphone.

paragraphs: Heather gained a half-sister the next year, as mother Linda became pregnant with McCartney's baby, and the two were married. McCartney adopted Heather, who took his name, and Mary McCartney (named for Paul's own mother) was born early in 1970. Another sister, Stella, became the fashion designer Stella McCartney. A brother, James Louis McCartney, became a musician.


title: Jan Kerouac

paragraphs: Jan-Michelle Kerouac (born February 16, 1952 - died June 7, 1996) was the daughter of writer Jack Kerouac, by his second wife Joan Haverty. A writer herself, Jan's books included "Baby Driver" and "Trainsong". She also appeared in some documentary programs about her father, giving her side of his life story.

paragraphs: On June 5, 1996, Kerouac died in Albuquerque, New Mexico a day after her spleen was removed. She had suffered kidney failure five years earlier and was on dialysis. She is buried in Nashua, New Hampshire, next to her father's parents.


title: Survivor

paragraphs: A survivor is a person or animal which continues to live after something happens which might have killed them. They might be one person who lives when ten people die in a car crash.


title: Exclusive disjunction

paragraphs: Exclusive disjunction (also called exclusive or, XOR) is a logic operation on two values. It is often represented by the symbol formula_1 (or formula_2). It will be true, if exactly one of the two values is true. Otherwise, it will be false. This also means that the result of 'XOR' will be true precisely both the values are different. Same values will result in a false.

paragraphs: The best way to remember a XOR operation is: "One or the other, but not both".

paragraphs: Because of that, this is different from inclusive disjunction.

paragraphs: The truth table of formula_3 (also written as formula_4, formula_5, or formula_6) is as follows:


title: Forchheim

paragraphs: Forchheim is a German town in Upper Franconia. Next bigger cities are Nürnberg, Bamberg, Fürth, Erlangen and Coburg. There live is about 32.000 people.

paragraphs: It is 465 meters high and has an area of 44,46 km².


title: César Cui

paragraphs: César Cui (born Vilnius, 18 January 1835; died 26 March 1918) was a Russian composer. He is the least known of the five Russian composers who were nicknamed the “Moguchaya Kuchka” (“Mighty Handful”), a group which included Mily Balakirev, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Modest Mussorgsky and Alexander Borodin. Cui’s father came from France and his mother from Lithuania.

paragraphs: Like most Russian composers in the 19th century he was an amateur composer. His main job was as an expert on military fortifications. He became a professor in this subject and wrote important textbooks about military defences. He became a general.

paragraphs: Cui liked his friends from the Moguchaya Kuchka, but was often very critical of music by other Russian composers such as Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. This may have been because he was jealous of their success. He did not find orchestration easy and Balakirev helped him a lot with the orchestration of some of his compositions. He was best when writing songs and short piano pieces. He liked to write music that sounded Far Eastern in character. Cellists like to play a short piece he wrote called “Orientale”.


title: Alexander Borodin

paragraphs: Alexander Porfir'yevich Borodin (born St. Petersburg October 12th 1833; died St. Petersburg February 27 1887) was a Russian composer. Like many Russian composers of the 19th century he was an amateur musician. His main job was Professor of Chemistry at the University of St Petersburg. He had to compose in his spare time. When he was ill he had more leisure to write music. He used to tell his friends: “Please do not say: ‘I hope you are well’, please say: ‘I hope you are ill’”. Borodin’s most famous opera is called "Prince Igor". He wrote many fine songs, chamber music and orchestral music, including two symphonies. The Nocturne from his String quartet no 2 is especially well-known.

paragraphs: In his music, Borodin showed Russian power and the heoric characters. His main means of expression was melody.

paragraphs: When he was young he learned French, Swedish and English, but later Italian.


title: Permit

paragraphs: A permit is a written document that has been given by a government source. Permits let a person do something that he could not do without the permit. Permits are commonly gotten for these reasons:


title: Corrosion

paragraphs: Corrosion is the breakdown of materials due to chemical reactions. It is usually oxidation with air molecules and often in the presence of water. Corrosion also occurs when an acidic or basic material touches another material. When a material corrodes, its physical properties change. Problems with corrosion are mostly with metal, though other materials can corrode. Corrosion is a form of erosion. Some materials, such as stainless steel, are highly resistant to corrosion.

paragraphs: One form of high temperature corrosion can lead to the formation of compacted oxide layer glazes, which under certain circumstances reduces wear.


title: Rust

paragraphs: Rust is a type of corrosion. It happens to iron and its alloys when it is exposed to air or water for a long time. Rust slowly decomposes iron into other chemicals, because of a reaction with the oxygen molecules. Both air and water are needed for rust. Almost all metals corrode but they can be protected by covering with paint, a coating of oil or grease or even plastic. Sacrificial protection or industrial galvanizing can also work. Alloys (mixes of metals) such as stainless steel, rust more slowly than pure iron. When iron rusts, it becomes red or brown, and the metal eventually decays.

paragraphs: Rust appears on metal if it is left outside in the damp air. For example, rust occurs mostly in cracks of alloys or metals. Rain water can enter the cracks and stay in the cracks, and cause the metal to corrode. Eventually it becomes rust. Iron is not strong after it rusts.

paragraphs: Some metals, such as aluminium, titanium, and stainless steel form a very thin coating of tough corrosion on the metal. The metal cannot continue corroding because the coating isolates the rest of the metal from the source of oxygen. This is why aluminium keeps its shine. It also makes aluminium seem very unreactive, even though it can react with water. Rusting iron makes iron oxides that are not tough, so air and water continue to get in and the iron continues to rust.

paragraphs: Some types of basidiomycete fungi can be mistaken for rust because they are similar to rust in color and texture and sometimes are on metals.


title: Jamestown, Virginia

paragraphs: Jamestown is a town in the United States. It was founded on May 13, 1607, by about 100 men and boys and women who came to Virginia from London, England. They named the town Jamestown after King James. These men hoped to find gold and silver in order to become rich. Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in what would become the United States. The town was built on Jamestown Island along the James River. This location was selected because the local Native American tribes did not live on the island. Built on a peninsula it was a good place to defend themselves from other European colonists.

paragraphs: Before Jamestown, fourteen colonies had been attempted in North America by Spain, France and England. Out of these, only two Spanish colonies survived making Jamestown the third European colony that succeeded for any period of time. The first colony attempted by Spain was in 1526 at San Miguel de Gualdape. Very little was known of it, including that its location was somewhere on the coast of present-day Georgia or South Carolina.

paragraphs: In 1562, Jean Ribaut established a colony of French Huguenots called Charlesfort on Parris Island, South Carolina. He left about 27 men there while he returned to France. Meanwhile, the men of the colony revolted against their commander. They built a boat and attempted to return to France.

paragraphs: The English attempted to establish Roanoke Colony in 1587. But this was a failure. James I of England issued a charter in 1606 to set up a settlement in North America. At the time the English called the entire coast (above Florida) Virginia after Elizabeth I of England, the "virgin queen". One of the purposes of the new colony were to find a river route to the Pacific Ocean to establish trade with the Orient.

paragraphs: Three ships, the "Susan Constant", the "Godspeed" and the "Discovery" set sail from London on December 20, 1606 bound for Virginia. there were 106 settlers (4 were boys) and 39 crew members. However, it is not known how many may have died during the Voyage. They arrived on April 26, 1607.

paragraphs: The first day, between 20 and 30 men explored the site but then they came under attack by Indians at dusk. The people of Jamestown found there were many problems to their colony. The water was bad for drinking. Many insects lived around the swampy land. The insects gave the people who lived there diseases. The leader, Captain John Smith, made the rules for the men. One of the rules was, "You don't work, you don´t eat." The settlers traded with the Powhatan Indians. They gave the Powhatans tools, pots, and knives, in return for corn and vegetables.

paragraphs: Two thirds died before another ship arrived from England in 1608 with more food and more settlers. During the harsh winter of 1609, most of the settlers starved to death and the survivors resorted to cannibalism.


title: Suhl

paragraphs: Suhl is a town in Thuringia, Germany. Its population in 2003 was 43,610.

paragraphs: According to a local joke, "Suhl is so close to the edge of the world you can see Zella-Mehlis".


title: Eisenach

paragraphs: Eisenach is a German city in the west of Thuringia. Next bigger Cities are Erfurt and Kassel. Its population is about 43,000.


title: GameFAQs

paragraphs: GameFAQs is a website with help and information for video games. It was started in November 1995 by Jeff "CJayC" Veasey. It has an active message board community.


title: Thomas Mann

paragraphs: Paul Thomas Mann (born 6 June 1875 in Lübeck; died 12 August 1955 in Zürich) was a German author.

paragraphs: Mann was born in 1875 in Lübeck as son of a salesman and senator of the city of Lübeck, into a rich and conservative family. In 1891 his father died. In 1894 Mann left school. He went to Munich, were his mother and his brothers and sister had been since 1893. He worked as an insurance salesman and wrote poems and prose by the way.

paragraphs: In 1898 he published his first works and began Die Buddenbrooks influenced by work of Arthur Schopenhauer, published in 1901. In 1906 he married, although he was not clear about his sexual orientation. In the World War I, Mann agreed with the war, but not enthusiastically. In the time of the Weimar Republic he defended democratic ideas.

paragraphs: In 1929 he won the Nobel Prize for literature. In 1933 the Nazis burned books of his brother Heinrich Mann. Because of this both Thomas and Heinrich and their family moved to the United States in 1934. He lost his German citizenship, but got Czechoslovakian citizenship in the United States. In 1944 he became a US citizen.

paragraphs: He worked for the Allies in the radio during the World War II. In 1952 he had to give a talk to the Committee on Un-American Activities. He was very disappointed in the United States and returned to Europe, to Switzerland, in 1953. In the 1950s he visited Germany sometimes. He died of atherosclerosis in Zürich, Switzerland.


title: Werner Heisenberg

paragraphs: Werner Karl Heisenberg (5 December 1901 1 February 1976) was a German physicist. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in quantum mechanics. He discovered the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which shows there is a limit on how well some things can be measured.

paragraphs: Heisenberg was born in Wuerzburg, Germany, the son of a professor of Byzantine history. He went to university to study physics in Munich. Arnold Sommerfeld was one of his teachers.

paragraphs: Heisenberg was a very good student and needed only three years to finish his studies. He then wrote a doctoral thesis about movements in the flows of liquids ("Über Stabilität und Turbulenz von Flüssigkeitsströmen"—"On the stability and turbulence of liquid streams"). In 1924 he became assistant to Max Born at the University of Göttingen and in 1926 worked with Niels Bohr at the University of Copenhagen.

paragraphs: Together with Born and Pascal Jordan he founded Quantum mechanics. At the age of 26 Heisenberg became professor of theoretical physics at the University of Leipzig. This was a very young age for such a job.

paragraphs: He was awarded the Nobel Prize when he was 31 years old.

paragraphs: In 1937 he married Elisabeth Schumacher. They had seven children, one of their sons is well known as a neurobiologist and geneticist, Martin Heisenberg.

paragraphs: During the Second World War, from 1942 to 1945 Werner Heisenberg was head of German atomic research work. This did not result in any working nuclear weapons, possibly because Heisenberg did not want it to. This is not a sure thing. Some people have said that Heisenberg was very much against the Nazis. Some people have said that he must have been for them, because he worked for them.

paragraphs: After the war, he was held as a prisoner at Farm Hall in England from May 1945 to January, 1946, where the British and Americans had many other German scientists.

paragraphs: Later he worked in nuclear research, mainly in West Germany, but he was against nuclear weapons.

paragraphs: He died in Munich Germany, in 1976 at the age of 74.


title: Islamophobia

paragraphs: Islamophobia is a political term and a slur used against people critical of Islam. It literally means the fear of Muslims. It is sometimes used to describe a hatred of the religion and its followers. "Islamophobia" can supposedly take the form of criticisms against certain ideological positions taken by believers but almost always state the religion itself as the actual problem.

paragraphs: In 1996, the Runnymede Trust researched public opinions about Islam. The research showed people have different opinions about Islam. The most negative opinions that some people have about Islam are:

paragraphs: A study found that Muslim women experienced Islamophobic attacks more often than Muslim men, but almost all are committed by Muslim men.

paragraphs: In France it is illegal for Muslim women to wear veils (burkas and niqabs) that cover their faces.


title: Ludwig Erhard

paragraphs: Ludwig Wilhelm Erhard (4 February 1897 in Fürth - 5 May 1977 in Bonn) was a German politician.

paragraphs: Erhard was born as the son of a salesman. After his middle school exam, he started training to become a salesman himself. He was wounded as soldier in World War I. After World War I, he started to study micro economy at a college in Nuremberg.

paragraphs: After that, he studied economy on the University of Frankfurt am Main. In 1925 he finished his doctoral thesis. Afterwards, he worked in his father's company. After the Great Depression, the company went bankrupt.

paragraphs: From 1928 to 1942, he worked as science assistant, but he could not get a promotion because he did not want to become a member of a Nazi organisation. From 1942 to 1945, he was the head of the institute for industrial research.

paragraphs: Until 1949, he worked for the CDU, but joined still in 1963.

paragraphs: From 1945 to 1946, he worked for the provisional government of Bavaria, afterwards he was an economic organisation official for the British-American administration in West Germany.

paragraphs: In 1949, he became Minister of Economics under Konrad Adenauer.

paragraphs: After Adenauer resigned in 1963, Erhard became the new chancellor.

paragraphs: In 1966, Kurt Georg Kiesinger succeeded him.


title: Kurt Georg Kiesinger

paragraphs: Kurt Georg Kiesinger (6 April 1904 in Ebingen, now Baden-Württemberg - 9 March 1988 in Tübingen-Bebenhausen) was a German politician.

paragraphs: Kiesinger was born in Southern Germany. He studied history and philosophy in Tübingen and later law in Berlin.

paragraphs: He joined the Nazi party in 1933, and worked in the government. After the war he was held in a prison camp in Ludwigshafen. He was released when notes on his personnel file showed that he had not helped the anti-Jewish actions in his department, and had tried to stop them.

paragraphs: In 1946, he started a political career in the CDU. From 1958 to 1966, he was Minister President of Baden-Württemberg, from 1967 to 1971 Chair of the CDU.

paragraphs: From 1966 to 1969, he was chancellor of West Germany.


title: Call of Duty 3

paragraphs: Call of Duty 3 is a first person shooter video game. It is available on many gaming systems such as the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and PC. It is a sequel to "Call of Duty 2", and is part of the Call of Duty series.

paragraphs: "Call of Duty 3" is set in France, during the time of World War II. The player is part of the allied forces placing charges, firing mortars, driving jeeps, and killing Nazis. The player moves by using the movement of his own hands. The game also features online play, which allows you to choose the side of allies or axis and play on a team against opposing players.

paragraphs: While the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 versions support online headset, the PlayStation 3 does not support headset due to the game being rushed to be ported at the time and is ironic because the PS2 was released before the PlayStation 3. The Wii version does not support online play.


title: Brian Johnson

paragraphs: Brian Johnson (born 5 October 1947 in Dunston, Gateshead, England) is an English singer and songwriter. He is best known as the singer for Australian hard rock band AC/DC.

paragraphs: Johnson's father, Allan, was in the British Army's light infantry. His mother, Esther, came from Italy. Johnson has two children from his first marriage. That marriage ended in divorce just before he joined AC/DC in 1980.

paragraphs: Johnson was in the Newcastle glam-rock band Geordie in 1972. The band split up in 1978 but Johnson put it back together in 1980. Just after a record contract had been signed, Johnson was asked to audition for AC/DC.

paragraphs: Johnson joined AC/DC in 1980, after the death of the band's former lead singer Bon Scott. He was the band's first choice. A fan in Cleveland, Ohio had sent a Geordie album to AC/DC after Bon Scott's death. The fan had asked them to consider Johnson. Years earlier, Bon Scott had also praised Johnson's singing and performance style.

paragraphs: Johnson co-wrote all of AC/DC's songs with the Young brothers for ten years.


title: Centipede

paragraphs: A centipede is a type of myriapod with many legs. Centipedes are predators. They hunt during the night; they are nocturnal. Some centipedes are venomous, but none can kill a person unless they are allergic. Centipedes are in the class Chilopoda, and related to millipedes, which are not poisonous. As the millipedes, they are segmented. They have between 5 and 173 segments, but only one pair of legs per segment. There may be 8,000 species in the world.

paragraphs: The house centipede is a carnivore that feeds on cockroaches, house flies and other domestic pests. It is therefore beneficial. But because it has a scary appearance it is often exterminated.


title: Pomerania

paragraphs: Pomerania ("Pommern" in German, "Pomorze" in Polish) is a region on the Baltic Sea. It is now part of two countries, Germany and Poland.

paragraphs: 20,000 years ago the territory of present-day Pomerania was covered with ice, which did not start to recede until the late period of the Old Stone Age or Paleolithic some 10,000 years BC, when the Scandinavian glacier receded to the north. Various archaeological cultures developed in the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age.

paragraphs: Since around 500BC and before 500 AD Pomerania was dominated by East Germanic tribes including several tribes of Goths, who according to archeological evidence and their own tradition have come from Scandinavia. Goths and Rugians are recorded by Roman historians in the areas of Pomerania in 98 AD. The Veneti, non-Germanic tribe, which later assimilated with Slavs, are recorded by Ptolemy and Pliny the Elder around Vistula in first century AD. By the 7th century Slavic tribes (Wends) such as the Pomeranians settled the area.

paragraphs: Pomerania was first conquered by the Polish duke Mieszko I in the second half of the 10th century. Pagan uprisings in 1005 and 1038 resulted in independancy for Western Pomerania and Pomerelia, respectively. Regained by Poland in 1116/1121, the Polish could not hold the Pomeranian duchy longer than 1135, whereas Pomerelia after the 1138 partition of Poland among the sons of Boleslaus Wrymouth became a part of the Polish seniorat, which was declared fief of the Holy Roman Empire in 1156.

paragraphs: The Western part, the Duchy of Pomerania, was declared part of the Holy Roman Empire (1181). After a brief period of Danish rule (1168/1186-1227), it remained part of Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation until 1806.

paragraphs: 1000 years of history of the areas between Elbe, the Oder and Vistula


title: Bronllys

paragraphs: Bronllys is a village in the Powys region of Wales. A Norman castle was built there in the 11th century.


title: Natural language processing

paragraphs: Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a field in Artificial Intelligence, and is also related to linguistics. On a high level, the goal of NLP is to program computers to automatically understand human languages, and also to automatically write/speak in human languages. We say "Natural Language" to mean human language, and to indicate that we are not talking about computer (programming) languages.


title: Würzburg

paragraphs: Würzburg is a city in the German state of Bavaria. It has about 124,000 inhabitants and a university.

paragraphs: Würzburg is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop.

paragraphs: In about 1000 BC there was a Celtic settlement in that place. In 698 AD Würzburg became Christianised. The first mention was in 704 AD. In 742 Würzburg became the seat of a bishop. From 1168 the bishops of Würzburg had the title Herzog (Duke), given by the emperor.

paragraphs: In 1402 Würzburg got a university. It later closed and then reopened in 1582. In 1631 Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden conquered Würzburg in the 30-year war. In 1803 the Duchy of Würzburg became part of Bavaria, in 1938 the city had more than 100,000 inhabitants for the first time. In 1945 the city was nearly completely destroyed.

paragraphs: Its football team is Würzburger Kickers.


title: Rear Window

paragraphs: Rear Window is a 1954 American mystery thriller movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The movie was based on a story, "It Had To Be Murder", by Cornell Woolrich and turned into a movie script by John Michael Hayes. The movie was nominated for four Academy Awards. It stars James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr.

paragraphs: The movie tells the story of a photographer (played by James Stewart) who has a broken leg. He spends his days sitting in his Greenwich Village apartment watching his neighbors through their windows. One day, after he thinks he sees a murder, his girlfriend (played by Grace Kelly) helps him to investigate.


title: Conscientious objector

paragraphs: A conscientious objector (CO) is a person who decides not to be a combatant in military forces.

paragraphs: There are many reasons for this decision such as nonviolent or religious beliefs, ethical and moral beliefs to not kill human beings or pacifism.

paragraphs: Countries treat COs in various ways. They have also been treated differently throughout history. COs have been arrested or had to pay a fine. Some countries punished them by killing them. After World War II, many Western countries created alternative non-military services (civil service) as alternative form for pacifists. Often there were commissions to decide if someone really did not want to do armed service because of his beliefs or because of fear of war.

paragraphs: European Court of Human Rights has judged the denial of COs is violation of freedom of religion and thought in 2013, as well European Union recognized the right of conscientious objector as one of fundamental rights.


title: Anus language

paragraphs: The Anus language is a tribal language spoken in the Irian Jaya province of Indonesia. It is an Austronesian language.

paragraphs: As of 2005, there are almost 70 speakers of the language all of whom are members of a tribal group living on an island in the Sarmi-Jayapura Bay in West Papua.


title: Rule of law

paragraphs: Rule of law is a that suggests that no one is above the law and governmental decisions must be made only by applying known legal and moral principles. The Rule of Law limits the powers of Government by judicial defense of laws and the Constitution which is based on recognized basic legal values, established in international law. The Rule of Law is meant to prevent dictatorship and to protect the rights of the people.

paragraphs: The Rule of Law is especially important as an influence on the economic development in developing and transitional countries. Constitutional economics is the study of government spending, which, in many transitional and developing countries, is completely controlled by the executive. The standards of constitutional economics can be used during annual budget process. The availability of an effective court system, to be used by the civil society in courts in situations of unfair governmental distribution of national money is a key element for the success of the rule-of-law in developing countries.

paragraphs: To date, the term “rule of law” has been used primarily in the English-speaking countries. The originally German doctrine of Rechtsstaat is similar, and has been translated into other languages of continental Europe as "État de droit" (Fr.), "Estado de derecho" (Sp.), "Stato di diritto" (It.), and "Правовое государство" (Ru.). Rechsstaat can be translated into English as “legal state” or "constitutional state".

paragraphs: Rule of law is also a main purpose of Council of Europe for solidarity and international peace.


title: Electorate

paragraphs: The Electorate are the people or citizens of a state who elect representatives to represent them in a democracy. They're also known as voters. Voters are people who normally votes in an election and they vote for their favorite person that if he/she wins, he/she will lead the people to a more favourable country Voting


title: Paramount Pictures

paragraphs: Paramount Pictures is a production and distribution company. It is the oldest movie studio in the United States. It has been in existence since 1912. Paramount is owned by media conglomerate ViacomCBS. Paramount is one of the Big Five movie studios

paragraphs: Paramount Pictures Inc. can trace its beginnings to the creation in May, 1912 of the Famous Players Film Company. Organized in 1914 by a Utah theater owner, W. W. Hodkinson, Paramount Pictures was the first successful nationwide distributor. Until this time, movies were sold on a statewide or regional basis. This was inefficient and costly to producers.

paragraphs: In 1916, Adolph Zukor created a three-way merger of his Famous Players Film Company, Jesse L. Lasky's Lasky Feature Play Company, and Paramount. The new company was called Famous Players-Lasky and grew quickly. Lasky ran the production side. Hiram Abrams was in charge of distribution and Zukor handled the business side of the company.

paragraphs: In 1927, Famous Players-Lasky took on the name Paramount-Famous Lasky Corporation. Three years later, because of the importance of the Publix theater chain, it was later known as Paramount-Publix Corporation. The company went into bankruptcy in 1933. When the company emerged from bankruptcy, it was known as Paramount Pictures, Inc.

paragraphs: Paramount Pictures had been an early supporter of television. It created stations in 1939 in Los Angeles (later to become KTLA) and Chicago's WBKB.

paragraphs: Paramount's successful run of lightweight pictures in the 1980s and 1990s created hits like "Flashdance", the "Friday the 13th" series; "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Beverly Hills Cop" and the "Star Trek" features.

paragraphs: In 1993, entertainment conglomerate Viacom made a bought Paramount.

paragraphs: Paramount is the last major movie studio located in Hollywood. Other studios such as Warner Brothers and Columbia moved to Burbank, California.

paragraphs: On December 11, 2005, Paramount said it had purchased DreamWorks SKG in a deal worth $1.6 billion. On February 1, 2006, the studio announced that the DreamWorks acquisition was completed.

paragraphs: In March 2010, Paramount started Insurge Pictures, a low-budget label.


title: Chord

paragraphs: A chord in music is when two or more notes are played together (some text books say that it is when "three" or more notes are played).

paragraphs: A chord which is built up of the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of a scale is called a "tonic triad". If it is made from a major scale, it is a major chord. If it is made from a minor scale it is a minor chord. However, any combination of notes played simultaneously is considered a chord.

paragraphs: When only two notes are played together, it’s more often called “double stops” (referring to the different banks of pipes on a pipe organ, controlled by valves called “stops”).

paragraphs: Chords can be played on instruments such as piano, keyboard, organ, harp, guitar, harmonica, ukulele and xylophone. Chords with two notes can be played on string instruments by bowing on two strings together. By bowing on two strings and then quickly on the other two strings a violinist can sound as if he is playing a four-part chord. Some players of wind instruments are able to make chords by playing two or more harmonics together.


title: Irish dance

paragraphs: Irish dancing is an "ancient" art of dancing from Ireland. There are two main forms of dancing, the social dances where everyone can join in, and the dances performed for an audience. There are five main types of steps in Irish dancing. These are reels, jigs, slip jigs, hornpipes, and treble jigs. Irish dancing is a fun art and sport. There are two versions of dances; hardshoe and softshoe.

paragraphs: Irish dancing, popularized in 1994 by the world famous show Riverdance, is notable for its rapid leg and foot movements, arms stationary at the dancers' sides.

paragraphs: The hardshoe makes a noise when you step and softshoe is like Ballet.


title: Grill (cooking)

paragraphs: A grill is a device used for cooking food. With a grill, food is usually roasted. Some grills use charcoal or wood, and other grills use propane gas to cook the food.

paragraphs: Using wood or charcoal makes smoke and changes the flavor of the food. Using gas does not. Some people only like one type, and some people like both kinds of grilling.

paragraphs: The heat may be applied underneath the food, or above, or both. A barbecue is a typical machine for outdoor cooking using coke or other fuel for providing heat from underneath. Overhead grilling is more usual indoors, especially in professional kitchens.

paragraphs: In the United States, there are cook-off grills, which are competitions. The most common meats used are steak, burgers and hot dogs. Grilling food is very common for holidays or celebrations like the 4th of July (United States Independence Day). Most people use a grill more outdoors in the summer time.


title: Order of operations

paragraphs: The order of operations is a mathematical and algebraic set of rules. It is used to evaluate (solve) and simplify expressions and equations. The order of operations is the order that different mathematical operations are done. The standard mathematical operations are addition (+), subtraction (−), multiplication (* or ×), division (/), brackets (grouping symbols used to indicate order of operations like (), [] and {}) and exponentiation (^n or , also called orders or indices).

paragraphs: Mathematicians have agreed on a correct order to use operations, and it is very important that they know these rules. When people are solving a problem with more than one operation, they will need to know the correct order to solve the problem correctly. Otherwise, the answer will be wrong.

paragraphs: Follow all the rules in this order from left to right in the equation.

paragraphs: Use operations inside brackets and solve any indices. You should always solve brackets first when solving an equation.

paragraphs: When seeing an exponent, solve it first after solving the brackets. (5 = 5 * 5 * 5 = 125)

paragraphs: Solve any multiplication and division in the problem. Note that multiplication does not precede division; this is a common mistake. Both are solved from left to right as they occur.

paragraphs: Lastly, solve any addition or subtraction.

paragraphs: The acronyms for the order of standard operations are GEMDAS or PEMDAS, which means Grouping/Parenthesis, Exponent, Multiply & Divide and Add & Subtract.

paragraphs: When solving 8 - 7 + 5, some people say that 7 + 5 must take precedence, but this is incorrect. Instead, one should look from left to right to find the correct answer. This rule also applies to multiplication and division.


title: Crystal

paragraphs: A crystal is a solid whose molecules (or atoms) are arranged in a repeating pattern.

paragraphs: Crystals are made from fluids by phase change. Usually the fluid is a liquid but snow is crystals precipitated from air. Crystallization can be by freezing from a simple fluid or from a solution. Sometimes heat and pressure needs to be applied to a substance for crystals to form. Diamond is a carbon crystal formed under heat and pressure. Crystals are found naturally or can be made artificially.

paragraphs: Different substances form different types of crystals. The study of the various kinds is crystallography. Well-known substances that form crystals are table salt (whose crystals are cubes), and quartz.


title: Indirect democracy

paragraphs: Indirect democracy, or representative democracy, is when citizens elect representatives to make laws for them. This is what most modern countries have today.

paragraphs: In many representative democracies (USA, Canada, India, etc.) representatives are chosen in elections. Elections may be won by plurality or majority or some other way. In theory other methods, such as allotment (selection by a lottery) could be used instead. Also, representatives sometimes hold the power to select other representatives, presidents, or other officers of government (indirect representation).

paragraphs: Direct democracy is where citizens themselves vote for or against specific proposals or laws. Some city states in Ancient Greece had this system. With the large populations in modern countries it is possible only occasionally to do this. It happens in a plebiscite or referendum.

paragraphs: In a democracy the ultimate power to decide significant electoral system reforms lies with the people. The key question that democrats will tend to ask of any proposed change in electoral law or the voting mechanism is: “Will it actually increase the capacity of the electorate to get rid of unsatisfactory rulers and replace them with others?” Democrats regard that basic capacity as the best protection against bad government and the abuse of power.

paragraphs: Systems of government which do not permit electors to change the government are not democratic, and usually are dictatorships or one-party states.


title: Direct democracy

paragraphs: In a direct democracy, which is also called pure democracy the decisions are not taken by representatives. All decisions are voted on by the people.

paragraphs: When a budget or law needs to be passed, then the idea goes to the people. Large governments rarely make decisions this way.

paragraphs: Interest groups would have to change the minds of all people, not just a few representatives. Taxes could not be raised without the permission of the people. The few would not rule the many and the government would not pay representatives salaries. In indirect, or representative democracy, citizens elect representatives to make laws on their behalf. This is what most modern countries have today.

paragraphs: Direct democracy makes decisions by majority rule. Representative democracy was made with the idea that representatives would be responsible for the majority's interests while protecting minority rights. People like James Madison believed that direct democracy was bad for minority groups.

paragraphs: Classical Athens was a direct democracy. All citizens voted on major decisions of government. Switzerland also has a long history of direct democracy. The Federal government of the United States does not use direct democracy but the individual states sometimes make laws by referendum. Some New England towns govern themselves by a town meeting.


title: Revolution

paragraphs: A revolution is a very sharp change made to something. The word comes from Latin, and is related to the word "revolutio" (which means "a turn around").

paragraphs: Revolutions are usually political in their nature. Some people feel unhappy with their lives, some are not happy with whole systems. They might join together, share their ideas, and make something change. Often, revolutions include fighting, and civil unrest. But there are also revolutions that happen without fighting.

paragraphs: The Soviet Union was made by the Russian Revolution that killed millions, and later fell apart in a counterrevolution without much fighting. But in the French Revolution (1789), there was much bloodshed. The years right after this Revolution in France are often called the Reign of Terror.

paragraphs: Other events often called "revolutions" include:

paragraphs: The opposing idea in politics is called 'gradualism'.


title: Western Digital

paragraphs: Western Digital is an American technology company. It is based in the U.S. state of California. They make hard drives. Hard drives are used by computers to store data.


title: Speech

paragraphs: Speech is when spoken language is used to communicate. Only humans have language. Animals do not have speech, but some can communicate with each other by using sounds and gestures.

paragraphs: Speech is made by sounds vibrating the vocal folds. Sounds through the voice box is shaped by the jaw, tongue, teeth, palate, lips, and nose.

paragraphs: To make speech a person has to be able to:

paragraphs: Difficulties can happen at any stage of this four-stage process. A speech and language therapist can help work out the stage of the sequence that has difficulties and give therapy.

paragraphs: Effective speech includes the following elements – fluency, flexibility, accuracy, and comprehensibility.


Stage


title: Stage (theatre)

paragraphs: The stage in a theatre is the area where the actors perform. In classical theatres, this used to be separated from where the audience is sitting.


title: Darth Vader

paragraphs: Darth Vader is a fictional character from the "Star Wars" universe. He appears for the first time in "". Vader is the main character of the Dark Side of the "Star Wars" series. He appears as a 2 meter-tall man dressed in black armor and a cape. His face is covered with a mask, which has a helmet on top to hide the terrible third degree burns and scars on his face. He has borderline personality disorder.

paragraphs: Born as Anakin Skywalker, a slave on the desert planet Tatooine who became a Jedi. As an adult, he secretly marries Padmé Amidala. However, he is converted by Darth Sidious in order to save his wife from her coming death during childbirth. In order to do that, he learns the ways of the Dark Side of the Force and gives himself a new identity, Darth Vader. By doing this, he turned against his long-time friend and master Obi-Wan Kenobi. He battled Kenobi on the volcanic planet of Mustafar, but not before choking his wife with his Force Choke due to rage and misunderstanding. The battle ended in Kenobi's victory. Also, Skywalker's left arm and both his legs were cut off and his entire body was burnt. He survived and was rescued by the newly elected Emperor of the Galactic Empire, Darth Sidious, and have his body remade with cybernetic parts and his famous black armor and helmet. Anakin lost the last of his spirit once he learned that his wife died at his own hand. Thus Anakin Skywalker's transformation as Darth Vader was complete, much to Sidious's delight.

paragraphs: During the course of the Galactic Civil War between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire, Vader played an important role as the Empire's enforcer and the Emperor's second-in-command, particularly the building of the two Death Stars, the Battle of Yavin, and the Battle of Endor. It was during that period he learnt that he had a son named Luke Skywalker by Boba Fett, and later a daughter named Leia Organa during his final duel with his son.

paragraphs: Darth Vader died in during the Battle of Endor. His breathing system had been damaged by the Emperor's Force Lightning in an effort to save his son by throwing him at a power reactor. Thus, he redeemed himself and brought back balance to the Force and ended the civil war. His body and armor were cremated by Luke in Endor. However, his grandson Kylo Ren somehow receives Vader's burnt helmet in later time.

paragraphs: Darth Vader is one of Star Wars' most iconic characters and regarded as the world's most well-known fictional villain. Highly ranked in popularity poll, Darth Vader is the image of evil, hatred who kills every one and thing he hates, rage and darkness but also a representation of redemption. He is well known by his black armor, cape, helmet, and particularly his raspy breath due to breathing problems received during a battle with his old master Obi-Wan Kenobi and deep, low-pitched voice from the mask, which often used in different medias as a reference to him.


title: Gesture

paragraphs: A gesture is a form of nonverbal communication. Unlike verbal communication, which uses words, gestures use movements of the body.

paragraphs: Gestures are "deliberate acts with a purpose", not just any movements. They are handled in the human brain by the same centres which handle language. In the neocortex, Broca's and Wernicke's areas, are used by speech and sign language.

paragraphs: Other movements of the body have meaning, but are not gestures. They may be done by actors deliberately, but normally they are automatic, unconscious signals which express various feelings or states of mind. Many animals communicate extensively using such behaviours. The dog, a companion to humans for a long time, is good at reading both gestures and behaviours. Multi-touch computers have been made to read gestures.

paragraphs: Gestures have a cultural significance (meaning). The same gesture can mean different things in different cultures and different parts of the world.

paragraphs: These are not gestures, because they are not voluntary, deliberate actions. They are inherited automatic reactions or reflexes.

paragraphs: Humans can modify these reactions to some extent with training and practice, but they are fundamentally caused by hormones and brain centres which are very ancient.


title: Palpatine

paragraphs: Darth Sidious (born as Sheev Palpatine and also known as the Emperor) is a fictional character from the "Star Wars" universe. He is the main villain of the "Star Wars" movies. His most famous power, seen only once, is force lightning seen in the last episode "Return of the Jedi" which is forked to spread the damage even further and is blueish purple.

paragraphs: He is played by Ian McDiarmid. He is seen in for the first time. Darth Sidious is regarded as the true villain of the "Star Wars" films because he was the one who caused Anakin Skywalker to join the Dark Side of the Force.

paragraphs: In Episode I, "", he is a Senator from the planet of Naboo. He is also secretly a Sith Lord, Darth Sidious. Sidious pulls the strings behind the scenes to cause unrest and dispute in the corrupt Galactic Senate, hence the films' title. His apprentice during this time is Darth Maul, who is slain in battle by Obi-Wan Kenobi. At the end of Episode I, he has risen to the office of Supreme Chancellor and begins his rise to power.

paragraphs: In Episode II, "", Sidious secretly continues to bring the galaxy to civil war. He has a new apprentice, Count Dooku, who leads the Separatist Droid Army and goes by the name 'Darth Tyranus'. Dooku is slain by Anakin Skywalker on a rescue mission to free the Chancellor in Episode III, "".

paragraphs: Sidious rose to complete power in , when he sent Anakin to lead an attack on the Jedi Temple and ordered the Clone Troopers to execute Order 66, killing many Jedi in the process. Sidious battled Yoda in a duel which would decide the fate of the Galaxy. He narrowly defeated Yoda, and was able to form a new order upon the fallen Republic. He created the first Galactic Empire. In the time frame from his creation of the Empire and his death, Sidious was a cold, merciless Emperor. He ruled through fear. His evil was staggering as he dominated the galaxy with his ruthless enforcer, Darth Vader.

paragraphs: Darth Sidious ruled the galaxy for 23 years, when in the end he was killed by his own apprentice, Darth Vader. He later cloned himself and had a granddaughter named Rey.

paragraphs: Since the initial theatrical run of "Return of the Jedi", Sidious has become a widely recognized symbol of evil in popular culture, and since the prequel films, also one of sinister deception and the subversion of democracy.