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4465 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human%20penis | Human penis | The human penis is a male body part found on the outside of the body. It is used for urination and for sexual reproduction. The main sexual function of the penis is to be inserted into a female's vagina and deliver semen which may cause pregnancy. This activity is called sexual intercourse.
There are many slang words for penis. They include dick, cock, and schlong. A euphemism for penis is male member.
Structure
The human penis exits the abdomen above the scrotum and hangs freely outside the body. The main visible part is called the shaft.
The human penis has three parts.
Body of the penis: Main visible part of the penis. The urethra runs underside of the penis.
Root of the penis: Invisible part of the penis. It reaches near the anus and contains the bulb of penis and the crus of penis. The crus of penis is attached to the pubic bone.
Skin of the penis: The shaft is covered by the skin. The skin is not attached tightly to the inner tissue. So it can move freely on the shaft.
The human penis is made up of three rod-shaped tissues. It has two corpora cavernosa (special pieces of muscle) next to each other and a corpus spongiosum (spongy muscle) between them.
The end of the corpus spongiosum forms the glans penis. The glans penis is covered by the foreskin in uncircumcised males. The rounded base of the glans is called the corona. The area on the bottom of the penis, where the foreskin is attached, is known as the frenulum of prepuce.
The urethra, the tube where urine and semen travel through, runs down the corpus spongiosum (spongy tissue), and opens at the tip of the penis. The opening is called urinary meatus. Sperm are made in the testes (ball-like organs) and stored in the epididymis (layer of tissue) around the testes. During ejaculation, sperm are pushed up the vas deferens. Fluids are added by the seminal vesicles, the prostate gland and the bulbourethral glands to make semen.
In sexual reproduction
Erection
A penis can become erect if a male is sexually aroused (or sometimes during sleep, even though there is no sexual stimulation). In an erection, the penis fills with blood. The blood makes the penis become longer, thicker and harder. Veins taking blood away from the penis get smaller, so less blood is taken through. Arteries bringing blood to the penis get wider, bringing more blood to the penis.
Ejaculation
Ejaculation is when semen is pushed from the penis. It usually happens during an orgasm. Males can ejaculate during sexual intercourse or by masturbation.
In reproductive sexual intercourse between a male and female, the erect penis is inserted into the vagina and moved in and out. The vagina places pressure on the penis, which can cause the male to have an orgasm and ejaculate into the vagina, causing insemination.
Other forms of sex, like anal and oral sex, can also cause stimulation, and therefore orgasm and ejaculation. In masturbation, a male can stimulate the penis and other sensitive areas of the body, such as the scrotum, by rubbing the genital area. Ejaculation may also happen during sleep (called a 'wet dream'). A male must have started puberty before he can ejaculate. During orgasm, muscles push semen from the penis. Semen moves through the urethra and comes out of the hole at the tip of the penis.
Penis size in humans
The length and thickness of the penis is different for different people. The size of a soft penis (not erect) is much smaller than when it is erect. Some penises grow more when they get hard than other penises. In most cases, whether a penis is big or small, it can still be used for sex. It averages out to be around 3 to 6 inches long when not erect. The average size of an erect human penis is between 13 – 16 cm (5.1– 6 in). The average circumference of a penis is 12.3 cm (4.85 in) when fully erect. The penis grows bigger during puberty. At the start of puberty, the average length of the penis is . The penis reaches adult size about 5 years later. A study done in 1996 found the mean length of an adult man's penis is when it is not erect. The average length of an erect penis is about .
Circumcision
The foreskin is a fold of skin that covers the end of the penis. Cutting off the foreskin is called circumcision. The foreskin is connected to the head of the penis. During circumcision, the foreskin is removed from the penis. Circumcision is usually performed on infant males for medical, religious or cultural reasons like in the USA, Philippines and South Korea.
In Europe only Jews and Muslim men are circumcised of religious reason. Uncommon by christian europe male.
Some males have the foreskin cut off when they are adults because they have problems with their foreskin. Some males have the foreskin cut off because they want to change how their penis looks.
In common speech, you can say that someone is cut or uncut, meaning circumcised or not circumcised .
In some religions, babies and young boys have their foreskin cut off. This is expected in Islam and Judaism. It is not required according to Christianity. In Judaism, infant males are required to have their foreskin removed as a sign of the covenant (ancient promise) made with God.
Skin color
A young boy's penis skin is the same color as his other skin. Around age 12-15, a boy's penis skin gets slightly darker. This is normal because of puberty. This is caused by sex hormones (natural chemicals), especially testosterone. Testosterone makes more melanin. Melanin is the amino acid that causes skin color. (Sunlight also makes more melanin so skin gets a sun tan.)
Usually a teenager or man's penis side skin is slightly darker than other skin on his body. The tip (glans) of the penis is usually pink or red color even if the penis side skin is dark. If the man is not circumcised, the tip is usually covered by the foreskin. The foreskin is about the same color as the skin on the side of the penis.
If a man's penis skin changes color and he doesn't know why, he should go to a doctor. He could have an infection, diabetes or cancer. A sunburn on the penis can happen quickly. If a man is outside without clothes, he will get a sun tan. That is normal. Too much sun causes a sunburn. Doctors say to use sunscreen (sun cream) before and after nude swimming. A sunburn can happen in a few minutes on a very sunny day.
Culture
Since the oldest cultures the penis has assumed a strong importance as a symbol of fertility used also in religious ceremonies to propitiate the reproductive capacity of men and beasts. For example, in Roman paganism the god Priapus is characterized by a huge penis.
Related pages
Phallus
Scrotum
Testicles
Vagina
Fellatio
References
Other websites
Kinsey Institute on the penis
Anatomy of the male reproductive system |
4466 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara | Sahara | The Sahara, in North Africa, is the largest desert in the world except for Antarctica. The Sahara is the largest hot desert.
It is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the Atlas Mountains, the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, and the Sahel region. It runs through many countries including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, and The Sudan. Most parts are uninhabited, but some people manage to survive in places where there is water.
The Sahara Desert is about 9,000,000 square kilometers (3.5 million square miles) in size. It has been both larger and smaller at different times. After the last ice age it became more fertile, then dried up again. It is the hottest place on the Earth, but not the driest. The driest is the Atacama Desert in South America. The Sahara has about the same size as the whole United States.
Climate
The Sahara has one of the world's most harsh climates. Typically, the Sahara landscape experiences little rainfall, powerful winds and wide temperature ranges. In some areas, there can be no rainfall for up to years at a time.
In the summer, daytime air temperatures across the Sahara often reach over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. In the winter, freezing temperatures may occur in the northern Sahara, and milder temperatures, across the southern Sahara. Snow may fall occasionally in some of the higher mountain ranges and rarely, on the desert floor.
Environment
The highest mountain is 3415 m, and is the Emi Koussi in Chad. Some mountain peaks in the Sahara Desert have snow even in the summer. The main mountain ranges is the Atlas Mountains in Algeria. The Sahara's lowest point lies in the Qattara Depression in Egypt, at about 130 metres below sea level. Sand sheets and dunes are about 25% of the Sahara. The other parts are mountains, steppes with a lot of stones, and oases.
Several rivers run through the Sahara. However, most of them come and go through the seasons, except for the Nile River and Niger River.
Metallic minerals are very important to most Saharan countries. Algeria and Mauritania have several major deposits of iron ore. There are also uranium mines, mostly in Niger. A lot of phosphates are in Morocco and Western Sahara. Petroleum is mainly found in Algeria, where it is very important to the economy. While mineral exploitation has led to economic growth in Sahara, this has rarely helped the indigenous population, as skilled workers have been brought from other countries.
Cities
Of the Sahara's around 4 million people, most live in Mauritania, Western Sahara, Algeria, Libya and Egypt. Dominant groups of people are Sahrawis and Tuareg people. The largest city is Nouakchott, Mauritania's capital. Other important cities are Tamanrasset in Algeria, and Sebha and Ghat in Libya.
Only 200,000 km² of the Sahara are fertile oases, where dates, corn, and fruits are grown. The few fertile regions today are fed by underground rivers and underground basins. Many of Sahara's oases rests in depressions (areas under sea level) allowing water to surface from underground reservoirs; artesian wells.
The soil in Sahara is low in organic matter. The soil in depressions is often saline.
Other sorts of vegetation include scattered concentrations of grasses, shrubs and trees in the highlands, as well as in the oases and along river beds. Some plants are well adjusted to the climate, allowing them to germinate within 3 days of rain and sow their seeds within 2 weeks after that.
Animals living in the Sahara include gerbil, jerboa, cape hare and desert hedgehog, barbary sheep, oryx, gazelle, deer, wild ass, baboon, hyena, jackal, sand fox, weasel and mongoose. The bird life counts more than 300 species. Reptiles, including 4 species of snake also live here. The most venomous scorpion in the world lives here.
4,000 years ago, the Sahara was a thriving savanna grassland with a great variety of wildlife. This included animals such as elephants and giraffes. Climate change has caused the rainfall to be less and turn the Sahara into the barren, desert wilderness as we know it today.
References
Other websites
Flora and fauna of the Sahara
Deserts |
4467 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris | Paris | Paris (nicknamed the "City of light") is the capital city of France, and the largest city in France. The area is , and around 2.15 million people live there. If suburbs are counted, the population of the Paris area rises to 10.7 million people. It is the most densely populated city in the European Union, with 20.653 people per square kilometer.
The Seine river runs through the oldest part of Paris, and divides it into two parts, known as the Left Bank and the Right Bank. It is surrounded by many forests.
Paris is also the center of French economy, politics, traffic and culture. Paris has many art museums and historical buildings. As a traffic center, Paris has a very good underground subway system (called the Metro). It also has two airports. The Metro was built in 1900, and its total length is more than .
The city has a multi-cultural style, because 19% of the people there are from outside France. There are many different restaurants with all kinds of food. Paris also has some types of pollution like air pollution and light pollution.
History
Julius Caesar conquered the Celtic "Parisii" tribe in 51 BC. The Romans called the place Lutetia of the Parisii, or "Lutetia Parisiorum". The place got a shorter name, "Paris", in 212 AD.
As the Roman Empire began to fall apart in the West, the Germanic tribe called the Franks moved in, taking it in 464. In 506, their king Clovis I made it his capital. Charlemagne moved his capital to Aachen in Germany, but Paris continued as an important town and was attacked by the Vikings twice. When Hugh Capet became king of France in 987, he again made Paris his capital. For a long time, the kings only controlled Paris and the surrounding area, as much of the rest of France was in the hands of barons or English. During the Hundred Years' War, the English controlled Paris from 1420 to 1437.
During the Protestant Reformation, a huge massacre of French Protestants started there in 1572, called the Saint Bartholomew Day Massacre. Paris saw many other troubles over the years of the "Ancien Régime" (Old Kingdom), then in 1789, the French Revolution began in Paris, leading to more massacres.
Paris was the Capital of the French Empire which, as well as France, covered Spain, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy, most of Germany and some of Austria, Croatia, Slovenia and Poland. The Empire ruled by Napoleon was from 1804-1814/1815. The Russian army seized Paris from Napoleon in 1814, and the Prussian army captured it in 1871. The next time it was captured was by the Nazi Germans in 1940. The Allies freed the city in 1944 and it has not since been captured.
Climate
Paris has an oceanic climate in the Köppen climate classification. It has warm summers and cold winters, and rainfall year-round.
Tourism
Paris has much to offer for sightseeing. Here are five very famous examples:
The Eiffel Tower is the most famous sight in Paris, built by Gustave Eiffel in 1889 with of iron — that means 18,000 pieces of iron and 2.5 million rivets. With a height of 300 meters, for a long time it was the highest tower in the world. Over 6 million people visit it every year. There are three levels that you can visit, and the highest one is 2nd above the ground. It was made for a fair, but the French government wanted to tear it down. With rising popularity, it stayed.
The Louvre is a museum with very famous, old works of art, such as the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. The building was built as a house for French kings. The Louvre is the third biggest museum in the world, with of show room. It is the most visited art museum in the world with over 5 million people visit it each year.
The Musée d'Orsay was a train station, but it is now an art museum. Most of the art at the Musée D'Orsay was made between 1848 and 1915. This is newer than the art at the Louvre.
The Moulin Rouge is a cabaret with many shows, and it opened in 1889. It is in Montmartre — a part of Paris with an exciting nightlife. In the Moulin Rouge, women put on a famous dance called the French cancan.
The Champs-Élysées is probably the most famous street in Paris, and one of the most famous in the world. It is full of places to shop and eat. On one end of the Champs-Élysées is the Arc de Triomphe.
The Notre Dame de Paris is a major Gothic cathedral, which was destroyed in 15 April 2019. It is in "Île de la Cité".
The Basilica of Sacré-Coeur is a major church devoted to the Sacred Heart.
Transportation
Because the city of Paris is roughly only 6 miles across, visitors have a wide range of options when it comes to transportation. While much of the more well-known attractions are in the center of the city and are best experienced by walking, there are many destinations that require other means of transport. While taxis offer a fast and relatively inexpensive means of travel, Paris’ public transportation system offers an enjoyable, stress-free way to explore the city.
The Paris Métro system was built in 1900 by engineer Fulgence Bienvenüe and architect Hector Guimard. The Métro covers over 124 miles with 300 stations and 16 lines. Servicing over 6 million residents and tourists every day, the Métro was designed to be an efficient and reliable alternative to the congestion of traffic. Every building in Paris is less than 500 meters from a train station, so accessibility is never a problem. The 16 Métro lines are identified by their final destinations. A rider can simply select the appropriate line and take it in the direction s/he wants. The Métro stations are well marked, and there are ticket booths at most entrances.
There are five airports that serve Paris: Charles de Gaulle Airport, Orly Airport, Beauvais-Tillé Airport and Paris–Le Bourget Airport, and Châlons Vatry Airport.
Events
1900 – The 2nd Summer Olympic Games took place in Paris.
1924 – The 8th Summer Olympic Games took place in Paris.
1998 – The FIFA World Cup
2024 – The 33rd Summer Olympic Games will take place in Paris.
Related pages
Cataphile
Capital of France
References
Other websites
Official website of the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau (English version)
This city at the Historical Association for Joan of Arc Studies
Visiting Paris – tips and useful advice
RATP
Navigating the Paris Métro
Capital of France
Departmental capitals in France
Regional capitals in France
Olympic cities |
4469 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Holocaust | The Holocaust | The Holocaust, sometimes called The Shoah (), was a genocide in which Nazi Germany systematically killed people during World War II. About six million Jews were killed, as well as five million others that the Nazis claimed were inferior (mostly Slavs, communists, Romani/Roma people, people with disabilities, homosexuals, and Jehovah's Witnesses). These people were rounded up, put in ghettos, forced to work in concentration camps, and then killed in gas chambers. Jews were forced to wear the yellow Star of David, a symbol of their religion.
Why were the Jews killed?
There was hatred and persecution of Jews (anti-Semitism) in Europe for hundreds of years. Many people wrongly thought that all Jews became rich by stealing money from other people, such as Christians; that they did not like people other than their fellow Jews; and that they harmed children to use their blood for religious rituals (blood libel). These beliefs were not true, and were based on stereotypes and prejudices.
However, these beliefs were popular in the German-speaking world and elsewhere in the late 1800s.
Adolf Hitler was born in Austria during this time, when many people disliked Jews. He may have been jealous of Jewish success in Austria. However, in a book he wrote called Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"), he said it was the Jews' fault that Germany and Austria lost World War I. He also wrote that Germany's economic problems were the Jews' fault. Many people agreed with Hitler’s ideas and supported him as the leader of the Nazi Party.
Deaths
Not all deaths were written down, so the exact numbers are unknown. However, various sources approximate:
Jews (5.1–6 million killed), including:
Polish Jews (3 million killed);
Ethnic Poles (1.8-2 million killed);
Romani/Roma people (200,000–800,000 killed);
Disabled people (200,000–250,000 killed);
Homosexuals (22,000–25,000 killed);
Jehovah's Witnesses (950–2500 killed).
Led by Hitler, the Nazis killed millions of Jews. They forced Jews to wear the golden Star of David on their upper bodies. Jews were rounded up by the thousands and crammed into trains that took them to concentration camps like Auschwitz as well as death camps. Most of the Jews killed in the Holocaust were not German. They were from Poland or the Soviet Union.
The Nazis killed millions of people, hundreds at a time, with poison gas in special rooms called gas chambers. They forced others to dig giant holes in the ground where, after days of hard work, Jews and other prisoners were shot, buried, and burned in a mass grave. The Nazis executed many others by shooting, stabbing, or beating them to death. Still, others died in forced marches from one camp to another. Many other people died of starvation, diseases, and freezing to death because of the terrible conditions in the concentration camps.
On the other hand, there were people who saved Jews from the Holocaust, because they thought it was the right thing to do. Some of them were later given "Righteous Among the Nations" awards by Yad Vashem.
Holocaust denial
Some people say the Holocaust did not happen at all, or was not as bad as historians say it was. This is called Holocaust denial. However, almost all historians agree that the Holocaust did happen and has been described correctly. Many Holocaust deniers profess that the Nazis did not kill as many people as historians say. Instead, they claim many of these people died from disease or lack of food, usually in order to shift blame from the Nazis. These ideas have been disproven by historical accounts, eyewitness evidence, and documentary evidence from the Nazis themselves. Also, many Jews were killed because Hitler ordered it. In some countries in Europe, including Germany, it is against the law to say that the Holocaust never happened.
Related pages
Babi Yar
Genocide
Nazi Germany
Righteous Among the Nations
Judaism
Sonderkommando
Notes
References
More reading
Other websites
The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Jewish Virtual Library
Holocaust |
4470 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto | Kyoto | Kyoto () is a city in Japan. This city was the capital of Japan from 794 until 1868.
Kyoto is a major city in the Kansai region of Japan. Its population is 1.5 million people. The city of Kyoto is the capital city of the prefecture of Kyoto. Kyoto is one of the cultural, educational, and technology centers of Japan. In it are many universities including Kyoto University, the second oldest national university of Japan.
History
After 794, the Japanese emperors lived in this city which was called Heian-kyō.
In 1868, the city was called Saikyō ("Western capital") in order to distinguish it from Edo (Tokyo) which was the "Eastern capital".
Geography
There are mountains around the city on the east, north, and west sides. Some people in Kyoto believe that these mountains make Kyoto's summer especially hot and humid, and Kyoto's winter very cold.
We can see many temples and shrines built in traditional Japanese architectural styles here. Some of those buildings are registered as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. On the other hand, since Kyoto was one of biggest and richest Japanese cities in the middle of the 19th century; the citizens were eager to import European style, and there are many European style buildings in the center of Kyoto for company offices and schools.
Kyoto is one of oldest cities in Japan. Many tourists from all over the world come to Kyoto. Japanese people often come to Kyoto in the spring to see the cherry blossoms, and in the autumn to see the leaves change color.
Traditional Kyoto food often uses vegetables. McDonald's signboards in Kyoto are brown to preserve the traditional surroundings.
The oldest novel in the world, Shikibu Murasaki's The Tale of Genji is set in Kyoto during the Heian Period.
Kyoto is famous for three festivals: Gion festival, Aoi festival in the summer, and Jidai festival in the autumn.
Related pages
Kyoto Protocol
Tokyo
References
Other websites
Former capitals of Japan |
4471 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy | Anarchy | Anarchy (From Greek αναρχια meaning "without a leader") is a word that has more than one meaning. Some of its meanings are:
When there is no leader, or when nobody has power over everyone (used just in the anarchist movement).
When there is no political order, and there is confusion (used often from mass media)
When people do not have any reason to work together, or do not have anything that makes them feel like a group.
In the first meaning listed, an anarchy might be a made-up or real society based on a group's beliefs about anarchism (see anarcho-communism).
In the second meaning listed, "anarchy" has to do with having no political order. The CIA World factbook says that there is only one nation, Somalia, that is in a state of anarchy. In Somalia, the government is no longer in control, and some parts of the country are ruled by mobs and warlords who sometimes fight one another.
There are some countries (Afghanistan, Albania, Burundi, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Rwanda) where government is "emerging" or "transitional", and were in civil unrest in the near past. The DC says that the Solomon Islands is moving towards civil unrest because "violence, corruption and crime have undermined stability and civil society".
When there is no political order, more than one government or political authority might sometimes compete for the same food, oil, land, or groups of people. The word "Anarchy" to used to describe this. However, because there is more than one competing authority, a better word might be polyarchy. The difference between "anarchy" and "polyarchy" is important to someone who thinks that true anarchy would work well. The word for someone who thinks this is "anarchist", and the word for this kind of thinking is "anarchism". Anarchism has been thought about for hundreds of years. The book called "The Politics of Individualism" attempts to teach its readers that anarchism is not always simply an opposition to the government, but a complicated political movement against the domination of few people.
Other uses of the word
Anarchy which follows the death of a ruler and ceases when his successor rises to power, is called interregnum (literally: "in-between rules").
(Another use of the word “Anarchy” is when it is said as “The Anarchy”. This is the name that is sometimes given to the civil war and unsettled government in England when Stephen of England was King.)
References
Economic systems
Society |
4472 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA | DNA | DNA, short for deoxyribonucleic acid, is the molecule that contains the genetic code of organisms. This includes animals, plants, protists, archaea and bacteria.
DNA is in each cell in the organism and tells cells what proteins to make. Mostly, these proteins are enzymes. DNA is inherited by children from their parents. This is why children share traits with their parents, such as skin, hair and eye color. The DNA in a person is a combination of the DNA from each of their parents.
Part of an organism's DNA is "non-coding DNA" sequences. They do not code for protein sequences. Some noncoding DNA is transcribed into non-coding RNA molecules, such as transfer RNA, ribosomal RNA, and regulatory RNAs. Other sequences are not transcribed at all, or give rise to RNA of unknown function. The amount of non-coding DNA varies greatly among species. For example, over 98% of the human genome is non-coding DNA, while only about 2% of a typical bacterial genome is non-coding DNA.
Viruses use either DNA or RNA to infect organisms. The genome replication of most DNA viruses takes place in the cell's nucleus, whereas RNA viruses usually replicate in the cytoplasm.
Structure of DNA
DNA has a double helix shape, which is like a ladder twisted into a spiral. Each step of the ladder is a pair of nucleotides.
Nucleotides
A nucleotide is a molecule made up of:
deoxyribose, a kind of sugar with 5 carbon atoms,
a phosphate group made of phosphorus and oxygen, and
nitrogenous base
DNA is made of four types of nucleotide:
Adenine (A)
Thymine (T)
Cytosine (C)
Guanine (G)
The 'rungs' of the DNA ladder are each made of two bases, one base coming from each leg. The bases connect in the middle: 'A' only pairs with 'T', and 'C' only pairs with 'G'. The bases are held together by hydrogen bonds.
Adenine (A) and thymine (T) can pair up because they make two hydrogen bonds, and cytosine (C) and guanine (G) pair up to make three hydrogen bonds. Although the bases are always in fixed pairs, the pairs can come in any order (A-T or T-A; similarly, C-G or G-C). This way, DNA can write 'codes' out of the 'letters' that are the bases. These codes contain the message that tells the cell what to do.
Chromatin
On chromosomes, the DNA is bound up with proteins called histones to form chromatin. This association takes part in epigenetics and gene regulation. Genes are switched on and off during development and cell activity, and this regulation is the basis of most of the activity which takes place in cells.
Copying DNA
When DNA is copied, this is called DNA replication. Briefly, the hydrogen bonds holding together paired bases are broken and the molecule is split in half: the legs of the ladder are separated. This gives two single strands. New strands are formed by matching the bases (A with T and G with C) to make the missing strands.
First, an enzyme called DNA helicase splits the DNA down the middle by breaking the hydrogen bonds. Then after the DNA molecule is in two separate pieces, another molecule called DNA polymerase makes a new strand that matches each of the strands of the split DNA molecule. Each copy of a DNA molecule is made of half of the original (starting) molecule and half of new bases.
Mutations
When DNA is copied, mistakes are sometimes made – these are called mutations. There are four main types of mutations:
Deletion, where one or more bases are left out.
Substitution, where one or more bases are substituted for another base in the sequence.
Insertion, where one or more extra base is put in.
Duplication, where a sequence of bases pairs are repeated.
Mutations may also be classified by their effect on the structure and function of proteins, or their effect on fitness. Mutations may be bad for the organism, or neutral, or of benefit. Sometimes mutations are fatal for the organism – the protein made by the new DNA does not work at all, and this causes the embryo to die. On the other hand, evolution is moved forward by mutations, when the new version of the protein works better for the organism.
Protein synthesis
A section of DNA that contains instructions to make a protein is called a gene. Each gene has the sequence for at least one polypeptide. Proteins form structures, and also form enzymes. The enzymes do most of the work in cells. Proteins are made out of smaller polypeptides, which are formed of amino acids. To make a protein to do a particular job, the correct amino acids need to be be joined up in the correct order.
Proteins are made by tiny machines in the cell called ribosomes. Ribosomes are in the main body of the cell, but DNA is only in the nucleus of the cell. The codon is part of the DNA, but DNA never leaves the nucleus. Because DNA cannot leave the nucleus, the cell nucleus makes a copy of the DNA sequence in RNA. This is smaller and can get through the holes – pores – in the membrane of the nucleus and out into the cell.
Genes encoded in DNA are transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA) by proteins such as RNA polymerase. Mature mRNA is then used as a template for protein synthesis by the ribosome. Ribosomes read codons, 'words' made of three base pairs that tell the ribosome which amino acid to add. The ribosome scans along an mRNA, reading the code while it makes protein. Another RNA called tRNA helps match the right amino acid to each codon.
History of DNA research
DNA was first isolated (extracted from cells) by Swiss physician Friedrich Miescher in 1869, when he was working on bacteria from the pus in surgical bandages. The molecule was found in the nucleus of the cells and so he called it nuclein.
In 1928, Frederick Griffith discovered that traits of the "smooth" form of Pneumococcus could be transferred to the "rough" form of the same bacteria by mixing killed "smooth" bacteria with the live "rough" form. This system provided the first clear suggestion that DNA carries genetic information.
The Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment identified DNA as the transforming principle in 1943.
DNA's role in heredity was confirmed in 1952, when Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase in the Hershey–Chase experiment showed that DNA is the genetic material of the T2 bacteriophage.
In the 1950s, Erwin Chargaff found that the amount of thymine (T) present in a molecule of DNA was about equal to the amount of adenine (A) present. He found that the same applies to guanine (G) and cytosine (C). Chargaff's rules summarises this finding.
In 1953, James D. Watson and Francis Crick suggested what is now accepted as the first correct double-helix model of DNA structure in the journal Nature. Their double-helix, molecular model of DNA was then based on a single X-ray diffraction image "Photo 51", taken by Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling in May 1952.
Experimental evidence supporting the Watson and Crick model was published in a series of five articles in the same issue of Nature. Of these, Franklin and Gosling's paper was the first publication of their own X-ray diffraction data and original analysis method that partly supported the Watson and Crick model; this issue also contained an article on DNA structure by Maurice Wilkins and two of his colleagues, whose analysis and in vivo B-DNA X-ray patterns also supported the presence in vivo of the double-helical DNA configurations as proposed by Crick and Watson for their double-helix molecular model of DNA in the previous two pages of Nature. In 1962, after Franklin's death, Watson, Crick, and Wilkins jointly received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Nobel Prizes are awarded only to living recipients. A debate continues about who should receive credit for the discovery.
In 1957, Crick explained the relationship between DNA, RNA, and proteins, in the central dogma of molecular biology.
How DNA was copied (the replication mechanism) came in 1958 through the Meselson–Stahl experiment. More work by Crick and coworkers showed that the genetic code was based on non-overlapping triplets of bases, called codons. These findings represent the birth of molecular biology.
How Watson and Crick got Franklin's results has been much debated. Crick, Watson and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962 for their work on DNA – Rosalind Franklin had died in 1958.
DNA and privacy concerns
Police in the United States used DNA and family tree public databases to solve cold cases. The American Civil Liberties Union raised concerns over this practice.
Related pages
Bioinformatics
Cell division
Mitosis
Meiosis
DNA repair
Chromosome
Sequence analysis
Epigenetics
Junk DNA
References
Other websites
Human Genome Project: information
Cell biology
Macromolecules |
4473 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl%20Marx | Karl Marx | Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 in Trier – 14 March 1883 in London) was a German political thinker who wrote about economics and politics. Marx thought that if a place that works together runs on wage-labor, then there would always be class struggle. Marx thought that this class struggle would result in workers taking power. He believed that no economic class—wage workers, land owners, etc. should have power over another. Marx believed that everyone should contribute what they can, and everyone should get what they need. His most famous book was the Communist Manifesto. He wrote it with Friedrich Engels in 1848. The book is about the ideas and aims of communism. His ideas are called Marxism.
Works
Das Kapital
His most important work is Das Kapital, or The Capital. It is commonly known in English as simply 'Capital.' He spent many years working on the three parts of the book. Das Kapital describes how "capitalism" works and the problems this creates, such as division of labour, alienation and exploitation. The book has led to many arguments between those who agree with the book and those who do not. Marx's ideas have been thought of as responsible for socialist revolutions (like the Russian Revolution).
Historical materialism
Marx's most popular theory was 'historical materialism', arguing that history is the result of material conditions, rather than ideas. He believed that religion, morality, social structures and other things are all rooted in economics. In his later life he was more tolerant of religion.
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
Marx also wrote the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, a critique of political economy in which he discusses topics such as labor wages, labor rent, and capital profit, and his ideas of how to change the economy, including proletarian socialist revolution and an eventual communist society.
Biography
Karl Marx was born in Trier in 1818, but he had to move many times because the government did not like his ideas. Marx lived for a long time in London. He died there in 1883. After he died, his friend Engels finished many of his works.
Many people continue to follow and develop Marx's ideas.
Related pages
Factors of production
Political economy
Marxism
Friedrich Engels
References
Biographies
Friedrich Engels' Biography of Marx
Franz Mehring's Karl Marx: The Story of His Life
Vladimir Lenin's Karl Marx Biography
Francis Wheen's Karl Marx: A Life
Karl Korsch's Karl Marx Biography
Maximilien Rubel's Marx, life and works
Articles and entries
Dead Sociologists - Karl Marx
Ernest Mandel, Karl Marx (New Palgrave article)
Marx on India and the Colonial Question from anti-caste
Portraits of Karl Marx
The Karl Marx Museum
Marxmyths.org - Various essays on misinterpretations of Marx
Paul Dorn, The Paris Commune and Marx' Theory of Revolution
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
Why Marx is the Man of the Moment
Other websites
Bibliography and online texts
Marx and Engels Internet Archive
Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1843)
On the Jewish Question (1843)
Notes on James Mill (1844)
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (1844)
Theses on Feuerbach (1845)
The German Ideology [with Engels] (1845-46)
The Poverty of Philosophy (1846-47)
Wage-Labour and Capital (1847)
Manifesto of the Communist Party [with Engels] (1847-48)
Free audiobook from LibriVox (Also available in German)
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852)
Grundrisse (1857-58)
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)
Writings on the U.S. Civil War [with Engels; compiled] (1861)
Theories of Surplus Value, 3 volumes (1862)
Value, Price and Profit (1865)
Capital vol. 1 (1867)
The Civil War in France (1871)
Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875)
Notes on Wagner (1883)
Capital, vol. 2 [posthumously, by Engels] (1893)
Capital, vol. 3 [posthumously, by Engels] (1894)
Letters [with Engels; compiled] (1833-95)
Ethnological Notebooks — (1879-80)
"The Reality Behind Commodity Fetishism" (in English) at Sic et Non (in German)
Libertarian Communist Library Karl Marx Archive
Karl Marx Biography
Works by Karl Marx at Zeno.org
1818 births
1883 deaths
19th-century German philosophers
Former Christians
German atheists
German communists
German economists
German historians
German sociologists
Infectious disease deaths in London
Jewish atheists
Jewish German scientists
Jewish German writers
Jewish philosophers
Marxism
People from Rhineland-Palatinate |
4475 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread | Bread | Bread is a type of baked food. It is mainly made from dough, which is made mainly from flour and water. Usually, salt and yeast are added. Bread is often baked in an oven. It can be bought all over the world.
Bread can be toasted or used to make sandwiches. Pizza is a food-based on bread. There are many different kinds of bread.
The two main types of bread are:
Leavened bread is made by adding yeast or other leavening agents to the dough. The yeast produces gas that makes the dough lighter. Leavened bread can be made into larger loaves baked in an oven. This is the main type of bread eaten in Europe, America, and many parts of Asia.
Unleavened flatbread is baked from a dough of water and flour, with no yeast. It is baked in flat rounds like tortilla or chapati. This type of bread cannot be made thick as it would be too dense to eat. Unleavened bread is eaten throughout Greece, Africa, parts of Asia, and as the Central America such as Pitta bread or tortilla. Baking can be done on a metal plate or hot stone, or in an oven.
The color and taste of the bread depending on the kind of flour used and the style of baking. Flour made from the whole grain gives darker bread. Flour made just from the polished wheat grain gives a very white bread. Rye and barley flour give darker types of bread. The type of flour also changes how long the bread can be kept before going bad. Some strains of wheat are resistant to fungus, but may not produce bread as tasty as a weaker strain.
Religious breads
Christianity and Judaism have rules about the use of bread in their religions. Unleavened bread (matzo) is eaten by Jews during the Passover. The Catholic celebration of the Eucharist uses unleavened wafers.
Orthodox churches forbid the use of unleavened bread for the Eucharist (Old Testament) and permit leavened bread only as a symbol of the New. This was one of the three points of contention that brought about the schism between Eastern and Western churches in 1054.
Types of bread
Bagel
Baguette
Croissant
Injera
Khachapuri
Lavash
Markouk in Egypt and the Levant
Matzo in all Kosher communities
Naan
North American biscuit
Pita
Pizza dough
Pretzel
Rice bread
Roti
Rye bread (Includes Pumpernickel)
Scone
Sprouted bread
Tortilla
White Bread
Wholemeal bread
Bread is an important part of life in many countries because so many people eat it. In many cultures, bread is so important that it is part of religious rituals.
Cake is made in a similar way to bread but sugar, fat, and milk are added to the dough and often more ingredients.
References
Basic English 850 words |
4480 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto | Shinto | Shinto () is a form of Japanese animism. It has many kami, translated as gods or nature spirits. Some "kami" are just spirits of certain places, and some are the overall "kami" (like "Amaterasu", the Sun goddess). The word "Shinto" comes from the Japanese words "", shin—the word for spirit or god, and "", tō—the word for "the way" or "path". So, Shinto means "the way of the gods."
State Shinto was the main religion of Japan before World War II. During the period 1868 to 1945 the Japanese government used Shinto for propaganda. All Japanese were forced to register with their local shrine. All Shinto priests worked for the government. War was seen as a sacred duty. The Emperor of Japan was seen as a god. Japanese Buddhism was also involved with the war effort (See Zen at War).
Shinto has many rituals and customs, and some are done every day. Festivals are frequent. Some people mix Shinto and Buddhist rituals and beliefs.
Although Jinja-Honcho manages almost all shrines, some, such as Yasukuni, are run separately.
Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, is seen as the holiest of all Shinto kami. Her shrine is in Ise, Japan.
Other page
Shinto shrine
Other websites
Kokugakuin University Encylopedia of Shinto |
4483 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano | Volcano | A volcano is a mountain that has lava (hot, liquid rock) coming out from a magma chamber under the ground, or did have in the past. Volcanoes are formed by the movement of tectonic plates.
The Earth's crust has 17 major, rigid tectonic plates. These float on a hotter, softer layer in its mantle. Volcanoes are often found where tectonic plates are moving apart or coming together.
Volcanoes can also form where there is stretching and thinning of the crust's plates, e.g., in the East African Rift. Volcanoes are usually not found where two tectonic plates slide past one another.
Volcanism away from plate boundaries is caused by mantle plumes. These so-called "hotspots", for example Hawaii, are thought to arise from upwelling magma from the core–mantle boundary, 3,000 km deep in the Earth.
Most volcanoes have a volcanic crater at the top. When a volcano is active, materials come out of it. The materials include lava, steam, gaseous sulfur compounds, ash and broken rock pieces.
When there is enough pressure, the volcano erupts. Some volcanic eruptions blow off the top of the volcano. Sometimes, the magma comes out quickly and sometimes it comes slowly. Some eruptions come out at a side instead of the top.
Volcanoes are found on planets other than Earth. An example is Olympus Mons on Mars.
Volcanologists are scientists who study volcanoes using methods from geology, chemistry, geography, mineralogy, physics and sociology.
The world's biggest volcano is named Mauna Loa in Hawaii. Mauna Loa is part of the five volcanoes on Hawaii's 'Big Island'. The most recent time this volcano erupted was in 1984. It erupted 33 times in the last 170 years. Like all the other Hawaiian volcanoes, Mauna Loa was created by the movement of the Pacific tectonic plate which moved over the Hawaii hotspot in the Earth's mantle. Mauna Loa is 4,196 meters tall. It is a shield volcano. The largest recent eruption from Mauna Loa left a lava trail long.
Types of volcanoes
The lava and pyroclastic material (clouds of ash, lava fragments and vapor) that comes out from volcanoes can make many different kinds of land shapes. There are two basic kinds of volcanoes.
Shield volcanoes
These volcanoes are formed by fluid low-silica mafic lava.
Shield volcanoes are built out of layers of lava from continual eruptions (without explosions). Because the lava is so fluid, it spreads out, often over a wide area. Shield volcanoes do not grow to a great height, and the layers of lava spread out to give the volcano gently sloping sides. Shield volcanoes can produce huge areas of basalt, which is usually what lava is when cooled.
The base of the volcano increases in size over successive eruptions where solidified lava spreads out and accumulates. Some of the world's largest volcanoes are shield volcanoes.
Even though their sides are not very steep, shield volcanoes can be huge. Mauna Kea in Hawaii is the biggest mountain on Earth if it is measured from its base on the floor of the sea.
Stratovolcanoes
A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a tall, conical volcano. It is built up of many layers of hardened lava, tephra, pumice, and volcanic ash.
Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes have a steep profile and periodic eruptions. The lava that flows from stratovolcanoes cools and hardens before spreading far. It is sticky, that is, it has high viscosity. The magma forming this lava is often felsic, with high-to-intermediate levels of silica, and less mafic magma. Big felsic lava flows are uncommon, but have travelled as far as .
Two famous stratovolcanoes are Japan's Mount Fuji, and Vesuvius. Both have big bases and steep sides that get steeper and steeper as it goes near the top. Vesuvius is famous for its destruction of the towns Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 AD, killing thousands.
Caldera
A caldera is a basin-like feature formed by collapse of land after a volcanic eruption. This happens after a huge stratovolcano blows its top off. The base of the crater then sinks, leaving a caldera where the top of the volcano was before. Krakatoa, best known for its catastrophic eruption in 1883, is much smaller now.
How volcanoes are formed
There are two main processes.
Volcanoes are made when two tectonic plates come together. When these two plates meet, one of them (usually the oceanic plate) goes under the continental plate. This is the process of subduction. Afterwards, it melts and makes magma (inside the magma chamber), and the pressure builds up until the magma bursts through the Earth's crust.
The second way is when a tectonic plate moves over a hot spot in the Earth's crust. The hot spot works its way through the crust until it breaks through. The caldera of Yellowstone Park was formed in that way; so were the Hawaiian Islands.
Classification
A traditional way to classify or identify volcanoes is by its pattern of eruptions. Those volcanoes which may erupt again at any time are called active. Those that are now quiet called dormant (inactive). Those volcanoes which have not erupted in historical times are called extinct.
Active
An active volcano is currently erupting, or it has erupted in the last 10,000 years. An example of an active volcano is Mount St. Helens in the United States (US).
Dormant(inactive)
A dormant volcano is "sleeping," but it could awaken in the future. Mount Rainier in the United States is considered dormant.
Extinct (dead volcano)
An extinct volcano has not erupted in the past 10,000 years. Edinburgh Castle in Scotland sits on top of an extinct volcano.
Some volcanoes
Largest volcano on Earth
The Earth's largest volcano has been discovered. It is 2 km below the sea on an underwater plateau known as the Shatsky Rise. This is about 1,600 km east of Japan. The previous record-holder, Mauna Loa in Hawaii, is still the largest volcano on land.
The 310,000 km2 (119,000 sq mi) volcano, Tamu Massif, is comparable in size to Mars' vast Olympus Mons volcano, which is the largest in the Solar System. It was formed about 145 million years ago when massive lava flows erupted from the centre of the volcano to form a broad, shield-like feature. That suggests the volcano produced a flood basalt eruption.
The Tamu Massif extends some 30 km (18 miles) into the Earth's crust. The researchers doubted the submerged volcano's peak ever rose above sea level during its lifetime and say it is unlikely to erupt again.
"The bottom line is that we think that Tamu Massif was built in a short (geologically speaking) time of one to several million years and it has been extinct since," co-author William Sager, of the University of Houston told the AFP news agency.
"There were lots of oceanic plateaus (that) erupted during the Cretaceous period (145-65 million years ago) but we don't see them since. Scientists would like to know why... The biggest oceanic plateau is Ontong Java plateau, near the equator in the Pacific, east of the Solomon Islands. It is much bigger than Tamu it's the size of France".
Related pages
List of volcanoes
References
Other websites
The United States Geological Service (USGS) Volcano page
Glossary of Volcanic Terms from USGS
Volcanic and Geologic Terms from Volcano World - University of North Dakota (UND)
Television program (BBC) on the prediction of Popocatepetl's 2000 eruption |
4484 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big%20Bang | Big Bang | The Big Bang is a scientific theory about how the universe started, and then made the stars and galaxies we see today. The Big Bang is the name that scientists use for the most common theory of the universe, from the very early stages to the present day.
The universe began as a very hot, small, and dense superforce (the mix of the four fundamental forces), with no stars, atoms, form, or structure (called a "singularity"). Then about 13.8 billion years ago, space expanded very quickly (thus the name "Big Bang"). This started the formation of atoms, which eventually led to the formation of stars and galaxies. It was Georges who first noted (in 1927) that an expanding universe could be traced back in time to an originating single point. The universe is still expanding today, and getting colder as well.
As a whole, the universe is growing and the temperature is falling as time passes. Cosmology is the study of how the universe began and its development. Some scientists who study cosmology have agreed that the Big Bang theory matches what they have observed so far.
Fred Hoyle called the theory the "Big Bang" on his radio show. He did not believe the Big Bang was correct. Scientists who did not agree with him thought the name was funny and decided to use it.
Scientists base the Big Bang theory on many different observations. The most important is the redshift of very far away galaxies. Redshift is the Doppler effect occurring in light. When an object moves away from Earth, its color rays look more similar to the color red than they actually are, because the movement stretches the wavelength of light given off by the object. Scientists use the word "red hot" to describe this stretched light wave because red is the longest wavelength on the visible spectrum. The more redshift there is, the faster the object is moving away. By measuring the redshift, scientists proved that the universe is expanding, and they can work out how fast the object is moving away from the Earth. With very exact observation and measurements, scientists believe that the universe was a singularity approximately 13.8 billion years ago. Because most things become colder as they expand, scientists assume that the universe was very small and very hot when it started.
Other observations that support the Big Bang theory are the amounts of chemical elements in the universe. Amounts of very light elements, such as hydrogen, helium, and lithium seem to agree with the theory of the Big Bang. Scientists also have found "cosmic microwaves background radiation". This radiation is known as radio waves, and they are everywhere in the universe. This radiation is now very weak and cold, but a long time ago it was very strong and very hot.
It can be said that time had no meaning before the Big Bang. If the Big Bang was the beginning of time, then there was no universe before the Big Bang, since there could not be any "before" if there was no time! Other ideas state that the Big Bang was not the beginning of time 13.8 billion years ago. Instead, some believe that there was a completely different universe before the Big Bang, and it may have been very different from the one we know today.
Nonetheless, in November 2019, Jim Peebles, awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics for his theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology. Noted, in his award presentation, that he does not support the Big Bang Theory, due to the lack of concrete supporting evidence, and stated, "It's very unfortunate that one thinks of the beginning whereas in fact, we have no good theory of such a thing as the beginning."
Graphical timeline of the universe
Many things happened in the first picosecond of the universe's time:
References
More reading |
4489 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmail | Gmail | Gmail is a free e-mail service that is run by Google. It can be accessed on the web, by POP3, or by IMAP. Some of the competitors to Gmail are Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail/Windows Live Mail, and Inbox.Com. The space given to any Gmail member is increased a small amount every second, and as of July 26, 2012, Google provides each account with about 10272 MB of space.
Google Apps
Google Apps is a service from Google that was created in February 2006 as Gmail for your domain. It is to allow system administrators of a company or organisation to create email accounts for their own domain.
Trademark issues
In the United Kingdom (UK), the trademark "Gmail" was owned by another company before Gmail by Google was started. Thus, the United Kingdom uses a domain of "googlemail.com" for their users, and the logo has the words of "Google Mail" instead of the normal "Gmail".
In September 2009 Google began to change the branding of UK accounts back to Gmail following the resolution of the trademark dispute.
References
Other websites
Gmail Website
Mail
E-mail |
4491 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomer | Astronomer | An astronomer is a scientist who studies astronomy. Observational astronomers work in observatories with telescopes to collect information from things in outer space such as planets, stars, or galaxies. Theoretical astronomers study the collected information, and use it to help us understand how the universe behaves.
Related pages
List of Astronomers
Science occupations |
4492 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis | Analysis | Analysis is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle (384–322 B.C.), though analysis as a formal concept is a relatively recent development.
The word comes from the Ancient Greek ἀνάλυσις (analusis, "a breaking up", from ana- "up, throughout" and lysis "a loosening").
In this context, Analysis is the opposite of synthesis, which is to bring ideas together.
The following concepts are closely related to this basic idea:
Mathematical analysis is the name given to any branch of mathematics that looks at what functions are, how they behave, and what things can be done with them.
Analytical chemistry looks at the qualities of substances, and their composition.
Some definitions
The process of breaking up a concept, proposition, or fact into its simple or ultimate constituents. Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. 2nd ed, 1999, ed. Robert Audi.
Resolution into simpler elements by analysing. 2. (Maths) Use of algebra and calculus in problem-solving. Concise Oxford Dictionary. 1976, ed. J.B. Sykes.
The isolation of what is more elementary from what is more complex by whatever method. Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology. 1925, ed. James Mark Baldwin, Vol. I
The original Greek sense [was] a ‘loosening up’ or ‘releasing’. Geometry assumes a proposition to be true and searches for another known truth from which the proposition may be deduced. Physical science resolves complex wholes into their elements. A Kant Dictionary, 1995, by Howard Caygill.
The process of breaking a concept down into more simple parts, so that its logical structure is displayed. Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. 1996, Simon Blackburn
Philosophical analysis is a method of inquiry in which one seeks to assess complex systems of thought by ‘analysing’ them into simpler elements whose relationships are thereby brought into focus. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 1998, entry under ‘Conceptual Analysis’ by Robert Hanna
References
Philosophy
Research methods |
4493 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foolishness | Foolishness | Foolishness is when someone acts without wisdom or sense. A foolish decision is one made without careful reasoning or judgement. An act of foolishness is called folly. A person who shows foolishness may be called a fool. It is different to stupidity, which is the lack of intelligence.
A fool's errand is a useless piece of work.
A fool's paradise a happy state for which there is no good reason.
The wise fool is a common literary character, a person who appears at first to be unintelligent but then reveals him or herself to possess a grest deal of wisdom. An example of this is Sancho Panza in Cervantes' Don Quixote. Sancho is an uneducated peasant who at first seems to have little sense or experience. However, as the tale unfolds, he reveals himself to possess a wealth of common sense, first expressed through endless proverbs, but then through his own skill. In this sense he provides a comic juxtaposition to Quixote himself, who is highly educated but insane; both of them supply what the other lacks.
References
Related pages
Silliness
Knowledge
Basic English 850 words |
4494 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle | Aristotle | Aristotle (Stagira, Macedonia, 384 BC – Chalicis, Euboea, Greece, 7 March 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher. He was one of the most important philosophers in the history of Western civilization. Aristotle probably wrote many books, but very few of those books survive. Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great when Alexander was a child.
Life
Aristotle's father was named Nicomachus. He was a soldier for King Amyntas of Macedonia.
At about the age of eighteen, Aristotle went to Athens to become a student of Plato at Plato's Academy. Aristotle remained at the academy until he was 27. He left after Plato died in 347 BC.
He then traveled with Xenocrates to Asia Minor. While in Asia, Aristotle traveled with Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos. They researched the botany and zoology of the island.
In 343 B.C., Philip II of Macedon invited Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander the Great. Aristotle was put in charge of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time, he did not only teach Alexander; he also taught two other future kings: Ptolemy and Cassander.
Aristotle encouraged Alexander to conquer lands to the east because he believed in ethnocentrism. (Ethnocentrism is the belief that one's own culture is better than all of the other cultures.) Aristotle believed Greek culture was better than all of the other cultures. He encouraged Alexander to conquer Persia, which was an empire to the east, because he thought it would be better if the Greeks were in charge. One time, he advised Alexander to be 'a leader to the Greeks and a despot to the barbarians, to look after the former as after friends and relatives, and to deal with the latter as with beasts or plants'.p58
By 335 BC Aristotle returned to Athens. He started his own school there. It was called the Lyceum. Aristotle taught courses at the school for twelve years.
During this time (335 to 323 B.C.), Aristotle probably wrote many of his works. Aristotle wrote many dialogues. Only parts of his dialogues survive. The works that have survived are torn and hard to read. They were probably lecture notes for his students. All of Aristotle's works are like an encyclopedia of everything that the Greeks knew. Some people think Aristotle was probably the last person to know everything there was to know about in his own time.
Near the end of Alexander's life, he began to think people might be trying to kill him. He threatened Aristotle in letters he wrote to him. Aristotle often said that he disliked that Alexander called himself a god. The king executed Aristotle's grandnephew Callisthenes as a traitor. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 B.C. without ever going back to Greece. When Alexander died, Athenians started to dislike Macedonians again and Aristotle left the city. He died in Euboea of natural causes that same year, 322 BC.
Philosophy
The three greatest ancient Greek philosophers were Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates. Socrates taught Plato, then Plato taught Aristotle. These three thinkers turned early Greek philosophy into the beginnings of Western philosophy as it is today.
Plato's main ideas were that knowledge from the senses was always confused and not pure. True knowledge can be gotten from the thinking soul that turns away from the world. Only the soul can have knowledge of "Forms", the real way things are. The world is only a copy of these "Forms" and is not perfect.
Aristotle thought differently. He thought that knowledge from the senses was more important. These thoughts became some of the roots of the scientific method after hundreds of years. Most of the things Aristotle wrote that we still have today are notes from his speaking and teaching. Some of his important writings are Physics, Metaphysics, (Nicomachean) Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On the Soul), and Poetics.
He also had problems with the atomic theory. He did not believe in Democritus' theories about the atomic theory. He believed that all matter was continuous whereas Democritus stated the all matter was made up of tiny indivisible things called "atoms". Democritus was proved right by physicist John Dalton in 1804.
Logic
Aristotle created a form of logic. His logic is called sentential logic because it uses sentences for the syllogism.
Aristotle's logic influenced the history of Western thought. It was Aristotle's logic which was copied and used in the Arabic and Latin mediaeval traditions. It was dominant for two and a half thousand years, until the late 19th century. Then modern logic was started by Gottlob Frege, Charles Sanders Peirce and others.
Biology
Aristotle is the earliest natural historian whose work has survived in some detail. He certainly did research on the natural history of Lesbos, and the surrounding seas and neighbouring areas. The works History of Animals, Generation of Animals and Parts of Animals have observations and interpretations, along with some myths and mistakes.
The most striking passages are about the sea-life round Lesbos. As well as live observation, he got specimens from the catches of fishermen. His observations on catfish, electric fish (Torpedo) and angler-fish are detailed. His writing on cephalopods such as Octopus, Sepia (cuttlefish) and the paper nautilus (Argonauta argo) are accurate. His description of the hectocotyl arm, used in sexual reproduction, was widely disbelieved until its rediscovery in the 19th century. He separated the aquatic mammals from fish, and knew that sharks and rays were part of the group he called Selachē (Selachimorpha).
Another good example of his methods comes from the Generation of Animals in which Aristotle describes breaking open fertilized chicken eggs at intervals to observe when visible organs were generated.
He gave accurate descriptions of ruminants' four-chambered fore-stomachs, and of the ovoviviparous egg development of the houndshark Mustelus mustelus.
The works
The works are traditionally listed in this sequence:
Logic
Categories (terms)
On Interpretation (propositions, truth)
Prior Analytics (syllogistic logic)
Posterior Analytics (scientific method)
Topics (rules for argument and debate)
On Sophistical Refutations (fallacies)
Science and nature
Physics (change, motion, void, time)
On the Heavens (not the religious concept: refers to astronomy)
On Generation and Corruption (on the process of life)
Meteorology (origin of comets, weather, disasters)
The Parva Naturalia (psychological works)
Sense and sensibilia (faculties, senses, mind, imagination)
On Memory,
Sleep, Dreams, and Prophesy
Length of life
Works on natural history
History of Animals
On the parts of Animals
On the Movement of Animals
On the Progression of Animals
On the Generation of Animals
Problems
Philosophical works
Metaphysics (substance, cause, form, potentiality)
Nicomachean Ethics (soul, happiness, virtue, friendship)
Eudemian Ethics, virtues & vices
Politics (best states, utopias)
Rhetoric (debate)
Poetics (tragedy, epic poetry)
The Constitution of the Athenians
Fragments
Influence of Aristotle's work
Aristotle is still one of the most influential people who ever lived. He contributed to almost every kind of knowledge in his day, and he started many new fields.
"It is doubtful whether any human being has ever known as much as he did".
Aristotle was the founder of formal logic, pioneered the study of zoology, and helped to develop scientific method.
Despite these achievements, Aristotle's errors are thought by some, such as Peter Medawar, to have held back science considerably. Bertrand Russell notes that "almost every serious intellectual advance has had to begin with an attack on some Aristotelian doctrine". Russell also refers to Aristotle's Ethics as "repulsive", and calls his logic "as definitely antiquated as Ptolemaic astronomy". Russell says these errors make it difficult to do historical justice to Aristotle, until one remembers what an advance he made on his predecessors.
The immediate influence of Aristotle's work was felt as the Lyceum grew into the Peripatetic school of philosophers. Aristotle's influence over Alexander the Great is seen in the latter's bringing with him, on his expedition, biologists and researchers.
Related pages
List of biologists
References
Other websites
Works by Aristotle
384 BC births
322 BC deaths
Ancient Greek philosophers
Ancient Greek writers
Polymaths |
4496 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl%20Sagan | Carl Sagan | Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 - December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer. He was very interested in what life on other planets would be like, which is known as SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence).
Sagan was a science communicator, which meant he taught people about science. He felt like the general public was losing interest in science, so he wrote many books and appeared on television to make it popular again. He mostly talked about planetary science and topics related to space. One of his most famous works includes. Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Cosmos was a television series about many different scientific topics, which Sagan co-wrote and narrated. It made him very famous outside the world of science.
Sagan supported the scientific method and scientific skepticism.
Education and work
Carl Sagan was born in Brooklyn, New York City. Carl's family was Jewish. His father, Samuel Sagan, was an immigrant from the Russian Empire. Samuel was born in 1905 in a city called Kamianets-Podilskyi. The Russian Empire no longer exists, so today Kamianets-Podilskyi is in Ukraine. Samuel made clothes for a living. Carl's mother, Rachel Molly Gruber, was a housewife. Carl had a sister named Carol, who became a social worker. Carl was named after his grandmother, Chaiya (Clara).
Sagan attended the University of Chicago earning two degrees in physics. He followed with a doctorate in Astronomy in 1960 and taught at Harvard University until 1968, when he moved to Cornell University.
Sagan became a teacher and director at Cornell in 1971. He helped many unmanned spacecraft to explore outer space. He thought of the idea of putting a message on spacecraft which could be understood by any life from another planet that might find it. The first message sent into space was a large gold-plated label on the space probe Pioneer 10. He continued to make the messages better. The last message he helped with was the Voyager Golden Record that was sent out with the Voyager space probes.
Scientific achievements
He was well known as a writer who warned of the dangers of nuclear winter. He helped people learn about the atmosphere of Venus, seasonal changes on Mars, and Saturn's moon Titan. He showed that the atmosphere of Venus is very hot and dense. He also said that global warming was a growing, man-made danger like the natural development of Venus into a hot and dangerous planet with greenhouse gases. He suggested that the seasonal changes on Mars were due to dust storms.
Sagan was among the first to guess that Titan and Jupiter's moon Europa might have oceans or lakes, which means that life could be there. Europa's underground ocean was later confirmed by the spacecraft Galileo.
Sagan thought the search for life on other planets was a good idea. He said scientists should listen with large radio telescopes for signals from other planets. He thought sending probes to other planets was a good idea. Sagan was editor Icarus (a magazine about space exploration) for 12 years. He helped start the Planetary Society and was a member of the SETI Institute Board of Trustees.
Social concerns
Sagan also believed that the Drake equation suggested that many kinds of intelligent life could form, but that the lack of evidence (the Fermi paradox) suggests that intelligent beings destroy themselves rather quickly. This made him keen to talk about ways that humanity could destroy itself, in the hope of avoiding such destruction.
Under the name "Mr. X," Sagan wrote about pot smoking in the 1971 book Reconsidering Marijuana. Lester Grinspoon (the book's editor), told this to Keay Davidson, Sagan's biographer. Sagan said that marijuana helped him write some of his books.
Making science popular
Sagan was very good at helping people to understand the cosmos. He gave the 1977/1978 Christmas Lectures for Young People at the Royal Institution. He wrote (with Ann Druyan, who became his third wife) and made the very popular thirteen-part PBS television series Cosmos; he also wrote books to help science become more popular (The Dragons of Eden, which won a Pulitzer Prize, Broca's Brain, etc.) and a novel, Contact, that was a best-seller and was made into a film starring Jodie Foster in 1997. The film won the 1998 Hugo Award.
After Cosmos, Sagan was linked with the catchphrase "billions and billions", which he never used in the television series (but he often used the word "billions"). He wrote Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, which was chosen as a notable book of 1995 by The New York Times.
Not all scientists agreed with him. Although they all liked the way he made science popular, some were afraid that people would think that his personal opinions might be confused with real science. What he said about the Kuwait oil well fires during the first Gulf War were shown later to be wrong.
Later in his life, Sagan's books showed his skeptical, naturalistic view of the world. In his book The Demon-Haunted World, Sagan gave a list of mistakes he had made as an example of how science is self-correcting. The compilation Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the End of the Millennium, published after Sagan's death, contains essays written by Sagan, such as his views on abortion, and Ann Druyan's account of his death as a non-believer.
Legacy
After a long and difficult fight with myelodysplasia, Sagan died of pneumonia at the age of 62, on December 20, 1996, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. Sagan was very important, because he made science popular, and changed the way science was organized, and because he defended humanism, and argued against seeing things from only one point of view.
The landing site of the unmanned Mars Pathfinder spacecraft was renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station in honor of Dr. Sagan on July 5, 1997. Asteroid 2709 Sagan is also named in his honor.
The 1997 movie Contact (see above), based on Sagan's novel of the same name, and finished after his death, ends with the dedication "For Carl."
Awards and medals
Apollo Achievement Award - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Chicken Little Honorable Mention - 1991 - National Anxiety Center
Distinguished Public Service - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Emmy - Outstanding individual achievement - 1981 - PBS series Cosmos
Emmy - Outstanding Informational Series - 1981 - PBS series Cosmos
Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Helen Caldicott Leadership Award - Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament
Homer Award - 1997 - Contact
Hugo Award - 1998 - Contact
Hugo Award - 1981 - Cosmos
Hugo Award - 1997 - The Demon-Haunted World
In Praise of Reason Award - 1987 - Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
Isaac Asimov Award - 1994 - Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award - American Astronautical Society
John W. Campbell Memorial Award - 1974 - The Cosmic Connection
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Medal - Soviet Cosmonauts Federation
Locus Poll Award 1986 - Contact
Lowell Thomas Award - Explorers Club - 75th Anniversary
Masursky Award - American Astronomical Society
Peabody - 1980 - PBS series Cosmos
Public Welfare Medal - 1994 - National Academy of Sciences
Pulitzer Prize for Literature - 1978 - The Dragons of Eden
SF Chronicle Award - 1998 - Contact
Carl Sagan Memorial Award - Named in his honor
Related books and media
Sagan, Carl and Jonathon Norton Leonard and editors of Life, Planets. Time, Inc., 1966
Sagan, Carl and I.S. Shklovskii, Intelligent Life in the Universe. Random House, 1966
Sagan, Carl, Communicaton with Extraterrestrial Intelligence. MIT Press, 1973
Sagan, Carl, et al. Mars and the Mind of Man. Harper & Row, 1973
Sagan, Carl, Other Worlds. Bantam Books, 1975
Sagan, Carl, et al. Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record. Random House, 1977
Sagan, Carl et al. The Nuclear Winter: The World After Nuclear War. Sidgwick & Jackson, 1985
Sagan, Carl and James Randi, The Faith Healers. Prometheus Books, May 1989, , 318 pgs
Sagan, Carl and Richard Turco, A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race. Random House, 1990
Sagan, Carl, The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence. Ballantine Books, December 1989, , 288 pgs
Sagan, Carl, Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science. Ballantine Books, October 1993, , 416 pgs
Sagan, Carl and Ann Druyan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are. Ballantine Books, October 1993, , 528 pgs
Sagan, Carl and Ann Druyan, Comet. Ballantine Books, February 1997, , 496 pgs
Sagan, Carl, Contact. Doubleday Books, August 1997, , 352 pgs
Sagan, Carl, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. Ballantine Books, September 1997, , 384 pgs
Sagan, Carl and Ann Druyan, Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium. Ballantine Books, June 1998, , 320 pgs
Sagan, Carl, The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark. Ballantine Books, March 1997, , 480 pgs
Sagan, Carl and Jerome Agel, Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective. Cambridge University Press, January 15, 2000, , 301 pgs
Sagan, Carl, Cosmos. Random House, May 7, 2002, , 384 pgs
Zemeckis, Robert, Contact. Warner Studios, 1997, ASIN 0790736330 IMDB
Davidson, Keay, Carl Sagan: A Life. John Wiley & Sons, August 31, 2000, , 560 pgs
Other websites
In Memory of Carl Sagan. Tributes by Tom McDonough, James Randi and Michael Shermer, and a selection of quotes from Sagan's works, published in Skeptic, Vol. 4, no. 4, 1996, pp. 10–17.
CarlSagan.Com. Homepage of Cosmos Studios, which sells the Cosmos series on DVD and VHS video tape.
Carl Sagan, Cornell astronomer, dies today (Dec. 20) in Seattle. Cornell University press release on Sagan's death.
Even in Death, Carl Sagan's Influence Is Still Cosmic by William J. Broad, The New York Times, November 30, 1998. Describes Sagan's legacy for space science.
Astronomy Picture of the Day: Carl Sagan. December 26, 1996.
Contact: A Eulogy to Carl Sagan, by Dr. Ray Bohlin, president of Probe Ministries. Dr. Bohlin suggests that the movie Contact can serve as a fitting eulogy for Carl Sagan. Sagan's scientific approach to the question, "was the universe created?" is critically analyzed by Bohlin from his Christian perspective.
References
1934 births
1996 deaths
Agnostics
American astronomers
Deaths from pneumonia
Infectious disease deaths in the United States
Jewish American scientists
Jewish American writers
Pulitzer Prize winners
Scientists from New York
Writers from New York City
Emmy Award winners |
4524 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsuo%20Basho | Matsuo Basho | Matsuo Munefusa, known as Matsuo Bashō (, 1644 - November 28, 1694) was a Japanese poet. He is known as the greatest maker of haiku, a kind of poetry with 17 syllables. The Japanese written language was difficult to master, but haiku was easy for him to write. Matsuo's haikus included characteristics of nature and the four seasons. The reader has to use their imagination to understand his poems.
According to Japanese custom, he is usually called Basho without his family name, and his signature as a poet does not include his house name. He signed usually "はせを". He is one of the greatest writers of the Edo period, and he raised the haiku form to its highest level.
He was born in Iga, now a part of Mie prefecture in a samurai (Japanese warrior) family. After many years of samurai life he found that poetry would be his life work, and gave up being a samurai. He started his life as a poet when he served his lord as a samurai. Matsuo became educated in classical Japanese poems. First he named himself Tosei (桃青) meaning "unripe peach in blue". Basho took this name because he admired a Chinese poet, Li Po whose name means plum in white.
He quit samurai life 1666, and in 1675 he moved to Edo, today called Tokyo. There, in 1678, he got to be a haiku master ("Sosho") and began the life of a working poet. In 1680, he moved to Fukagawa, where he had a house. This was just outside of Edo. One of his followers gifted him a banana plant (basho-an). He planted the plant and called himself Basho because it became his favorite tree in his garden.
In his life, Basho visited many places. Those travels were important for his writings. He visited his disciples (followers) and taught them by making renga, a series of haiku, with them. He also visited famous places in Japanese history. These visits made his writing much stronger.
His most famous book is Oku no Hosomichi ("The Narrow Road Through the Deep North"). This book was written after a trip. On the trip, Basho and his disciple left Edo on March 24, 1689. They went around Tohoku and Hokuriku, and returned to Edo in 1691. The trip in this book ends in Ogaki, Mino (Gifu prefecture today) with one of his haiku where he hinted that he wanted to visit Ise shrine after staying in Ogaki. Matsuo was considered to have written some of the most beautiful travel diaries ever written in Japanese.
Basho died because of disease in early autumn of 1694 in Osaka, while staying at a house of his disciple on a trip. Before his death, he made a haiku as his last words:
Tabini yande / yume ha kareno wo / kake meguru
On travel I am sick
My dream is running around
a field covered with dried grass
Notes
1644 births
1694 deaths
Japanese poets |
4527 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization | Colonization | Colonization is the act of one country settling another place, in order to become the new rulers of the new country, and to live in the new country. An early example is the settlers who went from the cities of Ancient Greece to start new cities.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in The Americas. This is how the Europeans learned that North America and South America were there. The Europeans colonized the Americas. Because of this, and the killing of many Native Americans, most people now living in North America are the descendents of Europeans.
Sometimes, science fiction stories talk about space colonization on space stations or planets other than Earth. Some science fiction stories like The Matrix speak of the robots the human beings made, taking over, and colonizing Earth.
Related pages
Colony
Politics |
4529 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choreography | Choreography | Choreography (dance-writing) is the art of making dances. It tells dancers how they should dance and move. The word has been used since the late 18th century to mean the art of composing dance.
A person who does choreography is called a choreographer. A choreographer makes a dance based on music or a synopsis (a writing of what occurs in the dance). They may also act as trainers for professional dancers in ballet, stage shows and competitive ballroom dance. Their ideas may be recorded in dance notation, or on videos.
Choreography is also used in other types of performances. In Ice skating and Ice dancing, the choreographer designs the moves the skates does. In theater, movies and television, a choreographer is used to design fight scenes. For example, Bob Anderson designed many of the sword fight scenes in the Lord of the Rings movies as well as some of the Star Wars movies. A person who does this type of choreography is usually called a fight choreographer.
References
Dance |
4534 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical%20cell | Electrical cell | An electrical cell is a device used to generate electricity, or to make chemical reactions by applying electricity. A battery is one or more cells, connected. This cell is also known as electrochemical cell.
Cells producing electricity
The simple electrical cells were first developed in 1800s. They are also called galvanic cells, because an Italian scientist named Luigi Galvani invented these cells.
Special chemical reactions which occur inside the electrical cell, result in oxidation and reduction of the substances inside the cell. This produces electrical energy. Normal batteries work like this.
Some electrical cells produce electricity without using chemical energy. For example, solar cells produce electricity when they are exposed to sun light.
A plate of zinc and a plate of copper immersed in a dilute solution which contains acid or salt is an example of the chemical reaction based cell. The solution acts as an electrolyte (electric conductor). When the two plates are connected to a current meter with a wire, electric current will pass; this is because oxidation and reduction processes take place in this chemical reaction turning the zinc plate to a negative electrode and the copper plate to a positive electrode, and so the electrons flow from zinc to copper.
Cells using electricity
Some chemical reactions need high energy to happen. An example is the breakdown of water into hydrogen and oxygen. An electrical cell (or an "electrolytic cell") is used for these reactions. It is a container which has to have a chemical reaction involving electrodes. The chemical substances are exposed to electrical power, and the electrolysis reaction happens inside the electrical cell.
Two pieces of metal are placed in water that has a little electrolyte such as hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, sodium bicarbonate, or sodium hydroxide added to it. An electric current is applied and gas comes out of each electrode. Some greenish-brown color may be seen too if iron was used.
There may also be a chemical reaction which will result in the explosion of the iron and has a strong blast radius (safety goggles recommended).
Related pages
Battery
References
Tools
Electricity |
4535 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry%20cell | Dry cell | Dry cells are a type of chemical cells. Dry cells are commonly used today in the form of batteries. Dry cells are used in many electrical appliances.
Types of dry cells
Primary cells
Zinc-carbon cells, also known as Leclanche cells
Alkaline cells
Lithium cells
Mercury cells
Silver oxide cell
Secondary cells
Nickel-cadmium cell
Lithium-ion cell
Nickel metal-hydride cell
Primary cells are not rechargeable. They have to be thrown away after their chemicals are used.
Secondary cells are rechargeable. They can be used again.
Related pages
Battery
Rechargeable battery
Table of batteries
References
Electronics
Physical chemistry
Batteries |
4536 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam%20War | Vietnam War | The Vietnam War (also known as Second Indochina War or American War in Vietnam) lasted from 1 November 1955–30 April 1975, (19 years, 5 months, 4 weeks, and 1 day). It was fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union, China and North Korea, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States, South Korea, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines. People from other countries also went to fight but not in their own national army. The conflict between communist and capitalist countries was part of the Cold War.
The Viet Cong, also known as the National Liberation Front, or NLF, was a South Vietnamese communist force helped by North Vietnam. It fought a guerrilla war against the anticommunist forces in the South. The People's Army of Vietnam (also known as the North Vietnamese Army) engaged in a more conventional war, at times putting large forces to battle.
The Vietnam War was very controversial, especially in the United States, and was the first war to feature live television coverage. It was also the first major armed conflict that the United States lost. The war became so unpopular in the United States that President Richard Nixon eventually agreed to send American soldiers home in 1973.
Background and causes
France began to colonize Vietnam between 1859 and 1862, when it took control of Saigon. By 1864, it had controlled all of Cochinchina, the southern part of Vietnam. France took control of Annam, the large central part of Vietnam, in 1874. After France defeated China in the Sino-French War (1884–1885), it took over Tonkin, the northern part of Vietnam. French Indochina was formed in October 1887 from these three areas of Vietnam (Cochinchina, Annam and Tonkin), as well as the Kingdom of Cambodia. Laos was added after a war with Thailand, the Franco-Siamese War, in 1893.
During World War II, after Nazi Germany had defeated the French in 1940, French Indochina was controlled by the Vichy French government, a puppet government recognized by Germany. In March 1945, Imperial Japan launched the Second French Indochina Campaign. Japan occupied Indochina until its surrender in August 1945.
After the defeat of Nazi Germany, the Vichy government was no longer in control of France or its territories. The newly-formed Provisional Government of the French Republic attempted to take back control of its former colonies in Indochina by force. if necessary, but France's efforts at regaining its colony in Vietnam were opposed by a Vietnamese army called the Viet Minh.
The Viet Minh had been founded in 1941 by the Vietnamese Communist Party and was led by Hồ Chí Minh. That led to the First Indochina War between France and the Viet Minh. The fighting started with the French bombardment of Haiphong Harbor in November 1946 and ended with a triumph of the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu.
In July 1954, France and the Viet Minh signed the Geneva Peace Accord. This resulted in dividing Vietnam along the 17th parallel into a northern section, under the control of the communists, led by Ho Chi Minh as president and a southern section, led by the Catholic anticommunist Ngo Dinh Diem. The partition was to be temporary until elections in 1956. However, Diem started arresting suspected communist sympathizers in 1956 and wanted to keep power for himself. The elections were never held, and in 1957, North Vietnam began guerrilla warfare against the south.
The United States supported the anticommunist government in South Vietnam and began to send military advisors to help train and support the South Vietnamese Army. The South was fighting against the Viet Cong (known as the National Liberation Front to the North Vietnamese), a communist party based in South Vietnam that was allied with North Vietnam. The Viet Cong began a campaign of assassination in 1957. In 1959, North Vietnam dramatically increased its military assistance to the Viet Cong, which then began attacking South Vietnamese military units. In the domino theory, the US feared that if communism took hold in Vietnam, it would then spread to other countries nearby.
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
On 2 August 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox was in the Gulf of Tonkin, on an intelligence mission along North Vietnam's coast. The US said that three North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked the destroyer. The Maddox fired back and damaged the three torpedo boats. The US then claimed that two days later, the torpedo boats again attacked the Maddox and the destroyer USS Turner Joy. In the second attack, the US ships did not actually see the torpedo boats, but it was that they had been found by using the ship's radar.
After the alleged second attack the US launched air strikes against North Vietnam. The Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Joint Resolution (H.J. RES 1145) on 7 August 1964 and so gave the president the power to run large-scale military operations in Southeast Asia without declaring war. There was little to no proof of the attacks, and it had been believed by some that they were an excuse for expanded US involvement in Indochina.
The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were supplied by a vast network of hidden trails, known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. It was very well hidden although many attempts were made by the US to bomb and destroy it. Supplies and soldiers from North Vietnam were sent through Laos to communists forces in South Vietnam. American planes heavily bombed the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and of bombs were dropped on Laos. That slowed down but did not stop the trail system.
Severe communist losses during the 1968 Tet Offensive made it possible for the US to withdraw many soldiers. As part of a policy called "Vietnamization," South Vietnamese troops were trained and equipped to replace the Americans who had left. By 1973, 95% of the American troops were gone.
All of the parties signed a peace treaty in Paris in January 1973, but the fighting continued until 1975.
Guerilla warfare
There were some large-scale battles during the Vietnam War, but most of the fighting was guerilla warfare, a type of warfare that is different from the large-scale battles fought between armies like those during World War II.In guerilla warfare, small units fight limited battles against an enemy force, set up ambushes, make surprise attacks, and then retreat back into the countryside or blend into the local population. That also includes making it difficult for the enemy to operate by engaging in sabotage and harassing the enemy with lethal means such as land mines and booby traps. The communist troops more often engaged in guerilla warfare against the South Vietnamese and American troops than the reverse because they knew of their weakness in conventional (large-scale) warfare.
Although most of the traps were non-explosive, all of the few explosive traps used grenades. A trip wire was placed, and if a soldier tripped over the wire, a grenade pin was pulled out, the grenade would blow, and the soldier would be killed.
Another style of trap was nicknamed “Venus Flytrap” and had about eight barbs attached to a rectangular frame sitting on a small hole. The barbs faced down so that when the soldier’s leg got caught in it, it would not hurt until he pulled his leg out. Then, the barbs would rip through his leg.
Another Vietcong trap was the Punji trap. Two wooden platforms were placed and covered with leaves to camouflage it. There were spikes on the inside of the wood. When a soldier came along and walked on the wood, it caved in, and the spikes would go through the soldier’s foot. That trap was the most common because it was the cheapest and was very effective. It was also often contaminated (often with feces) so that the soldier would also become infected.
Besides hurting or killing people, the traps would cause fear and lower morale.
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front on April 30, 1975. That marked the end of the Vietnam War and the beginning of the formal reunification of Vietnam into a communist state.
Before the city fell, the few American civilian and military personnel had left Vietnam, along with tens of thousands of South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians had fled.
The North Vietnamese forces were under the command of General Văn Tiến Dũng and began their final attack on Saigon, which was commanded by General Nguyen Van Toan on April 29, with a heavy artillery bombardment of Tân Sơn Nhứt Airport. That killed the last two American servicemen who died in Vietnam: Charles McMahon and Darwin Judge.
By the afternoon of the next day, North Vietnamese troops had occupied the important points within the city and raised their flag over the South Vietnamese presidential palace. The government of South Vietnam soon formally surrendered.
The Americans still in Saigon were evacuated by helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft. The surrender of Saigon was given in person by South Vietnamese President General Duong Van Minh: "We are here to hand over to you the power in order to avoid bloodshed." He was president for two days as his country crumbled.
Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City, after the communist leader Ho Chi Minh.
Aftermath
After Vietnam was reunified, the communists sent anyone associated with South Vietnam to re-education camps.
The war also made potential farmland useless, as it was bombed and affected by Agent Orange. The economy crashed because inflation was high, so unemployment was common, and there was poor health care. Many people fled Vietnam because of these conditions.
The Đổi Mới reform ended the poor conditions, and now Vietnam is a modern nation.
Related pages
First Indochina War
Weapons of the Vietnam War
References
Other websites
The herbicide Agent Orange has left a lasting legacy on Vietnam
Cold War
20th century in Vietnam
1950s in Asia
1960s in Asia
1970s in Asia
1950s conflicts
1960s conflicts
1970s conflicts |
4538 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahel | Sahel | The Sahel is a narrow belt of land in North Africa. It is a strip of land about 5500 kilometers long and 450 kilometres wide. It lies at the southern edge of the Sahara Desert
The Sahel has a tropical semi-arid climate. It is between the dry desert land to the north and the forest areas to the south. The temperature is high throughout the year. There is little rainfall in the Sahel (between 100-150 mm and 600mm). It comes during summer months and may be unreliable. It may be very dry in some years, especially if a large area of low pressure, which brings rain, is not carried North over the Sahel by strong winds.
The Sahel is the Arabic word for 'edge' or 'shore'.
The Sahel is facing a big problem, desertification.
The distribution of rainfall in the Sahel region is uneven. The rainfall in the region has been below average since 1970. The Sahel is becoming drier on the whole. The problem of drought affects most of the countries in the Sahel. As a result, crops and animals die. There is no vegetation to protect the soil, which is then removed by flash floods and strong wind. This leads to soil erosion. Finally, the desert spreads towards the surrounding areas.
With better medical services, the birth rate increases and the death rate decreases in the Sahel. As a result, the population in the Sahel is growing. To meet the ever-increasing demand for firewood, a lot of trees have been cut down. More land has become barren. This is called deforestation.
Furthermore, people farm intensively in order to grow more crops, the soil becomes infertile with a lack of nutrients. If this process continues for a long time, no crops can be grown. This is called overcultivation.
People keep animals for food due to the lack of good soil, the animals will have to eat grass and etc. But as the animals eat the grass, they also dug up the soil. As people keep too many animals, the demand for grass is too great. Soil erosion is caused while the animals keep digging the soil up as they eat, and the wind and rain blow away the soil. This process is called overgrazing.
Modern solutions can be used to give a better agricultural result in the Sahel. We can try drip irrigation or hybrid. We should stop using excessive water and consider our actions, to save the Sahel and lake Chad before it is too late.
References
Geography of Africa
Biomes |
4541 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical%20change | Chemical change | A chemical change (chemical reaction) is a change of materials into other materials with different properties.
Chemical changes occur when a substance combines with another to form a new substance, or, chemical decomposition into two or more different substances. These processes are called chemical reactions.
Burning of wood is a chemical change as new substances which cannot be changed back (e.g. carbon dioxide) are formed. For example, if wood is burned in a fireplace, there is not wood anymore but ash. Other examples include burning of a candle, rusting of iron, baking a cake, etc. Special details that describe how a chemical change takes place are called chemical properties.
Compare: physical change. The opposite of a chemical change is a physical change. Physical changes are a change in which no new substances are formed, and the substance which is changed is the same. For instance, if a stick of wood is broken, there is still a stick of wood; it is just broken.
More examples include changes of shape, changes of states, passing electricity through a copper wire, breaking of wood, shattering of glass, pouring of water, etc. Special details which do not change in a substance without new substances being formed are called physical properties.
Chemical reactions |
4542 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical%20change | Physical change | A physical change is a type of change in which the form of matter is altered but one substance is not transformed into another. The size or shape of matter may be changed, but no chemical reaction occurs.
All physical changes are reversible and their mass does not change. Some examples are changes of shape, changes of states, and passing electricity through a copper wire. Physical changes could be: melting, freezing, boiling/evaporating, condensing, deposition and sublimation.
Many physical changes also involve the rearrangement of atoms most noticeably in the formation of crystals. Many chemical changes are irreversible, and many physical changes are reversible, but reversibility is not a certain criterion for classification. Although chemical changes may be recognized by an indication such as odor, color change, or production of a gas, every one of these indicators can result from physical change.
Chemistry
Physics |
4546 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald%20Reagan | Ronald Reagan | Ronald Wilson Reagan (; February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American actor and politician who was the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975. Reagan was the 9th and 13th president of the Screen Actors Guild, from 1947 to 1952 and again from 1959 to 1960. Reagan was a movie, television and radio actor before he became a politician.
Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois. Reagan had a successful career in Hollywood. He was in fifty-three movies. He married actress Jane Wyman in 1940. They had three children. The couple divorced in 1949. Reagan then married Nancy Davis in 1952. They had two children. Their marriage lasted until Reagan's death in 2004.
Before winning his presidential election in 1980, Reagan ran for president two times in 1968 and in 1976. He was re-elected in 1984 at the age of 73, making him the second oldest person elected President of the United States after Joe Biden who was elected in 2020 at the age of 77. He is known as the "Great Communicator" because he was a good public speaker. Reagan was also known as the "Teflon president" because any criticism or scandals against him never stuck or affected his popularity. Reagan still remains one of the most popular presidents in American history because of his optimism for the country and his humor. Reagan was the first president of the United States to have been divorced.
Reagan was inaugurated in January 1981. As president, Reagan helped create a new political and economic idea. He created the supply-side economic policies. It was later called Reaganomics. Reagan's economic policy lowered tax rates. It created an economic growth and lowered inflation. In his first term he also narrowly survived an assassination attempt. Reagan also declared a War on Drugs. Reagan ordered an invasion of Grenada to end a Communist coup.
He was re-elected in a landslide victory in 1984. During his second term, Reagan worked on ending the Cold War. He also ordered the 1986 bombing of Libya. In 1987, the Reagan administration faced a political scandal. It was the Iran–Contra affair. Reagan worked with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev during his second term. This led to the signing of the INF Treaty. It lowered nuclear weapons in the United States and the Soviet Union. Reagan left office in January 1989.
Reagan was originally a Democrat. In 1962 he changed to the Republican party. He is ranked high in presidential opinion polls.
Reagan died on June 5, 2004 at his Bel Air, Los Angeles home from pneumonia after a ten-year battle with Alzheimer's disease. He was 93 years old.
Early life
Reagan was born to Jack and Nelle Reagan on February 6, 1911 in a small apartment building in Tampico, Illinois. He had an older brother named Neil. His father was a Roman Catholic of Irish descent. His mother was a Protestant of English and Scottish descent.
The family moved to different places in Illinois when Reagan was a child. They moved to Monmouth, Galesburg, and Chicago. His family finally settled in Dixon, Illinois. They lived in a small house in Dixon. His family was very poor. Reagan did not have much as a child. In high school, Reagan enjoyed acting. Reagan was athletic. He became a lifeguard and saved 77 lives.
Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932. He became a sports announcer at news radio station WHO. Reagan was also a broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs. He was good at recreating baseball games. He made them interesting. At this time, the radio station would get only the scores. He was fired for not mentioning the show's sponsors. Reagan was soon re-hired. Station executives could not find anyone as capable as Reagan to re-create baseball games.
Acting career
His first screen credit was the starring role in the 1937 movie Love Is on the Air. He then starred in many movies such as Dark Victory with Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart. Before the movie Santa Fe Trail with Errol Flynn in 1940, he played the role of George "The Gipper" Gipp in the movie Knute Rockne, All American. From his role in the movie, he got the lifelong nickname "the Gipper". In 1941, experts voted him the fifth most popular star from the younger generation in Hollywood.
Reagan's favorite acting role was as a double amputee in 1942's Kings Row. In the movie, he says the line, "Where's the rest of me?" It was later used as the title of his 1965 autobiography. Many movie critics thought Kings Row to be his best movie. Even though the movie was popular, it received bad reviews by New York Times critic Bosley Crowther.
Although Reagan called Kings Row the movie that "made me a star", he was unable to keep up on his success. This was because he was ordered to active duty with the U.S. Army at San Francisco two months after the movie's release.
During World War II, Reagan was separated for four years from his movie career. He served in the First Motion Picture Unit. After the war, Reagan co-starred in such movies such as in, The Voice of the Turtle, John Loves Mary, The Hasty Heart, Bedtime for Bonzo, Cattle Queen of Montana, Juke Girl, This Is the Army, The Winning Team, Tennessee's Partner, and Hellcats of the Navy, in which he worked with his wife, Nancy. Reagan's last movie was a 1964 movie The Killers. Throughout his movie career, his mother, Nelle, often answered much of his fan mail.
Reagan was also a spokesperson. He hosted the General Electric Theater since it was first shown in 1953. He was fired in 1962.
President of the Screen Actors Guild
Reagan was first elected to the board of directors of the Screen Actors Guild in 1941. After World War II, he quickly returned to Screen Actors Guild. Reagan became the 3rd vice-president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1946.
Reagan was nominated in a special election to become president of the Screen Actors Guild. Reagan was elected in 1947. Reagan was re-elected president in 1959. He served only a year before resigning in 1960.
Reagan led the Screen Actors Guild through labor disputes, the Taft–Hartley Act and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings and the Hollywood blacklist era.
FBI informant
During the late 1940s, Reagan and his then-wife Jane Wyman gave the FBI names of actors whom they believed were communists. Reagan even spoke at a special meeting at Congress on communism in Hollywood as well.
Despite not supporting giving out names of actors who were suspected communists. Reagan said:
"Do they expect us to constitute ourselves as a little FBI of our own and determine just who is a Commie and who isn't?"
Entrance into politics
Reagan was very active in politics near the end of his acting career. Reagan used to be a Democrat. He strongly supported the New Deal. He admired Franklin D. Roosevelt. Over time, Reagan became a conservatism republican. This was because he felt the federal government had too much power and authority. He made a famous speech speaking out against socialized medicine (government run health care).
Reagan endorsed Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon for the United States presidency. The last time Reagan supported a Democrat was when Helen Gahagan Douglas ran for the United States Senate.
A Time for Choosing
During the 1964 presidential election, Reagan supported Republican candidate Barry Goldwater. He made a famous speech called "A Time for Choosing" to support Goldwater. In the speech he spoke against government programs and high taxes. Even though Goldwater did not win the election, Reagan gained popularity from it. In his speech, Reagan said,
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness.
After Reagan gave this speech, many businesspeople thought that Reagan could run for Governor of California.
Governor of California, 1967-75
After giving a speech of Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign in 1964, he was persuaded to run for governor. Reagan ran as a Republican against the then governor, Pat Brown during the 1966 gubernatorial election. Reagan won the election with 3,742,913 (57.55%) of the vote while Brown won 2,749,174 (42.27%) of the vote. Reagan was inaugurated on January 2, 1967.
During his years as Governor, Reagan stopped hiring government workers. He did this to slow the growth of California's workforce. Reagan also approved tax increases to balance the state budget. Reagan worked with the Democratic Party majority in the state legislature to help create a major reform of the welfare system in 1971. The reform helped give money to the poor and increase the pay of the rich. During his term as governor, Reagan served as the President of the Republican Governors Association from 1968 to 1969. In 1967, Reagan signed an act that did not allow the public carrying loaded guns. In 1968, a petition to force Reagan into a recall election failed.
Reagan ran briefly for president in 1968. He was not nominated by the Republican Party at the 1968 Republican National Convention as Richard Nixon was nominated.
On May 15, 1969, during the People's Park protests at the University of California, Berkeley, Reagan sent the California Highway Patrol and other officers to fight off the protests, in an event that became known as "Bloody Thursday". Reagan then called out 2,200 state National Guard troops to occupy the city of Berkeley for two weeks in order to crack down on the protesters.
Reagan ran for re-election in the 1970 gubernatorial election against assemblyman Jesse M. Unruh. Reagan won 3,439,174 (52.83%) of the vote while Unruh won 2,938,607 (45.14%) of the vote.
During his final term as governor, he played a major role in California's educational system. He raised student loans. This caused a massive protest between Reagan and the college students. Reagan would soon be criticized of his views of the educational system. In 2019, a 1971 audio recording of a conversation between Reagan and President Nixon was released in which Reagan called Africans diplomats at the United Nations "monkeys".
Reagan left office on January 6, 1975 when Jerry Brown, Pat Brown's son, succeeded Reagan as governor.
1976 presidential campaign
In 1976, Reagan said he would run against President Gerald Ford to become the Republican Party's candidate for president. Reagan soon became the conservative candidate with the support of organizations such as the American Conservative Union, which became key supporters of his political run, while Ford was considered a more moderate Republican.
During his 1976 campaign, Reagan controversially used the pejorative phrase "welfare queen" to describe Linda Taylor who illegally misused her welfare benefits in 1974. He used Taylor and her criminals activities to defend his criticisms about social programs in the United States.
Reagan selected United States Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania as his running mate.
Reagan won a few primaries early such as North Carolina, Texas and California, but soon failed to win key primaries such as New Hampshire, Florida, and his native Illinois.
During the 1976 GOP convention, Ford won the nomination with 1,187 delegates to Reagan's 1,070. Ford would go on to lose the 1976 presidential election to the Democratic nominee, Jimmy Carter.
Though he lost the nomination, Reagan got 307 write-in votes in New Hampshire, 388 votes as an Independent on Wyoming's ballot, and a single electoral vote from general election from the state of Washington.
1980 presidential campaign
In November 1979, Reagan announced his plans to run for president again in the 1980 presidential election against incumbent President Jimmy Carter. His campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again", was heavily used in the 1980 election and in Reagan's 1984 re-election campaign. The slogan would be used by Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump in their presidential campaigns. Reagan faced primary challenges from former Director George H. W. Bush, United States representatives John B. Anderson and Phil Crane, United States senators Bob Dole, Howard Baker, Larry Pressler and Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., Governor Harold Stassen, former Treasury Secretary John Connally and to Republican executive Ben Fernandez. In May 1980, Reagan won enough delegates to win the Republican Party nomination. At the 1980 Republican National Convention, Reagan named Bush as his running mate.
Reagan's presidential campaign focused on lowering taxes to grow the economy, less government in people's lives, states' rights, and a strong national defense.
His relaxed and confident appearance during the televised Reagan-Carter debate on October 28, grew his popularity, and helped to expand his lead in the polls.
On November 4, Reagan won the election winning 44 states and 489 electoral votes, to Carter's 49 electoral votes from six states plus the District of Columbia. He won the popular vote by a larger margin, winning 50.7% to Carter's 41.0%, with independent John B. Anderson winning 6.6%.
Presidency, 1981–89
First term, 1981–85
Reagan was first sworn in as president on January 20, 1981. In his inaugural address (which Reagan himself wrote), he talked about the country's economic problems, arguing:
In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem.
School prayer and moment of silence
In 1981, Reagan became the first president to propose a constitutional amendment on school prayer. In 1985, Reagan expressed his disappointment that the Supreme Court ruling still bans a moment of silence for public schools, and said he had "an uphill battle." In 1987 Reagan renewed his call for Congress to support voluntary prayer in schools and end "the expulsion of God from America's classrooms." People who did not support this said it is not right for any government force to be included in schools.
Assassination attempt
Reagan was nearly killed in an assassination attempt that happened on Monday, March 30, 1981. 69 days after becoming President, he was leaving after a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. He was shot by John Hinckley. Hinckley shot six bullets.
White House Press Secretary James Brady was shot in the head. Brady later recovered, but was paralyzed. Two other bullets shot officer Thomas Delahanty in the back, also paralyzing him, and Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy in the chest. McCarthy took a bullet for Reagan. No one was killed during the event.
Reagan was taken to the George Washington University Hospital, which was nearest hospital from the hotel and White House. He suffered a punctured lung and a broken rib bone. He lost about 3/4 of his blood. Reagan soon made a fast recovery after doctors performed surgery. It was later said that the bullet was one inch away from his heart.
This made Reagan the only President of the United States to have been shot and survive afterwards.
Reaganomics
Reagan believed that the government should be small, not big. This means that the government should not interfere in people's lives very much or interfere with what businesses do. He believed in supply-side economics, which was also called Reaganomics and Voodoo economics (by people who didn't like it) during his term. He lowered everybody's income taxes by 25% and cut spending in many government departments.
He also lowered inflation from 14% to 4% and he vetoed 78 bills. Reagan's economic plan resulted in a bad economy during the year 1982, but the economy turned around in 1983. The economy soon recovered. Reagan called it "Morning in America". During his presidency the United States declared a "War on Drugs".
However, people who did not like his economic plan pointed out an increase in the national debt from 31% to 50.8% of the country's GDP.
Air traffic controllers' strike
In the summer of 1981, the union of federal air traffic controllers went on strike. They broke a federal law that does not allow government unions from striking. Reagan said that if the air traffic controllers "do not report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated". They did not return and on August 5, Reagan fired 11,359 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored his order, and used supervisors and military controllers to handle the nation's commercial air traffic until new controllers could be hired and trained.
Response to AIDS epidemic
The Reagan administration largely ignored the AIDS crisis in the United States in 1981. AIDS research was underfunded during Reagan's administration. There were requests for more funding by doctors at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), but they were routinely denied. By the end of the first 12 months of the epidemic, more than 1,000 people had died of AIDS in the United States.
By the time President Reagan gave his first speech on the epidemic in 1987, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS and 20,849 had died of it. By the end of 1989, the year Reagan left office, 115,786 people had been diagnosed with AIDS in the United States, and more than 70,000 of them had died of it.
Visit to USS Constellation (CV-64)
On August 20, 1981, Reagan was the honorable guest of Captain Dennis Brooks, commanding officer of the USS Constellation (CV-64). President Reagan arrived on the USS Constellation (CV-64) by helicopter. He spoke to the ship's crew, ate lunch with them and watched a United States Navy tactical display at sea.
President Reagan then re-enlisted some US Navy personnel. He then was introduced to Special Agent Craig Goodwin of the Naval Investigative Service (NIS). He was the Special Agent who was assigned aboard the USS Constellation (CV-64). Special Agent Goodwin was later awarded one of the highest civilian medals for his intelligence work, the Meritorious Civilian Service Medal.
Evil empire
Reagan's "Evil empire" speech was delivered to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida on March 8, 1983. It is his first recorded use of the phrase. Speaking about the nuclear arms race he said that the Soviet Union as evil.
In your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride, the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.
Audio and text of this speech is available here .
Lebanese Civil War (1983)
In 1983, Reagan sent forces to Lebanon to stop the threat of the Lebanese Civil War. On October 23, 1983, a group of American forces in Beirut were attacked. The Beirut barracks bombing killed 241 American servicemen and wounded more than 60 others by a suicide truck bomber. Reagan withdrew all the Marines from Lebanon.
Korean Air Lines Flight 007
In September 1983, Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down by the Soviet Union. It killed one politician and many more Americans. Reagan was angry at the Soviets. Reagan addressed the nation. As a result, Reagan proposed that the American military's GPS would be allowed for civilian use. In his address, Reagan said,
I'm coming before you tonight about the Korean airline massacre, the attack by the Soviet Union against 269 innocent men, women, and children aboard an unarmed Korean passenger plane. This crime against humanity must never be forgotten, here or throughout the world.
Operation Urgent Fury (Grenada, 1983)
On October 25, 1983, Reagan ordered U.S. forces to invade Grenada, code named Operation Urgent Fury. Reagan said that there was a "regional threat posed by a Soviet-Cuban military build-up in the Caribbean" in Grenada.
Operation Urgent Fury was the first major military operation done by U.S. forces since the Vietnam War. Some days of fighting started, but it resulted in a U.S. victory. In mid-December, U.S. forces withdrew from Grenada after a new form of government was created there.
MLK Day (1983)
Reagan originally did not support making Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday, because of cost concerns. But on November 2, 1983, Reagan signed a bill to create a federal holiday honoring King. The bill had passed the Senate by a count of 78 to 22 and the House of Representatives by 338 to 90. The holiday was observed for the first time on January 20, 1986. It is observed on the third Monday of January.
1984 re-election campaign
Reagan was once again nominated for president at the 1984 Republican National Convention. His Democratic opponent, was former Vice President Walter Mondale of Minnesota.
During the first presidential debate, many said Reagan lost the debate and there were rumors about Reagan's health citing his confusion on stage. Many thought Reagan was showing the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. In the second debate, Reagan improved his performance and when asked about questions of his age, he said:
I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.
Reagan's statement made the entire audience laugh including from moderators and Mondale himself. Reagan also repeated his 1980 debate phrase: "There you go again".
Reagan was re-elected in 1984 in a landslide victory. Reagan won 49 out of the 50 states. He carried more electoral votes than any other president in American history.
Second term, 1985-89
Reagan was sworn in as president once again on January 20, 1985 at the White House this time due to cold weather. In the coming weeks, he changed his staff by moving White House Chief of Staff James Baker to Secretary of the Treasury and naming Treasury Secretary Donald Regan to Chief of Staff.
Cold War and Soviet relations
Reagan became friends with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher. Both of them held meetings about the Soviet Union's threat and how to end the Cold War. Reagan became the first American president to ever address the British Parliament.
In foreign policy, Reagan ended detente (the policy of being friendly to the Soviet Union) by ordering the largest peacetime military buildup in American history. The U.S. government had to borrow a lot of money to pay for it. He had many new weapons built. Soon, the U.S. began to research on a missile defense system which would destroy missiles. It was to prevent a nuclear war from happening. The program was called Strategic Defense Initiative. It was nicked named "Star Wars".
He directed money to anti-communist movements all over the world that wanted to overthrow their communist government. He ordered multiple military operations including the invasion of Grenada and the Libya bombing.
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became the new leader of the Soviet Union (which was in bad shape and soon to collapse). Reagan had many talks with him. Their first meeting together was at the Reykjavík Summit in Iceland. They became good friends.
Bitburg controversy
In May 1985, Reagan and Chancellor Helmut Kohl were scheduled to visit a military cemetery in Bitburg, Germany to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II. The visit caused controversy as the cemetery had members of the Waffen-SS buried there and Reagan did not schedule a visit to a concentration camp. As a result, a trip to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was added to Reagan's schedule where he made a few remarks about the Holocaust and the end of the war. Reagan responded about the controversy,
This visit has stirred many emotions in the American and German people too. Some old wounds have been reopened, and this I regret very much, because this should be a time of healing.
The War on Drugs
Reagan announced a War on Drugs in 1982, because of concerns about the increasing number of people using crack. Even though Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs during the 1970s, Reagan used more militant policies.
In 1986, Reagan signed a drug enforcement bill that budgeted $1.7 billion to fund the War on Drugs. It created a mandatory minimum penalty for drug offenses. The bill was criticized for created racial inequalities and mass imprisonment of African-Americans. As a result, First Lady Nancy Reagan created her "Just Say No" campaign to promote anti-drug usage to children.
Libya bombing
During the Reagan presidency, relations between Libya and the United States were mixed. In early April 1986, relations were escalated when a bomb exploded in a Berlin discothèque. It resulted in the injury of 63 American military personnel and death of one serviceman. In the late evening of April 15, 1986, the United States launched many attacks in Libya.
The UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher allowed the U.S. Air Force to use Britain's air bases to launch the attack, only if that the UK was supporting America's right to self-defense supported by the United Nations. The attack was done to stop Gaddafi's "ability to export terrorism", offering him "incentives and reasons to alter his criminal behavior". The president addressed the nation from the Oval Office after the attacks started, he said
When our citizens are attacked or abused anywhere in the world on the direct orders of hostile regimes, we will respond so long as I'm in this office.
Many countries and the United Nations did not like Reagan's decision to bomb Libya. The United Nations said that Reagan violated "the Charter of the United Nations and of international law".
Iran-Contra affair
Reagan's reputation was badly hurt by the political scandal Iran-Contra Affair. The government illegally sold weapons to Iran. It later used the profits to support a Nicaraguan terrorist group called the Contras. Reagan told the American people he didn't know anything about the scandal. Reagan funded the Contras to fight off the Communist regime of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, but when it became too expensive, Congress made it illegal to pay the Contras. As a result, the scandal at the center of the affair and the cover up was using illegal profits to break the law a second time by supporting terrorists.
His United States National Security Advisor John Poindexter was charged with multiple felonies and later resigned. Reagan later nominated former Ambassador Frank Carlucci to replace Poindexter. His Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger was thought to be guilty, but resigned before a trial could begin. Reagan later nominated Carlucci to serve as Defense Secretary for the rest of his term. Oliver North, a member of the United States National Security Council, resigned and was indicted for his involvement in the affair. In February 1987, White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan also resigned because of an ongoing feud between Regan and First Lady Reagan about his handling of the affair.
Soon, he told the American people that it was his fault. After Reagan told the truth, he became more popular. In his apology, Reagan said,
Let's start with the part that is the most controversial. A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.
In the end, fourteen administration officials were indicted and eleven convictions resulted, some of which were vacated on appeal. The rest of those indicted or convicted were all pardoned by President George H. W. Bush, who had been Vice President at the time of the affair.
Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act
In the 1980s, apartheid in South Africa was becoming more violent and a global issue. The Democrats in the Senate tried to pass the Anti-Apartheid Act in September 1985, but could not overcome a Republican filibuster. Reagan saw it as an act to lower his authority to plan foreign policy. He created own set of sanctions, but Democrats saw them to be "watered down and ineffective".
The bill was re-introduced in 1986 and brought up for a vote despite Republican efforts to block it to give Reagan's sanctions time to work. It passed the House with Reagan publicly against it. Later the Senate approved of the bill with a 84-14 vote.
On September 26, 1986, Reagan vetoed the bill saying that it would cause an "economic war". Republican Senator Richard Lugar led the Senate of override Reagan's veto. The veto was reverse by Congress (by the Senate 78 to 21, the House by 313 to 83) on October 2. The veto override was the first one on a presidential foreign policy veto in the 20th century.
In response to the veto override, Reagan said:
I believe, are not the best course of action; they hurt the very people they are intended to help. My hope is that these punitive sanctions do not lead to more violence and more repression. Our administration will, nevertheless, implement the law.
Space Shuttle Challenger
In 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded killing everyone on board. The entire country was shocked. Reagan postponed his 1986 State of the Union Address as a result of the tragedy. It was the first time that a President of the United States postponed a State of the Union Address. Afterwards, Reagan addressed the nation. Reagan famously said,
We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God'.
Immigration Reform
In November 1986, Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act. It helped some immigrants to get jobs and become legal citizens. In that same year, the Statue of Liberty was just re-opened after being renovated. Reagan was at the opening ceremony when he said,
The legalization provisions in this act will go far to improve the lives of a class of individuals who now must hide in the shadows, without access to many of the benefits of a free and open society. Very soon many of these men and women will be able to step into the sunlight and, ultimately, if they choose, they may become Americans.
Supreme Court nominations
During his 1980 campaign, Reagan promised that, if elected, he would nominate the first female Supreme Court Associate Justice. On July 7, 1981, he nominated Sandra Day O'Connor to replace the retiring Justice Potter Stewart. Reagan said of O'Connor:
[O'Connor] is truly a person for all qualities, having those unique qualities of patience, fairness, intelligent, and devotion to the public good. I commend her to you, and I urge the Senate's swift bipartisan confirmation so that as soon as possible she may take her seat on the Court and her place in history.
O'Connor was confirmed by the United States Senate with a vote of 99–0.
In his second term in 1986, Reagan nominated William Rehnquist to replace Warren E. Burger as Chief Justice. He named Antonin Scalia to fill the empty seat left by Rehnquist.
After Associate Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. announced his retirement in June 1987, Reagan nominated conservative jurist Robert Bork to replace him in 1987. Senator Ted Kennedy was strongly against Bork. Kennedy accused Bork of not being strong on states', civil or women's rights. Kennedy said that if Bork was confirmed:
Robert Bork's America is a land where women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.
Bork's nomination was rejected by the United States Senate with a vote of 58–42. Reagan then nominated Douglas H. Ginsburg, but Ginsburg withdrew his name from consideration after it was revealed he used cannabis. Reagan later nominated Anthony Kennedy to replace Powell, Jr. and was confirmed with a vote of 97–0.
Berlin Wall
In 1987, Reagan travelled to Berlin to give a speech at the Berlin Wall. That is where he gave one of his greatest speeches of his presidency. Referring to the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall he said,
We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
Civil Liberties Act of 1988
In January 1987, U.S. Representative Tom Foley introduced the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 to Congress as a way to give reparation to Japanese-Americans who were interned by the United States during World War II. It passed the House in September 1987 and was sent to the Senate were it was passed in April 1988.
Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act into law on August 10, 1988 granting USD $20,000 with payments beginning in 1990. A total of 82,219 Japanese-Americans received checks.
End of the Cold War
During his term as president, Reagan saw the change in the direction of the Soviet leadership with Mikhail Gorbachev. Months after his Berlin Wall speech, Gorbachev announced his plans to work with Reagan for a big arms agreements. Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty which banned nuclear weapons being launched between the United States and the Soviet Union.
When Reagan visited Moscow for the fourth summit in 1988, he was seen as a celebrity by the Soviets. A journalist asked the president if he still considered the Soviet Union the evil empire. "No", he replied, "I was talking about another time, another era". In November 1989, ten months after Reagan left office, the Berlin Wall was torn down, the Cold War was officially declared over at the Malta Summit on December 3, 1989, and two years later, the Soviet Union collapsed.
End of the Reagan presidency
Reagan left office with high rankings on January 20, 1989 when his Vice President George H. W. Bush became president. Reagan and his wife, Nancy, soon returned home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California. In the years after he left office, Reagan's time in office was seen as one of the best and is compared to that of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.
Post-presidency, 1989-2004
Public speaking
After leaving office, Reagan and his wife Nancy lived in Bel Air, Los Angeles. They also visited their ranch, Rancho del Cielo. Reagan gave a speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention giving his support for Bush's re-election campaign in the 1992 presidential election.
In November 1991, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library was dedicated and opened to the public in Simi Valley, California.
In June 1989, Reagan was honored with Honorary Knighthood and received the Order of the Bath presented by Queen Elizabeth II. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1993 by President George H. W. Bush. He was the first former living president to receive the honor. Soon afterwards the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation created the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award for people who made a big change for freedom.
In 1990, Reagan wrote an autobiography titled, An American Life.
Even after when he left office, Reagan had a close friendship with both Thatcher and Gorbachev. They would often visit him at his home.
In May 1994, Reagan, along with former presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, wrote to the U.S. House of Representatives in support of banning "semi-automatic assault guns."
Assault
On April 13, 1992, Reagan was assaulted by an anti-nuclear protester during a speech while accepting an award from the National Association of Broadcasters in Las Vegas. The protester was Richard Paul Springer. He smashed a 2-foot-high (60 cm) 30-pound (13.5 kg) crystal statue of an eagle that the broadcasters had given to Reagan. Pieces of glass hit Reagan, but he was not injured.
Springer was the founder of an anti-nuclear group called the 100th Monkey. Following his arrest on assault charges, a Secret Service spokesman did not say how Springer got past the agents. Later, Springer pled guilty to the federal charge of interfering with the Secret Service, but other felony charges of assault and fighting against officers were dropped.
Health issues
Early in his presidency, Reagan started wearing a hearing aid, first in his right ear and later in his left as well. In 1985, he had colon cancer and skin cancer removed at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. In 1987, Reagan had surgery to remove polyp of the nose. Also in that year, Reagan went into surgery for an enlarged prostate.
In 1994, Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
On November 5, 1994, Reagan wrote a public letter about having Alzheimer's disease, writing:
After announcing his disease, many people sent supporting letters to his California home. There was also an opinion based on unfinished evidence that Reagan had showed symptoms of mental decline while still in office.
In 1995, the Ronald and Nancy Reagan Research Institute was dedicated in Chicago, Illinois. It is an institution that can help people with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
Reagan fell at his Bel Air home on January 13, 2001. He broke his hip. The fracture was repaired the next day. Reagan, 89 years old, returned home later that week, but he then had to do difficult physical therapy at home.
White House correspondent memoirs
In her memoirs, former CBS White House correspondent Lesley Stahl remembers about her final meeting with the president in 1986,
But then, at the end, he regained his alertness. As she described it,
Final years
As the years went on, the Alzheimer's disease slowly destroyed Reagan's mental capacity. He was only able to recognize a few people, including his wife, Nancy. He remained active during his last years. He took walks through parks near his home and on beaches, played golf regularly, and until 1999 he often went to his office in nearby Century City.
On February 6, 2001, Reagan reached the age of 90, becoming the third former president to do so (the other two being John Adams and Herbert Hoover, with Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter later reaching 90).
Reagan's public appearances became much less frequent with the progression of the disease. His family decided that he would live in quiet semi-isolation with his wife Nancy. Nancy Reagan told CNN's Larry King in 2001 that very few visitors were allowed to see her husband because she felt that "Ronnie would want people to remember him as he was." In that same year, Reagan's daughter, Maureen Reagan, died from melanoma at the age of 60.
The USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) was finished in 2001. A ceremony was held in March 2001. Reagan's wife, Nancy lead the ceremony. She christened the ship. Reagan could not go because he was very sick.
Following her husband's diagnosis and death, Nancy became a stem-cell research advocate. She urged Congress and President George W. Bush to support federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. President Bush opposed the idea. In 2009, she praised President Barack Obama for lifting restrictions on such research. Mrs. Reagan believed that it could lead to a cure for Alzheimer's. Nancy died on March 6, 2016 at the age of 94.
Death and funeral
On June 5, 2004, Reagan died at the age of 93 of pneumonia, caused by Alzheimer's disease, in his home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California. A short time after his death, Nancy Reagan released a statement saying, "My family and I would like the world to know that President Ronald Reagan has died after 10 years of Alzheimer's disease at 93 years of age. We appreciate everyone's prayers."
Reagan was granted a state funeral. Reagan's state funeral was the first in the United States since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1973. It was held at the Washington National Cathedral on June 11 and presided by former Missouri United States senator John Danforth. President George W. Bush and former presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton went to the funeral. First Lady Laura Bush and former first ladies Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter, and Barbara Bush also went.
Former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson did not go to the funeral because of poor health. Reverend Billy Graham, who was Reagan's first choice to lead the funeral, could not go because he was recovering from surgery. Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor also went to the funeral and delivered a passage from the Bible. The funeral was led by Reagan's close friend and pastor Michael Wenning.
Foreign leaders also went to Reagan's funeral, Mikhail Gorbachev, Prime Minister of United Kingdom Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and interim presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Ghazi al-Yawer of Iraq. Former Prime Minister of United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher, former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and both former President George H. W. Bush and President George W. Bush gave eulogies.
Reagan was buried later that day in an underground vault at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. His tomb reads,
I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And that there is purpose and worth to each and every life.
Marriages
Reagan met Jane Wyman while filming Brother Rat in 1938. He asked Wyman to marry him at the Chicago Theatre. They were married on January 20, 1940 in Glendale, California. They had two children: Michael (adopted) and Maureen Reagan. They had a third child, Christine Reagan, but she was stillborn. With Reagan's growing political career and the death of their child, Wyman filled for divorce in 1948. The divorce was final in 1949.
In 1949, months after divorcing Wyman, Reagan met Nancy Davis. Davis was an actress who was accidentally listed as a communist and asked Reagan to help. After Reagan helped Davis, the two began dating. Three years later, Reagan asked Davis to marry him in Beverly Hills, California. They were married on March 4, 1952 in Hollywood, California. Together, they had two children: Ron and Patti Reagan.
Wyman died of natural causes on September 10, 2010. She was aged 90. Nancy outlived her husband by eleven years. She died on March 6, 2016 of heart failure. She was aged 94.
Honors
In 2000, Ronald and Nancy Reagan received the Congressional Gold Medal in "recognition for their service to their nation".
In August 2004, a tribute to Reagan was shown at the 2004 Republican National Convention presented by his son, Michael Reagan.
In June 2007, Reagan received the Order of the White Eagle from Poland's president, Lech Kaczyński, for Reagan's work to end communism in Poland. Nancy Reagan travelled to Warsaw to accept the award for her husband.
On June 3, 2009, a statue of Reagan was added in the United States Capitol rotunda. The statue represents the state of California in the National Statuary Hall Collection. Following Reagan's death, both major American political parties agreed to place a statue of Reagan instead of that of Thomas Starr King.
Also in June 2009, President Obama signed the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission Act into law. It created a commission to plan activities to mark the upcoming centenary of Reagan's 100 birthday.
On July 4, 2011, a statue of Reagan was presented in London. It is outside of the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square. The ceremony was supposed to be attended by Reagan's wife Nancy, but she did not attend. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took her place and read a statement from her. British Prime Minister during Reagan's presidency, Baroness Thatcher, was also unable to attend due to poor health.
A statue of Reagan was presented in November 2011 in Warsaw, Poland. President of Poland Lech Wałęsa was there.
In 2011, Reagan was added to the National Radio Hall of Fame.
Since 2011, February 6 has been known as Ronald Reagan Day in 21 states across the United States in honor of his birthday.
In 2016, Ronald and Nancy Reagan were honored in the Presidential $1 Coin Program in August 2016. He was the last president honored in the program.
In August 2017, Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta honored Reagan at the Labor Hall of Honor as the 2017 edition to the monument.
Culture portrayal
In the 1991 crime/thriller movie Point Break, a face-mask of Reagan is worn by the leader (Patrick Swayze) of the "Ex-Presidents", gang of robbers who wear face-masks of former Presidents during bank robberies.
In the 2000 psychological horror movie American Psycho, Reagan was discussed towards the end of the movie as to whether he is a psychopath or an innocent old man in regards to the Iran-Contra affair.
In 2001, Richard Crenna played Reagan in the Oliver Stone television movie The Day Reagan Was Shot. In 2007, the edited version of his diary was published entitled The Reagan Diaries. It became the New York Times Best Seller.
Voice actor Hank Azaria voiced Reagan three times (1993, 1994, and 2012) in The Simpsons. Harry Shearer said that Simpsons character Mr. Burns is inspired by Reagan. Seth MacFarlane voiced Reagan in American Dad! and on Family Guy for special episodes.
During the history of Saturday Night Live, Reagan has been played by Phil Hartman, Randy Quaid and Robin Williams. In a 2010 short comedy video, Presidential Reunion, actor Jim Carrey played the spirit of Reagan trying to speak to Barack Obama about bank companies and the media.
In 2014, Reagan was played by British actor Alan Rickman in Lee Daniels' The Butler.
In 2015, Bill O'Reilly published Killing Reagan, the fifth book of his Killing series. It covers the assassination attempt on Reagan in March 1981. A year later, National Geographic Society announced they were making a television movie based on the book. Killing Reagan was premiered on National Geographic on October 16, 2016, with actor Tim Matheson playing Reagan. In late 2015, actor Bruce Campbell played Reagan in the second season of Fox's criminal suspense drama series Fargo.
In March 2018, it was confirmed that actor Dennis Quaid would play Reagan in an upcoming movie, titled Reagan, which will be based on Reagan's life. David Henrie will play a younger Reagan in the movie.
In October 2018, the Reagan library publicly launched three Reagan holographs: one where Reagan is in the Oval Office, one where he is in a train during his 1984 campaign and one at his Rancho del Cielo.
Old footage of Reagan and his likeness was used for the 2020 first-person shooter video game Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.
Legacy
Reagan, by public opinion, is one of the most popular American presidents. His legacy is strongly admired among many conservatives and Republicans. Those who do admire Reagan are sometimes called Reagan coalitionists.
According to USA Today, "Reagan transformed the American presidency in ways that only a few have been able to." His role in the Cold War made his image more popular as a different kind of leader as both Reagan and Gorbachev wanted to end nuclear tensions and the war.
Reagan ranked third of post–World War II presidents in a 2007 Rasmussen Reports poll, fifth in an ABC 2000 poll, ninth in another 2007 Rasmussen poll, and eighth in a late 2008 poll by British newspaper The Times. In 2011, British historians released a survey to rate American presidents. This poll of British experts in American history and politics said that Reagan is the eighth greatest American president.
Reagan was the oldest president up to that time and was supported by young voters, who began to support the Republican party as a result.
Reagan is even admired by people of the opposite party, the Democratic Party. Democrats who support Reagan are called Reagan Democrats. His presidency is sometimes called the Reagan Era because of the changes it brought during Reagan's time as president. In his home state of California, Reagan is seen as a hero. Reagan is known for his witty charm and his warm optimism.
The legacy of his economic policies is still divided between people who believe that the government should be smaller and those who believe the government should take a more active role in regulating the economy. While some of his foreign policies were controversial, many thank Reagan for peacefully ending the Cold War.
Related pages
List of things named after Ronald Reagan
Make America Great Again
Reagan Era
Reaganomics
The Eleventh Commandment
USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76)
What would Reagan do?
Killing Reagan
Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home
Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine
References
More reading
Holden, Kenneth. Making of the Great Communicator: Ronald Reagan's Transformation From Actor To Governor (2013)
Putnam, Jackson K. "Governor Reagan: A Reappraisal." California History (2006): 24-45. in JSTOR
Books by Reagan
Other websites
Reagan's White House biography
Reagan foundation page
Find a Grave page
IMDb page
NNDB page
Rotten Tomatoes page
|-
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
Congressional Gold Medal recipients
Recipients of the Order pro merito Melitensi
Recipients of the Order of the White Eagle (Poland)
National Radio Hall of Fame inductees
1968 United States presidential candidates
1976 United States presidential candidates
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1984 United States presidential candidates
Actors from Illinois
American movie actors
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American labor leaders
American television presenters
American crime victims
American autobiographers
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Major League Baseball broadcasters
Deaths from pneumonia
People with Alzheimer's disease
Governors of California
Infectious disease deaths in Los Angeles
Reagan family
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Military people from Illinois
Politicians from Illinois
Writers from Illinois
Tampico, Illinois
Skin cancer survivors
Anti-Communists
Time People of the Year
Presidents of the Screen Actors Guild
US Republican Party politicians
1911 births
2004 deaths
20th-century American politicians |
4549 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/United%20Nations | United Nations | The United Nations (UN) is an organization between countries established on 24 October 1945 to promote international cooperation. It was founded to replace the League of Nations following World War II and to prevent another conflict. When it was founded, the UN had 51 members, but there are now 193. Most nations are members of the UN and send diplomats to the headquarters to hold meetings and make decisions about global issues.
The goals of the United Nations are:
To keep world peace.
To help countries get along.
To alleviate poverty amongst it's members
To improve living conditions for people all over the world.
And to make the world a better place.
History
After World War I, the nations of the world formed the League of Nations. The organization was a place where nations could talk through their differences calmly. However, some countries like Germany, Italy, and Japan ignored the League and tried to solve their problems through war. Members of the League of Nations did not want to go to war to protect other members and so it failed. World War II soon started.
The Allies of World War II often called themselves "the United Nations" since they were united against the Axis Powers. After the war, the winners formed a new organization for world peace. On 25 April 1945 in San Francisco, they decided on the name '"United Nations". In June, they signed the United Nations Charter and decided how the organization would work. The UN was created on 24 October 1945, and its first meeting was held in January 1946. Since 1947 24 October has been called “United Nations Day”. The only country whose flag is modelled after the United Nations is Somalia.
Headquarters
All of the organs of the United Nations are based in New York City, United States, except for the International Court of Justice, which is in The Hague, Netherlands.
Activity
The UN's main buildings in New York City, but the UN also has offices in Geneva, Switzerland,Kenya, and Austria). The UN tries to be peaceful, but was also involve in armed conflicts. In the 1950s during the Soviet boycott of United Nations Security Council, UN supported South Korea in a war against North Korea, and in the 1990s, the UN helped to force Iraqi soldiers out of Kuwait. At other times, the UN has built peacekeeping forces in which UN travel to conflicted places in the world and to keep peace. Today there are UN peacekeepers working in Afghanistan, Cyprus, Haiti, Liberia, and several other countries.
Through a series of goals, resolutions and declarations adopted by member nations of the United Nations, the world has a set of commitments, actions, and goals to stop and reverse the spread of HIV and scale up towards universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care. and support services.
Divisions
The United Nations has six "principal organs":
Principal organs of the United Nations
There are also so-called special agencies of the United Nations, Some of them are older than the United Nations. Here are a few of them:
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
The World Health Organization (WHO)
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
The International Labour Organization (ILO)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF)
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Related pages
Members of the United Nations
References
Notes
Other websites
UN website
UN Foundation website
1945 establishments |
4550 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global | Global | Global is a prefix which means that it applies to the entire world rather than any special place or people.
It is used to mean "universal".
Geography
da:Global
de:Global
en:Global
sv:Global |
4554 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20historians | List of historians | This is a list of historians.
The names are grouped by order of the historical period in which they were writing, which is not necessarily the same as the period in which they specialised.
Chroniclers and annalists, though they are not historians in the true sense, are also listed here for convenience.
Ancient historians
Herodotus, (485—c.420 BC), Halicarnassian "Father of History"
Thucydides, (c.460–400 BC), Peloponnesian War
Xenophon, (431—c.360 BC), an Athenian knight and student of Socrates
Julius Caesar, (c.100–44 BC), Gallic and civil wars
Flavius Josephus, (37–100), Jewish history
Sima Qian, (c.140 BC), Chinese history
Plutarch, (c. 46–120 AD)
Gaius Cornelius Tacitus, (c. 56—c. 120), early Roman Empire
Suetonius, (75–160)
Medieval historians/chroniclers
Jordanes, (6th century), Goths
Procopius, (d. c. 565), Byzantines
Bede, (c. 632–735), Anglo-Saxons
Geoffrey of Monmouth, churchman/historian
ibn Khaldun, (1332–1406)
Christine de Pizan, (c.1365—c.1430), historian, poet, philosopher
Snorri Sturluson, author of Younger Edda and Heimskringla; d. in 1241
Historians from the time period 1600--1900
Sharaf Khan Bidlisi, died in 1603
Voltaire, (1694–1778), French Enlightenment philosopher, historian, and novelist, author of Candide.
Edward Gibbon, (1737–1794), Roman Empire
Leopold von Ranke, (1795–1886), German
William H. Prescott, (1796–1859), US historian of Spain, Mexico, Peru
Mary Sheldon Barnes, (1850-1898), American
Henri Pirenne - "one of the most eminent scholars of the Middle Ages and of Belgian national development", says Encyclopædia Britannica; the Belgian died in 1935
Historians after 1900
Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997), history of ideas
Winston Churchill (1874–1965), U.K. prime minister; World Wars I and II, English-speaking peoples
Robert Conquest (1917–2015), Russia, Soviet Union
John Davies (1938–2015), Welsh historian
Michel Foucault (1926–1984), French historian of ideas / philosopher
Francis Fukuyama, (b. 1955)
Martin Gilbert (1936–2015)
Christopher Hill, (1912–2003), 17th century England
Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012), British historian, labour history
Paul Kennedy (born 1945), British historian, author of influential The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.
Thomas Kuhn, (1922–1996), history of science, author of The Copernican Revolution, Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, and the influential The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Hans Mommsen (1930–2015), German social history
Richard Pipes (1923–2018), conservative Polish-born American historian, Russian and Soviet history
Janko Prunk (born 1942), Slovenian historian of modern history
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), American president and historian, War of 1812, frontier
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (d. 2008), Russian historian and novelist
David Starkey (born 1945), Tudor history
Conrad Totman (born 1934), American historian, wrote A History of Japan
Eric Williams, (1911–1981), Guyanese historian, Caribbean history, anti-imperialist themes
Robert M. Young (academic) (d. 2019), American historian, history of medicine and human sciences
Howard Zinn (1922–2010), American historian, popular U.S. history, the Left in the U.S.
Related pages
List of historians by country
References
Historians |
4555 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese | Japanese | Japanese might mean:
Anything related to Japan
Japanese language
Japanese people
Japanese cuisine |
4558 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco%20Polo | Marco Polo | Marco Polo was born in 1254 and died on January 8,1324. He was an Italian trader and explorer. He was one of the first Europeans to explore Central Asia and East Asia. Many other explorers, including Christopher Columbus, looked up to him. He could speak four languages.
Marco Polo was known for the book, Travels of Marco Polo, where he talked about Asia.
Early life
Marco Polo was born in Venice, one of the most successful trading cities. Polo's mother died when he was very young and he was raised by his aunt and uncle. His father and uncle returned from their Silk Road travels when Marco was about 15 years old. Two years later, the three of them started their journey to Cathay (China). His family were well-known merchants, not explorers. He learned about writing, reading, and arithmetic, and how to do business.
Travels
Polo went on a 24-year trip to China with his father and uncle during the Mongol Dynasty. He left Venice at the age of 17 on a boat that went through the Mediterranean Sea, Ayas, Tabriz and Kerman. Then he travelled across Asia getting as far as Beijing. On the way there he had to go over mountains and through terrible deserts, across hot burning lands and places where the cold was horrible. He served in Kublai Khan's court for 17 years. He left the Far East and returned to Venice by sea. There was sickness on board and 600 passengers and crew died and some say pirates attacked. Nevertheless, Marco Polo survived it all.
Some scholars believe that while Marco Polo did go to China, he did not go to all of the other places described in his book. He brought noodles back from China and the Italians invented different sizes and shapes and called it pasta. Polo returned to Venice with treasures like ivory, jade, jewels, porcelain and silk.
His father had borrowed money and bought a ship. He became wealthy because of his trading in the East. His nickname was Marco Il Milione, due to an ancestor of his called Emilione.
"Travels of Marco Polo"
Soon after Polo returned from his journeys he fought in a war against Genoa, got captured and put in prison. When he was in prison, he became friendly with a fellow prisoner, Rusticello, who was a writer of romances and novels. He told the writer about all his adventures, which became a book called The Travels of Marco Polo. The published version was written by Rustichello da Pisa, based on what Polo had told him. It became famous throughout Europe. In the book he said that Kublai Khan's wealthy new empire had a postal system. He also talked about the Chinese people. China used paper money that was made from mulberry bark.
References
1254 births
1324 deaths
Italian explorers
European geographers
People from Venice |
4561 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes%20zoster | Herpes zoster | Herpes zoster (also known as shingles or zona) is a disease in humans. The same virus that causes chickenpox also causes shingles. The symptoms are pain and a rash with blisters. The shingles vaccine reduces the risk of shingles. Antivirus medicine can reduce the seriousness and duration of shingles if started within 3 days of the rash.
General information
Shingles is a viral disease produced by the varicella zoster virus (VZV), the same virus that causes chicken pox. Its symptoms include pain and a blistering rash that occurs along the nerves that contain dormant virus. You can not catch shingles. However, you can catch chicken pox through direct contact with someone who has shingles, by touching the area of the rash. Most people who get shingles are old. It sometimes infects younger people, or people with a weakened immune system. Stress may trigger shingles. The disease starts with tingling, itchiness, or pain on an infected person's skin. After a few days, the disease causes a blistering rash. This rash may be on the trunk or face. The rash grows into small blisters filled with fluid. These blisters dry out and crust over for several days. The rash causes anything from mild itching to extreme pain. The rash stays in one region of the body.
The shingles virus is contagious from person to person only by direct contact. For this reason, persons with shingles are advised to limit contact with those who are not immune to chicken pox, those with increased risk are young children and pregnant women. Contracting chickenpox when one is pregnant can be dangerous to the unborn child.
If people have had chickenpox, they cannot get chickenpox from someone else again. However, it is thought that contact with a shingles patient may trigger a person's own dormant chickenpox virus to become shingles.
Treatment
Doctors recommend antiviral drugs, steroids, antidepressants, anticonvulsants, and topical agents to treat shingles. The antiviral drugs acyclovir, valacyclovir, and famcyclovir can reduce the severity of shingles.
Prognosis
Shingles can be very painful and itchy. It is not very dangerous to healthy people, and it usually ends without major problems. The rash and pain last 3 to 5 weeks. Sometimes, serious problems like temporary, partial facial paralysis, ear damage, or
encephalitis may occur. Persons with shingles on the upper half of the face need immediate medical attention: the virus may cause serious damage to the eyes. Most people who have shingles have only one attack of the disease in their lifetime. However, people with AIDS, cancer or weak immune systems may have multiple attacks.
References
Other websites
NIH Facts About Shingles
NINDS Shingles Information Page
Diseases caused by viruses |
4570 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%20Brief%20History%20of%20Time | A Brief History of Time | A Brief History of Time (1988) is a book written by the scientist and mathematician Stephen Hawking. The subject of the book is cosmology, the story of the universe.
There are two other versions of this book: The Illustrated A Brief History of Time and A Briefer History of Time. The Illustrated A Brief History of Time has pictures to help explain its ideas. It was also updated because new information was found. A Briefer History of Time is shorter than the first version and was also updated.
This book is very popular and well-known. This book was on the London Sunday Times bestseller list for over 4 years.
Summary
In this book, Hawking talks about many theories in physics. Some of the things that he talks about are the history of physics, gravity, how light moves in the universe, space-time, elementary particles (very small objects that make up things in the universe), black holes, the Big Bang (the theory that the universe started from one point), and time travel (the idea that travel can be done to the past and to the future.)
In the first part of the book, Hawking talks about the history of physics. He talks about the ideas of philosophers such as Aristotle and Ptolemy. Aristotle, unlike many other people of his time, thought that the Earth was round. He also thought that the sun and stars went around the Earth. Ptolemy also thought about how the sun and stars were located in the universe. He made a planetary model that described Aristotle's thinking. Today, it is known that the opposite is true; the earth goes around the sun. The Aristotle/Ptolemy ideas about the position of the stars and sun was disproved in 1609. The person who first thought of the idea about the Earth going around the sun was Nicholas Copernicus. Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler, two other scientists, helped to prove that Copernicus's idea was right. They looked at how the moons of some planets moved in the sky, and they used this to prove Copernicus right. Isaac Newton also wrote a book about gravity, which helped to prove Copernicus's idea right.
Space and Time
Hawking describes the motion of planets moving around the sun and how gravity works between the planets and the sun. He also talks about the ideas of absolute rest and absolute position. These ideas are about the thought that events stay in place over a period of time. This was found not to be true by Newton's laws of gravity. The idea of absolute rest did not work when objects move very fast (at the speed of light, or light speed).
The speed of light was first measured in 1676 by the Danish astronomer Ole Christensen Roemer. The speed of light was found to be very fast, but at a finite speed. However, scientists found a problem when they tried to say that light always travelled at the same speed. The scientists created a new idea, called the ether, which tried to explain light's speed.
Albert Einstein said the idea of the ether was not needed if another idea, the idea of absolute time (or time that is always the same) was dropped. Einstein's idea was also the same as Henry Poincare's idea. Einstein's idea is called the theory of relativity.
Hawking also talks about light. He says that events can be described by light cones. The top of the light cone tells where the light from the event will travel. The bottom tells where the light was in the past. The center of the light cone is the event. Besides light cones, Hawking also talks about how light can bend. When light goes past a big mass, like a star, the light changes direction slightly towards the mass.
After talking about light, Hawking talks about time in Einstein's theory of relativity. One prediction that Einstein's theory makes is that time will go by slower when something is near huge masses. However, when something is farther away from the mass, time will go by faster. Hawking used the idea of two twins living at different places to describe his idea. If one of the twins went to live on a mountain, and another twin went to live near the sea, the twin who went to live on the mountain would be a little bit older than the twin who went to live at the sea.
The Expanding Universe
Hawking talks about the expanding universe. The universe is getting bigger over time. One of the things he uses to explain his idea is the Doppler shift. The Doppler shift happens when something moves toward or away from another object. There are two types of things that happen in Doppler shift - red shifting and blue shifting. Red shifting happens when something is moving away from us. This is caused by the wavelength of the visible light reaching us increasing, and the frequency decreasing, which shifts the visible light towards the red/infra-red end of the electromagnetic spectrum. Red-shift is linked to the belief that the universe is expanding as the wavelength of the light is increasing, almost as if stretched as planets and galaxies move away from us, which shares similarities to that of the Doppler effect, involving sound waves. Blue shifting happens when something is moving toward us, the opposite process of red-shift, in which the wavelength decreases and frequency increases, shifting the light towards the blue end of the spectrum. A scientist named Edwin Hubble found that many stars are red shifted and are moving away from us. Hawking uses the Doppler shift to explain that the universe is getting bigger. The beginning of the universe is thought to have happened through something called the Big Bang. The Big Bang was a very big explosion that created the universe.
The Uncertainty Principle
The uncertainty principle says that the speed and the position of a particle cannot be found at the same time. To find where a particle is, scientists shine light at the particle. If a high frequency light is used, the light can find the position more accurately but the particle's speed will be unknown (because the light will change the speed of the particle). If a lower frequency light is used, the light can find the speed more accurately but the particle's position will be unknown. The uncertainty principle disproved the idea of a theory that was deterministic, or something that would predict everything in the future.
How light behaves is also talked more about in this chapter. Some theories say that light acts like particles even though it really is made of waves; one theory that says this is Planck's quantum hypothesis. A different theory also says that light waves also act like particles; a theory that says this is Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
Light waves have crests and troughs. The highest point of a wave is the crest, and the lowest part of the wave is a trough. Sometimes more than one of these waves can interfere with each other - the crests and the troughs line up. This is called light interference. When light waves interfere with each other, this can make many colors. An example of this is the colors in soap bubbles.
Elementary Particles and Forces of Nature
Quarks are very small things that make up everything we see (matter). There are six different "flavors" of quarks: the up quark, down quark, strange quark, charmed quark, bottom quark, and top quark. Quarks also have three "colors": red, green, and blue. There are also anti-quarks, which are the opposite of the regular quarks. In total, there are 18 different types of regular quarks, and 18 different types of anti quarks. Quarks are known as the "building blocks of matter" because they are the smallest thing that make up all the matter in the universe.
All elementary particles (for example, the quarks) have something called spin. The spin of a particle shows us what a particle looks like from different directions. For example, a particle of spin 0 looks the same from every direction. A particle of spin 1 looks different in every direction, unless the particle is spun completely around (360 degrees). Hawking's example of a particle of spin 1 is an arrow. A particle of spin two needs to be turned around halfway (or 180 degrees) to look the same. The example given in the book is of a double-headed arrow. There are two groups of particles in the universe: particles with a spin of 1/2, and particles with a spin of 0, 1, or 2. All of these particles follow Pauli's exclusion principle. Pauli's exclusion principle says that particles cannot be in the same place or have the same speed. If Pauli's exclusion principle did not exist, then everything in the universe would look the same, like a roughly uniform and dense "soup".
Particles with a spin of 0, 1, or 2 move force from one particle to another. Some examples of these particles are virtual gravitons and virtual photons. Virtual gravitons have a spin of 2 and they represent the force of gravity. This means that when gravity affects two things, gravitons move to and from the two things. Virtual photons have a spin of 1 and represent electromagnetic forces (or the force that holds atoms together).
Besides the force of gravity and the electromagnetic forces, there are weak and strong nuclear forces. Weak nuclear forces are the forces that cause radioactivity, or when matter emits energy. Weak nuclear force works on particles with a spin of 1/2. Strong nuclear forces are the forces that keep the quarks in a neutron and a proton together, and keeps the protons and neutrons together in an atom. The particle that carries the strong nuclear force is thought to be a gluon. The gluon is a particle with a spin of 1. The gluon holds together quarks to form protons and neutrons. However, the gluon only holds together quarks that are three different colors. This makes the end product have no color. This is called confinement.
Some scientists have tried to make a theory that combines the electromagnetic force, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force. This theory is called a grand unified theory (or a GUT). This theory tries to explain these forces in one big unified way or theory.
Black Holes
Black holes are stars that have collapsed into one very small point. This small point is called a singularity.This singularity is a point of space-time which rotates at a high speed.That is the reason that black holes have no time. Black holes suck things into their center because its gravity is very strong. Some of the things it can suck in are light and stars. Only very large stars, called super-giants, are big enough to become a black hole. The star must be one and a half times the mass of the sun or larger to turn into a black hole. This number is called the Chandrasekhar limit. If the mass of a star is less than the Chandrasekhar limit, it will not turn into a black hole; instead, it will turn into a different, smaller type of star. The boundary of the black hole is called the event horizon. If something is in the event horizon, it will never get out of the black hole.
Black holes can be shaped differently. Some black holes are perfectly spherical - like a ball. Other black holes bulge in the middle. Black holes will be spherical if they do not rotate. Black holes will bulge in the middle if they rotate.
Black holes are difficult to find because they do not let out any light. They can be found when black holes suck in other stars. When black holes suck in other stars, the black hole lets out X-rays, which can be seen by telescopes. Hawking talks about his bet with another scientist, Kip Thorne. Hawking bet that black holes did not exist, because he did not want his work on black holes to be wasted. He lost the bet.
Hawking realized that the event horizon of a black hole could only get bigger, not smaller. The area of the event horizon of a black hole gets bigger whenever something falls into the black hole. He also realized that when two black holes combine, the size of the new event horizon is greater than or equal to the sum of the event horizons of the two other black holes. This means that a black hole's event horizon can never get smaller.
Disorder, also known as entropy, is related to black holes. There is a scientific law that has to do with entropy. This law is called the second law of thermodynamics, and it says that entropy (or disorder) will always increase in an isolated system (for example, the universe). The relation between the amount of entropy in a black hole and the size of the black hole's event horizon was first thought of by a research student (Jacob Bekenstein) and proven by Hawking, whose calculations said that black holes emit radiation. This was strange, because it was already said that nothing can escape from a black hole's event horizon.
This problem was solved when the idea of pairs of "virtual particles" was thought of. One of the pair of particles would fall into the black hole, and the other would escape. This would look like the black hole was emitting particles. This idea seemed strange at first, but many people accepted it after a while.
The Origin and Fate of the Universe
Most scientists believe that the universe started in an explosion called the Big Bang. The model for this is called the "hot big bang model". When the universe starts getting bigger, the things inside of it also begin to get cooler. When the universe was first beginning, it was infinitely hot. The temperature of the universe cooled and the things inside the universe began to clump together.
Hawking also talks about how the universe could have been. For example, if the universe formed and then collapsed quickly, there would not be enough time for life to form. Another example would be a universe that expanded too quickly. If a universe expanded too quickly, it would become almost empty. The idea of many universes is called the many-worlds interpretation.
Inflationary models are also discussed in this chapter, and so is the idea of a theory that unifies quantum mechanics and gravity.
Each particle has many histories. This idea is known as Feynman's theory of sum over histories. A theory that unifies quantum mechanics and gravity should have Feynman's theory in it. To find the chance that a particle will pass through a point, the waves of each particle needs to be added up. These waves happen in imaginary time. Imaginary numbers, when multiplied by themselves, make a negative number. For example, 2i X 2i = -4.
Other editions
1988 — The first edition is published. This edition had an introduction by Carl Sagan.
1990 - Similar to the 1996 but with an introduction by Carl Sagan, uncolored pictures, and it was printed in paperback
1996 — An illustrated, updated and expanded edition is published, called The Illustrated A Brief History of Time. This hardcover edition contains full color illustrations and photographs to help explain the text. It also has topics not in the original book, including a new chapter on wormholes and time travel.
1998 — The Tenth Anniversary Edition is published. It has the same text as the one published in 1996, but was also released in paperback and has less diagrams.
2005 — The release of A Briefer History of Time (written with Leonard Mlodinow), which is a shorter version of the original book. It was updated again to include new scientific developments..
Notes
References
1988 books
Science books |
4579 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander%20Graham%20Bell | Alexander Graham Bell | Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847 - August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born British-Canadian-American teacher, scientist, and inventor. He was the founder of the Bell Telephone Company. In 1876, Bell was the first inventor to patent the telephone, and he helped start the Bell Telephone Company with others in July 1877. In 1879, this company joined with the New England Telephone Company to form the National Bell Telephone Company. In 1880, they formed the American Bell Telephone Company, and in 1885, American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), still a large company today. Along with Thomas Edison, Bell formed the Oriental Telephone Company on January 25, 1881.
Early life
Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. His family was known for teaching people how to speak English clearly (elocution). Both his grandfather, Alexander Bell, and his father, Alexander Melville Bell, taught elocution. His father wrote often about this and is most known for his invention and writings of Visible Speech. In his writings he explained ways of teaching people who were deaf and unable to speak. It also showed how these people could learn to speak words by watching their lips and reading what other people were saying.
Education
Alexander Graham Bell went to the Royal High School of Edinburgh. He graduated at the age of fifteen. At the age of sixteen, he got a job as a student and teacher of elocution and music in Weston House Academy, at Elgin in Morayshire. He spent the next year at the University of Edinburgh. While still in Scotland, he became more interested in the science of sound (acoustics). He hoped to help his deaf mother. From 1866 to 1867, he was a teacher at Somersetshire College in Bath, Somerset.
Career
In 1870 when he was 23 years old, he moved with his family to Canada where they settled at Brantford, Ontario. Bell began to study communication machines. He made a piano that could be heard far away by using electricity. In 1871 he went with his father to Montreal, Quebec in Canada, where he took a job teaching about "visible speech". His father was asked to teach about it at a large school for deaf mutes in Boston, Massachusetts, but instead he gave the job to his son. The younger Bell began teaching there in 1872. Alexander Graham Bell soon became famous in the United States for this important work. He published many writings about it in Washington, D.C.. Because of this work, thousands of deaf mutes in the United States of America are now able to speak, even though they cannot hear.
Inventions
Bell's genius is seen in part by the eighteen patents granted in his name alone and the twelve that he shared with others. These included fifteen for the telephone and telegraph, four for the photophone, one for the phonograph, five for aeronautics, four for hydrofoils, and two for a selenium cell. In 1888, he was one of the original members of the National Geographic Society and became its second president.
He was given many honors.
The French government gave him the decoration of the Legion of Honor.
The Royal Society of Arts in London awarded him the Albert medal in 1902.
The University of Würzburg, Bavaria, granted him the Degree of PhD
Telephone
His past experience made him ready to work more with sound and electricity. He began his studies in 1874 with a musical telegraph, in which he used an electric circuit and a magnet to make an iron reed or tongue vibrate. One day, it was found that a reed failed to respond to the current. Mr. Bell desired his assistant, who was at the other end of the line, to pluck the reed, thinking it had stuck to the magnet. His assistant, Thomas Watson complied, and to his surprise, Bell heard the corresponding reed at his end of the line vibrate and sound the same - without any electric current to power it. A few experiments soon showed that his reed had been set in vibration by the changes in the magnetic field that the moving reed produced in the line. This discovery led him to stop using the electric battery current. His idea was that, since the circuit was never broken, all the complex vibrations of speech might be converted into currents, which in turn would reproduce the speech at a distance.
Bell, with his assistant, devised a receiver, consisting of a stretched film or drum with a bit of magnetised iron attached to its middle, and free to vibrate in front of the pole of an electromagnet in circuit with the line. This apparatus was completed on June 2, 1875. On July 7, he instructed his assistant to make a second receiver which could be used with the first, and a few days later they were tried together, at each end of the line, which ran from a room in the inventor's house at Boston to the cellar underneath. Bell, in the room, held one instrument in his hands, while Watson in the cellar listened at the other. The inventor spoke into his instrument, "Do you understand what I say?" and Mr. Watson rushed back into the upstairs and answered "Yes." The first successful two-way telephone call was not made until March 10, 1876 when Bell spoke into his device, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." and Watson answered back and came into the room to see Bell. The first long distance telephone call was made on August 10, 1876 by Bell from the family home in Brantford, Ontario to his assistant in Paris, Ontario, some 16 km (10 mi.) away.
On March 7, 1876, the U.S. Patent Office gave him patent #174465 for the telephone.
Metal detector
Bell is also credited with the invention of an improved metal detector in 1881 that made sounds when it was near metal. The device was quickly put together in an attempt to find the bullet in the body of U.S. President James Garfield. The metal detector worked, but did not find the bullet because of the metal bedframe the President was lying on. Bell gave a full description of his experiments in a paper read before the "American Association for the Advancement of Science" in August, 1882.
Personal life
Bell married Mabel Hubbard on July 11, 1877 and they had four children. He died of problems caused by anemia and diabetes at his home near Baddeck, Nova Scotia in 1922. He was 75 years old.
Opinions
Bell was an active supporter of the eugenics movement in the United States. He was the honorary president of the "Second International Congress of Eugenics" held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 1921.
As a teacher of the deaf, Bell did not want deaf people to teach in schools for the deaf. He was also against the use of sign language. These things mean that he is not appreciated by some deaf people in the present day.
References
Other websites
Bell Homestead, National Historic Site
Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
Biography of Alexander Graham Bell
Deaths from diabetes
Disease-related deaths in Canada
People from Edinburgh
Royal Society of Arts
Scottish inventors
Scottish scientists
1847 births
1922 deaths
British inventors
Canadian inventors
Canadian scientists
British scientists
American inventors
People from Nova Scotia
Naturalized citizens of the United States
Naturalized citizens of Canada
Deaths from anemia |
4582 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich%20Rudolf%20Hertz | Heinrich Rudolf Hertz | Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (22 February 1857 – 1 January 1894) was a German physicist. In 1888 he discovered the radio waves previously predicted by Maxwell's equations. He also proved that light is a kind of electromagnetic waves. The unit for frequency is named after him.
Hertz was born in Hamburg in 1857. He studied engineering in Frankfurt and later at the University of Munich. He completed his PhD at the University of Berlin. He taught and continued research at the University of Bonn and University of Kiel.
He died from blood poisoning in 1894.
References
Other websites
1857 births
1894 deaths
German academics
German physicists
People from Hamburg |
4583 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1850 | 1850 |
Events
The speed of light in water was observed to be slower than that in air.
Books
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Births
January 21 – Paul Vinzenz Busch, ringmaster (d. 1927)
January 27 – Samuel Gompers, English-born labor leader (d. 1924)
January 27 – Edward J. Smith, Captain of the Titanic (d. 1912)
May 1 – Prince Arthur of the United Kingdom (d. 1942)
May 8 – Ross Barnes, baseball player (d. 1915)
May 12 – Henry Cabot Lodge, U.S. statesman (d. 1924)
May 21 – Giuseppe Mercalli, Italian volcanologist (d. 1914)
July 12 – Otto Schoetensack, German anthropologist (d. 1912)
September 2 – Albert Spalding, baseball player and sporting goods manufacturer (d. 1915)
November 13 – Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish writer (d. 1894)
December 9 – Emma Abbott, American opera singer (d. 1891)
December 21 – Zdenek Fibich, Czech composer (d. 1900)
Deaths
July 2 – Robert Peel |
4584 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1869 | 1869 |
Events
The Periodic table was developed.
Births
January 1 – Sigma Nu, First Anti-Hazing Honor/Social Fraternity
January 4 – Tommy Corcoran, baseball player
January 10 – Grigori Rasputin, Russian mystic
January 15 – Stanisław Wyspiański, Polish dramatist, poet, painter, and architect
February 11 – Helene Kroller-Muller, Dutch museum founder and patron of the arts
February 14 – Charles Wilson, Scottish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
March 3 – Michael von Faulhaber, German cardinal and archbishop
March 12 – George William Forbes, New Zealand Prime Minister and first leader of the New Zealand National Party
March 14 – Algernon Blackwood, English writer
March 18 – Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
April 2 – Hughie Jennings, baseball player
April 5,6 – Tom Adam, Named number one in the world
April 11 – Gustav Vigeland, Norwegian sculptor
April 27 – May Moss, Activist
May 5 – Hans Pfitzner, German composer
May 20 – John Stone Stone, American physicist and inventor
June 27 – Hans Spemann, German embryologist, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
August 10 – Lawrence Binyon, English poet and scholar
September 3 – Fritz Pregl, Austrian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
September 17 – Christian Lous Lange, Norwegian pacifist, won the Nobel Peace Prize
September 21 - Carlo Airoldi, Italian marathon runner
September 23 – Mary Mallon, "Typhoid Mary"
October 2 – Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political leader, Father of the Nation
October 25 – John Heisman, American football coach
November 11 – Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, King)
November 25 – Herbert Greenfield, Premier of Alberta, Canada
December 16 – Hristo Tatarchev, Bulgarian revolutionary, leader of the revolutionary movement in Macedonia and Eastern Thrace
December 22 – Edwin Arlington Robinson, American poet
December 30 – Stephen Leacock, British-Canadian writer and economist
December 31 – Henri Matisse, French painter
Deaths
July 18 – Laurent Clerc, co-founder of the first American school for the deaf.
January 1 – Martin W. Bates, U.S. Senator from Delaware (b. 1786)
January 30 – William Carleton, Irish novelist (b. 1794)
February 15 – Mirza Ghalib, poet of Urdu (b. 1796).
March 8 – Hector Berlioz, French composer (b. 1803)
March 24 – Antoine-Henri Jomini, French general (b. 1779)
April 20 – Carl Loewe, German composer (b. 1796)
June 16 – Charles Sturt, Australian explorer (b. 1795)
June 20 – Hijikata Toshizou, Japanese military commander (b. 1835)
August 31 – Mary Ward (scientist), first car accident victim
September 12 – Peter Roget, British lexicographer (b. 1779)
October 13 – Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, French literary critic (b. 1804)
October 23 – Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1799)
December 18 – Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American composer and pianist (b. 1829)
Hit songs
"Little Brown Jug" by R.E. Eastburn
"Now the Day is Over" by Joseph Barnby
"Shoo, Fly! Don't Bother Me!" by T. Bringham Bishop
"Sweet Genevieve" by Henry Tucker |
4586 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1621 | 1621 |
Events
February 9 – Gregory XV is elected pope.
February 17 – Miles Standish is appointed as first commander of Plymouth Colony.
March 16 – Samoset, a Wampanoag, visits the settlers of Plymouth Colony and greets them, "Welcome, Englishmen! My name is Samoset."
March 22 – The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony sign a peace treaty with Massasoit of the Wampanoags.
April 5 – The Mayflower sets sail from Plymouth on a return trip to Great Britain.
The Swedish city of Gothenburg is founded by Gustavus Adolphus
Riga falls under rule of Sweden
Willebrord Snell discovers the laws of refraction. |
4587 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1619 | 1619 |
Event
Johannes Kepler proposes his three laws of planetary motion. |
4588 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1687 | 1687 | Year 1687 was a common year that started on a Wednesday when using the Gregorian calendar.
Events
March 19 – The men under explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle murder him while searching for the mouth of the Mississippi River.
April 4 – King James II of England issues the Declaration of Indulgence, suspending laws against Catholics and non-conformists.
May 6 – Emperor Higashiyama succeeds Emperor Reigen on the throne of Japan.
July 5 – Isaac Newton's three laws of motion (Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica) is published.
August 12 – Battle of Mohács, fight between Sultan Mehmed IV's Ottoman Turks and Emperor Leopold I's Austrian Habsburgs' forces commanded by Charles of Lorraine.
September 28 – The Parthenon explodes, while being used as a gunpowder store.
December 31 – The first Huguenots set sail from France to the Cape of Good Hope.
Undated
Change of emperor of the Ottoman Empire from Mehmed IV (1648-1687) to Suleiman II (1687-1691).
Births
January 27 – Johann Balthasar Neumann, German architect (died 1753)
March 7 – Jean Lebeuf, French historian (died. 1760)
June 24 – Johann Albrecht Bengel, German scholar (died 1757)
September 7 – Durastante Natalucci, Italian historian (died 1772)
October 4 – Robert Simson, Scottish mathematician (died 1768)
October 21 – Nicolaus I Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician (died 1759)
November 7 – William Stukeley, English archaeologist (died 1765)
December 5 – Francesco Geminiani, Italian violinist and composer (died 1762)
December 26 – Johann Georg Pisendel, German musician (died 1755)
date unknown Shahzada Assadullah Khan Abdali, Persian Governor of Herat (died 1720)
Deaths
January 13 – Jean Claude, French Protestant clergyman (born 1619)
January 28 – Johannes Hevelius, astronomer (born 1611)
March 19 – René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, French explorer (born 1643)
March 22 – Jean-Baptiste Lully, French composer (born 1632)
March 28 – Constantijn Huygens, Dutch poet and composer (born 1596)
April 12 – Ambrose Dixon, Virginia Colony pioneer (born c.1628)
April 16 – George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, English statesman (born 1628)
September 1 – Henry More, English philosopher (born 1614)
September 12 – John Alden, Mayflower pilgrim (born c.1599)
September 28 – Francis Turretin, Swiss theologian (born 1623)
October 13 – Geminiano Montanari, Italian astronomer (born 1633)
October 21 – Edmund Waller, English poet (born 1606)
November 14 – Nell Gwyn, English mistress of Charles II of England (born 1650)
December 16 – Sir William Petty, English philosopher (born 1623) |
4589 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1822 | 1822 |
Events
André-Marie Ampère discovered the attraction between current-carrying wires.
The law of electric current and magnetic field was developed. |
4590 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1824 | 1824 |
Events
Heat was discovered to be transferred from hot to cold objects.
Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals founded.
Brauerei C & A Veltins brewery founded
Thomas Jefferson University founded |
4591 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1826 | 1826 |
Events
The first photograph was taken.
John Adams second president, and third president Thomas Jefferson both died same day Independence Day.
Births
January 12 – William Chapman Rawlston, banker and financier
January 26 – Louis Favre, Swiss engineer (d. 1879)
February 16 – Joseph Victor von Scheffel, German poet (d. 1886)
February 16 – Julia Grant, First Lady of the United States (d. 1902)
March 4 – Theodore Judah, railroad engineer (d. 1863)
March 24 – Matilda Joslyn Gage, pioneering feminist (d. 1898)
March 29 – Wilhelm Liebknecht, German journalist and politician (d. 1900)
April 6 – Gustave Moreau, French painter (d. 1898)
May 3 – King Charles XV of Sweden and Norway (d. 1872)
May 4 – Frederic Edwin Church, American painter (b. 1900)
June 24 – George Goyder, Surveyor-General of South Australia (d. 1898)
July 4 – Stephen Foster, American songwriter and poet (d. 1864)
September 17 – Bernhard Riemann, German mathematician (d. 1866)
November 13 – Charles Frederick Worth, English couturier (d. 1895)
November 24 – Carlo Collodi, Italian writer (d. 1890)
Deaths
July 4 – John Adams, President of the United States
July 4 – Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States
Books
Biographical Sketches and Interesting Anecdotes of Persons of Color – Abigail Mott
The Broken Heart – Catherine Gore
Cinq-Mars – Alfred de Vigny
Deeds of the Olden Time – Anne Hatton
Gaston de Blondeville – Ann Radcliffe
Granby – T.H. Lister
Die Harzreise (The Heart's Journey) – Heinrich Heine
Henry the Fourth of France – Alicia Lefanu
Honor O'Hara – Anna Maria Porter
The Last Man – Mary Shelley
The Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
Tales Round a Winter Hearth – Jane Porter & Anna Maria Porter
Vivian Grey – Benjamin Disraeli
Woodstock – Sir Walter Scott |
4592 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1827 | 1827 |
Events
People see individual particles of water move.
Births
February 5 – Peter Lalor, leader of miners rebellion at Eureka Stockade, Ballarat, Australia
Deaths
March 26 – Ludwig van Beethoven
New Books
Book of Songs (poetry) – Heinrich Heine
Herzog Theodor von Gotland (play) – Christian Dietrich Grabbe
Hope Leslie – Catharine Maria Sedgwick
Intrigue – Henrietta Rouviere Mosse
I Promessi sposi (The Betrothed) – Alessandro Manzoni
The Lettre de Cachet – Catherine Gore
The O'Briens and The O'Flaherties – Sydney Owenson
The Prairie – James Fenimore Cooper
The Red Rover – James Fenimore Cooper
The Reign of Terror – Catherine Gore
The Wolf of Badenoch – Sir Thomas Dick Lauder |
4593 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1815 | 1815 |
Events
Fresnel developed the theory of light diffraction.
Napoleon loses the Battle of Waterloo and is sent to Saint Helena.
Births
January 10 – John A. Macdonald, first Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1891)
February 15 – Constantin von Tischendorf, German Biblical scholar (d. 1874)
April 1 – Otto von Bismarck, German statesman (d. 1898)
April 1 – Edward Clark, Governor of Texas (d. 1880)
April 6 – Robert Volkmann, German composer (d. 1883)
April 24 – Anthony Trollope, British writer (d. 1882)
August 5 – Edward John Eyre, explorer
October 16 – Francis Lubbock, Governor of Texas (d. 1905)
October 31 – Karl Weierstraß, German mathematician (d. 1897)
November 2 – George Boole, English mathematician and philosopher (d. 1864)
December 10 – Augusta Ada King (née Byron), Countess of Lovelace, early English computer pioneer (d. 1852)
November 12 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American women's rights activist (d. 1902)
December 21 – Thomas Couture, French painter (d. 1879)
Deaths
January 8 – Edward Pakenham, British general (killed in battle) (born 1778)
January 16 – Emma, Lady Hamilton, English mistress of Horatio Nelson (born 1765)
February 24 – Robert Fulton, American inventor (born 1765)
February 26 – Prince Josias of Coburg, Austrian general (born 1737)
March 4 – Frances Abington, English actress (born 1737)
March 5 – Franz Mesmer, German developer of hypnotism (born 1734)
April 21 – Joseph Winston, American patriot and Congressman from North Carolina (born 1746)
June 1 – Louis Alexandre Berthier, French marshal (born 1753)
June 16 – Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Brunswick, German noble and general (killed in battle) (born 1771)
June 18 – Thomas Picton, British general (killed in battle) (born 1758)
June 18 – Claude-Etienne Michel, French general (killed in battle) (born 1772)
June 18 – Guillaume Philibert Duhesme, French general (killed in battle) (born 1766)
August 2 – Guillaume Marie Anne Brune, French marshal (murdered) (born 1763)
August 6 – James A. Bayard (elder), U.S. Senator from Delaware (born 1767)
September 9 – John Singleton Copley, American painter (born 1738)
September 20 – Nicolas Desmarest, French geologist (born 1725)
October 13 – Joachim Murat, French marshal and King of Naples (executed) (born 1767)
December 3 – John Carroll (priest), first American Roman Catholic Archbishop (born 1735)
December 7 – Michel Ney, French marshal (executed) (born 1769)
December 29 – Saartjie Baartman, sideshow performer |
4594 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep%20house | Deep house | Deep house is a type of house music. It has influences from disco music and jazz music. The BPM of deep house is usually 100 - 128.
Music genres |
4596 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine | Cytokine | Cytokines are a group of signalling molecules made by cells. They help to control the immune system and fight disease. They are similar to hormones and, as we learn more about each, distinctions between the two are fading.
Cytokines carry signals locally between cells, and these signals have an effect on other cells. They are made of proteins, peptides, or glycoproteins. The cytokines are a large family of polypeptide regulators that are produced throughout the body by many groups of cells.
Some well-known cytokines include interferon, prostaglandin and interleukins. Cytokines can be detected using the ELISA and ELISPOT techniques.
Cytokines work by signal transduction. Each cytokine has a matching cell-surface receptor. Then cascades of signals inside the cell changes cell functions. This may include the regulation of several genes, the production of other cytokines, or an increase in surface receptors for other molecules.
Related pages
Cytokine storm
Signal transduction
References
Proteins
Immunology
Cell biology |
4597 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol | Bristol | Bristol is a city and ceremonial county in England. It is home to nearly 430,000 people. The River Avon runs through it to the Severn estuary.
Geography
It is between the counties of Gloucestershire and Somerset. In 1373, King Edward III ordered that it should be a county itself forever. However, it lost county status in 1974, the year after its 600-year celebrations. It became the largest district within the new Avon county. Avon was never popular and was abolished in 1996, when county status returned to Bristol, which became a unitary council.
History
The Bristol name means "the place where the bridge is" in Old English. It has been a port for 800 years. Now, ships are too big to reach it. It has a new seaport at Avonmouth.
Historical sites
It has many historic churches and other buildings. The Clifton Suspension Bridge crosses high above the river. The University of Bristol is also in Clifton.
Bristol was a centre for the slave trade. During the 2020 George Floyd protests, a crowd pushed down the statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston and threw it in the harbour.
Bristol was badly damaged during World War II. It now has many new factories and offices. The Concorde supersonic airliner was made here.
It is also the birthplace of the music genre trip hop., with 3 trip hop bands originating there: Massive Attack, Portishead (named after a North Somerset town) and Tricky.
Notable people
Some of the most notable people who are currently living, or who are from the city include:
Banksy - graffiti artist
Stephen Merchant - writer and comedian
Russell Howard - comedian and television presenter
References
Other websites
Unitary authorities
Ceremonial counties of England
Ports and harbours of the United Kingdom |
4598 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20cities%20and%20towns%20in%20England | List of cities and towns in England | This is a link page for towns and cities in England. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, a town is any settlement which has received a charter of incorporation, more commonly known as a town charter, approved by the monarch. Cities are indicated in bold.
A
Abingdon, Accrington, Acton, Adlington, Alcester, Aldeburgh, Aldershot, Aldridge, Alford, Alfreton, Alnwick, Alsager, Alston, Alton, Altrincham, Amble, Amersham, Amesbury, Ampthill, Andover, Appleby-in-Westmorland, Arundel, Ashbourne, Ashburton, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Ashford, Ashington, Ashton-in-Makerfield, Ashton-under-Lyne, Askern, Aspatria, Atherstone, Attleborough, Axbridge, Axminster, Aylesbury, Aylsham.
B
Bacup, Bakewell, Baldock, Banbury, Barking, Barnard Castle, Barnet, Barnoldswick, Barnsley, Barnstaple, Barnt Green, Barrow-in-Furness, Barton-upon-Humber, Barton-le-Clay, Basildon, Basingstoke, Bath, Batley, Battle, Bawtry, Beaconsfield, Beaminster, Bebington, Beccles, Bedale, Bedford, Bedlington, Bedworth, Beeston, Belper, Bentham, Berkhamsted, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Beverley, Bewdley, Bexhill-on-Sea, Bicester, Biddulph, Bideford, Biggleswade, Billericay, Bilston, Bingham, Birmingham, Bishop Auckland, Bishop's Castle, Bishop's Stortford, Bishop's Waltham, Blackburn, Blackpool, Blandford Forum, Bletchley, Blyth, Bodmin, Bognor Regis, Bollington, Bolsover, Bolton, Bordon, Borehamwood, Boston, Bottesford, Bourne, Bournemouth, Brackley, Bracknell, Bradford, Bradford-on-Avon, Bradley Stoke, Bradninch, Braintree, Brentford, Brentwood, Bridgnorth, Bridgwater, Bridlington, Bridport, Brierley Hill, Brigg, Brighouse, Brightlingsea, Brighton, Bristol, Brixham, Broadstairs, Bromley, Bromsgrove, Bromyard, Brownhills, Buckfastleigh, Buckingham, Bude, Budleigh Salterton, Bungay, Buntingford, Burford, Burgess Hill, Burnham-on-Crouch, Burnham-on-Sea, Burnley, Burntwood, Burton Latimer, Burton-upon-Trent, Bury, Bury St Edmunds, Buxton, Blackburn
C
Caistor, Calne, Camberley, Camborne, Cambridge, Camelford, Cannock, Canterbury, Carlisle, Carnforth, Carterton, Castle Cary, Castleford, Chadderton, Chagford, Chard, Charlbury, Chatham, Chatteris, Chelmsford, Cheltenham, Chesham, Cheshunt, Chester, Chesterfield, Chester-le-Street, Chichester, Chippenham, Chipping Campden, Chipping Norton, Chipping Ongar, Chipping Sodbury, Chorley, Christchurch, Church Stretton, Cinderford, Cirencester, Clacton-on-Sea, Cleckheaton, Cleethorpes, Clevedon, Cleveleys, Clitheroe, Clun, Coalville, Cockermouth, Coggeshall, Colchester, Coleford, Colne, Congleton, Conisbrough, Corbridge, Corby, Cotgrave, Coventry, Cowes, Cramlington, Cranfield, Crawley, Crayford, Crediton, Crewe, Crewkerne, Cromer, Crowborough, Crowle, Crowthorne, Croydon, Cuckfield, Cullompton, connor town
D
Dagenham, Dalton in Furness, Darley Dale, Darlington, Dartford, Dartmouth, Darwen, Daventry, Dawlish, Deal, Denholme, Denton, Derby, Dereham, Desborough, Devizes, Dewsbury, Didcot,
Dinnington, Diss, Doncaster, Dorchester, Dorking, Dover, Downham Market, Driffield, Dronfield, Droitwich Spa, Droylsden, Dudley, Dukinfield, Dunstable, Durham, Dursley
E
Ealing, Earley, Easingwold, Eastbourne, East Grinstead, East Ham, Eastleigh, Eastwood, Edenbridge, Egham, Ellesmere, Ellesmere Port, Ely, Enfield, Epping, Epsom, Epworth, Erith, Esher, Eton, Evesham, Exeter, Exmouth, Eye
F
Failsworth, Fairford, Fakenham, Falmouth, Fareham, Faringdon, Farnborough, Farnham, Farnworth, Faversham, Featherstone, Felixstowe, Fenny Stratford, Ferndown, Ferryhill, Filey, Filton, Fleet, Fleetwood, Flitwick, Folkestone, Fordingbridge, Fordwich, Fowey, Framlingham, Frinton-on-Sea, Frodsham, Frome, Foxley
G
Gainsborough, Gateshead, Gillingham, Gillingham, Glastonbury, Glossop, Gloucester, Godalming, Godmanchester, Goole, Gosport, Grange-over-Sands, Grantham, Gravesend, Grays, Great Dunmow, Great Torrington, Great Yarmouth, Grimsby, Guildford, Guisborough
H
Hackney, Hadleigh, Hailsham, Halesworth, Halewood, Halifax, Halstead, Haltwhistle, Harlow, Harpenden, Harrogate, Harrow, Hartlepool, Harwich, Haslemere, Hastings, Hatfield, Havant, Haverhill, Hawley, Hayle, Haywards Heath, Heanor, Heathfield, Hebden Bridge, Hedon, Helston, Hemel Hempstead, Hemsworth, Henley-in-Arden, Henley-on-Thames, Hendon, Hereford, Herne Bay, Hertford, Hessle, Heswall, Hetton-le-Hole, Heywood, Hexham, Higham Ferrers, Highworth, High Wycombe, Hinckley, Hitchin, Hoddesdon, Holmfirth, Holsworthy, Honiton, Horley, Horncastle, Hornsea, Horsham, Horwich, Houghton-le-Spring, Hounslow, Hoylake, Hove, Hucknall, Huddersfield, Hugh Town, Hull, Hungerford, Hunstanton, Huntingdon, Hyde, Hythe
I
Ilchester, Ilford, Ilfracombe, Ilkeston, Ilkley, Ilminster, Ipswich, Irthlingborough, Ivybridge
J
Jarrow
K
Keighley, Kempston, Kendal, Kenilworth, Kesgrave, Keswick, Kettering, Keynsham, Kidderminster, Kidsgrove, Killingworth, Kimberley, Kingsbridge, King's Lynn, Kingston-upon-Hull, Kingston upon Thames, Kington, Kirkby, Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Kirkby Lonsdale, Kirkham, Knaresborough, Knottingley, Knutsford, Kingsteignton
L
Lancaster, Launceston, Leatherhead, Leamington Spa, Lechlade, Ledbury, Leeds, Leek, Leicester, Leigh, Leighton Buzzard, Leiston, Leominster, Letchworth, Lewes, Lewisham, Leyland, Leyton, Lichfield, Lincoln, Liskeard, Littlehampton, Liverpool, Lizard, London, London, Long Eaton, Longridge, Looe, Lostwithiel, Loughborough, Loughton, Louth, Lowestoft, Ludlow, Luton, Lutterworth, Lydd, Lydney, Lyme Regis, Lymington, Lynton, Lytchett Minster, Lytham St Annes, Lofthouse
M
Mablethorpe, Macclesfield, Maghull, Maidenhead, Maidstone, Maldon, Malmesbury, Maltby, Malton, Malvern, Manchester, Manningtree, Mansfield, March, Margate, Market Deeping, Market Drayton, Market Harborough, Market Rasen, Market Weighton, Marlborough, Marlow, Maryport, Marston Moretaine, Matlock, Melksham, Melton Mowbray, Mexborough, Middleham, Middlesbrough, Middleton, Middlewich, Midhurst, Midsomer Norton,
Milton Keynes, Minehead, Morecambe, Moretonhampstead, Moreton-in-Marsh, Morley, Morpeth, Much Wenlock
N
Nailsea, Nailsworth, Nantwich, Needham Market, Nelson, Neston, Newark-on-Trent, Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, Newbury, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Newcastle upon Tyne, Newent, Newhaven, Newmarket, New Mills, New Milton, Newport, Newport, Shropshire, Newport Pagnell, Newquay, New Romney, Newton Abbot, Newton Aycliffe, Newton-le-Willows, Normanton, Northallerton, Northam, Northampton, North Walsham, Northwich, Norton Radstock, Norwich, Nottingham, Nuneaton
O
Oakham, Okehampton, Oldbury, Oldham, Ollerton, Olney, Ormskirk, Orpington, Ossett, Oswestry, Otley, Ottery St Mary, Oundle, Oxford, Outwood
P
Paddock Wood, Padstow, Paignton, Painswick, Peacehaven, Penistone, Penrith, Penryn, Penzance, Pershore, Peterborough, Peterlee, Petersfield, Petworth, Pickering, Plymouth, Pocklington, Pontefract, Polegate, Poltimore, Poole, Portishead, Portland, Portslade, Portsmouth, Potters Bar, Potton, Poulton-le-Fylde, Prescot, Preston, Princes Risborough, Prudhoe, Pudsey
Q
Queenborough, Quintrell Downs
R
Ramsgate, Raunds, Rayleigh, Reading, Redcar, Redditch, Redhill, Redruth, Reigate, Retford, Richmond, Richmond-upon-Thames, Rickmansworth, Ringwood, Ripley, Ripon, Rochdale, Rochester, Rochford, Romford, Romsey, Ross-on-Wye, Rothbury, Rotherham, Rothwell, Rowley Regis, Royston, Rugby, Rugeley, Runcorn, Rushden, Rutland, Ryde, Rye
S
Saffron Walden, Selby, St Albans, St Asaph, St Austell, St Blazey, St Columb Major, St Helens, St Ives, Cambridgeshire, St Ives, Cornwall, St Neots, Salcombe, Sale, Salford, Salisbury, Saltash, Saltburn-by-the-Sea, Sandbach, Sandhurst, Sandown, Sandwich, Sandy, Sawbridgeworth, Saxmundham, Scarborough, Scunthorpe, Seaford, Seaton, Sedgefield, Selby, Selsey, Settle, Sevenoaks, Shaftesbury, Shanklin, Sheerness, Sheffield, Shepshed, Shepton Mallet, Sherborne, Sheringham, Shildon, Shipston-on-Stour, Shoreham-by-Sea, Shrewsbury, Sidcup, Sidmouth, Sittingbourne, Skegness, Skelmersdale, Skipton, Sleaford, Slough, Smethwick, Snodland, Soham, Solihull, Somerton, Southall, Southam, Southampton, Southborough, Southend-on-Sea, South Molton, Southport, Southsea, South Shields, Southwell, Southwold, South Woodham Ferrers, Spalding, Spennymoor, Spilsby, Stafford, Staines, Stainforth, Stalybridge, Stamford, Stanley, Stapleford, Staunton, Staveley, Stevenage, Stockport, Stocksbridge, Stockton-on-Tees, Stoke-on-Trent, Stone, Stony Stratford, Stotfold, Stourbridge, Stourport-on-Severn, Stowmarket, Stow-on-the-Wold, Stratford-upon-Avon, Streatham, Street, Strood, Stroud, Sudbury, Sunderland, Sutton, Sutton Coldfield, Sutton-in-Ashfield, Swadlincote, Swaffham, Swanage, Swanley, Swindon, Swinton
T
Tadcaster, Tadley, Tamworth, Taunton, Tavistock, Teignmouth, Telford, Tenbury Wells, Tenterden, Tetbury, Tewkesbury, Thame, Thatcham, Thaxted, Thetford, Thirsk, Thong, Thornaby, Thornbury, Thorne, Tickhill, Tilbury, Tipton, Tiverton, Todmorden, Tonbridge, Torpoint, Torquay, Totnes, Tottenham, Totton, Towcester, Tring, Trowbridge, Truro, Tunbridge Wells, Twickenham
U
Uckfield, Ulverston, Uppingham, Upton-upon-Severn, Uttoxeter, Uxbridge
V
Ventnor, Verwood
W
Wadebridge, Wadhurst, Wakefield, Wallasey, Wallingford, Walmer, Walsall, Waltham Abbey, Waltham Cross, Walthamstow, Walton-on-Thames, Walton-on-the-Naze, Wandsworth, Wantage, Ware, Wareham, Warminster, Warwick, Washington, Watchet, Watford, Wath-upon-Dearne, Watton, Wednesbury, Wellingborough, Wellington, Wells, Wells-next-the-Sea, Welwyn Garden City, Wem, Wendover, West Bromwich, Westbury, Westerham, West Ham, Westhoughton, West Kirby, West Mersea, Westminster, Weston-super-Mare, Westward Ho!, Wetherby, Weybridge, Weymouth, Whaley Bridge, Whiston, Whitby, Whitchurch, Whitehaven, Whitley Bay, Whitnash, Whitstable, Whitworth, Wickford, Widnes, Wigan, Wigston, Willenhall, Wimbledon, Wimborne Minster, Wincanton, Winchcombe, Winchelsea, Winchester, Windermere, Winsford, Winslow, Wisbech, Witham, Withernsea, Witney, Wivenhoe, Woburn, Woking, Wokingham, Wolverhampton, Wombwell, Woodbridge, Woodstock, Wooler, Woolwich, Wootton Bassett, Worcester, Workington, Worksop, Worthing, Wotton-under-Edge, Wymondham
Y
Yarm, Yarmouth, Yate, Yateley, Yeadon, Yeovil, York, Yoxall
Related pages
List of towns in Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Wales
List of burghs in Scotland
List of cities in the United Kingdom
Lists of settlements in England |
4599 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1858 | 1858 |
Events
Charles Darwin proposes the natural selection of species.
A civil war between conservatists and liberals starts in Mexico.
The British Empire or rule, begins in India after the surrender and exile of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah II
Births
January 7 – Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Russian-born advocate of the Hebrew language (d. 1922)
January 10 – Heinrich Zille, German illustrator and photographer (d. 1929)
January 11 – Harry Gordon Selfridge, American department store magnate (d. 1947)
March 10 – Kokichi Mikimoto, Japanese pearl farm pioneer (d. 1954)
March 18 – Rudolf Diesel, German inventor (d. 1913)
March 23 – Ludwig Quidde, German pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1941)
April 23 – Max Planck, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1947)
June 16 – King Gustaf V of Sweden (d. 1950)
June 16 – William Dickson Boyce, founder of the Boy Scouts of America (d. 1929)
July 9 – Franz Boas, German anthropologist (d. 1942)
August 1 – Hans Rott, Austrian composer (d. 1884)
August 11 – Christiaan Eijkman, Dutch physician and pathologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1930)
August 27 – Giuseppe Peano, Italian mathematician (d. 1932)
September 18 – Kate Booth, the oldest daughter of William and Catherine Booth (d. 1955)
October 3 – Eleonora Duse, Italian actress (d. 1924)
October 27 – Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1919)
November 20 – Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1940)
November 30 – Jagdish Chandra Bose, Indian physicist (d. 1937)
December 22 – Giacomo Puccini, Italian composer (d. 1924)
December 25 – Herman P. Faris, American temperance movement leader (d. 1936) |
4600 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1899 | 1899 |
Events
January 1 – Queens and Staten Island join with New York City.
March 26 - the first electric tram in Moscow.
Thomson measures the charge and mass of an electron.
August/early September-The 1899 San Ciriaco hurricane hits the Bahamas, Florida and North Carolina
Births
May 10 – Fred Astaire
May 24 – Kazi Nazrul Islam
August 28 – Chang Myon
July 7 - George Cukor
July 11 – E.B. White |
4602 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright%20Eyes%20%28band%29 | Bright Eyes (band) | Bright Eyes is an American indie rock music band. The people in the band are Conor Oberst, a singer-songwriter; Mike Mogis, a musician and producer; and other friends and session musicians from Omaha, Nebraska, USA.
Oberst's singing style and the words to the songs are called desperate or on the verge of tears. Many people think his songs are always about himself, but Oberst has said that they are not. For example, one song, "Padraic My Prince", tells the fictional story of a mother drowning her son in a bathtub. In interviews, Oberst has said that he sings about such things to make rich emotions.
Discography
Albums
Letting Off the Happiness (1998)
Fevers and Mirrors (2000)
A Collection of Songs: Recorded 1995-1997 (2000)
Lifted or the Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)
Vinyl Box Set (7 LP's) (2003) This collection contains Oberst's first five releases plus bonus material.
I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (2005)
Digital Ash in a Digital Urn (2005)
Cassadaga (2007)
The People's Key (2011)
EPs/Singles
Every Day and Every Night EP (1999)
"Don't Be Frightened Of Turning The Page" (2001)
"Oh Holy Fools: The Music of Son, Ambulance & Bright Eyes" (2001)
"Drunk Kid Catholic" CDS (2001)
There Is No Beginning To The Story EP (2002)
Lover I Don't Have To Love CDS (2002)
Home: IV EP (2004)
One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels EP (2004)
"Lua" (2004)
Take It Easy (Love Nothing) (2004)
Four Winds EP (2007)
American rock bands
Indie bands
Electronic music bands
Musical groups from Nebraska
Musicians from Omaha, Nebraska
Musical groups established in 1995
1995 establishments in the United States
20th-century establishments in Nebraska |
4603 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeycomb | Honeycomb | A honeycomb is a container made by bees out of wax that they produce. The bees make a honeycomb as a place to keep their honey. Bees make honey from nectar that they collect from flowers. After bees collect nectar from flowers, and make it into honey, the bees then put the honey in the small six sided areas of the honeycomb. Each hexagonal section tessellates with the rest.
Uses
Honeycomb wax can be used for making soap and candles. Some people eat honey that is still in the honeycomb. A worker bee grows wax in its abdomen. The wax appears as little spots. The bee pulls it off with its legs and chews it until it becomes soft. The wax is then used to make cells for the honeycomb. Smaller cells are used to raise worker bees. We can use honey present in honeycombs as remedy for cough etc.
Bees |
4606 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek%20language | Greek language | The Greek language is an Indo-European language. It is the official language of Greece (Hellas) and Cyprus. It was first spoken in Greece and was also once spoken along the coast of Asia Minor (now a part of Turkey) and in southern Italy. It was also widely used in Western Asia and Northern Africa at one time. In Greek, the language is called Ελληνικά (elliniká).
Greeks write their language using the Greek alphabet. The Latin alphabet (used to write English and many other languages) came from the Greek alphabet. Many other alphabets around the world also came from the Greek one.
Greek has an unbroken history of being a written language for over 3,000 years. This is longer than any other Indo-European language spoken today. This history is often divided into three parts, ancient Greek, medieval Greek, and modern Greek. The years 330-1453 are called medieval Greek because that's the time of the Byzantine Empire.
Over 13 million people in the world speak Greek as of 2021. These speakers mostly live in Greece (almost 11 million) and Cyprus (over 1 million). There are also people in other countries around the world who speak the language. This is largely because people left Greece and emigrated, meaning they moved to other countries. Countries like the United States and Australia have a large Greek diaspora.
Related pages
Greek numbers
Ancient Greek language
References
Other websites
Greek Dictionary , from Webster's Dictionary .
Ancient Greek Dictionaries , descriptions of both online dictionaries (with appropriate links) and Greek. |
4608 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamishibai | Kamishibai | Kami-shibai (Japanese: 紙芝居) is a storytelling performance with picture cards, and is a traditional Japanese entertainment for children. In Japanese "Kami" means paper and "shibai" means drama or enternainment. The performer tells a story and shows pictures from scene to scene. Kami-shibai is a bidirectional media which is comprised of actions and reactions between a performer and audiences. With the spread of television, kami-shibai went out of date.
The origins of kamishibai are not clear, but its roots can be taced back to various picture storytelling traditions in Japan such as etoki and emaki scrolls and other forms of visual storytelling which date back centuries. However, the form of Kamishibai that one thinks of today developed around 1929 and was quite popular in the 30s, and 40s, all but dying out with the introduction of television later in the 1950s.
Typical kamishibai consists of a presenter who stands to the right of a small wooden box or stage that holds the 12-20 cards featuring the visuals that accompany each story. This miniature stage is attached to the storyteller’s bicycle. The presenter changes the card, varying the speed of the transition to match the flow of the story he is telling.
References
Japanese culture
Entertainment in Japan |
4609 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murasaki%20Shikibu | Murasaki Shikibu | was a novelist, poet, and servant of the Imperial Court during the Heian period of Japan. She is well known as the author of The Tale of Genji, written around year 1003.
Murasaki Shikibu is a nickname; her real name is unknown.
Life
Murasaki was born in Kyoto. She was born into the Fujiwara family. Her father, Fujiwara Tametoki, was not a very nice father and when Murasaki got older he confessed that he regretted she was not a boy.
In the year 997, Murasaki married her second cousin, Fujiwara Nobutake, at age 20. In 999, they had a daughter, Kenshi, who also became a poet. Fujiwara Nobutake died about 1001.
Murasaki started as a writer soon after her husband's unexpected death. She was recognized immediately, and she was asked to the imperial court as a tutor to Empress Shoshi ( Joto Mon'in, 988–1074), daughter of the statesman Fujiwara Michinaga (966–1027). Murasaki joined the court of Empress Shōshi in 1006, probably for her skills as an author.
Murasaki started writing her diary in 1008, and finished in 1010. Her diary describes her Chinese lessons with her brother Nobunori (980?–1011), daily life and how much she missed her husband after his death.
She died in Kyoto, around the year 1020.
The Tale of Genji
The Tale of Genji is split into 54 different books, and is made up of 795 different poems. It is one of the earliest novels in Japanese, and is often thought of as the first novel in the world. It is a classic of Japanese literature. The masterpiece was about the court life of Prince Genji, and his wife, Aoi in 10th-century Japan. Prince Genji was the illegitimate son of an emperor, and the text is about his relationships in court. The Tale of Genji included many beautiful scroll paintings.
References
970s births
1020s deaths
Japanese poets
Writers from Kyoto Prefecture |
4612 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsin | Pepsin | Pepsin is an enzyme. It acts on proteins in the stomach, which has a low pH because of the Hydrochloric acid. It works best at a pH of about 1.5. It will not work at a pH above 6.
It was the first animal enzyme to be discovered. Theodor Schwann discovered it in 1836.
Pepsin is used to make cheese.
References
Metabolism
Enzymes |
4613 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/PH | PH | pH is a scale of acidity from 0 to 14. It tells how acidic or alkaline a substance is.
More acidic solutions have lower pH. More alkaline solutions have higher pH. Substances that aren't acidic or alkaline (that is, neutral solutions) usually have a pH of 7.
Acids have a pH that is less than 7. Alkalis have a pH that is greater than 7.
pH is a measure of the concentration of protons (H+) in a solution. S.P.L. Sørensen introduced this concept in the year 1909. The p stands for the German potenz, meaning power or concentration, and the H for the hydrogen ion (H+).
The most common formula for calculating pH is:
[H+] indicates the concentration of H+ ions (also written [H3O+], the equal concentration of hydronium ions), measured in moles per litre (also known as molarity).
However, the correct equation is actually:
where indicates the activity of H+ ions. But, this equation in most cases provides the same value as the more common formula, so in introductory chemistry the previous equation is given as the definition of pH.
Most substances have a pH in the range of 0 to 14, although extremely acidic or alkaline substances may have pH < 0, or pH > 14.
Alkaline substances have, instead of hydrogen ions, a concentration of hydroxide ions (OH-).
pH indicators
Certain dyes change colour depending on whether they are in an acid solution or an alkaline solution . pH indicator is a chemical compound added in small amounts to a solution so the pH (acidity or basicity) of the solution can be seen. The pH indicator is a chemical detector for hydronium ions (H3O+) or hydrogen ions (H+). Normally, the indicator causes the colour of the solution to change depending on the pH.
Typical indicators are phenolphthalein, methyl orange, methyl red, bromothymol blue, and thymol blue. They each change colour at different points on the pH scale, and can be used together as a universal indicator.
Another way is to use litmus paper, which is based on a natural pH indicators. The paper can tell you how strong the chemical is, whether it is a stronger acid or a stronger base.
Some common pH values
Neutralization
Neutralization can be summed up by the equation:
+ →
(acid + base → water)
Related pages
Acid
Base
Alkali
Titration
Transpiration
Notes
Other websites
pH-Spectra Database í
pH Test
pH Calculator
Chemistry |
4614 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapeworm | Tapeworm | Tapeworms are the class Cestoda of segmented flatworms (Platyhelminthes).They are parasitic, which means that they need another larger creature as a host. Tapeworms live inside the intestines of vertebrate animals. This includes humans. When a vertebrate has a tapeworm, they may lose weight and become weaker.
Tapeworms can be up to 30 or 36 feet (10–12 metres) long. They eat by absorbing material directly through their epidermis (outside layer). The head of a tapeworm has four suckers and two rings of hooks. The body of a tapeworm is in segments (pieces that are like each other). Each segment can produce eggs. Little segments of the tapeworm sometimes break off and pass out through the stool of the host, with the eggs. Little segments of its body fall off. They go out of the host body, and are eaten by the next host, which is another type of vertebrate.
Tapeworms are hermaphrodite, with both sexes. Cross-fertilization occurs between two tapeworms in the same intestine. They have a life cycle with a secondary or intermediate host. For example, human tapeworms have cows or pigs as intermediate hosts. The 'definitive' host (humans in this case) is the one where fertilization takes place.
Tapeworms don't have a gut, so they have to absorb nutrients directly across their skin.
Flatworms
Parasites |
4616 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnivore | Omnivore | An omnivore is an animal whose species gets its energy and nutrients from a diet made up foods that include plants, animals, algae, fungi and bacteria.
Many omnivores change their eating habits during their life cycle. They are sometimes called "life-history omnivores", because they are only omnivores if their whole life is considered.
Some species, such as grazing waterfowl like geese, are known to eat mainly animals at one stage of their lives, but plants at another. Also, many insects, such as the beatle family Meloidae, eat animal tissue when they are larvae, but eat plant matter after they mature.
Animal types
All of these animals are omnivores, but have different feeding behaviors and favorite foods. Being omnivores gives these animals more food security in stressful times. It also makes it easier for them to live in less consistent environments; (those that change along with the season, for example).
Humans, many pigs, many bears, some primates, some rodents, opossums, rails, rheas, most seagulls, and other animals are omnivores.
Related pages
carnivore
herbivore
insectivore
semi-vegetarian
References |
4618 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbivore | Herbivore | Herbivores are animals that only eat plants. They are herbivorous animals.
Herbivores (such as deer, elephants, horses) have teeth that are adapted to grind vegetable tissue. Many animals that eat fruit and leaves sometimes eat other parts of plants, for example roots and seeds. Usually, such animals cannot digest meat. But some herbivorous animals will eat eggs and occasionally other animal protein.
Some animals are frugivores because they eat mainly fruit. Browsers eat mostly leaves and sometimes small tree branches. Animals that eat mostly grass are grazing animals.
The diets of some herbivorous animals change with the seasons. In the temperate zones of the Earth, some seasons are hot and some are cold, so different plants are available at different times of the year.
Humans are omnivores, because they eat meat as well as plants. People who eat mostly plants are usually called vegetarian or vegan.
Digesting cellulose
Plant cell walls are mostly made up of cellulose. No animal can digest cellulose by itself. They make use of gut flora, some of which produce an enzyme called cellulase. This is an example of symbiosis.
Herbivore-plant interactions
According to the theory of predator-prey interactions, the relationship between herbivores and plants is cyclic. When prey (plants) are numerous their predators (herbivores) increase in numbers, reducing the plant population, which in turn causes herbivore number to decline. The prey population eventually recovers, starting a new cycle. This suggests that the population of the herbivore fluctuates around the carrying capacity of the food source, in this case the plant.
There will always be pockets of plants not found by herbivores. This is important for specialist herbivores which feed on only one species of plant: it prevents these specialists from wiping out their food source. Eating a second plant type helps herbivores’ populations stabilize. Alternating between two or more plant types provides population stability for the herbivore, while the populations of the plants oscillate. When an invasive herbivore or plant enters the system, the balance is thrown off and the diversity can change or even collapse.
In some ways it is easier to be an herbivorous animal than a carnivorous (meat-eating) animal. Carnivorous animals have to find and catch the animals that they eat, and sometimes the animals that they want to eat fight them. Herbivorous animals have to find the plants that they want to eat, but they do not have to catch them. Many plants have some defence against herbivores, such as spines, toxins (poisons), or a bad taste. There are many more herbivorous animals living in the world than carnivorous animals.
Herbivore effects on plant diversity
Herbivores' effects on plant diversity vary across environmental changes. Herbivores could increase plant diversity or decrease plant diversity.
People used to think herbivores increase plant diversity by avoiding dominance. Dominant species tend to exclude subordinate species as competitive exclusion. However, the effects on plant diversity caused by variation in dominance could be beneficial or negative. Herbivores do increase bio-diversity by consuming dominant plant species, but they can also prefer eating subordinate species according to plants’ palatability and quality. In addition to the preference of herbivores, herbivores' effects on plant diversity are also influenced by other factors, defense trade-off theory, the predator-prey interaction , and inner traits of the environment and herbivores.
One way that plants could differ in their susceptibility to herbivores is through defense trade-off. Defense trade-off theory is commonly used to be seen as a fundamental theory to maintain ecological evenness. Plants can make a trade-off response to resource allocation, such as between defense and growth. Defenses against herbivory on plant diversity can vary in different situations. It can be neutral, detrimental or beneficial for plant fitness. Even in the absence of defensive trade-offs, herbivores may still be able to increase plant diversity, such as herbivores prefer subordinate species rather than dominant species.
The predator-prey interaction, especially the “top-down” regulation. The predator-prey interaction encourages the adaptation in plant species which the predator prefers. The theory of “top-down” ecological regulation disproportionately manipulates the biomass of dominant species to increase diversity. The herbivore effect on plant is universal but still significantly distinguish on each site, can be positive or negative.
In a highly productive system, the environment provides an organism with adequate nutrition and resources to grow. The effects of herbivores competing for resources on the plant are more complicated. The existence of herbivores can increase plant diversity by reducing the abundance of dominant species, redundant resources can then be used by subordinate species. Therefore, in a highly productive system, direct consumption of dominant plants could indirectly benefit those herbivory-resistant and unpalatable species. But the less productive system can support limited herbivores because of lack of nutrients and water. Herbivory boosts the abundance of most tolerant species and decreases the less-tolerant species’ existence which accelerates the plant extinction. Mediate productive system sometimes barely has long-term effects on plant diversity. Because the environment provides a stable coexistence of different organisms. Even when herbivores create some disturbances to the community. The system is still able to recover to the original state.
Light is one of the most important resources in environments for plant species. Competition for light availability and predator avoidance are equally important. With the addition of the nutrients, more competition arises among plant species. But herbivores could buffer the diversity reduction. Especially large herbivores can enhance the bio-diversity by selectively excluding tall, dominant plant species, and increase light availability.
Body size of herbivores is a key reason underlying the interaction between herbivores and plant diversity, and the body size explains many of the phenomena connected to herbivore-plant interaction. Small herbivores are less likely to decrease plant diversity. Because small non-digging animals may not cause many disturbances to the plant and the environment. Intermediate-sized herbivores mostly increase plant diversity by consuming or influencing the dominant plant species, such as herbivore birds, that can directly use dominant plant species. While some herbivores enhance plant diversity by indirect effects on plant competition. Some digging animals at this size local community environmental fluctuations. And the adaptation of plant species to avoid predators can also adjust the vegetation structure and increase diversity. Larger herbivores often increase plant diversity. They use competitively dominant plant species, and disperse seeds and create disorder of the soil. Besides, their urine position also adjusts the local plant distribution, and prevent light competition.
Therefore, the mechanisms of herbivores’ effects on plant diversity are complicated. Generally, the existence of herbivores increases plant diversity. But varies according to different environmental factors, multiple factors combined together to affect how herbivores influence plant diversity.
Related pages
Carnivore
Omnivore
References
Animals
Ecology |
4624 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi | Hindi | Hindi is an Indo-Iranian language. It is the main language in India. About 800 million people speak Hindi in India. The Devanāgarī script is used to write Hindi. Previously Hindi was known as Hindui.
Hindi is widely written, spoken and understood in North India and some other places in India. In 1997, a survey found that 45% of Indians can speak Hindi. It has taken words from the Dravidian languages of South India, as well as the Arabic, Persian, Chagatai, English and Portuguese languages.
Hindi and Urdu were considered the same language but have evolved into separate dialects. However, to this day, both languages are mutually intelligible, meaning their speakers can understand each other without knowing the other language. Urdu, however, is written in the completely different Arabic alphabet.
Hindi developed from Sanskrit, the ancient language of India. Hindi started to develop in the 7th century as "Apabhramsha" and became stable by the 10th century. Some famous Hindi poets are Tulsidas and Kabir.
Dialects of Hindi include: Avadhi, Braj, Bhojpuri, Bundeli, Bagheli, Chhattisgarhi, Dogri and Marwari.
Hindi is also spoken with regional accents like Haryanvi and Rajasthani. Bombay Hindi is spreading because Bollywood films use it.
Hindi Diwas is an annual celebration on 14th September. It commemorates the law of 1949 that made Hindi the legal language of the Republic.
References |
4625 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1870 | 1870 |
Events
Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871)
Births
January 8 – Miguel Primo de Rivera, dictator of Spain (d. 1930)
January 15 – Pierre S. DuPont, industrialist
February 7 – Alfred Adler, psychologist
March 5 – Frank Norris, writer (d. 1902)
March 17 – Horace Donisthorpe, myrmecologist (d. 1951)
March 20 – Paul Erich von Lettow-Vorbeck, German general (d. 1964)
April 22 – Vladimir Lenin, first leader of the USSR
April 30 – Franz Lehár, composer (d. 1948)
May 19 – Albert Fish, serial killer (d. 1936; executed by electrocution)
June 13 Sophia of Prussia Queen of Greece Grand Daughter of Queen Victoria and sister of Kaiser William II of Germany and mother of future 3 kings George II Alexander I Paul I ( died 1932
July 3 – Richard Bedford Bennett, eleventh Prime Minister of Canada.
July 12 – Louis II of Monaco
July 29 – George Dixon, Black Canadian boxer, first Black world boxing champion in any weight class.
August 31 – Maria Montessori, educator
September 26 – King Christian X of Denmark
November 21 – Sigfrid Edström, Swedish sports official
December 5 – Vitezslav Novák, composer (d. 1949)
Deaths
February 11 – Jacob M. de Kempenaer, Dutch Minister of Internal Affairs (1848-1849?).
February 11 – Leopold Eugen Mechura, composer
February 19 – Nathaniel de Rothschild, French wine grower
March 28 – George Henry Thomas, American general
June 9 – Charles Dickens, British novelist
July 20 – Jules Alfred Huot de Goncourt, Prix Goncourt
October 12 – Robert E. Lee, Confederate General.
November 4 – Comte de Lautreamont, French poet and writer.
December 5 – Alexandre Dumas, père, writer
December 27 – General Prim, Spanish dictator.
Henry Rowe – Gothic architect |
4626 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1871 | 1871 |
Events
January 2 – Amadeus I becomes King of Spain.
January 18 – Germany becomes a country when states of the North German Confederation unite. The King of Prussia becomes the first German Emperor as Wilhelm I of Germany.
January 10 – France surrenders (gives up) to end the Franco-Prussian War
March 22 – In North Carolina, William Holden is the first American governor (leader of a U.S. state) to be impeached (removed from office)
March 26 – The Paris Commune takes power in Paris.
March 29 – The Royal Albert Hall is opened by Queen Victoria.
April – Stockholms Handelsbank is formed.
Births
January 17 – David Earl Betty of the North Sea and of Brooksby, British admiral (navy leader) (d. 1936)
January 30 – Wilfred Lucas, actor (d. 1940)
February 4 – Friedrich Ebert, president of the Weimar Republic (d. 1925)
March 5 – Rosa Luxemburg, politician (d. 1919)
March 27 – Heinrich Mann, speaker and writer (d. 1950)
May 6 – Christian Morgenstern, writer (d. 1914)
May 27 – Georges Rouault, painter and artist (d. 1958).
July 23 – Tsunesaburō Makiguchi (Japanese old Lunar calendar 6 June was an incorrect date using in Gregorian calendar), First president of Soka Gakkai International (SGI) (d. 1944).
August 19 – Orville Wright of the Wright brothers, Americans who invented the airplane.
August 29 – Albert Lebrun, French politician (d. 1950)
September 27 – Grazia Deledda, Sardinian writer – Nobel prize (d. 1936)
December 13 – Emily Carr, Canadian artist and writer.
Richard Turner, Canadian soldier with the Royal Canadian Dragoons, who got the Victoria Cross for bravery during the Second Boer War.
Guangxu, Emperor of the Qing Dynasty in China.
Deaths
February 20 – Paul Kane, painter
September 23 – Louis-Joseph Papineau, aged 85, Canadian politician and leader of the Patriotes Rebellion.
October 10 - Octavius Catto, aged 32, American black educator.
October 18 – Charles Babbage, aged 79, English mathematician and inventor of computing machines.
References |
4627 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1882 | 1882 |
Events
May 20 – Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.
March 29 – The Knights of Columbus are set up.
Edison builds first power station in the United States.
Births
January 6 – Fan S. Noli, Albanian poet and political figure (d. 1965)
January 18 – A. A. Milne, British writer (d. 1956)
January 25 – Virginia Woolf, writer (d. 1941)
January 30 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States
February 1 – Louis Stephen St. Laurent, twelfth Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1973)
February 2 – James Joyce, writer (d. 1941)
February 11 – Gheorghe Cucu composer (d. 1932)
February 15 – John Barrymore, actor (d. 1942)
March 14 – Waclaw Sierpinski Polish mathematician (d. 1969)
March 15 – Jim Lightbody, American middle-distance runner
March 21 – Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson, actor (d. 1971)
March 23 – Emmy Noether, mathematician (d. 1935)
April 17 – Artur Schnabel, pianist (d. 1951)
April 18 – Isabel J. Cox, future spouse of Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1985)
May 6 – Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany, heir of Kaiser Wilhelm II (d. 1951)
May 9 – Henry J. Kaiser, industrialist (d. 1967)
May 9 – George Barker, United States painter (d. 1965)
May 13 – Georges Braque, painter (d. 1963)
May 16 – Anne McCormick, journalist, Pulitzer Prize winner (d. 1954)
May 19 – Mohammed Mossadegh, Iranian prime minister (d. 1967)
May 20 – Sigrid Undset, Norwegian writer (d. 1949)
May 30 – Wyndham Halswelle, British runner
June 9 – Bobby Kerr, Canadian sprinter
June 17 – Igor Stravinsky, composer (d. 1971)
August 14 – Gisela Richter, art historian (d. 1972)
August 25 – Sean T. O'Kelly, second President of Ireland (d. 1966)
October 5 – Robert Goddard, rocket scientist (d. 1945)
October 6 – Karol Szymanowski, composer (d. 1937)
October 14 – Éamon de Valera, Taoiseach and third President of Ireland (d. 1975)
October 22 – N.C. Wyeth, artist
December 9 – Joaquín Turina, composer (d. 1949)
November 11 – King Gustav VI Adolf of Sweden (d. 1973)
December 16 – Zoltán Kodály, composer (d. 1967)
Deaths
February 11 – Gustav Schmidt, composer
March 24 – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, writer
April 3 – Jesse James, outlaw
April 10 – Dante Gabriel Rossetti, poet, painter
April 19 – Charles Darwin, British naturalist
July 16 – Mary Todd Lincoln, former First Lady of the United States
Charles A. Alexander, Victorian architect
Heads of State
China – Guāngxù Emperor of China, Qing Dynasty (1875-1908)
Denmark – Christian IX, King of Denmark (1863-1906)
France – Jules Grévy, President of France (1879-1887)
Germany – Wilhelm I, German Kaiser (1871-1888)
Holy See – Pope Leo XIII, Bishop of Rome (1878-1903)
Japan – Mutsuhito, Meiji emperor (1867-1912)
Norway – Oscar II, King of Sweden and Norway (1872-1905)
Ottoman Empire – Abdul Hamid II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1876-1909)
Russia – Alexander III, Tsar of Russia (1881-1894)
Spain – Alfonso XII of Spain, King of Spain (1875-1885)
United States – Chester A. Arthur, President of the United States (1881-1885) |
4628 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1941 | 1941 |
Events
January 6 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address.
January 10 – Lend-Lease is introduced into the United States Congress.
January 19 – British troops attack Italian-held Eritrea.
January 21 – World War II: Australian and British forces attack Tobruk, Libya.
January 22 – World War II: British troops capture Tobruk from the Italians.
January 23 – Charles Lindbergh testifies before the United States Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
April 6 – World War II: The German army attacked Yugoslavia.
April 10 – Croatia declares itself independent of Yugoslavia.
June 22 - Nazi German invasion to the Soviet Union. The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union begins.
September 11 – Building of The Pentagon starts.
December 5 - Soviet counteroffensive near Moscow begins.
December 7 – The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Following this, the U.S. enters World War II.
Births
January 3 – Van Dyke Parks, musician, composer
January 5 – Miyazaki Hayao, Japanese movie maker
January 5 – Grady Thomas, singer (P-Funk)
January 8 – Graham Chapman, British comedian (d. 1989)
January 9 – Joan Baez, American singer
January 14 – Faye Dunaway, American actress
January 14 – Milan Kučan, Slovene politician, statesman
January 15 – Captain Beefheart, American singer (d. 2010)
January 18 – David Ruffin, singer (died 1991)
January 21 – Richie Havens, American musician (d. 2013)
January 21 – Plácido Domingo, Spanish opera singer
January 26 – Henry Jaglom, director
January 26 – Scott Glenn, actor
January 30 – Dick Cheney, former Vice President of the United States
January 31 - Eugene Terre'Blanche, South African far-right politician (d. 2010)
January 31 – Richard Gephardt, American politician
February 5 – Kaspar Villiger, former member of the Swiss Federal Council
February 8 – Nick Nolte, actor
February 10 – Michael Apted, director
February 11 – Glenn Randall Jr, stuntman
February 11 – Jeremy Mackenzie, general
February 13 – Sigmar Polke, German painter (d. 2010)
February 16 - Kim Jong-il, North Korean supreme commander. (died 2011)
February 17 – Julia McKenzie, actress
February 17 – Gene Pitney, American singer (d. 2006)
February 20 – Buffy Sainte-Marie, singer
February 27 – Paddy Ashdown, British politician
March 3 – Jutta Hoffmann, actress
March 4 – Adrian Lyne, director
March 6 – Willie Stargell, Baseball Hall of Famer (died 2001)
March 14 – Wolfgang Petersen, director, Das Boot
March 15 – Mike Love, musician ("The Beach Boys")
March 16 – Bernardo Bertolucci, movie director
March 18 – Wilson Pickett, American singer (d. 2006)
March 26 – Richard Dawkins, British scientist
March 30 – Wasim Sajjad, former President of Pakistan
April 6 – Hans W. Geissendörfer, German movie director
April 8 – Vivienne Westwood, English fashion designer
April 14 – Pete Rose, American baseball player
April 18 - Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland
April 23 – Paavo Lipponen, Prime Minister of Finland
April 24 - Richard Holbrooke, American diplomat (d. 2010)
May 13 – Ritchie Valens, singer (died 1959)
May 13 – Senta Berger, actress
May 15 – K.T. Oslin, country musician
May 19 – Nora Ephron, American screenwriter (d. 2012)
May 24 – Bob Dylan, American poet and musician
June 5 – Martha Argerich, Argentinian pianist
June 5 – Spalding Gray, actor, screenwriter, and monologue artist (died 2004)
June 9 - Jon Lord, British musician (Deep Purple) (d. 2012)
June 15 - Harry Nilsson, American singer-songwriter (d. 1994)
June 27 – Krzysztof Kieslowski, movie director
July 14 – Maulana Karenga, writer and activist
August 14 - David Crosby, American singer-songwriter and musician (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
August 22 – Bill Parcells, NFL coach
September 8 - Bernie Sanders, American politician
September 9 – Otis Redding, musician (died 1967)
September 9 – Dennis Ritchie, American computer scientist (d. 2011)
September 19 – Cass Elliott, singer (The Mamas & the Papas) (died 1974)
September 28 - Edmund Stoiber, German politician
October 4 – Anne Rice, horror/fantasy writer
October 5 – Eduardo Duhalde former President of Argentina
October 8 - Jesse Jackson, American pastor and civil rights leader
October 13 – Paul Simon, American musician (Simon & Garfunkel)
November 5 - Art Garfunkel, American musician (Simon & Garfunkel)
November 7 - Angelo Scola, Italian archbishop and cardinal
November 29 – Bill Freehan, baseball player
December 18 - His Royal Highness Prince William of Gloucester
December 23 - Nigel Anthony, English actor
December 31 - Alex Ferguson, Scottish football manager
Deaths
January 5 – Amy Johnson, aviator
January 8 – Lord Robert Baden-Powell, founder of Scouting
January 10 – Joe Penner, comedian, actor
January 13 – James Joyce, writer
February 11 – Rudolf Hilferding, German economist, Minister of Finance
February 28 – King Alfonso XIII of Spain
March 6 – Gutzon Borglum, sculptor
March 8 – Sherwood Anderson, writer
March 15 – Alexej von Jawlensky, Russian impressionist painter
March 28 – Virginia Woolf, writer
June 2 – Lou Gehrig, baseball legend (born 1903)
June 6 – Louis Chevrolet, automobile builder
July 10 – Jelly Roll Morton – jazz musician & composer (b. 1890)
July 11 – Arthur Evans, archaeologist
July 26 – Henri Lebesgue, mathematician
August 31 – Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet (suicide)
August 7 – Rabindranath Tagore, writer
September 13 – Elias Disney, American farmer and father of Walt Disney.
November 18 – Chris Watson, third Prime Minister of Australia
December 3 – Christian Sinding, composer
Nobel Prizes
Nobel Prize in Physics – not awarded
Chemistry – not awarded
Medicine – not awarded
Literature – not awarded
Peace – not awarded
Movies released
Citizen Kane |
4629 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945 | 1945 | It is well known as the end of World War II and the founding of UNO and UNESCO.
Events
January 27 - The Red Army liberates Auschwitz concentration camp.
April 30 - Adolf Hitler committed suicide.
May 9 - Victory Day
July 17 - Start of the Potsdam Conference.
August 6 and 9 - U.S. drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
August 18 - Death of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose as given by Habibur Rahman.
September 2 - World War II ends
October 24 - The United Nations is formed.
Births
January 3 – Stephen Stills (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young), singer, songwriter
January 3 – Victoria Principal, actress
January 9 – Levon Ter-Petrossian, first President of Armenia
January 10 – Rod Stewart, singer
January 19 – Maria Jespen, theologian
January 26 – Jacqueline du Pré, cellist (d. 1987)
January 28 – Marthe Keller, actress
January 29 – Tom Selleck, actor (Magnum, P.I.)
January 30 – Michael Dorris, writer (d. 1997)
February 3 – Bob Griese, Football Hall of Famer
February 5 – Charlotte Rampling, actress
February 6 – Bob Marley, Jamaican roots rock reggae singer and musician (d. 1981)
February 7 – Pete Postlethwaite, actor
February 9 – Mia Farrow, actress
February 12 – Thilo Sarrazin, German politician and economist
February 14 – Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein
February 17 – Brenda Fricker, actress
February 24 – Barry Bostwick, actor
February 28 – Bubba Smith, Football Hall of Famer (d. 2011)
March 7 – John Heard, actor
March 8 – Micky Dolenz, actor, director, musician ("The Monkees")
March 8 – Anselm Kiefer, painter
March 19 – Cem Karaca, Turkish rock musician
March 22 – Paul Schockemöhle, equestrian
March 29 – Walt Frazier, basketball player
March 30 – Eric Clapton, blues guitarist (Cream)
April 2 – Linda Hunt, actress
April 4 – Daniel Cohn-Bendit, political activist
April 25 - Björn Ulvaeus, Swedish guitarist (ABBA)
April 27 – August Wilson, playwright
May 4 – Narasinham Ram, journalist
May 6 – Bob Seger, rock music singer
May 6 – Jimmie Dale Gilmore, musician
May 8 – Keith Jarrett, jazz musician
May 13 – Magic Dick, musician ("The J. Geils Band")
May 14 – Yochanan Vollach, Israeli footballer, president of Maccabi Haifa
May 15 – Duarte Pio, Duke of Braganza presumptive heir to Portuguese crown
May 19 – Pete Townshend, guitarist, lyricist (The Who)
May 21 – Ernst Messerschmid, physicist and astronaut
May 28 – John Fogerty, singer (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
May 31 – Rainer Werner Fassbinder, director
June 11 - Robert Munsch, Canadian children’s author
June 15 – Her Royal Highness Princess Michael of Kent
June 17 – Art Bell – radio talk show host
June 17 – Eddy Merckx, Belgian cycling champion
June 17 – Anupam Kher, actor, India
June 19 – Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar poet, politician and Nobel peace laureate
June 25 – Carly Simon, singer, songwriter
July 7 – Michael Ancram (Michael Kerr, Earl of Ancram), British politician
July 8 – Micheline Calmy-Rey, member of the Swiss Federal Council
July 15 – Jürgen Möllemann, German politician (d. 2003)
July 23 - Matias Türk, folk music and Croatian politician
July 28 – Jim Davis, cartoonist
August 14 – Steve Martin, actor and comedian
August 31 – Itzhak Perlman, violinist
August 31 – Van Morrison, musician
August 31 - Bob Welch, musician (Fleetwood Mac) (d. 2012)
September 3 – Aldo Moro, Italian politician
September 5 – Khaleda Zia, Bangladeshi politician
September 8 – Jose Feliciano, singer
October 12 – Aurore Clément, French actress
October 15 – Jim Palmer, Baseball Hall of Famer
October 27 – Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazilian President
October 30 – Henry Winkler, actor (Happy Days)
November 3 – J. D. Souther, country rock musician
November 5 – Jacques Lanctôt, FLQ terrorist
November 12 – Neil Young, (Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young), singer, songwriter
November 15 - Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Swedish singer-songwriter and musician (ABBA)
November 26 – Daniel Davis, actor (The Nanny)
November 26 - John McVie, English bass guitarist (Fleetwood Mac)
December 20 - Peter Criss, American singer-songwriter and musician (Kiss)
December 30 - Davy Jones, English singer-songwriter and musician (The Monkees) (d. 2012)
Deaths
January 3 – Edgar Cayce, psychic, "exhaustion"
January 22 – Else Lasker-Schuler, poet
January 31 – Eddie Slovik, American soldier
February 5 – Lilian Rolfe, SOE agent executed by the Nazis
February 5 – Violette Szabo, SOE agent executed by the Nazis
February 5 – Denise Bloch, SOE agent executed by the Nazis
February 11 – Al Dubin, Swiss songwriter
February 11 – J. S. H. Lokerman, Dutch resistance fighter
February 17 – Gabrielle Weidner, Belgian heroine of World War II
February 21 – Eric Liddell, Scottish runner
March – Anne Frank, at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, typhus
March 2 – Emily Carr, artist
March 18 – William Grover-Williams, Grand Prix motor racing driver/war hero
March 19 – Friedrich Fromm, Nazi official
March 23 – Elisabeth de Rothschild, executed by the Nazis
March 26 – David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
March 30 – Elise Rivet, Roman Catholic nun and war hero
April 9 – Wilhelm Canaris, head of the German Abwehr, hanged for treason
April 9 – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, theologian in Nazi Germany
April 12 – United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, massive stroke
April 18 – Ernie Pyle, American journalist, sniper fire
April 28 – Benito Mussolini, Italian dictator, hanged
April 30 – Adolf Hitler, German dictator and Nazi party leader, suicide
May 1 – Cecily Lefort SOE agent, WW II heroine, executed by the Nazis
May 1 – Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propagandist, suicide
May 2 – Martin Bormann, Nazi-German politician (b. 1900)
May 15 – Charles Williams, British writer
May 15 - Kenneth J. Alford, British composer
May 23 – Heinrich Himmler, head of the Nazi Gestapo, suicide
July 5 – John Curtin, fourteenth Prime Minister of Australia
August 2 – Pietro Mascagni, Italian composer
August 9 – Harry Hillman, American athlete
August 10 – Robert Goddard, American rocket scientist
August 31 – Stefan Banach, Polish mathematician
September 15 – Anton Webern, Austrian composer
September 24 – Johannes Hans Geiger, inventor of the Geiger counter
September 26 – Béla Bartók, aged 64, Hungarian composer
October 13 – Milton Hershey, chocolate tycoon
October 15 – Pierre Laval, former Vichy French premier, firing squad
October 19 – N.C. Wyeth, illustrator
October 24 – Vidkun Quisling, Norwegian politician, famous traitor, executed
November 11 – Jerome Kern, composer
November 21 – Robert Benchley, The New Yorker, humorist, theatre critic, actor
December 4 – Thomas Hunt Morgan, biologist
December 20 – General George S. Patton, car accident
December 28 – Theodore Dreiser, writer
Nobel Prizes
Nobel Prize in Physics – Wolfgang Pauli, Austrian-born physicist
Chemistry – Artturi Ilmari Virtanen, Finnish chemist
Medicine – Sir Alexander Fleming, Ernst Boris Chain, Sir Howard Walter Florey, shared for their work on penicillin
Literature – Gabriela Mistral, Chilean poet
Peace – Cordell Hull, American politician
Movies released
Anchors Aweigh starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra
The Bells of St. Mary's starring Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman
Leave Her to Heaven starring Gene Tierney and Cornel Wilde
Mildred Pierce featuring Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, and Ann Blyth
Saratoga Trunk starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman
Spellbound starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck
Week-End at the Waldorf featuring Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner, and Walter Pidgeon
New Books
The Age of Jackson – Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
The Age of Reason – Jean-Paul Sartre
Animal Farm – George Orwell
Black Boy – Richard Wright
The Black Rose – Thomas B. Costain
Bonheur d'occasion (The Tin Flute) – Gabrielle Roy
The Bosnian Trilogy – Ivo Andric
Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept – Elizabeth Smart
Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
The Egyptian – Mika Waltari
Gigi – Colette
High Ground – Odella Phelps Wood
Loving – Henry Green
Night Has a Thousand Eyes – Cornell Woolrich
The Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer
The Open Society and Its Enemies – Karl Popper
Pippi Longstocking – Astrid Lindgren
The Policy King – Lewis A. H. Caldwell
The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
Rabbit Hill – Robert Lawson
A Street in Bronzeville – Gwendolyn Brooks
Stuart Little – E.B. White
Surrender on Demand – Varian Fry
That Hideous Strength – C. S. Lewis
The Thurber Carnival (anthology) – James Thurber
Tootle – Gertrude Crampton
Two Solitudes – Hugh MacLennan
The Wide House – Taylor Caldwell |
4633 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig%20van%20Beethoven | Ludwig van Beethoven | Ludwig van Beethoven (baptized 17 December 1770 in Bonn – 26 March 1827 in Vienna; pronounced LUD-vig vahn BAY-TOH-ven) was a German composer. He wrote classical music for the piano, orchestras and different groups of instruments. His best-known works are his third (Eroica), fifth, sixth (Pastorale) and ninth (Choral) symphonies, the eighth (Pathetique) and fourteenth (Moonlight) piano sonatas, two of his later piano concertos, his opera Fidelio, and also the piano piece Für Elise. Beethoven lived when the piano was still a new instrument, and when he was a young man, he was a talented pianist. Beethoven was popular with the rich and important people in Vienna, Austria, where he lived.
However, in 1801, he began to lose his hearing. His deafness became worse. By 1817, he was completely deaf. Although he could no longer play in concerts, he continued to compose. During this time he composed some of his greatest works. He is said to be one of the greatest classical composers who has ever lived. When Beethoven died, he was surrounded by friends on his death bed. His funeral was held at the Church of the Holy Trinity. Between 10,000 and 30,000 people are estimated to have attended. Franz Schubert was a pall bearer at his funeral, even though the two were never close.
Early years.
Very little is known about Beethoven’s childhood. He was baptized on December 17, 1770 and was probably born a few days before that. Beethoven's parents were Johann van Beethoven (1740 in Bonn – December 18, 1792) and Maria Magdalena Keverich (1744 in Ehrenbreitstein – July 17, 1787). Magdalena's father, Johann Heinrich Keverich, had been Chief at the court of the Archbishopric of Trier at Festung Ehrenbreitstein fortress opposite to Koblenz. His father was a fairly unimportant musician who worked at the court of the Elector of Cologne. This court was in Bonn and it was here that he lived until he was a young man. His father gave him his first lessons in piano and violin. Beethoven was a child prodigy like Mozart, but while Mozart as a little boy was taken all over Europe by his father, Beethoven never traveled until he was 17. By that time, his piano teacher was a man called Neefe who had learned the piano from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the son of Johann Sebastian Bach. Neefe said to the Elector that the young Beethoven should be given the chance to travel, so he was allowed to go to Vienna. There, he might have had one or two lessons from Mozart, but then Beethoven got a letter saying that his mother was dying, so he hurried back to Bonn. Soon his mother died, and Beethoven had to help to look after the family because his father had become an alcoholic. Beethoven played the viola in the orchestra of the Elector, he started to compose, and made many friends. Some of these friends were musicians and others were very important people, many of them were aristocrats who would be able to help him in his career.
In 1792, the Elector let Beethoven travel to Vienna again. They expected him to return after a while. However, Beethoven never left Vienna. He stayed there for the rest of his life. He would have loved to have had some more composition lessons from Mozart, but Mozart had just died, so he had lessons from Haydn instead. Haydn was a good teacher, but a year later, he went off to England. Therefore, Beethoven took lessons from a man called Albrechtsberger who was not famous like Haydn. He was a good teacher too, and he made him write lots of technical exercises. He showed him how to write advanced counterpoint and fugues. This helped him to be a great composer.
Beethoven wanted to become famous as a pianist and composer, so he started to get to know important, aristocratic people. Some of these people had already heard him in Bonn when they had traveled there, so his name was becoming known in Vienna. It also helped that he could say he was the pupil of the famous Joseph Haydn. There were a lot of aristocratic people in Vienna who liked music, and many had their own private orchestras. Some of them started to give Beethoven places to live when the Elector of Bonn stopped sending him money in 1794. Beethoven started to perform in private houses, and he became known for his improvisations. In 1795 he performed one of his piano concertos at a concert. He also had his first publication (his opus 1). This was a group of three Piano Trios. Haydn had heard them at a private concert a year before and had advised Beethoven not to publish the third one. However, he did publish it, and that was the one which became the most successful. His opus 2 was a group of three piano sonatas which he played at the court of his friend Prince Lichnowsky. When he published them, he dedicated them to Haydn.
Beethoven was starting to become famous, travelling to places like Prague and Pressburg. He wrote much chamber music. He was, perhaps, a little jealous of the success that Haydn had with his latest symphonies he had written for London. In 1800 he gave his first public concert with his own music. He conducted his First Symphony as well as the Septet. By now several publishers were trying to persuade him to let them publish his new works. Beethoven was becoming famous as a composer. And during this period Beethoven produced his most famous piano sonata: No. 14, in C sharp minor, nicknamed, "Moonlight". This was written for his girlfriend, 16-year-old Giulietta Guicciardi. However, he was far from happy because he realized that he was starting to become deaf. And when he asked for Giulietta's marriage, her parents refused and married her to another 20-year-old man instead.
Middle period
Beethoven seems to have tried to forget these bad thoughts by working very hard. He composed a lot more music, including his Third Symphony, called the Eroica. Originally he gave it the title Bonaparte in honour of Napoleon whom he admired. But when Napoleon crowned himself emperor in 1804, Beethoven began to think that he was just a tyrant who wanted a lot of power. He went to the table where the score of the symphony was lying and tore up the title page. Beethoven stayed in Vienna that year, working hard at an opera and giving piano lessons to Josephine von Brunsvik to whom he wrote passionate letters. She was a young widow with four children. It is impossible to know quite what her feelings were for Beethoven, but socially she belonged in higher society and probably thought that a wild musician was not a suitable husband. In the end she married a Baron, but this marriage, like her first one, was not happy either.
In 1805 Beethoven wrote his only opera. The next spring it had two performances but was then not performed again for another eight years. Beethoven had made several changes to the opera which became known as Fidelio. The overture that he had written for the 1806 performance is now known as Leonore 3 and is usually performed separately at concerts. The opera is a “rescue” opera, a typical French kind of opera describing a man who is imprisoned and rescued by his lover who disguises herself as a man and manages to get into the prison.
Beethoven continued to write compositions: a Violin Concerto, symphonies, piano concertos, string quartets and chamber music. Two of his greatest symphonies were produced in 1806: Symphony No. 5 and Symphony No. 6 "Pastorale". The first one was known for its dark and deep tone, especially in its first movement. The second was famous for its depiction of the countryside. He also wrote Piano Concerto No. 4 and Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor". He earned money by pleasing the aristocrats, dedicating works to them in return for fees, and by selling his music to publishers. Occasionally he earned money from concerts. It was not a regular income. He would have liked the job of Kapellmeister to the emperor. He was not able to get this, but in 1809 three rich aristocrats: the Archduke Rodolph, Prince Lobkowitz and Prince Kinsky gave him an income for the rest of his life on condition that he stayed in Vienna. This meant that Beethoven did not have to worry so much about money. He was asked to write music for Egmont, a play by Goethe. The overture is very often performed as a concert piece. Beethoven very much wanted to meet Goethe. The two great men met in Teplitz. Goethe later described Beethoven as a rather wild-mannered man who made life difficult for himself by his cross attitude to the world. Beethoven admired several women, including one to whom he wrote a passionate letter. She is known as the “Immortal Beloved”, but no one knows who she was. Beethoven seems to have become deeply depressed because he never found true happiness in love.
Deafness
In a letter dated June 29, 1801, Beethoven told a friend in Bonn about a terrible secret he had for some time. He knew that he was becoming deaf. For some time, he had spells of fever and stomach pains. A young man does not expect to become deaf, but now he was starting to admit it to himself. He was finding it hard to hear what people were saying. Just at the moment when he was starting to become known as one of the greatest of all composers, it was a terrible blow to realize that he was losing his hearing. In 1802, he stayed for a time in Heiligenstadt which is now a suburb of Vienna but at that time it was outside the city. There he wrote a famous letter which is known as the Heiligenstadt Testament. It is dated October 6 and told about his rising frustration at his deafness. He asks people to forgive him if he cannot hear what they are saying. He said that he had often thought of suicide, but that he had so much music in his head which had to be written down that he decided to continue his life. This very emotional letter was found amongst his papers after his death. He never sent it to anyone.
Later life
By 1814, Beethoven had reached the height of his fame. The Viennese people thought of him as the greatest living composer, and he was often invited by royal people to their palaces. It was the year in which he played his famous Piano Trio Op. 97 The Archduke. That was the last time he played the piano in public. His deafness was making it impossible to continue.
Beethoven had many problems when his brother Caspar Carl died, leaving a 9-year-old son. The boy’s mother may have been incapable of looking after him, but Beethoven had to prove this in a court of law. For several years he looked after his nephew, but it was a difficult relationship and it involved a lot of legal letters and quarrels with people. In 1826, Karl tried to shoot himself. He survived, but people persuaded Beethoven to stop being his guardian. Karl went into the army.
The last years were unhappy years for Beethoven. During this time he composed very little. Then, in 1817, he recovered and wrote his last two symphonies, a mass called Missa Solemnis, his last five piano sonatas, and a group of string quartets which were so modern and difficult that very few people at the time understood the music. Nowadays, people think they are the greatest works ever written for string quartet.
His Ninth Symphony is called the Choral Symphony because there is a choir and soloists in the last movement. At the time people did not understand this either, because a symphony is normally a work for orchestra, not a work with singers. Beethoven chose the words of a poem by the German poet Friedrich Schiller: An die Freude (Ode to Joy). It is all about living together in peace and harmony, so that it sends an important message to people. This is why it has been chosen in recent years as the National Anthem for the European Union. The Ninth Symphony was performed at a concert on May 7, 1824. After the scherzo movement the audience applauded enthusiastically, but Beethoven could not hear the applause and one of the singers had to turn him round so that he could see that people were clapping.
Beethoven died on March 26, 1827. About 20,000 people came onto the streets for his funeral. The famous poet Franz Grillparzer wrote the funeral speech. One of the torchbearers was Franz Schubert. Schubert died the next year. In 1888 Beethoven’s and Schubert’s remains were moved to another cemetery in Vienna and were placed side by side.
Regarding the instruments, that the composer was using throughout his life, there was a variety of pianos (fortepianos). After moving to Vienna, Beethoven purchased a piano from Streicher. As recalled by his student, Carl Czerny, he also had a Walter piano. Beethoven's last instrument was a fortepiano from a Viennese piano builder Conrad Graf. After the composer's death, it was sold to Wimmer family and now is displayed at the Beethovenhaus in Bonn.
Legacy
Beethoven’s music is usually divided into three periods: Early, Middle and Late. Most composers who live a long time develop as they get older and change their way of composing. Of course, these changes in style are not sudden, but they are quite a good way of understanding the different periods of his composing life.
His first period includes the works he wrote in his youth in Bonn, and his early days in Vienna up to about 1803. His middle period starts with the Eroica Symphony and includes most of his orchestral works. His last period includes the Ninth Symphony and the late string quartets.
Beethoven is probably the most famous of all composers, and the most written about. He had a wild personality and this was something that the Romantics in the 19th century always expected from great artists. The Romantics thought that the artist was somehow a person with exaggerated qualities who was not like normal people. Beethoven had a very strong personality. He lived in the time of the French Revolution and had strong views on independence and ways of living free from tyranny. This made him a hero in many people’s eyes.
His music was so famous that many composers in the 19th century found it quite hard to compose because they thought they would be compared to him. For example, Johannes Brahms, took a long time to write his First Symphony. He thought that everyone was expecting him to be the next Beethoven. It was only towards the end of the 19th century that Gustav Mahler wrote several symphonies which include singing, although he does this very differently to Beethoven.
References
Further reading
ISBN 1-904341-03-9 (h). ISBN 1-904341-00-4 (p).
ISBN 0-393-04020-8 (hc). ISBN 0-393-31712-9 (pb).
ISBN 0-521-58074-9 (hc). ISBN 0-521-58934-7 (pb).
Other websites
English homepage of big Beethoven website
Beethoven’s Personality and Music: The Introverted Romantic
nhdbeethoven
1770 births
1827 deaths
Deaths from cirrhosis
Child prodigies
Classical era composers
German composers
People from Bonn
Romantic composers
German Roman Catholics |
4634 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald%20Amundsen | Roald Amundsen | Roald Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer who focused on the poles. He led the first expedition to reach the South Pole and the first that could prove it made it to the North Pole. Amundsen was also the first man known to travel the Northwest Passage.
Life
When Amundsen was young, he decided he would use his life to explore the wilderness. He was inspired by the lives of Fridtjof Nansen and John Franklin. While his mother was alive he did not go to sea, to keep a promise to her. After her death, he quit university to begin exploring the world at 21 years old.
In 1897, he went on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition as first mate. This was the first expedition to stay over winter at Antartica, since their ship got stuck in the ice preventing them from leaving.
In 1903, Amundsen led the first expedition to make it through the Northwest Passage.
In October 1911, he began his expedition to Antarctica with four other men in attempt to be the first man to reach the South Pole. Robert Falcon Scott, an explorer from Britain, arrived in Antarctica with his own team only days after Amundsen. Both explorers raced to the South Pole, but Amundsen and his men used skis and dog sleds for transportation. This was more efficient. On 14 December 1911, Amundsen successfully became the first man to reach the South Pole.
In 1926, Amundsen and his men made it to the North Pole. Three other expeditions claimed to make it before then, but their claims have not been verified. Two of them have been considered fraud. This may make Amundsen and his men the first to reach the North Pole.
He disappeared in June 1928 while taking part in a rescue mission.
Gallery
Related pages
List of people who disappeared mysteriously: 1910–1990
References
Other websites
The Fram Museum (Frammuseet) (Named after one of Amundsen's ships)
DIO vol.10 2000 Amundsen's record of polar firsts
1872 births
1928 deaths
Norwegian people
Norwegian explorers
People with foods named after them
Missing people |
4635 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher%20Columbus | Christopher Columbus | Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) was a Genoese trader, explorer, and navigator. He was born in Genoa, Italy, in the year 1451. "Christopher Columbus" is the English version of Columbus's name. His real name in Italian was 'Cristoforo Colombo.
In 1492 Columbus landed on an island of the Bahamas, the first European to do so. His initial goal was to find a quicker route to Asia from Europe. He is credited with the discovery of the New World because his voyage started the era of European colonialism in the Americas. This was an important moment in European history. While Leif Erikson was the first European to land on the soils of America it was not well documented and did not lead to the later contact between Europe and the New World. The effects was the bringing over of livestock, disease, crops and slaves
When the Spanish learned that Columbus had found a New World, many other people, called conquistadors, went there too. This led to the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
Columbus died on 20 May 1506, in Valladolid, Spain.
Discovery of America
Columbus was not the first European person to have discovered America. At the time of his voyage, Europeans did not know that the Americas existed. However, Leif Erikson, around 1000 AD had landed in present-day Canada. This discovery had no impact on European history and was not well documented. Columbus discovered America in the sense that he was the first person to create repeated exploration and contact with the New World. Another point is that Native Americans had been living there for thousands of years before he arrived.Ferbel, Peter J. (2000). The Indigenous People of the Caribbean (review). Ethnohistory 47 (3-4): 816-818. "The indigenous people of the Caribbean … migrated from Central America some six thousand years ago." However, Native Americans did not record or contribute to the European record of history for obvious reasons. Columbus, therefore, discovered America in context of European history.
Voyage in 1492
Many people in Western Europe wanted to find a shorter way to get to Asia. Columbus thought he could get to Asia by sailing west. He did not know about the Western Hemisphere, so he did not realize it would block him from getting to Asia.
However, Columbus did not have enough money to pay for this voyage on his own. After defeating the Emirate of Granada, the rulers of Spain, Ferdinand II and Isabella I of Castile, agreed to pay for the voyage. He promised to bring back gold and spices for them.
In August 1492, Columbus and his sailors left Spain in three ships: the Santa María (the Holy Mary), the Pinta (the Painted), and the Santa Clara (nicknamed the Niña: the Little Girl).
The three ships were very small. Historians think that the largest ship, the Santa María, was only about long, and about 16 to 19 feet (4.8 to 5.8 metres) wide.
Columbus's other ships were even smaller. Historians think they were about long.
Voyage
On October 12, 1492, after sailing for about four months, Columbus landed on a small island in the Bahamas. The natives called it Guanahani; Columbus renamed it San Salvador ("Holy Savior"). He met Arawek and Taíno Native Americans who lived on the island. They were friendly and peaceful towards Columbus and his crew. Not knowing where he was, and thinking that he had reached Asia, the "Indies," he called them "Indians." He claimed their land as Spain's.
Columbus then sailed to what is now Cuba, then to Hispaniola. On Hispaniola, Columbus built a fort. This was one of the first European military bases in the Western Hemisphere. He called it Navidad (Spanish for "Christmas"). He left thirty-nine crew members there, and ordered them to find and store the gold.
Treatment of native people
On the day he landed in the Bahamas, Columbus wrote about the Arawaks and Taíno:
Columbus noticed that some of the Arawaks had gold earrings. He took some of them as prisoners and ordered them to lead him to the gold. However, they could not.
According to Encyclopædia Britannica:
Second voyage
On September 24, 1493, Columbus left Spain with enough ships, supplies, and men to invade and make Spanish colonies in the New World. He had 17 ships and 1,200 men. These men included soldiers and farmers. There were also priests, whose job was to convert the natives to Christianity.
On this voyage, Columbus explored some of the islands of the Lesser Antilles. He also sailed around most of Hispaniola and explored the sides of Jamaica and Cuba he had not seen on his first voyage.
Then he went back to the Navidad fort. He found the fort burned down. Eleven of the 37 soldiers Columbus left at the fort were buried there. The rest had disappeared. Historians think this happened because of disease and fights with the Arawak people.
Treatment of native people
While Columbus was away from Navidad exploring Jamaica and Cuba, his soldiers stopped working on building a new fort and farms. They made the Arawaks give them food. They also stole things from the Arawaks and raped Arawak women. This made the Arawaks decide to fight back against the Spaniards. However, Spain had many weapons that the Arawaks had never seen, including steel swords, pikes, crossbows, dogs, and horses. This made it much easier for Spain to win fights against the Arawaks.
Columbus also took revenge against the Arawaks for killing his soldiers at Navidad. He made every native older than 14 give him a certain amount of gold every three months. If a person did not do this, Columbus's men would cut off their hands, and they would bleed to death. Columbus also led his soldiers to many different villages in Hispaniola to take them over and make them pay him gold also. If they could not pay the gold, people would be made into slaves or killed.
There was not much gold on the parts of the island Columbus took over. To avoid getting their hands cut off, many Arawaks tried to run away from Columbus and his men. However, Columbus's soldiers used dogs to hunt them down and kill them. Bartolomé de las Casas said that the Spanish killed two out of every three native people in the area (though he may have been exaggerating).
Start of the transatlantic slave trade
In February 1495, Columbus started the transatlantic slave trade. He and his soldiers captured about 1,500 Taíno. Only 500 could fit on Columbus's ships, so Columbus told his men they could take any of the rest as slaves. They took 600 and let 400 go. Of the 500 natives that Columbus shipped to Spain as slaves, about 200 died on the trip. Half of the rest were very sick when they arrived. This was the first time people had ever been shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to be sold as slaves.
Michele da Cuneo, a friend of Columbus's, helped capture natives as slaves. In a letter, da Cuneo later wrote that Columbus gave him a captured native woman to rape:
Third voyage
Columbus went on another voyage in 1498. King John II of Portugal had said there was a continent to the south-west of the Cape Verde islands. On his third voyage, Columbus wanted to find this continent. Before the voyage, Queen Isabella reminded Columbus that he should treat all of the native people well and make them into Christians.
On this voyage, Columbus sent three ships straight to the West Indies (the Caribbean). He led another three ships: first to two Portuguese islands, then to the Canary Islands, then Cape Verde. From Cape Verde, they sailed to the northern coast of South America and landed in Trinidad. He also explored part of South America and the islands now called Tobago and Grenada.
On August 19, 1498, Columbus returned to Hispaniola. He found that many of the Spanish settlers there were unhappy. They thought there would be more gold in the New World. Some of them had rebelled while he was gone. Columbus had five of the rebellion's leaders hanged. He also tried to make the rest of the settlers happy by giving them land in Hispaniola. However, the settlers kept sending complaints to Spain. In 1499, Queen Isabella sent a man named Francisco de Bobadilla to Hispaniola. She gave him the power to do whatever he thought he should do. When he arrived in 1500, the first thing he did was to have Columbus arrested and sent back to Spain in chains.
Treatment of native people
When he was trying to make Spanish settlers happy, Columbus started the Encomienda system in Hispaniola. Under this system, Columbus would give a piece of land in Hispaniola to an individual Spanish settler. Sometimes, he would give away a whole native village. Any natives that lived in that area had to work for that Spanish settler. Natives had lived on this land for centuries. Columbus was giving their land away, and'' then forcing them to work on that land.
Later life
On August 23, 1500 Columbus was arrested in Hispañola, now called Santo Domingo, for cruelty to natives and Spaniards. He was sent to Spain in chains in October 1500. He was released on December 25, 1500, and taken to court. Columbus had important friends, and the King restored his freedom. He was not made governor again, but eventually he was allowed to lead another voyage.
Columbus died of heart failure and arthritis in Valladolid, Spain, at the possible age of 54.
Personal life
Columbus's relatives said that Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy. Today, no historian can say for sure where Columbus was born. Most experts think the best evidence says he was born in Genoa. However, other historians think Columbus was born somewhere else, like Spain or Portugal. Some think he was originally a Jew who converted to Christianity.
In 1477, Columbus married Felipa Moniz Perestrelo. She was from a semi-noble family with connections to sailing. She died around 1479 or 1480 while giving birth to their son, Diego.
In 1485, while in Córdoba, Spain, Columbus met Beatriz Enríquez de Trasierra. They lived together for a while. They had one child named Fernando.
Columbus's goals
Columbus had a few different goals for his journeys to the New World. First, he believed he could find a shorter and easier route to Asia, which made things Europe did not. He believed he could find a shorter route to China. Other people had called this belief absurd. Columbus wanted to prove these people wrong.
Second, Columbus wanted to find gold. Gold was the main kind of money used in Columbus's times. In his letter to Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Columbus wrote: “Gold is most excellent; gold is treasure, and [the person] who [has] it does all he wishes to in this world." This means that someone with gold can do anything he wants to do. Many historians believe that Columbus wanted to become a powerful person and in order to become powerful, he needed to find gold.
After Columbus
When the Spanish learned about the New World, many conquistadors, or conquerors, went there. This led to the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
The Spanish conquistadors first settled on the islands of Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic and Haiti), Cuba, and Puerto Rico. They grabbed as much gold as they could. The Spanish also brought priests and forced the Native Americans to convert to Christianity.
Legacy
In the United States, Columbus Day is a holiday that celebrates Columbus's arrival in the New World on October 12, 1492.
The World's Columbian Exposition, which happened in 1893 in Chicago, Illinois, was held to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus visiting the Americas.
References
1451 births
1506 deaths
Deaths from heart failure
Disease-related deaths in Spain
Italian explorers
People from Genoa |
4639 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU%20General%20Public%20License | GNU General Public License | The GNU General Public License (GPL) is a computer software copyleft license. This license lets the user of the software use a program in many of the same ways as if it were public domain. They can use it, change it, and copy it. They can also sell or give away copies of the program with or without any changes they made to it. The license lets them do this as long as they agree to follow the terms of the license. The GPL was created by Richard Stallman. The current version is version 3, created in 2007, although some software still uses version 2, created in 1991.
There are two main terms to the license. Both apply to giving the program away or selling it.
A copy of the source code or written instructions about how to get a copy must be included with the software. If the software is able to be downloaded from the internet, the source code must also be available for downloading.
The license of the software can not be changed or removed. It must always use the GPL.
If the user does not agree to follow the GPL, they can still use the software under copyright laws. They can use it and make copies or changes to it for themselves, but they cannot give it away or sell it. They also can not change the license.
Related pages
List of software licenses
Other websites
GNU General Public License v1.0
GNU General Public License v2.0
GNU General Public License v3.0
GNU website
Software licences |
4641 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle%20%28disambiguation%29 | Triangle (disambiguation) | In geometry, a triangle is the flat shape formed by joining three points (not in a straight line) with straight line segments. A triangle is a three sided polygon.
In music, a triangle is a musical instrument that is made from a metal tube. It is in the shape of a triangle. It is open at one corner, and when it is hit with a metal stick, it makes a sound. |
4642 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square | Square | A square is a shape with four equal sides and four corners that are all right angles (90 degrees). The diagonals of a square also cross at right angles. The angle between any diagonal and a side of a square is 45 degrees. A square has rotational symmetry of four. It has four lines of regular symmetry. A square with vertices A, B, C and D can be written as .
A square is a type of rectangle with all sides of equal length. However, while a square is a type of rectangle and rhombus, the opposite does not need to be true.
A square is also the 2-dimensional analogue of a cube.
Formulas
If the length of side a is known, then we have that:
If the length of diagonal d is known, then we have that:
Related pages
Square (algebra)
Square number
Square root
References
Polygons
Basic English 850 words |
4645 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer%20hardware | Computer hardware | Computer hardware or hardware means the physical parts that make up a computer.
Some examples are:
Central processing unit (CPU)
Random-access memory (RAM)
Power supply unit (PSU)
Motherboard
Graphics processing unit (GPU)
Network card
Peripheral equipment
Modem
USB flash drive
Hard drive
Computer monitor
Keyboard
Computer mouse
Hardware needs software to tell it what to do. Without software, the hardware cannot be used. |
4646 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat | Meat | Meat is animal tissue used as food. Most often is used to describe skeletal muscle and fat that is found with it. Types of meat include beef and veal from cattle, pork, ham and bacon from pigs, mutton from sheep, venison from deer, fish, insects, and poultry from chickens, ducks and turkeys. The word meat is also used for sausages and for non-muscle organs which are used for food, for example liver, brain, and kidneys.
In the meat processing industry, (in some countries) the word "meat" is to mean only the flesh of mammalian species such as pigs, cattle, etc. but does not include fish, insects and poultry.
Animals such as members of the cat family that mainly eat animals are called carnivores.
Health
Meat is an important part of the diet of many people because it has protein. Protein helps the growth and healing of a body and gives energy. Meat is a "high-protein" food, but costs more than other foods like bread and vegetables. Meat is also a source of B vitamins. People who cannot afford meat, or who do not like to eat it need to find other ways to get enough protein in their diet. Beans and certain nuts are also high in protein, but plant protein might not be as easy to absorb as animal protein. People that choose not to eat meat are called vegetarians, and those who do not eat any animal products are known as vegans.
Red meat is darker-coloured meat (usually form mammals), different from white meat such as chicken or fish. There is a greater risk of diseases and parasites when eating raw meat, but there are some special dishes which are made from raw meat. Examples are steak tartare, sushi, oysters. The meat used in these dishes are usually of high quality.
In religion
Due to religious dietary law, halal (حلال) meaning permissible in Arabic is used as a visual marker for Muslims on shops and on products. Likewise kosher for food sourced and prepared according to Jewish tradition.
References
Meat |
4647 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders%20Celsius | Anders Celsius | Anders Celsius (27 November 1701 – 25 April 1744) was a Swedish astronomer. Celsius was born in Uppsala in Sweden. Much of his work was in what was later called Geodesy.
He is more famous for developing the Celsius temperature scale when he worked on meteorology (a science about weather conditions). It later became an the international standard. One of his good friends Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the Fahrenheit scale for the thermometer.
1701 births
1744 deaths
Astronomers
Meteorologists
Swedish scientists
People from Uppsala |
4648 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvalu | Tuvalu | Tuvalu is a small island country in the Pacific Ocean. In the past, it was the Ellice Islands. It was part of Gilbert and Ellice Islands. It is a monarchy.
Tuvalu is getting smaller. If the sea level keeps rising at the same rate, this country will be covered by water in about 50 years.
The most important language spoken in Tuvalu is Tuvaluan, although Nuian is spoken on the island of Nui.
The United States and Tuvalu signed a treaty of friendship in 1979, when the US gave up their claim to Tuvalu for the islands of Funafuti, Nukefetau, Nukulaelae, and Nurakita.
Tuvalu is made up of 9 islands:
Funafuti (the capital city island)
Nanumea
Nanumaga
Niutao
Nui
Niulakita
Nukufetau
Nukulaelae
Vaitupu
Internet Domain name .tv
Following Tuvalu being allocated two-letter top-level Internet domain suffix, .tv, the Government of Tuvalu worked with the International Telecommunications Union and established a process to select a management partner for the domain suffix.
On 6 August 1998 a licensing agreement was signed with Information.CA of Toronto under which it agreed to pay an up-front payment of US$50 million for exclusive marketing rights to Tuvalu's domain until 2048, with the country manager/delegee of the Government of Tuvalu for the .tv extension being The .tv Corporation International, which was established in 1998. Subsequent negotiations with Information.CA followed from the delays in payment of US$50 million. Idealab, a Californian company, became involved in 1999 and assumed the $50 million obligation to be paid over 10 years. With the first $1 million payment, Tuvalu was finally able to afford to join the United Nations. Lou Kerner became the first employee of .tv when he joined as CEO in January 2000. .tv grew to over 100 employees, with offices in Los Angeles, London, and Hong Kong, before being acquired in a nine figure transaction in December, 2001.
Geography
Tuvalu has four reef islands and five true atolls. The atolls have only 26 km of land. Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world. The land is very low lying and the coral atolls are narrow. Funafuti is the largest atoll of the islands and atolls. It has many islets around a central lagoon. This is about 25.1 kilometres (15.6 mi) (N–S) by 18.4 kilometres (11.4 mi) (W-E), centered on 179°7’E and 8°30’S. A
The highest height is above sea level, which gives Tuvalu the second-lowest highest elevation of any country (after the Maldives). Because of this, the islands that make up Tuvalu are threatened by any sea level rise. If this happens, the people will have to go to New Zealand, Niue or the Fijian island of Kioa. Tuvalu is also affected by what is known as a king tide, which can raise the sea level higher than a normal high tide.
References
Current monarchies
Commonwealth realms
Least developed countries
1978 establishments in Oceania |
4649 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java | Java | Java () is one of the islands of Indonesia.
Geography
The area is 132,000 square km. It is the world's 13th largest island. Around 140 million people live there, which is half the people in Indonesia and more than on any other island in the world. Most of them speak the Javanese language and many also speak other languages.
The Java Sea is to the north, the Indian Ocean south. The capital city of Indonesia, Jakarta, is in Java.
Climate
Most of Java has a tropical monsoon climate (Am in the Koeppen climate classification). The northern coast of the island is low-lying. The soil is fertile, because the island was made by volcanoes. It is an important area for growing crops in Indonesia.
Gallery
Related pages
List of monarchs of java
List of Javanese people
Sources |
4651 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/James%20Watt | James Watt | James Watt (19 January 1736 19 August 1819) was a Scottish mathematician and engineer. He did not invent the first steam engine, but he did modify it to work better. There were other patented steam engines (such as the Savery and Newcomen steam engines) in use by the time Watt started his work on them. His major contribution is in developing the modern form of the steam engine. The Watt steam engine is credited for driving the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. James Watt was a brilliant engineer and he also transformed the Newcomen engine.
Today, most people honor him by naming a unit of power, the watt, after him.
Biography
James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire. His father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the town's chief baillie. His mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, taught mathematics and was a baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Watt did not go to school every day. At first, he was mostly schooled at home by his mother but later he attended Greenock grammar school. He exhibited great skill with his hands and a natural ability for mathematics, although Latin and Greek failed to interest him. He also absorbed the legends and lore of the Scottish people.
The centrifugal governor
One of Watt's many improvements was the invention of a "centrifugal governor" to regulate automatically the speed of the engine. This is most obvious on steam engines where it regulates the admission of steam into the cylinder(s). It is also found on internal combustion engines and variously fueled turbines, and in some modern striking clocks.
A centrifugal governor is a homeostatic device which controls the speed of an engine by regulating the amount of "intermediate substance" (steam) which drives the machine. This keeps a near constant speed whatever the load or fuel supply conditions. It uses the principle of proportional control: this means the stopping of (in this case) steam varies according to the speed of the machine.
On Watt's fly-ball device, as the machine speeds up, the balls fly round faster. As they fly round faster, they move out from the central post. As they move out from the central post, they close the steam supply more firmly. As they do so, the machine slows down and the balls spin more slowly, and allow more steam into the cylinders. In addition, the system has a safety release valve to allow excess steam to escape without driving the wheels. 500 Boulton & Watt engines were built by the firm between 1775 and 1800.
Later, this kind of feedback loop became an important tool of cybernetics.
Partnership
Watt went into partnership with a fellow member of the Midlands Lunar Society, Matthew Boulton. The firm of Boulton & Watt designed and built steam engines, and was very important in the Industrial Revolution.
The Soho Foundry
At first the partnership made the drawing and specifications for the engines, and supervised the work to erect it on the customer's property. They produced almost none of the parts themselves. Watt did most of his work at his home in Harper’s Hill in Birmingham, while Boulton worked at the Soho Manufactory.
Gradually the partners began to actually make more and more of the parts, and by 1795 they purchased a property about a mile away from the Soho manufactory, on the banks of the Birmingham Canal. There they built a new foundry for making the engines. The Soho Foundry opened in 1796 at a time when Watt’s sons, Gregory and James Jr. were heavily involved in the management of the enterprise. In 1800, the year of Watt’s retirement, the firm made a total of forty-one engines.
Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt Jr. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was soon made a partner and the firm prospered.
Other websites
History of Steam Engines
References
1736 births
1819 deaths
British engineers
British inventors
British mathematicians
Members of the Lunar Society
Scottish scientists |
4652 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1267 | 1267 |
Events
By topic
War and politics
February 16 – King Afonso III of Portugal and King Alfonso X of Castile sign the Badajoz Convention, figuring out the border between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Kingdom of Leon, and ensuring Portuguese sovereignty over Algarve.
May 27 – Treaty of Viterbo: Emperor Baldwin II of Constantinople gifts the Principality of Achaea to King Charles I of Sicily in the hope that Charles can help him restore the Latin Empire.
The Second Barons' War in England ends, as the rebels and King Henry III of England agree to peace terms as laid out in the Dictum of Kenilworth.
Treaty of Montgomery: King Henry III of England acknowledges Llywelyn ap Gruffudd's title of Prince of Wales.
The city of Ostrava is founded.
Culture
Roger Bacon completes his work Opus Majus and sends it to Pope Clement IV, who had requested it be written; the work contains wide-ranging discussion of mathematics, optics, alchemy, astronomy, astrology, and other topics, and includes what some believe to be the first description of a magnifying glass. Bacon also completes Opus Minus, a summary of Opus Majus, later in the same year. The only source for his date of birth is his statement in the Opus Tertium, written in 1267, that "forty years have passed since I first learned the alphabet". The 1214 birth date assumes he was not being literal, and meant 40 years had passed since he matriculated at Oxford at the age of 13. If he had been literal, his birth date was more likely to have been around 1220.
The leadership of Vienna forces Jews to wear Pileum cornutum,a cone-shaped head dress, in addition to the yellow badges Jews are already forced to wear.
In England, the Statute of Marlborough is passed, the oldest English law still (partially) in force.
By place
Asia and Africa
The "Grand Capital" is constructed in Khanbaliq (present-day Beijing) by Kublai Khan, having moved the capital of the Mongol Empire there three years prior.
Malik ul Salih establishes Samudra Pasai, the first Muslim state in Indonesia.
Spain attempts an invasion of Morocco, but the Marinids successfully defended against the invasion and drive out Spanish forces.
Births
February 3 – Richard FitzAlan, 8th Earl of Arundel (d. 1302)
August 10 – King James II of Aragon (d. 1327)
December 17 – Emperor Go-Uda of Japan (d. 1324)
Giotto di Bondone, Italian artist (d. 1337)
Roger de Flor
Deaths
March 3 or March 4 – Lars, Archbishop of Uppsala
John FitzAlan, 6th Earl of Arundel (b. 1223)
Hugh II of Cyprus (b. 1253) |
4653 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo | Michelangelo | Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer. Along with Leonardo da Vinci, he is often called a "Renaissance Man" which means that he had great talent in many areas.
Michelangelo lived an extremely busy life, creating a great number of artworks. Some of Michelangelo's works are among the most famous that have ever been made. They include two very famous marble statues, the Pieta in Saint Peter's Basilica and David which once stood in a plazza in Florence but is now in the Accademia Gallery. His most famous paintings are huge frescos, the Sistine Chapel Ceiling and the Last Judgement. His most famous work of architecture is the east end and dome of Saint Peter's Basilica.
A lot is known about Michelangelo's life because he left many letters, poems and journals. Because he was so famous, he became the very first artist to have his biography (story of his life) published while he was still living. His biographer, Giorgio Vasari, said that he was the greatest artist of the Renaissance. He was sometimes called Il Divino ("the divine one").
Other artists said that he had terribilità, (his works were so grand and full of strong emotion that they were scary). Many other artists who saw his work tried to have the same emotional quality. From this idea of terribilità came a style of art called Mannerism.
Biography
Childhood
Michelangelo was born on 6 March 1475 in Caprese near Arezzo, Tuscany. His father was Lodovico di Leonardo di Buonarroti di Simoni, and his mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena. The Buonarrottis were a banking family from Florence. They claimed they were descended from the noble Countess Matilda of Canossa. Michelangelo's father had lost most of the bank’s money, so he worked for the local government in the town of Chiusi. When Michelangelo was a baby, the family moved back to Florence. As he was sickly, Michelangelo was sent to live on a small farm with a stonecutter and his wife and family. The stonecutter worked at a marble quarry owned by Michelangelo's father. Many years later Michelangelo said that the two things that had helped him to be a good artist were being born in the gentle countryside of Arezzo and being raised in a house where, along with his nurse's milk, he was given the training to use a chisel and hammer. His mother died when he was only six.
Michelangelo’s father then brought him back to Florence and sent him to study with a tutor, Francesco da Urbino. Michelangelo was not interested in his school lessons. He explored the great churches of the city and drew copies of the frescos that he saw there. When he was thirteen, he was apprenticed to the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio. Ghirlandaio had a large busy studio. He had rich patrons who worked for the Medici. He painted frescos in their family chapels. Michelangelo was able to learn the art of fresco painting very well, from Ghirlandaio. In a large workshop such as Ghirlandaio’s, artists would have been working in all sorts of different media, including sculpture, metalwork and painting altarpieces. Michelangelo would have learned about all these things. When Michelangelo was only fourteen, his father persuaded Ghirlandaio to pay his apprentice as an artist, which was highly unusual at the time.
Working for the Medici
The richest, most powerful family in Florence were the Medici. They had an academy where some of the most famous philosophers, poets, and artists met to share their ideas. The Medici family were important patrons of the arts. In 1489, Lorenzo de' Medici, the head of the family, asked Ghirlandaio to send his two best pupils to the academy. Michelangelo was one of the students chosen and he attended the academy from 1490 to 1492. He heard the teaching and discussion of Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola and Angelo Poliziano. The philosophy that they taught was called Humanism. It was based on the philosophy of the ancient Greek Plato. Michelangelo’s ideas and his art were influenced by these teachings.
Michelangelo and another young sculptor called Pietro Torrigiano studied sculpture under Bertoldo di Giovanni. Michelangelo had an argument with Torrigiano, who punched him on the nose so that it was badly broken and spoilt his appearance for the rest of his life. Michelangelo sculpted some reliefs (flat panels with raised figures on them). One was ‘’the Battle of the Centaurs’’ which was made for Lorenzo de Medici.
In 1492, Michelangelo’s patron, Lorenzo de' Medici died. This brought about a big change in Michelangelo’s life. He went back to live at his father’s house. Michelangelo asked the prior at the Church of Santo Spirito to allow him to study the anatomy of the bodies of people who had died at the church’s hospital. In 1493, as a “thank-you” gift to the prior, Michelangelo carved a large wooden Crucifix which still hangs in the church. In January 1494, there were very heavy snowfalls. Lorenzo de’ Medici’s son, Piero de Medici commissioned Michelangelo to make a snow statue. So Michelangelo began to work for the Medici again.
In 1494, a new leader rose up in Florence. He was a Dominican friar called Savonarola. His strong preaching caused people to burn their books, throw away their jewellery and chase the rich families out of the city. The Medici had to go. For Michelangelo, it was a good time to travel. He stayed for a while in Venice, then moved to Bologna. In Bologna he soon got work sculpting three figures for the big marble Shrine of Saint Dominic. When things calmed down in Florence, Michelangelo returned and worked for another member of the Medici family, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici.
Michelangelo made a marble statue of Cupid asleep. Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco told Michelangelo that it looked just like a real Ancient Roman statue and said that if he made it dirty and knocked a few chips off, someone would pay a lot of money for it. Lorenzo sold it to a Cardinal who discovered that it was a fraud. He thought that Michelangelo’s work was so good that he told the pope about it. The pope then invited Michelangelo to go to Rome and work for him.
Rome
Michelangelo arrived in Rome 25 June 1496 at the age of 21. He lived near the Church of Santa Maria di Loreto on the Gianicolo hill.
In 1496 he got an important “commission” (he was given a paid job) from Cardinal Raffaele Riario. The Cardinal wanted Michelangelo to make a marble statue, larger than life-size, of Bacchus, the Ancient Roman God of wine. Michelangelo worked hard at the statue. He carved Bacchus as a young man who was quite drunk and looked as if he was staggering as he raised his cup to make a toast. The cardinal did not like the drunken Bacchus and would not pay for it. A banker called Jacopo Galli bought it for his garden.
Michelangelo’s next important commission was from the French Ambassador who asked him to make a statue of the Virgin Mary mourning over the dead body of her son Jesus. This type of artwork, either a painting or a statue, is called by the Italian name “Pieta” (say: “Pe-ay-ta”). Michelangelo’s Pieta is the most famous Pieta that has ever been made. It is now in Saint Peter's Basilica and is visited by thousands of people every day. Giorgio Vasari wrote: "It is a miracle that a shapeless block of stone could have been carved away to make something so perfect that even nature could hardly have made it better, using real human flesh."
Works
Statue of David
In 1499 Michelangelo returned to Florence. The priest Savonarola had made so many people angry that he had been put to death in 1498. Life in Florence started to return to normal. Many years earlier the Guild of Woolworkers had commissioned some artists to make statues of the heroes of the city. A sculptor called Agostino di Duccio had started carving a huge statue of David, the hero of the Bible story of David and Goliath. For 40 years the Guild of Woolworkers owned the huge block of marble, with the statue hardly begun. In 1501 they commissioned the young Michelangelo to carve it. It took him three years to complete.
Once again Michelangelo made a statue that became world-famous. The statue shows a young man, naked in the way that statues of ancient gods were made, just pausing for a moment and looking with fierce eyes at the huge soldier Goliath that he is about to kill. The statue is 5.17 meter (17 ft) tall. It was placed in the piazza (public square) outside the Palazzo Vecchio where the town council met. After many years, the statue was put into an art gallery, the Accademia. A copy now stands in the piazza. People still go great distances to see the statue that he made.
Sistine Chapel ceiling
In 1505 Michelangelo was invited to Rome by the newly elected Pope Julius II. Pope Julius was an old man. He wanted Michelangelo to design a grand tomb. It was to stand inside a church and have many carved figures which were to include several slaves to hold up part of the tomb and Old Testament prophets to sit in niches (openings in the walls). Michelangelo started work. He made a magnificent statue of Moses which is now in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains) in Rome. Many people go to look at this statue. The slaves were only partly carved. Four of them are now in the Accademia in Florence. The rest of the great plan was unfinished.
The main reason that Pope Julius' tomb was not finished was that the Pope had an idea for another artwork. The Sistine Chapel near St. Peter's Basilica had its walls painted by some famous artists from Florence. The Pope decided that Michelangelo should paint the ceiling. Michelangelo did not want to. He said that he was not a painter. But the Pope bullied Michelangelo until he agreed to do it. He told the Pope that he would do it "for God" and that he would only do it if the Pope let him paint it "in his own way".
The chapel was long and wide. Its curved ceiling was held up by twelve fan-shaped pieces of wall called "pendentives". Pope Julius told Michelangelo to paint one of the twelve apostles of Jesus on each pendentive. Michelangelo started to do this. Then he got a different idea and scraped off the work that he had done. Instead of apostles, he painted twelve prophets. Seven of them were men from the Old Testament but the other five were women and did not come from the Bible. They were five prophets from the Classical world. Like the prophets in the Bible, they had all told people about the birth of Jesus.
On the middle of the ceiling, instead of painting a starry sky, Michelangelo painted scenes from the Bible telling the story of Creation and the downfall of humanity. The most famous scene is the picture of God creating Adam. The ceiling was so famous that many artists tried to copy the way that Michelangelo had arranged and painted the figures.
Buildings and tombs in Florence
In 1513 Pope Julius II died. The next pope was Pope Leo X, a member of the Medici family. He gave Michelangelo several jobs in Florence, including designing the Medici Chapel to hold the tombs of his family members. Although not all the tombs were built, Michelangelo finished seven large statues including a "Madonna and Child". His pupils later completed the chapel.
In 1527, the people of Florence became angry at the Medici for acting like princes. That was not the right way for a family to act, in a city that was a republic. The people threw the Medici out, but the Medici came back with an army and took over the city. Michelangelo was so upset at the behaviour of the Medici that he left his beloved city and never went back.
The Last Judgement
Pope Clement VII called Michelangelo back to the Sistine Chapel to paint the wall behind the altar with a huge scene of The Last Judgement. He worked on it from 1534 to 1541. At the centre it shows Jesus, surrounded by saints, sitting in judgement over the people of the Earth. To the left, people are rising from their graves and many are welcomed into Heaven. To the right, other people are being sent to Hell where they are dragged down by demons. It is a huge painting with many figures in it.
Like Adam and Eve on the ceiling, all the figures were shown naked. Some of the cardinals in the church said that it was wicked to paint saints, including the Virgin Mary, with no clothes on. They called Michelangelo "the painter of rude bits". There was a long argument about this because some people said that God had created everyone naked, so clothes would not be needed in Heaven. After Michelangelo's death another artist, Daniele da Volterra was called in to paint drapes on the figures. For the rest of his life, he was known as "the painter of pants".
St. Peter's Basilica
In 1546, when Michelangelo was in his seventies, he was given one of his most important jobs. The old St. Peter's Basilica had been partly demolished and a new one designed by Bramante. But many architects had worked on it and it was still just at the beginning stages. Michelangelo was made the architect. He immediately improved the plan, had important parts made much stronger, and designed a huge dome, taller than any other domes in the world. He died before it was completed, but he left drawings and models so that the next architect, Giacomo della Porta, could finish what he had started. The dome of St. Peter's Basilica still stands as one of the greatest monuments of Christianity, and as a symbol of the city of Rome.
When Michelangelo died, his body was taken back to Florence and buried in the Basilica of Santa Croce (Church of the Holy Cross). On his tomb sit three mourning figures who symbolize Architecture, Painting and Sculpture.
Related pages
Renaissance
List of Renaissance artists
Italian Renaissance art
Leonardo da Vinci
Raphael
St. Peter's Basilica
Sistine Chapel
List of Italian painters
References
Further reading
Barenboim, Peter (with Heath, Arthur). 500 years of the New Sacristy: Michelangelo in the Medici Chapel, LOOM, Moscow, 2019.
Einem, Herbert von (1973). Michelangelo. Trans. Ronald Taylor. London: Methuen.
Gilbert, Creighton (1994). Michelangelo On and Off the Sistine Ceiling. New York: George Braziller.
Hibbard, Howard (1974). Michelangelo. New York: Harper & Row.
Hirst, Michael and Jill Dunkerton. (1994) The Young Michelangelo: The Artist in Rome 1496–1501. London: National Gallery Publications.
Pietrangeli, Carlo, et al. (1994). The Sistine Chapel: A Glorious Restoration. New York: Harry N. Abrams
Saslow, James M. (1991). The Poetry of Michelangelo: An Annotated Translation. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Seymour, Charles, Jr. (1972). Michelangelo: The Sistine Chapel Ceiling. New York: W. W. Norton.
Summers, David (1981). Michelangelo and the Language of Art. Princeton University Press.
Tolnay, Charles de. (1964). The Art and Thought of Michelangelo. 5 vols. New York: Pantheon Books.
Wilde, Johannes (1978). Michelangelo: Six Lectures. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Other websites
"The Divine Michelangelo - Timeline of Michelangelo's Life and Major Works"
Michelangelo in the "A World History of Art"
Photographs of details at the Campidoglio
The Digital Michelangelo Project
The BP Special Exhibition Michelangelo Drawings — closer to the master
Michelangelo's Drawings: Real or Fake? How to decide if a drawing is by Michelangelo.
Models he used to make his sculptures and paintings
"The Michelangelo Code" , suggesting Michelangelo's coded use of his knowledge of anatomy.
"Michelangelo: The Man and the Myth"
1475 births
1564 deaths
15th-century Italian painters
16th-century Italian painters
Italian architects
Italian sculptors
Italian poets
Polymaths |
4654 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo%20da%20Vinci | Leonardo da Vinci | Leonardo da Vinci (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519) was an Italian man who lived in the time of the Renaissance. He is famous for his paintings, but he was also a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician, and a writer.
Leonardo wanted to know everything about nature. He wanted to know how everything worked. He was very good at studying, designing and making all sorts of interesting things. He is not to be confused with Leonardo Vinci, Italian music composer.
The art historian Helen Gardner said that no-one has ever been quite like him because he was interested in so many things that he seems to have had the mind of a giant, and yet what he was like as a person is still a mystery.
Leonardo was born at Vinci which is a small town near Florence, Italy. He was trained to be an artist by the sculptor and painter Verrocchio. He spent most of his life working for rich Italian noblemen. In his last years, he lived in a beautiful home given to him by the King of France.
Two of his pictures are among the best-known paintings in the world: the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. He did many drawings. The best-known drawing is Vitruvian Man. Leonardo was often thinking of new inventions. He kept notebooks with notes and drawings of these ideas. Most of his inventions were never made. Some of his ideas were a helicopter, a tank, a calculator, a parachute, a robot, a telephone, evolution, and solar power.
Life
Childhood, 1452–1466
Leonardo was born on 15 April 1452, in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, in the valley of the Arno River. His grandfather, Antonio da Vinci, wrote down the details of the birth. Leonardo's parents were not married. His father was a Notary, Ser Piero da Vinci. His mother, Caterina, was a servant. She may have been a slave from the Middle East. or from China. His father later on took custody of Leonardo and his mother remarried and had 5 more children. Leonardo's full name was "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci", which means "Leonardo, the son of Messer (Mister) Pierdaom Vinci".
Leonardo spent his first five years living in a farm house with his mother. Then he lived at Vinci with his father, his father's new wife Albiera, his grandparents and uncle, Francesco. When Leonardo grew up, he only wrote down two memories from his childhood. He remembered that when he was lying outside in his cradle a large bird flew from the sky and hovered over him. Its tail feathers brushed his face. Leonardo's other important memory was how he found a cave while exploring in the mountains. He was terrified that some great monster might be hiding there. But he was also very excited and wanted to find out what was inside.
Leonardo started painting while he was still a boy. Giorgio Vasari wrote about Leonardo's life shortly after his death. He tells many interesting stories about how clever Leonardo was. He says that Leonardo painted a round wooden shield with a picture of snakes spitting fire. Messer Piero took his son's painting to Florence and sold it to an art dealer.
Verrocchio's workshop, 1466–1476
In 1466, when Leonardo was fourteen, his father took him to Florence, to be an apprentice to the artist Verrocchio.
Florence was a very exciting place for a young person who wanted to be an artist. Many famous artists had lived in Florence, starting with Cimabue and Giotto in the 1200s. Everywhere a person looked there were famous and beautiful artworks. The huge cathedral had an enormous new dome. The church of St John had doors that gleamed with gold and were said to be the most beautiful doors in the world. Another church had statues all around it by the most famous sculptors, including one by Leonardo's teacher Verrocchio.
If an artist was lucky, they would find a rich patron who would buy lots of their paintings. The richest family in Florence were the Medici. They had built themselves the finest palace in Florence, and liked buying paintings, statues and other beautiful things. They were also interested in the study of literature and philosophy. Many young artists hoped to get work from the Medici and their friends.
Verrocchio had a big workshop that was one of the busiest in Florence. Leonardo was learning to be an artist, so he had to learn drawing, painting, sculpting and model making. While he was at the workshop, he was able to learn all sorts of other useful skills: chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics and carpentry.
Leonardo was not the only young painter at Verrocchio's workshop. Many other painters were trained there, or often visited. Some of them later became famous: Ghirlandaio, Perugino and Botticelli. These artists were all just a few years older than Leonardo.
Giorgio Vasari tells an interesting story from this time of Leonardo's life. Verrocchio was painting a large picture of the Baptism of Christ. He gave Leonardo the job of painting one of the angels holding Jesus' robe on the left side of the picture. Vasari said that Leonardo painted the angel so beautifully that Verrocchio put down his brush and never painted again. When the painting is examined closely it is possible to see that many other parts of the picture, such as the rocks, the brown stream and the background may have been painted by Leonardo as well. Verrocchio made a bronze statue of David at this time. It is believed that he used Leonardo as his model.
In about 1472, when he was twenty, Leonardo joined the Guild of St Luke, an organisation of artists and doctors of medicine. Even after his father set him up in his own workshop, Leonardo still enjoyed working at Verrocchio's workshop. Leonardo's earliest known work is a drawing in pen and ink of the Arno River valley. It has the date 5 August 1473. It is now in the Uffizi Gallery.
Working life 1476–1499
When Vasari writes about Leonardo, he uses words like "noble", "generous", "graceful" and "beautiful". Vasari tells us that as an adult Leonardo was a tall handsome man. He was so strong that he could bend horseshoes with his bare hands. His voice was so beautiful that it charmed everyone that heard it. Almost everyone wanted to be his friend. He loved animals, was a vegetarian and would buy birds at the market and set them free.
Very little is known about Leonardo's life and work between 1472 and 1481. He was probably busy in Florence. In 1478, he had an important commission to paint an altarpiece for the Monks of San Donato a Scopeto. The painting was to be the Adoration of the Magi (The Three Wise Men). The painting was never finished because Leonardo was sent away to Milan.
Leonardo was a very talented musician. In 1482, he made a silver lyre (a musical instrument) in the shape of a horse's head. At that time there was a new ruler in the city of Milan, in the north of Italy. Duke Ludovico il Moro was making other rulers nervous. Lorenzo Medici sent Leonardo to Milan as an ambassador. Lorenzo de' Medici wanted Leonardo to give Ludovico the lyre as a present from him. Leonardo wrote a letter to the Duke of Milan, telling him about all the clever and useful things that he could do, like making war machines. He wrote in the letter that he could "also paint". Leonardo did not know at the time that it was for painting that he would be mostly remembered. Leonardo stayed in Milan and worked for the Duke between 1482 and 1499. Part of his work was to design festivals and carnival processions. In Leonardo's note books are drawings of theatre costumes, amazing helmets and scenes that might be for the theatre.
Leonardo, like most other well-known artists of his time, had servants, young students and older assistants in his workshop. One of his young students was a boy whose name was Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno. He was a handsome boy with beautiful long golden curls. He looked perfect as an artist's model for an angel. But he was such a difficult and dishonest boy that Leonardo called him "Salai" or "Salaino" which means "the little devil". Leonardo wrote in his notebook that Salai was very greedy, that he was a liar and that he had stolen things from the house at least five times. Salai stayed in Leonardo's household for thirty years as a pupil and a servant.
Gran Cavallo
Leonardo's most important work for Duke Ludovico was to make a huge statue of the previous ruler, Francesco Sforza, on horseback. He started with the horse. After studying horses and drawing designs, he made a huge horse of clay. It was called the "Gran Cavallo". It was going to be cast in bronze. It was going to be the biggest bronze horse that had been made for more than a thousand years. Unfortunately, the bronze horse was never made. In 1494, Ludovico gave the bronze to be made into cannons because the French army was invading Milan. The huge clay horse was still standing when the French army invaded again in 1499. This time it was used for target practice and was completely destroyed.
The Virgin of the Rocks
While Leonardo was working for Duke Ludovico, he had two important painting commissions. One was to do an oil painting to go in a big altarpiece for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception. Leonardo did the painting twice. He left one with the monks in Milan, and took the other painting to France where it is now in the Louvre Museum. The paintings are both called the Virgin of the Rocks. They show a scene of the Virgin Mary and the child Jesus in a rocky mysterious landscape. Mary and Jesus are meeting with John the Baptist. There is a story (which is not in the Bible but is part of Christian tradition) about how the baby John and the baby Jesus met on the road to Egypt. In this scene John is praying and the baby Jesus raises his hand to bless John. The paintings have a strange eerie light with soft deep shadows. In the background is a lake and mountains in the mist. No painting like this had ever been done before.
The Last Supper
Leonardo's other important painting in Milan is even more famous. It is the Last Supper. The painting shows the last meal shared by Jesus with his disciples, before his capture and death. Leonardo chose to paint the moment when Jesus has said "one of you will betray me". Leonardo tells the story of the surprise and upset that this caused to the twelve followers of Jesus. He tells the story through the actions and faces of the people in the painting. Some of them are talking, some of them have stood up, some are raising their hands in horror.
The novelist Matteo Bandello saw Leonardo at work. Bandello wrote that on some days he would paint from morning till night without stopping to eat. Then for three or four days he would not paint at all. He would often just stand and look at the painting. Vasari said that the prior of the convent was very annoyed. He asked Ludovico to tell Leonardo to work faster. Vasari said that Leonardo was worried because he did not think that he could paint the face of Jesus well enough. Leonardo told the Duke that he might use the face of the prior as his model for Judas, the traitor.
When it was finished, everyone that saw it said that the painting was a masterpiece. But Leonardo had not used proper fresco for the painting. He had used tempera over gesso, which is not usually used for wall painting. Soon the painting started to grow mold and flake off the wall. In a hundred years it was "completely ruined".
Even though in some places the paint has fallen right off the wall, the painting is so popular that it is printed and copied more that any other religious painting in the world.
Working life 1499–1513
In 1499, Ludovico il Moro was overthrown. Leonardo left Milan with his servant Salai and a friend, Luca Pacioli, who was a mathematician. They went to Venice. Leonardo worked as a military architect and engineer. Because Venice is a city on many islands, Leonardo tried to think of ways to defend the city from a naval attack.
In 1500, Leonardo went back to Florence, taking his "household" of servants and apprentices with him. The monks from the monastery of The Holy Annunciation gave Leonardo a home and a large workshop. In 2005, some buildings which were used by the Department of Military Geography were being restored. The restorers discovered that part of the building was Leonardo's studio.
The Virgin and Child with St Anne and John the Baptist
Leonardo started work on a new painting. He drew a large "cartoon". (This means a drawing that is a plan for the painting.) The cartoon showed the Virgin Mary sitting on the knee of her mother, St Anne. Mary holds the baby Jesus in her arms. Jesus stretches out his hands to his young cousin John the Baptist. Vasari says that everyone was so amazed by the beautiful drawing that "men and women, young and old" came in large groups to see it "as if they were attending a great festival". The drawing is now in the National Gallery, London. Even though it is old and faded and is kept in a dark room, people go to the gallery to sit in front of it every day. .
The Battle of Anghiari
In 1502 and 1503, Leonardo worked for Cesare Borgia, a powerful noble who was the son of Pope Alexander VI. Leonardo travelled around Italy with Borgia, as a military architect and engineer. Late in 1503, Leonardo returned to Florence. He rejoined the Guild of St Luke.
He was given a very important commission. The Signoria (Town Council) of the City of Florence wanted two large frescos painted on the walls of the most important room of the Signoria Palace. Michelangelo was to paint The Battle of Cascina and Leonardo was to paint The Battle of Anghiari. Leonardo began the project by studying and drawing the faces of angry men and fighting horses. These drawings can still be seen in his notebooks. But unfortunately, this was to be another failure for Leonardo. When he painted the picture on the wall, instead of using fresco, he mixed the paints with oil. The paint would not dry. Leonardo lit some fires to dry it, and the painting melted. Peter Paul Rubens drew a copy of the middle part. After a time, the town council covered it up and got somebody else to paint the wall. Michelangelo did not finish his painting either, because the Pope called him to Rome.
Mona Lisa
In about 1503 Leonardo began painting the portrait of a woman known as Mona Lisa, the most famous portrait that has ever been painted. He continued working on it for many years. It is a small picture, painted in oil on a wooden panel. It shows the face, upper body and hands of a woman. She is very plainly dressed. For a portrait, a woman would usually put on her best clothes and jewellery. Mona Lisa has a dark dress and a fine black veil over her head. Leonardo often left symbols in his paintings that give clues about the person. The unusual thing about this picture is the smile. The smile is the clue to her name: Mona Lisa Giacondo. Giacondo means "the joking one". (Mona is short for Madonna which means "My Lady".)
The reason why the painting is so famous is that it seems to be full of mystery. Mona Lisa's eyes look out at the viewer. But no-one can guess what she is thinking. Her eyes and her mouth seem to be smiling. This is very unusual in a portrait painting. Most people in portraits look very serious. It is hard to tell what Mona Lisa's exact expression is. When a person wants to read another person's feelings, they look at the corners of their mouth and eyes. But Leonardo has painted soft shadows in the corners of Mona Lisa's mouth and eyes, to disguise her expression. The soft shadows are also found on the sides of her face, her neck and hands. The way that Leonardo uses shadow is called "sfumato" (which is an Italian word for "smoke"). Vasari said that the picture was so beautifully painted that every other artist who looked at it thought that they could never paint so well.
Working life, 1506–1516
In 1506, Leonardo went back to Milan with his pupils, and lived in his own house in Porta Orientale. D'Oggione made several copies of the Last Supper. Luini made a copy of the Virgin of the Rocks. Boltraffio (and the others) painted many Madonna and Child pictures which can still be seen in art galleries and churches. One of pupils was a young nobleman called Count Francesco Melzi. Melzi never became a very good painter, but he loved Leonardo and stayed with him until the day he died.
In September 1513 Leonardo went to Rome and lived there until 1516. He lived in the Vatican. The three greatest painters of the High Renaissance, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael were all working in Rome at the same time. Even though their names are often said together as if they were friends, they were not. Leonardo at this time was in his sixties, Michelangelo was middle-aged. He was not friendly to either Leonardo or Raphael. Raphael was a very clever young painter who learnt a lot by looking at the pictures painted by Leonardo and Michelangelo. But neither of them was ever his teacher.
In October 1515, King Francis I of France captured Milan. On December 19, there was a meeting of Francis I and Pope Leo X, in Bologna. Leonardo went to the meeting with Pope Leo.
Leonardo made an amazing toy to entertain King Francis. It was a life-sized mechanical lion that could walk. It had doors in its chest which opened, and a bunch of lilies came out. Lilies were the royal symbol of the French Kings.
Old age, 1516–1519
In 1516, Francis I invited Leonardo to go to France with him. He gave Leonardo a beautiful house called Clos Lucé (sometimes called "Cloux"). It is near the king's palace, Chateau Amboise. Leonardo spent the last three years of his life at Clos Lucé, with his faithful friend and apprentice, Count Melzi. The king gave Leonardo a pension of 10,000 scudi. One of the last paintings that Leonardo did was a picture of John the Baptist. His model was Salai, with his beautiful long curling hair.
When Leonardo was dying, he asked for a priest to come, so that he could make his confession and receive Holy Communion.
Leonardo died at Clos Lucé, on May 2, 1519. King Francis had become a close friend. Vasari says that the King held Leonardo's head in his arms as he died. In his will, he asked that sixty beggars should follow his casket in procession. He was buried in the Chapel of the Chateau Amboise.
Leonardo had never married and had no children of his own. In his will, he left his money, his books and most of his paintings to Count Melzi. Leonardo also remembered his other pupil Salai and his servant Battista di Vilussis, who each received half of Leonardo's vineyards near Milan. Leonardo's left to his serving woman a black cloak with a fur edge. Salai was the owner of Leonardo's most famous oil painting, the Mona Lisa. He still owned it a few years later when he died, after fighting in a duel.
King Francis said: "There had never been another man born in the world who knew as much as Leonardo, not so much about painting, sculpture and architecture, as that he was a very great philosopher."
Drawings
Leonardo did not paint very many pictures. But he drew hundreds of quick sketches, plans, maps and detailed drawings. This is the way that he recorded all the interesting things that he saw, studied and thought about.
Some of Leonardo's drawings are "studies" for paintings. In these drawings Leonardo planned the things he was going to paint. Some studies are plans for whole paintings. One of these paintings is the large beautiful drawing of the Madonna and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist that is now in the National Gallery, London.
Many of the studies show "details" that Leonardo wanted to get just right. One study shows a very detailed perspective drawing of the ruined buildings in the background of the painting of the Magi. Other studies show hands, faces, drapery, plants, horses and babies.
The earliest drawing by Leonardo that has a date on it, is a Landscape of the Arno Valley, 1473, which shows the river, the mountains, Montelupo Castle and the farmlands beyond it in great detail.
Leonardo's notebooks
Leonardo studied things all his life. He did not go to university to study. He studied by looking at things in the world around him. He looked at things to see how they were made and how they worked. He drew the things that he saw and the discoveries that he made into his notebooks, and made notes about them. Many of his notebooks are now in museums. There are 13,000 pages of notes and drawings. Many of these are scientific studies.
Leonardo's notebooks are hard to read because he wrote backwards in "mirror writing". Some people think that perhaps he was trying to keep his work secret. This is not true. Leonardo wrote (and sometimes drew) with his left hand. In those days pens were made from a quill (a large feather) that was cut with a pen-knife on the end. It is hard for a left-handed person to write with a quill in the ordinary way, but quite easy to write backwards.
It is likely that Leonardo planned to publish the studies in his notebooks. He organized many pages carefully, with one study taking up the front and back of each page. There is a page with drawings and writing about the human heart and a page about the womb and the fetus. One page shows drawings of the muscles of a shoulder and another page shows how an arm works.
The notebooks were not published in Leonardo's lifetime. After he died, they were divided between different people who had known him. They are nearly all in museums or libraries such as Windsor Castle, the Louvre, and the British Library. The Biblioteca Ambrosiana (a library) in Milan has the twelve-volume Codex Atlanticus.
Studies
Some of the things that Leonardo studied are:
The geology of the Earth, with its mountains, valleys, rivers and rocks.
The anatomy of the human body with its skeleton, muscles, veins and internal organs. Leonardo was given dead bodies by a hospital. He "dissected" (cut up) thirty dead bodies and carefully drew many of the parts. His drawings of bones and muscles were to help other artists to paint the human body properly.
The anatomy of horses, cows, dogs, and bears.
The expressions on human faces.
The flight of birds .
The weather and its phenomena.
The way that water flows.
The botany of plants.
Light, shadows, mirrors and lenses.
Perspective and the way to make things look near or far.
The geometry of solid objects. He drew many careful pictures which were used by the mathematician Luca Pacioli in a book called De Divina Proportione.
Designs and inventions
Many of the drawings and notes in Leonardo's notebooks are designs, plans and inventions.
Some of the things that Leonardo designed are:
Costumes for parades, carnivals and theatre. These were probably for Duke Federico's court. They include armour, and a ferocious dragon.
War machines such as an armour-plated tank, an enormous cross bow and a horrible horse-driven leg-chopper. None of these things were ever made in Leonardo's lifetime.
Dams and canals for rivers.
A wooden bridge that could be carried flat on wagons and unfolded and put together at the river.
Flying things with wings that flapped, a helicopter, a parachute and a hang glider. One of Leonardo's servants was injured, trying out the hang glider. The parachute has been made and tested in modern times, and it does work.
Church (building) and castles. It is possible that the Castle of Locarno, in the south of Switzerland was designed by Leonardo. No other building that he designed was built.
Leonardo's studies, designs and inventions
Related pages
Renaissance
Italian Renaissance art
Lady with an Ermine
List of Renaissance artists
Michelangelo
Raphael
List of Italian painters
References
More reading
ISBN 0-486-22573-9. 2 volumes. A reprint of the original 1883 edition.
Silvia e Luca Guagliumi, "Leonardo e l'architettura", Silvia Editrice, Aprile 2015
Other websites
Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment, Design (review)
{{gutenberg | no=7785 | name=Leonardo da Vinci by Maurice Walter Brockwell'}}
Complete text & images of Richter's translation of the Notebooks
Vasari Life of Leonardo : in Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.
Web Gallery of Leonardo Paintings
Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci
Da Vinci Decoded Article from The Guardian''
The true face of Leonardo Da Vinci?
Leonardo da Vinci's Ethical Vegetarianism
Leonardo da Vinci, a biography with description of his major works, written for children; Tamsyn Taylor, 2020
1452 births
1519 deaths
Italian people
Inventors
Italian mathematicians
Italian architects
Italian sculptors
Botanists
People from Florence
15th-century Italian painters
Anatomists
Polymaths |
4655 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/1844 | 1844 |
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4665 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum | Platinum | Platinum is a soft, heavy, white metal. It is a precious metal. It usually costs more than gold.
In chemistry, platinum is element number 78, and its atoms have an atomic weight of 195 a.m.u.. The symbol for platinum is Pt, from Spanish platina meaning "little silver".
Platinum is very malleable and ductile, which means it can be hammered into thin sheets and it can be pulled into wire. Platinum is very stable. Acids do not affect platinum.
The most common use of Platinum is in a vehicle's catalytic converter.
Chemical elements |
4666 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20rock%20types | List of rock types |
List
Sorted by name; initial letter means Igneous, Sedimentary or Metamorphic rocks.
A
I Andesite – an intermediate volcanic rock
M Anthracite – a form of hard coal
B
S Banded iron formation – a fine grained chemical sedimentary rock composed of iron oxide minerals
S Bauxite – the main ore of aluminium. It is mostly aluminium oxide.
I Basalt – grey/black fine-grained rock from lava which cooled on the surface of the Earth.
S Blue Lias – a formation of rocks, part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.
S Breccia – a sedimentary or tectonic rock composed of fragments of other, broken rocks
C
S Chalk – a fine grained carbonate rock composed mainly of coccoliths
S Chert – a fine grained chemical sedimentary rock composed of silica
S Clastic rock – composed of fragments, or clasts, of pre-existing rock.
S Claystone – a sedimentary rock formed from clay
S Coal – a sedimentary rock formed from peat
S Concretion – a concretion is a rock in which a mineral cement fills the spaces between the sediment grains.
S Conglomerate – a sedimentary rock composed of large rounded fragments of other rocks
S Coquina – a sedimentary carbonate rock formed by accumulation of abundant shell fossils and fragments
D
I Dacite – a felsic to intermediate volcanic rock with high iron content
S Diatomite – a sedimentary rock fromed from diatom fossils
I Diorite – a coarse grained intermediate plutonic rock
S Dolomite – a carbonate rock composed of calcium magnesium carbonate: CaMg(CO3)2
I Dunite – a rock made mostly of olivine
E
Evaporite – a chemical sedimentary rock formed by accumulation of minerals after evaporation
F
S Flint – a form of chert
I Foidolite – a plutonic igneous rock composed of >90% feldspathoid minerals
G
I Gabbro – a coarse grained plutonic rock chemically equivalent to basalt. Plutonic = magma cooled below surface of the Earth.
M
I Granite – a coarse grained plutonic rock composed of orthoclase, plagioclase and quartz
M Granulite – a high grade metamorphic rock formed from basalt; also a facies of metamorphic rocks
M Greenschist – a generic term for a mafic metamorphic rock dominated by green amphiboles
S Greenstone – greenish sandstone; and a geologic formation in Great Britain
S Greywacke – an immature sandstone with quartz, feldspar and rock fragments within a clay matrix
S Gritstone – a coarse sandstone formed from small pebbles
H
I Horneblendite – a mafic or ultramafic cumulate rock dominated by >90% hornblende
M Hornfels – a metamorphic rock formed by heating by an igneous rock
I
I Ignimbrite – a fragmental volcanic rock
K
I Kimberlite – a rare ultramafic, ultrapotassic volcanic rock and a source of diamonds
L
S Lignite – brown coal
S Limestone – a sedimentary rock composed primarily of carbonate minerals
M
M Marble – a metamorphosed limestone
S Marl (geology) – a limestone with a considerable proportion of silicate material
M Migmatite – a high grade metamorphic rock verging upon melting into a magma
S Mudrock – a sedimentary rock composed of clay and muds
S Mudstone – a type of mudrock
N
I Nephelinite – a silica undersaturated plutonic rock with >90% nepheline
O
I Obsidian – volcanic glass
S Woolite – a chemical sedimentary limestone (formed by precipitation)
P
I Pegmatite – an igneous rock (or metamorphic rock) with giant sized crystals
I Peridotite – a plutonic or cumulate ultramafic rock composed of >90% olivine
M Phyllite – a low grade metamorphic rock composed mostly of micaceous minerals
I Plutonic rocks – intrusive rocks that crystallized from magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth.
I Pumice – a fine grained volcanic rock with gas bubbles inside
I Pyroclastic rocks – rocks of volcanic origin
Q
M Quartzite – a metamorphosed sandstone typically composed of >95% quartz
R
I Rhyolite – a felsic volcanic
S
S Sandstone – a clastic sedimentary rock defined by its grain size
M Schist – a low to medium grade metamorphic rock
M Serpentinite – a metamorphosed ultramafic rock dominated by serpentine minerals
S Shale – a clastic sedimentary rock defined by its grain size
S Siltstone – a clastic sedimentary rock defined by its grain size
M Skarn – calcium-bearing silicate rocks of any age: a metasomatic rock
M Slate – a low grade metamorphic rock formed from shale or silts
M Steatite – Steatite or soapstone is a metamorphic rock. It has a large amount of the mineral talc.
I Syenite – a plutonic rock dominated by orthoclase feldspar; a type of granitoivolcanic rock; can be a generic term
T
I Tonalite – a plagioclase-dominant granitoid
S Travertine – a carbonate precipitate from hot-springs.
S Tufa – a porous carbonate precipitate from ambient-temperature water
I Tuff – a fine grained volcanic rock formed from volcanic ash
V
I Variolite
W
S Dickstone – a matrix-supported carbonate sedimentary rock
Related pages
List of minerals
Igneous rock
Sedimentary rock
Metamorphic rock
Geology
Types
Science-related lists |
4667 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20minerals | List of minerals | This is a list of minerals.
A
Abelsonite
Abernathyite
Abenakiite-(Ce)
Abswurmbachite
Abhurite
Actinolite
Acuminite
Agate a variety of quartz
Alabaster a variety of gypsum or calcite-rich rock
Albite
Alexandrite a variety of chrysoberyl
Alforsite
Allingite a synonym of ambe
Altaite
Alum
Alunite
Alvanite
Amazonite a variety of microclin
Amber fossilized resin
Amblygonite
Amethyst a variety of quartz
Amosite asbestiform grunerite
Amphibole (mineral group)
Analcime
Analcite synonym of analcime
Anatase
Andalusite
Anglesite
Anorthite
Anorthoclase
Antigorite
Apatite (mineral group)
Aquamarine a variety of beryl
Aragonite
Arfvedsonite
Armalcolite
Asbestos fibrous serpentine or amphibole minerals
Astrophyllite
Augite
Avalit
Aventurine a variety of quartz
Axinite (mineral group)
Azurite
B
Baddeleyite
Barite
Bastnaesite (mineral group)
Beckerite natural resin
Bertrandite
Beryl
Biotite (mineral group)
Bixbite
Blomstrandine synonym of aeschynite-(Y)
Boehmite
Bornite
Briartite
Brucite
Burmite amber from Burma
Bytownite
C
Calcite
Canfieldite
Carnallite
Carnelian a variety of quartz
Carnotite
Cassiterite
Celadonite
Celestite
Cerussite
Chabasite (mineral group)
Chalcedony a variety of quartz
Chalcopyrite
Chalcocite
Chlorapatite
Chlorite (mineral group)
Chromite
Chrysoberyl
Chrysolite gemmy yellow-green forsterite
Chrysotile group name - asbestiform serpentine
Cinnabar
Cinnabarite synonym of cinnabar
Citrine
Clevite (not a valid species)
Clinochrysotile
Clinoclase
coal (mineral group)
Coesite
Colemanite
Coltan short for minerals of the columbite group
Columbite (mineral group)
Cooperite
Cordierite
Corundum
Covellite
Crocidolite asbestiform riebeckite
Crookesite
Cryolite
Cummingtonite
Cuprite
Cylindrite
Cymophane variety of chrysoberyl
D
Datolite
Dawsonite
Delessite [[magnesian chamosite]]
Diamond
Diaspore
Diopside
E
Emerald variety of beryl
Epsom salt synonym of epsomite
Euxenite-(Y)
F
Feldspar (mineral group)
Ferberite
Ferricrete
Ferro-anthophyllite
Ferrocolumbite
Ferrotantalite
Fergusonite (mineral group)
Fluorapatite
Fluorichterite
Fluorite
Fluorspar synonym of fluorite
Franckeite
Franklinite
G
Gadolinite (mineral group)
Galena
Garnet (mineral group)
Germanite
Gibbsite
Glauconite
Goethite
Gold
Graphite
Grunerite
Gypsum
H
Halite
Hematite
Hemimorphite
Hibonite
Hiddenite variety of spodumene
Hornblende some minerals of the amphibole group
Hübnerite
Hutchinsonite
Hyalite variety of opal
Hydroxylapatite
I
Ice
Idocrase synonym of vesuvianite
Illite
Ilmenite
J
Jade tough, green rock, chiefly made of jadeite or amphiboles
Jasper a variety of quartz
K
Kainite
Kalsilite
Kamacite
Kaolinite
Karpinskyite
Keilhauite variety of titanite
Kern
Kobellite
Kogarkoite
Krantzite natural resin
Kunzite variety of spodumene
Kyanite
L
Labradorite
Lapis lazuli
Lazurite
Lepidolite
Leucite
Lignite
Limonite
Lizardite
Lodestone
Lonsdaleite
Lorandite
M
Magnesia (mineral)
Magnesite
Magnetite
Malachite
Malacolite
Manganocolumbite
Marcasite
Mariposite variety of phengite/muscovite
Meerschaum
Mendozite
Menilite
Metacinnabarite
Mica
Microcline
Milk quartz
Molybdenite
Monazite
Morganite
Morion
Muscovite
N
Nepheline
Niobite
Niobite-tantalite
O
Olivine
Onyx
Opal
Orthochrysotile
Orthoclase
P
Palagonite
Parachrysotile
Pentlandite
Periclase
Perlite
Petalite
Petzite
Phenacite
Phillipsite
Phlogopite
Phosphorite
Pitchblende
Plagioclase
Plivine
Pollucite
Polycrase
Prehnite
Pumicite
Pyrite
Pyrochlore
Pyroxene
Q
Quartz
R
Rhodochrosite
Riebeckite
Rock crystal
Rose quartz
Roumanite
Ruby
Rutile
S
Salt (sodium chloride)
Samarskite
Sapphire
Sard
Scapolite
Scheelite
Serpentine
Sillimanite
Simetite
Smectite
Smoky quartz
Sodalite
Soda niter
Sperrylite
Spinel
Spodumene
Stannite
Stantienite
Staurolite
Steacyite
Stibnite
Strontianite
Sylvite
T
Talc
Talcum
Tantalite
Tanzanite
Teallite
Telluride
Thortveitite
Titanite
Topaz
Tourmaline
Travertine
Tremolite
Troctolite
Tufa
Turquoise
Tutty
U
Ulexite
Uralite
Uraninite
V
Vaterite
Vermiculite
W
Weloganite
Willemite
Wiserine
Wolframite
Wollastonite
X
Xenotime
Y
Yttria
Z
Zabuyelite
Zaccagnaite
Zaherite
Zajacite-(Ce)
Zakharovite
Zamboninite
Zanazziite
Zapalite
Zappinite
Zaratite
Zeolite
Zeuxite
Zhanghengite
Zharchikhite
Zhemchuzhnikovite
Zhonghuacerite-(Ce)
Ziesite
Zimbabweite
Zinalsite
Zinc-melanterite
Zincite
Zincobotryogen
Zincochromite
Zinkenite
Zinnwaldite
Zippeite
Zircon
Zirconolite
Zircophyllite
Zirkelite
Zoisite
Related pages
List of rocks
Science-related lists |
4668 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral | Mineral | Minerals are substances that are formed naturally in the Earth. Rocks are made of minerals.
Minerals are usually solid, inorganic, have a crystal structure, and form naturally by geological processes.
The study of minerals is called mineralogy.
A mineral can be made of single chemical element or more usually a compound. There are over 4,000 types of known minerals. Two common minerals are quartz and feldspar.
Characteristics of minerals
A mineral is a substance that usually
is an inorganic solid. (elemental mercury is an exception)p184
Has a definite chemical make-up
usually has a crystal structure; some do not
is formed naturally by geological processes
One recent definition is:
"A mineral is a homogeneous (which means composed of parts or elements that are all of the same kind) naturally occurring substance with a definite but not necessarily fixed chemical composition. Most minerals are solids with an ordered atomic arrangement, and most are inorganic in the chemical sense of that word".
Alternatively, a mineral is one listed as such by the International Mineralogical Association.
Minerals and rocks
Minerals are different from rocks. A mineral is a chemical compound with a given composition and a defined crystal structure. A rock is a mixture of one or several minerals, in varying proportions.
A rock has only two of the characteristics minerals have–it is a solid and it forms naturally. A rock usually contains two or more types of minerals. Two samples of the same type of rock may have different kinds of minerals in them. Minerals are always made up of the same materials in nearly the same proportions. A ruby is a mineral. Therefore, a ruby found in India has similar makeup as a ruby found in Australia.
Formed in nature
Minerals are formed by natural processes. A few substances with the same chemical composition as minerals can be produced by living creatures as part of their shells or bones. The shells of molluscs are composed of either calcite or aragonite, or both.
Traditionally, chemicals produced by living things are not considered minerals. However, it is difficult to see why an organic substance should not be called a mineral if its chemical nature and its crystalline structure is identical with its inorganic twin. This issue is now under debate: see Railsback part II.
Minerals form in many ways. The mineral halite, which is used as table salt, forms when water evaporates in a hot, shallow part of the ocean, leaving behind the salt it contained. Many types of minerals are made when molten rock, or magma cools and turns into a solid. Talc, a mineral that can be used to make baby powder, forms deep in Earth as high pressure and temperature causes changes in solid rock.
The extraordinary thing is, that most minerals owe their formation to life, or at least to the Great Oxygenation Event. "Sturdy minerals rather than fragile organic remains may provide the most robust and lasting signs of biology".
Solid
A mineral is a solid—that is, it has a definite volume and a rough shape. Volume refers to the amount of space an object takes up. For example, a golf ball has a smaller volume than a baseball, and a baseball has a smaller volume than a basketball.
A substance that is a liquid or a gas is not a mineral. However, in some cases its solid form is a mineral. For instance, liquid water is not a mineral, but ice is.
Definite chemical makeup
Each mineral has a definite chemical makeup: it consists of a specific combination of atoms of certain elements. An element is a substance that contains only one type of atom.
Scientists can classify minerals into groups on the basis of their chemical makeup. Though there are thousands of different minerals, only about 30 are common in Earth's crust. These 30 minerals make up most rocks in the crust. For that reason, they are called rock-forming minerals.
Silicates are most common group. All the minerals in this group contain oxygen and silicon—the two most common elements in Earth's crust—joined together. Silicates may include other elements such as aluminium, magnesium, iron and calcium. Quartz, feldspar, and mica are common silicates.
Carbonates are the second most common group of rock-forming minerals is the carbonates. All the minerals in this group contain carbon and oxygen joined together. Calcite, which is common in seashells, is a carbonate mineral.
Oxides include the minerals from which most metals, such as tin and copper, are refined. An oxide consists of an element, usually a metal, joined to oxygen. This group includes haematite, a source of iron.
Sulphates contain the sulphate group SO4. Sulphates commonly form in evaporites where highly salty waters slowly evaporate, allowing sulfates and halides to precipitate where the water evaporates. Sulphates also occur where hot waters are forced through the rock, as with geysers.
There are many other mineral groups.
Some uses of minerals
People use minerals for many everyday purposes. Every time people turn on a microwave oven or a TV, minerals are being used. The copper in the wires that carry electricity to the machine is made from a mineral. Table salt or halite, is another mineral that people use in their everyday life.
Graphite is used to make pencils
Rock salt is used in cooking
Mineral ores are the source of metals.
Related pages
List of minerals
References
Other websites
Some common minerals and their uses
Rock salt
Natural resources |
4669 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craft | Craft | Craft or handicraft is about making things with one's own hands and skills. The different types of crafts can be put in groups according to the material being used. In the Middle Ages the most common materials were metal, wood or clay.
A craftsman is a person who has the knowledge and skills of a craft. When they have a lot of experience they may be called a master craftsman. If they are young people learning a craft they are called an apprentice. |
4678 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim%20Jong-il | Kim Jong-il | Kim Jong-il, birth name Yuri Irsenovich Kim (according to the Soviet Union's records) (, 16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011) was the Supreme Leader of Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) from the time of his father's death in 1994 until his own death in 2011. He was the son of Kim Il-Sŏng. Official North Korean propaganda said that Jong-il was born on Mount Paektu (a holy mountain in Korea); but most historians think that he was born near Chabarowsk in the Soviet Union. The North Korean laws made him permanent ruler of North Korea for life. He was sometimes referred to as the "Dear Leader", but this was not an official title. His official title was "Chairman of the National Defense Commission of North Korea", "Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army" and "General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea". Many people in North Korea were imprisoned or killed for speaking out against the Kim regime. Almost everyone in North Korea wore a small pin with a picture of Kim Jŏng-Il or Kim Il-Sŏng on it.
The North Korean government told people of his death through the state media on 19 December 2011. It was said that he had died two days earlier of "physical and mental over-work".
Early life
Jong-il was born Yuri Irsenovich Kim on 16 February 1941.
Personal life
Jong-il was a Stalinist. He believed in the North Korean Communist philosophy of Juche (self-reliance). He was afraid to travel on aeroplanes and traveled only on trains. He was well known for his love of movies and luxury goods, especially caviar and Hennessey brand cognac, even though North Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world. Former United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once gave Jong-il a present of a basketball signed by Michael Jordan when he visited North Korea because Jong-il was a fan of the National Basketball Association and of Michael Jordan.
Death
On the morning of 17 December 2011, at the age of 69 or 70, Jong-il died of a heart attack while traveling. His funeral was held on 28 December, and as a result, Kim Jong-un was then elected as the new leader of North Korea. On 13 April 2012, Kim Jong-il was made Eternal Chairman of the National Defence Commission and Eternal General Secretary of the Workers Party of Korea.
References
Other websites
– Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang DPR Korea (1998)
Born in the USSR – Kim Jong-il's childhood.
The many family secrets of Kim Jong Il
"Hidden Daughter" Visits Kim Jong-il Every Year (also includes photos of Kim during his youth)
Kim's family tree
1941 births
2011 deaths
Former dictators
North Korean military people
North Korean politicians
Deaths from myocardial infarction |
4679 | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver | Silver | Silver (symbol Ag) is a chemical element. In chemistry, silver is element 47, a transition metal. It has an atomic weight of 107.86 a.m.u. Its symbol is Ag, from the Latin word for silver, argentum.
Properties
Physical properties
Silver is a soft metal. It is also a precious metal. When it is used in money or in jewellery, it is often mixed with gold or some other metal to make it harder. It is bluish-white. It reflects light very well. It is a very good conductor of electricity. It is considered a precious metal. Silver is very malleable, and ductile, which means it can be pulled into wire or hammered into thin sheets. Silver is one of the only words in the English language that does not rhyme with any other word. Silver coins and bars can be bought and sold at coin shops around the world.
Chemical properties
It is not reactive. It does not dissolve in most acids. Nitric acid dissolves it, though, to make silver nitrate. It does react with strong oxidizing agents like potassium dichromate or potassium permanganate. It does not corrode easily. It only corrodes when there is hydrogen sulfide in the air. Then, it forms a black coating known as tarnish.
Silver exists in two main oxidation states: +1 and +2. The +1 is much more common. A few compounds exist in the +2 oxidation state, but they are very strong oxidizing agents. Silver compounds can be brown, black, yellow, gray, or colorless. Silver compounds are disinfectants.
Silver(I) compounds
Silver(I) compounds are oxidizing agents. They are more common. Most of them are very expensive.
Silver bromide, light yellow
Silver carbonate, yellowish
Silver chloride, white
Silver(I) fluoride, yellow-brown
Silver iodate, colorless
Silver iodide, yellow
Silver nitrate, colorless
Silver oxide, brown-black
Silver sulfide, black
Silver(II) compounds
Silver(II) compounds are powerful oxidizing agents and rare.
Silver(II) fluoride, strong oxidizing agent, highly reactive, white or gray
Occurrence
Silver can be found as a native metal. Silver can be found with copper, lead, or gold in rocks. The rocks are found mostly in Canada, Mexico, Peru, and the United States. Peru produces the most silver. Silver is also in chemical compounds. Acanthite is a silver ore that is a silver compound.
Preparation
Silver is extracted from the earth in several ways. It is normally extracted using electrolysis.
Uses
As an element
Silver has been used for many thousands of years by people all over the world, for jewellery, as money, and many other things. It is called a white metal even though it looks grey. The word silver is also used to talk about this color or shade of grey. Silver is also used for utensils. It may be used to fill teeth in dentistry as an amalgam. Silver is used as a catalyst.
In compounds
Silver compounds are disinfectants. It can kill bacteria and has other useful properties. It is used in the silver oxide battery. They are also used in photographic film. They can also be used to reduce odors in clothes. Some silver compounds are used in creams that help burns heal.
History
Silver has been around for thousands of years. It was normally considered second to gold in value. Romans used silver as money. The symbol Ag is from the Latin name for silver, argentum. Silver was also used to prevent infections and decay.
Safety
Silver is not a large danger to humans. Silver compounds are toxic. They make the skin turn blue. Some can be carcinogens. Colloidal silver, a common homeopathic remedy, is not toxic in normal amounts, but it does not do much.
Market
Silver, because it is depleting, is actually more valuable than gold. The silver saved up in the world is running out very quickly because more of it has been used each year than the amount mined in each year since 1990. Companies that use silver have benefited from speculators who sell promises to deliver silver that does not exist, keeping prices artificially low. This is called naked short selling. The amount owed is more than all the silver in the world. The price of silver could go very high when the stored silver runs out and investors start asking for their metal back, instead of taking more I.O.U.'s.
Silver is 18 US dollars per troy ounce as of June 2010.
Silver increased to 28 US dollars per troy ounce as of December 2010.
Basic English 850 words
Metals
Chemical elements |
Subsets and Splits