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Punk (Chai album). Punk (stylized in all caps) is the second studio album by Japanese band Chai. The album was released on February 13, 2019, by Otemoyan Records.[14] It was released on March 15, 2019, in North America and Europe by Burger Records and Heavenly Recordings, respectively.[14] AllMusics Tim Sendra felt the record left some of the rap rock influences prominent on PINK behind in exchange for more pop-oriented stylings.[2] Indeed, PUNK dives into several pop-based genres from bubblegum to indie to synth-pop. Kicking off the record is Choose Go!, a punchy piece of cheerleader rock,[2] that features synths that churn like vacuum cleaners.[5] Following is the pulsing electronic pop[1] of Great Job. Wintime is Paramore-plucked, rose-tinted tropic-pop.[12] This Is Chai, the records only song to have its writing credited to all four members, has been called everything from post-punk[10] to Europop[12] to happily corny handbag house.[2] Fashionista, along with This is CHAI, has some seriously infectious funk woven into its DNA.[4] Curly Adventure is a synth-pop ballad that throw[s] heavy metal guitar grind into its mix.[2] In 2019, a music video for the eighth track (Curly Adventure) was directed by Sean Solomon, using character designs from band member and visual director Yuuki, in which the video picks a load of eccentric (and surreal)scenes with vibrant colours[20] with the simplistic style of the albums cover, inspired by Peanuts characters and the hyper-stylized Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the 1970s.[21] The additional credits in the video are storyboards drawn by Evan Red Borja and animation by Sarah Schmidt and Ian Ballantyne.[22]
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Robert Nihon. Robert Alexis Nihon (born July 4, 1950 – August 10, 2007) was a Canadian businessman, one of the heirs of the Nihon family fortune and former wrestler. He was Alexis Nihons son along with his brother Alexis Nihon Jr., and eventually inherited a part of his fathers fortune. Robert Nihon lived in Lyford Cay, Bahamas where he was known to spend time on his yacht. He also competed at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City along with his brother Alexis as a freestyle wrestler. He had 2 children (Gregory & Robert), and 3 grandchildren (Adriana, Scarlett, River).
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Alexis Nihon. Alexis Louis Nihon, OBE (15 May 1902 – 8 April 1980) was a Belgian-born Canadian inventor and businessman. Alexis was born in Liège, Belgium, the son of Alexis Laurent Nihon and Marie Florentine Thiry, he moved to Canada when he was eighteen years old[citation needed]. In 1940, he started the glass manufacturer Compagnie industrielle du verre limitée (Industrial Glass Works Company Limited) in Saint-Laurent, Quebec; it was one of the few Canadian glass manufacturers during the Second World War.[1] He sold it in the 1940s[citation needed]. In 1946, he started Corporation Alexis Nihon (today Alexis Nihon REIT) that would later become one of the largest[citation needed] real estate companies in Canada. He was married to Alice Robert Nihon and they had four children: two daughters who died young, and Olympic wrestlers Alexis Nihon Jr. and Robert Nihon.[2] He died at his home in Nassau, Bahamas[3] in 1980.
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Kinship. In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says that the study of kinship is the study of what humans do with these basic facts of life – mating, gestation, parenthood, socialization, siblingship etc. Human society is unique, he argues, in that we are working with the same raw material as exists in the animal world, but [we] can conceptualize and categorize it to serve social ends.[1] These social ends include the socialization of children and the formation of basic economic, political and religious groups. Kinship can refer both to the patterns of social relationships themselves, or it can refer to the study of the patterns of social relationships in one or more human cultures (i.e. kinship studies). Over its history, anthropology has developed a number of related concepts and terms in the study of kinship, such as descent, descent group, lineage, affinity/affine, consanguinity/cognate and fictive kinship. Further, even within these two broad usages of the term, there are different theoretical approaches. Broadly, kinship patterns may be considered to include people related by both descent – i.e. social relations during development – and by marriage. Human kinship relations through marriage are commonly called affinity in contrast to the relationships that arise in ones group of origin, which may be called ones descent group. In some cultures, kinship relationships may be considered to extend out to people an individual has economic or political relationships with, or other forms of social connections. Within a culture, some descent groups may be considered to lead back to gods[2] or animal ancestors (totems). This may be conceived of on a more or less literal basis. Kinship can also refer to a principle by which individuals or groups of individuals are organized into social groups, roles, categories and genealogy by means of kinship terminologies. Family relations can be represented concretely (mother, brother, grandfather) or abstractly by degrees of relationship (kinship distance). A relationship may be relative (e.g. a father in relation to a child) or reflect an absolute (e.g. the difference between a mother and a childless woman). Degrees of relationship are not identical to heirship or legal succession. Many codes of ethics consider the bond of kinship as creating obligations between the related persons stronger than those between strangers, as in Confucian filial piety. In a more general sense, kinship may refer to a similarity or affinity between entities on the basis of some or all of their characteristics that are under focus. This may be due to a shared ontological origin, a shared historical or cultural connection, or some other perceived shared features that connect the two entities. For example, a person studying the ontological roots of human languages (etymology) might ask whether there is kinship between the English word seven and the German word sieben. It can be used in a more diffuse sense as in, for example, the news headline Madonna feels kinship with vilified Wallis Simpson, to imply a felt similarity or empathy between two or more entities.
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Alexis Nihon Jr.. Alexis Joseph Nihon Jr. (January 10, 1946 – February 24, 2013)[1] was an Olympic wrestler for the Bahamas. Born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, he competed at the 1968 Summer Olympics.[2] His brother Robert Nihon, who was also a wrestler also competed at the same Olympics.[3] This biographical article relating to a Bahamian sport wrestler or wrestling coach is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. This biographical article relating to a Canadian sport wrestler or wrestling coach is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
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Nihon University. Nihon University (日本大学, Nihon Daigaku; lit. Japan University), abbreviated as Nichidai (日大), is a private research university in Japan. Its predecessor, Nihon Law School (currently the Department of Law), was founded by Yamada Akiyoshi, the Minister of Justice, in 1889.[6] The universitys name is derived from the Japanese word Nihon meaning Japan. Nihon University now has 16 colleges and 87 departments, 20 postgraduate schools, one junior college which is composed of five departments, one correspondence division, 32 research institutes and three hospitals.[7] The number of students exceeds 70,000 and is the largest in Japan.[8][9] Most of the universitys campuses are in the Kantō region, with the vast majority in Tokyo or surrounding areas, although two campuses are as far away from Tokyo as Shizuoka Prefecture and Fukushima Prefecture. These campuses mostly accommodate single colleges or schools (gakubu (学部) in Japanese). In December 2016 the university acquired the former Newcastle Court House in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia for A$6.6 million as its inaugural international campus.[10][11] The university comprises a federation of colleges and institutes known for having produced numerous Japanese CEOs. Its College of Art (日芸 — Nichigei), located right next to Ekoda train station in Tokyos Nerima ward, is well-known for producing many artists who represent Japan in photography, theater, and cinema. In addition, the university has over 20 affiliated high schools bearing its name across Japan, from which a significant number of students go on to study at the institution as undergraduates.[citation needed] See Academic staff of Nihon University
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Pinyin. Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. Hanyu (simplified Chinese: 汉语; traditional Chinese: 漢語) literally means Han language—that is, the Chinese language—while pinyin literally means spelled sounds. Pinyin is the official romanization system used in China, Singapore, and Taiwan, and by the United Nations. Its use has become common when transliterating Standard Chinese mostly regardless of region, though it is less ubiquitous in Taiwan. It is used to teach Standard Chinese, normally written with Chinese characters, to students in mainland China and Singapore. Pinyin is also used by various input methods on computers and to categorize entries in some Chinese dictionaries. In pinyin, each Chinese syllable is spelled in terms of an optional initial and a final, each of which is represented by one or more letters. Initials are initial consonants, whereas finals are all possible combinations of medials (semivowels coming before the vowel), a nucleus vowel, and coda (final vowel or consonant). Diacritics are used to indicate the four tones found in Standard Chinese, though these are often omitted in various contexts, such as when spelling Chinese names in non-Chinese texts. Hanyu Pinyin was developed in the 1950s by a group of Chinese linguists including Wang Li, Lu Zhiwei, Li Jinxi, Luo Changpei and, particularly, Zhou Youguang, who has been called the father of pinyin. They based their work in part on earlier romanization systems. The system was originally promulgated at the Fifth Session of the 1st National Peoples Congress in 1958, and has seen several rounds of revisions since. The International Organization for Standardization propagated Hanyu Pinyin as ISO 7098 in 1982, and the United Nations began using it in 1986. Taiwan adopted Hanyu Pinyin as its official romanization system in 2009, replacing Tongyong Pinyin. Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary in China, wrote the first book that used the Latin alphabet to write Chinese, entitled Xizi Qiji (Hsi-tzŭ Chi-chi; 西字奇蹟; Miracle of Western Letters) and published in Beijing in 1605.[1] Twenty years later, fellow Jesuit Nicolas Trigault published Aid to the Eyes and Ears of Western Literati (西儒耳目資; Xīrú ěrmù zī; Hsi ju erh mu tzŭ)) in Hangzhou.[2] Neither book had any influence among the contemporary Chinese literati, and the romanizations they introduced primarily were useful for Westerners.[3]
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Nippon (aircraft). Nippon (ニッポン, Nippon) was a converted Mitsubishi G3M2 Model 21 bomber operated by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper and used to make a round-the-world flight in 1939. Nippon took off from Haneda airport[2] in the district of Kamata in Tokyo on 25 August 1939, flew around the globe and returned to Tokyo, after 55 days, on 20 October 1939 having flown 52,886 km (32,862 mi; 28,556 nmi) in 194 flying hours. Nippon had the armament removed, was equipped with the latest autopilot and could carry 5,200 L of fuel enabling it to fly continuously for 24 hours.[citation needed] Tokyo - Chitose - Nome, Alaska - Fairbanks, USA - Whitehorse - Seattle - Oakland, USA - Los Angeles - Albuquerque, USA - Chicago - New York - Washington D.C - Miami - San Salvador, El Salvador - Cali, Colombia - Lima - Arica - Santiago - Buenos Aires - Santos (Brazil) - Dakar - Casablanca Morocco - Seville, Spain - Rhodos, Greece - Basra (Iraq) - Karachi - Kolkata, India - Bangkok - Taipei - Haneda, Tokyo
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God emperor. God-Emperor or God Emperor may refer to:
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Warhammer Fantasy (setting). Warhammer Fantasy (later renamed Warhammer: The Old World) is a fictional fantasy universe created by Games Workshop and used in many of its games, including the table top wargame Warhammer, the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP) pen-and-paper role-playing game, and a number of video games: the MMORPG Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, the strategy games Total War: Warhammer, Total War: Warhammer II and Total War: Warhammer III and the two first-person shooter games in the Warhammer Vermintide series, Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide and Warhammer: Vermintide 2, among many others. Warhammer is notable for its “dark and gritty” background world, which references a range of historical cultures such as the Holy Roman Empire, Mesoamerica, ancient Egypt, and medieval France, and is populated with a variety of races such as humans, high elves, dark elves, wood elves, dwarfs, undead, orcs, lizardmen, and other creatures familiar to many fantasy/role-playing settings. The development of the setting began with the release of a game simply called “Warhammer” in 1983.[1] The Warhammer world drew inspiration from Tolkien’s Middle-earth, but also from Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian) and Michael Moorcock, as well as real-world history, particularly European history. What is recognisable as the Warhammer World began with the expansion material to the first edition of the game Warhammer, but was formulated as a distinct setting with a world map in the second edition.[citation needed]
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Nippon Paint. Nippon Paint Holdings Co., Ltd. (日本ペイントホールディングス株式会社, Nippon Peinto Hōrudingusu Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese paint and paint products manufacturing company.[4] It is the worlds fourth largest paint manufacturer, as measured by revenue in 2020.[3] The company was founded in 1881 by Jujiro Motegi under the name Komyosha (Yamato Jujiro Shoten). In 1898, the company was incorporated and renamed Nippon Paint Manufacturing and in 1927 the companys name was changed to Nippon Paint.[5] In 1954, Nippon Paint established a 50/50 joint venture with Bee Chemical. In 2006, it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Nippon Paint.[6][7] In October 2014, Nippon Paint was reorganised into a holding company and the company adopted its current name.[8]
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ISO 3166-1 alpha-3. ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes are three-letter country codes defined in ISO 3166-1, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), to represent countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. They allow a better visual association between the codes and the country names than the two-letter alpha-2 codes (the third set of codes is numeric and hence offers no visual association).[1] They were first included as part of the ISO 3166 standard in its first edition in 1974. The ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes are used most prominently in ISO/IEC 7501-1 for machine-readable passports, as standardized by the International Civil Aviation Organization, with a number of additional codes for special passports; some of these codes are currently reserved and not used at the present stage in ISO 3166-1.[2] The United Nations uses a combination of ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 and alpha-3 codes, along with codes that pre-date the creation of ISO 3166, for international vehicle registration codes, which are codes used to identify the issuing country of a vehicle registration plate; some of these codes are currently indeterminately reserved in ISO 3166-1.[3] The following is a complete list of the current officially assigned ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes,[4] using a title case version of the English short names officially defined by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA): User-assigned code elements are codes at the disposal of users who need to add further names of countries, territories, or other geographical entities to their in-house application of ISO 3166-1, and the ISO 3166/MA will never use these codes in the updating process of the standard. The following alpha-3 codes can be user-assigned: AAA to AAZ, QMA to QZZ, XAA to XZZ, and ZZA to ZZZ.[5]
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Absolutism (European history). Absolutism or the Age of Absolutism (c. 1610 – c. 1789) is a historiographical term used to describe a form of monarchical power that is unrestrained by all other institutions, such as churches, legislatures, or social elites.[1] The term absolutism is typically used in conjunction with some European monarchs during the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and monarchs described as absolute can especially be found in the 16th century through the 19th century. Absolutism is characterized by the ending of feudal partitioning, consolidation of power with the monarch, rise of state power, unification of the state laws, and a decrease in the influence of the church and the nobility. Absolute monarchs are also associated with the rise of professional standing armies, professional bureaucracies, the codification of state laws, and the rise of ideologies that justify the absolutist monarchy. Absolutist monarchs typically were considered to have the divine right of kings as a cornerstone of the philosophy that justified their power (as opposed to the previous order when the kings were considered vassals of the pope and the emperor). Absolute monarchs spent considerable sums on extravagant houses for themselves and their nobles. In an absolutist state, monarchs often required nobles to live in the royal palace, while state officials ruled the nobles lands in their absence. This was designed to reduce the effective power of the nobility by causing nobles to become reliant upon the largesse of the monarch for their livelihoods. There is a considerable variety of opinion by historians on the extent of absolutism among European monarchs. Some, such as Perry Anderson, argue that quite a few monarchs achieved levels of absolutist control over their states, while historians such as Roger Mettam dispute the very concept of absolutism.[2] In general, historians who disagree with the appellation of absolutism argue that most monarchs labeled as absolutist exerted no greater power over their subjects than other non-absolutist rulers, and these historians tend to emphasize the differences between the absolutist rhetoric of monarchs and the realities of the effective use of power by these absolute monarchs. The Renaissance historian William Bouwsma summed up this contradiction: Nothing so clearly indicates the limits of royal power as the fact that governments were perennially in financial trouble, unable to tap the wealth of those most able to pay, and likely to stir up a costly revolt whenever they attempted to develop an adequate income.[3]
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Nippon (song). Nippon is a song by Japanese musician Ringo Sheena. It was released as a single on June 11, 2014, two weeks after her self-cover album Gyakuyunyū: Kōwankyoku and a year after her previous solo single Irohanihoheto / Kodoku no Akatsuki.[1] The song is being used as the 2014 soccer theme song for NHK.,[2] Including the NHK broadcast of 2014 FIFA World Cup. In 2013 and 2014, Sheena had celebrated her 15th anniversary since her debut single Kōfukuron. She began with the single Irohanihoheto/Kodoku no Akatsuki in May, following this up in November with two compilation albums, Ukina and Mitsugetsu-shō, and a series of lives entitled Tōtaikai: Heisei Nijūgo-nen Kaneyama-chō Taikai (党大会 平成二十五年神山町大会; The Party Convention: 2013 Kamiyama Event). She finished the anniversary year on the day with an album called Gyakuyunyū: Kōwankyoku, which featured new versions of songs she had given to other musicians.[3][4] In previous years, NHK had selected Superflys Tamashii Revolution (2010), Radwimps Kimi to Hitsuji to Ao (2011–2012) and Sakanactions Aoi (2013–2014) as their soccer broadcast theme song.[2] Tamashii Revolution in particular was commercially successful, being certified gold twice by the RIAJ for digital downloads.[5] The song was written for NHK after they requested a song by Sheena for their soccer broadcasts.[6] NHK asked Sheena to create the song in March, and she quickly produced it at the start of April.[7] NHK requested a song that expressed the samurai and nadeshiko spirit of Japan that could also be used for broadcasts featuring other teams, and asked if the song could feature blue in the lyrics (i.e. the colour of the Japan national football team)[8] Sheena wanted to use the Tokyo Jihen song Gunjō Biyori due to its mention of blue and its well-fitting tempo and chords, however created a new song after considerings specific requests for the song they desired.[9][8] The song was inspired by her time living in Shimizu, Shizuoka, which she considers the soccer kingdom of Japan. It was also inspired by everything she experienced with her band Tokyo Jihen, such as their 2010 sports-themed album Sports and the song Atarashii Bunmeimaika (2011).[10] Sheena felt a lot of pressure, as she does not consider herself seen as a sporty musician.[7] The B-side Sakasa ni Kazoete was also given the Spanish language title Cuenta atrás (count back), her second song title in Spanish after Paisaje on Gyakuyunyū: Kōwankyoku.[11][12] Contrasting Nippon, a song about special occasions, Sheena wrote the song dealing with everyday things.[6][10]
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Legalism (Chinese philosophy). Fajia (Chinese: 法家; pinyin: fǎjiā), or the School of fa (law, method), often translated Legalism,[1][2] was a school of thought representing a broader collection of primarily Warring States period classical Chinese philosophy, incorporating more administrative works traditionally said to be rooted in Huang-Lao Daoism. Addressing practical governance challenges of the unstable feudal system,[3] their ideas contributed greatly to the formation of the Chinese empire and bureaucracy,[4] advocating concepts including rule by law, sophisticated administrative technique, and ideas of state and sovereign power.[5] They are often interpreted in the West along realist lines.[6][7] Though persisting, the Qin to Tang were more characterized by the centralizing tendencies of their traditions.[8] The school incorporates the more legalistic ideas of Li Kui and Shang Yang, and more administrative Shen Buhai and Shen Dao,[9] with Shen Buhai, Shen Dao, and Han Fei traditionally said to be rooted in Huang-Lao (Daoism), as attested by Sima Qian.[3] Shen Dao may have been a significant early influence for Daoism and administration.[10] These earlier currents were synthesized in the Han Feizi,[11][12] including some of the earliest commentaries on the Daoist text Daodejing. The later Han dynasty considered Guan Zhong to be a forefather of the school, with the Guanzi added later. Later dynasties regarded Xun Kuang as a teacher of Han Fei and Qin Chancellor Li Si, as attested by Sima Qian,[13] approvingly included during the 1970s along with figures like Zhang Binglin.[14] With a lasting influence on Chinese law, Shang Yangs reforms transformed Qin from a peripheral power into a strongly centralized, militarily powerful kingdom, ultimately unifying China in 221 BCE. While Chinese administration cannot be traced to a single source, Shen Buhais ideas significantly contributed to the meritocratic system later adopted by the Han dynasty. Sun Tzus Art of War recalls the Han Feizis concepts of power, technique, wu wei inaction, impartiality, punishment, and reward. With an impact beyond the Qin dynasty, despite a harsh reception in later times, succeeding emperors and reformers often recalled the templates set by Han Fei, Shen Buhai and Shang Yang, resurfacing as features of Chinese governance even as later dynasties officially embraced Confucianism.[15] One of Sima Tans (165–110 BCE) six schools of thought discussing approaches to governance in the last chapter of the early Han dynastys Records of the Grand Historian,[16] those the Confucian archivists grouped under the fa school (Fajia) probably never formed organized schools to the extent of the Confucians or Mohists.[17]
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Seiyu Group. Seiyu KK (株式会社西友, Kabushiki-gaisha Seiyū; lit. Friend of Seibu Department Stores or Friend of West), or Seiyu Group (西友グループ, Seiyū Gurūpu), is a Japanese group of supermarkets, shopping centers and department stores, headquartered in Akabane (赤羽), Kita, Tokyo.[1][4] On May 8, 2023, the Akabane headquarters office was relocated due to the redevelopment of Seiyus Akabane store site. The current head office location is Kichijoji Honmachi, Musashino City, Tokyo.[5] Its company name means innovation, leadership and excellence.[6] The group was established in December 1946, and was formed in 1956 by Seibu Department Stores, a group company of Seibu Railway. In 1980, Seiyu launched its private brand Mujirushi-Ryōhin (commonly known as MUJI outside Japan). MUJI was transferred to the Ryohin Keikaku Company[7] in 1990, and is no longer part of Seiyu. Also in 1980, Seiyu launched the All-Value-No-Frills brand, an innovation in product-line development. Over 1,450 high quality items in the brand are sold at a moderate price.[6] In 1991, Seiyu formed a consortium with six Asian retailers and one Hawaiian company to exchange expertise and set up joint ventures across Asia.[8]
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Kōshinetsu region. Kōshinetsu (甲信越) is a subregion of the Chūbu region in Japan consisting of Yamanashi, Nagano, and Niigata prefectures.[1] The name Kōshinetsu is a composite formed from the names of old provinces which are adjacent to each other — Kai (now Yamanashi), Shinano (now Nagano) and Echigo (now Niigata). The region is surrounded by the Sea of Japan to its north west, Hokuriku region to its west, Tōkai region to its south west, Kantō region to its south east, and Tōhoku region to its north east. The name for this geographic area is usually combined with Kantō region (as in Kantō-Kōshinetsu[2]); and it is sometimes combined with Hokuriku region (as in Kantō-Kōshinetsu-Hokuriku[3] or Hokuriku-Kōshinetsu[4]). The Kōshinetsu subregion economy is for almost all purposes the same as the Shinetsu subregion economy. The economy of Kōshinetsu subregion is large and highly diversified with a strong focus on silverware, electronics, information technology, precision machinery, agriculture and food products, and tourism. It also produces crude oil. Until 1989, the Kōshinetsu subregion also partook in gold mining, particularly at Sado Island. Per Japanese census data,[7][8] Kōshinetsu subregion has had negative population growth since 2000. Media related to Kōshinetsu region at Wikimedia Commons
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JPN (album). JPN is the third studio album (fourth overall) by Japanese girl group Perfume, released on November 30, 2011, by Tokuma Japan Communications, nearly two and a half years after their second studio album Triangle. The album sold a total of 268,414 after two weeks of release, making it the 24th best-selling album of 2011 according to Oricon.[2] JPN is the groups last release under Tokuma Japan Communications as the group moved to Universal Music Japan (as announced February 28, 2012) for their future releases.[3] JPN was released worldwide on March 6, 2012, to over 50 countries via iTunes.[4] The album was announced at Perfumes official website on September 5, 2011, along with a dance contest, their nineteenth single Spice and their third nationwide arena tour Perfume Third Tour: JPN starting in January 2012.[5] It was released in two different versions; as a CD-only version and in a limited edition CD+DVD featuring promotional videos and commercial spots. The B-side track of Nee (FAKE IT) was not included in this album but two years later in Perfume Global Compilation LOVE THE WORLD album. The album includes all of the groups past four singles: Fushizen na Girl/Natural ni Koishite, Voice, Nee, and Laser Beam/Kasuka na Kaori. It also includes the singles corresponding B-side songs. The only song out of all the singles that did not make it to this album was Fake it from the single Nee.[6]
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Rikken Seiyūkai. Defunct Defunct The Rikken Seiyūkai (立憲政友会; Association of Friends of Constitutional Government) was one of the main political parties in the pre-war Empire of Japan. It was also known simply as the Seiyūkai. Founded on September 15, 1900, by Itō Hirobumi,[2] the Seiyūkai was a pro-government alliance of bureaucrats and former members of the Kenseitō. The Seiyūkai was the most powerful political party in the Lower House of the Diet of Japan from 1900 to 1921, and it promoted big government and large-scale public spending. Though labeled liberal by its own members, it was generally conservative by modern definitions. It often opposed social reforms and it supported bureaucratic control and militarism to win votes. It viewed the Rikken Minseitō as its main rival. The Seiyūkai came into power in October 1900 under the 4th Itō administration. Under its second leader, Saionji Kinmochi, it participated in the Movement to Protect Constitutional Government from 1912 to 1913. It was the ruling party under the Prime Minister Yamamoto Gonnohyōe from 1913 to 1914. Cabinet minister (and later 4th party president) Takahashi Korekiyo helped reinforce its ties with the zaibatsu, especially the Mitsui financial interests.
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Pentagon Army Heliport. Pentagon Army Heliport (ICAO: KJPN, FAA LID: JPN) is a military heliport serving the Pentagon in the U.S. state of Virginia. It consists of a single pentagon-shaped helipad and is located on the northern side of the Pentagon building.[1][2] It is used for ferrying VIPs such as military leaders and foreign guests to and from the Pentagon by helicopter or tilt-rotor aircraft.[3] It replaced a previous helipad on the west side of the building adjacent to the impact site of the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 on 11 September 2001 and which was closed to create the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial. This article about an airport in Virginia is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
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Toyota JPN Taxi. The Toyota JPN Taxi (Japanese: トヨタ・ジャパンタクシー, Hepburn: Toyota Japantakushī), sometimes known as the Toyota Japan Taxi,[1] is a hybrid electric taxicab built to universal design specifications mandated by the Japanese government.[2][3] Exhibited as the JPN Taxi Concept at the 43rd Tokyo Motor Show in 2013, it has been produced by Toyota since 2017, mainly for the Japanese, Thai, and Hong Kong markets. Marketed as a successor to the Comfort and the Crown Sedan, it is currently being manufactured by Toyota Motor East Japan under the supervision of chief engineer Hiroshi Kayukawa.[4] The JPN Taxi was based around an emissions and accessibility mandate by the Japanese government through consultation from carmakers, taxi companies and advocates for the disabled in 2012 to meet its universal design goals for the 2020 Summer Olympics.[2][3] Built in part to evoke the same sense of recognition as the iconic London black cab, it is available from Toyota in 3 colours: black, white, and a deep indigo Toyota refers to as koiai (深藍).[1][5][6] The vehicles exterior dimensions are in compliance with Japanese vehicle size regulations that allow tax savings for commercial use. While the JPN Taxi was developed in conjunction with the Toyota Sienta, the two vehicles share almost no elements besides the floor pan to allow for the fitment of specialized taxi equipment.[7]
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Louis XIV. Louis XIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great (Louis le Grand [lwi lə ɡʁɑ̃]) or the Sun King (le Roi Soleil [lə ʁwa sɔlɛj]), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any monarch in history.[1][a] An emblem of the age of absolutism in Europe,[3] Louis XIVs legacy includes French colonial expansion, the conclusion of the Thirty Years War involving the Habsburgs, and a controlling influence on the style of fine arts and architecture in France, including the transformation of the Palace of Versailles into a center of royal power and politics. Louis XIVs pageantry and opulence helped define the French Baroque style of art and architecture and promoted his image as supreme leader of France in the early modern period. Louis XIV began his personal rule of France in 1661 after the death of his chief minister Cardinal Mazarin. A believer in the divine right of kings, Louis XIV continued Louis XIIIs work of creating a centralized state governed from a capital. Louis XIV sought to eliminate the remnants of feudalism persisting in parts of France by compelling many members of the nobility to reside at his lavish Palace of Versailles. In doing so, he succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many of whom had participated in the Fronde rebellions during his minority. He consolidated a system of absolute monarchy in France that endured until the French Revolution. Louis XIV enforced uniformity of religion under the Catholic Church. His revocation of the Edict of Nantes abolished the rights of the Huguenot Protestant minority and subjected them to a wave of dragonnades, effectively forcing Huguenots to emigrate or convert, virtually destroying the French Protestant community. During Louis long reign, France emerged as the leading European power and regularly made war. A conflict with Spain marked his entire childhood, while during his personal rule, Louis fought three major continental conflicts, each against powerful foreign alliances: the Franco-Dutch War, the Nine Years War, and the War of the Spanish Succession. In addition, France contested shorter wars such as the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions. Warfare defined Louiss foreign policy, impelled by his personal ambition for glory and power: a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique.[4] His wars strained Frances resources to the utmost, while in peacetime he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats that their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military.[5] Upon his death in 1715, Louis XIV left his great-grandson and successor, Louis XV, a powerful but war-weary kingdom, in major debt after the War of the Spanish Succession that had raged on since 1701. Some of his other notable achievements include the construction of the 240 km (150 mi) Canal du Midi in Southern France, the patronage of artists (the playwrights Molière, Racine, the man of letters Boileau, the composer and dancer Lully, the painter Le Brun and the landscape architect Le Nôtre, all contributed to the apogee of French classicism, described during his lifetime as the Grand Siècle, or even the century of Louis XIV), and the founding of the French Academy of Sciences.
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Heir Apparent (novel). Heir Apparent is a science fiction/fantasy novel by young adult fiction author Vivian Vande Velde, about a girl who becomes trapped inside a looping virtual reality role-playing game called Heir Apparent. The same girl appeared as a secondary character in User Unfriendly, Vande Veldes earlier book about a game from the same fictional company, Rasmussem, Inc. She later wrote a third book about this company, Deadly Pink. She does not consider the second or third book sequels, despite their taking place in the same universe as the first one, and she says the three books can be read in any order.[1] Vande Velde says, Heir Apparent was a lot of fun to write because its about a girl caught in a virtual-reality-type game. Even though Giannine finds herself in a vaguely medieval world, I didnt have to worry about historical accuracy. I also was able to keep throwing all sorts of things at her -- a dragon, an army of ghosts, and a poetry-loving/head-chopping statue.[2] Giannine receives a gift certificate for a Rasmussem Gaming Center as a birthday present from her father. When she arrives at the local center, a crowd from CPOC, the Citizens to Protect Our Children, has come for a demonstration against such games. She enters the arcade and gets hooked up to Heir Apparent, a single-player RPG. Giannines character, Janine de St. Jehan, is the illegitimate child of the recently deceased King Cynric, who pronounced her heir to the throne, passing over three legitimate sons. Her task is to survive the three days (which will only last thirty minutes in the real world) before her coronation. Anytime her character dies, she will be sent back to the beginning of the game.
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Europa Universalis III. Europa Universalis III is a grand strategy video game developed by Paradox Development Studio and published by Paradox Interactive. The game was released for Microsoft Windows in January 2007, and was later ported to Mac OS X by Virtual Programming in November 2007. The player controls a nation and handles matters concerning war, diplomacy, trade, and economy. The original game without expansions starts in 1453, right after the Fall of Constantinople, and continues to 1789, just past the beginning of the French Revolution. The expansion Napoleons Ambition extends the end game year forward to 1821, whereas the expansion In Nomine moves the starting year back to 1399, making it the longest as far as gameplay time in the series thus far. Europa Universalis III was the first to use Paradoxs new 3D engine, Clausewitz Engine, that required user systems to meet the Pixel Shader 2.0 specification. The map has 1,700 land and sea provinces encompassing most of the world, with 250 playable historical nations. The game also uses elements of other Paradox games such as Crusader Kings, Victoria, and Hearts of Iron II. Players begin the game by choosing what date they would like to start their campaign and which country they would like to play as. Once in game, players can shape their countries in many different ways. Forms of government include various kingdoms, republics, theocracies, and tribal governments. Players can influence a nations society and values by adjusting sliders such as free trade/mercantilism, and may hire court advisors such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. As the game advances, players can pick national ideas such as Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, which give specialized bonuses. The game has over 300 playable countries, including giants like Ming China, regional powers like Bohemia and Kazan, and tiny nations like the Maldives. Without formal victory conditions, players sometimes set goals for themselves like raising a minor city-state to world prominence. The world map includes some 1,700 provinces and sea zones. Many provinces in the Americas, Africa, and Oceania are not owned by any country, allowing for colonization.
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Henry VIII. Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disagreement with Pope Clement VII about such an annulment led Henry to initiate the English Reformation, separating the Church of England from papal authority. He appointed himself Supreme Head of the Church of England and dissolved convents and monasteries, for which he was excommunicated by the pope. Born in Greenwich, Henry brought radical changes to the Constitution of England, expanding royal power and ushering in the theory of the divine right of kings in opposition to papal supremacy. He frequently used charges of treason and heresy to quell dissent, and those accused were often executed without a formal trial using bills of attainder. He achieved many of his political aims through his chief ministers, some of whom were banished or executed when they fell out of his favour. Thomas Wolsey, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, and Thomas Cranmer all figured prominently in his administration. Henry was an extravagant spender, using proceeds from the dissolution of the monasteries and acts of the Reformation Parliament. He converted money that was formerly paid to Rome into royal revenue. Despite the money from these sources, he was often on the verge of financial ruin due to personal extravagance and costly and largely unproductive wars, particularly with King Francis I of France, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, King James V of Scotland, and the Scottish regency under the Earl of Arran and Mary of Guise. He founded the Royal Navy, oversaw the annexation of Wales to England with the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542, and was the first English monarch to rule as King of Ireland following the Crown of Ireland Act 1542. Henrys contemporaries considered him an attractive, educated, and accomplished king. He has been described as one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne and his reign described as the most important in English history.[3][4] He was an author and composer. As he aged, he became severely overweight and his health suffered. He is frequently characterised in his later life as a lustful, egotistical, paranoid, and tyrannical monarch.[5][6] He was succeeded by his son Edward VI.
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West Iberian languages. West Iberian is a branch of the Ibero-Romance languages that includes the Castilian languages (Spanish, Judaeo-Spanish), Astur-Leonese (Asturian, Leonese, Mirandese, Extremaduran (sometimes), Cantabrian),[1][2] Navarro-Aragonese and the descendants of Galician-Portuguese. Until a few centuries ago, they formed a dialect continuum covering the western, central and southern parts of the Iberian Peninsula—excepting the Basque and Catalan-speaking territories. This is still the situation in a few regions, particularly in the northern part of the peninsula, but due to the differing sociopolitical histories of these languages (independence of Portugal since the early 12th century, unification of Spain in the late 15th century under the Catholic Monarchs, who privileged Castilian Spanish over the other Iberian languages), Spanish and Portuguese have tended to overtake and to a large extent absorb their sister languages while they kept diverging from each other. There is controversy over whether the members of the modern Galician-Portuguese and Astur-Leonese sub-groups are languages or dialects. A common, though disputed, classification is to state that Portuguese and Galician are separate languages, as are Asturian, Leonese, and Mirandese. Cantabrian and Extremaduran are considered codialects of the Leonese language for UNESCO, whereas the latter is a Castilian dialect in the ISO codes. Papiamento is a West Iberian creole language spoken in the Dutch West Indies and believed to be derived from Portuguese, Judaeo-Portuguese and Spanish. Bold indicates language families. Daggers indicate extinct languages.
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Watershed (Opeth album). Watershed is the ninth studio album by Swedish progressive metal band Opeth. Released by Roadrunner Records, Watershed is the first studio album by Opeth to feature guitarist Fredrik Åkesson and drummer Martin Axenrot, who replaced longtime guitarist Peter Lindgren and drummer Martin Lopez. The artwork for the album was made by Travis Smith (who has created the artwork for eight previous Opeth releases) in collaboration with Mikael Åkerfeldt.[3] It was the bands last studio album to contain death growls or any death metal elements until 2024s The Last Will and Testament. On opening track Coil, Mikael Åkerfeldt duets with Nathalie Lorichs, who was dating drummer Martin Axenrot at the time.[4] The band has revealed that they were initially going to start the album with what eventually became the second track, Heir Apparent; however, they preferred Coil as an introductory track for its contrast to Heir Apparent.[4] Åkerfeldt was inspired to write the single Burden while listening to the Scorpions song Living And Dying during a stay in Turkey.[5] The album was met with universal acclaim according to Metacritic, receiving a metascore of 82/100 based on 10 critics.[6]
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Heir Apparent (band). Heir Apparent is an American heavy metal/progressive metal band from Seattle, formed in 1983. Heir Apparent was formed in 1983 in Seattle by guitarist Terry Gorle.[1] Vocalist Paul Davidson, bassist Derek Peace, and drummer Jim Kovach joined Gorle to form Heir Apparents original lineup. In July 1984, the band entered Triad Studios in Redmond, WA, to record a five-song demo[2] that received local airplay on KISW and KZOK. A month after recording their first demo in 1984, Jim Kovach was replaced by Ray Schwartz (using the name Raymond Black). This lineup recorded Heir Apparents debut studio album, Graceful Inheritance.[1] The album was released for the European market in January 1986 by the independent French label Black Dragon Records.[3][4] Supported by the UKs Metal Hammer magazine, Heir Apparent toured France, the Netherlands, and Germany in May and June 1986, originally as a support act but ending as the headliner on a tour with Savage Grace. Germanys Rock Hard gave the album a rating of 49/50 points in the February 1986 issue.[5] Encouraged by strong sales, Black Dragon re-released the album in October 1986, this time on CD, making it one of the first CDs released by an independent label in Europe.[citation needed] Graceful Inheritance was never released in the US during the 1980s, the groups home country. Graceful Inheritance was ranked No. 188 in the German hardcover book, Best of Rock and Metal – Top 500 Albums of All Time,[6] published in 2005. Following the departure of lead vocalist Paul Davidson in 1987, Steve Benito took over singing duties.[4] Additionally, Heir Apparent’s lineup became a quintet with the addition of keyboardist Mike Jackson.[1] The new lineup recorded Heir Apparent’s second studio album, One Small Voice, which marked a musical shift toward the more technical sound of progressive metal, compared to the traditional heavy and power metal style of the previous release. In the summer of 1988, Heir Apparent had their first large arena performance, serving as an opening act for David Lee Roth at the Seattle Center Coliseum. Soon after, the band signed a seven-album contract in 1988 through a joint venture with Capitol Records/Metal Blade, but suddenly dissolved even before the official release of One Small Voice in June 1989.[3] Without concert support, and with the emergence of grunge in the Seattle area, the second album did not reach the underground success and critical acclaim of the debut until many years later, prompting the Greek label Arkeyn Steel Records to release a digitally remastered limited edition of One Small Voice with bonus tracks and a live DVD[7] from a 1988 concert video of this lineup in 2010. The German label Hellion Records released the Triad demo compilation album in late 1999, along with a reissue of the band’s first album, Graceful Inheritance. The band remained inactive until 2000, when guitarist Terry Gorle was invited to perform at the Wacken Open Air festival. Gorle reunited with the original rhythm section of Ray Schwartz and Derek Peace, with the addition of Michael James Flatters on vocals. Following that comeback performance, Terry Gorle led several different lineups in concerts between 2002 and 2004. The 2004 lineup—Terry Gorle (guitar), Bobby Ferkovich (bass), Op Sakiya (keyboards), Jeff McCormack (drums), and Peter Orullian (vocals)—reunited to perform in Europe in November 2006, headlining Germanys Keep It True festival and playing two additional shows in Greece.
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The Battle for Wesnoth. The Battle for Wesnoth is a free and open-source[a] turn-based strategy video game with a high fantasy setting (similar to J. R. R. Tolkiens legendarium), designed by Australian-American[b] developer David White and first released in June 2003. In Wesnoth, the player controls a particular faction/race and attempts to build a powerful army by controlling villages and defeating enemies for experience. The game is loosely based on the Sega Genesis games Master of Monsters and Warsong.[7] The Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based wargame played on a hex map.[8] The strategy of battle involves trying to fight on favorable terrain, at a favorable time of day, and, if possible, with units that are strong or well suited against the enemies. Other concerns are capturing villages that produce a particular trickle rate of gold per turn for unit recruitment, and positioning units to restrict enemy movement. Games of Wesnoth come both in the form of single-player campaigns and multiplayer matches. The goal of these games is usually to defeat all enemy leaders, but there may be other goals. Each unit in Wesnoth has its own strengths and weaknesses. A units defense (which this case means dodge chance) is based on the terrain it stands on. Elves, for example, are difficult to hit when fighting in a forest. Different types of attacks (melee and ranged), weapon types (pierce, blade, impact, arcane, cold, and fire), and a day-night cycle (in most maps) that alternately favors lawful and chaotic units, altering the amount of damage a unit deals. Units can advance to higher level counterparts and become more powerful as they participate in combat.[9][10] A central design philosophy of the game is the KISS principle; for a new idea to be accepted, it should not complicate gameplay.[11] Another important facet of the game is randomness and its manipulation: it is never certain whether a units attack will fail or succeed, only likely or unlikely. Developers have stated that the potential for a skirmish to go better or worse than expected adds excitement, replayability and strategic depth to the game.[12]
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Castilian Spanish. In English, Castilian Spanish can mean the variety of Peninsular Spanish spoken in northern and central Spain, the standard form of Spanish, or Spanish from Spain in general.[1][2][3][4][5][6] In Spanish, the term castellano (Castilian) can either refer to the Spanish language as a whole (to distinguish it from other Spanish languages such as Catalan, Basque, Galician, etc.), or to the medieval Old Spanish, a predecessor to Early Modern Spanish. The term Castilian Spanish is used in English for the specific varieties of Spanish spoken in north and central Spain. This is because much of the variation in Peninsular Spanish is between north and south, often imagined as Castilian versus Andalusian.[7] Typically, it is more loosely used to denote the Spanish spoken in all of Spain as compared to Latin American Spanish. In Spain itself, Spanish is not a uniform language and there exist several different varieties of Spanish; in addition, there are other official and unofficial languages in the country, although Spanish is official throughout Spain. Castellano septentrional (Northern Castilian) is the Spanish term for the dialects from the Northern half of Spain, including those from Aragón or Navarre, which were never part of Castile. These dialects can be distinguished from the southern varieties of Andalusia, Extremadura, and Murcia.[8] Español castellano, the literal translation of Castilian Spanish, is not a common expression; it could refer to varieties found in the region of Castile; however, the dialects of Castile, like other dialects, are not homogenous, and they tend to merge gradually with the dialects of other regions.[9]
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Japan. Japan[a] is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asian mainland, it is bordered to the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in the south. The Japanese archipelago consists of four major islands alongside 14,121 smaller islands, covering 377,975 square kilometers (145,937 sq mi). Divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions, about 75% of the countrys terrain is mountainous and heavily forested, concentrating its agriculture and highly urbanized population along its eastern coastal plains. With a population of over 123 million as of 2025, it is the 11th most populous country. The countrys capital and largest city is Tokyo. The first known habitation of the archipelago dates to the Upper Paleolithic, with the beginning of the Japanese Paleolithic dating to c. 36,000 BC. Between the 4th and 6th centuries, its kingdoms were united under an emperor in Nara and later Heian-kyō. From the 12th century, actual power was held by military dictators known as shōgun and feudal lords called daimyō, enforced by warrior nobility named samurai. After rule by the Kamakura and Ashikaga shogunates and a century of warring states, Japan was unified in 1600 by the Tokugawa shogunate, which implemented an isolationist foreign policy. In 1853, an American fleet forced Japan to open trade to the West, which led to the end of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial power in 1868. In the Meiji period, Japan pursued rapid industrialization and modernization, as well as militarism and overseas colonization. The country invaded China in 1937 and attacked the United States and European colonial powers in 1941, thus entering World War II as an Axis power. After being defeated in the Pacific War and suffering the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered in 1945 and came under Allied occupation. Afterwards, the country underwent rapid economic growth and became one of the five earliest major non-NATO allies of the U.S. Since the collapse of the Japanese asset price bubble in the early 1990s, it has experienced a prolonged period of economic stagnation referred to as the Lost Decades.
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Seiyūhontō. Naruhito Fumihito Shigeru Ishiba (LDP)
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UK (disambiguation). UK usually refers to the United Kingdom, a country in Europe. UK, U.K., Uk, or uk may also refer to:
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United Kingdom (disambiguation). The United Kingdom (full name: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) is a country located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. United Kingdom may also refer to:
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First language. A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth[1] or within the critical period. In some countries, the term native language or mother tongue refers to the language of ones ethnic group rather than the individuals actual first language. Generally, to state a language as a mother tongue, one must have full native fluency in that language.[2] The first language of a child is part of that childs personal, social and cultural identity.[3] Another impact of the first language is that it brings about the reflection and learning of successful social patterns of acting and speaking.[clarification needed][4] Research suggests that while a non-native speaker may develop fluency in a targeted language after about two years of immersion, it can take between five and seven years for that child to be on the same working level as their native speaking counterparts.[5] On 17 November 1999, UNESCO designated 21 February as International Mother Language Day. A person qualifies as a native speaker of a language by being born and immersed in the language during youth, in a family in which the adults shared a similar language experience to the child.[6] Native speakers are considered to be an authority on their given language because of their natural acquisition process regarding the language, as opposed to having learned the language later in life. That is achieved by personal interaction with the language and speakers of the language. Native speakers will not necessarily be knowledgeable about every grammatical rule of the language, but they will have good intuition of the rules through their experience with the language.[6]
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Language family. A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term family is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics analogous to a family tree, or to phylogenetic trees of taxa used in evolutionary taxonomy. Linguists thus describe the daughter languages within a language family as being genetically related.[1] The divergence of a proto-language into daughter languages typically occurs through geographical separation, with different regional dialects of the proto-language undergoing different language changes and thus becoming distinct languages over time.[2] One well-known example of a language family is the Romance languages, including Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, Romansh, and many others, all of which are descended from Vulgar Latin.[note 1][3] The Romance family itself is part of the larger Indo-European family, which includes many other languages native to Europe and South Asia, all believed to have descended from a common ancestor known as Proto-Indo-European. A language family is usually said to contain at least two languages, although language isolates — languages that are not related to any other language — are occasionally referred to as families that contain one language. Conversely, there is no upper bound to the number of languages a family can contain. Some families, such as the Austronesian languages, contain over 1000.[4] Language families can be identified from characteristics shared amongst their languages. Sound changes are one of the strongest pieces of evidence that can be used to identify a genetic relationship because of their predictable and consistent nature, and through the comparative method can be used to reconstruct proto-languages. However, languages can also change through language contact, which can falsely suggest genetic relationships. For example, the Mongolic, Tungusic, and Turkic languages share many similarities that have led several scholars to believe they were related. These supposed relationships were later discovered (in the view of most scholars) to be derived through language contact and thus they are not related through shared ancestry.[5] Eventually though, intense language contact with other language families, and inconsistent changes within the original language family, will obscure inherited characteristics and make it virtually impossible to deduce earlier relationships; even the oldest demonstrable language family, Afroasiatic, is far younger than language itself.[6]
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Second language. A second language (L2) is a language spoken in addition to ones first language (L1). A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speakers home country, or a foreign language. A speakers dominant language, which is the language a speaker uses most or is most comfortable with, is not necessarily the speakers first language. For example, the Canadian census defines first language for its purposes as What is the language that this person first learned at home in childhood and still understands?,[1] recognizing that for some, the earliest language may be lost, a process known as language attrition. This can happen when young children start school or move to a new language environment. The distinction between acquiring and learning was made by Stephen Krashen[2] as part of his monitor theory. According to Krashen, the acquisition of a language is a natural process; whereas learning a language is a conscious one. In the former, the student needs to partake in natural communicative situations. In the latter, error correction is present, as is the study of grammatical rules isolated from natural language. Not all educators in second language agree to this distinction; however, the study of how a second language is learned/acquired is referred to as second-language acquisition (SLA). Research in SLA ...focuses on the developing knowledge and use of a language by children and adults who already know at least one other language... [and] a knowledge of second-language acquisition may help educational policy makers set more realistic goals for programmes for both foreign language courses and the learning of the majority language by minority language children and adults.[3] SLA has been influenced by both linguistic and psychological theories. One of the dominant linguistic theories hypothesizes that a device or module of sorts in the brain contains innate knowledge. Many psychological theories, on the other hand, hypothesize that cognitive mechanisms, responsible for much of human learning, process language.
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Japan. Japan[a] is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asian mainland, it is bordered to the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in the south. The Japanese archipelago consists of four major islands alongside 14,121 smaller islands, covering 377,975 square kilometers (145,937 sq mi). Divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions, about 75% of the countrys terrain is mountainous and heavily forested, concentrating its agriculture and highly urbanized population along its eastern coastal plains. With a population of over 123 million as of 2025, it is the 11th most populous country. The countrys capital and largest city is Tokyo. The first known habitation of the archipelago dates to the Upper Paleolithic, with the beginning of the Japanese Paleolithic dating to c. 36,000 BC. Between the 4th and 6th centuries, its kingdoms were united under an emperor in Nara and later Heian-kyō. From the 12th century, actual power was held by military dictators known as shōgun and feudal lords called daimyō, enforced by warrior nobility named samurai. After rule by the Kamakura and Ashikaga shogunates and a century of warring states, Japan was unified in 1600 by the Tokugawa shogunate, which implemented an isolationist foreign policy. In 1853, an American fleet forced Japan to open trade to the West, which led to the end of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial power in 1868. In the Meiji period, Japan pursued rapid industrialization and modernization, as well as militarism and overseas colonization. The country invaded China in 1937 and attacked the United States and European colonial powers in 1941, thus entering World War II as an Axis power. After being defeated in the Pacific War and suffering the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered in 1945 and came under Allied occupation. Afterwards, the country underwent rapid economic growth and became one of the five earliest major non-NATO allies of the U.S. Since the collapse of the Japanese asset price bubble in the early 1990s, it has experienced a prolonged period of economic stagnation referred to as the Lost Decades.
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Great Britain. Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland and Wales. With an area of 209,331 km2 (80,823 sq mi), it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island, and the ninth-largest island in the world.[6][d] It is dominated by a maritime climate with narrow temperature differences between seasons. The island of Ireland, with an area 40 per cent that of Great Britain, is to the west – these islands, along with over 1,000 smaller surrounding islands and named substantial rocks, comprise the British Isles archipelago.[7] Connected to mainland Europe until 9,000 years ago by a land bridge now known as Doggerland,[8] Great Britain has been inhabited by modern humans for around 30,000 years. In 2011, it had a population of about 61 million, making it the worlds third-most-populous island after Honshu in Japan and Java in Indonesia,[9][10] and the most populated island outside of Asia. The term Great Britain can also refer to the political territory of England, Scotland and Wales, which includes their offshore islands.[11] This territory, together with Northern Ireland, constitutes the United Kingdom.[2] The archipelago has been referred to by a single name for over 2000 years: the term British Isles derives from terms used by classical geographers to describe this island group. By 50 BC, Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a collective name for the British Isles.[12] However, with the Roman conquest of Britain, the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, and later Roman-occupied Britain south of Caledonia.[13][14][15]
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Union Jack. The Union Jack[1][2] or Union Flag is the national flag of the United Kingdom. The flag consists of the red cross of Saint George (the patron saint of England), edged in white, superimposed on the red saltire of Saint Patrick (the patron saint of Ireland), also edged in white, superimposed on the saltire of Saint Andrew (the patron saint of Scotland). Wales is not represented in the flag by Waless patron saint, Saint David, because the flag was designed while Wales was part of the Kingdom of England. The origins of the flag date to the earlier flag of Great Britain which was established in 1606 by a proclamation of King James VI and I of Scotland and England.[3] The present design was established by an Order in Council following the Act of Union 1801, which joined the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was unchanged following the secession of the Irish Free State in 1922. It is sometimes asserted that the term Union Jack properly refers only to naval usage, but this assertion was dismissed by the Flag Institute in 2013 after historical investigations.[4][5][6][a]
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Vascular plant. Vascular plants (from Latin vasculum duct), also called tracheophytes (UK: /ˈtrækiːəˌfaɪts/,[5] US: /ˈtreɪkiːəˌfaɪts/)[6] or collectively tracheophyta (/ˌtreɪkiːˈɒfɪtə/;[7][8][9] from Ancient Greek τραχεῖα ἀρτηρία (trakheîa artēría) windpipe and φυτά (phutá) plants),[9] are plants that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They also have a specialized non-lignified tissue (the phloem) to conduct products of photosynthesis. The group includes most land plants (c. 300,000 accepted known species)[10] excluding mosses. Vascular plants include the clubmosses, horsetails, ferns, gymnosperms (including conifers), and angiosperms (flowering plants). They are contrasted with nonvascular plants such as mosses and green algae. Scientific names for the vascular plants group include Tracheophyta,[11][4]: 251 Tracheobionta[12] and Equisetopsida sensu lato. Some early land plants (the rhyniophytes) had less developed vascular tissue; the term eutracheophyte has been used for all other vascular plants, including all living ones. Historically, vascular plants were known as higher plants, as it was believed that they were further evolved than other plants due to being more complex organisms. However, this is an antiquated remnant of the obsolete scala naturae, and the term is generally considered to be unscientific.[13] Botanists define vascular plants by three primary characteristics:
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Monorchism. Monorchism (also monorchidism) is the state of having only one testicle within the scrotum. An individual having monorchism can be referred to as monorchid. This can be due to one testicle: Although extremely rare, monorchism has been observed to be characteristic of some animal species, notably in beetles.[21]
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Gorge (disambiguation). A gorge or canyon is a deep cleft resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of rivers. Gorge may also refer to:
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Constitutional monarchy. Constitutional monarchy, also known as limited monarchy, parliamentary monarchy or democratic monarchy, is a form of monarchy in which the monarch exercises their authority in accordance with a constitution and is not alone in making decisions.[1][2][3] Constitutional monarchies differ from absolute monarchies (in which a monarch is the only decision-maker) in that they are bound to exercise powers and authorities within limits prescribed by an established legal framework. A constitutional monarch in a parliamentary democracy is a hereditary symbolic head of state (who may be an emperor, king or queen, prince or grand duke) who mainly performs representative and civic roles but does not exercise executive or policy-making power.[4] Constitutional monarchies range from countries such as Liechtenstein, Monaco, Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain and Bhutan, where the constitution grants substantial discretionary powers to the sovereign, to countries such as the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Lesotho, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, and Japan, where the monarch retains significantly less, if any, personal discretion in the exercise of their authority. On the surface level, this distinction may be hard to establish, with numerous liberal democracies restraining monarchic power in practice rather than written law, e.g., the constitution of the United Kingdom, which affords the monarch substantial, if limited, legislative and executive powers. Constitutional monarchy may refer to a system in which the monarch acts as a non-party political ceremonial head of state under the constitution, whether codified or uncodified.[5] While most monarchs retain formal authority and governments may legally operate in their name, in the typical European model, the monarch no longer personally sets public policy or selects political leaders. Political scientist Vernon Bogdanor, paraphrasing Thomas Macaulay, has defined a constitutional monarch as A sovereign who reigns but does not rule.[6] In addition to acting as a visible symbol of national unity, a constitutional monarch may hold formal powers such as dissolving parliament or giving royal assent to legislation. However, such powers generally may only be exercised strictly in accordance with either written constitutional principles or unwritten constitutional conventions, rather than any personal political preferences of the sovereign.
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Monarchianism. Monarchianism is a doctrine that emphasizes God as one indivisible being,[1][2][3][4] in direct contrast to Trinitarianism, which defines the Godhead as three co-eternal, consubstantial, co-immanent, and equally divine hypostases. During the patristic period, Christian theologians attempted to clarify the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.[5] Monarchianism developed in the 2nd century and persisted further into the 3rd century.[1][2] Monarchianism (from the Greek monarkhia, meaning ruling of one, and -ismos, meaning practice or teaching) stresses the absolute, uncompromising unity of God in contrast to the doctrine of the Trinity,[1][6] which is often lambasted as veiled tritheism by nontrinitarian Christians and other monotheists.[7] Monarchians were opposed by Logos theologians (Tertullian, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen of Alexandria). The Trinitarian view gained prominence and was adopted at the First Council of Constantinople in 381.[8] Monarchianism was considered a heresy after the 4th century.[2] Two types of monarchianism were propounded.[2] Adoptionism (or dynamic monarchianism or Dynamism) holds that God is one being, above all else, wholly indivisible, and of one nature. It holds that the Son was not co-eternal with the Father and that Jesus Christ was essentially granted godhood (adopted) for the plans of God and for his own perfect life and works. Different variations of Dynamism hold that Jesus was adopted either at the time of his baptism or his ascension. Notable adherents included Artemon, Beryllus of Bostra, a third-century bishop who debated with Origen, Paul of Samosata, a bishop of Antioch, and Theodotus of Byzantium.[3] Modalistic monarchianism (or Modalism) considers God to be one, who appears and works through the different modes of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Following this view, all of the Godhead is understood to dwell in the person of Jesus from the incarnation.[9] The terms Father and Son are then used to describe the distinction between the transcendence of God and the incarnation. Lastly, since God is understood as a Spirit in the context of the Gospel of John,[10] it is held that the Holy Spirit should not be understood as a separate entity but rather as a mere descriptor of Gods action.[citation needed] Notable adherents included Noetus, Praxeas, and Sabellius, hence why the view is commonly called Sabellianism. Nevertheless, Sabelliuss writings did not survive and so the little that is known about his beliefs is from secondary sources.[citation needed]
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Fandub. A fandub is a fan-made dub or redub of a live-action or animated production. Dubbing is the act of re-recording of a live-action or animated production, typically in a language other than the original. Most productions are translated from different languages, but some fandubs are for productions originally in the fandubbers native language. The dialogue can range from being a close translation to a completely-altered version of the original scripts story and plots, as well as the personalities of protagonists. The reasons behind fandubbing can range from the production not receiving an official dub to the official dub being poorly received.[1] Fandubs are most commonly done with Japanese animation, but sometimes include live-action and animated series and movies in any language. Versions where the story line, character personalities, and content are dramatically altered, typically for humor, are called Abridged Series and fundubs. Fandubbing can also refer to a translated cover of a song in another language, frequently anime theme songs. Several English-language voice actors, such as Amanda Lee and Cristina Vee, have published fandub covers on YouTube. Amateur voice acting began simultaneously and independently from each other in a small number of developed countries. One of the first recorded projects, dating from 1989,[2] was the anime fan-dub parody Laputa II: The Sequel, an English redub of the first four episodes of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. A Star Wars fandub of Dominik Kuhn (Dodokay), using a scene in the film for a viral marketing parody, gained fame with German mainstream media.[3] Another Star Wars fandub of Revenge of the Sith, using mistranslated subtitles from a bootleg Chinese version, became popular on YouTube as Star War The Third Gathers: Backstroke of the West.[4]
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Original net animation. An original net animation (ONA), known in Japan as web anime (ウェブアニメ, webu anime), is an anime that is directly released onto the Internet.[1][2] ONAs may also have been aired on television if they were first directly released on the Internet. The name mirrors original video animation, a term that has been used in the anime industry for straight-to-video animation since the early 1980s. A growing number of trailers and preview episodes of new anime have been released as ONA. For example, the anime movie of Megumi can be considered an ONA. ONAs have the tendency to be shorter than traditional anime titles, sometimes running only a few minutes.[3] There are many examples of an original net animation, such as Hetalia: Axis Powers, which only last a few minutes per episode. But while that was true for the beginning of the 2010s, this began to change in the second half of the decade as full series began to be licensed exclusively for streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+. Most animation in Japan is made for television or for other audio-visual formats, which include ONAs that can be viewed on television, mobile devices or computers.[4] Makoto Shinkai was a pioneer of original net animation (ONA) in the late 1990s, producing his first animated short films on a home computer and distributing them on the Internet.[5] He produced the earliest animated short ONA, including Tōi Sekai (Other Worlds) in 1997,[5] Kakomareta Sekai (The World Be Enclosed) in 1998,[6] and Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko (She and Her Cat) in 1999.[5] Another early short ONA was Azumanga Web Daioh (2000).[7] As broadband Internet bandwidth began to increase in speed and availability, delivering high-quality online video over the Internet became a reality. In the early 2000s, the Japanese anime industry began broadcasting ONA web series on the Internet.[8] Early examples of ONA series include Infinite Ryvius: Illusion (2000),[9] Ajimu (2001)[10] and Mahou Yuugi (2001).[8]
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Canon. Canon or Canons may refer to:
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Extract from Captain Stormfields Visit to Heaven. Extract from Captain Stormfields Visit to Heaven is a short story written by American writer Mark Twain. It first appeared in print in Harpers Magazine in December 1907 and January 1908, and was published in book form with some revisions in 1909. This was the last story published by Twain during his life.[2] The story follows Captain Elias Stormfield on his decades long cosmic journey to Heaven; his accidental misplacement after racing a comet; his short-lived interest in singing and playing the harp (generated by his preconceptions of heaven); and the general obsession of souls with the celebrities of Heaven such as Adam, Moses, and Elijah, who according to Twain become as distant to most people in Heaven as living celebrities are on Earth. Twain uses this story to show his view that the common conception of Heaven is ludicrous, and points out the incongruities of such beliefs with his characteristic adroit usage of hyperbole. Much of the storys description is given by the character Sandy McWilliams, a cranberry farmer who is very experienced in the ways of Heaven. Sandy gives Stormfield, a newcomer, the description in the form of a conversational question-and-answer session. The Heaven described by him is similar to the conventional Christian Heaven, but includes a larger version of all the locations on Earth, as well as of everywhere in the universe (which mention of, albeit as a backdrop, is the last science fiction element). All sentient life-forms travel to Heaven, often through interplanetary or interstellar space, and land at a particular gate (which are without number), which is reserved for people from that originating planet. Each newcomer must then give his name and planet of origin to a gatekeeper, who sends him in to Heaven. Once inside, the being spends eternity living as they think fit, usually according to its true (sometimes undiscovered) talent. According to one of the characters, a cobbler who has the soul of a poet in him wont have to make shoes here, implying that he would instead turn to poetry and achieve perfection in it. On special occasions a procession of the greatest people in history is formed; on this particular occasion this includes Buddha, William Shakespeare, Homer, Muhammed, Daniel, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah plus several otherwise unknown people whose talents far exceeded those of the worlds pivotal figures, but who were never famous on Earth. As Stormfield proceeds through Heaven he learns that the conventional image of angels as winged, white-robed figures bearing haloes, harps, and palm leaves is a mere illusion generated for the benefit of humans, who mistake figurative language for accurate description (the wings are part of their uniforms, and not functionally wings); that all of Heavens denizens choose their ages, thus aligning themselves with the time of life at which they were most content; that anything desired is awarded to its seeker, if it does not violate any prohibition; that the prohibitions themselves are different from those envisioned on Earth; that each of the Earth-like regions of Heaven includes every human being who has ever lived on it; that families are not always together forever, because of decisions made by those who have died first; that white-skinned people are a minority in Heaven; that kings are not kings in Heaven (Charles II is a comedian while Henry VI has a religious book-stand), etc.
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Storm Field. Elliott David Storm Field (born November 25, 1948)[1] is an American retired television meteorologist, most noted for his time in the New York media market. He followed his father, longtime New York weatherman Frank Field, into the business. Field was given the nickname Storm by his parents as a baby, as a result of being very active while still in his mothers womb (which led a doctor to refer to him as a stormy child), as well as being born on a stormy night on Thanksgiving Day.[1] Storm Fields first foray into weather-casting came as part of WABC-TVs Eyewitness News program. Hired by the station in March 1976, he first appeared on television when covering Hurricane Belle, followed by working when Tex Antoine was ill. Field did the weekend weather broadcasts as well as the 11:00 PM weather broadcast on weekdays.[1] Field became the permanent forecaster on November 29, 1976, as a replacement for the suspended Antoine, who had been dismissed after an inappropriate comment concerning a rape story five days earlier. Fields primary responsibilities were the 6:00 PM and 11:00 PM newscasts, with other forecasters (such as Ira Joe Fisher and Sam Champion) appearing on the 5:00 PM newscast. In 1978 Storm Field joined the morning team with Jimmy Fink and Shelli Sonstein at New York radio station WPLJ. In addition to his weather duties, in 1981 Field became the anchor of the recently launched 5:00 PM Eyewitness News broadcast, working alongside Tracy Egan and Kaity Tong. He would do so until 1983, when Tom Snyder took over the newscast, and subbed off and on until 1984. He left WABC in 1991 and was replaced by Sam Champion.
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Plant. See text Plants are the eukaryotes that comprise the kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars from carbon dioxide and water, using the green pigment chlorophyll. Exceptions are parasitic plants that have lost the genes for chlorophyll and photosynthesis, and obtain their energy from other plants or fungi. Most plants are multicellular, except for some green algae. Historically, as in Aristotles biology, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi. Definitions have narrowed since then; current definitions exclude fungi and some of the algae. By the definition used in this article, plants form the clade Viridiplantae (green plants), which consists of the green algae and the embryophytes or land plants (hornworts, liverworts, mosses, lycophytes, ferns, conifers and other gymnosperms, and flowering plants). A definition based on genomes includes the Viridiplantae, along with the red algae and the glaucophytes, in the clade Archaeplastida.
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Canyon (disambiguation). A canyon, cañon or gorge is a geographical feature. Canyon may also refer to:
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Albert Paine. Albert Bigelow Paine (July 10, 1861 – April 9, 1937) was an American author and biographer best known for his work with Mark Twain. Paine was a member of the Pulitzer Prize Committee and wrote in several genres, including fiction, humor, and verse.[1] Paine was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the son of Vermont farmer Samuel Estabrook Paine and Massachusetts shopkeeper Mercy Coval Kirby Paine, and was moved to Bentonsport, Iowa when he was one year old. From early childhood until early adulthood, Paine lived in the village of Xenia in southern Illinois; here he received his schooling. His home in Xenia is still standing. At the age of 20, he moved to St. Louis, where he trained as a photographer, and became a dealer in photographic supplies in Fort Scott, Kansas. Paine sold out in 1895 to become a full-time writer, moving to New York. He spent most of his life in Europe, including France, where he wrote two books about Joan of Arc. The works were so well received in France that he was awarded the title of Chevalier in the Légion dhonneur by the French government.[1] Albert and Dora Paine had three daughters.[1] Max McCoy in his Biographer Obscura: The Secret Life of Albert Bigelow Paine (in Mark Twain Journal Vol. 56, No. 1 [Spring 2018], pp. 249–267) claims Paine was earlier married to Minnie Schultz, and he either lied or committed bigamy by marrying Dora while still married to his first wife.[2]
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Fansub. A fansub (short for fan-subtitled) is a version of a foreign film or foreign television program, typically anime or dorama which has been translated by fans (as opposed to an officially licensed translation done by paid professionals) and subtitled into a language usually other than that of the original.[1] The practice of making fansubs is called fansubbing and is done by a fansubber.[2] Fansubbers typically form groups to divide the work. The first distribution media of fansubbed material was VHS and Betamax tapes.[3] Early fansubs were produced using analog video editing equipment.[citation needed] They would copy the anime (often from laserdiscs) onto VHS, translate the dialogue, and painstakingly time and format the subtitles for the video. Popular tools for this included JACOsub (Amiga) and Substation Alpha (Windows). The next step was to produce one or more masters, a high-quality copy of the finished fansub from which many distribution copies could be made. The fansubber would playback the raw video through a computer equipped with a genlock in order to generate the subtitles and then overlay them on the raw signal. The hardware most often used was an Amiga computer, as most professional genlocks were prohibitively expensive. The final output of the arrangement was then recorded. The master was most often recorded onto S-VHS tape in an attempt to maximize quality, though some fansubbers used the less expensive VHS or Beta. Once it was completed, the master copy was sent to a distributor.[4] The internet allows for highly collaborative fansubbing, and each member of a fansub team may only complete one task.[5] Online fansubbing communities such as DameDesuYo are able to release a fully subtitled episode (including elaborate karaoke[5] with translation, kana, and kanji for songs, as well as additional remarks and translations of signs)[6] within 24 hours of an episodes debut in Japan.[7] Platforms like Fansnub have emerged to showcase creative works by fansubbers and similar content creators. These platforms provide a space for fansubbers to connect with their audience, share their work, and earn recognition for their efforts.[8]
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Monocotyledon. Monocotyledons (/ˌmɒnəˌkɒtəˈliːdənz/),[d][13][14] commonly referred to as monocots, (Lilianae sensu Chase & Reveal) are flowering plants whose seeds contain only one embryonic leaf, or cotyledon. A monocot taxon has been in use for several decades, but with various ranks and under several different names. The APG IV system recognises its monophyly but does not assign it to a taxonomic rank, and instead uses the term monocots to refer to the group. Monocotyledons are contrasted with the dicotyledons, which have two cotyledons. Unlike the monocots however, the dicots are not monophyletic and the two cotyledons are instead the ancestral characteristic of all flowering plants. Botanists now classify dicots into the eudicots (true dicots) and several basal lineages from which the monocots emerged. The monocots are extremely important economically, culturally, and ecologically, and make up a majority of plant biomass used in agriculture. Common crops such as dates, onions, garlic, rice, wheat, maize, and sugarcane are all monocots. The grasses alone cover over 40% of Earths land area[e][15] and contribute a significant portion of the human diet. Other monocots, like orchids, tulips, daffodils, and lilies are common houseplants and have been the subjects of several celebrations, holidays, and artworks for thousands of years. The monocots have, as the name implies, a single (mono-) cotyledon, or embryonic leaf, in their seeds. Historically, this feature was used to contrast the monocots with the dicotyledons or dicots which typically have two cotyledons; however, modern research has shown that the dicots are paraphyletic. From a diagnostic point of view the number of cotyledons is neither a particularly useful characteristic (as they are only present for a very short period in a plants life), nor is it completely reliable. The single cotyledon is only one of a number of modifications of the body plan of the ancestral monocotyledons, whose adaptive advantages are poorly understood, but may have been related to adaption to aquatic habitats, prior to radiation to terrestrial habitats. Nevertheless, monocots are sufficiently distinctive that there has rarely been disagreement as to membership of this group, despite considerable diversity in terms of external morphology.[16] With over 70,000 species, monocots are extremely evolutionarily successful and occupy a diverse set of niches:[17] Perennial geophytes including orchids (Asparagales); tulips and lilies (Liliales); rosette and succulent epiphytes (Asparagales); mycoheterotrophs (Liliales, Dioscoreales, Pandanales), all in the lilioid monocots; major cereal grains (maize, rice, barley, rye, oats, millet, sorghum and wheat) in the grass family; and forage grasses (Poales) as well as woody tree-like palm trees (Arecales), bamboo, reeds and bromeliads (Poales), bananas and ginger (Zingiberales) in the commelinid monocots, as well as floating or submerged aquatic plants such as seagrass (Alismatales) are all monocots.[18][19][20][21]
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John Mead Howells. John Mead Howells FAIA (/ˈhaʊəlz/ HOW-əlz; August 14, 1868 – September 22, 1959) was an American architect. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of author William Dean Howells, he earned an undergraduate degree from Harvard University in 1891 and completed further architectural studies there in 1894 before studying at the École des Beaux-Arts, in Paris, where he earned a diploma in 1897. Howells moved to New York City and founded the architectural firm Howells & Stokes with Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, who had also studied at the École. The partnership designed such works as St. Pauls Chapel at Columbia University and Stormfield, an Italianate villa commissioned by Samuel Clemens,[1] a longtime friend of his father.[2] Ending the partnership in 1916, Howells would focus his practice on office buildings in the Art Deco style, some of which he completed with Raymond Hood, whom he had met during his time at the École, and whom he had invited to become a partner when he was selected to enter the Chicago Tribune building competition in 1922. These projects include the prize-winning design of the Tribune Tower in Chicago and the American Radiator Building and Daily News Building in New York City. Howells also designed the Beekman Tower in New York and the plan for the University of Brussels in Belgium in 1922 at the request of U.S. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover. Howellss institutional works include the Engineering Quadrangle at Pratt Institute, built in phases from 1909 to 1928; Memorial Hall at Pratt Institute in 1927; and Willoughby Hall at Pratt Institute in 1957.
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Flowering plant. Basal angiosperms Core angiosperms Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (/ˌændʒiəˈspərmiː/).[5][6] The term angiosperm is derived from the Greek words ἀγγεῖον (angeion; container, vessel) and σπέρμα (sperma; seed), meaning that the seeds are enclosed within a fruit. The group was formerly called Magnoliophyta.[7] Angiosperms are by far the most diverse group of land plants with 64 orders, 416 families, approximately 13,000 known genera and 300,000 known species.[8] They include all forbs (flowering plants without a woody stem), grasses and grass-like plants, a vast majority of broad-leaved trees, shrubs and vines, and most aquatic plants. Angiosperms are distinguished from the other major seed plant clade, the gymnosperms, by having flowers, xylem consisting of vessel elements instead of tracheids, endosperm within their seeds, and fruits that completely envelop the seeds. The ancestors of flowering plants diverged from the common ancestor of all living gymnosperms before the end of the Carboniferous, over 300 million years ago. In the Cretaceous, angiosperms diversified explosively, becoming the dominant group of plants across the planet.
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Howells & Stokes. Howells & Stokes was an American architectural firm founded in 1897 by John Mead Howells and Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes. The firm dissolved in 1917. Howells & Stokes designed, among other structures, St. Pauls Chapel at Columbia University; Woodbridge Hall, part of the Hewitt Quadrangle on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut; the Engineering Quadrangle at Pratt Institute; Horace Mann Hall, in collaboration with Edgar A. Josselyn at Teachers College, Columbia University;[1] and office buildings in New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, and Providence, Rhode Island. The firm was hired to plan the redevelopment of the original downtown Seattle site of the University of Washington. The Metropolitan Tract was, at the time, the largest development of a downtown site undertaken in the United States.[2] Abraham H. Albertson represented the firm in Seattle and supervised construction of the project as well San Franciscos Royal Insurance Building.[3] Following their earlier close collaboration on these and other projects, the partners chose to pursue separate interests, with Howells primarily engaging in commercial skyscraper construction and Stokes in the design of public housing projects in New York City.
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England. – in Europe (green & dark grey)– in the United Kingdom (green) England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. England shares a land border with Scotland to the north and another land border with Wales to the west, and is otherwise surrounded by the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south, the Celtic Sea to the south-west, and the Irish Sea to the west. Continental Europe lies to the south-east, and Ireland to the west. At the 2021 census, the population was 56,490,048. London is both the largest city and the capital. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic. It takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century and has had extensive cultural and legal impact on the wider world since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century.[8] The Kingdom of England, which included Wales after 1535, ceased to be a separate sovereign state on 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union brought into effect a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland that created the Kingdom of Great Britain.[9] England is the origin of the English language, the English legal system (which served as the basis for the common law systems of many other countries), association football, and the Anglican branch of Christianity; its parliamentary system of government has been widely adopted by other nations.[10] The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation.[11] England is home to the two oldest universities in the English-speaking world: the University of Oxford, founded in 1096, and the University of Cambridge, founded in 1209. Both universities are ranked amongst the most prestigious in the world.[12][13]
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Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon[a] is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long, up to 18 miles (29 km) wide and attains a depth of over a mile (6,093 feet or 1,857 meters).[6]: 902 The canyon and adjacent rim are contained within Grand Canyon National Park, the Kaibab National Forest, Grand Canyon–Parashant National Monument, the Hualapai Indian Reservation, the Havasupai Indian Reservation and the Navajo Nation. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of the preservation of the Grand Canyon area and visited it on numerous occasions to hunt and enjoy the scenery. Nearly two billion years of Earths geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted.[7][8] While some aspects about the history of incision of the canyon are debated by geologists,[7][9] several recent studies support the hypothesis that the Colorado River established its course through the area about 5 to 6 million years ago.[1][7][10][11] Since that time, the Colorado River has driven the down-cutting of the tributaries and retreat of the cliffs, simultaneously deepening and widening the canyon. For thousands of years, the area has been continuously inhabited by Native Americans, who built settlements within the canyon and its many caves. The Pueblo people considered the Grand Canyon a holy site, and made pilgrimages to it.[12] The first European known to have viewed the Grand Canyon was García López de Cárdenas from Spain, who arrived in 1540.[13]
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Superhero comics. Superhero comics is one of the most common genres of American comic books. The genre rose to prominence in the 1930s and became extremely popular in the 1940s and has remained the dominant form of comic book in North America since the 1960s. Superhero comics feature stories about superheroes and the universes these characters inhabit. Beginning with the introduction of Superman in 1938 in Action Comics #1 (an anthology of adventure features) comic books devoted to superheroes (heroic people with extraordinary or superhuman abilities and skills, or god-like powers and attributes) ballooned into a widespread genre, coincident with the beginnings of World War II and the end of the Great Depression. In comics format, superpowered and costumed heroes like Popeye and The Phantom had appeared in newspaper comic strips for several years prior to Superman. The first fully-masked hero The Clock first appeared in the comic book Funny Pages #6 (Nov. 1936). In the Great Depression and World War II era, the first superhero comics appeared, the most popular being Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman and Captain America. After World War II superhero comic books gradually declined in popularity, their sales hindered in part by the publication of Seduction of the Innocent and the investigations of The Senate Subcommittee hearings on juvenile delinquency. By 1954 only three superheroes still had their own titles; Superman and Batman, who also costarred in Worlds Finest Comics, and Wonder Woman.[1]
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Action fiction. Action fiction is a genre in literature that focuses on stories involving high-stakes, high-energy, and fast-paced events. This genre includes a wide range of subgenres, such as spy novels, adventure stories, tales of terror, intrigue (cloak and dagger), and mysteries. These kinds of stories utilize suspense, the tension that is built up when the reader wishes to know how the conflict between the protagonist and antagonist is going to be resolved or the solution to a mystery of a thriller.[1] The intricacies of human relationships or the nuances of philosophy and psychology are rarely explored in action fiction, typically being fast-paced mysteries that merely seek to provide the reader with an exhilarating experience.[2] Action fiction can also be a plot element of non-literary works such as graphic novels and film. Action genre is a form of fiction whose subject matter is characterized by emphasis on exciting action sequences. This does not always mean they exclude character development or story-telling. The action genre is also related to non-literary media including comic books, graphic novels (such as manga), anime, action film, action television series, and action games. It includes martial arts action, extreme sports action, car chases and vehicles, hand-to-hand combat, suspense action, and action comedy, with each focusing in more detail on its own type and flavor of action.[3][4][5][6]
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Saitama (One-Punch Man). Saitama (Japanese: サイタマ) is a fictional superhero and the titular protagonist of the Japanese manga and anime series One-Punch Man created by One. An unaffiliated superhero from Z-City who dreams of fame and performs heroic acts as a hobby. For three years straight, Saitama had trained enough to become the strongest being that can defeat any enemy with a single punch. However, his overwhelming power leaves him without real challenges, leading to boredom and a sense of emptiness. He becomes the reluctant mentor of Genos, a cybernetic hero seeking revenge on the one who killed his family and destroyed his hometown, after Saitama saves him from a powerful monster. Through Genos, Saitama learns about the Hero Association, a professional organization that combats monsters and protects the Earth. The character was created by One as part of a webcomic involving an alternate style of superhero who already started as the strongest one in the world and most of his stories involved daily chores. For the manga serialization, Saitama was illustrated by Yusuke Murata. In October 2015, an anime adaptation was released. In the anime adaptation, Saitama is voiced by Makoto Furukawa in Japanese and Max Mittelman in the English dub. Japanese manga author One became interested in creating a comic superhero who was already the strongest in the world.[1][2] He wanted to focus on different aspects of storytelling than those normally relied on in standard superhero stories, such as everyday problems. He said: Punching is oftentimes pretty useless against lifes problems. But inside One-Punch Mans universe, I made Saitama a sort of guy who was capable of adapting his life to the world that surrounded him, only armed with his immense power. The only obstacles he faces are mundane things, like running short of money.[2] One came up with Saitamas simplistic design when thinking about how the world is full of cool looking heroes.[3]
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One (manga artist). ONE (stylized in all caps) or Tomohiro is the pseudonym of a Japanese manga artist, who is best known for his web manga[1] series One-Punch Man, which was later remade into a digital manga illustrated by Yusuke Murata.[2][3] One serializes the One-Punch Man webcomic on his own website under no official publisher, while the manga remake is serialized in the web version of Weekly Young Jump. His other well-known series, Mob Psycho 100, was serialized in the online version of Weekly Shōnen Sunday, Ura Sunday.[4] One was born in Niigata and grew up in Saitama. While visiting his grandparents in Niigata, his parents bought him a series of manga called Crayon Shin-chan by Yoshito Usui.[5] One was a fan of the manga, which influenced his decision to become a manga artist, and began practicing on his notebook during middle and high school.[6] In July 2009, One began publishing a short version of One-Punch Man on Shintosha, a comic-posting website. He later began irregularly uploading One-Punch Man to his FC2 blog on July 3, 2009.[7] Originally, One-Punch Man was intended to be a one-off to further practice drawing, but became a series following positive reception.[6] Due to its humorous setting and story, One-Punch Man became popular in Japan.[7] One had a special interest in creating a protagonist that had already become the strongest in the world,[8][9] which enabled him to concentrate on a different perspective of the background and storytelling. One stated that he envisioned the protagonist, Saitama, as a character capable of adapting to the world that surrounded him, with his primary obstacles being mundane things.[8] Before One decided to become a full-time manga artist, he had taken several hiatuses from updating the webcomic, including a one-year hiatus in February 2010 to work at a full-time job,[6] and a two-year hiatus after releasing the 109th chapter in January 2017.[1] Manga artist Yusuke Murata was interested in Ones work and eventually reached out to One.[10] The two would collaborate in publishing two one-shots in 2012; Dotō no Yūshatachi, which released on April 1 in Weekly Young Jump, and Dangan Tenshi Fan Club, which released on April 17 in Miracle Jump.[11][12] A remake of One-Punch Man began serialization in Shueishas Tonari no Young Jump website on June 14, 2012.[13][9][14] One-Punch Man would also receive an anime adaptation, announced in the 15th issue of Weekly Young Jump on March 10, 2015.[15] The first season aired in Japan from October 5 to December 21, 2015,[16] with live-action film adaptation also in development.[17] The same year, One wrote and illustrated Mob Psycho 100, which began serialization in Shogakukans Ura Sunday webcomic magazine on April 18, 2012.[18] The protagonist, Shigeo Kageyama, is meant to come off as somewhat standoffish or nerdy, while also possessing heroic traits.[19] The series finished on December 22, 2017.[20] On November 26, 2022, Versus began serialization in Kodanshas Shonen Sirius magazine, written by One and illustrated by Kyōtarō Azuma.[21] On April 27, 2023, Bug Ego had its first chapter published in Weekly Young Jump, later getting an official serialization. [22]
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Village (United States). In the United States, the meaning of village varies by geographic area and legal jurisdiction. In formal usage, a village is a type of administrative division at the local government level. Since the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government from legislating on local government, the states are free to have political subdivisions called villages or not to and to define the word in many ways. Typically, a village is a type of municipality, although it can also be a special district or an unincorporated area. It may or may not be recognized for governmental purposes. In informal usage, a U.S. village may be simply a relatively small clustered human settlement without formal legal existence. In colonial New England, a village typically formed around the meetinghouses that were located in the center of each town.[1] Many of these colonial settlements still exist as town centers. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, industrial villages also sprang up around water-powered mills, mines, and factories.[1] Because most New England villages were contained within the boundaries of legally established towns, many such villages were never separately incorporated as municipalities. A relatively small unincorporated community, similar to a hamlet in New York state, or even a relatively small community within an incorporated city or town, may be termed a village. This informal usage may be found even in states that have villages as incorporated municipalities and is similar to the usage of the term unincorporated town in states having town governments. States that formally recognize villages vary widely in the definition of the term.[2] Most commonly, a village is either a special district or a municipality. As a municipality, a village may
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Monroe County, Missouri. Monroe County is a county in northeast Missouri. As of the 2020 census, the population was 8,666.[2] Its county seat is Paris.[3] It is the birthplace of Mark Twain. The county was organized January 6, 1831[4] and named for James Monroe, the fifth President of the United States.[5] Monroe County was one of several along the Missouri River settled by migrants from the Upper South, especially Kentucky and Tennessee. They brought slaves and slaveholding traditions with them and quickly started cultivating crops similar to those in Middle Tennessee and Kentucky: hemp and tobacco. They also brought characteristic antebellum architecture and culture. The county was at the heart of what was called Little Dixie.[6] According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 670 square miles (1,700 km2), of which 648 square miles (1,680 km2) is land and 23 square miles (60 km2) (3.4%) is water.[7]
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Elmira, New York. Elmira (/ɛlˈmaɪrə/) is a city in and the county seat of Chemung County, New York, United States. It is the principal city of the Elmira, New York, metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses Chemung County. The population was 26,523 at the 2020 census, down from 29,200 at the 2010 census, a decline of more than 7 percent.[4] The City of Elmira is in the south-central part of the county, surrounded on three sides by the Town of Elmira. It is in the Southern Tier of New York, a short distance north of the Pennsylvania state line. The city was the site of the Elmira Prison, a prisoner-of-war camp that held over 12,000 captured Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War. Elmira College is located within the city. The region of Elmira was inhabited by the Cayuga nation (also known as the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ) of the Haudenosaunee prior to European colonization. Cayuga residing in the region maintained relations with European settlers, primarily related to the fur trade, but were otherwise relatively isolated from encroaching colonial settlements.[5]
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Woodlawn Cemetery. Woodlawn Cemetery is the name of several cemeteries, including: (by state then city or town)
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Mark Twain (crater). Mark Twain is a crater on Mercury.[1] Its name was adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1976. Mark Twain is named for the American author Mark Twain, who lived from 1835 to 1910.[2] Mark Twain is one of 110 peak ring basins on Mercury.[3] This article about geology, geography or other features of the planet Mercury is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
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Mark Twain (film). Mark Twain is a documentary film on the life of Mark Twain, also known as Samuel Clemens, produced by Ken Burns in 2001 which aired on Public Broadcasting System on January 14 and 15, 2002.[1] Burns attempted to capture both the public and private persona of Mark Twain from his birth to his death. The film was narrated by Keith David.[2] The voice of Mark Twain was provided by Kevin Conway and the voice of Olivia Langdon Clemens was portrayed by Blythe Danner.[2] Other voice work was provided by actors Philip Bosco, Carolyn McCormick, Amy Madigan, Cynthia Nixon, and Tim Clark. The film also includes interviews with playwright Arthur Miller,[2] novelist and Twain biographer Ron Powers,[3] writer William Styron,[4] poet Russell Banks,[4] historian John Boyer (executive director of the Mark Twain House),[5] Harvard University professor Jocelyn Chadwick,[6] Stanford University English literature professor Shelley Fisher Fishkin, comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory,[4] actor Hal Holbrook,[1] animator and actor Chuck Jones,[4] and Mark Twain scholar Laura Skandera Trombley.[7] Mark Twain Legacy Scholar Barbara Schmidt asserts on her website twainquotes.com that some artistic license was taken, resulting in some historical inaccuracies and misrepresentations.[8] She also notes, that some of these errors are the result of the Twain scholarship during the time that the documentary was made, and that more recent scholarship has revealed some of the factual errors that are in the documentary.[8] Schmidts website twainquotes.com is widely cited in academic publications on Twain and is highly regarded as an authoritative resource within Twain research.[9] Film critic Caryn James wrote the following in her review in The New York Times:
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List of counties in Missouri. There are 114 counties and one independent city in the U.S. State of Missouri. Following the Louisiana Purchase and the admittance of Louisiana into the United States in 1812, five counties were formed out of the Missouri Territory at the first general assembly: Cape Girardeau, New Madrid, Saint Charles, Saint Louis, and Ste. Genevieve. Most subsequent counties were apportioned from these five original counties. Six more counties were added through the 1836 Platte Purchase, the acquired lands of which formed the northwest tip of the state and consisted of Andrew, Atchison, Buchanan, Holt, Nodaway, and Platte counties.[1] In Missouri, the county level of government comes between those of the city and the state. Its primary responsibilities include maintaining roads, providing security, prosecuting criminals, and collecting taxes. Elected officials at this level include a sheriff, prosecuting attorney, and assessor.[2] Most of the counties in Missouri are named after politicians. One such county, Cass, was originally named Van Buren County after President Martin Van Buren, and was changed to its present name in support of Van Burens Democratic opponent Lewis Cass during the presidential election of 1848. Other counties are named after war heroes, natural resources, explorers, and former U.S. territories.[3] The city of St. Louis is an independent city, and is not within the limits of a county. Its residents voted to secede from St. Louis County in 1876. Throughout the United States, St. Louis is one of three independent cities outside the state of Virginia (the other two are Baltimore, Maryland, and Carson City, Nevada).[4]
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Mark Twain, St. Louis. Mark Twain is a neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri named after author and Missouri native Mark Twain. It is located between Interstate 70 and Bellefontaine Cemetery. In 2020 Mark Twains racial makeup was 95.1% Black, 2.4% White, 0.2% Native American, 0.3% Asian, 1.4% Two or More Races, and 0.6% Some Other Race. 1.0% of the population was of Hispanic or Latino origin.[4] 38°41′24″N 90°14′30″W / 38.6899°N 90.2417°W / 38.6899; -90.2417
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Ray-Ban Meta. Ray-Ban Meta is a series of smartglasses created by Meta Platforms and EssilorLuxottica. They include two cameras, open-ear speakers, a microphone, and touchpad built into the frame.[1] They are the second generation of a line of smartglasses released by major companies including Snap Inc and Google and are designed as one component of Facebook’s plans for a metaverse.[2] Unlike other smart glasses, the Ray-Ban Meta glasses do not include any HUD or AR head-mounted display. Meta announced them on September 27, 2023. They use a Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen1 processor, upgrade of the cameras to 12 MP, improved audio, livestreaming to Facebook and Instagram, and Meta AI.[3] On April 23, 2024, Meta announced an update to Meta AI on the smart glasses to enable multimodal input via computer vision.[4] They received criticism stemming from mistrust over Facebook’s privacy controls.[5] The small size of the recording indicator light has also led to criticism.[6] The partnership between EssilorLuxottica, Ray-Bans parent company, and Facebook to create the first generation of Ray-Ban Stories was publicly announced on September 20, 2020, by CEO Mark Zuckerberg during the seventh annual Facebook Connect conference.[7] During the keynote video, Zuckerberg described several new Facebook innovations, such as the Oculus Quest 2, a new augmented reality division called Project Aria, and the Ray-Ban Stories themselves.[8] In the following year after its initial announcement, Zuckerberg and Facebook Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth would hint at a 2021 release date through FPV (first person view) video clips appearing to be taken using a Ray-Ban Stories prototype.[9]
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U.S. state. In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sovereignty with the federal government. Due to this shared sovereignty, Americans are citizens both of the federal republic and of the state in which they reside.[3] State citizenship and residency are flexible, and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons restricted by certain types of court orders, such as paroled convicts and children of divorced spouses who share child custody. State governments in the U.S. are allocated power by the people of each respective state through their individual state constitutions. All are grounded in republican principles (this being required by the federal constitution), and each provides for a government, consisting of three branches, each with separate and independent powers: executive, legislative, and judicial.[4] States are divided into counties or county-equivalents, which may be assigned some local governmental authority but are not sovereign. County or county-equivalent structure varies widely by state, and states also create other local governments. States, unlike U.S. territories, possess many powers and rights under the United States Constitution. States and their citizens are represented in the United States Congress, a bicameral legislature consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each state is also entitled to select a number of electors, equal to the total number of representatives and senators from that state, to vote in the Electoral College, the body that directly elects the president of the United States. Each state has the opportunity to ratify constitutional amendments. With the consent of Congress, two or more states may enter into interstate compacts with one another. The police power of each state is also recognized. Historically, the tasks of local law enforcement, public education, public health, intrastate commerce regulation, and local transportation and infrastructure, in addition to local, state, and federal elections, have generally been considered primarily state responsibilities, although all of these now have significant federal funding and regulation as well. Over time, the Constitution has been amended, and the interpretation and application of its provisions have changed. The general tendency has been toward centralization and incorporation, with the federal government playing a much larger role than it once did. There is a continuing debate over states rights, which concerns the extent and nature of the states powers and sovereignty in relation to the federal government and the rights of individuals.
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Arizona. Arizona[b] is a state in the Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the northwest and California to the west, and shares an international border with the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California to the south and southwest. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix, which is the most populous state capital and fifth most populous city in the United States. Arizona is divided into 15 counties. Arizona is the 6th-largest state by area and the 14th-most-populous of the 50 states. It is the 48th state and last of the contiguous states to be admitted to the Union, achieving statehood on February 14, 1912. Historically part of the territory of Alta California and Nuevo México in New Spain, it became part of independent Mexico in 1821. After being defeated in the Mexican–American War, Mexico ceded much of this territory to the United States in 1848, where the area became part of the New Mexico Territory. The southernmost portion of the state was acquired in 1853 through the Gadsden Purchase. Southern Arizona is known for its desert climate, with extremely hot summers and mild winters. Northern Arizona features forests of pine, Douglas fir, and spruce trees; the Colorado Plateau; mountain ranges (such as the San Francisco Mountains); as well as large, deep canyons, with much more moderate summer temperatures and significant winter snowfalls. There are ski resorts in the areas of Flagstaff, Sunrise, and Tucson. In addition to the internationally known Grand Canyon National Park, which is one of the worlds seven natural wonders, there are several national forests, national parks, and national monuments. Arizona is home to a diverse population. About one-quarter of the state[12][13] is made up of Indian reservations that serve as the home of 27 federally recognized Native American tribes, including the Navajo Nation, the largest in the state and the country, with more than 300,000 citizens. Since the 1980s, the proportion of Hispanics has grown significantly owing to migration from Mexico and Central America. A substantial portion of the population are followers of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Arizonas population and economy have grown dramatically since the 1950s because of inward migration, and the state is now a major hub of the Sun Belt. Cities such as Phoenix and Tucson have developed large, sprawling suburban areas. Many large companies, such as PetSmart and Circle K,[14] have headquarters in the state, and Arizona is home to major universities, including the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and Northern Arizona University. The state is known for a history of conservative politicians such as Barry Goldwater and John McCain, though it has become a swing state in recent years.
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Woodlawn National Cemetery. Woodlawn National Cemetery is a United States National Cemetery within Woodlawn Cemetery, which is in the city of Elmira, in Chemung County, New York. Administered by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, it encompasses 10.5 acres (4.2 ha), and as of 2021, had over 11,000 interred remains. In 1861, Camp Rathbun, near the town of Elmira, was established as a training camp at the beginning of the Civil War. As the Union troops who trained there were sent to their respective assignments, the camp emptied and in 1864 it was turned into the Elmira Prison prisoner-of-war camp. The facilities were not adequate to house the thousands of Confederate prisoners, and many succumbed to exposure, malnutrition, and smallpox and were subsequently interred at the cemetery. Woodlawn National Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
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National Register of Historic Places. The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal governments official list of sites, buildings, structures, districts, and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or great artistic value. The enactment of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in 1966 established the National Register and the process for adding properties to it. Of the more than one and a half million properties on the National Register, 95,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts. For most of its history, the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service (NPS), an agency within the United States Department of the Interior. Its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and coordinate, identify and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties. Protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. The application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred in preserving the property. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts and multiple property submissions (MPS). The Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties: district, site, structure, building or object.
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Disney riverboats. The Disney riverboats are paddle steamer watercraft attraction ride vehicles operating on a track on a series of attractions located at Disney theme parks around the world. The first was the Mark Twain Riverboat, located at the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California, on which passengers embark on a scenic, 12-minute journey around the Rivers of America. Originally named Mark Twain Steamboat when the park opened in 1955, the 5/8-scale stern-wheeler was the first functional steamboat to be built in the United States for 50 years.[1] Other Disney riverboat attractions also appear at Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Park Paris. Passengers wait for the 150-ton, 28-foot-high (8.5 m), 105-foot-long (32 m) riverboat, which departs every 20 minutes, inside a sheltered area in the Frontierland section of the park. The waiting area resembles a real riverboat loading area, with cargo deliveries sharing space on the dock. Historic United States flags are displayed at the attractions entrance. Upon boarding Mark Twain, passengers are free to move about her three levels. The lower decks bow has chairs. The upper deck provides a vantage point for viewing landmarks during the voyage. The wheelhouse, where Mark Twains pilot is stationed, is located on the upper deck. The lower level of the wheelhouse features sleeping quarters and a sink to maintain the illusion of this being the captains living quarters. The pilot signals the departure and arrival of Mark Twain using a whistle and bell system, along with various signals to other river craft attractions. Because the riverboat travels along a hidden I-beam guide rail throughout the ride, the pilot does not maneuver the ship. Instead, the pilot serves as lookout for other river traffic, such as Davy Crocketts Explorer Canoes and the rafts to Pirates Lair at Tom Sawyer Island, and communicates his observations with the boiler engineer. The boiler engineer is stationed on the bottom deck towards the stern. This is where the throttle and reverser are located. From here, the boiler engineer controls the speed and forward or reverse direction of the riverboat. Steam from the boiler is used to power the paddle wheels which push the craft along its guide-way.[citation needed]
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Writing. Writing is the act of creating a persistent representation of language. A writing system includes a particular set of symbols called a script, as well as the rules by which they encode a particular spoken language. Every written language arises from a corresponding spoken language; while the use of language is universal across human societies, most spoken languages are not written.[1] Writing is a cognitive and social activity involving neuropsychological and physical processes. The outcome of this activity, also called writing (or a text) is a series of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols. Reading is the corresponding process of interpreting a written text, with the interpreter referred to as a reader.[2] In general, writing systems do not constitute languages in and of themselves, but rather a means of encoding language such that it can be read by others across time and space.[3][4] While not all languages use a writing system, those that do can complement and extend the capacities of spoken language by creating durable forms of language that can be transmitted across space (e.g. written correspondence) and stored over time (e.g. libraries).[5] Writing can also impact what knowledge people acquire, since it allows humans to externalize their thinking in forms that are easier to reflect on, elaborate on, reconsider, and revise.[6][7][8] Any instance of writing involves a complex interaction among available tools, intentions, cultural customs, cognitive routines, genres, tacit and explicit knowledge, and the constraints and limitations of the systems used.[9] Writing implements used to make physical inscriptions include fingers, styluses, ink brushes, pencils, pens, and many styles of lithography; writing surfaces on which inscriptions may be made include stone tablets, clay tablets, bamboo slips, papyrus, wax tablets, vellum, parchment, paper, copperplate, and slate.[10]
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Blonde (Frank Ocean album). Blonde is the second studio album by the American singer Frank Ocean.[a] It was released on August 20, 2016, as a timed exclusive on the iTunes Store and Apple Music, and followed the August 19 release of Oceans video album Endless. The album features guest vocals from André 3000, Beyoncé, and Kim Burrell, among others. Production was handled by Ocean himself, alongside a variety of high-profile record producers, including Malay and OmMas Keith, who collaborated with Ocean on Channel Orange, as well as James Blake, Jon Brion, Buddy Ross, Pharrell Williams, and Rostam Batmanglij, among others. In 2013, Ocean confirmed that his follow up to Channel Orange would be another concept album. Initially known as Boys Dont Cry and teased for a July 2015 release, the album suffered several delays and was the subject of widespread media anticipation leading up to its release. Recording for the album took place throughout 2013 and 2016 at New Yorks Electric Lady Studios and, after a period of writers block, in London at Abbey Road Studios and in Los Angeles Henson Recording Studios. Its physical release was accompanied by a magazine entitled Boys Dont Cry. Blonde features an abstract and experimental sound in comparison to Oceans previous releases, encompassing styles such as R&B, pop, soul, avant-garde, indie rock, electronica, psychedelia, and hip-hop. Ocean also notably makes use of pitch shifted vocals. The Beach Boys de facto leader Brian Wilson is recognized as a strong influence on the albums lush arrangements and layered vocal harmonies, while the guitar and keyboard rhythms on the album are considered languid and minimal. The albums themes surround Ocean dealing with his masculinity and emotions, inspired by sexual experiences, heartbreak, loss, duality, and trauma. Blonde received widespread acclaim, with critics praising Oceans introspective lyrics and the albums unconventional and progressive sounds. Critics also complimented the album for challenging the conventions of R&B and pop music. Supported by its lead single Nikes, the album debuted at number one in several countries, including the United States. It earned first week sales of 275,000 with album-equivalent units in the US, with 232,000 being pure sales, and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Among other publications, Time named it the best album of 2016. Metacritic named it one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the year by music publications. In 2020, Pitchfork named it the best album of the 2010s and Rolling Stone ranked it at number 79 on their updated list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
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Snapchat. Snapchat is an American multimedia social media and instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of the app are that pictures and messages, known as snaps, are usually available for only a short time before they become inaccessible to their recipients. The app has evolved from originally focusing on person-to-person photo sharing to presently featuring users Stories of 24 hours of chronological content, along with Discover, letting brands show ad-supported short-form content. It also allows users to store photos in a password-protected area called My Eyes Only. It has also reportedly incorporated limited use of end-to-end encryption, with plans to broaden its use in the future. Snapchat was created by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown,[6] former students at Stanford University. It is known for representing a mobile-first direction for social media, and places significant emphasis on users interacting with virtual stickers and augmented reality objects. In 2023, Snapchat had over 300 million monthly active users.[7] On average more than four billion Snaps were sent each day in 2020.[8] Snapchat is popular among the younger generations, with most users being between 18 and 24.[7] Snapchat is subject to privacy concerns with social networking services. According to documents and deposition statements, Reggie Brown brought the idea for a disappearing-pictures application to Evan Spiegel because Spiegel had prior business experience. Brown and Spiegel then pulled in Bobby Murphy, who had experience coding. The three worked closely together for several months and launched Snapchat as Picaboo on the iOS operating system on July 8, 2011.[9][10] Reggie Brown was ousted from the company months after it was launched.[11][12] The app was relaunched as Snapchat in September 2011, and the team focused on usability and technical aspects, rather than branding efforts.[13] One exception was the decision to keep a mascot designed by Brown, Ghostface Chillah, named after Ghostface Killah of the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan.[13]
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Publishing. Publishing is the process of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge.[1] Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, comic books, newspapers, and magazines to the public. With the advent of digital information systems, the scope has expanded to include digital publishing such as e-books, digital magazines, websites, social media, music, and video game publishing. The commercial publishing industry ranges from large multinational conglomerates such as News Corp, Pearson, Penguin Random House, and Thomson Reuters[2] to major retail brands and thousands of small independent publishers. It has various divisions such as trade/retail publishing of fiction and non-fiction, educational publishing, and academic and scientific publishing.[3] Publishing is also undertaken by governments, civil society, and private companies for administrative or compliance requirements, business, research, advocacy, or public interest objectives.[4] This can include annual reports, research reports, market research, policy briefings, and technical reports. Self-publishing has become very common. Publishing has evolved from a small, ancient form limited by law or religion to a modern, large-scale industry disseminating all types of information.[5] Publisher can refer to a publishing company, organization, or an individual who leads a publishing company, imprint, periodical, or newspaper.
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Missouri. Missouri (see pronunciation) is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States.[6] Ranking 21st in land area, it borders Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas to the south and Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska to the west. In the south are the Ozarks, a forested highland, providing timber, minerals, and recreation. At 1.5 billion years old, the St. Francois Mountains are among the oldest in the world. The Missouri River, after which the state is named, flows through the center and into the Mississippi River, which makes up the eastern border. With over six million residents, it is the 19th-most populous state of the country. The largest urban areas are St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield, and Columbia. The capital is Jefferson City. Humans have inhabited present-day Missouri for at least 12,000 years. The Mississippian culture, which emerged in the ninth century, built cities with pyramidal and other ceremonial mounds before declining in the 14th century. The Indigenous Osage and Missouria nations inhabited the area when European people arrived in the 17th century. The French incorporated the territory into Louisiana, founding Ste. Genevieve in 1735 and St. Louis in 1764. After a brief period of Spanish rule, the United States acquired Missouri as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Americans from the Upland South rushed into the new Missouri Territory, taking advantage of its productive agricultural plains; Missouri played a central role in the westward expansion of the United States.[7] Missouri was admitted as a slave state as part of the Missouri Compromise of 1820. As a border state, Missouris role in the American Civil War was complex, and it was subject to rival governments, raids, and guerilla warfare. After the war, both Greater St. Louis and the Kansas City metropolitan area became large centers of industrialization and business. Today the state is divided into 114 counties and the independent city of St. Louis. Missouri has been called the Gateway to the West,[8] the Mother of the West, the Cave State, and the Show Me State.[9] Its culture blends elements of the Midwestern and Southern United States. It is the birthplace of the musical genres ragtime, Kansas City jazz and St. Louis blues. The well-known Kansas City-style barbecue, and the lesser-known St. Louis-style barbecue, can be found across the state and beyond. Missouri is a major center of beer brewing and has some of the most permissive alcohol laws in the U.S.[10] It is home to Anheuser-Busch, the worlds largest beer producer, and produces Missouri wine, especially in the Missouri Rhineland. Outside the states major cities, popular tourist destinations include the Lake of the Ozarks, Table Rock Lake and Branson. Some of the largest companies based in the state include Cerner, Express Scripts, Monsanto, Emerson Electric, Edward Jones, H&R Block, Wells Fargo Advisors, Centene Corporation, and OReilly Auto Parts. Well-known universities in Missouri include the University of Missouri, Saint Louis University, and Washington University in St. Louis.[11]
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Epic poetry. In poetry, an epic is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.[1] With regard to oral tradition, epic poems consist of formal speech and are usually learnt word for word, contrasted with narratives that consist of everyday speech, categorised into factual or fiction, the former of which is less susceptible to variation.[2] Influential epics that have shaped Western literature and culture include Homers Iliad and Odyssey; Virgils Aeneid; and the anonymous Beowulf and Epic of Gilgamesh. The genre has inspired the adjective epic as well as derivative works in other mediums (such as epic films) that evoke or emulate the characteristics of epics.[3] The English word epic comes from Latin epicus, which itself comes from the Ancient Greek adjective epikos (ἐπικός), from epos (ἔπος),[4] word, story, poem.[5] In Ancient Greek, epic could refer to all poetry in dactylic hexameter (epea), which included not only Homer but also the wisdom poetry of Hesiod, the utterances of the Delphic oracle, and the strange theological verses attributed to Orpheus. Later tradition, however, has restricted the term epic to heroic epic, as described in this article.
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News style. News style, journalistic style, or news-writing style is the prose style used in journalism, such as newspapers, radio, and broadcast news. News writing attempts to answer all the basic questions about any particular event—who, what, when, where, and why (the Five Ws) and often how—at the opening of the article. This form of structure is sometimes called the inverted pyramid, to refer to the decreasing importance of information in subsequent paragraphs. News stories also contain at least one of the following important characteristics relative to the intended audience: proximity, prominence, timeliness, human interest, oddity, or consequence. The related term journalese is sometimes used, usually pejoratively,[1] to refer to news-style writing. Another is headlinese. Newspapers generally adhere to an expository writing style. Over time and place, journalism ethics and standards have varied in the degree of objectivity or sensationalism they incorporate. It is considered unethical not to attribute a scoop to the journalist(s) who broke a story, even if they are employed by a rival organization. Definitions of professionalism differ among news agencies; their reputations, according to both professional standards and reader expectations, are often tied to the appearance of objectivity. In its most ideal form, news writing strives to be intelligible to the majority of readers, engaging, and succinct. Within these limits, news stories also aim to be comprehensive. However, other factors are involved, some stylistic and some derived from the media form.
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Electronic media. Electronic media are media that use electronics or electromechanical means for the audience to access the content.[1] This is in contrast to static media (mainly print media), which today are most often created digitally, but do not require electronics to be accessed by the end user in the printed form. The primary electronic media sources familiar to the general public are video recordings, audio recordings, multimedia presentations, slide presentations, CD-ROM and online content. Most new media are in the form of digital media. However, electronic media may be in either analogue electronics data or digital electronic data format. Although the term is usually associated with content recorded on a storage medium, recordings are not required for live broadcasting and online networking. Any equipment used in the electronic communication process (e.g. television, radio, telephone, game console, handheld device) may also be considered electronic media. Wire and transmission lines emerged as communication tools, starting with the telegraph in the late 18th century. Samuel Morse invented the telegraph in 1832, introducing wires to transmit electrical signals over long distances. In 1844, the first successful telegraph line was established in the United States, and in the 1850s, telegraph cables were laid across the Atlantic connecting North America and Europe.[2] At the same time the telegraph was becoming mainstream, the need to transmit images over wire emerged. The first commercially successful fax machine was developed by Elisha Gray in 1861, allowing printed images to be transmitted over a wire.[3] The telephone was another breakthrough in electronic communication, allowing people to communicate using voice rather than written messages. Alexander Graham Bell pioneered the first successful telephone transmission in 1876, and by the 1890s, telephone lines were being laid worldwide.[4] Since all these significant breakthroughs relied on transmission lines for communication, a minor improvement was made by the English engineer Oliver Heaviside who patented the coaxial cable in 1880.[5] The coaxial cable allowed for greater bandwidth and longer transmission distances.
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Equestrian statue of Israel Putnam. General Israel Putnam, also known as Putnams Escape at Horseneck, is an equestrian statue at the Putnam Memorial State Park in Redding, Connecticut, United States. The statue was designed by sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington and dedicated in 1969 in honor of Connecticut native Israel Putnam, a military officer who served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Israel Putnam was a military officer who served as a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.[1] Putnam became a well-known historical figure for his actions during the war, which included leading troops at the Battle of Bunker Hill.[1] In 1779, while in Greenwich, Connecticut, the 60-year-old Putnam was spotted by British troops, who proceeded to chase him on horseback. In one of his most well-known escapades, Putnam managed to escape capture by riding his horse down a notably steep hill that was considered unsafe for horse-riding.[2] More than a century later, this story inspired sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington to create an equestrian statue memorializing the event.[3] Huntington, who was born in 1876, was an American sculptor from the Boston area who was recognized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art as one of the preeminent female sculptors in the country and had studied the craft at the Art Students League of New York in the early 1900s.[4][5] For some time, Huntington had lived in Redding, Connecticut, near the Putnam Memorial State Park,[3] which had served as Putnams winter encampment during the war.[4][6] Huntington was especially renowned for her equestrian statues,[7] with some of her more notable works including an equestrian statue of Joan of Arc in New York City and El Cid Campeador.[5] Working on the Putnam sculpture in 1966 at the age of 90,[5][8] it would be the last of seven major equestrian statues she had created during her career, as well as one of the last works created before her death in 1973.[8] Completed in 1967,[note 1] the sculpture was donated to the Putnam Memorial State Park in 1969.[4] It was dedicated on September 21, 1969, near the entrance of the park,[9] with Albert D. Putnam, a descendant of Israel, giving the main speech at the ceremony,[10] during which he stated that his ancestor had rode down the hill to everlasting fame and into the heart of Mrs. Huntington.[10] Another speech was given by Donald C. Matthews, Director of the Connecticut State Park and Forest Commission, who said: We are here to honor two great citizens, General Israel Putnam and Mrs. Huntington, the most remarkable woman I have ever known.[9]
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Legend. A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude. Legend, for its active and passive participants, may include miracles. Legends may be transformed over time to keep them fresh and vital. Many legends operate within the realm of uncertainty, never being entirely believed by the participants, but also never being resolutely doubted.[1] Legends are sometimes distinguished from myths in that they concern human beings as the main characters and do not necessarily have supernatural origins, and sometimes in that they have some sort of historical basis whereas myths generally do not.[2][3] The Brothers Grimm defined legend as folktale historically grounded.[4] A by-product of the concern with human beings is the long list of legendary creatures, leaving no resolute doubt that legends are historically grounded. A modern folklorists professional definition of legend was proposed by Timothy R. Tangherlini in 1990:[5] Legend, typically, is a short (mono-) episodic, traditional, highly ecotypified[6] historicized narrative performed in a conversational mode, reflecting on a psychological level a symbolic representation of folk belief and collective experiences and serving as a reaffirmation of commonly held values of the group to whose tradition it belongs. Legend is a loanword from Old French that entered English usage c. 1340. The Old French noun legende derives from the Medieval Latin legenda.[7] In its early English-language usage, the word indicated a narrative of an event. The word legendary was originally a noun (introduced in the 1510s) meaning a collection or corpus of legends.[8][9] This word changed to legendry, and legendary became the adjectival form.[8]
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Filter (social media). Filters are digital image effects often used on social media. They initially simulated the effects of camera filters, and they have since developed with facial recognition technology and computer-generated augmented reality. Social media filters—especially beauty filters—are often used to alter the appearance of selfies taken on smartphones or other similar devices. While filters are commonly associated with beauty enhancement and feature alterations, there is a wide range of filters that have different functions. From adjusting photo tones to using face animations and interactive elements, users have access to a range of tools. These filters allow users to enhance photos and allow room for creative expression and fun interactions with digital content. Beauty filters originate from Purikura (print club),[1][2] a type of Japanese photographic arcade game machine conceived in 1994 by Sasaki Miho, a female employee at Atlus, and released in 1995 by Atlus and Sega primarily for female visitors at Japanese arcades.[3] They allowed the manipulation of digital selfie photos[4] with kawaii beauty filters[5] similar to later Snapchat filters.[2] Purikura filters included beautifying the image, cat whiskers, bunny ears, writing text, scribbling graffiti,[1] selecting backdrops, borders, insertable decorations, icons, hair extensions, twinkling diamond tiaras,[6] tenderized light effects, and predesigned decorative margins.[5] To capitalize on the Purikura phenomenon in Japan during the late 1990s, Japanese mobile phones began including a front-facing camera,[5][7] starting with the Kyocera Visual Phone VP‑210 in 1999.[8] The Sanyo SCP-5300 released in 2002 was the first camera phone with filter effects, such as illumination, white‑balance control, sepia, black and white, and negative colors.[9] Purikura-like beauty filters later appeared in smartphone apps such as Instagram and Snapchat in the 2010s.[1] In 2010, Apple introduced the iPhone 4—the first iPhone model with a front-facing camera.[10] It gave rise to a dramatic increase in selfies, which could be touched up with more flattering lighting effects with applications such as Instagram.[10] The American photographer Cole Rise was involved in the creation of the original filters for Instagram around 2010, designing several of them himself, including Sierra, Mayfair, Sutro, Amaro, and Willow.[11][12] However, the technology for virtual lens filters was invented and patented by Patrick Levy-Rosenthal in 2007. The patent received 100 citations, including Facebook, Nvidia, Microsoft, Samsung, and Snap.[13][14] In September, 2011, the Instagram 2.0 update for the application introduced live filters, which allowed the user to preview the effect of the filter while shooting with the applications camera.[15][16] #NoFilter, a hashtag label to describe an image that had not been filtered, became popular around 2013.[17] An update in 2014 allowed users to adjust the intensity of the filters as well as fine-tune other aspects of the image, features that had been available for years on applications such as VSCO and Litely.[18][19]
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Putnam Memorial State Park. Putnam Memorial State Park is a history-oriented public recreation area in the town of Redding, Connecticut.[3] The state park preserves the site that Major General Israel Putnam chose as the winter encampment for his men in the winter of 1778/1779 during the American Revolutionary War.[4] It is Connecticuts oldest state park, created in 1887 at the instigation of Redding town residents. The park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.[5] In addition to its historic features, the parks 183 acres (74 ha) include facilities for hiking, picnicking, pond fishing, and winter sports. The park is located at the intersection of Route 107 and Route 58 and is managed by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.[3] Over 3,000 men were sent into winter quarters spread throughout three camps in Redding. The camps were established to keep an eye on the storehouses in Danbury, Connecticut, and to protect Long Island Sound and the Hudson River Valley. Many of these men were the same who had suffered at Valley Forge the previous winter. The 2nd Canadian Regiment, or Congress Own, under the command of Moses Hazen and the 2nd New Hampshire Regiment under the command of Enoch Poor were stationed at this location.[4][6][7] Preservation of the park grounds was initiated in 1887 when Aaron Treadwell, at the encouragement of Redding historian Charles Burr Todd, sold 12.4 acres to the state for one dollar. In 1955, the Park and Forest Commission took over park management. The park was decommissioned with maintenance performed by local volunteers during most of the 1990s. It reopened under state auspices in 1997.[8][9]
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New England town. The town is the basic unit of local government and local division of state authority in the six New England states. Most other U.S. states lack a direct counterpart to the New England town. New England towns overlie the entire area of a state, similar to civil townships in other states where they exist, but they are fully functioning municipal corporations, possessing powers similar to cities and counties in other states. New Jerseys system of equally powerful townships, boroughs, towns, and cities is the system which is most similar to that of New England. New England towns are often governed by a town meeting, an assembly of eligible town residents. The great majority of municipal corporations in New England are based on the town model; there, statutory forms based on the concept of a compact populated place are uncommon, though elsewhere in the U.S. they are prevalent. County government in New England states is typically weak, and in some states nonexistent. Connecticut, for example, has no county governments,[1] nor does Rhode Island.[2] Both of those states retain counties only as geographic subdivisions with no governmental authority, while Massachusetts[3] has abolished eight of fourteen county governments so far. Counties serve mostly as dividing lines for the states judicial systems and some other state services in the southern New England states while providing varying (but generally limited) services in the more sparsely populated three northern New England states. Towns date back to the time of the earliest English colonial settlement, which predominated in New England, and they pre-date the development of counties in the region. Areas were organized as towns as they were settled, throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Town boundaries were not usually laid out on any kind of regular grid, but were drawn to reflect local settlement and transportation patterns, often affected by natural features. In early colonial times, recognition of towns was very informal, generally connected to local church divisions. By 1700, colonial governments had become more involved in the official establishment of new towns. Towns were typically governed by a town meeting form of government, as many still are today. Towns originally were the only form of incorporated municipality in New England. The city form of government was not introduced until much later. Boston, for instance, was a town for the first two centuries of its existence. The entire land areas of Connecticut and Rhode Island had been divided into towns by the late 18th century, and Massachusetts was almost completely covered early in the 19th century. By 1850, the only New England state that still had large unincorporated areas was Maine; by the end of the 19th century, most areas in Maine that could realistically be settled had been organized into towns. Early town organization in Vermont and much of New Hampshire proceeded in a somewhat different manner from that of the other New England states. In these areas, towns were often chartered long before any settlers moved into a particular area. This was very common in the mid to late 18th century—although there were towns which predated that period and were not part of this process in southeastern New Hampshire, such as Exeter. Once there were enough residents in a town to formally organize a town government, no further action was necessary to incorporate. This practice can lead to inconsistencies in the dates of incorporation for towns in this region. Dates given in reference sources sometimes reflect the date when the town was chartered, which may have been long before it was settled, and not the date when its town government became active. In other parts of New England, some future towns were laid out along these lines, but such areas would not be formally incorporated as towns until they were sufficiently settled to organize a town government.
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Myth. Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is totally different from the ordinary sense of the term myth, meaning a belief that is not true, as the veracity of a piece of folklore is entirely irrelevant to determining whether it constitutes a myth.[1] Myths are often endorsed by religious and secular authorities, and may be natural or supernatural in character.[2] Many societies group their myths, legends, and history together, considering myths and legends to be factual accounts of their remote past.[6] In particular, creation myths take place in a primordial age when the world had not achieved its later form.[10] Origin myths explain how a societys customs, institutions, and taboos were established and sanctified.[2][8] National myths are narratives about a nations past that symbolize the nations values. There is a complex relationship between recital of myths and the enactment of rituals. The word myth comes from Ancient Greek μῦθος (mȳthos),[11] meaning speech, narrative, or fiction. In turn, Ancient Greek μυθολογία (mythología story, legends, or story-telling) combines the word mȳthos with the suffix -λογία (-logia study).[12] Accordingly, Plato used mythología as a general term for fiction or story-telling of any kind. This word began was adapted into other European languages in the early 19th century, in a much narrower sense, as a scholarly term for [a] traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.[13][14] The Greek term mythología was then borrowed into Late Latin, occurring in the title of Latin author Fabius Planciades Fulgentius 5th-century Mythologiæ to denote what is now referred to as classical mythology—i.e., Greco-Roman etiological stories involving their gods. Fulgentiuss Mythologiæ explicitly treated its subject matter as allegories requiring interpretation and not as true events.[15] The Latin term was then adopted in Middle French as mythologie. Whether from French or Latin usage, English adopted the word mythology in the 15th century, initially meaning the exposition of a myth or myths, the interpretation of fables, or a book of such expositions. The word is first attested in John Lydgates Troy Book (c. 1425).[16][18][19]
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Western Connecticut Planning Region, Connecticut. The Western Connecticut Planning Region is a planning region and county-equivalent in Connecticut. It is served by the coterminous Western Connecticut Council of Governments (WestCOG), one of nine regional councils of governments in Connecticut. Within the region, there are two Metropolitan Planning Organizations, South Western CT MPO and the Housatonic Valley MPO. The region includes the Connecticut Panhandle, Greater Danbury, and the Gold Coast. In 2022, planning regions were approved to replace Connecticuts counties as county-equivalents for statistical purposes, with full implementation occurring in 2024.[1][2] WestCOG serves as the states planning region closest to New York. All towns within the planning region are included within the New York Metropolitan Area, with towns like Greenwich & Stamford being hubs for commuters who work in the city. As of the 2020 United States census, there were 620,549 people living in the Western Connecticut Planning Region, making it the second most populated region in the state behind the Capitol Planning Region.
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Smartphone. A smartphone is a mobile device that combines the functionality of a traditional mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multimedia playback and streaming. Smartphones have built-in cameras, GPS navigation, and support for various communication methods, including voice calls, text messaging, and internet-based messaging apps. Smartphones are distinguished from older-design feature phones by their more advanced hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, access to the internet, business applications, mobile payments, and multimedia functionality, including music, video, gaming, radio, and television. Smartphones typically feature metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit (IC) chips, various sensors, and support for multiple wireless communication protocols. Examples of smartphone sensors include accelerometers, barometers, gyroscopes, and magnetometers; they can be used by both pre-installed and third-party software to enhance functionality. Wireless communication standards supported by smartphones include LTE, 5G NR, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and satellite navigation. By the mid-2020s, manufacturers began integrating satellite messaging and emergency services, expanding their utility in remote areas without reliable cellular coverage. Smartphones have largely replaced personal digital assistant (PDA) devices, handheld/palm-sized PCs, portable media players (PMP),[1] point-and-shoot cameras, camcorders, and, to a lesser extent, handheld video game consoles, e-reader devices, pocket calculators, and GPS tracking units. Following the rising popularity of the iPhone in the late 2000s, the majority of smartphones have featured thin, slate-like form factors with large, capacitive touch screens with support for multi-touch gestures rather than physical keyboards. Most modern smartphones have the ability for users to download or purchase additional applications from a centralized app store. They often have support for cloud storage and cloud synchronization, and virtual assistants. Since the early 2010s, improved hardware and faster wireless communication have bolstered the growth of the smartphone industry. As of 2014[update], over a billion smartphones are sold globally every year. In 2019 alone, 1.54 billion smartphone units were shipped worldwide.[2] As of 2020[update], 75.05 percent of the world population were smartphone users.[3] A typical smartphone contains a number of metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit (IC) chips,[4] which in turn contain billions of tiny MOS field-effect transistors (MOSFETs).[5] A typical smartphone contains the following MOS IC chips:[4]
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Storey (disambiguation). A storey is a level in a building. Storey may also refer to:
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Instagram. Instagram[a] is an American photo and short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters, be organized by hashtags, and be associated with a location via geographical tagging. Posts can be shared publicly or with preapproved followers. Users can browse other users content by tags and locations, view trending content, like photos, and follow other users to add their content to a personal feed.[8] A Meta-operated image-centric social media platform, it is available on iOS, Android, Windows 10, and the web. Users can take photos and edit them using built-in filters and other tools, then share them on other social media platforms like Facebook. It supports 33 languages including English, Hindi, Spanish, French, Korean, and Japanese.[9] Instagram was originally distinguished by allowing content to be framed only in a square (1:1) aspect ratio of 640 pixels to match the display width of the iPhone at the time. In 2015, this restriction was eased with an increase to 1080 pixels. It also added messaging features, the ability to include multiple images or videos in a single post, and a Stories feature—similar to its main competitor, Snapchat, which allowed users to post their content to a sequential feed, with each post accessible to others for 24 hours. As of January 2019, Stories was used by 500 million people daily.[8] Instagram was launched for iOS in October 2010 by Kevin Systrom and the Brazilian software engineer Mike Krieger. It rapidly gained popularity, reaching 1 million registered users in two months, 10 million in a year, and 1 billion in June 2018. In April 2012, Facebook acquired the service for approximately US$1 billion in cash and stock. The Android version of Instagram was released in April 2012, followed by a feature-limited desktop interface in November 2012, a Fire OS app in June 2014, an app for Windows 10 in October 2016, and an app for iPadOS in September 2025. Although often admired for its success and influence, Instagram has also been criticized for negatively affecting teens mental health, its policy and interface changes, its alleged censorship, and illegal and inappropriate content uploaded by users. Instagram began development in San Francisco as Burbn, a mobile check-in app created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. On March 5, 2010, Systrom closed a $500,000 (equivalent to $682,200 in 2023) seed funding round with Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz while working on Burbn.[10][11] Realizing that it was too similar to Foursquare, they refocused their app on photo-sharing, which had become a popular feature among its users.[12][13] They renamed it Instagram, a portmanteau of instant camera and telegram.[14]
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Multistorey car park. A multistorey car park[1][2] (Commonwealth English) or parking garage (American English),[1] also called a multistorey,[3] parking building, parking structure, parkade (Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck, or indoor parking, is a building designed for car, motorcycle, and bicycle parking in which parking takes place on more than one floor or level. The first known multistorey facility was built in London in 1901 and the first underground parking was built in Barcelona in 1904 (see history).[1] The term multistorey (or multistory) is almost never used in the United States, because almost all parking structures have multiple parking levels. Parking structures may be heated if they are enclosed. Design of parking structures can add considerable cost for planning new developments, with costs in the United States around $28,000 per space and $56,000 per space for underground (excluding the cost of land), and can be required by cities in parking mandates for new buildings.[4] Some cities such as London have abolished previously enacted minimum parking requirements.[5] Minimum parking requirements are a hallmark of zoning and planning codes for municipalities in the US. (States do not prescribe parking requirements, while counties and cities can).[6] The earliest known multi-storey car park was opened in May 1901 by City & Suburban Electric Carriage Company at 6 Denman Street, central London. The location had space for 100 vehicles over seven floors, totaling 19,000 square feet. The same company opened a second location in 1902 for 230 vehicles. The company specialized in the sale, storage, valeting, and on-demand delivery of electric vehicles that could travel about 40 miles and had a top speed of 20 miles per hour. The earliest known parking garage in the United States was built in 1918 for the Hotel La Salle at 215 West Washington Street in the West Loop area of downtown Chicago, Illinois. It was designed by Holabird and Roche.[7] The Hotel La Salle was demolished in 1976, but the parking structure remained because it had been designated as preliminary landmark status[8] and the structure was several blocks from the hotel. It was demolished in 2005 after failing to receive landmark status from the city of Chicago.[9] A 49-storey apartment tower, 215 West, has taken its place, also featuring a parking garage.[10] When the Capital Garage in Washington, D.C. was built in 1927, it was reportedly the largest parking structure of its kind in the country. It was imploded in 1974.[11]
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Facebook. Facebook is an American social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name derives from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities. Since 2006, Facebook allows everyone to register from 13 years old, except in the case of a handful of nations, where the age requirement is 14 years.[6] As of December 2023[update], Facebook claimed almost 3.07 billion monthly active users worldwide.[7] As of July 2025[update], Facebook ranked as the third-most-visited website in the world, with 23% of its traffic coming from the United States.[8] It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s.[9] Facebook can be accessed from devices with Internet connectivity, such as personal computers, tablets and smartphones. After registering, users can create a profile revealing personal information about themselves. They can post text, photos and multimedia which are shared with any other users who have agreed to be their friend or, with different privacy settings, publicly. Users can also communicate directly with each other with Messenger, edit messages (within 15 minutes after sending),[10][11] join common-interest groups, and receive notifications on the activities of their Facebook friends and the pages they follow. Facebook has often been criticized over issues such as user privacy (as with the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal), political manipulation (as with the 2016 U.S. elections) and mass surveillance.[12] The company has also been subject to criticism over its psychological effects such as addiction and low self-esteem, and over content such as fake news, conspiracy theories, copyright infringement, and hate speech.[13] Commentators have accused Facebook of willingly facilitating the spread of such content, as well as exaggerating its number of users to appeal to advertisers.[14]
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English in the Commonwealth of Nations. The use of the English language in current and former countries of the Commonwealth was largely inherited from British colonisation, with some exceptions. English forms part of the Commonwealths common culture and serves as the medium of inter-Commonwealth relations.[1][2] Commonwealth English refers to English as practised in the Commonwealth; the term is most often interchangeable with British English, but is also used to distinguish between British English and that in the rest of the Commonwealth.[3] English in the Commonwealth is diverse, and many regions have developed their own local varieties of the language. The official status of English varies; in Bangladesh, it lacks any but is widely used, and likewise in Cyprus, it is not official but is used as the lingua franca.[4][5] Written English in current and former Commonwealth countries generally favours British English spelling as opposed to that of American English,[6] with some exceptions, particularly in Canada, where there are strong influences from neighbouring American English.[7]
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Solid ground floor. A solid ground floor consists of a layer of concrete, which in the case of a domestic building will be the surface layer brought up to ground floor level with hardcore filling under it. The advantage of a solid ground floor is the elimination of dry rot and other problems normally associated with hollow joisted floors. The disadvantage is that the floor is less resilient to walk upon and may be more tiring for the user. Solid ground floors are usually found or situated in a kitchen but will be necessary for other rooms where wood blocks and other similar finishes are required. The concrete floor may be topped with a 25 mm thick cement and sand screed trowelled to a smooth finish. The usual mix is 1:3 and a colouring agent may be added to the mix to obtain a more attractive finish. The mix should be as dry as possible and the sand should be coarsely graded and clean to avoid shrinkage and cracking which might occur with a wet mix. The floor finish is carefully cured after laying. Granolithic is composed of cement and fine aggregate mortar, the aggregate being granite chippings, which will give the hard wearing quality of the finish. It will be laid with screed, troweled or floated to an even and fine finish. Granolithic paving will be suitable in areas which are to receive hard wear although its appearance would not normally be suitable for internal domestic work. Polyvinyl Chloride Tiles- These are another commonly used floor finish. After the floor has been laid with screed, these tiles are fixed with adhesive. They are attractive, smooth and cool, and damage can be repaired very easily as they are made in small square size, usually 150 mm to 225 mm. Though due to poor workmanship and dust this type of floor finish fails through lifting.[1]
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