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Nanjing International Youth Cultural Centre. Nanjing International Youth Cultural Center (Chinese: 南京国际青年文化中心) are two skyscrapers in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. Tower 1 is 314.5 meters (1,032 ft) tall and Tower 2 is 255 meters (837 ft). Construction began in 2012 and ended in 2015.[1][2][3] 31°59′30″N 118°42′29″E / 31.9916°N 118.7081°E / 31.9916; 118.7081 This article about a building or structure in China is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Cedric Price. Cedric Price FRIBA (11 September 1934 – 10 August 2003) was an English architect and influential teacher and writer on architecture. The son of the architect A.G. Price, who worked with Harry Weedon,[1] Price was born in Stone, Staffordshire. He studied architecture at St Johns College, Cambridge, graduating in 1955, and the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) in London, where he encountered and was influenced by the modernist architect and urban planner Arthur Korn.[2] From 1958 to 1964 he taught part-time at the AA and at the Council of Industrial Design. He later founded Polyark, an architectural schools network. After graduating, Price worked briefly for Erno Goldfinger, Denys Lasdun, the partnership of Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, and applied unsuccessfully for a post at London County Council, working briefly as a professional illustrator before starting his own practice in 1960.[1] He worked with The Earl of Snowdon and Frank Newby on the design of the Snowdon Aviary at London Zoo (1961).[3] He later also worked with Buckminster Fuller on the Claverton Dome. One of his more notable projects was the East London Fun Palace (1961),[4] developed in association with theatrical director Joan Littlewood and cybernetician Gordon Pask.[5] Although it was never built, its flexible space influenced other architects, notably Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano whose Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris extended many of Prices ideas – some of which Price used on a more modest scale in the Inter-Action Centre at Kentish Town, London (1971).[2]
Ingenuity (helicopter). Data from NASA Mars Helicopter Flight Log Ingenuity, nicknamed Ginny, is an autonomous NASA helicopter that operated on Mars from 2021 to 2024 as part of the Mars 2020 mission. Ingenuity made its first flight on 19 April 2021, demonstrating that flight is possible in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars, and becoming the first aircraft to conduct a powered and controlled extra-terrestrial flight.[a] It was designed by NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in collaboration with AeroVironment, NASAs Ames Research Center and Langley Research Center with some components supplied by Lockheed Martin Space, Qualcomm, and SolAero. Ingenuity was delivered to Mars on 18 February 2021, attached to the underside of the Perseverance rover, which landed at Octavia E. Butler Landing near the western rim of the 45 km-wide (28 mi) Jezero crater. Because radio signals take several minutes to travel between Earth and Mars, it could not be manually controlled in real time, and instead autonomously flew flight plans sent to it by JPL. Originally intended to make only five flights, Ingenuity completed 72 flights in nearly three years. The five planned flights were part of a 30-sol technology demonstration intended to prove its airworthiness with flights of up to 90 seconds at altitudes ranging from 3–5 m (10–16 ft). Following this demonstration, JPL designed a series of operational flights to explore how aerial scouts could help explore Mars and other worlds. In this operational role, Ingenuity scouted areas of interest for the Perseverance rover, improved navigational techniques, and explored the limits of its flight envelope. Ingenuitys performance and resilience in the harsh Martian environment greatly exceeded expectations, allowing it to perform far more flights than were initially planned. On 18 January 2024, the rotor blades were broken during landing on flight 72, permanently grounding the helicopter. NASA announced the end of the mission one week later. Engineers concluded that Ingenuitys navigation system was not effective over the featureless terrain on the final flight, resulting in a crash landing. Ingenuity had flown for a total of two hours, eight minutes and 48 seconds over 1,004 days, covering more than 17 kilometres (11 mi).
Washington, D.C.. Washington, D.C., officially the District of Columbia and commonly known as simply Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district[a] of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with Maryland to its north and east. It was named after George Washington, the first president of the United States. The district is named for Columbia, the female personification of the nation. The U.S. Constitution in 1789 called for the creation of a federal district under exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress. As such, Washington, D.C., is not part of any state, and is not one itself. The Residence Act, adopted on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of the capital district along the Potomac River. The city was founded in 1791, and the 6th Congress held the first session in the unfinished Capitol Building in 1800 after the capital moved from Philadelphia. In 1801, the District of Columbia, formerly part of Maryland and Virginia and including the existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria, was officially recognized as the federal district; initially, the city was a separate settlement within the larger district. In 1846, Congress reduced the size of the district when it returned the land originally ceded by Virginia, including the city of Alexandria. In 1871, it created a single municipality for the district. There have been several unsuccessful efforts to make the district into a state since the 1880s, including a statehood bill that passed the House of Representatives in 2021 but was not adopted by the U.S. Senate. Designed in 1791 by Pierre Charles LEnfant, the city is divided into quadrants, which are centered on the Capitol Building and include 131 neighborhoods. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 689,545.[3] Commuters from the citys Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the citys daytime population to more than one million during the workweek.[12] The Washington metropolitan area, which includes parts of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia, is the countrys seventh-largest metropolitan area, with a 2023 population of 6.3 million residents.[6] A locally elected mayor and 13-member council have governed the district since 1973, though Congress retains the power to overturn local laws. Washington, D.C., residents do not have voting representation in Congress, but elect a single non-voting congressional delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. The citys voters choose three presidential electors in accordance with the Twenty-third Amendment, passed in 1961. Washington, D.C., anchors the southern end of the Northeast megalopolis. As the seat of the U.S. federal government, the city is an important world political capital.[13] The city hosts buildings that house federal government headquarters, including the White House, U.S. Capitol, Supreme Court Building, and multiple federal departments and agencies. The city is home to many national monuments and museums, located most prominently on or around the National Mall, including the Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, and Washington Monument. It hosts 177 foreign embassies and the global headquarters of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, and other international organizations. Home to many of the nations largest industry associations, non-profit organizations, and think tanks, the city is known as a lobbying hub, which is centered on and around K Street.[14] It is also among the countrys top tourist destinations; in 2022, it drew an estimated 20.7 million domestic[15] and 1.2 million international visitors, seventh-most among U.S. cities.[16]
Wikisource. Wikisource is an online wiki-based digital library of free-content textual sources operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole; it is also the name for each instance of that project, one for each language. The projects aim is to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, it has expanded to become a general-content library. The project officially began on November 24, 2003, under the name Project Sourceberg, a play on Project Gutenberg. The name Wikisource was adopted later that year and it received its own domain name. The project holds works that are either in the public domain or freely licensed: professionally published works or historical source documents, not vanity products. Verification was initially made offline, or by trusting the reliability of other digital libraries. Now works are supported by online scans via the ProofreadPage extension, which ensures the reliability and accuracy of the projects texts. Some individual Wikisources, each representing a specific language, now only allow works backed up with scans. While the bulk of its collection are texts, Wikisource as a whole hosts other media, from comics to film to audiobooks. Some Wikisources allow user-generated annotations, subject to the specific policies of the Wikisource in question. The project has come under criticism for lack of reliability but it is also cited by organisations such as the National Archives and Records Administration.[3] As of September 2025, there are Wikisource subdomains active for 81 languages[1] comprising a total of 6,579,952 articles and 2,988 recently active editors.[4] The original concept for Wikisource was as storage for useful or important historical texts. These texts were intended to support Wikipedia articles, by providing primary evidence and original source texts, and as an archive in its own right. The collection was initially focused on important historical and cultural material, distinguishing it from other digital archives like Project Gutenberg.[2]
Perseverance (rover). Perseverance[2] is a car-sized Mars rover designed to explore the Jezero crater on Mars as part of NASAs Mars 2020 mission. It was manufactured by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched on July 30, 2020, at 11:50 UTC.[3] Confirmation that the rover successfully landed on Mars was received on February 18, 2021, at 20:55 UTC.[4][5] As of 13 September 2025, Perseverance has been active on Mars for 1623 sols (1,668 Earth days, or 4 years, 6 months and 26 days) since its landing. Following the rovers arrival, NASA named the landing site Octavia E. Butler Landing.[6][7] Perseverance has a similar design to its predecessor rover, Curiosity, although it was moderately upgraded. It carries seven primary payload instruments, nineteen cameras, and two microphones.[8] The rover also carried the mini-helicopter Ingenuity to Mars, an experimental technology testbed that made the first powered aircraft flight on another planet on April 19, 2021.[9] On January 18, 2024 (UTC), it made its 72nd and final flight, suffering damage on landing to its rotor blades, possibly all four, causing NASA to retire it.[10][11] The rovers goals include identifying ancient Martian environments capable of supporting life, seeking out evidence of former microbial life existing in those environments, collecting rock and soil samples to store on the Martian surface, and testing oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere to prepare for future crewed missions.[12]
Geomatics. Geomatics is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as the discipline concerned with the collection, distribution, storage, analysis, processing, presentation of geographic data or geographic information.[1] Under another definition, it consists of products, services and tools involved in the collection, integration and management of geographic (geospatial) data.[2] Surveying engineering was the widely used name for geomatic(s) engineering in the past. Geomatics was placed by the UNESCO Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems under the branch of technical geography.[3][4] The term was proposed in French (géomatique) at the end of the 1960s by scientist Bernard Dubuisson to reflect at the time recent changes in the jobs of surveyor and photogrammetrist.[5] The term was first employed in a French Ministry of Public Works memorandum dated 1 June 1971 instituting a standing committee of geomatics in the government.[6] The term was popularised in English by French-Canadian surveyor Michel Paradis in his The little Geodesist that could article, in 1981 and in a keynote address at the centennial congress of the Canadian Institute of Surveying (now known as the Canadian Institute of Geomatics) in April 1982. He claimed that at the end of the 20th century the needs for geographical information would reach a scope without precedent in history and that, in order to address these needs, it was necessary to integrate in a new discipline both the traditional disciplines of land surveying and the new tools and techniques of data capture, manipulation, storage and diffusion.[7] Geomatics includes the tools and techniques used in land surveying, remote sensing, cartography, geographic information systems (GIS), global navigation satellite systems (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou), photogrammetry, geophysics, geography, and related forms of earth mapping. The term was originally used in Canada but has since been adopted by the International Organization for Standardization, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and many other international authorities, although some (especially in the United States) have shown a preference for the term geospatial technology,[8] which may be defined as synonym of geospatial information and communications technology.[9] Although many definitions of geomatics, such as the above, appear to encompass the entire discipline relating to geographic information – including geodesy, geographic information systems, remote sensing, satellite navigation, and cartography –, the term is almost exclusively restricted to the perspective of surveying and engineering toward geographic information.[citation needed] Geoinformatics and Geographic information science has been proposed as alternative comprehensive term; however, their popularity is, like geomatics, largely dependent on country.[10]
Spatial reference system. A spatial reference system (SRS) or coordinate reference system (CRS) is a framework used to precisely measure locations on the surface of Earth as coordinates. It is thus the application of the abstract mathematics of coordinate systems and analytic geometry to geographic space. A particular SRS specification (for example, Universal Transverse Mercator WGS 84 Zone 16N) comprises a choice of Earth ellipsoid, horizontal datum, map projection (except in the geographic coordinate system), origin point, and unit of measure. Thousands of coordinate systems have been specified for use around the world or in specific regions and for various purposes, necessitating transformations between different SRS. Although they date to the Hellenistic period, spatial reference systems are now a crucial basis for the sciences and technologies of Geoinformatics, including cartography, geographic information systems, surveying, remote sensing, and civil engineering. This has led to their standardization in international specifications such as the EPSG codes[1] and ISO 19111:2019 Geographic information—Spatial referencing by coordinates, prepared by ISO/TC 211, also published by the Open Geospatial Consortium as Abstract Specification, Topic 2: Spatial referencing by coordinate.[2] The thousands of spatial reference systems used today are based on a few general strategies, which have been defined in the EPSG, ISO, and OGC standards:[1][2] These standards acknowledge that standard reference systems also exist for time (e.g. ISO 8601). These may be combined with a spatial reference system to form a compound coordinate system for representing three-dimensional and/or spatio-temporal locations. There are also internal systems for measuring location within the context of an object, such as the rows and columns of pixels in a raster image, Linear referencing measurements along linear features (e.g., highway mileposts), and systems for specifying location within moving objects such as ships. The latter two are often classified as subcategories of engineering coordinate systems.
Geodynamics. Geodynamics is a subfield of geophysics dealing with dynamics of the Earth. It applies physics, chemistry and mathematics to the understanding of how mantle convection leads to plate tectonics and geologic phenomena such as seafloor spreading, mountain building, volcanoes, earthquakes, or faulting. It also attempts to probe the internal activity by measuring magnetic fields, gravity, and seismic waves, as well as the mineralogy of rocks and their isotopic composition. Methods of geodynamics are also applied to exploration of other planets.[1] Geodynamics is generally concerned with processes that move materials throughout the Earth. In the Earths interior, movement happens when rocks melt or deform and flow in response to a stress field.[2] This deformation may be brittle, elastic, or plastic, depending on the magnitude of the stress and the materials physical properties, especially the stress relaxation time scale. Rocks are structurally and compositionally heterogeneous and are subjected to variable stresses, so it is common to see different types of deformation in close spatial and temporal proximity.[3] When working with geological timescales and lengths, it is convenient to use the continuous medium approximation and equilibrium stress fields to consider the average response to average stress.[4] Experts in geodynamics commonly use data from geodetic GPS, InSAR, and seismology, along with numerical models, to study the evolution of the Earths lithosphere, mantle and core. Work performed by geodynamicists may include: Rocks and other geological materials experience strain according to three distinct modes, elastic, plastic, and brittle depending on the properties of the material and the magnitude of the stress field. Stress is defined as the average force per unit area exerted on each part of the rock. Pressure is the part of stress that changes the volume of a solid; shear stress changes the shape. If there is no shear, the fluid is in hydrostatic equilibrium. Since, over long periods, rocks readily deform under pressure, the Earth is in hydrostatic equilibrium to a good approximation. The pressure on rock depends only on the weight of the rock above, and this depends on gravity and the density of the rock. In a body like the Moon, the density is almost constant, so a pressure profile is readily calculated. In the Earth, the compression of rocks with depth is significant, and an equation of state is needed to calculate changes in density of rock even when it is of uniform composition.[5]
Azalea. Azaleas (/əˈzeɪliə/ ə-ZAY-lee-ə) are flowering shrubs in the genus Rhododendron, particularly the former sections Tsutsusi (evergreen) and Pentanthera (deciduous). Azaleas bloom in the spring (April and May in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, and October and November in the Southern Hemisphere),[1] their flowers often lasting several weeks. Shade tolerant, they prefer living near or under trees. They are part of the family Ericaceae. Plant enthusiasts have selectively bred azaleas for hundreds of years. This human selection has produced thousands of different cultivars which are propagated by cuttings.[2] Azalea seeds can also be collected and germinated. Azaleas are generally slow-growing and do best in well-drained acidic soil (4.5–6.0 pH).[3] Fertilizer needs are low. Some species need regular pruning. Azaleas are native to several continents including Asia, Europe and North America.[4] They are planted abundantly as ornamentals in the southeastern US, southern Asia, and parts of southwest Europe.[citation needed] According to azalea historian Fred Galle, in the United States, Azalea indica (in this case, the group of plants called Southern indicas) was first introduced to the outdoor landscape in the 1830s at the rice plantation Magnolia-on-the-Ashley in Charleston, South Carolina. From Philadelphia, where they were grown only in greenhouses, John Grimke Drayton (Magnolias owner) imported the plants for use in his estate garden. With encouragement from Charles Sprague Sargent from Harvards Arnold Arboretum, Magnolia Plantation and Gardens was opened to the public in 1871[5], following the American Civil War. Magnolia is one of the oldest public gardens in America[6]. Since the late 19th century, in late March and early April, thousands visit to see the azaleas bloom in their full glory.[citation needed]
Richard Rogers. Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside (23 July 1933 – 18 December 2021) was a British-Italian architect noted for his modernist and constructivist designs in high-tech architecture. He was the founder at Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, previously known as the Richard Rogers Partnership, until June 2020. After Rogers retirement and death, the firm rebranded to simply RSHP on 30 June 2022. Rogers was perhaps best known for his work on the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Lloyds building and Millennium Dome, both in London, the Senedd building, in Cardiff, and the European Court of Human Rights building, in Strasbourg. He was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal, the Thomas Jefferson Medal, the RIBA Stirling Prize, the Minerva Medal, and the 2007 Pritzker Prize. Richard Rogers was born in Florence, Tuscany, in 1933 into an Anglo-Italian family. His father, William Nino Rogers (1906–1993), was Jewish, and was the cousin of Italian Jewish architect Ernesto Nathan Rogers. His Jewish ancestors moved from Sunderland to Venice in about 1800, later settling in Trieste, Milan and Florence. In October 1938, William Nino Rogers came back to England,[2] having fled Fascist Italy and anti-Jewish laws under Mussolini. Upon moving to England, Richard Rogers went to St Johns School, Leatherhead. Rogers did not excel academically, which made him believe that he was stupid because he could not read or memorise his school work[3] and as a consequence, he said, he became very depressed.[3] He could not read until he was 11,[4] and it was not until after he had his first child that Rogers realised he was dyslexic.[3] After leaving St Johns School, he undertook a foundation course at Epsom School of Art[5] (now the University for the Creative Arts) before going into National Service between 1951 and 1953.[2]
Renzo Piano. Renzo Piano OMRI (Italian: [ˈrɛntso ˈpjaːno]; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable works include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), Kansai International Airport in Osaka (1994), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (2015), Istanbul Museum of Modern Art in Istanbul (2022)[1] and Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens (2016). He was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1998. Piano has served as a senator for life in the Italian Senate since 2013. Piano was born and raised in Genoa, Italy,[2][3] into a family of builders. His grandfather had created a masonry enterprise, which had been expanded by his father, Carlo Piano, and his fathers three brothers, into the firm Fratelli Piano. The firm prospered after World War II, constructing houses and factories and selling construction materials. When his father retired, the enterprise was led by Renzos older brother, Ermanno, who studied engineering at the University of Genoa. Renzo studied architecture at the University of Florence and Polytechnic University of Milan. He graduated in 1964 with a dissertation about modular coordination (coordinazione modulare) supervised by Giuseppe Ciribini[4] and began working with experimental lightweight structures and basic shelters.[5] Piano taught at the Polytechnic University from 1965 until 1968, and expanded his horizons and technical skills by working in two large international firms, for the modernist architect Louis Kahn in Philadelphia and for the Polish engineer Zygmunt Stanisław Makowski in London. He completed his first building, the IPE factory in Genoa, in 1968, with a roof of steel and reinforced polyester, and created a continuous membrane for the covering of a pavilion at the Milan Triennale in the same year. In 1970, he received his first international commission, for the Pavilion of Italian Industry for Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan. He collaborated with his brother Ermanno and the family firm, which manufactured the structure. It was lightweight and original composed of steel and reinforced polyester, and it appeared to be simultaneously artistic and industrial.[6]
Asahi Breweries. The Asahi Group Holdings, Ltd. (アサヒグループホールディングス株式会社, Asahi Gurūpu Hōrudingusu kabushiki gaisha) is a Japanese beverage holding company headquartered in Sumida, Tokyo. In 2019, the group had revenue of JPY 2.1 trillion. Asahis business portfolio can be segmented as follows: alcoholic beverage business (40.5%), overseas business (32%), soft drinks business (17.2%), food business (5.4%) and other business (4.9%).[2] Asahi, with a 37% market share, is the largest of the four major beer brewers in Japan followed by Kirin Beer with 34% and Suntory with 16%.[3] Asahi has a 48.5% share of the Australian beer market.[4] In response to a maturing domestic Japanese beer market, Asahi broadened its geographic footprint and business portfolio through the acquisition of beer businesses in Western Europe and Central Eastern Europe.[5] This has resulted in Asahi having a large market share in many European countries, such as a beer market share of 44% in the Czech Republic, 32% in Poland, 36% in Romania, and 18% in Italy.[6] The predecessor of the company, Asahi Breweries (朝日麦酒株式会社), was established in 1889. In 1893, it was reorganized as Ōsaka Breweries (大阪麦酒株式会社). In 1906, Ōsaka Breweries merged with Nippon Breweries and Sapporo Breweries to form Dai-Nippon Breweries (大日本麦酒株式会社; lit. Great Japan Beer Company). During World War I, German prisoners worked in the brewery.[7] After World War II, the company was divided under the Elimination of Excessive Concentration of Economic Power Law by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. Asahi Breweries (朝日麦酒株式会社) was separated from Nippon Breweries, which is now Sapporo Breweries. In 1989, it was renamed to katakana (アサヒビール株式会社). In 2011, it changed its name to Asahi Group Holdings, a holding company, and established Asahi Breweries Ltd as a subsidiary.[8] In 1990, Asahi acquired a 19.9% stake in Australian brewery giant Elders IXL which has since become the Fosters Group, later sold to SABMiller.
Geodesy. Geodesy or geodetics[1] is the science of measuring and representing the geometry, gravity, and spatial orientation of the Earth in temporally varying 3D. It is called planetary geodesy when studying other astronomical bodies, such as planets or circumplanetary systems.[2] Geodynamical phenomena, including crustal motion, tides, and polar motion, can be studied by designing global and national control networks, applying space geodesy and terrestrial geodetic techniques, and relying on datums and coordinate systems. Geodetic job titles include geodesist and geodetic surveyor.[3] Geodesy began in pre-scientific antiquity, so the very word geodesy comes from the Ancient Greek word γεωδαισία or geodaisia (literally, division of Earth).[4] Early ideas about the figure of the Earth held the Earth to be flat and the heavens a physical dome spanning over it.[5] Two early arguments for a spherical Earth were that lunar eclipses appear to an observer as circular shadows and that Polaris appears lower and lower in the sky to a traveler headed South.[6]
Ingenuity (helicopter). Data from NASA Mars Helicopter Flight Log Ingenuity, nicknamed Ginny, is an autonomous NASA helicopter that operated on Mars from 2021 to 2024 as part of the Mars 2020 mission. Ingenuity made its first flight on 19 April 2021, demonstrating that flight is possible in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars, and becoming the first aircraft to conduct a powered and controlled extra-terrestrial flight.[a] It was designed by NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in collaboration with AeroVironment, NASAs Ames Research Center and Langley Research Center with some components supplied by Lockheed Martin Space, Qualcomm, and SolAero. Ingenuity was delivered to Mars on 18 February 2021, attached to the underside of the Perseverance rover, which landed at Octavia E. Butler Landing near the western rim of the 45 km-wide (28 mi) Jezero crater. Because radio signals take several minutes to travel between Earth and Mars, it could not be manually controlled in real time, and instead autonomously flew flight plans sent to it by JPL. Originally intended to make only five flights, Ingenuity completed 72 flights in nearly three years. The five planned flights were part of a 30-sol technology demonstration intended to prove its airworthiness with flights of up to 90 seconds at altitudes ranging from 3–5 m (10–16 ft). Following this demonstration, JPL designed a series of operational flights to explore how aerial scouts could help explore Mars and other worlds. In this operational role, Ingenuity scouted areas of interest for the Perseverance rover, improved navigational techniques, and explored the limits of its flight envelope. Ingenuitys performance and resilience in the harsh Martian environment greatly exceeded expectations, allowing it to perform far more flights than were initially planned. On 18 January 2024, the rotor blades were broken during landing on flight 72, permanently grounding the helicopter. NASA announced the end of the mission one week later. Engineers concluded that Ingenuitys navigation system was not effective over the featureless terrain on the final flight, resulting in a crash landing. Ingenuity had flown for a total of two hours, eight minutes and 48 seconds over 1,004 days, covering more than 17 kilometres (11 mi).
Precambrian. The Precambrian ( /priˈkæmbri.ən, -ˈkeɪm-/ pree-KAM-bree-ən, -⁠KAYM-;[2] or pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pC, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earths history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of the Phanerozoic Eon, which is named after Cambria, the Latinized name for Wales, where rocks from this age were first studied. The Precambrian accounts for 88% of the Earths geologic time. The Precambrian is an informal unit of geologic time,[3] subdivided into three eons (Hadean, Archean, Proterozoic) of the geologic time scale. It spans from the formation of Earth about 4.6 billion years ago (Ga) to the beginning of the Cambrian Period, about 538.8 million years ago (Ma), when hard-shelled creatures first appeared in abundance. Relatively little is known about the Precambrian, despite it making up roughly seven-eighths of the Earths history, and what is known has largely been discovered from the 1960s onwards. The Precambrian fossil record is poorer than that of the succeeding Phanerozoic, and fossils from the Precambrian (e.g. stromatolites) are of limited biostratigraphic use.[4] This is because many Precambrian rocks have been heavily metamorphosed, obscuring their origins, while others have been destroyed by erosion, or remain deeply buried beneath Phanerozoic strata.[4][5][6] It is thought that the Earth coalesced from material in orbit around the Sun at roughly 4,543 Ma, and may have been struck by another planet called Theia shortly after it formed, splitting off material that formed the Moon (see Giant-impact hypothesis). A stable crust was apparently in place by 4,433 Ma, since zircon crystals from Western Australia have been dated at 4,404 ± 8 Ma.[7][8] The term Precambrian is used by geologists and paleontologists for general discussions not requiring a more specific eon name. However, both the United States Geological Survey[9] and the International Commission on Stratigraphy regard the term as informal.[10] Because the span of time falling under the Precambrian consists of three eons (the Hadean, the Archean, and the Proterozoic), it is sometimes described as a supereon,[11][12] but this is also an informal term, not defined by the ICS in its chronostratigraphic guide.[13]
New England Commission of Higher Education. The New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) is a voluntary, peer-based, non-profit membership organization that performs peer evaluation and accreditation of public and private universities and colleges in the United States and other countries. Until federal regulations changed on July 1, 2020, it was one of the seven regional accreditation organizations dating back 130 years. NECHE then became an institutional accreditor recognized by the United States Department of Education[1] and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.[2] Its headquarters are in Wakefield, Massachusetts.[3] NECHE accredits over 200 institutions primarily in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
Silurian. The Silurian (/sɪˈljʊəri.ən, saɪ-/ sih-LURE-ee-ən, sy-)[8][9][10] is a geologic period and system spanning 23.5 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at 443.1 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Devonian Period, 419.62 Ma.[11] The Silurian is the third and shortest period of the Paleozoic Era, and the third of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon. As with other geologic periods, the rock beds that define the periods start and end are well identified, but the exact dates are uncertain by a few million years. The base of the Silurian is set at a series of major Ordovician–Silurian extinction events when up to 60% of marine genera were wiped out. One important event in this period was the initial establishment of terrestrial life in what is known as the Silurian-Devonian Terrestrial Revolution: vascular plants emerged from more primitive land plants,[12][13] dikaryan fungi started expanding and diversifying along with glomeromycotan fungi,[14] and three groups of arthropods (myriapods, arachnids and hexapods) became fully terrestrialized.[15] Another significant evolutionary milestone during the Silurian was the diversification of jawed fish, which include placoderms, acanthodians (which gave rise to cartilaginous fish) and osteichthyan (bony fish, further divided into lobe-finned and ray-finned fishes),[16] although this corresponded to sharp decline of jawless fish such as conodonts and ostracoderms. The Silurian system was first identified by the Scottish geologist Roderick Murchison, who was examining fossil-bearing sedimentary rock strata in south Wales in the early 1830s. He named the sequences for a Celtic tribe of Wales, the Silures, inspired by his friend Adam Sedgwick, who had named the period of his study the Cambrian, from a Latin name for Wales.[17] Whilst the British rocks now identified as belonging to the Silurian System and the lands now thought to have been inhabited in antiquity by the Silures show little correlation (cf. Geologic map of Wales, Map of pre-Roman tribes of Wales), Murchison conjectured that their territory included Caer Caradoc and Wenlock Edge exposures - and that if it did not there were plenty of Silurian rocks elsewhere to sanction the name proposed.[18] In 1835 the two men presented a joint paper, under the title On the Silurian and Cambrian Systems, Exhibiting the Order in which the Older Sedimentary Strata Succeed each other in England and Wales, which was the germ of the modern geological time scale.[19] As it was first identified, the Silurian series when traced farther afield quickly came to overlap Sedgwicks Cambrian sequence, however, provoking furious disagreements that ended the friendship. The English geologist Charles Lapworth resolved the conflict by defining a new Ordovician system including the contested beds.[20] An alternative name for the Silurian was Gotlandian after the strata of the Baltic island of Gotland.[21]
List of colleges and universities in metropolitan Boston. This is a list of colleges and universities in metropolitan Boston. Some are located within Boston proper while some are located in neighboring cities and towns, but all are within the 128/95/1 loop. This is closer to the inner core definition of Metropolitan Boston, which excludes more suburban North Shore, South Shore and MetroWest regions. Although larger institutions may have several schools, some of which are located in cities other than that of the main campus (such as Harvard Medical School and Tufts University School of Medicine), each institution is listed only once and location is determined by the site of each institutions main campus. Three universities—Harvard and MIT in Cambridge, as well as Tufts in Somerville—make up the brainpower triangle of greater Boston, a region defined by universities that have a large local and national influence.[1] There are a total of 44 institutions of higher education in the defined region, including three junior colleges, 11 colleges that primarily grant baccalaureate and masters degrees, eight research universities, and 22 special-focus institutions. Of these, 39 are private ventures while five are public institutions (four are run by the state of Massachusetts and one is operated by the city of Quincy). In 2023, enrollment at these colleges and universities ranged from 33 students at Boston Baptist College to 36,624 students at Boston University. The first to be founded was Harvard University, also the oldest institution of higher education in the United States, while the most recently established institution is Sattler College. All but five of these schools are accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE).
Year. A year is a unit of time based on how long it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun.[1] In scientific use, the tropical year (approximately 365 solar days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds) and the sidereal year (about 20 minutes longer) are more exact. The modern calendar year, as reckoned according to the Gregorian calendar, approximates the tropical year by using a system of leap years. The term year is also used to indicate other periods of roughly similar duration, such as the lunar year (a roughly 354-day cycle of twelve of the Moons phases – see lunar calendar), as well as periods loosely associated with the calendar or astronomical year, such as the seasonal year, the fiscal year, the academic year, etc. Due to the Earths axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by changes in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar regions around the planet, four seasons are generally recognized: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. In tropical and subtropical regions, several geographical sectors do not present defined seasons; but in the seasonal tropics, the annual wet and dry seasons are recognized and tracked.
Latin (disambiguation). Latin is an Italic language, originally spoken in ancient Rome and its empire. Latin may also refer to:
Ladin. Ladin may refer to:
Cherry blossom. The cherry blossom, or sakura, is the flower of trees in Prunus subgenus Cerasus. Sakura usually refers to flowers of ornamental cherry trees, such as cultivars of Prunus serrulata, not trees grown for their fruit[1]: 14–18 [2] (although these also have blossoms). Cherry blossoms have been described as having a vanilla-like smell, which is mainly attributed to coumarin. Wild species of cherry tree are widely distributed, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere.[3][4][5] They are common in East Asia, especially in Japan, where they have been cultivated, producing many varieties.[6]: 40–42, 160–161 Most of the ornamental cherry trees planted in parks and other places for viewing are cultivars developed for ornamental purposes from various wild species. In order to create a cultivar suitable for viewing, a wild species with characteristics suitable for viewing is needed. Prunus speciosa (Oshima cherry), which is endemic to Japan, produces many large flowers, is fragrant, easily mutates into double flowers and grows rapidly. As a result, various cultivars, known as the Cerasus Sato-zakura Group, have been produced since the 14th century and continue to contribute greatly to the development of hanami (flower viewing) culture.[1]: 27, 89–91 [6]: 160–161 From the modern period, cultivars are mainly propagated by grafting, which quickly produces cherry trees with the same genetic characteristics as the original individuals, and which are excellent to look at.[6]: 89–91 The Japanese word sakura (桜; Japanese pronunciation: [sa.kɯ.ɾa][7]) can mean either the tree or its flowers (see 桜).[8] The cherry blossom is considered the national flower of Japan, and is central to the custom of hanami.[9]
Private university. Private universities and private colleges are higher education institutions not operated, owned, or institutionally funded by governments. However, they often receive tax breaks, public student loans, and government grants. Depending on the country, private universities may be subject to government regulations. Private universities may be contrasted with public universities and national universities which are either operated, owned or institutionally funded by governments. Additionally, many private universities operate as nonprofit organizations. Across the world, different countries have different regulations regarding accreditation for private universities and as such, private universities are more common in some countries than in others. Some countries do not have any private universities at all. Egypt currently has 21 public universities with about two million students and 23 private universities with 60,000 students. Egypt has many private universities including the American University in Cairo, the German University in Cairo, The British University in Egypt, the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, Misr University for Science and Technology, Misr International University, Future University in Egypt and the Modern Sciences and Arts University. In addition to the state-funded national and private universities in Egypt, international university institutions were founded in the New Administrative Capital and are hosting branches of Universities from abroad. The Knowledge Hub (TKH) and European Universities in Egypt (EUE) are among these institutions.
Higher education accreditation. Higher education accreditation is a type of quality assurance and educational accreditation process under which services and operations of tertiary educational institutions or programs are evaluated to determine if applicable standards are met. If standards are met, accredited status is granted by the agency. In most countries around the world, the function of educational accreditation for higher education is conducted by a government organization, such as a ministry of education. In the United States, however, the quality assurance process is independent of government and performed by private agencies.[1] Canada takes a unique position, not allowing any accreditation by government or private agencies, causing some Canadian institutions to seek accreditation by American agencies.[2] Similar situation occurs in Singapore and Macau, which both countries do not have their own higher education accreditation organisation. Some institution from above countries seek accreditation from foreign agencies instead. The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), maintains an international directory which contains contact information of about 467 quality assurance bodies, accreditation bodies and ministries of education in 175 countries. The quality assurance and accreditation bodies have been authorized to operate by their respective governments either as agencies of the government or as private (non-governmental) organizations.[3] In September 2012, University World News reported the launching on an international division of the council.[4] A criticism of higher education accreditation is the over-reliance on input factors, such as instructional time, adequate facilities and credentialed faculty, compared to learning outcomes.[5] In Albania, the accreditation authority/national recognition body is the ASCAL – Quality Assurance Agency in Higher Education (Albanian: Agjencia e Sigurimit të Cilësisë në Arsimin e Lartë) which was established by Order of CM no. 171, dated 27.09.2010, On approval of structure of Public Accreditation Agency on Higher Education.
Ordovician. The Ordovician (/ɔːrdəˈvɪʃi.ən, -doʊ-, -ˈvɪʃən/ or-də-VISH-ee-ən, -⁠doh-, -⁠VISH-ən)[9] is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period 486.85 Ma (million years ago) to the start of the Silurian Period 443.1 Ma.[10] The Ordovician, named after the Welsh tribe of the Ordovices, was defined by Charles Lapworth in 1879 to resolve a dispute between followers of Adam Sedgwick and Roderick Murchison, who were placing the same rock beds in North Wales in the Cambrian and Silurian systems, respectively.[11] Lapworth recognized that the fossil fauna in the disputed strata were different from those of either the Cambrian or the Silurian systems, and placed them in a system of their own. The Ordovician received international approval in 1960 (forty years after Lapworths death), when it was adopted as an official period of the Paleozoic Era by the International Geological Congress. Life continued to flourish during the Ordovician as it had in the earlier Cambrian Period, although the end of the period was marked by the Ordovician–Silurian extinction events. Invertebrates, namely molluscs and arthropods, dominated the oceans, with members of the latter group probably starting their establishment on land during this time, becoming fully established by the Devonian. The first land plants are known from this period. The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event considerably increased the diversity of life. Fish, the worlds first true vertebrates, continued to evolve, and those with jaws may have first appeared late in the period. About 100 times as many meteorites struck the Earth per year during the Ordovician compared with today in a period known as the Ordovician meteor event.[12] It has been theorized that this increase in impacts may originate from a ring system that formed around Earth at the time.[13] In 2008, the ICS erected a formal international system of subdivisions for the Ordovician Period and System.[14] Pre-existing Baltoscandic, British, Siberian, North American, Australian, Chinese, Mediterranean and North-Gondwanan regional stratigraphic schemes are also used locally.[15]
Latium. Latium (/ˈleɪʃiəm/ LAY-shee-əm, US also /-ʃəm/ -⁠shəm;[1][2][3][4] Latin: [ˈɫati.ũː]) is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire. Latium was originally a small triangle of fertile, volcanic soil (Old Latium) on which resided the tribe of the Latins or Latians.[5] It was located on the left bank (east and south) of the River Tiber, extending northward to the River Anio (a left-bank tributary of the Tiber) and southeastward to the Pomptina Palus (Pontine Marshes, now the Pontine Fields) as far south as the Circeian promontory.[6] The right bank of the Tiber was occupied by the Etruscan city of Veii, and the other borders were occupied by Italic tribes. Subsequently, Rome defeated Veii and then its Italic neighbours, expanding its dominions over Southern Etruria and to the south, in a partly marshy and partly mountainous region. The latter saw the creation of numerous Roman and Latin colonies: small Roman colonies were created along the coast, while the inland areas were colonized by Latins and Romans without citizenship. The name Latium was thus also extended to this area south of Rome (Latium adiectum), up to the ancient Oscan city of Casinum, defined by Strabo as the last city of the Latins.[7] The modern descendant, the Italian Regione of Lazio, also called Latium in Latin, and occasionally in modern English, is somewhat larger still, though less than twice the size of Latium vetus et adiectum, including a large area of ancient Southern Etruria and Sabina. The ancient language of the Latins, the tribespeople who occupied Latium, was the immediate predecessor of the Old Latin language, ancestor of Latin and the Romance languages. Latium has played an important role in history owing to its status as the host of the capital city of Rome, at one time the cultural and political center of the Roman Empire. Consequently, Latium is home to celebrated works of art and architecture.
Ashfield, Massachusetts. Ashfield is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 1,695 at the 2020 census.[2] It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. Ashfield was first settled prior to 1743 by a freed slave named Heber who had purchased rights and drew lot #1 in 1739. Ashfield was officially incorporated in 1765. The town was originally called Huntstown for Captain Ephraim Hunt, who died in King Williams War. Sixty of his crew had petitioned for and been granted the land as compensation for hardships and services during the ill designed expedition to Canada in 1690. [3] ≠The first permanent settlement was in 1745, by Richard Ellis, an Irish immigrant from the town of Easton. The town was renamed upon reincorporation, although there is debate over its namesake; it is either for the ash trees in the area, or because Governor Bernard had friends in Ashfield, England. The town had a small peppermint industry in the nineteenth century, but for the most part the town has had a mostly agrarian economy, with some tourism around Ashfield Lake.[4] Ashfield is the birthplace of prominent film director Cecil B. DeMille (whose parents were vacationing in the town at the time); Alvan Clark, nineteenth century astronomer and telescope maker; and William S. Clark, member of the Massachusetts Senate and third president of Massachusetts Agricultural College (now UMass Amherst).[5][6] According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 40.3 square miles (104.3 km2), of which 40.0 square miles (103.6 km2) is land and 0.27 square miles (0.7 km2), or 0.62%, is water.[7] Ashfield is located in the southwest corner of Franklin County, along the Hampshire County line. Ashfield is bordered by Buckland to the north, Conway to the east, Goshen to the south, Cummington to the southwest, Plainfield to the west, and Hawley to the northwest. The northern outlying section of town includes the historic neighborhoods of Beldingville and Baptist Corner. Ashfield is 15 miles (24 km) west-southwest of Greenfield, 35 miles (56 km) north-northwest of Springfield, and 105 miles (169 km) west-northwest of Boston.
Cambrian. The Cambrian ( /ˈkæmbri.ən, ˈkeɪm-/ KAM-bree-ən, KAYM-) is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and the Phanerozoic Eon.[5] The Cambrian lasted 51.95 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran period 538.8 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Ordovician Period 486.85 Ma.[1] Most of the continents were located in the southern hemisphere surrounded by the vast Panthalassa Ocean.[6] The assembly of Gondwana during the Ediacaran and early Cambrian led to the development of new convergent plate boundaries and continental-margin arc magmatism along its margins that helped drive up global temperatures.[7] Laurentia lay across the equator, separated from Gondwana by the opening Iapetus Ocean.[6] The Cambrian marked a profound change in life on Earth; prior to the Period, the majority of living organisms were small, unicellular and poorly preserved. Complex, multicellular organisms gradually became more common during the Ediacaran, but it was not until the Cambrian that fossil diversity seems to rapidly increase, known as the Cambrian explosion, produced the first representatives of most modern animal phyla.[8] The Period is also unique in its unusually high proportion of lagerstätte deposits, sites of exceptional preservation where soft parts of organisms are preserved as well as their more resistant shells.[9] The term Cambrian is derived from the Latin version of Cymru, the Welsh name for Wales, where rocks of this age were first studied.[10] Cambria was the name given to the ancient Roman province of the country now known as Wales.[11] The geological term was named by Adam Sedgwick based on work done in the summer of 1831 in North Wales.[11] Sedgwick divided it into three groups: the Lower, Middle, and Upper Cambrian.[10] He defined the boundary between the Cambrian and the overlying Silurian, together with Roderick Murchison, in their joint paper On the Silurian and Cambrian Systems, Exhibiting the Order in which the Older Sedimentary Strata Succeed each other in England and Wales[12] (1836). The proposal to label the period Cambrian was based on a segment of rock strata that represented a period of geological time.[11]
Colosseum. The Colosseum (/ˌkɒləˈsiːəm/ KOL-ə-SEE-əm; Italian: Colosseo [kolosˈsɛːo], ultimately from Ancient Greek word kolossos meaning a large statue or giant) is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, just east of the Roman Forum. It is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is the largest standing amphitheatre in the world. Construction began under the Emperor Vespasian (r. 69–79 AD) in 72[1] and was completed in AD 80 under his successor and heir, Titus (r. 79–81).[2] Further modifications were made during the reign of Domitian (r. 81–96).[3] The three emperors who were patrons of the work are known as the Flavian dynasty, and the amphitheatre was named the Flavian Amphitheatre (Latin: Amphitheatrum Flavium; Italian: Anfiteatro Flavio [aɱfiteˈaːtro ˈflaːvjo]) by later classicists and archaeologists for its association with their family name (Flavius). The Colosseum is built of travertine limestone, tuff (volcanic rock), and brick-faced concrete. It could hold an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 spectators at various points in its history,[4][5] having an average audience of some 65,000;[6] it was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles including animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles, dramas based on Roman mythology, and briefly mock sea battles. The building ceased to be used for entertainment in the early medieval era. It was later reused for such purposes as housing, workshops, quarters for a religious order, a fortress, a quarry, and a Christian shrine. Although substantially ruined by earthquakes and stone robbers taking spolia, the Colosseum is still a renowned symbol of Imperial Rome and was listed as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World.[7] It is one of Romes most popular tourist attractions and each Good Friday the Pope leads a torchlit Catholic Way of the Cross procession that starts in the area around the Colosseum.[8] The Colosseum is depicted on the Italian version of the 5 euro cent coin. Originally, the buildings Latin name was simply amphitheatrum, amphitheatre.[9] Though the modern name Flavian Amphitheatre (Latin: Amphitheatrum Flavium) is often used, there is no evidence it was used in classical antiquity.[9] This name refers to the patronage of the Flavian dynasty, during whose reigns the building was constructed, but the structure is better known as the Colosseum.[9] In antiquity, Romans may have referred to the Colosseum by the unofficial name Amphitheatrum Caesareum (with Caesareum an adjective pertaining to the title Caesar), but this name may have been strictly poetic[10][11] as it was not exclusive to the Colosseum; Vespasian and Titus, builders of the Colosseum, also constructed a Flavian Amphitheatre in Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli).[12]
Lalande Prize. The Lalande Prize (French: Prix Lalande also known as Lalande Medal) was an award for scientific advances in astronomy, given from 1802 until 1970 by the French Academy of Sciences. The prize was endowed by astronomer Jérôme Lalande in 1801, a few years before his death in 1807, to enable the Academy of Sciences to make an annual award to the person who makes the most unusual observation or writes the most useful paper to further the progress of Astronomy, in France or elsewhere. The awarded amount grew in time: in 1918 the amount awarded was 1000 Francs, and by 1950, it was 10,000 francs.[1] It was combined with the Valz Prize (Prix Valz) in 1970 to create the Lalande-Valz Prize and then with a further 122 foundation prizes in 1997, resulting in the establishment of the Grande Médaille. The Grande Medaille is not limited to the field of astronomy.
Rumford Prize. Founded in 1796, the Rumford Prize, awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is one of the oldest scientific prizes in the United States. The prize recognizes contributions by scientists to the fields of heat and light. These terms are widely interpreted; awards range from discoveries in thermodynamics to improvements in the construction of steam boilers. The award was created through the endowment of US$5,000 to the Academy by Benjamin Thompson, who held the title Count Rumford of the United Kingdom, in 1796.[1] The terms state that the award be given to authors of discoveries in any part of the Continent of America, or in any of the American islands. Although it was founded in 1796, the first prize was not given until 1839, as the academy could not find anyone who, in their judgement, deserved the award. The academy found the terms of the prize to be too restrictive, and in 1832 the Supreme Court of Massachusetts allowed the Academy to change some of the provisions; mainly, the award was to be given annually instead of biennially, and the Academy was allowed to award the prize as it saw fit, whereas before it had to give it yearly.[2] The first award was given to Robert Hare, for his invention of the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, in 1839. Twenty-three years elapsed before the award was given a second time, to John Ericsson.[3] The prize is awarded whenever the academy recognizes a significant achievement in either of the two fields. Awardees receive a gold-and-silver medal.[1] Previous prizewinners include Thomas Alva Edison, for his investigations in electric lighting; Enrico Fermi, for his studies of radiation theory and nuclear energy; and Charles H. Townes, for his development of the laser. One man, Samuel Pierpont Langley, has won both the Rumford Prize and the related Rumford Medal (the European equivalent of the Rumford Prize), both in 1886. The most recent award was given in 2021 to Charles L. Bennett for his contributions to cosmology. The prize has been given to researchers outside of the United States only twice—once to John Stanley Plaskett, from British Columbia, and once to a group of Canadian scientists for their work in the field of long-baseline interferometry.[4] Source: American Academy of Arts and Sciences: Past Prizes Canadian Group (Norman W. Broten, R. M. Chisholm, John A. Galt, Herbert P. Gush, Thomas H. Legg, Jack L. Locke, Charles W. McLeish, Roger S. Richards, Jui Lin Yen)
Astronomer. An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either observational (by analyzing the data) or theoretical astronomy. Examples of topics or fields astronomers study include planetary science, solar astronomy, the origin or evolution of stars, or the formation of galaxies. A related but distinct subject is physical cosmology, which studies the universe as a whole. Astronomers typically fall under either of two main types: observational and theoretical. Observational astronomers make direct observations of celestial objects and analyze the data. In contrast, theoretical astronomers create and investigate models of things that cannot be observed. Because it takes millions to billions of years for a system of stars or a galaxy to complete a life cycle, astronomers must observe snapshots of different systems at unique points in their evolution to determine how they form, evolve, and die. They use this data to create models or simulations to theorize how different celestial objects work. Further subcategories under these two main branches of astronomy include planetary astronomy, astrobiology, stellar astronomy, astrometry, galactic astronomy, extragalactic astronomy, or physical cosmology. Astronomers can also specialize in certain specialties of observational astronomy, such as infrared astronomy, neutrino astronomy, x-ray astronomy, and gravitational-wave astronomy. Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using physical laws. Today, that distinction has mostly disappeared and the terms astronomer and astrophysicist are interchangeable. Professional astronomers are highly educated individuals who typically have a PhD in physics or astronomy and are employed by research institutions or universities.[1] They spend the majority of their time working on research, although they quite often have other duties such as teaching, building instruments, or aiding in the operation of an observatory.
Yamato Province. Yamato Province (大和国, Yamato no Kuni; Japanese pronunciation: [jaꜜ.ma.to (no kɯ.ɲi)][1]) was a province of Japan, located in Kinai, corresponding to present-day Nara Prefecture in Honshū.[2] It was also called Washū (和州). Yamato consists of two characters, 大 great, and 和 Wa. At first, the name was written with one different character (大倭), but due to its offensive connotation, for about ten years after 737, this was revised to use more desirable characters (大養徳) (see Names of Japan). The final revision was made in the second year of the Tenpyō-hōji era (c. 758). It is classified as a great province in the Engishiki. The Yamato Period in the history of Japan refers to the late Kofun Period (c. 250–538) and Asuka Period (538–710). Japanese archaeologists and historians emphasize the fact that during the early Kofun Period the Yamato Kingship was in close contention with other regional powers, such as Kibi Province near present-day Okayama Prefecture. Around the 6th century, the local chieftainship gained national control and established the Imperial court in Yamato Province. The battleship Yamato, the flagship of the Japanese Combined Fleet during World War II, was named after this province. During the Kofun period (300 to 538) and the Asuka period, many palace capitals were located in Kashihara, Asuka, and Sakurai. Yamato was the first central government of the unified country in the Kofun period.[3] Heijō-kyō capital was placed in Nara City during the Nara period. In the 14th century, the capital of the Southern Court was established in Yoshino and Anou.
Proto-Japonic language. Proto-Japonic, also known as Proto-Japanese or Proto-Japanese–Ryukyuan, is the reconstructed language ancestral to the Japonic language family. It has been reconstructed by using a combination of internal reconstruction from Old Japanese and by applying the comparative method to Old Japanese (both the central variety of the Nara area and Eastern Old Japanese dialects) and the Ryukyuan languages.[1] The major reconstructions of the 20th century were produced by Samuel Elmo Martin and Shirō Hattori.[1][2] The Japonic language family comprises Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan; Hachijō, spoken on Hachijō-jima, Aogashima, and the Daitō Islands; and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands.[3] Most scholars believe that Japonic was brought to northern Kyushu from the Korean peninsula around 700 to 300 BC by wet-rice farmers of the Yayoi culture and spread throughout the Japanese archipelago, replacing indigenous languages.[4][5] The oldest attested form is Old Japanese, which was recorded using Chinese characters in the 7th and 8th centuries.[6] Ryukyuan varieties are considered dialects of Japanese in Japan but have little intelligibility with Japanese or even among one another.[7] They are divided into northern and southern groups, corresponding to the physical division of the chain by the 250 km-wide Miyako Strait.[8] The Shuri dialect of Okinawan is attested since the 16th century.[8] All Ryukyuan varieties are in danger of extinction.[9] Since Old Japanese displays several innovations that are not shared with Ryukyuan, the two branches must have separated before the 7th century.[10] The migration to the Ryukyus from southern Kyushu may have coincided with the rapid expansion of the agricultural Gusuku culture in the 10th and 11th centuries.[11] After this migration, there was limited influence from mainland Japan until the conquest of the Ryukyu Kingdom by the Satsuma Domain in 1609.[12] Early reconstructions of the proto-language, culminating in the work of Samuel Martin, were based primarily on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese. Evidence from Japanese dialects and Ryukyuan languages was also used, especially regarding the history of the Japanese pitch accent, but otherwise assuming a secondary role. The complementary approach of comparative reconstruction from the dialects and Ryukyuan has grown in importance since the work of Shirō Hattori in the 1970s.[1]
Toyo (queen). Toyo (臺與/台与), also known as Iyo (壹與/壱与), (235–?) was a queen regnant of Yamatai-koku in Japan. She was, according to the Records of Wei and other traditional sources, the successor of Queen Himiko.[1][2] Some historians believe she is the mother of Emperor Sujin.[3] Iyo is not cited in many historical records, and her origin is unknown. Records claim that Iyo was a close relative of Himiko, and she acquired great political power at a very young age.[4] Information obtained from Chinese sources and from archeological and ethnological discoveries has led Japanese scholars to conclude that Iyo was Himikos niece. Himiko and Iyo were female shamans and that sovereignty had both a political and a religious character. After Himikos death, a man took power in Yamatai as ruler. However, warfare soon engulfed the polity. The ruling council met and decided to put another woman on the throne. The one chosen was Iyo, a girl only 13 years old, who succeeded in reinstating peace in her government by following the same political line adopted by Queen Himiko.[5][6] The Records of Wei describes Himikos death and Iyos rise in the following terms: When Himiko passed away, a great mound was raised, more than a hundred paces in diameter. Over a hundred male and female attendants followed her to the grave. Then a king was placed on the throne, but the people would not obey him. Assassination and murder followed; more than one thousand were thus slain. A relative of Himiko named Iyo [壹與], a girl of thirteen, was [then] made queen and order was restored. (Zhang) Zheng (張政) (an ambassador from Wei), issued a proclamation to the effect that Iyo was the ruler. (tr. Tsunoda 1951:16)
Yayoi (disambiguation). Yayoi is a pre-historical era in Japan. Yayoi is March in old Japanese calendar. Yayoi can also refer to:
Himiko. [1] Himiko (卑弥呼; c. 170–247/248 AD), also known as the Shingi Waō (親魏倭王; Ruler of Wa, Friend of Wei),[3][a][b] was a shamaness-queen of Yamatai-koku in Wakoku (倭国). Early Chinese dynastic histories chronicle tributary relations between Queen Himiko and the Cao Wei Kingdom (220–265) and record that the Yayoi period people chose her as ruler following decades of warfare among the kings of Wa. Early Japanese histories do not mention Himiko, but historians associate her with legendary figures such as Empress Consort Jingū, who is said to have served as regent from 201 to 269.[6] Scholarly debates over the identity of Himiko and the location of her domain, Yamatai, have raged since the late Edo period, with opinions divided between northern Kyūshū or traditional Yamato Province in present-day Kinki. The Yamatai controversy, writes Keiji Imamura, is the greatest debate over the ancient history of Japan.[7] A prevailing view among scholars is that she may be buried at Hashihaka Kofun in Nara Prefecture.[8] The shaman Queen Himiko is recorded in various ancient histories, dating back to 3rd-century China, 8th-century Japan, and 12th-century Korea. The first historical records of Himiko are found in the Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo Zhi, 三國志), a Chinese classic text dating to c. 297. However, rather than Records of the Three Kingdoms, Japanese scholars use the term of Gishi Wajinden (魏志倭人伝, Records of Wei: Account of Wajin), a Japanese abbreviation for the account of Wajin in the Biographies of the Wuhuan, Xianbei, and Dongyi (烏丸鮮卑東夷傳), Volume 30 of the Book of Wei (魏書) of the Records of the Three Kingdoms (三国志).[9] This section is the first description of Himiko (Pimiko) and Yamatai:
Bernard Lovell. Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell (/ˈlʌvəl/ LUV-əl; 31 August 1913 – 6 August 2012) was a British physicist and radio astronomer. He was the first director of Jodrell Bank Observatory, from 1945 to 1980.[1][2][3][4][5][6] Lovell was born at Oldland Common, Bristol, in 1913, the son of local tradesman and Methodist preacher Gilbert Lovell (1881–1956) and Emily Laura, née Adams.[7][8] Gilbert Lovell was an authority on the Bible and, having studied English literature and grammar, was still bombarding his son with complaints on points of grammar, punctuation and method of speaking when Lovell was in his forties.[9] Lovells childhood hobbies and interests included cricket and music, mainly the piano. He had a Methodist upbringing and attended Kingswood Grammar School.[6][10] Lovell studied physics at the University of Bristol obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree in 1934,[8] and a PhD in 1936 for his work on the electrical conductivity of thin films.[11][12][13][14] At this time, he also received lessons in music from Raymond Jones, a teacher at Bath Technical School and later an organist at Bath Abbey. The church organ was one of the main loves of his life, apart from science.[15][16] Lovell worked in the cosmic ray research team at the University of Manchester[17][18][19] until the outbreak of the Second World War. At the beginning of the war, Lovell published his first book, Science and Civilization. During the war he worked for the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) developing radar systems to be installed in aircraft, among them H2S.
Gjirokastër County. Gjirokastër County (Albanian: Qarku i Gjirokastrës) is one of the 12 counties of Albania. The total population in 2023 was 60,013, in an area of 2884 km2.[2] Its capital is the city Gjirokastër. Until 2000, Gjirokastër County was subdivided into three districts: Gjirokastër, Përmet, and Tepelenë. Since the 2015 local government reform, the county consists of the following 7 municipalities: Dropull, Gjirokastër, Këlcyrë, Libohovë, Memaliaj, Përmet and Tepelenë.[3] Before 2015, it consisted of the following 32 municipalities: The municipalities consist of about 270 towns and villages in total. See Villages of Gjirokastër County for a structured list. According to the last national census from 2023 this county has 60,013 inhabitants. Ethnic groups in the county include Albanians, Greeks, Aromanians, Romani, and Balkan Egyptians.[6] In the 2023 census Gjirokastërs was predominantly Albanian, accounting for 82.7% of the residents. The Greek community follows, making up 14.2% of the population. Smaller ethnic groups include Egyptians (0.3%), Romani (0.3%), and Bulgarians (0.1%). There are also minor groups such as Bosniaks (0.02%), Aromanians (0.3%), Macedonians (0.02%), Serbs (0.03%), and Montenegrins (0.02%). Additionally, 0.1% of the population identifies as mixed ethnicity. A small proportion, 0.01%, reported having no ethnicity, while 0.6% preferred not to answer, and 1.1% had unavailable or missing data.
Kabushiki gaisha. A kabushiki gaisha (Japanese: 株式会社; pronounced [kabɯɕi̥ki ɡaꜜiɕa] ⓘ; lit. share company) or kabushiki kaisha, commonly abbreviated K.K. or KK, is a type of company (会社, kaisha) defined under the Companies Act of Japan. The term is often translated as stock company, joint-stock company or stock corporation. The term kabushiki gaisha in Japan refers to any joint-stock company regardless of country of origin or incorporation; however, outside Japan the term refers specifically to joint-stock companies incorporated in Japan. In Latin script, kabushiki kaisha, with a ⟨k⟩, is often used, but the original Japanese pronunciation is kabushiki gaisha, with a ⟨g⟩, owing to rendaku. A kabushiki gaisha must include 株式会社 in its name (Article 6, paragraph 2 of the Companies Act). In a company name, 株式会社 can be used as a prefix (e.g. 株式会社電通, kabushiki gaisha Dentsū, a style called 前株, mae-kabu) or as a suffix (e.g. トヨタ自動車株式会社, Toyota Jidōsha kabushiki gaisha, a style called 後株, ato-kabu). Many Japanese companies translate the phrase 株式会社 in their name as Company, Limited—this is very often abbreviated as Co., Ltd.—but others use the more Americanized translations Corporation or Incorporated. Texts in England often refer to kabushiki kaisha as joint stock companies. While that is close to a literal translation of the term, the two are not precisely the same. The Japanese government once endorsed business corporation as an official translation[1] but now uses the more literal translation stock company.[2]
Wa (kana). Wa (hiragana: わ, katakana: ワ) is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. It represents [wa] and has origins in the character 和. There is also a small ゎ/ヮ, that is used to write the morae /kwa/ and /gwa/ (くゎ, ぐゎ), which are almost obsolete in contemporary standard Japanese but still exist in the Ryukyuan languages. A few loanword such as シークヮーサー(shiikwaasa from Okinawan language) and ムジカ・アンティクヮ・ケルン (Musica Antiqua Köln, German early music group) contains this letter in Japanese. Katakana ワ is also sometimes written with dakuten, ヷ, to represent a /va/ sound in foreign words; however, most IMEs lack a convenient way to write this. It is far more common to represent the /va/ sound with the digraph ヴァ. The kana は (ha) is read as “wa” when it represents a particle. The katakana va (ヷ), which is a wa with a dakuten (voiced mark), along with vu (ヴ), was first used by the educator Fukuzawa Yukichi for transcribing English in 1860[1][2] in his English-Japanese dictionary, which featured such entries as Heaven (Hīvunu), Venus (Venusu), River (Rīvaru), etc.[3] It is intended to represent a voiced labiodental fricative [v] in foreign languages, but the actual pronunciation by Japanese speakers may be closer to a voiced bilabial fricative [β] (see Japanese phonology § Voiced bilabial fricative).
Rome. Rome[b] is the capital city and most populated comune (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special comune named Roma Capitale with 2,746,984 residents in 1,287.36 km2 (497.1 sq mi),[3] Rome is the third most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. The Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, with a population of 4,223,885 residents, is the most populous metropolitan city in Italy. Its metropolitan area is the third-most populous within Italy.[5] Rome is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio (Latium), along the shores of the Tiber Valley. Vatican City (the smallest country in the world and headquarters of the worldwide Catholic Church under the governance of the Holy See)[6] is an independent country inside the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a country within a city. Rome is often referred to as the City of Seven Hills due to its geography, and also as the Eternal City. Rome is generally considered to be one of the cradles of Western civilization and Western Christian culture, and the centre of the Catholic Church.[7][8][9] Romes history spans 28 centuries. While Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it a major human settlement for over three millennia and one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in Europe.[10] The citys early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans, and Sabines. Eventually, the city successively became the capital of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and is regarded by many as the first-ever Imperial city and metropolis.[11] It was first called The Eternal City (Latin: Urbs Aeterna; Italian: La Città Eterna) by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy.[12][13] Rome is also called Caput Mundi (Capital of the World). After the fall of the Empire in the west, which marked the beginning of the Middle Ages, Rome slowly fell under the political control of the Papacy, and in the 8th century, it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870. Beginning with the Renaissance, almost all popes since Nicholas V (1447–1455) pursued a coherent architectural and urban programme over four hundred years, aimed at making the city the artistic and cultural centre of the world.[14] In this way, Rome first became one of the major centres of the Renaissance[15] and then became the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors, and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, creating masterpieces throughout the city. In 1871, Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, which, in 1946, became the Italian Republic. In 2019, Rome was the 14th most visited city in the world, with 8.6 million tourists, the third most visited city in the European Union, and the most popular tourist destination in Italy.[16] Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.[17] The host city for the 1960 Summer Olympics, Rome is also the seat of several specialised agencies of the United Nations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, World Food Programme, International Fund for Agricultural Development and UN System Network on Rural Development and Food Security. The city also hosts the European Union (EU) Delegation to the United Nations (UN), Secretariat of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean,[18] headquarters of the World Farmers Organisation, multi-country office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Human Resources Office for International Cooperation of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, headquarters of the International Labour Organization Office for Italy, headquarters of the WORLD BANK GROUP for Italy, Office for Technology Promotion and Investment in Italy under the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, Rome office of the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, and support office of the United Nations Humanitarian Response Depot, as well as the headquarters of several Italian multinational companies such as Eni, Enel, TIM, Leonardo, and banks such as BNL. Numerous companies are based within Romes EUR business district, such as the luxury fashion house Fendi located in the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana. The presence of renowned international brands in the city has made Rome an important centre of fashion and design, and the Cinecittà Studios have been the set of many Academy Award–winning movies.[19]
Ōta, Tokyo. Ōta (大田区, Ōta-ku; Japanese pronunciation: [oːta, oːtaꜜkɯ])[2][3] is a special ward in the Tokyo Metropolis in Japan. The ward refers to itself in English as Ōta City. It was formed in 1947 as a merger of Ōmori and Kamata following Tokyo Citys transformation into Tokyo Metropolis. The southernmost of the 23 special wards, Ōta borders the special wards of Shinagawa, Meguro and Setagaya to the north, and Kōtō to the east. Across the Tama River in Kanagawa Prefecture is the city of Kawasaki, forming the boundaries to the south and west. Ōta is the largest special ward in Tokyo by area, spanning 59.46 square kilometres (22.96 sq mi). As of 2024, the ward has an estimated population of 744,849, making it the third largest special ward by population, with a population density of 12,041 inhabitants per square kilometre (31,190/sq mi). Notable neighborhoods and districts of Ōta include Kamata, the administrative center of the ward where the Ward Office and central Post Office is located, and Den-en-chōfu(田園調布), known for its wealthy residents and luxury homes. Haneda Airport, the busiest airport in Japan by passenger traffic is located in the ward. The ward was founded on March 15, 1947, merging the old wards of Ōmori and Kamata. The wards name originates from the combination of letters of the two merging wards, Ōmori (大森) and Kamata (蒲田), combined into 大田 (Ōta). The ward was previously second behind Setagaya in terms of being the largest special ward in Tokyo by area, but due to land reclamation in the Tokyo Bay for the expansion of the Haneda Airport(羽田空港), Ōta overtook Setagaya for first place. Haneda Airport, now one of the two main domestic and international airports serving the Greater Tokyo Area (the other one being Narita Airport in Narita, Chiba) was first established as Haneda Airfield in 1931 in the town of Haneda, Ebara District of Tokyo Prefecture. Following Japans surrender in 1945, the airfield was turned into the Haneda Army Air Base under the control of the United States Army. In the same year, Allied occupational authorities ordered the expansion of the airport, evicting people from the surroundings on 48 hours notice. With the end of the occupation, the Americans returned part of the facility to Japanese control in 1952, completing the return in 1958. Haneda Airport first handled international traffic for Tokyo for the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics. Following the opening of Narita Airport in 1978, almost all international flights (with the exception of Taiwanese airlines) moved its operations to Narita Airport. International flights resumed in 2010 following the construction of a new International terminal.
Sino-Japanese vocabulary. Sino-Japanese vocabulary, also known as kango (Japanese: 漢語; pronounced [kaŋɡo], Han words), is a subset of Japanese vocabulary that originated in Chinese or was created from elements borrowed from Chinese. Most Sino-Japanese words were borrowed in the 5th–9th centuries AD, from Early Middle Chinese into Old Japanese. Some grammatical structures and sentence patterns can also be identified as Sino-Japanese. Kango is one of three broad categories into which the Japanese vocabulary is divided. The others are native Japanese vocabulary (yamato kotoba) and borrowings from other, mainly Western languages (gairaigo). It has been estimated that about 60% of the words contained in modern Japanese dictionaries are kango,[1] and that about 18–20% of words used in common speech are kango.[a] The usage of such kango words also increases in formal or literary contexts, and in expressions of abstract or complex ideas.[2] Kango, the use of Chinese-derived words in Japanese, is to be distinguished from kanbun, which is historical Literary Chinese written by Japanese in Japan. Both kango in modern Japanese and classical kanbun have Sino-xenic linguistic and phonetic elements also found in Korean and Vietnamese: that is, they are Sino-foreign, meaning that they are not pure Chinese but have been mixed with the native languages of their respective nations. Such words invented in Japanese, often with novel meanings, are called wasei-kango. Many of them were created during the Meiji Restoration to translate non-Asian concepts and have been reborrowed into Chinese. Kango is also to be distinguished from gairaigo of Chinese origin, namely words borrowed from modern Chinese dialects, some of which may be occasionally spelled with Chinese characters or kanji just like kango. For example, 北京 (Pekin, Beijing) which was borrowed from a modern Chinese dialect, is not kango, whereas 北京 (Hokkyō, Northern Capital, a name for Kyoto), which was created with Chinese elements, is kango. Ancient Chinas political and economic influence in the region shaped the languages of Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and other Asian languages in East and Southeast Asia throughout history in a manner comparable to Greek and Latin in Europe. The Middle Chinese word for gunpowder, Chinese: 火藥 (Late Middle Chinese pronunciation: [xwa˧˥jak]),[3] is rendered as hwayak in Korean, and as kayaku in Japanese. At the time of initial contact, Japanese lacked a writing system, while Chinese had a long-established script and a great deal of academic and scientific information. Literary Chinese, known as kanbun, became the earliest written language in Japan, serving as the medium for science, scholarship, religion, and government. The kanbun writing system essentially required every literate Japanese to be competent in written Chinese, although it is unlikely that many Japanese people were then fluent in spoken Chinese. Chinese pronunciation was approximated in words borrowed from Chinese into Japanese.
Cyprus. Cyprus[f] (/ˈsaɪprəs/ ⓘ), officially the Republic of Cyprus,[g] is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the third largest and third most populous island in the Mediterranean, after Sicily and Sardinia.[9][10] It is located southeast of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and Lebanon, northwest of Palestine and Israel, and north of Egypt. Its capital and largest city is Nicosia. Cyprus hosts the British military bases Akrotiri and Dhekelia, whilst the northeast portion of the island is de facto governed by the self-declared, largely unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is separated from the Republic of Cyprus by the United Nations Buffer Zone. Cyprus was first settled by hunter-gatherers around 13,000 years ago, with farming communities emerging by 8500 BC. The late Bronze Age saw the emergence of Alashiya, an urbanised society closely connected to the wider Mediterranean world. Cyprus experienced waves of settlement by Mycenaean Greeks at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Owing to its rich natural resources (particularly copper) and strategic position at the crossroads of Europe, Africa, and Asia, the island was subsequently contested and occupied by several empires, including the Assyrians, Egyptians, and Persians, from whom it was seized in 333 BC by Alexander the Great. Successive rule by Ptolemaic Egypt, the Classical and Eastern Roman Empire, Arab caliphates, the French Lusignans, and the Venetians was followed by over three centuries of Ottoman dominion (1571–1878).[11][h] Cyprus was placed under British administration in 1878 pursuant to the Cyprus Convention and formally annexed by the United Kingdom in 1914. The islands future became a matter of disagreement between its Greek and Turkish communities. Greek Cypriots sought enosis, or union with Greece, which became a Greek national policy in the 1950s.[12][13] Turkish Cypriots initially advocated for continued British rule, then demanded the annexation of the island to Turkey, with which they established the policy of taksim: portioning Cyprus and creating a Turkish polity in the north of the island.[14] Following nationalist violence in the 1950s, Cyprus was granted independence in 1960.[15] The crisis of 1963–64 brought further intercommunal violence between the two communities, displaced more than 25,000 Turkish Cypriots into enclaves,[16]: 56–59 [17] and ended Turkish Cypriot political representation. On 15 July 1974, a coup détat was staged by Greek Cypriot nationalists[18][19] and elements of the Greek military junta.[20] This action precipitated the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 20 July,[21] which captured the present-day territory of Northern Cyprus and displaced over 150,000 Greek Cypriots[22][23] and 50,000 Turkish Cypriots.[24] A separate Turkish Cypriot state in the north was established by unilateral declaration in 1983, which was widely condemned by the international community and remains recognised only by Turkey. These events and the resulting political situation remain subject to an ongoing dispute. Cyprus is a developed representative democracy with an advanced high-income economy and very high human development.[25][26][27] The islands intense Mediterranean climate and rich cultural heritage make it a major tourist destination.[28] Cyprus is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations and a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement until it joined the European Union in 2004;[29] it joined the eurozone in 2008.[30] Cyprus has long maintained good relations with NATO and announced in 2024 its intention to officially join.[31]
Conglomerate (company). A conglomerate (/kəŋˈɡlɒmərət/) is a type of multi-industry company that consists of several different and unrelated business entities that operate in various industries. A conglomerate usually has a parent company that owns and controls many subsidiaries, which are legally independent but financially and strategically dependent on the parent company. Conglomerates are often large and multinational corporations that have a global presence and a diversified portfolio of products and services. Conglomerates can be formed by merger and acquisitions, spin-offs, or joint ventures. Conglomerates are common in many countries and sectors, such as media, banking, energy, mining, manufacturing, retail, defense, and transportation. This type of organization aims to achieve economies of scale, market power, risk diversification, and financial synergy. However, they also face challenges such as complexity, bureaucracy, agency problems, and regulation.[1] The popularity of conglomerates has varied over time and across regions. In the United States, conglomerates became popular in the 1960s as a form of economic bubble driven by low interest rates and leveraged buyouts.[2] However, many of them collapsed or were broken up in the 1980s due to poor performance, accounting scandals, and antitrust regulation.[3] In contrast, conglomerates have remained prevalent in Asia, especially in China, Japan, South Korea, and India. In mainland China, many state-affiliated enterprises have gone through high value mergers and acquisitions, resulting in some of the highest value business transactions of all time. These conglomerates have strong ties with the government and preferential policies and access to capital.[1] During the 1960s, the United States was caught up in a conglomerate fad which turned out to be a form of an economic bubble.[4]
Wa (Japanese culture). Wa (和) is a Japanese cultural concept usually translated into English as harmony. It implies a peaceful unity and conformity within a social group in which members prefer the continuation of a harmonious community over their personal interests.[1][2] The kanji character wa (和) is also a name for Japan; Japanese,[3] replacing the original graphic pejorative transcription Wa 倭 dwarf/submissive people. Wa is considered integral to Japanese society and derives from traditional Japanese family values.[4] Individuals who break the ideal of wa to further their own purposes are brought in line either overtly or covertly, by reprimands from a superior or by their family or colleagues tacit disapproval. Hierarchical structures exist in Japanese society primarily to ensure the continuation of wa.[5] Public disagreement with the party line is generally suppressed in the interests of preserving the communal harmony.[6] Japanese businesses encourage wa in the workplace, with employees typically given a career for life in order to foster a strong association with their colleagues and firm.[1][7] Rewards and bonuses are usually given to groups, rather than individuals, further enforcing the concept of group unity.[2]
Goostrey. Goostrey is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It is in open countryside, 14 miles (23 km) north-east of Crewe and 12 miles (19 km) west of Macclesfield. The parish contains the Lovell Radio Telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory, a UNESCO World Heritage site. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 2,179 in 956 housesholds. It contains 24 listed heritage assets and one scheduled monument (a bowl barrow near Jodrell Bank Farm). The parish also includes the hamlets of Blackden, Blackden Heath and Jodrell Bank. Goostrey may have been a meeting place or even a settlement during the 1st millennium BC, as stone and bronze axe heads and barrows within the parish boundary show the area was inhabited before the Iron Age. Bronze Age barrows have also been found near Twemlow Hall and Terra Nova School on the edge of the parish. The 1,200-year-old yew tree in Goostreys churchyard suggests that the mound on which the church is built was a focal point for a community during the Dark Ages of the 1st millennium. At that time Cheshire was under the control of the Wreocensæte people of Mercia. Goostrey first appears in recorded history in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it is spelt Gostrel. The name possibly means Godheres tree.[1] At this time most of the parish was held by William FitzNigel, Baron of Halton, and by Hugh de Mara, another follower of the Earl of Chester. Hugh FitzNorman gave much land in Goostrey to endow the new Abbey of Saint Werburgh in Chester in 1119, as did a later owner, Baron Hugh of Mold.[2] Some land in the parish or nearby Twemlow was also given to help endow the Vale Royal Abbey, near Northwich. The Parish of Goostrey-cum-Barnshaw remained ecclesiastical property until the 14th century, leased out at first and then managed by the abbey directly. Abbey records mostly relate to maintenance of ditches, mills and fish ponds and give a picture of a scatter of small farms set amongst woods and heath supplying wood, flour and fish to the great Chester Abbey, some later gifted to the new foundation of Vale Royal Abbey.
Nikkei 225. The Nikkei 225, or the Nikkei Stock Average (Japanese: 日経平均株価, Hepburn: Nikkei heikin kabuka), more commonly called the Nikkei or the Nikkei index[1][2] (/ˈnɪkeɪ, ˈniː-, nɪˈkeɪ/), is a stock market index for the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). It is a price-weighted index, operating in the Japanese Yen (JP¥), and its components are reviewed twice a year. The Nikkei 225 measures the performance of 225 highly capitalised and liquid publicly owned companies in Japan from a wide array of industry sectors. Since 2017, the index is calculated every five seconds.[3] It was originally launched by the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1950, and was taken over by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (The Nikkei) newspaper in 1970, when the Tokyo Exchange switched to the Tokyo Stock Price Index (TOPIX), which is weighed by market capitalisation rather than stock prices.[4] The Nikkei 225 began to be calculated on 7 September 1950, retroactively calculated back to 16 May 1949, when the average price of its component stocks was 176.21 yen.[5][6] Since July 2017, the index is updated every 5 seconds during trading sessions.[5] The Nikkei 225 Futures, introduced at Singapore Exchange (SGX) in 1986, the Osaka Securities Exchange (OSE) in 1988, Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) in 1990, is now an internationally recognized futures index.[7] The Nikkei average has deviated sharply from the textbook model of stock averages, which grow at a steady exponential rate. During the Japanese asset price bubble, the average hit its bubble-era record high on 29 December 1989, when it reached an intraday high of 38,957.44, before closing at 38,915.87, having grown sixfold during the decade. Subsequently, it lost nearly all these gains, reaching a post-bubble intraday low of 6,994.90 on 28 October 2008 — 82% below its peak nearly 19 years earlier.[8] The 1989 record high held for 34 years, until it was surpassed in 2024 (see below).
Cheshire East. Cheshire East is a unitary authority area with borough status in Cheshire, England. The local authority is Cheshire East Council, which is based in the town of Sandbach. Other towns within the area include Crewe, Macclesfield, Congleton, Wilmslow, Nantwich, Poynton, Knutsford, Alsager, Bollington and Handforth. The borough council was established in April 2009 as part of the 2009 structural changes to local government in England, by virtue of an order under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007.[6] It is an amalgamation of the former boroughs of Macclesfield, Congleton and Crewe and Nantwich, and includes the functions of the former Cheshire County Council. The residual part of the disaggregated former County Council, together with the other three former Cheshire borough councils (Chester City, Ellesmere Port & Neston and Vale Royal) were, similarly, amalgamated to create the new unitary council of Cheshire West and Chester. Cheshire East has historic links to textile mills of the Industrial Revolution, such as seen at Quarry Bank Mill. It is also home to Tatton Park, a historic estate that hosts RHS Show Tatton Park. Cheshire East lies within North West England. It borders Cheshire West and Chester to the west, Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east as well as Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. It is home to the Cheshire Plain and the southern hills of the Pennines. The local geology is mostly glacial clay, as well as glacial sands and gravel.
Boys love. Boys love (Japanese: ボーイズラブ, Hepburn: bōizu rabu), also known by its abbreviation BL (ビーエル, bīeru), is a genre of fictional media originating in Japan that depicts homoerotic relationships between male characters.[a] It is typically created by women for a female audience,[1] distinguishing it from the equivalent genre of homoerotic media created by and for gay men, though BL does also attract a male audience and can be produced by male creators. BL spans a wide range of media, including manga, anime, drama CDs, novels, video games, television series, films, and fan works. Though depictions of homosexuality in Japanese media have a history dating to ancient times, contemporary BL traces its origins to male-male romance manga that emerged in the 1970s, and which formed a new subgenre of shōjo manga (comics for girls). Several terms were used for this genre, including shōnen-ai (少年愛; lit. boy love), tanbi (耽美; lit. aesthete or aesthetic), and June (ジュネ; [dʑɯne]). The term yaoi (/ˈjaʊi/ ⓘ YOW-ee; Japanese: やおい [jaꜜo.i]) emerged as a name for the genre in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the context of dōjinshi (self-published works) culture as a portmanteau of yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi (no climax, no point, no meaning), where it was used in a self-deprecating manner to refer to amateur fan works that focused on sex to the exclusion of plot and character development, and that often parodied mainstream manga and anime by depicting male characters from popular series in sexual scenarios. Boys love was later adopted by Japanese publications in the 1990s as an umbrella term for male-male romance media marketed to women. Concepts and themes associated with BL include androgynous men known as bishōnen; diminished female characters; narratives that emphasize homosociality and de-emphasize socio-cultural homophobia; and depictions of rape. A defining characteristic of BL is the practice of pairing characters in relationships according to the roles of seme, the sexual top or active pursuer, and uke, the sexual bottom or passive pursued. BL has a robust global presence, having spread since the 1990s through international licensing and distribution, as well as through unlicensed circulation of works by BL fans online. BL works, culture, and fandom have been studied and discussed by scholars and journalists worldwide. Multiple terms exist to describe Japanese and Japanese-influenced male-male romance fiction as a genre. In a 2015 survey of professional Japanese male-male romance fiction writers by Kazuko Suzuki, five primary subgenres were identified:[2]
Rail transport. Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails.[1] Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road transport. It is used for about 8% of passenger and freight transport globally,[2] thanks to its energy efficiency[2] and potentially high speed. Rolling stock on rails generally encounters lower frictional resistance than rubber-tyred road vehicles, allowing rail cars to be coupled into longer trains. Power is usually provided by diesel or electric locomotives. While railway transport is capital-intensive and less flexible than road transport, it can carry heavy loads of passengers and cargo with greater energy efficiency and safety.[a] Precursors of railways driven by human or animal power, have existed since antiquity, but modern rail transport began with the invention of the steam locomotive in the United Kingdom at the beginning of the 19th century. The first passenger railway, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, opened in 1825. The quick spread of railways throughout Europe and North America, following the 1830 opening of the first intercity connection in England, was a key component of the Industrial Revolution. The adoption of rail transport lowered shipping costs compared to transport by water or wagon, and led to national markets in which prices varied less from city to city.[3][4][5][6][7] Railroads not only increased the speed of transport, they also dramatically lowered its cost. For example, the first transcontinental railroad in the United States resulted in passengers and freight being able to cross the country in a matter of days instead of months and at one tenth the cost of stagecoach or wagon transport. With economical transportation in the West (which had been referred to as the Great American Desert), now farming, ranching and mining could be done at a profit. As a result, railroads transformed the country, particularly the West (which had few navigable rivers).[8][9][10][11][12]
Tofu. Tofu (Japanese: 豆腐, Hepburn: Tōfu; Korean: 두부; RR: dubu, Chinese: 豆腐; pinyin: dòufu) or bean curd is a food prepared by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into solid white blocks of varying softness: silken, soft, firm, and extra (or super) firm. It originated in China and has been consumed for over 2,000 years.[1][2] Tofu is a traditional component of many East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines;[3] in modern Western cooking, it is often used as a meat substitute. Nutritionally, tofu is low in calories, while containing a relatively large amount of protein. It is a high and reliable source of iron, and can have a high calcium or magnesium content depending on the coagulants (e.g. calcium chloride, calcium sulfate, magnesium sulfate) used in manufacturing. Cultivation of tofu, as a protein-rich food source, has one of the lowest needs for land use (1.3 m²/ 1000 kcal)[4] and emits some of the lowest amount of greenhouse gas emissions (1.6 kg CO2/ 100 g protein).[5][6] The English word tofu comes from Japanese tōfu (豆腐). The Japanese tofu, in turn, is a borrowing of Chinese 豆腐 (Mandarin: dòufǔ; tou4-fu) bean curd, bean ferment.[7][8][9][10] The earliest documentation of the word in English is in the 1704 translation of Domingo Fernández Navarretes A Collection of Voyages and Travels, that describes how tofu was made.[11] The word towfu also appears in a 1770 letter from the English merchant James Flint to Benjamin Franklin.[12]: 73 The term bean curd(s) for tofu has been used in the United States since at least 1840.[13][14]
Kanji Swami. Kanji Swami (1890–1980) was a teacher of Jainism.[1][2] He was deeply influenced by the Samayasāra of Kundakunda in 1932. He lectured on these teachings for 45 years to comprehensively elaborate on the philosophy described by Kundakunda and others. He was given the title of Koh-i-Noor of Kathiawar by the people who were influenced by his religious teachings and philosophy.[3] Kanji Swami was born in Umrala, a small village in the Kathiawar region of Gujarat, in 1890 to a Sthanakvasi family.[4] Although an able pupil in school, he always had an intuition that the worldly teachings was not something that he was looking out for. His mother died when he was thirteen and he lost his father at the age of seventeen. After this, he started looking after his fathers shop. He used the frequent periods of lull in the shop in reading various books on religion and spirituality. Turning down the proposals of marriage, he confided in his brother that he wanted to remain celibate and take renunciation.[1][5] Kanji Swami became a Sthānakavāsī monastic in 1913 under Hirachanda.[4] During the ceremony, while riding on an elephant, he inauspiciously tore his robe, which was later believed to be an ill omen for his monastic career.[6] Being a believer in self effort for achieving emancipation, he quickly became a learned and famous monk and, backed by his seventeen renditions of the Bhagavati Sutra. He was known as Koh-i-Noor of Kathiawar (the gem of the Kathiawad region).[6] During 1921, he read Kundakundas Samayasāra, which influenced him greatly. He also studied writings of Pandit Todarmal and Shrimad Rajchandra. Other influences were Amritchandra and Banarasidas. During his discourses, he began to incorporate the ideas picked from these studies and began to lead a kind of double life, nominally a Sthānakavāsī monastic but referring to Digambara texts.[1][5][6]
Cangjie. Cangjie is a legendary figure in Chinese mythology, said to have been an official historian of the Yellow Emperor and the inventor of Chinese characters.[1] Legend has it that he had four eyes, and that when he invented the characters, the deities and ghosts cried and the sky rained millet. He is considered a legendary rather than historical figure, or at least not considered to be the sole inventor of Chinese characters. Cangjie was the eponym for the Cangjiepian proto-dictionary, the Cangjie method of inputting characters into a computer, and a Martian rock visited by the Mars rover Spirit, and named by the rover team.[2] There are several versions of the legend. One tells that shortly after unifying China, the Yellow Emperor, being dissatisfied with the rope knot tying method of recording information, charged Cangjie with the task of creating characters for writing. Cangjie then settled down on the bank of a river, and devoted himself to the completion of the task at hand. Even after devoting much time and effort, however, he was unable to create even one character. One day, Cangjie suddenly saw a phoenix flying in the sky above, carrying an object in its beak. The object fell to the ground directly in front of Cangjie, and he saw it to be an impression of a hoof-print. Not being able to recognize which animal the print belonged to, he asked for the help of a local hunter passing by on the road. The hunter told him that this was, without a doubt, the hoof print of a Pixiu, being different from the hoof-print of any other beast that was alive. His conversation with the hunter greatly inspired Cangjie, leading him to believe that if he could capture in a drawing the special characteristics that set apart each and every thing on the earth, this would truly be the perfect kind of character for writing. From that day forward, Cangjie paid close attention to the characteristics of all things, including the sun, moon, stars, clouds, lakes, rivers, oceans, as well as all manner of bird and beast. He began to create characters according to the special characteristics he found, and before long, had compiled a long list of characters for writing. To the delight of the Yellow Emperor, Cangjie presented him with the complete set of characters. The emperor then called the premiers of each of the nine provinces together in order for Cangjie to teach them this new writing system. Monuments and temples were erected in Cangjies honor on the bank of the river where he created these characters.[1]
Ricardo Kanji. Ricardo Kanji (1 March 1948 – 24 February 2025) was a Brazilian recorder player, flutist, conductor and luthier. For 12 years, he was a professor at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. He was a founding member of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century. Back in Brazil, he promoted historically informed performance there as a teacher and as director of Vox Brasiliensis choir and orchestra. He was artistic director of a project History of Brazilian Music, to explore the music of colonial Brazil. Kanji was born in São Paulo[1] on 1 March 1948. He began piano lessons with Tatiana Braunwieser at age seven, and three years later studied with Lavinia Viotti who introduced him to the recorder.[2] At age fifteen he began studying flute with João Dias Carrasqueira[2][3] and two years later joined the Philharmonic Orchestra São Paulo (now defunct) and the Municipal Symphony Orchestra of São Paulo.[3] In 1966, after a period of study in the United States, he founded the group Musikantiga.[2][3] In 1969 Kanji began to study flute at the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore, but when he met Frans Brüggen, he moved to the Netherlands, to specialise on the interpretation of Baroque and Classical music, studying at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague with Brüggen and Frans Vester[2] between 1970 and 1972.[3] In 1970 he won the First International Recorder Competition in Bruges.[2] He was a founding member of both the conservatorys orchestra and in 1980 the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century.[2][4][3] He was a professor at the Royal Conservatory from 1973 to 1995, succeeding Bruggen.[4][5] He was also artistic director of the Concerto Amsterdam from 1991 to 1996.[2] He participated in important ensembles playing period instruments in the Netherlands and created the Ensemble Philidor.[3] Kanji returned to Brazil in 1995, continuing to work as a performer, conductor, teacher, and luthier.[5] In 1997, he founded and directed the ensemble Vox Brasiliensis,[5][3] recording Brazilian and European music. He promoted historically informed performance in Brazil, teaching it at Curitiba Music Workshop and teaching recorder at the São Paulo State Music School.[2] His students included Clea Galhano,[6] and Hanneke van Proosdij.[7]
Chinese characters. Chinese characters[a] are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only one that has remained in continuous use. Over a documented history spanning more than three millennia, the function, style, and means of writing characters have changed greatly. Unlike letters in alphabets that reflect the sounds of speech, Chinese characters generally represent morphemes, the units of meaning in a language. Writing all of the frequently used vocabulary in a language requires roughly 2000–3000 characters; as of 2024[update], nearly 100000 have been identified and included in The Unicode Standard. Characters are created according to several principles, where aspects of shape and pronunciation may be used to indicate the characters meaning. The first attested characters are oracle bone inscriptions made during the 13th century BCE in what is now Anyang, Henan, as part of divinations conducted by the Shang dynasty royal house. Character forms were originally ideographic or pictographic in style, but evolved as writing spread across China. Numerous attempts have been made to reform the script, including the promotion of small seal script by the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE). Clerical script, which had matured by the early Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE), abstracted the forms of characters—obscuring their pictographic origins in favour of making them easier to write. Following the Han, regular script emerged as the result of cursive influence on clerical script, and has been the primary style used for characters since. Informed by a long tradition of lexicography, states using Chinese characters have standardized their forms—broadly, simplified characters are used to write Chinese in mainland China, Singapore, and Malaysia, while traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. Where the use of characters spread beyond China, they were initially used to write Literary Chinese; they were then often adapted to write local languages spoken throughout the Sinosphere. In Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, Chinese characters are known as kanji, hanja, and chữ Hán respectively. Writing traditions also emerged for some of the other languages of China, like the sawndip script used to write the Zhuang languages of Guangxi. Each of these written vernaculars used existing characters to write the languages native vocabulary, as well as the loanwords it borrowed from Chinese. In addition, each invented characters for local use. In written Korean and Vietnamese, Chinese characters have largely been replaced with alphabets—leaving Japanese as the only major non-Chinese language still written using them, alongside the other elements of the Japanese writing system. At the most basic level, characters are composed of strokes that are written in a fixed order. Historically, methods of writing characters have included inscribing stone, bone, or bronze; brushing ink onto silk, bamboo, or paper; and printing with woodblocks or moveable type. Technologies invented since the 19th century to facilitate the use of characters include telegraph codes and typewriters, as well as input methods and text encodings on computers.
North West England. North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of 7,417,397 in 2021.[4] It is the third-most-populated region in the United Kingdom, after the South East and Greater London. The largest settlements are Manchester and Liverpool. It is one of the three regions, alongside North East England and Yorkshire and the Humber, that make up Northern England.[5] The official region consists of the following subdivisions: The region has the following sub-divisions: After abolition of the Greater Manchester and Merseyside County Councils in 1986, power was transferred to the metropolitan boroughs, making them equivalent to unitary authorities. In April 2011, Greater Manchester gained a top-tier administrative body in the form of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which means the 10 Greater Manchester boroughs are once again second-tier authorities.
Kanjibhai Rathod. Kanjibhai Rathod was an Indian film director.[1][2] Kanjibhai Rathod from Maroli village in Navsari district of south Gujarat, was considered the first successful director in Indian cinema. His rise to fame in an era when most people stayed away from films due to a peculiar stigma attached to the filmdom.[3] Not much is known about Rathods personal life. Film historian Virchand Dharamsey writes, Kanjibhai was coming from a Dalit family and he can be considered the first successful professional director of India.[4][5][6] Rathod began as a still photographer with the Oriental Film Company. His experience earned him a job in Kohinoor Film Company and its owner Dwarkadas Sampat made him a director.[citation needed]
Chinese characters. Chinese characters[a] are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only one that has remained in continuous use. Over a documented history spanning more than three millennia, the function, style, and means of writing characters have changed greatly. Unlike letters in alphabets that reflect the sounds of speech, Chinese characters generally represent morphemes, the units of meaning in a language. Writing all of the frequently used vocabulary in a language requires roughly 2000–3000 characters; as of 2024[update], nearly 100000 have been identified and included in The Unicode Standard. Characters are created according to several principles, where aspects of shape and pronunciation may be used to indicate the characters meaning. The first attested characters are oracle bone inscriptions made during the 13th century BCE in what is now Anyang, Henan, as part of divinations conducted by the Shang dynasty royal house. Character forms were originally ideographic or pictographic in style, but evolved as writing spread across China. Numerous attempts have been made to reform the script, including the promotion of small seal script by the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE). Clerical script, which had matured by the early Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE), abstracted the forms of characters—obscuring their pictographic origins in favour of making them easier to write. Following the Han, regular script emerged as the result of cursive influence on clerical script, and has been the primary style used for characters since. Informed by a long tradition of lexicography, states using Chinese characters have standardized their forms—broadly, simplified characters are used to write Chinese in mainland China, Singapore, and Malaysia, while traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. Where the use of characters spread beyond China, they were initially used to write Literary Chinese; they were then often adapted to write local languages spoken throughout the Sinosphere. In Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, Chinese characters are known as kanji, hanja, and chữ Hán respectively. Writing traditions also emerged for some of the other languages of China, like the sawndip script used to write the Zhuang languages of Guangxi. Each of these written vernaculars used existing characters to write the languages native vocabulary, as well as the loanwords it borrowed from Chinese. In addition, each invented characters for local use. In written Korean and Vietnamese, Chinese characters have largely been replaced with alphabets—leaving Japanese as the only major non-Chinese language still written using them, alongside the other elements of the Japanese writing system. At the most basic level, characters are composed of strokes that are written in a fixed order. Historically, methods of writing characters have included inscribing stone, bone, or bronze; brushing ink onto silk, bamboo, or paper; and printing with woodblocks or moveable type. Technologies invented since the 19th century to facilitate the use of characters include telegraph codes and typewriters, as well as input methods and text encodings on computers.
List of named minor planets (numerical). This is a list of named minor planets in numerical order. As of 10 June 2024[update], it contains a total of 24,795 named bodies.[1][2] Minor planets for which no article exists redirect to the list of minor planets (see List of minor planets § Main index).
Sea surface temperature. Sea surface temperature (or ocean surface temperature) is the temperature of ocean water close to the surface. The exact meaning of surface varies in the literature and in practice. It is usually between 1 millimetre (0.04 in) and 20 metres (70 ft) below the sea surface. Sea surface temperatures greatly modify air masses in the Earths atmosphere within a short distance of the shore. The thermohaline circulation has a major impact on average sea surface temperature throughout most of the worlds oceans.[2] Warm sea surface temperatures can develop and strengthen cyclones over the ocean. Tropical cyclones can also cause a cool wake. This is due to turbulent mixing of the upper 30 metres (100 ft) of the ocean. Sea surface temperature changes during the day. This is like the air above it, but to a lesser degree. There is less variation in sea surface temperature on breezy days than on calm days. Coastal sea surface temperatures can cause offshore winds to generate upwelling, which can significantly cool or warm nearby landmasses, but shallower waters over a continental shelf are often warmer. Onshore winds can cause a considerable warm-up even in areas where upwelling is fairly constant, such as the northwest coast of South America. Coastal sea surface temperature values are important within numerical weather prediction as the sea surface temperature influences the atmosphere above, such as in the formation of sea breezes and sea fog. It is very likely that global mean sea surface temperature increased by 0.88 °C between 1850–1900 and 2011–2020 due to global warming, with most of that warming (0.60 °C) occurring between 1980 and 2020.[3]: 1228 The temperatures over land are rising faster than ocean temperatures. This is because the ocean absorbs about 90% of excess heat generated by climate change.[4]
List of minor planets named after rivers. This is a list of minor planets named after rivers, organized by continent.
Last Glacial Period. The Last Glacial Period (LGP), also known as the last glacial cycle, occurred from the end of the Last Interglacial to the beginning of the Holocene, c. 115,000 – c. 11,700 years ago, and thus corresponds to most of the timespan of the Late Pleistocene.[1] It thus formed the most recent period of what is colloquially known as the Ice Age. The LGP is part of a larger sequence of glacial and interglacial periods known as the Quaternary glaciation which started around 2,588,000 years ago and is ongoing.[2] The glaciation and the current Quaternary Period both began with the formation of the Arctic ice cap. The Antarctic ice sheet began to form earlier, at about 34 Mya (million years ago), in the mid-Cenozoic (Eocene–Oligocene extinction event), and the term Late Cenozoic Ice Age is used to include this early phase with the current glaciation.[3] The previous ice age within the Quaternary is the Penultimate Glacial Period, which ended about 128,000 years ago, was more severe than the Last Glacial Period in some areas such as Britain, but less severe in others. The last glacial period saw alternating episodes of glacier advance and retreat with the Last Glacial Maximum occurring between 26,000 and 20,000 years ago. While the general pattern of cooling and glacier advance around the globe was similar, local differences make it difficult to compare the details from continent to continent (see picture of ice core data below for differences). The most recent cooling, the Younger Dryas, began around 12,800 years ago and ended around 11,700 years ago, also marking the end of the LGP and the Pleistocene epoch. It was followed by the Holocene, the current geological epoch. The LGP is often colloquially referred to as the last ice age, though the term ice age is not strictly defined, and on a longer geological perspective, the last few million years could be termed a single ice age given the continual presence of ice sheets near both poles. Glacials are somewhat better defined, as colder phases during which glaciers advance, separated by relatively warm interglacials. The end of the last glacial period, which was about 10,000 years ago, is often called the end of the ice age, although extensive year-round ice persists in Antarctica and Greenland. Over the past few million years, the glacial-interglacial cycles have been paced by periodic variations in the Earths orbit via Milankovitch cycles.
List of minor planets named after places. This is a list of minor planets named after places, organized by continent.
National Science Foundation. The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health. With an annual budget of about $9.9 billion (fiscal year 2023), the NSF funds approximately 25% of all federally supported basic research conducted by the United States colleges and universities.[4][5] In some fields, such as mathematics, computer science, economics, and the social sciences, the NSF is the major source of federal backing. NSFs director and deputy director are appointed by the president of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate, whereas the 24 president-appointed members of the National Science Board (NSB)[6] do not require U.S. Senate confirmation. The director and deputy director are responsible for administration, planning, budgeting and day-to-day operations of the foundation, while the NSB meets six times a year to establish its overall policies. The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) was established by the National Science Foundation Act of 1950.[7] Its stated mission is to promote the progress of science, to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare, and to secure the national defense.[8] The NSFs scope has expanded over the years to include many areas that were not in its initial portfolio, including the social and behavioral sciences, engineering, and science and mathematics education. The NSF is the only U.S. federal agency with a mandate to support all non-medical fields of research.[4] Since the technology boom of the 1980s, the U.S. Congress has generally embraced the premise that government-funded basic research is essential for the nations economic health and global competitiveness, and for national defense. This support has manifested in an expanding National Science Foundation budget from $1 billion in 1983 to $8.28 billion in 2020.[9]
Written language. A written language is the representation of a language by means of writing. This involves the use of visual symbols, known as graphemes, to represent linguistic units such as phonemes, syllables, morphemes, or words. However, written language is not merely spoken or signed language written down, though it can approximate that. Instead, it is a separate system with its own norms, structures, and stylistic conventions, and it often evolves differently than its corresponding spoken or signed language. Written languages serve as crucial tools for communication, enabling the recording, preservation, and transmission of information, ideas, and culture across time and space. The orthography of a written language comprises the norms by which it is expected to function, including rules regarding spelling and typography. A societys use of written language generally has a profound impact on its social organization, cultural identity, and technological profile. Writing, speech, and signing are three distinct modalities of language; each has unique characteristics and conventions.[2] When discussing properties common to the modes of language, the individual speaking, signing, or writing will be referred to as the sender, and the individual listening, viewing, or reading as the receiver; senders and receivers together will be collectively termed agents. The spoken, signed, and written modes of language mutually influence one another, with the boundaries between conventions for each being fluid—particularly in informal written contexts like taking quick notes or posting on social media.[3] Spoken and signed language is typically more immediate, reflecting the local context of the conversation and the emotions of the agents, often via paralinguistic cues like body language. Utterances are typically less premeditated, and are more likely to feature informal vocabulary and shorter sentences.[4] They are also primarily used in dialogue, and as such include elements that facilitate turn-taking; these including prosodic features such as trailing off and fillers that indicate the sender has not yet finished their turn. Errors encountered in spoken and signed language include disfluencies and hesitation.[5] By contrast, written language is typically more structured and formal. While speech and signing are transient, writing is permanent. It allows for planning, revision, and editing, which can lead to more complex sentences and a more extensive vocabulary. Written language also has to convey meaning without the aid of tone of voice, facial expressions, or body language, which often results in more explicit and detailed descriptions.[6]
Lexicography. Lexicography is the study of lexicons and the art of compiling dictionaries.[1] It is divided into two separate academic disciplines: There is some disagreement on the definition of lexicology, as distinct from lexicography. Some use lexicology as a synonym for theoretical lexicography; others use it to mean a branch of linguistics pertaining to the inventory of words in a particular language. A person devoted to lexicography is called a lexicographer and is, according to a jest of Samuel Johnson, a harmless drudge.[relevant?][3][4] Generally, lexicography focuses on the design, compilation, use and evaluation of general dictionaries, i.e. dictionaries that provide a description of the language in general use. Specialized lexicography focuses on the design, compilation, use and evaluation of specialized dictionaries, i.e. dictionaries that are devoted to a (relatively restricted) set of linguistic and factual elements of one or more specialist subject fields, e.g. legal lexicography. Such a dictionary is usually called a specialized dictionary or Language for specific purposes dictionary and following Nielsen 1994, specialized dictionaries are either multi-field, single-field or sub-field dictionaries. It is now widely accepted that lexicography is a scholarly discipline in its own right and not a sub-branch of applied linguistics, as the chief object of study in lexicography is the dictionary (see e.g. Bergenholtz/Nielsen/Tarp 2009).
Ice sheet. In glaciology, an ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier,[2] is a mass of glacial ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 km2 (19,000 sq mi).[3] The only current ice sheets are the Antarctic ice sheet and the Greenland ice sheet. Ice sheets are bigger than ice shelves or alpine glaciers. Masses of ice covering less than 50,000 km2 are termed an ice cap. An ice cap will typically feed a series of glaciers around its periphery. Although the surface is cold, the base of an ice sheet is generally warmer due to geothermal heat. In places, melting occurs and the melt-water lubricates the ice sheet so that it flows more rapidly. This process produces fast-flowing channels in the ice sheet — these are ice streams. Even stable ice sheets are continually in motion as the ice gradually flows outward from the central plateau, which is the tallest point of the ice sheet, and towards the margins. The ice sheet slope is low around the plateau but increases steeply at the margins.[4] Increasing global air temperatures due to climate change take around 10,000 years to directly propagate through the ice before they influence bed temperatures, but may have an effect through increased surface melting, producing more supraglacial lakes. These lakes may feed warm water to glacial bases and facilitate glacial motion.[5] In previous geologic time spans (glacial periods) there were other ice sheets. During the Last Glacial Period at Last Glacial Maximum, the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered much of North America. In the same period, the Weichselian ice sheet covered Northern Europe and the Patagonian Ice Sheet covered southern South America.
List of minor planets named after people. This is a list of minor planets named after people, both real and fictional.
Grapheme. In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system.[1] The word grapheme is derived from Ancient Greeks gráphō (write), and the suffix -eme (by analogy with phoneme and other emic units). The study of graphemes is called graphemics. The concept of a grapheme is abstract; it is similar to the notion of a character in computing. (A specific geometric shape that represents any particular grapheme in a given typeface is called a glyph.) In orthographic and linguistic notation, a particular glyph (character) is represented as a grapheme (is used in its graphemic sense) by enclosing it within angle brackets: e.g. ⟨a⟩. There are two main opposing grapheme concepts.[2] In the so-called referential conception, graphemes are interpreted as the smallest units of writing that correspond with sounds (more accurately phonemes). In this concept, the sh in the written English word shake would be a grapheme because it represents the phoneme /ʃ/. This referential concept is linked to the dependency hypothesis that claims that writing merely depicts speech. By contrast, the analogical concept defines graphemes analogously to phonemes, i.e. via written minimal pairs such as shake vs. snake. In this example, h and n are graphemes because they distinguish two words. This analogical concept is associated with the autonomy hypothesis which holds that writing is a system in its own right and should be studied independently from speech. Both concepts have weaknesses.[3]
Macroscopic scale. The macroscopic scale is the length scale on which objects or phenomena are large enough to be visible with the naked eye, without magnifying optical instruments.[1][2] It is the opposite of microscopic. When applied to physical phenomena and bodies, the macroscopic scale describes things as a person can directly perceive them, without the aid of magnifying devices. This is in contrast to observations (microscopy) or theories (microphysics, statistical physics) of objects of geometric lengths smaller than perhaps some hundreds of micrometres. A macroscopic view of a ball is just that: a ball. A microscopic view could reveal a thick round skin seemingly composed entirely of puckered cracks and fissures (as viewed through a microscope) or, further down in scale, a collection of molecules in a roughly spherical shape (as viewed through an electron microscope). An example of a physical theory that takes a deliberately macroscopic viewpoint is thermodynamics. An example of a topic that extends from macroscopic to microscopic viewpoints is histology. Not quite by the distinction between macroscopic and microscopic, classical and quantum mechanics are theories that are distinguished in a subtly different way.[3] At first glance one might think of them as differing simply in the size of objects that they describe, classical objects being considered far larger as to mass and geometrical size than quantal objects, for example a football versus a fine particle of dust. More refined consideration distinguishes classical and quantum mechanics on the basis that classical mechanics fails to recognize that matter and energy cannot be divided into infinitesimally small parcels, so that ultimately fine division reveals irreducibly granular features. The criterion of fineness is whether or not the interactions are described in terms of the Planck constant. Roughly speaking, classical mechanics considers particles in mathematically idealized terms even as fine as geometrical points with no magnitude, still having their finite masses. Classical mechanics also considers mathematically idealized extended materials as geometrically continuously substantial. Such idealizations are useful for most everyday calculations, but may fail entirely for molecules, atoms, photons, and other elementary particles (and vice versa). In many ways, classical mechanics can be considered a mainly macroscopic theory. On the much smaller scale of atoms and molecules, classical mechanics may fail, and the interactions of particles are then described by quantum mechanics. Near the absolute minimum of temperature, the Bose–Einstein condensate exhibits effects on macroscopic scale that demand description by quantum mechanics. In the quantum measurement problem the issue of what constitutes macroscopic and what constitutes the quantum world is unresolved and possibly unsolvable. The related correspondence principle can be articulated thus: every macroscopic phenomena can be formulated as a problem in quantum theory. A violation of the correspondence principle would thus ensure an empirical distinction between the macroscopic and the quantum.
Ancient Greek. Ancient Greek (Ἑλληνῐκή, Hellēnikḗ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː])[1] includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (c. 1400–1200 BC), Dark Ages (c. 1200–800 BC), the Archaic or Homeric period (c. 800–500 BC), and the Classical period (c. 500–300 BC).[2] Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period (c. 300 BC), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek, which is regarded as a separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek, and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek, and Koine may be classified as Ancient Greek in a wider sense – being an ancient rather than medieval form of Greek, though over the centuries increasingly resembling Medieval and Modern Greek.
Flagstaff. Flagstaff commonly refers to: Flagstaff may also refer to:
Euler diagram. An Euler diagram (/ˈɔɪlər/, OY-lər) is a diagrammatic means of representing sets and their relationships. They are particularly useful for explaining complex hierarchies and overlapping definitions. They are similar to another set diagramming technique, Venn diagrams. Unlike Venn diagrams, which show all possible relations between different sets, the Euler diagram shows only relevant relationships. The first use of Eulerian circles is commonly attributed to Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707–1783). In the United States, both Venn and Euler diagrams were incorporated as part of instruction in set theory as part of the new math movement of the 1960s. Since then, they have also been adopted by other curriculum fields such as reading[1] as well as organizations and businesses. Euler diagrams consist of simple closed shapes in a two-dimensional plane that each depict a set or category. How or whether these shapes overlap demonstrates the relationships between the sets. Each curve divides the plane into two regions or zones: the interior, which symbolically represents the elements of the set, and the exterior, which represents all elements that are not members of the set. Curves which do not overlap represent disjoint sets, which have no elements in common. Two curves that overlap represent sets that intersect, that have common elements; the zone inside both curves represents the set of elements common to both sets (the intersection of the sets). A curve completely within the interior of another is a subset of it. Venn diagrams are a more restrictive form of Euler diagrams. A Venn diagram must contain all 2n logically possible zones of overlap between its n curves, representing all combinations of inclusion/exclusion of its constituent sets. Regions not part of the set are indicated by coloring them black, in contrast to Euler diagrams, where membership in the set is indicated by overlap as well as color. As shown in the illustration to the right, Sir William Hamilton erroneously asserted that the original use of the circles to sensualize... the abstractions of logic[5] was not Euler (1707–1783) but rather Weise (1642–1708);[6] however the latter book was actually written by Johann Christian Lange, rather than Weise.[2][3] He references Eulers Letters to a German Princess.[7][a]
List of counties in Arizona. There are 15 counties in the U.S. state of Arizona.[1] Four counties (Mohave, Pima, Yavapai and Yuma) were created in 1864 following the organization of the Arizona Territory in 1862. The now defunct Pah-Ute County was split from Mohave County in 1865, but merged back in 1871. All but La Paz County were created by the time Arizona was granted statehood in 1912. La Paz County was established in 1983 after many years of pushing for independence from Yuma County.[2] Eight of Arizonas fifteen counties are named after various Native American groups that are resident in parts of what is now Arizona, with another (Cochise County) being named after a native leader. Four other counties, Gila County, Santa Cruz County, Pinal County, and Graham County, are named for physical features of Arizonas landscape: the Gila River, the Santa Cruz River, Pinal Peak, and Mount Graham, respectively. Another county, La Paz County, is named after a former settlement, while the final county, Greenlee County, is named after one of the states early pioneers.[3] Under Arizona laws, a county shall not be formed or divided by county initiative unless each proposed county would have all of the following characteristics: (1) at least three-fourths of one percent of the total state assessed valuation and at least the statewide per capita assessed valuation; (2) a population of at least three-fourths of one percent of the total state population according to the most recent United States decennial census; (3) at least one hundred square miles of privately owned land; (4) common boundaries with either (a) at least three other existing or proposed counties; or (b) at least two other existing or proposed counties and the state boundary.[4] A county formation commission is required to be formed to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed county.[5] A proposal to divide a county must be approved by a majority of the votes cast in each proposed new county.[6] Under the Arizona Constitution, counties are politically and legally creatures of the state, and do not have charters of their own. Counties are governed by boards of supervisors which act in the capacity of executive authority for the county within the statutes and powers prescribed by Arizona state law. With few exceptions, these powers are narrowly construed. The state legislature devotes considerable time to local matters, with limited discretion granted to the Board of Supervisors on minor ordinance, zoning, and revenue collection issues.
List of municipalities in Arizona. Arizona is a state located in the Western United States. According to the 2020 United States census, Arizona is the 14th most populous state with 7,151,502 inhabitants (as of the 2020 census)[1] and the 6th largest by land area spanning 113,623.1 square miles (294,282 km2).[2] Arizona is divided into 15 counties and contains 91 incorporated cities and towns. Incorporated places in Arizona are those that have been granted home rule, possessing a local government in the form of a city or town council. Most of the population is concentrated within the Phoenix metropolitan area, with a 2020 census population of 4,845,832 (67.8% of the state population).[3] Phoenix is the capital and largest city by population in Arizona with 1,608,139 residents,[4] is ranked as the fifth most populous city in the United States, and land area spanning 517.5 sq mi (1,340 km2) as of the 2020 census. The smallest municipality by population and land area is Winkelman with 296 residents in 0.75 sq mi (1.9 km2).[5] The oldest incorporated place in Arizona is Tucson which incorporated in 1877 and the most recent was the town of Tusayan which incorporated in March 2010.[6] The Arizona Constitution has, since its ratification in 1912, allowed for the creation of municipal corporations in any community with a population of 3,500 or greater.[7] According to the Constitution, a municipal charter cannot be created by special laws or by the legislature, but rather by the communities themselves as provided by general law.[8] The population limit specified by the constitution was lowered by state law to a minimum of population of 1,500 for most locations, and further reduced to 500 for communities located within 10 miles (16 km) of a national park or national monument.[9] State law further restricts the incorporation of new municipalities within urbanized areas, which are defined as a specific buffer zone surrounding existing cities and towns.[10] State law allows for the incorporation of a community as either a city or a town; the only additional requirement to incorporate as a city is a minimum population of 3,000.[11] Cities and towns in Arizona function largely in an identical manner, but cities are provided with additional powers that a town charter does not provide, limited primarily to certain powers regarding the regulation of utilities and construction within the city limits.[12] State law allows adjoining towns to merge and it allows a city to annex a town, but it does not allow cities to merge.[13][14] Additionally, a town may change its form of government to a city upon reaching the minimum population of 3,000.[15] There are, however, large communities that have remained incorporated as a town in spite of attaining a large population; Gilbert, with 267,918 residents, remains incorporated as a town.
The Times. Defunct The Times is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register, adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times (founded in 1821), are published by Times Media, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, in turn wholly owned by News Corp. The Times and The Sunday Times were founded independently and have had common ownership only since 1966.[2] It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK.[3] The Times was the first newspaper to bear that name, inspiring numerous other papers around the world. In countries where these other titles are popular, the newspaper is often referred to as The London Times[4] or The Times of London,[5] although the newspaper is of national scope and distribution.
North America. North America is a continent[b] in the Northern and Western hemispheres.[c] North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean. The region includes Middle America (comprising the Caribbean, Central America, and Mexico) and Northern America. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers (9,540,000 square miles), representing approximately 16.5% of Earths land area and 4.8% of its total surface area. It is the third-largest continent by size after Asia and Africa, and the fourth-largest continent by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. As of 2021[update], North Americas population was estimated as over 592 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7.5% of the worlds population. In human geography, the terms North America and North American refers to Canada, Greenland, Mexico, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and the United States.[7][8][9][10][11] It is unknown with certainty how and when first human populations first reached North America. People were known to live in the Americas at least 20,000 years ago,[12] but various evidence points to possibly earlier dates.[13][14] The Paleo-Indian period in North America followed the Last Glacial Period, and lasted until about 10,000 years ago when the Archaic period began. The classic stage followed the Archaic period, and lasted from approximately the 6th to 13th centuries. Beginning in 1000 AD, the Norse were the first Europeans to begin exploring and ultimately colonizing areas of North America. In 1492, the exploratory voyages of Christopher Columbus led to a transatlantic exchange, including migrations of European settlers during the Age of Discovery and the early modern period. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, enslaved Africans, immigrants from Europe, Asia, and descendants of these respective groups.
Worlds Dumbest.... truTV Presents: Worlds Dumbest... (formerly titled The Smoking Gun Presents: Worlds Dumbest..., and simply known as Worlds Dumbest...) is an American reality comedy television series produced by Meetinghouse Productions, Inc. and aired on truTV from 2008 to 2014. Each episode features a ranked compilation of 20 video clips depicting unconventional or ill-advised behavior, often sourced from surveillance footage, eyewitness recordings, or public broadcasts, and includes commentary from featured celebrities or comedians. Segments are organized by thematic categories such as criminals, drivers, daredevils, partiers, and performers. Starting on May 31, 2022, TBD (now Roar) is currently airing reruns, albeit heavily edited down to a half-hour.[1][2] Each episode of the series, originally only known as Worlds Dumbest Criminals, presented a comedic look at 20 half-witted and offbeat events recorded on camera and occasionally, on tape by 911 dispatchers.
Coconino County, Arizona. Coconino County is a county in the North-Central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. Its population was 145,101 at the 2020 census.[1] The county seat is Flagstaff.[2] The county takes its name from Cohonino,[3] a name applied to the Havasupai people. It is the second-largest county by area in the contiguous United States, behind San Bernardino County, California. It has 18,661 sq mi (48,332 km2), or 16.4% of Arizonas total area, and is larger than the nine smallest states in the U.S. Coconino County comprises the Flagstaff metropolitan statistical area, Grand Canyon National Park, the federally recognized Havasupai Nation, and parts of the federally recognized Navajo, Hualapai, and Hopi nations. As a result, its relatively large Native American population makes up nearly 30% of the countys total population; it is mostly Navajo, with smaller numbers of other tribes. The county was the setting for George Herrimans early 20th-century Krazy Kat comic strip. After European Americans completed the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad in 1883, the region of northern Yavapai County began to undergo rapid growth. The people of the northern reaches had tired of the rigors of traveling to Prescott to conduct county business. They believed that they should have their own county jurisdiction, so petitioned in 1887 for secession from Yavapai and creation of a new Frisco County. This did not take place, but Coconino County was formed in 1891 and its seat was designated as Flagstaff.
TruTV. TruTV (stylized as truTV) is an American basic cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel primarily broadcasts reruns of comedy, docusoaps and reality shows, with a recent strong primetime focus on live sports. The channel was originally launched on December 14, 1990 as Court TV, a network that focused on crime-themed programs such as true crime documentary series, legal dramas, and coverage of prominent criminal cases. The channel was initially a joint venture between Time Warner, Cablevision, American Lawyer Media, Liberty Media, and GE, with Liberty joining the venture a year after its launch in 1991. By 2005, Liberty Media and Time Warner had purchased ALM, Cablevision and GEs stakes in Court TV. Time Warner subsequently bought out Libertys share in 2006 for $735 million, and brought the channel under the Turner Broadcasting System. In 2008, the channel relaunched as TruTV, changing its focus to action-oriented docusoaps and caught on camera programs, which it marketed as actuality television. The channel continued to carry legal coverage during the daytime hours under the title In Session, but this was phased out by September 2013. The Court TV name was later bought by Katz Broadcasting (now Scripps Networks), which since 2017 has been part of the E. W. Scripps Company. In 2011, the channel began to add occasional sports broadcasts from Turner Sports (renamed TNT Sports in 2023), primarily the NCAA mens basketball tournament. In October 2014, TruTV pivoted its format to focus more on comedy-based reality series, such as Impractical Jokers. In March 2024, TruTV began to increase its focus on sports programming, introducing a weeknight block that will feature sports-related programming, as well as being incorporated into new and upcoming TNT Sports rights such as MotoGP and NASCAR. As of January 2016,[update] TruTV was available to approximately 91 million households (78.1%) in the United States.[1] By June 2023, this number has dropped to 68.3 million households.[2] The Courtroom Television Network, or Court TV for short, was launched on July 1, 1991, at 6:00 a.m. Eastern Time, and was available to three million subscribers.[3] Its original anchors were Jack Ford, Fred Graham, Cynthia McFadden, and Gregg Jarrett. The network was born out of two competing projects to launch cable channels with live courtroom proceedings, the American Trial Network from Time Warner and American Lawyer Media (ALM), and In Court from Cablevision and NBC. Both projects were present at the National Cable Television Association in June 1990.[4] Rather than trying to establish two competing networks, the projects were combined on December 14, 1990. Liberty Media would join the venture in 1991.
Defenceman. Defence or defense (in American English) in ice hockey is a player position that is primarily responsible for preventing the opposing team from scoring. They are often referred to as defencemen, D, D-men or blueliners (the latter a reference to the blue line in ice hockey which represents the boundary of the offensive zone; defencemen generally position themselves along the line to keep the puck in the zone). They were once called cover-point. In regular play, two defencemen complement three forwards and a goaltender on the ice. Exceptions include overtime during the regular season and when a team is short-handed (i.e. has been assessed a penalty), in which two defencemen are typically joined by only two forwards and a goaltender; when a team is on the power play (i.e. the opponent has been assessed a penalty), teams will often play only one defenceman, joined by four forwards and a goaltender. In National Hockey League regular season play in overtime, effective with the 2015-16 season, teams (usually) have only three position players and a goaltender on the ice, and may use either two forwards and one defenceman, or—rarely—two defencemen and one forward. Organized play of ice hockey originates from the first indoor game in Montreal in 1875. In subsequent years, the number of players per side was reduced to seven. Positions were standardized, and two correspond to the two defencemen of current six-man rules. These were designated as cover point and point, although they lined up behind the center and the rover, unlike today. Decades later, defencemen were standardized into playing left and right sides of the ice. According to one of the earliest known books on ice hockey, Farrells Hockey: Canadas Royal Winter Game (1899), Mike Grant of the Montreal Victorias, describes the point as essentially defensive. He should not stray too far from his place, because oftentimes he is practically a second goal-minder ... although he should remain close to his goal-keeper, he should never obstruct that mans view of the puck. He should, as a rule, avoid rushing up the ice, but if he has a good opening for such a play he should give the puck to one of the forwards on the first opportunity and then hasten back to his position, which has been occupied, in the interim, by the cover-point.[1]
Ladera Heights, California. Ladera Heights is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 6,634 at the 2020 census.[4] Culver City lies to its west, the Baldwin Hills neighborhood to its north, the View Park–Windsor Hills community to its east, the Westchester neighborhood to its south and southwest and the city of Inglewood to its southeast. With an average household income of $132,824, Ladera Heights ranks third amongst the ten wealthiest majority-Black communities in the United States. Ladera Heights originated in the late 1940s with the development of Old Ladera. In the 1960s, custom homes were built in New Ladera. Prominent architect builders included Valentine and Gallant. Robert Earl, who designed many of the Valentine homes, went on to build large multimillion-dollar estates throughout Southern California and in other countries. Neighboring Fox Hills contained a golf course with rolling hills that backed up to Wooster Avenue. Valentine built Robert Earl designed homes on Wooster overlooking the Fox Hills golf course. Baseball player Frank Robinson and other sports players began moving to Ladera Heights in the early 1970s.[5] Many celebrities have lived in Ladera Heights over the years, including Peter Vidmar, Vanessa Williams, Chris Darden, Chris Strait, Lisa Leslie, Olympia Scott, Ken Norton, Arron Afflalo, Tyler, The Creator, Michael Cooper and Byron Scott.[6] Ladera Heights is known as a residence for affluent African Americans.[7][8] According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 3.0 square miles (7.8 km2), all of it land.
Cornerback. A cornerback (CB) is a member of the defensive backfield or secondary in gridiron football.[1] Cornerbacks cover receivers most of the time, but also blitz and defend against such offensive running plays as sweeps and reverses. They create turnovers through hard tackles, interceptions, and deflecting forward passes. Other members of the defensive backfield include strong and free safeties. The cornerback position requires speed, agility, strength, and the ability to make rapid sharp turns. A cornerbacks skill set typically requires proficiency in anticipating the quarterback, backpedaling, executing single and zone coverage, disrupting pass routes, block shedding, and tackling. Cornerbacks are among the fastest players on the field. Because of this, they are frequently used as return specialists on punts or kickoffs. The cornerbacks chief responsibility is to defend against the offenses pass. The rules of American professional football and American college football do not mandate starting position, movement, or coverage zones for any member of the defense.[2][3] There are no illegal defense formations. Cornerbacks can be anywhere on the defensive side of the line of scrimmage at the start of play, although their proximity, formations, and strategies are outlined by the coaching staff or captain. Examples of cornerbacks in the NFL are Jalen Ramsey, Patrick Surtain II, Marlon Humphrey, Jaire Alexander, Sauce Gardner, LJarius Sneed, and Charvarius Ward. Most modern National Football League defensive formations use four defensive backs (two safeties and two corners); Canadian Football League defenses generally use five defensive backs (one safety, two defensive halfbacks, and two corners). A cornerbacks responsibilities vary depending on how the defense assigns protection to its defensive secondary. In terms of defending the run, often corners may be assigned to blitz depending on the coaching decisions in a game. In terms of defending passing plays, a corner will be typically assigned to either zone or man-to-man coverage.
Amalgamated Transit Union. The Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) is a labor organization in the United States and Canada that represents employees in the public transit industry. Established in 1892 as the Amalgamated Association of Street Railway Employees of America, the union was centered primarily in the Eastern United States; as of 2020, ATU has had over 200,000 members throughout the United States and Canada. The union was founded in 1892 as the Amalgamated Association of Street Railway Employees of America. The union has its origins in a meeting of the American Federation of Labor in 1891 at which president Samuel Gompers was asked to invite the local street railway associations to form an international union. Gompers sent a letter to the local street railway unions in April 1892, and based on the positive response arranged for a convention of street railway workers.[2] The convention began on September 12, 1892, in Indianapolis, Indiana, attended by fifty delegates from twenty-two locals. Many of the smaller unions were affiliated with the AFL, while four larger locals were affiliated with the Knights of Labor and two were independent.[3] The first president was William J. Law from the AFL-affiliated local in Detroit.[3] Detroit was chosen as the headquarters, using the same facilities as the Detroit local.[4] Because the number of members affiliated with the Knights of Labor was greater than the numbers affiliated with the AFL, according to the claims of the delegates, the new international remained unaffiliated despite pleas by Gompers.[4] The objectives included education, settlement of disputes with management, and securing good pay and working conditions. The international was given considerable authority over the locals.[5] The second convention was held in Cleveland in October 1893, with just fifteen divisions represented by about twenty delegates.[6] At this meeting William D. Mahon was named president, and he still held this position in 1937. By then the union had been renamed the Amalgamated Association of Street, Electric Railway and Motor Coach Employees of America.[2] The union struggled in the early years as the transit companies followed the practice of firing union activists. In the 1897 meeting in Dayton, Ohio, there were twenty delegates. The treasury of the union now had $4,008.[7] An early achievement was to have laws passed in a dozen states by 1899 that mandated enclosed vestibules for the motormen. Wages were close to $2 a day where the union was established, and in Detroit and Worcester the nine-hour day had been achieved, although in most cities ten- or eleven-hour days were common.[8]
2013 Stanley Cup playoffs. The 2013 Stanley Cup playoffs was the playoff tournament of the National Hockey League (NHL) for the 2012–13 season. They began on April 30, 2013,[1] following the conclusion of the regular season. The regular season was shortened to 48 games and the playoffs were pushed to a later date due to a lockout. The playoffs ended on June 24, 2013, with the Chicago Blackhawks defeating the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Finals in six games to win the Stanley Cup.[1] Patrick Kane won the Conn Smythe trophy as the playoffs MVP, with 19 points (9 goals and 10 assists). The Blackhawks made the playoffs as the Presidents Trophy winners with the most points (i.e., best record) during the regular season. The Detroit Red Wings increased their postseason appearance streak to twenty-two seasons, the longest active streak at the time. The Toronto Maple Leafs made the playoffs for the first time since 2004, breaking the longest active drought at the time. The 2013 Stanley Cup playoffs marked the first time since 1996 that every Original Six team advanced to the playoffs in the same year. Additionally, four Canadian teams qualified for the playoffs (Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver), the most since 2006, three of those teams were in Eastern Canada. The first round series between Montreal and Ottawa was the first playoff series between two Canadian teams since 2004. For the second time in three years, all three teams from California made the playoffs.[2] The New Jersey Devils and Philadelphia Flyers missed the playoffs this year, marking the first time this happened since the Devils relocated in 1982. For the first time since 1945, the four semifinalists were the previous four Stanley Cup champions: Pittsburgh (2009), Chicago (2010), Boston (2011), and Los Angeles (2012).[3] In fact, Detroit, the 2008 Stanley Cup champions, were the last team to be eliminated in the conference semifinals, so the last five teams remaining were the previous five champions. The 2013 Stanley Cup Finals were contested between Blackhawks and Bruins, the first meeting in the Finals between the two teams, and the first time that two Original Six teams competed in the Finals since Montreal defeated the New York Rangers in the 1979 Stanley Cup Finals.[4] It is also the most recent Stanley Cup Finals to feature two Original Six teams. The Blackhawks also became the first Presidents Trophy winners to win the Stanley Cup since the Red Wings in 2008. To date they are the most recent team to accomplish this feat and most recent Presidents Trophy winners to even reach the Finals.
Labour movement. The labour movement[a] is the collective organisation of working people to further their shared political and economic interests. It consists of the trade union or labour union movement, as well as political parties of labour. It can be considered an instance of class conflict. The labour movement developed as a response to capitalism and the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, at about the same time as socialism.[1] The early goals of the movement were the right to unionise, the right to vote, democracy, safe working conditions and the 40-hour week. As these were achieved in many of the advanced economies of Western Europe and North America in the early decades of the 20th century, the labour movement expanded to issues of welfare and social insurance, wealth distribution and income distribution, public services like health care and education, social housing and common ownership. Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. The labour movement has its origins in Europe during the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when agricultural and cottage industry jobs disappeared and were replaced as mechanization and industrialization moved employment to more industrial areas like factory towns causing an influx of low-skilled labour and a concomitant decline in real wages and living standards for workers in urban areas.[3] Prior to the industrial revolution, economies in Europe were dominated by the guild system which had originated in the Middle Ages.[4] The guilds were expected to protect the interests of the owners, labourers, and consumers through regulation of wages, prices, and standard business practices.[5] However, as the increasingly unequal and oligarchic guild system deteriorated in the 16th and 17th centuries, spontaneous formations of journeymen within the guilds would occasionally act together to demand better wage rates and conditions, and these ad hoc groupings can be considered the forerunners of the modern labour movement.[6] These formations were succeeded by trade unions forming in the United Kingdom in the 18th century. Nevertheless, without the continuous technological and international trade pressures during the Industrial Revolution, these trade unions remained sporadic and localised only to certain regions and professions, and there was not yet enough impetus for the formation of a widespread and comprehensive labour movement. Therefore, the labour movement is usually marked as beginning concurrently with the Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom, roughly around 1760–1830.[7]
Inglewood, California. Inglewood is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States, in the Greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city had a population of 107,762. It is in the South Bay region of Los Angeles County, near Los Angeles International Airport.[6] The Inglewood area was developed following the opening of the Venice–Inglewood railway in 1887 and incorporated as a city on February 14, 1908.[7] The Inglewood Oil Field is the largest urban oil field in the US. The city is a major hub for professional sports with several teams that have played in Inglewoods venues. The Kia Forum, an indoor arena, opened in 1967 and hosted the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association, Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League, and the Los Angeles Sparks of the Womens National Basketball Association, until the opening of Staples Center in 1999. Two National Football League teams—the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers—have played at SoFi Stadium since it opened in 2020; the stadium will also host the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2028 Summer Olympics. The Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association began play at Intuit Dome in 2024. The earliest residents of what is now Inglewood were Native Americans who used the Aguaje de Centinela natural springs in todays Edward Vincent Sr. Park (known for most of its history as Centinela Park). Local historian Gladys Waddingham wrote that these springs took the name Centinela from the hills that rose gradually around them, and which allowed ranchers to watch over their herds, (thus the name centinelas or sentinels).[8]
Juan Navarro High School. Juan Navarro Early College High School (formerly Sidney Lanier High School) was established in 1961 as the sixth high school in the Austin Independent School District (AISD) and was originally located in the building which today houses Burnet Middle School. Lanier was named in honor of the Southern poet and Confederate veteran Sidney Lanier. The current campus, opened in 1966, is located on Payton Gin Road. In 1997, Lanier was nationally recognized as a Blue Ribbon School, the highest honor a school could receive at the time. When it first opened, Lanier had virtually an all White student base with a highly active FFA chapter, but over the years it has become a primarily Mexican-American school with over 85% of its students being Hispanic.[2] The AISD Board of Trustees voted on March 24, 2019, to rename the school Juan Navarro High School. Juan Navarro was a 2007 graduate who died in Afghanistan from an improvised explosive device in July 2012.[3]
Solar System. The Solar System[d] consists of the Sun and the objects that orbit it.[11] The name comes from Sōl, the Latin name for the Sun.[12] It formed about 4.6 billion years ago when a dense region of a molecular cloud collapsed, creating the Sun and a protoplanetary disc from which the orbiting bodies assembled. The fusion of hydrogen into helium inside the Suns core releases energy, which is primarily emitted through its outer photosphere. This creates a decreasing temperature gradient across the system. Over 99.86% of the Solar Systems mass is located within the Sun. The most massive objects that orbit the Sun are the eight planets. Closest to the Sun in order of increasing distance are the four terrestrial planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Only the Earth and Mars orbit within the Suns habitable zone, where liquid water can exist on the surface. Beyond the frost line at about five astronomical units (AU),[e] are two gas giants – Jupiter and Saturn – and two ice giants – Uranus and Neptune. Jupiter and Saturn possess nearly 90% of the non-stellar mass of the Solar System. There are a vast number of less massive objects. There is a strong consensus among astronomers that the Solar System has at least nine dwarf planets: Ceres, Orcus, Pluto, Haumea, Quaoar, Makemake, Gonggong, Eris, and Sedna.[f] Six planets, seven dwarf planets, and other bodies have orbiting natural satellites, which are commonly called moons, and range from sizes of dwarf planets, like Earths Moon, at their largest, to much less massive moonlets at their smallest. There are small Solar System bodies, such as asteroids, comets, centaurs, meteoroids, and interplanetary dust clouds. Some of these bodies are in the asteroid belt (between Marss and Jupiters orbit) and the Kuiper belt (just outside Neptunes orbit).[g] Between the bodies of the Solar System is an interplanetary medium of dust and particles. The Solar System is constantly flooded by outflowing charged particles from the solar wind, forming the heliosphere. At around 70–90 AU from the Sun, the solar wind is halted by the interstellar medium, resulting in the heliopause. This is the boundary to interstellar space. The Solar System extends beyond this boundary with its outermost region, the theorized Oort cloud, the source for long-period comets, extending to a radius of 2,000–200,000 AU. The Solar System currently moves through a cloud of interstellar medium called the Local Cloud. The closest star to the Solar System, Proxima Centauri, is 4.25 light-years (269,000 AU) away. Both are within the Local Bubble, a relatively small 1,000 light-years wide region of the Milky Way.
Waltham, Massachusetts. Waltham (/ˈwɔːlθæm/ WAWL-tham) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, and was an early center for the labor movement as well as a major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, the city was a prototype for 19th century industrial city planning, spawning what became known as the Waltham-Lowell system of labor and production. The city is now a center for research and higher education as home to Brandeis University and Bentley University. The population was 65,218 at the 2020 United States census.[2] Waltham is part of the Greater Boston area and lies 9 miles (14 km) west of Downtown Boston. Waltham has been called watch city because of its association with the watch industry. Waltham Watch Company opened its factory in Waltham in 1854 and was the first company to make watches on an assembly line. It won the gold medal in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. The company produced over 35 million watches, clocks, and instruments before it closed in 1957.[3] Waltham borders Watertown and Belmont to the east, Lexington to the north, Lincoln and Weston to the west, and Newton to the south. Waltham was first settled by the English in 1634 as part of Watertown, and was officially incorporated as a separate town in 1738,[4] but the area was inhabited for thousands of years prior to English colonization. At the time of European arrival, Waltham was in a border zone between the territories of the Pawtucket confederation and the Massachusett, with nearby native settlements at Nonantum and Pequosset (Watertown).[5] Early settlers recorded the presence of an Indian Stockade near todays Cambridge Reservoir, and an Indian Hollow in todays Calvary Cemetery.[6] A native trail through Waltham, the Old Connecticut Path saw continued use after colonization and became the basis for present day Route 20.[6]
Planet. A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is generally required to be in orbit around a star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf, and is not one itself.[1] The Solar System has eight planets by the most restrictive definition of the term: the terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, and the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a young protostar orbited by a protoplanetary disk. Planets grow in this disk by the gradual accumulation of material driven by gravity, a process called accretion. The word planet comes from the Greek πλανήται (planḗtai) wanderers. In antiquity, this word referred to the Sun, Moon, and five points of light visible to the naked eye that moved across the background of the stars—namely, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Planets have historically had religious associations: multiple cultures identified celestial bodies with gods, and these connections with mythology and folklore persist in the schemes for naming newly discovered Solar System bodies. Earth itself was recognized as a planet when heliocentrism supplanted geocentrism during the 16th and 17th centuries. With the development of the telescope, the meaning of planet broadened to include objects only visible with assistance: the moons of the planets beyond Earth; the ice giants Uranus and Neptune; Ceres and other bodies later recognized to be part of the asteroid belt; and Pluto, later found to be the largest member of the collection of icy bodies known as the Kuiper belt. The discovery of other large objects in the Kuiper belt, particularly Eris, spurred debate about how exactly to define a planet. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) adopted a definition of a planet in the Solar System, placing the four terrestrial planets and the four giant planets in the planet category; Ceres, Pluto, and Eris are in the category of dwarf planet.[2][3][4] Many planetary scientists have nonetheless continued to apply the term planet more broadly, including dwarf planets as well as rounded satellites like the Moon.[5] Further advances in astronomy led to the discovery of over 5,900 planets outside the Solar System, termed exoplanets. These often show unusual features that the Solar System planets do not show, such as hot Jupiters—giant planets that orbit close to their parent stars, like 51 Pegasi b—and extremely eccentric orbits, such as HD 20782 b. The discovery of brown dwarfs and planets larger than Jupiter also spurred debate on the definition, regarding where exactly to draw the line between a planet and a star. Multiple exoplanets have been found to orbit in the habitable zones of their stars (where liquid water can potentially exist on a planetary surface), but Earth remains the only planet known to support life.
List of jōyō kanji. The jōyō kanji (常用漢字; Japanese pronunciation: [dʑoːjoːkaꜜɲdʑi], lit. regular-use kanji) system of representing written Japanese currently consists of 2,136 characters.
List of minor planet discoverers. This is a list of minor-planet discoverers credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of one or several minor planets (such as near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, Jupiter trojans and distant objects).[1] As of January 2022[update], the discovery of 612,011 numbered minor planets are credited to 1,141 astronomers and 253 observatories, telescopes or surveys (see § Discovering dedicated institutions). On how a discovery is made, see observations of small Solar System bodies. For a description of the tables below, see § Notes. The discovery table consist of the following fields:
Strike action. Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when mass labor became important in factories and mines. As striking became a more common practice, governments were often pushed to act (either by private business or by union workers). When government intervention occurred, it was rarely neutral or amicable. Early strikes were often deemed unlawful conspiracies or anti-competitive cartel action and many were subject to massive legal repression by state police, federal military power, and federal courts.[1] Many Western nations legalized striking under certain conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Strikes are sometimes used to pressure governments to change policies. Occasionally, strikes destabilize the rule of a particular political party or ruler; in such cases, strikes are often part of a broader social movement taking the form of a campaign of civil resistance. Notable examples are the 1980 Gdańsk Shipyard and the 1981 Warning Strike led by Lech Wałęsa. These strikes were significant in the long campaign of civil resistance for political change in Poland, and were an important mobilizing effort that contributed to the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of communist party rule in Eastern Europe.[2] Another example is the general strike in Weimar Germany that followed the March 1920 Kapp Putsch. It was called by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and received such broad support that it resulted in the collapse of the putsch.[3] The use of the English word strike to describe a work protest was first seen in 1768, when sailors, in support of demonstrations in London, struck or removed the topgallant sails of merchant ships at port, thus crippling the ships.[4][5][6] The first historically certain account of strike action was in ancient Egypt on 14 November in 1152 BCE, when artisans of the Royal Necropolis at Deir el-Medina walked off their jobs in protest at the failure of the government of Ramesses III to pay their wages on time and in full.[7][8] The royal government ended the strike by raising the artisans wages.
Trade union. A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment,[1] such as attaining better wages and benefits, improving working conditions, improving safety standards, establishing complaint procedures, developing rules governing status of employees (rules governing promotions, just-cause conditions for termination) and protecting and increasing the bargaining power of workers. Trade unions typically fund their head office and legal team functions through regularly imposed fees called union dues. The union representatives in the workforce are usually made up of workplace volunteers who are often appointed by members through internal democratic elections. The trade union, through an elected leadership and bargaining committee, bargains with the employer on behalf of its members, known as the rank and file, and negotiates labour contracts (collective bargaining agreements) with employers. Unions may organize a particular section of skilled or unskilled workers (craft unionism),[2] a cross-section of workers from various trades (general unionism), or an attempt to organize all workers within a particular industry (industrial unionism). The agreements negotiated by a union are binding on the rank-and-file members and the employer, and in some cases on other non-member workers. Trade unions traditionally have a constitution which details the governance of their bargaining unit and also have governance at various levels of government depending on the industry that binds them legally to their negotiations and functioning. Originating in the United Kingdom, trade unions became popular in many countries during the Industrial Revolution when employment (rather than subsistence farming) became the primary mode of earning a living. Trade unions may be composed of individual workers, professionals, past workers, students, apprentices or the unemployed. Trade union density, or the percentage of workers belonging to a trade union, is highest in the Nordic countries.[3][4]
Kanbun (era). Kanbun (寛文) was a Japanese era (年号, nengō; year name) after Manji and before Enpō. This period spanned the years from April 1661 to September 1673.[1] The reigning emperors were Go-Sai-tennō (後西天皇) and Reigen-tennō (霊元天皇).[2]
New York Islanders. The New York Islanders (colloquially known as the Isles) are a professional ice hockey team based in Elmont, New York. The Islanders compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home games at UBS Arena. The Islanders are one of three NHL franchises in the New York metropolitan area, along with the New Jersey Devils and New York Rangers, and their fanbase resides primarily on Long Island. The team was founded in 1972 as part of the NHLs maneuvers to keep a team from rival league World Hockey Association (WHA) out of the newly built Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in suburban Uniondale, New York. After two years of building up the teams roster, they found almost instant success by securing 14 straight playoff berths starting with their third season. The Islanders won four consecutive Stanley Cup championships between 1980 and 1983, the eighth of nine dynasties recognized by the NHL in its history. Their 19 consecutive playoff series wins between 1980 and 1984 is a feat that remains unparalleled in the history of professional sports. They are the last team in any major professional North American sport to win four consecutive championships, and to date the last NHL team to achieve a three-peat. Following the teams dynasty era, the franchise ran into problems with money, ownership and management, an aging arena, and low attendance. Their woes were reflected on the ice, as the team has not won a division title since 1987–88, and went 22 seasons without winning a playoff series prior to the 2016 playoffs. After years of failed attempts to rebuild or replace Nassau Coliseum in suburban Long Island, the Islanders relocated to Barclays Center in Brooklyn following the 2014–15 season.[4] In the 2018–19 and 2019–20 seasons, the Islanders split their home games between Barclays Center and Nassau Coliseum. The Islanders played all their home games in the 2020–21 season at Nassau Coliseum. Their new arena near Belmont Park was opened in 2021. Ten former members of the Islanders have been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, seven of whom—Mike Bossy, Clark Gillies, Denis Potvin, Billy Smith, Bryan Trottier, coach Al Arbour, and general manager Bill Torrey—were members of all four Cup-winning teams. Post-dynasty players Pat LaFontaine, Roberto Luongo, Pierre Turgeon, and Zdeno Chara were also inducted.

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