title: Maple

text: The maple's distinctive fruit are called samaras, and known by many children as "helicopters" by the way they spin as they fall. Inside the fruit are found their seeds, which are in pairs. Each one is enclosed in a "nutlet" attached to a flattened wing of papery tissue. They are shaped to spin as they fall and carry the seeds a considerable distance on the wind. One tree can release hundreds of thousands of seeds at a time. Some seeds can remain in the soil for several years before germinating.


title: Maple

text: Maple trees are often planted as ornamental trees in cities. Some species resist the cold rather well. Sugar maples are grown to make maple syrup. Some maples are grown for timber (wood that is used for furniture).


title: Flame

text: A flame is the visible part of a fire. It gives light and heat. It is the result of an exothermic reaction. The color and temperature of a flame depend on the type of fuel that is used to make the fire. A blue or white flame is often very hot, while a red, orange, or yellow flame is less hot.


title: Anti-aircraft warfare

text: Anti-aircraft warfare, or air defence, is any way of fighting military aircraft in combat from the ground. Different guns and cannons have been used for this since the first military aircraft were used in World War I. They have become more powerful over the years. After World War II, Surface to Air Missiles began to be used too. Today, both are used to fight against aircraft.


title: Anti-aircraft warfare

text: Nicknames for anti-aircraft guns include AAA or triple-A, an abbreviation for anti-aircraft artillery", and flak or flack (from the German Flugabwehrkanone", "aircraft defence cannon"). An anti-aircraft missile is another name for a surface-to-air missile, also said SAM for short.


title: Epoch (geology)

text: An epoch in geology is a part of a period. Thus the Cainozoic era is now divided into three periods, the Palaeogene, the Neogene and the Quaternary. These are finally broken down into these epochs: Palaeocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene and Holocene.


title: Epoch (geology)

text: The Tertiary, now not used ('deprecated'), included the Palaeogene and Neogene. That is why the last period is called the Quarternary, and there was a big debate about that, too. These decisions are made by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). This organisation runs an International Commission on Stratigraphy, which decides how we should name geological strata and stages. They describe their work as follows:


title: Idolatry

text: Idolatry is the worship of statues or images as gods. It is also used as a metaphor for other extreme devotion to a person of thing.


title: Idolatry

text: Idolatry is the worship of an idol or image, being a picture, a statue, or a person in place of God. In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, idolatry means worshiping something that is not God. These religions teach that there is only one God. Idolatry is said to be the "worship of false gods". It is forbidden by religious rules such as the Ten Commandments. There it says, "You shall not make a carved image (as a God)" and "You shall not have any other god ahead of Me (the only God). The monotheistic religions all have such rules.


title: Idolatry

text: The strict understanding of these rules would not allow religious statues of any kind. People who hold these views think that such statues should be destroyed. Others would say that worshipers must understand that the statue is only a symbol for God. They say that the image or statue is not the god. This has long been accompanied with violence between religious groups that forbid idol worship and those who have accepted icons, images and idols for worship. In many Indian religions, such as theistic and non-theistic forms of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, idols ("murti") are to be considered as symbolism for the absolute but not The Absolute. In the traditional religions of ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Africa, Asia, the Americas and elsewhere, the reverence of an image or statue has been a common practice. These statues or images have carried different meanings and significance.


title: Idolatry

text: The definition of idolatry has been a contested topic within Abrahamic religions, with many Muslims and Protestant Christians condemning the Catholic veneration of the Virgin Mary as a form of idolatry. This veneration of Mary and other Saints often involves statues. In the Orthodox churches, flat painted images are common, instead of carved statues. These are called Icons.


title: Idolatry

text: In history, many religions have accused others of idolatry. These accusations are that statues and images are devoid of symbolism. They say that many people believe the idol, statue or image is a god. Different groups often think that icons or statues in their religion have meaningful symbolism, but another person's religious images do not.


title: Idolatry

text: Religious leaders have used the idea of Idolatry (literal worship of statues or images) as a metaphor. They call anything that comes ahead of God an Idol. Saint Paul writes that "covetousness" (wanting material things) is idolatry. Jesus preached that "you cannot serve God and Mammon". Mammon was the Syrian God of riches. Muslim writers warn of making idols of material things or even political ideologies. Eastern religions have also warned about making material things one's god.


title: Idolatry

text: "Idolizing" persons, such as rock stars can also be seen as a form of idolatry. The popular TV show "American Idol" seems to use the term in a positive way. But this has been questioned even by non religious persons. Billy Graham has warned against various things that become idols in a person's life.


title: Sultan Rahi

text: Sultan Muhammad (generally recognized as Sultan Rahi) was born in a Muslim arain family of Saharanpur in 1938 Uttar Pradesh, British India. He was a famous Pakistani film actor who was well-known in Pakistan in Punjabi & Urdu films during the 1970s and 1980s till 1996. He was mostly admired among people in Punjab, Pakistan and among Sikh and Punjabi community of India. He acted in over 700 Punjabi and Urdu films, and is named in the Guinness Book of Records as the most creative actor. His popular films include: Maula Jatt, Sher Khan, Chan Veryam, Dada, Qanoon, Kaley Chore, and The Godfather. He started his film career as an extra but quickly became a leading actor and in 1972. He was murdered on 9 January 1996 in Gujranwala, Pakistan.


title: Sultan Rahi

text: Burly Pakistani actor Sultan Rahi specialized in playing superheroes and muscle men. Over his career, which began with his playing bit parts in the late '50s, Sultan appeared in more than 700 Punjabi films. He became a leading man in 1971 in Babul and a star the following year in Bashira. Born, Muhammad Sultan in India, Rahi moved to Pakistan at age nine.


title: The Last Days of Sodom and Gomorrah

text: The Last Days of Sodom and Gomorrah (also known as Sodom and Gomorrah) is a Franco-Italian-American movie made in 1962. It is based on the Bible story of Sodom and Gomorrah. The movie was directed by Robert Aldrich and produced by Maurizio Lodi-Fe, Goffredo Lombardo and Joseph E. Levine.


title: Canon Inc.

text: Canon began as the Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory. In 1934, the first Japanese 35mm focal plane-shutter camera prototype was made. It was called the "Kwanon". In the next few years, Canon became very important in creating new camera products and making them better.


title: Canon Inc.

text: The name Canon came from the company's first 35 mm camera. It was named "Kwanon" after the Buddhist goddess of mercy.


title: Canon Inc.

text: Canon is now an international company. Canon has buildings in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and the South Seas.


title: Gary Neville

text: Gary Neville (born 18 February 1975) is an English retired footballer. Neville played for English club Manchester United during his whole career, and was captain of the club. He has also played for the England national team. Neville was the head coach of Spanish team Valencia CF from 2 December 2015 – 30 March 2016. His brother Phil Neville is also a footballer.


title: Virtual machine

text: A virtual machine is a program on a computer that works like it is a separate computer inside the main computer. The program that controls virtual machines is called a hypervisor and the computer that is running the virtual machine is called the host. The hypervisor controls how the virtual machine can access memory, hard drive space, and other resources on the host computer. Virtual machines can be created through software known as virtualization software (such as VMware Workstation and VirtualBox).


title: Boris Shcherbina

text: Boris Yevdokimovich Shcherbina (; 5 October 1919 – 22 August 1990) was a Ukrainian Soviet politician. He was a vice-chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union from 1984 to 1989. He was in charge of Soviet crisis management of two major catastrophes: the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and the 1988 Armenian earthquake.


title: Teen Talwar

text: The Teen Talwar (Three Swords) monument is located in Clifton, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. The three marble swords are inscribed with Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's creeds "Unity, Faith and Discipline". It was commissioned by Pakistan's former President and Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1973. Therefore it is considered as the "“National Icon of Pakistan”" respectively.


title: Teen Talwar

text: The initial concept was for the three swords to be shown in the PPP's electoral colours (black, green and red). Later, the idea was changed to white marble.


title: Mycorrhiza

text: A mycorrhiza (Greek for "fungus roots") is a symbiotic association between a fungus and the roots of a plant.


title: Mycorrhiza

text: In a mycorrhiza, the fungus lives inside the plant roots, and in the earth. The fungal hyphae are more efficient than plant roots at absorbing nutrients.


title: Mycorrhiza

text: Mycorrhizas are important for plant growth in many ecosystems. At least 80% of all land plant species (and over 90% of families) have mycorrhiza. They depend on it for survival. They are the most common symbionts in the plant kingdom: they involve about 6000 species of fungi and 240,000 species of plants.


title: Mycorrhiza

text: The hyphae of ectomycorrhizal fungi do not penetrate individual cells within the root, while the hyphae of endomycorrhizal fungi penetrate the cell wall and invaginate the cell membrane.


title: Mycorrhiza

text: This mutualism gives the fungus sugars, such as glucose and sucrose produced by the plant in photosynthesis.


title: Mycorrhiza

text: The carbohydrates move from their source (usually leaves) to the root and then to the fungal partner. In return, the plant gains the use of the mycelium's very large surface area to absorb water and mineral nutrients from the soil, especially phosphorus.


title: Mycorrhiza

text: The mechanisms of increased absorption are both physical and chemical. Mycorrhizal mycelia are much smaller in diameter than the smallest root. They can explore a greater volume of soil, providing a larger surface area for absorption: "It is estimated that every kilogram of soil contains at least 200 km of fungi strands".


title: Mycorrhiza

text: Mycorrhizal plants are often more resistant to diseases, such as those caused by microbial soil-borne pathogens, and are also more resistant to the effects of drought. These effects are perhaps due to the improved water and mineral uptake in mycorrhizal plants.


title: Mycorrhiza

text: Mycorrhiza is especially advantageous to the plant in nutrient-poor soils. Plants grown in sterile soils and growth media often perform poorly without the addition of spores or hyphae of mycorrhizal fungi to colonise the plant roots and aid in the uptake of soil mineral nutrients. The absence of mycorrhizal fungi can also slow plant growth in harsh areas.


title: Mycorrhiza

text: The fungal partners may also help plant-to-plant transfer of sugars and other nutrients. Such mycorrhizal communities are called "common mycorrhizal networks".


title: Mycorrhiza

text: Some species live inside the tissues of roots, stems, and leaves, in which case they are called "endophytes".


title: Mycorrhiza

text: Similar to mycorrhiza, endophytic colonization by fungi may benefit both partners. Endophytes of grasses give their host more resistance to grazers and get food and shelter from the plant in return.


title: Mycorrhiza

text: Mycorrhizal roots offer excellent ecological niches for other microbes. Mycorrhizal fungi may host bacteria that complete their life cycles within fungal cells. One of the best known is "Geosiphon pyriforme", which can host cyanobacteria inside characteristic bladders.


title: Mycorrhiza

text: Arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) fungi are unique in hosting bacteria in their cytoplasm. Intracellular structures very similar to bacteria were first described in the 1970s. Research later identified them as true bacteria.


title: Michio Kaku

text: Dr. Michio Kaku (Japanese: ミチオ カク, 加来 道雄) (born 24 January 1947) is a Japanese-American futurist, theoretical physicist and a performer on the Science Channel, particularly for Sci-Fi Science. He is known as a "sci-fi fan" on the SC.


title: Michio Kaku

text: Kaku was born on January 24, 1947 in San Jose, California to Japanese parents. As a child, he took judo lessons. When he grew older, he graduated from college with a summa cum laude degree.


title: Michio Kaku

text: Kaku is famous for his major field, theoretical physics. Sci-fi is another field Michio studied. Some episodes of Sci-Fi Science, for instance, ponder alien invasion of the planet, or a new solar system. The string theory is another topic that Kaku studied.


title: Michio Kaku

text: He has also studied the future. Futurists like Kaku often use PPPW to evaluate the future. The "three Ps and one W" represent, to futurists, "plausible", "possible", and "preferable". The "W" stands for "wildcard"(random) events.


title: Michio Kaku

text: A science populariser, or a populariser of science, is one who captures the scientific method and accuracy to preserve the language in the name of science. Michio Kaku wrote several books including Physics of the Impossible and Hyperspace, Beyond Einstein, and Parallel Worlds.


title: Kashmir Valley

text: The Kashmir Valley (Urdu: وادی کشمیر) or Vale of Kashmir is a valley between the Karakoram and the Pir Panjal Range. It was formed by the draining of the huge Karena lake during a period of tectonic uplift. The Mughal Emperor Jahangir (1569–1627) called the Kashmir Valley a "paradise on earth". It is in the Indian administered state of Jammu and Kashmir. There are 10 districts in this administrative division. The valley is about long and wide.


title: Kashmir Valley

text: It was called "Kaspeiria" by the ancient Greeks. In classical literature Herodotus calls it "Kaspatyrol". Xuanzang, the Chinese monk who visited Kashmir in 631 AD called it "Kia-shi-mi-lo". Tibetans called it Khachal, meaning "snowy mountain". It is and has been a land of rivers, lakes and wildflowers. The Jhelum River runs the entire length of the valley. The valley is d by snow-capped mountains on all sides. Lakes such as Dal Lake and nearby Nagin Lake have hundreds of houseboats. This is from the British Raj era when s were not allowed to buy land here. So they constructed large wooden houseboats to spend the summers in. This, in turn, has led to houseboat hotels. Many are decorated with wood s and Victorian era furniture.


title: Kashmir Valley

text: India and Pakistan fought over the region in 1947–1948. Under the supervision of the United Nations the two agreed on a ceasefire along a line which left the Kashmir Valley under the administration of India. In 1972, India and Pakistan sign a peace treaty called the Simla Agreement. It said that in the future both would settle their differences peacefully. It also renamed the ceasefire line the Line of Control.


title: Kashmir Valley

text: India claims the entire state including the Kashmir Valley to be part of India. Both the United States and the United Kingdom support turning the Line of Control into the border between India and Pakistan. India seems to go along with this while Pakistan is entirely against it.


title: Kashmir Valley

text: India has sent large security forces to Kashmir over the years. Kashmir has remained one of the world's most militarized areas. In 1989 there was an armed uprising against Indian control. India blamed Pakistan and accused them of sponsoring terrorism.


title: Kashmir Valley

text: In 1999 a third conflict arose over the area. Pakistani-backed forces infiltrated into Kashmir. While both armies have fired across the Line of Control, India has not sent troops into Pakistan. Tens of thousands of people have been killed so far in Kashmir.


title: Kashmir Valley

text: The majority of the population in the Kashmir Valley is Muslim. The economy is mainly farming but in recent years tourism has become an important industry. Neither India or Pakistan wants full-scale war (both have nuclear weapons). Neither wants the International sanctions that would surely come if there was a war.


title: Narazuke

text: It is a pickle made from fresh fruit or vegetables that are soaked in salt and sake-no-kasu. Sake-no-kasu is a kind of waste from making sake, so that sake itself is not used. Making good quality narazuke takes a very long time. Some certain expert say it take at least 3 to 4 years.


title: Handkerchief

text: A handkerchief , also called a handkercher or hanky, is a form of a kerchief, usually made of thin fabric that can be carried in the pocket or purse. It was invented for personal hygiene purposes such as wiping one's hands or face, or blowing one's nose.


title: Handkerchief

text: The material of a handkerchief can be symbolic of the social-economic class of the user. It is not only because some materials are more expensive, but because some materials are more absorbent and useful for those who use a handkerchief for more than style. Handkerchiefs can be made of cotton, cotton-synthetic blend, synthetic fabric, silk, or linen.


title: Handkerchief

text: Before people used the word handkerchief, the word kerchief alone was common. This term came from two French words: couvrir, which means “to cover,” and chef, which means “head.”


title: Handkerchief

text: In the time of ancient Greece and Rome, handkerchiefs were often used the way they are today. But in the Middle Ages, kerchiefs were usually used to cover the head.


title: Krrish 3

text: Krrish 3 is a 2013 Indian Hindi-language superhero film produced and directed by Rakesh Roshan, and written by Honey Irani and Robin Bhatt. It is the third film in the "Krrish" series, following "Koi... Mil Gaya" (2003) and "Krrish" (2006). The film stars Hrithik Roshan, Vivek Oberoi, Priyanka Chopra and Kangana Ranaut.


title: Krrish 3

text: "Krrish 3" released worldwide on 1 November 2013. It has received generally positive reviews and became a blockbuster. Roshan and Ranaut's performances, the visual effects, the cinematography, and entertainment value were good according to the audience, but the music by Rajesh Roshan, the narration, and the screenplay were terrible according to the audience.


title: Krrish 3

text: Krishna enjoys married life with Priya until he crosses paths with Kaal, an evil genius, and neither is prepared for what lies ahead.


title: Tokyo Metropolis

text: Greater Tokyo includes land in the Kantō region and also the Izu Islands and Ogasawara Islands. Ten percent (10%) of the Japanese people live in Tokyo, and as many as twenty percent (20%) of the population live around it. As of 2007, the population was 12,790,000. Tokyo is in a part of Japan called the Kantō Plain. Two big rivers run through Tokyo. One is the Arakawa River which runs from the north to the south, and flows into Tokyo Bay. The other is the Tama River which runs from the west to the east. The Tama River is a border between Tokyo and its neighbor city, Kawasaki.


title: Tokyo Metropolis

text: In 1943, Tokyo prefecture's municipalities and city of Tokyo were associated in a special way. The administration of Tokyo city merged with the administration of Tokyo Prefecture. Tokyo Metropolis is governed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.


title: Tokyo Metropolis

text: The Izu Islands include Izu Ōshima, Toshima, Niijima, Shikinejima, Kozushima, Miyakejima, Mikurajima, Hachijojima, and Aogashima.


title: Tokyo Metropolis

text: The Ogasawara Islands include Chichi-jima, Nishinoshima, Haha-jima, Kita Iwo Jima, Iwo Jima, and Minami Iwo Jima. Minami Torishima, the easternmost point in Japan, is also part of the Ogasawaras. Okinotorishima, the southernmost point in Japan, is also administered by Tokyo as part of this group.


title: Tokyo Metropolis

text: Tokyo is the cultural, business, and political center of the country. It is also the center of many transport systems. There are many air, rail, sea, and road links in and out of the city. Local subway and bus systems serve every part of the city.


title: Tokyo Metropolis

text: Two commercial airports serve Tokyo. Haneda Airport is in the city limits next to Tokyo Bay. This airport is mostly for domestic travel. Most international flights to and from Tokyo go through Narita International Airport in Chiba Prefecture, opened in 1978.


title: Tokyo Metropolis

text: Tokyo has a busy international and domestic port, but more traffic goes through the nearby port of Yokohama. There are domestic ferries to the islands of Tokyo, but also to other parts of the country such as Hokkaido.


title: Prince of Wales

text: Prince of Wales is a royal title. It is usually held by the eldest son of the King or Queen of the United Kingdom. The title is not automatic, but is given by the reigning monarch.


title: Prince of Wales

text: When a person becomes King or Queen, their eldest son immediately becomes Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay. The current Prince of Wales, Prince William, was born in 1982, and was known as "Prince William of Wales" (his father is King Charles III). In 2022, his father became King, and he became "The Duke of Cornwall" (in Scotland he was called "The Prince William, Duke of Rothesay"). In 2022, the King made him "Prince of Wales", and he is now called Prince of Wales, except in Scotland, where he is still The Prince William, Duke of Rothesay.


title: Prince of Wales

text: King George II created his son, Prince Frederick, Prince of Wales. When Frederick died, the King made Frederick's eldest son, George, Prince of Wales.


title: Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma

text: Nkosazana Clarice Dlamini-Zuma (born 27 January 1949), sometimes known by her initials NDZ, is a South African politician and anti-apartheid activist. She has been the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs since May 2019 during the Cyril Ramaphosa presidency. She also had cabinet jobs during the presidencies of Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Kgalema Motlanthe and Jacob Zuma (her ex-husband).


title: Fair use

text: Fair use is the idea that it should be okay for a person to reuse something that another person has created, in certain amounts and for certain purposes, without breaking the law.


title: Fair use

text: In most countries, art and other made-up things, like stories, books, TV shows, and pictures, are owned by the person that first made them. This person can let someone else own the things they make, sometimes for money. The person that owns these things has a "copyright" for them, which means that person can decide who can copy their work. If someone else copies that work without asking the owner first, that person is breaking the law. The owner can take the person to court and try to get money from them because of what they did.


title: Fair use

text: Since a lot of creative work is popular, people want to talk about them, and they may want to talk about them on TV or in a book. This might mean that they want to use a little bit of it when they talk about it. The idea of "fair use" was added to most copyright laws to make sure that it would be OK do to this, as long as only a little bit of someone's work is used.


title: Fair use

text: Since a lot of creative work is now on computers and on the Internet, it is very easy to copy things and send them to lots of people. To make sure that people cannot always do this, there are computer programs that try to stop people from copying other people's work (known as digital rights management). One problem with these programs is that they also mean that you cannot copy even a small part of someone's work, so you cannot do "fair use" without cheating the program. In some countries, cheating those software programs is also breaking the law.


title: Agra Fort

text: The historical fort of Agra is located in the Indian city of Agra. It was constructed by the Mughal Emperor Akbar between 1565 and 1573.


title: Agra Fort

text: Up until the Mughals seized it during the Mughal Dynasty, until 1638, when the capital was moved from Agra to Delhi, it served as the primary palace for the Sikarwar clan of Rajput monarchs.


title: Agra Fort

text: It was also known as "Lal-Qila," "Fort Rouge," and "Qila-i-Akbari."The Marathas were the last Indian kings to rule it before being taken by the British.


title: Agra Fort

text: The Agra Fort was officially listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. It is located around 2.5 kilometers northwest of the Taj Mahal, it's more well-known sibling structure.


title: Agra Fort

text: The past of Agra Fort before Mahmud Ghaznavi's assault is unknown, just like the rest of Agra. However, the Chauhan Rajputs took control of it in the 15th century.


title: Agra Fort

text: Sikandar Lodi (A.D. 1487–1517), who relocated his capital from Delhi to Agra and built a few structures in the already-existing Fort at Agra, gave that city its position as the nation's capital shortly after.


title: Agra Fort

text: The Mughals seized control of the fort and ruled from it after the First Battle of Panipat (1526 A.D.). Humayun was crowned there in A.D. 1530. Throughout the reign of Akbar, the fort acquired its current look.


title: Baku Metro

text: Baku Metro (), is an electrified metro railway system which is a part of the public transportation system of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. It was opened on 6 November 1967.


title: Baku Metro

text: At that time, Azerbaijan was part of the Soviet Union until the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Baku Metro has the features found in most other ex-Soviet metro systems. These include very deep metro stations, and detailed decorations that blend traditional Azerbaijani national designs with Soviet ideology. The metro system has three lines and has 38.1 kilometers of double railway tracks with 26 stations, all of which is underground. It is run by the "Bakı Metropoliteni". In 2015, it carried 222.0 million passengers, which means an average ridership of approximately 608,200 passengers each day.


title: Baku Metro

text: At present, there are several projects, only two of which are under construction. In 2011, the Chief Executive of the Baku Metro, Taghi Ahmadov, announced plans to construct 70 new stations by 2040. These will serve the new bus complex as well as Heydar Aliyev International Airport.


title: Thanjavur

text: Thanjavur or Tanjore is a town in Tamil Nadu, India. It was the capital of earlier Chola Kingdom. It is called the "Rice Bowl" of Tamil Nadu. Cauvery river flows through Thanjavur.


title: Victoria line

text: The Victoria line is part of the London Underground network. It is a deep-level underground metro line that runs from Brixton in south London to Walthamstow Central in the north-east. It started running in 1968. On the Tube map it is shown with a light blue color. It is the fourth busiest line on the London Underground network. It is the only line on the Underground, other than the two-stop Waterloo & City line, which is completely underground. The only section of track to come above ground is the route to the depot from Seven Sisters to Northumberland Park.


title: Victoria line

text: The Underground line has hump-backed stations which allow trains to store gravitational potential energy as they arrive and to then use this energy as they leave the stations. The stations are on top of small hills, or humps. As the train travels up the hill to the station its weight helps it to slow down. As the train leaves the station it travels down the hill, with gravity helping the train to speed up. This saves 5% energy and makes the trains run 9% faster. Each new platform built for the Victoria Line is 132.6 metres long. Around 200 million people use the Victoria line each year.


title: Victoria line

text: A new tube railway running from Victoria to Walthamstow was first proposed by a Working Party set up by the British Transport Commission in 1948. The main purpose of the line was to relieve congestion in the central area. The Private Bill needed to build it was introduced into Parliament in 1955. The Bill described a line from Victoria to Walthamstow (Wood Street). There was also a proposal for an extension from Victoria to Fulham Broadway station on the District line, but this was not included in the Bill.


title: Victoria line

text: The construction work on the Walthamstow–Victoria section began in 1962. It continued until 1972, when Pimlico station was opened. A test tunnel from Tottenham to Manor House under Seven Sisters Road had been constructed in 1959 and this was later integrated into the running tunnels. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh visited the line during its construction. In July 1968, they visited the tunnels that were being built under Vauxhall Park.


title: Victoria line

text: Barbara Castle, the Minister of Transport gave approval on 4 August 1967 to build the Brixton extension. Preparatory work started at a site on Bessborough Gardens near to Vauxhall Bridge Road in May 1967. On 28 June 1968, Richard Marsh, then Minister of Transport approved the proposal to build a station at Pimlico.


title: Victoria line

text: The name "Victoria line" dates back to 1955. Other suggestions were "Walvic line" (Walthamstow Central station–Victoria station) and "Viking line" (Victoria station–King's Cross station). During the planning stages, it was known as "Route C". Later, it was named the Victoria line after Victoria Station by David McKenna. This suggestion was seconded by Sir John Elliot.


title: Victoria line

text: The Victoria line was designed to get rid of build-ups of traffic on other lines, such as the Piccadilly line. It was also designed to have as many interchanges as possible, and all stations except Pimlico have an interchange with at least one other London Underground or National Rail line. It had been intended to build the line past Walthamstow Central to Wood Street (Walthamstow), where it would come above ground to terminate next to the British Railways station. However, a late decision in 1961 saw the line cut back to Walthamstow Central station. Until 1968 this station was called Walthamstow (Hoe Street).


title: Victoria line

text: Each Victoria line station apart from Pimlico was built as an interchange station and several existing stations were re–arranged to allow for cross-platform interchange with it. In some cases this was achieved by placing the Victoria line platforms on either side of the existing station. In others the Victoria line uses one of the older platforms and the existing line was moved toto a new platform.


title: Victoria line

text: At Euston, northbound Victoria and Northern line (Bank branch) trains run along platforms next to each other, although they are travelling in opposite directions. "Same-direction" cross-platform interchanges are available at Stockwell (with the Northern line), Oxford Circus (with the Bakerloo line), Highbury & Islington (with First Capital Connect, originally the Northern City Line) and at Finsbury Park (with the Piccadilly line).


title: Victoria line

text: All Victoria line stations were originally tiled in a light blue colour. Each station was decorated with tiled motifs on seating recesses to differentiate them from each other. During the construction of the Jubilee line in the late 1970s, the original motifs on Green Park station were replaced by motifs matching the new design for the Jubilee line platforms.


title: Victoria line

text: Platform humps were installed on all Victoria Line stations, except for Pimlico, during late 2010 and 2011. This was done to provide step-free access to trains. The Rail Vehicle Accessibility (Non Interoperable Rail System) Regulations 2010 and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 created the need for the humps to be installed. The humps are a ramp type, similar to those being installed on some mainline stations. They are of a masonry construction.


title: Victoria line

text: The first section opened was between Walthamstow Central and Highbury & Islington. There was no opening ceremony for this. The normal timetable started on 1 September 1968. The first train left Walthamstow Central for Highbury & Islington at about 7:32 am. Later that year, the section between Highbury & Islington and Warren Street was opened. Again there was no ceremony.


title: Victoria line

text: The official opening ceremony for the line took place at Victoria station on 7 March 1969. Queen Elizabeth II unveiled a commemorative plaque on the station concourse. After a short ceremony, she bought a 5d (old pence) ticket and travelled to Green Park. In new pence this would be about 2.08p. This made her the first monarch to ride the Underground.


title: Victoria line

text: Princess Alexandra opened the Brixton extension on 23 July 1971. She rode the train from Brixton to Vauxhall.


title: Victoria line

text: Trains run every two minutes during peak periods (when its the busiest). In normal service, all trains run from Brixton to Seven Sisters. About three out of five continue to Walthamstow Central.


title: Victoria line

text: When the line first opened it was served by a fleet of 8-car 1967 tube stock trains. Each is made up of two four-car units. Later on, a number of cars of 1972 Mark I tube stock were adapted to work with the 1967 stock. This meant that there were finally 43 trains, each of which was made up of two four-car units. The 1967 tube stock was replaced by 2009 tube stock between 2009 and 2011 (see below).


title: Victoria line

text: At first, an articulated type of rolling stock was thought about. This idea was not used because it would have been too hard to move the stock to Acton Works for heavy overhauls. This is no longer a problem since train overhauls have been moved away from Acton Works to the builders' own works. The new 2009 tube stock is wider and the carriage is slightly longer. This means it can only run on the Victoria line, as it is too wide for the tunnels of other deep level tube lines.


title: Victoria line

text: The line has an Automatic Train Operation system (ATO). The train operator (driver) closes the train doors and presses a pair of "start" buttons. If the way ahead is clear, the ATO drives the train at a safe speed to the next station and stops there. This system has been in place since the line opened in 1968. This makes the Victoria line the world's first full-scale automatic railway.


title: Victoria line

text: When the Victoria line was built, there were severe budget restrictions. As a result, the station infrastructure standards were lower than on older lines and on later extension projects. Examples of these lower standards include narrower than usual platforms and undecorated ceilings at Walthamstow Central, Blackhorse Road and Tottenham Hale. This also affects lighting levels. At most stations between the up and down escalators there is a concrete staircase where an additional escalator could be installed, but has not been fitted. It can cause severe congestion at peak times. This has been remedied at Brixton in 2004 and at Vauxhall in 2006 where an additional escalator has been installed in place of the fixed stairway.


title: Victoria line

text: In addition, there have been station closures for safety reasons, when both escalators have been unserviceable. Over many years, heavy equipment has been installed in fenced-off sections at the ends of platforms owing to the lack of anywhere else to install them. It is not clear from Transport for London's Five-Year Investment Programme whether these shortcomings are likely to be remedied.


title: Victoria line

text: The 1967 stock was replaced bit by bit from July 2009 as part of Transport for London's 5-year £10 billion redevelopment project. The replacement for the line's 1967 tube stock is the 2009 tube stock built by Bombardier Transportation. The first train was built in 2006. Testing of the new trains began in 2008. The main fleet began to be introduced in 2009 and went into main service in 2010. The last of the 1967 stock trains ran on 30 June 2011, after which the whole service was provided by 2009 stock.


title: Victoria line

text: Supporters of Tottenham Hotspur (and the club itself) have campaigned for a surface station to be opened next to Northumberland Park Station, next to the line's depot. This would provide an improvement in transport links, seen as essential if the club's wish to redevelop their ground and increase crowd capacity is to become a reality. The idea was looked into but Network Rail own the necessary land and need it for their own expansion plans.


title: Victoria line

text: When Crossrail 2 is built, it will lower the number of passengers on the Victoria line (there are too many at the moment). It will offer an alternative route across Central London between Victoria and King's Cross St. Pancras.


title: Victoria line

text: For many years there have been proposals to extend southwards from Brixton one stop to Herne Hill. Herne Hill is a railway station that can link passengers to Kent and other places. The tube station would be on a large reversing loop with one platform. This would remove a problem of having too many trains by getting rid if the need for trains to reverse at Brixton. However, this would cost too much money for how little it would actually help passengers. Given that the line is very overcrowded, this is the only extension that could ever happen.


title: Victoria line

text: Northumberland Park Depot is the service and storage area for trains on the Victoria Line. It is the only part of the line not in tunnel. It is next to Northumberland Park railway station, on Tottenham Marshes, Tottenham in the London Borough of Haringey.


title: Victoria line

text: The Depot is connected to the Victoria Line by a tunnelled branch line to a junction to the north of Seven Sisters. It was opened with the first stage of the line in 1968.


title: Victoria line

text: There is a local campaign for platforms for the Victoria Line to be built at Northumberland Park station. This is supported by the Haringey Council and by Tottenham Hotspur F.C. because the club thinks the new platforms are necessary for their plans to increase capacity at their White Hart Lane ground.


title: Subarctic climate

text: Places with a subarctic climate (also called boreal climate) have long, usually very cold winters, and short, warm summers. It is found on large landmasses, away from oceans, usually at latitudes from 50° to 70°N. Because there are no large landmasses at such latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, it is only found at high "altitudes "(heights) in the Andes and the mountains of Australia and New Zealand's South Island. These climates are in groups "Dfc", "Dwc", "Dfd" and "Dwd" in the Köppen climate classification


title: Subarctic climate

text: This type of climate has very big changes in temperature throughout the year. In winter, temperatures can drop to -40 °C (also -40 °F) and in summer, the temperature may go above 30 °C (86 °F). But the summers are short, as there are no more than three months of the year with an average temperature of at least 10 °C (50 °F). However, at least one must have an average temperature of at least 10 °C (50 °F) . In addition, the coldest month must be below 0°C (32°F) The subarctic climate is in between the humid continental climate and the polar climate. The subarctic climate is found in the these places:


title: Subarctic climate

text: With 5–7 months in a row where the average temperature is below freezing, all water in the soil and subsoil freezes several feet deep. In the colder parts of this climate, summer warmth is not enough to "thaw" (unfreeze) more than a few feet on the top of the soil, so there can be "permafrost"(soil that is frozen forever). When the ice melts in the summer, 2 to 14 ft (0.6 to 4 m) of soil can thaw, depending on the latitude and the type of soil. Some subarctic climates near oceans (such as southern Alaska and the northern edge of Europe), have milder winters and no permafrost, so it is easier to farm there.


title: Subarctic climate

text: Summer is very short; it has about 45 to 100 days at most, and in a lot of places, the temperatures can go below freezing (32 °F or 0 °C) at any time of the year, even in the summer. Vegetation (plants) in a subarctic climate usually has low diversity (only a few different types of plants grow), because only "hardy" (very tough) species can survive the long winters and make use of the short summers. Trees are mostly evergreen conifers, because few "broadleaved" (big leaves) trees can survive the very low temperatures in winter. This type of forest is also known as taiga. The word "taiga" can also be a name for the climate itself. A lot of plants grow in the taiga (even if there are only a few different kinds of plants), so the taiga (boreal) forest is the largest forest biome on the planet, with most of the forests in Russia and Canada.


title: Subarctic climate

text: Is it usually very hard to farm in subarctic climates, because the soil is "infertile" (it doesn't have the nutrients that many plants need to grow) and because of the many swamps and lakes that ice sheets make, and only very tough crops can survive the short growing seasons. On the plus side, the days last longer in the summer as you get closer to the poles. So the plants that can grow get a lot of sunlight. Potatoes, strawberries, blueberries and hay for animals grow well. Special varieties of other plants may grow as well.


title: Subarctic climate

text: There is very little precipitation (rain, snow, sleet, or hail); no more than 15 to 20 inches over an entire year. Rain and snow may stay above ground until the ground melts. This means that when the precipitation does soak into the ground, it can be very wet and muddy.


title: Subarctic climate

text: Close to the Earth's poles and the water around the poles, the warmest month has an average temperature of less than 10 °C (50 °F), and the subarctic climate turns into a tundra climate, which is even worse for trees.


title: Teletypewriter

text: A teletypewriter (TTY; also called a teletype or teleprinter) is a device that sends a typed message to another place. A teletypewriter has a typewriter keyboard, a local printer (so the user can see what has been typed) and a transmitter. Messages can be sent over wires or radio waves. Teletypes were used mostly in the early to mid-20th century. They were developed to improve telegraphs, some of which also used keyboards, though not typewriter keyboards.


title: Teletypewriter

text: Though teleprinters have been replaced by other technologies, TDDs (Telecommunications Devices for the Deaf), which are based on the idea and design of teletypes, are still used these days. Not all people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or speech-impaired have switched to using instant messaging or texting or other modern services. Many still type messages back and forth to one another by TDD.


title: Killing of Vanessa Guillen

text: Vanessa Guillen was an American soldier. On April 22, 2020, she went missing from an army base called Fort Hood, which is in the state of Texas. She was later found dead not far from Fort Hood.


title: Killing of Vanessa Guillen

text: Her family believes that her disappearance is a result of crime because of previous instances where she said that she was being sexually harassed. They also believe that the US Army is not doing a good job in solving her case.


title: Killing of Vanessa Guillen

text: On July 3, 2020, the main suspect in the case, another soldier named Aaron David Robinson, killed himself. Another suspect, Cecily Anne Aguilar, is in jail as of July 6, 2020.


title: Killing of Vanessa Guillen

text: Fort Hood has a big problem with soldiers disappearing. Also, there is a big problem with sexual harassment in the armed forces of the United States.


title: Killing of Vanessa Guillen

text: Vanessa's family is not happy with the investigation. They say that the US Army has not been investigating Vanessa's disappearance seriously.


title: Killing of Vanessa Guillen

text: Natalie Khawam, who is the lawyer representing the Guillen family, criticized the Army for not doing more to ensure Vanessa's safety.


title: Killing of Vanessa Guillen

text: Many Americans are sad and angry because of Vanessa's disappearance. They are also concerned about the amount of sexual harassment occurring in army ranks. Many past soldiers have used the hashtag #IAmVanessaGuillen to tell their stories about being harassed and assaulted.


title: Killing of Vanessa Guillen

text: There have been many protests demanding that Vanessa be found and brought back to her family. In addition, many celebrities and politicians are talking about Vanessa's case and how to reduce sexual harassment in the armed forces.


title: Killing of Vanessa Guillen

text: The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), which represents the interests of Hispanic Americans, told Latina women to not join the US military so that they can avoid the same fate as Vanessa Guillen. They said that the military does not do a good job of protecting women, especially women of color.


title: Phoenicia

text: Phoenicia was a civilization to the north of Canaan. Phoenicia existed from 1200 to 900 BC. People from Phoenicia had their own language called the Phoenician language, which is important to many modern languages. They wrote with an alphabet from which the alphabets of Europe evolved.


title: Phoenicia

text: Phoenicians set up colonies in the Mediterranean region and beyond. Carthage was one of them. Phoenician traders went as far as the British Isles to buy tin. At their peak, the Phoenicians were a major power in the Mediterranean.


title: Multinational corporation

text: Multinational corporations (MNC) or multinational enterprises (MNE) are organizations which own or control production of goods or services in countries other than the home country. They include large corporations which produce or sell goods or services in various countries. They may be referred as 'international' or 'transnational' or 'stateless' corporations.


title: Multinational corporation

text: MNCs play an important role in globalization. Arguably, the first multinational business organization was the "Knights Templar" , founded in 1120. After that came the British East India Company in 1600 and the Dutch East India Company which started in1602 and would become the largest company in the world for nearly 200 years. These were made by national legislation to conduct international trade for their home countries.


title: Multinational corporation

text: Conflict of laws is about which legal system and which national jurisdiction applies to a given dispute.


title: Multinational corporation

text: The term comes from situations where here is disagreement as to where a dispute should be legally settled in court. The three branches of conflict of laws are:


title: Multinational corporation

text: Companies usually arrange their affairs to avoid or diminish taxation. This issue attracts much attention. Obviously, tax rates and tax regulations differ from country to country. If an organisation sets up subsidiaries in every country where it has significant business, few problems arise. The subsidiaries pay tax on whatever activities the company does in that place.


title: Multinational corporation

text: However, companies always try to minimise tax. Google uses various tax avoidance strategies. Out of the five largest American technology companies it pays the lowest taxes to countries where its revenue comes from. The company does this partly by licensing technology through subsidiaries in Ireland, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the Netherlands. This reportedly sparked a 2012 French investigation into Google's "transfer pricing" methods.


title: Multinational corporation

text: Google Vice President Matt Britt in 2013 told the Public Accounts Committee of the UK House of Commons that his UK sales team made no sales, hence owed no sales tax to the UK.


title: Multinational corporation

text: A transnational corporation (TNC) differs from a traditional MNC in that it does not identify itself with one national home. While traditional MNCs are national companies with foreign subsidiaries, TNCs spread out their operations in many countries sustaining high levels of local responsiveness.<ref name="Case study: The Relationship between the Structure/Strategy of Multinational Corporations and Patterns of Knowledge Sharing within them"></ref> An example of a TNC is Nestlé who employ senior executives from many countries and try to make decisions from a global perspective rather than from one centralized headquarters. Another example of a Transnational Corporation is the Royal Dutch Shell corporation whose headquarters may be in The Hague, Netherlands but its registered office and main executive body where the decisions are made is headquartered in London, United Kingdom.


title: Soy sauce

text: Soy sauce (US) or soya sauce is a fermented sauce made from soy beans (soya beans), roasted grain, water and salt. It is commonly used in Chinese, Japanese and Korean cuisine. It appears in some Western cuisine dishes, especially as an ingredient in Worcestershire sauce. Real soy sauces are fermented with kōji (麹, the mold Aspergillus oryzae or "A. sojae") and other related microorganisms.


title: Soy sauce

text: Almost all soy sauce has some alcohol added during bottling. This acts as a preservative to protect it from going bad. For this reason, soy sauce should always be kept in the fridge. It should also not be put in direct light. An opened bottle of soy sauce that has been left unrefrigerated could become slightly bitter.


title: Soy sauce

text: Although there are many types of soy sauce, all are salty and earthy-tasting brownish liquids used to season food while cooking or at the table. What some westerners can only describe as a flavorful, kind of sweet taste is a distinct basic taste called "umami" by the Japanese and "xian-wei" (鲜味, "lit." fresh taste) by the Chinese.


title: Soy sauce

text: Although this seasoning was first used in China, it is used several cuisines across Asia and is a particularly important flavoring in Japanese cuisine. There are many types of sauce.


title: Dialysis

text: Dialysis is where a machine is used to replace a kidney after kidney failure. The word "dialysis" comes from the Greek word "dialusis", "dia" meaning through, and "lusis" meaning loosening.


title: Dialysis

text: Dialysis can be used for people who have become sick and have lost the use of their kidneys for a short time, or for people who no longer have working kidneys. The purpose of the kidney is to keep a balance of water and minerals in the body. These minerals include sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, phosphorous, magnesium and sulfate. The kidneys also take out hydrogen ions from the blood. Dialysis is able to remove these wastes from the body and help keep the minerals in balance.


title: Dialysis

text: However the kidneys are also part of the endocrine system and make erythropoietin and calcitriol. Dialysis machines are not able to replace this part of the kidney's function.


title: Dialysis

text: Dialysis machines work by using diffusion and ultrafiltration. A very fine material, called a membrane, allows blood and fluid to flow through it. In the machine, the blood flows in one direction, and on the other side of the membrane, a special fluid, dialysate flows in the opposite direction, this process is known as osmosis. Dialysate is a fluid that has different chemicals in it, such as potassium and calcium. A doctor would decide what mixture of chemicals would be needed for each patient. The dialysate has bicarbonate in it to lower the higher acid levels that these patients often have. The blood and dialysate mix together. The waste products are removed from the blood and caught up in the fine membrane.


title: Dialysis

text: A dialyser is part of a dialysis machine. The dialyser filters blood like a kidney. It is made of a clear hollow cylinder with two inlets and two outlets. One inlet and outlet is at the upper side and downside which are for blood entrance and exit before and after purification. The other inlet and outlet are beside through which a supporter liquid goes into the dialyser.


title: Dialysis

text: A dialyser has very thin fibres of cellulose. The fibres work as a semi-permeable membrane (SPM). There are about 10,000 of them. Impurities such as urea keratin leave through the SPM. Blood cells cannot go through because the blood cells are bigger than the impurities. The whole process of purification is supported by a liquid called dialysate. Dialysate is sent into the dialyser by the pump in the dialysis machine. The pure liquid goes in and the impure dialysate comes out. Dialysers are also called artificial kidneys.


title: Barge

text: A barge is a simple looking boat with a flat surface and long structure. Barges usually transport goods to different places.


title: Barge

text: In Great Britain, during the Industrial Revolution, a substantial network of narrow barges was developed from 1750 onwards.


title: Barge

text: From 1825 there was competition from the railways. Eventually the British rail system took over from canal traffic due to the higher speed, falling costs and route flexibility of rail transport.


title: Barge

text: Barges carrying bulk and heavy cargoes continue to be viable. There is no cheaper way to move really heavy loads. Originally, British canals had locks only wide, so narrowboats could be no more than 6'10" wide if they were to be able to navigate the system. It was soon realised that narrow locks were too limiting, and later locks were doubled in width to .


title: Barge

text: On the British canal system the term 'barge' is used to describe a "Thames [sailing barge], Duch [barge], or other styles of barge". The people who move barges are often known as lightermen.


title: Barge

text: A narrowboat is a particular type of canal boat, built to fit the narrow locks of the United Kingdom.


title: Accompaniment

text: A piece of music may have a melody (tune) and an accompaniment underneath. The music may be played on the piano with the right hand playing the tune and the left hand playing the accompaniment. The accompaniment might also be played on a different instrument.


title: Accompaniment

text: Music does not have to be a tune with accompaniment, although it often is. The accompaniment does not always have to be lower than the tune. To play the piano, the pianist has to learn to play a tune in the right hand and accompaniment in the left hand, or the tune might be passed from one hand to the other. The tune should usually be played a little louder than the accompaniment. The accompaniment must not ‘drown’ the tune.


title: Accompaniment

text: An accompaniment might be single notes, or chords, or any other pattern. The accompaniments help us to feel the harmony. An accompaniment might be another tune (this is called counterpoint). Tunes can be played or sung without accompaniment. Folk songs are traditionally sung unaccompanied.


title: Accompaniment

text: If one instrument accompanies another, the person who plays the accompaniment is an "accompanist". The piano is the most popular instrument for accompanying in Western music. A good pianist can accompany a violin, cello, oboe, trumpet, singer or choir. They have to listen carefully to the instrument(s) they are accompanying, and play with the same kind of feeling.


title: Accompaniment

text: When a soloist plays a concerto the orchestra are accompanying the soloist. An organist playing a hymn is accompanying the congregation. A percussion player in a rock band is accompanying the lead instrument.


title: Accompaniment

text: Guitars and electric keyboards are often used for accompaniment. In Elizabethan times the lute was popular. People sang songs and often accompanied themselves on the lute or harp. In the Baroque period the accompaniment was often played by the basso continuo (harpsichord or organ with cello or bassoon on the bass line).


title: Accompaniment

text: The pianist Gerald Moore was a famous accompanist. When he started his career in the 1920s people did not think that the accompanist was very important. Sometimes their name would not even be printed in the programme. A singer would expect the audience to start to clap as soon as they had sung their last note, even if the piano had several more bars to play. This might not matter too much with some music, but in songs by Schubert, Wolf and other composers of Lieder the piano parts are very important. Gerald Moore made people realize how important the accompanist is. A good performance can be ruined by a bad accompaniment.


title: Blue's Clues

text: Blue's Clues is an Canadian television series for young children based on "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault. It aired on Nickelodeon from September 8, 1996 to August 6, 2006, and has been repeated since then. On the show, Blue is a blue dog. Her owner was Steve, until 2002, when he went off to college. Now, Steve's younger brother Joe owns her.


title: Blue's Clues

text: The producers got ideas from child development and early-childhood education. Innovative animation and other techniques helped their viewers learn. The show follows an animated blue-spotted dog named Blue as she plays a game with the host and the viewers.


title: Blue's Clues

text: "Blue's Clues" became the highest-rated show for preschoolers on American commercial television. This was critical to Nickelodeon's growth. It has been called "one of the most successful, critically acclaimed, and ground-breaking preschool television series of all time".


title: Blue's Clues

text: "Blue's Clues" was made during difficult period for children's television. In 1990, Congress had passed the Children's Television Act. This required networks and TV stations to devote a portion of their programming to children's shows. The legislation set no guidelines or criteria for educational programs and had no provisions for enforcement. According to author Diane Tracy, "The state of children's television was pretty dismal.


title: Blue's Clues

text: Since the late 1960s, PBS was one of the few sources for children's educational television programming in the U.S.. Most other U.S. children's TV shows were violent and created for the purpose of selling toys. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled in 1997 that the commercial broadcast networks had to air educational children's programs for a minimum of three hours per week. The cable network Nickelodeon, which had been airing programs for six- to twelve-year-olds, was not legally bound by this legislation but complied with it anyway many years before the laws and regulations were passed.


title: Blue's Clues

text: The show's producers and creators presented material in a narrative format instead of the more traditional magazine format. They used repetition to reinforce its curriculum, and structured every episode the same way.


title: Blue's Clues

text: They used research about child development and young children's viewing habits that had been done in the thirty years since the start of "Sesame Street" in the U.S. This revolutionized the genre by inviting their viewers' involvement. Research was part of the creative and decision-making process in the production of the show and was integrated into all aspects and stages of the creative process. "Blue's Clues" was the first cutout animation series for preschoolers. It looks like a storybook with primary colors and simple construction paper shapes of familiar objects with varied colors and textures.


title: Blue's Clues

text: Its home-based setting is familiar to American children, but has a look unlike other children's TV shows. A live production of "Blue's Clues", which used many of the production innovations developed by the show's creators, toured the U.S. starting in 1999. As of 2002, over 2 million people had attended over 1,000 performances.


title: Blue's Clues

text: Malcolm Gladwell noted that Sesame Street appealed to both children and adults, but Blue's Clues was solely aimed at preschool children. They like stories, repetition and joining in the answers. "Every" episode of Blue was tested on preschool children, and the research noted how much of the time children watched the screen. The order of clues was tested. All aspects of the program could be changed if the testing suggested it would work better some other way.


title: Blue's Clues

text: Nickelodeon Nick Jr. and Nicktoons (United States) TVO Knowledge Kids Télé-Québec Citytv Saskatchewan Access Treehouse and YTV (Canada) Playhouse Disney (United Kingdom Ireland and Isle Of Man) Canal+ (France)


title: Sino-Vietnamese characters

text: Sino-Vietnamese characters () are Chinese-style characters read as either Vietnamese or as Sino-Vietnamese. When they are used to write Vietnamese, they are called Nôm. The same characters may be used to write Chinese. In this case, the character is given a Sino-Vietnamese, or Han-Viet, reading. Han-Viet is a system that allows Vietnamese to read Chinese. It is equivalent to pinyin in English.


title: Sino-Vietnamese characters

text: Some of these characters are also used in China; others are used only in Vietnam. Chinese characters were introduced to Vietnam when the Han Empire invaded the country in 111 BC. Even after Vietnam became independent in AD 939, the country continued to use Classical Chinese () for official purposes. In the 1920s, Vietnam shifted from traditional characters to the Latin alphabet. The Han-Nom Institute was founded in Hanoi in 1970 to collect and study documents written in the traditional script. The institute has submitted a list of 19,981 Sino-Vietnamese characters to Unicode for electronic encoding. This includes a core set of 9,299 characters called the Nôm Ideographs.


title: Sino-Vietnamese characters

text: Chinese characters were introduced to Vietnam after the Han Empire conquered the country in 111 BC. Independence was achieved in 939, but the Chinese writing system was adopted for official purposes in 1010. Soon after the country achieved independence, Vietnamese began to use Chinese characters to write their own language. The Van Ban bell, engraved in 1076, is the earliest known example of a Nôm inscription. Nguyen Thuyen composed Nôm poetry in the 13th century. However, none of his work has survived. The oldest surviving Nôm text is the collected poetry of King Tran Nhan Tong, written in the 13th century.


title: Sino-Vietnamese characters

text: Classical Chinese was used by the royal court and for other official purposes. The Temple of Literature in Hanoi was the best-known school for the study of Chinese. The civil service examination tested knowledge of Chinese. It was given once every three years. Students who passed the exam could go on to become magistrates. Confucian scholars saw Chinese as the language of education and looked down on Nôm. Popular opinion favored Nôm. Some kings thought that all writing should be done in Chinese. They suppressed Nôm. Other kings promoted Nôm. In 1867, King Tu Duc issued a decree encouraging the use of Nôm. Only a small percentage of the population was literate in any language. But nearly every village had at least one person who could read Nôm aloud for the other villagers. Jean-Louis Taberd wrote the first Nôm dictionary in 1838.


title: Sino-Vietnamese characters

text: In 1910, the colonial school system adopted a "Franco-Vietnamese curriculum", which emphasized French and alphabetic Vietnamese. The Vietnamese alphabet is a form of the Latin alphabet that includes tone marks. On December 28, 1918, King Khai Dinh declared that the traditional writing system no longer had official status. The civil service exam was given for the last time at the imperial capital of Hue on January 4, 1919. The examination system, and the education system based on it, had been in effect for almost 900 years. China itself stop using Classical Chinese soon afterward as part of the May Fourth Movement.


title: Sino-Vietnamese characters

text: Chinese characters are used to write various languages in China and elsewhere, including Mandarin, the most widely spoken language in China, Cantonese, spoken in Hong Kong and southern China, and Classical Chinese, traditionally used for formal writing. The characters were formerly used in Korea and in Vietnam. Japan uses a mix of Chinese characters and two native phonetic writing systems. Even characters that retain their original meaning in all languages may be read in various ways. The character 十 is pronounced as "shí" in Chinese romanization (pinyin), "jū" in Japanese romanization (Hepburn), "sip" in Korean romanization (Revised Romanization), and "thập" in the Han-Viet system used in Vietnam. In all these languages, the meaning of the character is “ten.”


title: Sino-Vietnamese characters

text: The majority of the characters used in Nôm are of Chinese origin, chosen because they have an appropriate pronunciation or meaning. For example, the character used to write the word "Nôm" 喃 is pronounced "nán" in Chinese and means “chattering.” The fit between the Chinese character and the Vietnamese word is not always exact. The word "Nôm" does not have any negative connotation in Vietnamese, but rather suggests plain talk, something easy to understand.


title: Sino-Vietnamese characters

text: Nôm includes thousands of characters not found in Chinese. In contrast, Japan developed only a few hundred kokuji, most of them describing plants and animals found only in Japan. Korea had just a small number of rarely used gukja. These characters were created by writers who combined pre-existing elements. One element, called the radical, indicates the character's meaning, or at least a semantic category. The other element, called the remainder, gives pronunciation. This is similar to how most Chinese characters are written. Like Chinese, Vietnamese is a tonal language. In contrast, Japanese and Korean can be written in phonetic scripts that do not indicate tone.


title: Sino-Vietnamese characters

text: When a character is read as Vietnamese, it is romanized according to its Nôm reading. When it is read as Chinese, it can be romanized into Vietnamese as Han-Viet, or into English as pinyin. The chart below uses a darker background to display the Nôm Ideographs (V0 to V3), considered to be the core Nôm character set.


title: Sino-Vietnamese characters

text: In 1994, the Ideographic Rapporteur Group agreed to include Sino-Vietnamese characters in Unicode. In 1993-2001, the Han-Nom Institute assembled a collection of 9,299 “Nôm Ideographs" in four sets. These are the V0, V1, V2, and V3 characters shown below. A Sino-Vietnamese character is first assigned a V Source code, and later a codepoint. These codes are used to transmit and store the character electronically. An appropriate font must be installed to render them.


title: Sino-Vietnamese characters

text: The Nôm Ideographs were extracted from two dictionaries published in the 1970s, one in Saigon and the other in Hanoi. V Source annotations were added to the glyphs that were already encoded. The rest were assigned codepoints in Extension B. "The Hán Nôm Coded Character Repertoire" (2008) integrates the work of the Han-Nom Institute with that of the U.S.-based Vietnamese Nôm Preservation Foundation. This book presents a comprehensive list of 19,981 Sino-Vietnamese characters, including the Nôm Ideographs, manuscript variants, characters formerly used by the Tay people of northern Vietnam, as well as numerous Chinese characters with Han-Viet readings.


title: Sino-Vietnamese characters

text: Some characters in this article may require the installation of an additional font to display properly:


title: Miracle

text: A miracle is an amazing, beneficial event that goes (or at least seems to go) against natural laws. Some people say that a miracle is always an act brought about by God or other supernatural force (such as an angel). Others say that there can always be another explanation for it. And thirdly, some say the event is myth and never actually even happened in the first place.


title: Miracle

text: In the Bible a miracle is an act by God, where God's presence is shown. They can be an act that affects one person, or a gigantic disturbance of nature that changes the world.


title: Miracle

text: Other religious books, like the Quran, Mahabharata and the Avesta, contains many references to this definition of miracle. An example of a miracle in the Quran is when Muhammad splits the moon into halves.


title: Illumination (company)

text: Illumination (formerly known as Illumination Entertainment) is an American movie and animation studio founded by Chris Meledandri in 2007 and owned by Universal Pictures, a division of NBCUniversal. NBCUniversal is a division of Comcast.


title: Prisoner

text: A prisoner is a person who is forced to stay in a prison against their will. People who are suspected of a crime, for example, a murder, may be arrested and held in jail so they won't escape before their trial. After conviction a prisoner may be punished. For example, they may be imprisoned for a fixed number of years, or receive a life sentence meaning they stay in jail until they die.


title: Structured Query Language

text: Structured Query Language (SQL) is a language used to view or change data in databases. The statements used in this language are called SQL queries.


title: Structured Query Language

text: This is a simple SQL Query which is used to show all values stored in column named 'my_column' from the data table named 'my_table'.


title: Structured Query Language

text: The query first specifies the table as 'people', then the columns in which data is going to be inserted into, and the data that is going into these columns. As a result, data will be added into the columns in the same order the column names are listed in the first brackets: (first_name, last_name, age, favorite_food).


title: Structured Query Language

text: INSERT INTO people (first_name, last_name, age, favorite_food) VALUES ("Bob", "Page", "42", "Hamburgers");


title: Structured Query Language

text: In the example below the columns aren't listed. This would result in an attempt to add the data into the table in the order the values are listed.


title: Structured Query Language

text: Doing the above (without naming the columns) might result in inputting the data in an incorrect column or the statement might not run correctly - when the value types are mismatched (for example trying to input a word into a column storing only numbers).


title: Prefecture

text: A prefecture is a word used by countries such as Greece and Japan (called "νομός", "nomós" in Greece and called 県 "ken" in Japan). It is a smaller part of a country with its own government. It is a kind of local government.


title: Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

text: "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", also sung as "Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?", is one of the best-known American songs of the Great Depression. Written in 1931 by lyricist E. Y. "Yip" Harburg and composer Jay Gorney, "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" was part of the 1932 musical "New Americana;" the melody is based on a Russian lullaby Gorney heard as a child. It became best known, however, through recordings by Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee. Both versions were released right before Franklin Delano Roosevelt's election to the presidency and both became number one hits on the charts. The Brunswick Crosby recording became the best-selling record of its period, and came to be viewed as an anthem of the shattered dreams of the era.


title: Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

text: The song asks why the men who built the nation – built the railroads, built the skyscrapers – who fought in the war (World War I), who tilled the earth, who did what their nation asked of them should, now that the work is done and their labor no longer necessary, find themselves abandoned, in bread lines.


title: Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

text: The song has unusual structure for a Broadway song. Firstly, rather than starting in a major key, as most Broadway songs do, it begins in a minor key, which is darker, and more appropriate for the Depression. When discussing the prosperous past and building the railroads, the song jumps an octave and moves briefly into a major key, evoking energy and optimism. It then reverts to a minor key in the word "time" in the line "Once I built a railroad, made it run / Made it race against time," marking the end of prosperous times, and changing to a wistful mood. The song then ends, not on a note of resignation, but with anger – repeating the beginning (as is usual for Broadway songs), an octave higher, but with a significant change: the friendly ""Brother," can you spare a dime?" is replaced with the aggressive ""Buddy," can you spare a dime?"


title: Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

text: During the bad times in the 1970s, the "New York Times" asked Harburg to update "Brother" for a new age, and he responded with:


title: The Last Olympian

text: The Last Olympian is a fantasy-adventure novel based on Greek mythology by Rick Riordan published on May 5, 2009. It is the fifth and final installment in the "Percy Jackson & the Olympians" series and serves as the direct sequel to "The Battle of the Labyrinth". There is a statement at the end of the book referencing the close of "the first Camp Half-Blood series," indicating that there might be more to follow. "The Last Olympian" revolves around the demigod Perseus Jackson as he leads his friends in a last stand to protect Mount Olympus. The book received many positive reviews.


title: The Last Olympian

text: Percy Jackson, his friends, and the Olympians fight in a war resembling the original war between the Greek gods and the Titans and in a final battle with the powerful Titan, Kronos. Many fight for Olympus, including the Hunters of Artemis, dryads, satyrs, naiads, and tree nymphs, Chiron's centaur cousins the Party Ponies, and the hellhound Mrs. O'Leary. They must defend Mt. Olympus from Kronos' huge army consisting of rogue half-bloods, dracaena, Hyperboreans, Laestrygonians, drakon, Hyperion, telekhines, Typhon, and hellhounds.


title: The Last Olympian

text: It is revealed that Luke had bathed in the River Styx, thus becoming nearly invincible (much like Achilles). Seeking to defeat Kronos, Percy does the same, with some encouragement from Nico. It is also revealed how Nico's mother died, and that the Oracle's foretelling of her death led to Hades cursing the Oracle. Due to this, when Luke's mother attempts to become the Oracle, she loses her mind and is given glimpses of Luke's future. Rachel, a mortal who can see through the Mist, tells Percy that he is not the hero of the Great Prophecy and that it will influence his choice when he turns 16.


title: The Last Olympian

text: Percy and Luke (who is possessed by Kronos) battle at the top of Mount Olympus in the throne room. Luke is shocked back into his normal self when Annabeth reminds him of his promise that he would never harm her. The 'cursed blade' of the prophecy was the knife that Luke gave to Annabeth when he promises her that they are family. The Great Prophecy hinges on Percy's decision to give Luke the dagger rather than kill him. Luke commits suicide by stabbing himself in his mortal point when Kronos takes over his body, becoming the hero of the prophecy and ending the war on Percy's 16th birthday.


title: The Last Olympian

text: The gods grant Percy, Grover, Annabeth, and Tyson rewards at the conclusion of their quest. Tyson becomes the General of the Cyclops army and is gifted a new weapon, a "stick." Grover is granted a place on the Council of Cloven Elders and becomes a new Lord of the Wild. Annabeth's wish to become an architect is fulfilled as she is tasked to design and rebuild Olympus. Percy, refusing godhood for himself, forces the gods to swear on the River Styx that they will recognize all of their children by the time they turn 13 and that they will end the pact of the Big Three, in which Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades were barred from fathering demigod offspring. He also requires cabins for Hades and the minor gods to be built at Camp Half-Blood, and that they set Calypso free of her curse. Rachel becomes the new Oracle of Delphi and speaks the next Great Prophecy. Percy and Annabeth share a kiss, after which Clarisse La Rue and their other surviving friends dunk them in the lake, where they share another kiss, this time underwater.


title: The Last Olympian

text: "The Last Olympian" received overwhelmingly positive reviews. "Publishers Weekly" wrote "...fans will not be disappointed" and remarked "As the capstone to this beloved series, this story satisfies." They praised Percy's "brave leadership" and said that "the final clash would keep a Hollywood special effects team busy for years." "Booklist"'s starred review commented that "...Riordan’s imagination soars in the climactic battle scenes" but said that he manages to "bring the whole series to a satisfying close in the down-to-earth conclusion." It also received starred reviews from "Kirkus".


title: The Last Olympian

text: The unabridged audiobook version of "The Last Olympian" is read by Jesse Bernstein. It was released on May 12, 2009, by Random House/Listening Library. It is 10 hours and 50 minutes long.


title: Supertramp

text: Supertramp is a British rock band. They were created and managed by a Dutch millionaire and were very popular in the 1970s. The members of Supertramp included Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson, who wrote most of the songs. The band's best-known songs include "Dreamer", "Give a Little Bit", "The Logical Song", "Take the Long Way Home", and "It's Raining Again".


title: Citric acid

text: Citric acid is a weak organic acid. It can be found in citrus fruits ( like oranges). It is used by organisms for Krebs cycle. It acts like a preservative when added to food. It is also used to add a sour (acidic) taste to foods and soft drinks. In the European Union it is known as E 330, as a food additive.


title: Citric acid

text: Carl Wilhelm Scheele was the first who could extract citric acid from lemons, in 1782. The substance was probably known to alchemists, perhaps with a different name. The Arabian alchemist Geber is said to have discovered citric acid in the 9th century. Citric Acid contains 6 Carbon atoms, 8 Hydrogen atoms and 7 Oxygen atoms. Its chemical formula is CHO.


title: Langston Hughes

text: James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright and short story writer. Hughes was one of the writers and artists whose work was called the Harlem Renaissance.


title: Langston Hughes

text: Hughes grew up as a poor boy from Missouri, the descendant of African people who had been taken to America as slaves. At that time, the term used for African-Americans was "negro" which means a person with black skin. Most "negroes" did not remember or think about their link with the people of Africa, even though it was a big influence on their culture and, in particular, their music. Hughes was unusual for his time, because he went back to West Africa to understand more about his own culture. Through his poetry, plays, and stories, Hughes helped other black Americans to see themselves as part of a much bigger group of people, so that now the term "African-American" is used with pride.


title: Langston Hughes

text: Hughes became a famous writer, but all his life he remembered how he started out, and he helped and encouraged many other struggling writers.


title: Langston Hughes

text: Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. His parents were James Hughes and Carrie Langston Hughes who was a teacher. Langston's father, James Hughes, was so upset about the racism towards African-Americans that he left his family and moved to Mexico. During his childhood, Hughes was cared for by his grandmother, in Lawrence, Kansas while his mother worked to support the family. Langston's grandmother was a great story teller. She told stories that made him feel proud to be an African-American.


title: Langston Hughes

text: After his grandmother died, Hughes and his mother moved about 12 times until settling in Cleveland, and then, as a teenager went to live in Lincoln, Illinois with his mother, who had remarried. He was often left alone because his mother was at work. Even though his childhood was difficult and had lots of changes, he was able to use these things in the poetry that he started to write while he was at school. He never forgot the stories of his grandmother and tried to help other African-Americans when they were having problems. These were the people that he later wrote about in his own stories.


title: Langston Hughes

text: When Hughes went to school in Lincoln, there were only two African-American children in the class. The teacher talked to them about poetry. She said that what a poem needed most was rhythm. Langston later said that he had rhythm in his blood because, "as everyone knows", "all" African-Americans have rhythm. The children made him the "class poet".


title: Langston Hughes

text: At high school in Cleveland, Ohio, Langston learned to love reading. He loved the poetry of the American poets Paul Laurence Dunbar and Carl Sandburg. He wrote articles for the school newspaper, he edited the school yearbook and he wrote his first short stories and plays.


title: Langston Hughes

text: When Langston Hughes was 17, he went to spend some time with his father in Mexico. He was so unhappy while he was there that he thought about committing suicide. Hughes could not understand how his father felt. He said: "I had been thinking about my father and his strange dislike of his own people. I didn't understand it, because I was a Negro, and I liked Negroes very much!"


title: Langston Hughes

text: When he was finished at high school in Lincoln in 1920, he went back to Mexico, to ask his father to pay for him to go to university. Hughes' father was a lawyer and a wealthy landowner. He could afford to send his son to university but he made difficulties about it. He said that Hughes could only go to university if he went overseas and studied engineering. Hughes wanted to go to a university in the US. After a time, they made an agreement that he should go to Columbia University but study engineering, not an arts degree. He went to Columbia in 1921 but left in 1922, partly because of the racism in the university.


title: Langston Hughes

text: Until 1926 Hughes did many different types of work. In 1923 he went as a crewman on the ship "S.S.Malone" and went to West Africa and Europe. He left the ship and stayed for a short time in Paris where he joined several other African-Americans who were living there. In November 1924, Hughes returned to the U.S. to live with his mother in Washington, D.C.. In 1925 he got a job as an assistant to Carter G. Woodson who worked with the "Association for the Study of African American Life and History". Hughes did not enjoy his work because he did not have enough time to write, so he left and got a job as a "busboy", wiping tables and washing dishes at a hotel. Hughes is sometimes called "The Busboy Poet". Meanwhile, some of his poems were published in magazines and were being collected together for his first book of poetry. While he was working at the hotel he met the poet Vachel Lindsay, who helped to make Hughes known as a new African-American poet.


title: Langston Hughes

text: In 1926 Hughes began studying at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. He had help from patrons, Amy Spingarn, who gave him $300 and "Godmother" Charlotte Osgood Mason. Hughes graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1929 and became a Doctor of Letters in 1943. He was also given an honorary doctorate by Howard University. For the rest of his life, except when he travelled to the Caribbean or West Indies, Hughes lived in Harlem, New York.


title: Langston Hughes

text: Langston Hughes sometimes went out with women, but he never married. People who have studied his life and poetry are sure that he was homosexual. In the 1930s it was harder to be open about being gay than it is nowadays. His poetry has lots of symbols which are used by other homosexual writers. Hughes thought that men who had very dark skin were particularly beautiful. It seems from his poetry that he was in love with an African-American man. He also wrote a story which might tell of his own experience. "Blessed Assurance" is the story of a father's anger because his son is "queer" and acts like a girl.


title: Langston Hughes

text: Hughes' life and work were an important part of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, alongside those Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Countee Cullen, Richard Bruce Nugent, and Aaron Douglas, who together started a magazine "Fire!! Devoted to Younger Negro Artists". Hughes and these friends did not always agree with the ideas of some of the other African-American writers who were also part of the "Harlem Renaissance" because they thought their ideas were Middle class and that they treated others who had darker skin, less education and less money with discrimination. All his life, Hughes never forgot the lessons that he learned about poor and uneducated African-Americans in the stories that his grandmother told.


title: Langston Hughes

text: In 1960, the "NAACP" awarded Hughes the "Spingarn Medal" for "distinguished achievements by an African American". Hughes became a member of the "National Institute of Arts and Letters" in 1961. In 1973, an award was named after him, the "Langston Hughes Medal", awarded by the City College of New York.


title: Langston Hughes

text: Hughes became a famous American poet, but he was always ready to help other people, particularly young black writers. He was worried that many young writers hated themselves, and expressed these feelings to the world. He tried to help people feel pride, and not worry about the prejudice of other people. He also tried to help young African-Americans not to express hatred and prejudice towards white Americans.


title: Langston Hughes

text: On May 22, 1967, Hughes died in New York City at the age of 65 after having surgery for prostate cancer. His ashes are buried under the floor of the "Langston Hughes Auditorium" in the "Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture" in Harlem. Over his ashes is a circle with an African design called "Rivers." At the centre of the design are words from a poem by Hughes: ""My soul has grown deep like the rivers."


title: Principality of Sealand

text: The Principality of Sealand is an unrecognized micronation that claims HM Fort Roughs (also known as Roughs Tower) as its territory. Roughs Tower is an offshore platform in the North Sea around off the coast of Suffolk. Roughs Tower was used as a sea fort in international waters during World War II. Since 1987, the tower has been occupied by the family and associates of Paddy Roy Bates, a former British Army major. Bates took the tower from pirate radio broadcasters in 1967. Sealand was invaded by mercenaries in 1978. Sealand was able to defeat the attack. The platform has been in British territory since 1987, when the United Kingdom made its territorial waters larger.


title: Principality of Sealand

text: In 1943, during World War II, HM Fort Roughs (sometimes called Roughs Tower) was built by the United Kingdom as one of the Maunsell Forts. Its main goal was to protect the nearby shipping lanes from German mine-laying vehicles. It held 150–300 Royal Navy personnel throughout World War II. The last time it was used by the Royal Navy was in 1956.


title: Principality of Sealand

text: Roughs Tower was used in February and August 1965 by Jack Moore and his daughter Jane. They used it as a base for Wonderful Radio London.


title: Principality of Sealand

text: Major Paddy Roy Bates took the fort on 2 September 1967 to use it for his own pirate radio station (Radio Essex). However, he never starting broadcasting. Instead, he declared the independence Roughs Tower as the Principality of Sealand.


title: Principality of Sealand

text: In 1968, British workmen entered the claimed territorial waters of the Principality of Sealand to fix a buoy near the platform. Michael Bates (son of Patty Roy Bates) tried to scare the workmen off by firing warning shots from the platform. As Bates was a British subject at the time, he was called to court on firearm charges after the incident. However, the court said that the platform was outside of British waters and the case could not continue.


title: Principality of Sealand

text: In 1975, Bates introduced a constitution for Sealand, followed by a national flag, a national anthem, a currency and passports.


title: Principality of Sealand

text: In August 1978, Alexander Achenbach, who said he was the prime minister of Sealand, hired many Dutch and German mercenaries to attack Sealand while Bates and his wife were in Austria. They took the platform and took Bates' son Michael hostage. Michael was able to escape and take back Roughs Tower using weapons stored on the platform. Achenbach was charged with treason. He was held there unless he paid DM 75,000 (more than US$35,000 or £23,000). Germany sent a diplomat from its London embassy to Sealand to negotiate for Achenbach's release. He was released after many weeks of negotiation. Roy Bates claimed that the diplomat's visit meant that Germany had "de facto" recognized Sealand.


title: Principality of Sealand

text: On the afternoon of 23 June 2006, the top platform of Roughs Tower caught fire because of an electrical fault. A Royal Air Force helicopter took one person to Ipswich Hospital. The Harwich lifeboat stayed nearby Roughs Tower until a local fire tug extinguished the fire. All damage was repaired by November 2006.


title: Principality of Sealand

text: In January 2007, The Pirate Bay, an online media index founded by the Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, tried to buy Sealand after harsher copyright laws forced them to look for a new headquarters. Between 2007 and 2010, Sealand was offered for sale through the Spanish estate company ImmoNaranja at a price of €750 million (£600 million, US$906 million).


title: Principality of Sealand

text: Roy Bates died at the age of 91 on 9 October 2012. He had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease for many years. He was succeeded by his son Michael. Michael Bates lives in Suffolk, where he and his sons run a family fishing business called Fruits of the Sea. Joan Bates, Roy Bates's wife, died in an Essex nursing home at the age of 86 on 10 March 2016.


title: Principality of Sealand

text: In 1987, the UK increased its territorial waters from . Sealand is now in British territorial waters.


title: Principality of Sealand

text: Sealand is ruled by the Bates family as its royal family. Roy Bates called himself "Prince Roy" and his wife "Princess Joan".


title: Principality of Sealand

text: At a micronations conference hosted by the University of Sunderland in 2004, Sealand was represented by Michael Bates's son James. The facility is now occupied by one or more caretakers representing Michael Bates, who lives in Essex.


title: Principality of Sealand

text: The Sealand National Football Association is an associate member of the Nouvelle Fédération-Board. The Nouvelle Fédération-Board is a governing body for football for non-recognised states and states that are not members of FIFA. It administers the Sealand national football team. In 2004 the national team played its first international game against Åland Islands national football team, drawing 2–2.


title: Principality of Sealand

text: In 2004, mountaineer Slader Oviatt carried the Sealandic flag to the top of Muztagh Ata. Also in 2007, Michael Martelle represented the Principality of Sealand in the World Cup of Kung Fu, held in Quebec City, Canada. Martelle won two silver medals, becoming the first-ever Sealand athlete to be on a world championship podium.


title: Principality of Sealand

text: In 2009, Sealand announced the revival of the Sealand Football Association and their plan to compete in a future Viva World Cup. Scottish author Neil Forsyth was made President of the Association. Sealand played the second game in their history against Chagos Islands on 5 May 2012, losing 3–1. The team included actor Ralf Little and former Bolton Wanderers defender Simon Charlton.


title: Principality of Sealand

text: In 2009 and 2010, Sealand sent teams to play in many ultimate frisbee club tournaments in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Netherlands. They came 11th at UK nationals in 2010.


title: Principality of Sealand

text: In 2015, the runner Simon Messenger ran a half-marathon on Sealand as part of his "round the world in 80 runs" challenge.


title: Principality of Sealand

text: In August 2018, competitive swimmer Richard Royal became the first person to swim the from Sealand to the mainland, finishing in 3 hrs 29 mins. Royal visited the platform before the swim, getting his passport stamped. He went into the water from the bosun's chair, signaling the start of the swim, and finished on Felixstowe beach. Royal was awarded a Sealand Knighthood by Michael Bates.


title: Principality of Sealand

text: An American football team called the Sealand Seahawks was formed in 2021, announcing a game in Ireland against the South Dublin Panthers on 19 February 2022. The Seahawks won the game 42–13.


title: AS-Val

text: The AS-Val is a rifle designed (created) by the Soviets. It has a built-in suppresor. The special rifle (AS) development began in the first half of the late 1980s in the Central Research Institute of Precision Engineering, in the city of Klimovsk part of the Moscow region. The lead designer of the rifle is Pyotr Serdyukov.


title: AS-Val

text: TsNIITochMash (Central Institute for Precision Machine Building) developed it in 1987. Since 1987, the Soviet Army and the KGB used it in their arsenal. Russian Spetsnaz special forces and some divisions of the Russian Army also use it.


title: AS-Val

text: The rifle is expensive and there are not many AS-Vals available. It is not used often according to many Russian Spetsnaz operators. It is used during special operations by either sabotage or reconnaissance units deployed behind enemy lines.


title: AS-Val

text: The AS Val and VSS are very effective. Some Russian army and special forces units, and Moscow’s intelligence and security forces still use it. Forces used the rifles during the last years of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. They were also important in the Chechen wars and the conflict in Georgia.


title: AS-Val

text: The AS Val has an effective range of about 300 m. It uses heavy subsonic 9×39mm SP-6 (high-performance armor-piercing) ammunition (which weigh down the bullet). It also uses the SP-5 ball cartridge used by the VSS Vintorez suppressed sniper rifle. It can also use the same 10- or 20-round magazines of the VSS Vintorez and the 30-round magazine of the SR-3M. Controls are similar to all AK-type rifles. It has a charging handle on the right side, a tangent rear sight, a magazine release button behind the magazine well, and a safety lever above the trigger guard. The fire selector is located within the trigger guard, behind the trigger.


title: AS-Val

text: The rifle has two modes of fire: semi-automatic and fully automatic fire. It has a cyclic rate of fire of 900 rounds per minute (RPM). According to its users, the AS Val is reliable, accurate, and well liked.


title: AS-Val

text: The rifle has an AK-type side mount for various optical sights. For example, it has the 4x PSO-1 scope and night sights such as the 1PN51 calibrated for use with the 9×39mm cartridge. The standard open sights are graduated up to 400 m in 25 m increments.


title: AS-Val

text: The AS Val shares 70% of its components with its sister-gun, the VSS Vintorez. The differences are a skeletonized steel stock which folds to the left for storage and transportation (the gun can operate with stock folded, but it cannot have a scope while the stock is folded).


title: AS-Val

text: The reliability of the rifle is said to be equivalent to the AKM. This includes functioning in difficult conditions such as dust, dirt, sand, rain, and at a temperature range from -50 °C to +50 °C.


title: Kirstie Alley

text: Kirstie Louise Alley (January 12, 1951 – December 5, 2022) was an American actress. She was famous for her role in the TV show "Cheers", where she played Rebecca Howe from 1987 to 1993. She won an Emmy as the "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series" for 1991. A year later, she won a Golden Globe for her acting in "Cheers" as well. She also won an Emmy in 1994 for her role in the TV drama show "David's Mother".


title: Kirstie Alley

text: Other roles that have been well-liked by the public and the critics that Alley is known for include: playing Diane Barrows in "It Takes Two" and a single mother in "Look Who's Talking", "Look Who's Talking Too", and "Look Who's Talking Now" (all co-starring John Travolta). Alley has won two People's Choice Awards in the years 1991 and 1998.


title: Kirstie Alley

text: From 1971 until 1977 Kirstie was married to Robert Alley. They began dating in high school and were distant cousins.


title: Kirstie Alley

text: From 1983 until 1997 she was married to Parker Stevenson. They had two children, son William True Stevenson (born September 28, 1992) and daughter Lillie Price Stevenson (born June 15, 1994). William and Lillie were adopted.


title: Kirstie Alley

text: Alley was raised Methodist but was more recently a member of the Church of Scientology. In 2007, Alley gave $5 million to the Church of Scientology.