title: Chinese New Year

text: In Taiwan, most events and traditions are the same as those in China. The most important special event is the Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival, where fireworks are shot straight into the people watching the show. Being hit is supposed to bring good luck, but this used to be very unsafe. Today, people wear special hard hats (helmets) and thick clothes to protect them from the fire and fireworks. Another special event is the "Bombing of Master Handan" in Taitung, where people throw firecrackers straight at the members of a parade who are wearing only red underwear and towels. Taiwan's Hakka people have a tradition like this, where firecrackers are thrown at dragon dancers as they parade through towns. The dragon is then burnt up at the end of the dance. Taipei's City Lantern Festival also goes on for most of the holiday, not just during the 1-day Lantern Festival at the end.


title: Chinese New Year

text: Chinese New Year is a national holiday in the Philippines. People do not get money without working, but anyone who "does" have to work on the "special non-working day" gets 130% of the usual pay. Binondo—sometimes considered the world's oldest Chinatown—sees a lot of traditional celebrations, such as lion and dragon dances. Its people also try to pay back any money that they owe before the New Year.


title: Chinese New Year

text: In 2001, Davao City stopped letting people use fireworks because its people were hurting themselves too much. Their leader Rodrigo Duterte became president of the country and said that he wanted to stop fireworks everywhere. As president, however, he has so far continued to let people use them.


title: Chinese New Year

text: Chinese New Year () is a 1-day national holiday in Indonesia. Chinese people have lived there since at least the 15th century, when Zheng He's ships visited its islands for the Yongle Emperor of the Ming, and many more came when the Netherlands held the islands as a colony. Suharto stopped Chinese Indonesians from celebrating Chinese New Year in 1967. Some people had tried to change the government in 1965 and Suharto said Indonesian Communists and their friends in the PRC had done it. Things changed after the fall of Suharto in 1998, and Indonesia made Chinese New Year a national holiday for everyone in 2003.


title: Chinese New Year

text: Now that it is OK again, Chinese Indonesians celebrate the holiday much as people in China do. Dragon and lion dances are common at shopping centers, which sometimes have special sales to let Chinese people buy new (often red) clothes to wear for the holiday. People cannot use fireworks in most of Indonesia, but some cities like Jakarta let people use firecrackers.


title: Chinese New Year

text: Some older Chinese traditions still survive in Indonesia. Like in the Philippines, people try to pay back any money they owe before the New Year. People also try not to lend any money during the holiday, because they think it will make them have to keep lending money for the whole year. Doors and windows are opened on the day before the New Year to "let the old year out", and people wake up early the next morning so they don't stay lazy the whole year. The red envelopes of money (Hokkien:"âng-pau") are given on the morning of New Year's Day, not at dinner on the night before it. Many make special trips to one of Indonesia's Chinese temples at some time during the holiday.


title: Chinese New Year

text: It is also still common to leave some food at the table for dead family members and to give them gifts as the New Year begins. Chicken is usually eaten with the head, tail, and feet still on, showing "completeness". White rice is eaten but fresh white tofu is not, because in Chinese culture its color makes some people think of death and bad luck.


title: Chinese New Year

text: Most of Malaysia gets two days off work for Chinese New Year: the New Year itself and the day after it. The largest celebrations happen around Petaling Street in Kuala Lumpur, at the Kek Lok Si Temple in George Town, in Ipoh, and on Jonker Street in Malacca. Some people still follow the tradition that the second day is used for married women to visit their parents, after visiting her husband's family on Chinese New Year's Day. Most Chinese Malaysians take the entire week off of work, despite the shorter length of the national holiday. Traditional Chinese use the 3rd day of the New Year to visit the resting places of family members who died in the last 3 years; people without a death in their family stay home.


title: Chinese New Year

text: An unusual tradition in Malaysia is the idea of "open house" dinners, especially on the 2nd and 3rd night of the holiday. Guests, friends, and even strangers from different races and religions can be let in to enjoy large dinners together. The Malaysian government even has its own "open houses" at community halls.


title: Chinese New Year

text: In addition to fireworks at the beginning of the New Year, many people light them on the 9th day of the holiday to celebrate the birthday of the Jade Emperor, the boss of the Chinese gods. The day was used for a special Hokkien New Year, the story going that, one time in the past, the Hokkien people had to hide from robbers for 8 days in a sugarcane field. Because of this story, lots of sugarcane is used for Malaysian decorations for Chinese New Year.


title: Chinese New Year

text: Teochew-style Yusheng, a fish-and-noodle dish, is extra common in Malaysia, where it is called "yeesang" or "prosperity toss". A restaurant in Seremban started getting people to eat it by throwing it high in the air for good luck in the 1940s, and people had so much fun that they have done it ever since. Properly, it should have 7 parts and be eaten on the 7th day of the holiday, but people now eat it in different ways, too. Another common dish is "steam boat", a kind of seafood hot pot. As in other Chinese places, eating and giving away oranges and tangerines is common in Malaysia. A special tradition is for women with no boyfriend or husband to throw an orange into the sea to find a man. Some now write their telephone numbers on the oranges they throw, and men will use boats to go out and get the fruit.


title: Chinese New Year

text: Many people in Malaysia who believe in Islam and Hinduism have also started giving red envelopes full of money—which Malaysians call "ang pow" from its Hokkien name "âng-pau"—during their own holidays, like Eid ("Syawal") and Divali ("Deepavali"). The Islamic ang pow usually have Arabic designs, and the Hindu ones are often purple.


title: Chinese New Year

text: Singapore, like Malaysia, has a national holiday for Chinese New Year and the day after it. It also sees lot of "steam boat" hot pot dinners. In 1972, the government stopped people from using their own fireworks during the holiday. Worried that people would find the next celebration less fun, they began the Chingay Parade the next year in 1973. In 1977, Indians and Malays joined the parade, which happens on the 8th day of the New Year. The parade is now the biggest in Asia, with more than 10,000 people in it and floats that showing every animal of the circle of Chinese years and the money god Cai Shen. More than 100,000 come to see it in person, and millions of people see it on TV. There are still government firework shows, and the people of Singapore now make noise during the holiday by hitting bamboo sticks together.


title: Chinese New Year

text: Holiday shopping and street shows are centered on Chinatown. Its Wishing Tree is filled with cards that tell people's hopes and dreams. The money from selling the cards is used for the area's activity center for the old.


title: Chinese New Year

text: Downtown, the holiday is used as a showcase for Chinese arts and customs. The Chinese Festival of Arts starts on the 5th day and runs for the rest of the holiday until the Lantern Festival. The National Gallery, Stamp Museum, and Asian Civilizations Museum let people in for free on some of the days of the holiday. For more than 10 years, Singapore has held a big lion dancing contest with teams coming from other countries across Southeast Asia. During the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the New Year, there is the River Hongbao show on the Marina Bay Floating Platform and along the waterfront.


title: Chinese New Year

text: Chinese New Year, the day before it, the day after it, and the Lantern Festival are national holidays in Brunei. The country has had a large number of Chinese people since the 1930s and 40s, and the sultan sometimes comes to their New Year celebrations. Since 2015, however, Brunei has set out tough Islamic laws that try to stop Muslims from joining or even seeing the Chinese celebrations. Lion dances are allowed only at the last Chinese temple in Brunei, at Chinese schools, and at the homes of the Chinese. Only Chinese people can join the dance. People cannot use fireworks or firecrackers, and dances must stop during the hours of Islamic prayers. Breaking these rules risks as much as B$20,000 and 5 years of jail.


title: Chinese New Year

text: The Chinese New Year celebrations in North and South Korea are known as Korean New Year. The time in Beijing is 1 hour different from the time in the Korean capital cities of Pyongyang and Seoul. About one time every 24 years, this makes the Korean New Year start on the day after the Chinese New Year.


title: Chinese New Year

text: The Korean holiday is very close to the Chinese one, with families gathering, children being very nice to their parents and grandparents, and older people giving gifts of money to the young. The Korean holiday has different traditional foods and games, though.


title: Chinese New Year

text: The Chinese New Year celebrations in Vietnam are known as Tet. Like the Korean New Year, it sometimes happens on a different day. In 1967, North Vietnam changed its time so that its capital Hanoi is now 1 hour different from Beijing. This means that the new moon happens a day earlier in Vietnam about one time every 24 years. Vietnamese people also add a 13th month to their calendar at a different time from the Chinese, who always try to put the 1st day of winter in their 11th month. In some years, this makes Tet happen in the month after the Chinese New Year.


title: Chinese New Year

text: Like in Korea, the Vietnamese New Year is mostly the same as China's, with families gathering, children saying nice things to their parents and grandparents, and older people giving gifts of money to the young. There are some different foods and traditions, like their New Year tree or special games. Some of the differences come from changes in China: Tet sees more people do nice things for their dead family members. In China, most of the traditions like that were moved to Tomb Sweeping Day at the beginning of April.


title: Chinese New Year

text: The largest US and Canadian celebrations happen in Chinatowns. People eat Chinese food, give gifts, and have dragon parades that sometimes include marching bands. There is no national holiday with time off work, but different events go on for the full traditional 2 weeks up to the Lantern Festival.


title: Chinese New Year

text: In the United Kingdom, the celebration in London's Chinatown and Trafalgar Square drew 500,000 people in 2015.


title: Chinese New Year

text: The holiday is also so important to China that many world leaders will take time to send their good wishes to China and the Chinese people.


title: Chinese New Year

text: Most traditional customs have to do with getting more good luck for the new year and staying away from anything unhappy.


title: Chinese New Year

text: People hang up decorations, especially pairs of Chinese poems (couplets) on either side of their doors. Some put pictures of Taoist gods on the doors to scare away bad things. Live plants suggest growth, and flowers suggest coming fruits. Pussy willow is common in some places because its Chinese name sounds like "money coming in". It is very common for big decorations to look like the animal for the new year, so that 2017 had Rooster and Chicken pictures and statues and 2018 will have Dogs.


title: Chinese New Year

text: People used to welcome the New Year with "anything" that made loud noises, including drums, cymbals, or even woks and pots. The exact traditions were different in different parts of China. Fireworks and firecrackers became more and more common everywhere, but lately many places have stopped letting most people use them because of the danger of people hurting themselves, of fire, and of dirt in the air that can make people sick. There are still big firework shows in most big cities with many Chinese people, but the city government will do everything and other people just watch.


title: Chinese New Year

text: Visits to people's houses are done in new or well-kept clothes. People wear more red than usual, which makes them think of happy times like weddings, and wear less black and white, which makes some think of sad times like funerals. Red underwear is very common and is most commonly worn during New Years which have the same animal as the wearer's birth year (so, at ages 12, 24, 36, and so on). In Malaysia, it has even become common to give people such red underwear as gifts and for non-Chinese to wear all-red clothes during the season of the Chinese New Year.


title: Chinese New Year

text: There are some common things people say to wish good luck to each other, the most important being "gōngxǐ fācái" ("congratulations that you are now rich"). People try not to say bad words, tell ghost stories, or talk about death. Some even stay away from the number four, which sounds like "death" in Chinese. Crying babies are also thought to be bad luck, and family members will try to keep children happy during visits.


title: Chinese New Year

text: There are some old customs that only a few people or even no one does any more. People still do their "spring cleaning" before the holiday but, in old China, they didn't sweep or wash clothes on New Year's Day itself. They were afraid of cleaning away good luck together with the dirt. For the same reason, some people did not wash their hair and were very careful not to break any tools. The 5th or 6th day after New Year, when they cleaned and threw away or burned all the trash, was a day for "sending off" the God of Being Poor, one of the sons of Zhuanxu. Today, it's more common to clean things as they get dirty, like on other days. Few do anything special about the God of the Poor. In the same way, people near Beijing thought that it was unlucky to cook or steam food for the first 5 days of the New Year. They would cook all of their next week of food 2 days before it, so it was ready for the reunion meal. They'd add yeast to their dumpling skins the day before that, on the 28th day of the 12th month. The skins would have enough time to be ready but not enough time to go bad. Today, people cook or eat out all through the week. It is easy to buy ready-made skins at supermarkets, keep their homemade skins fresh in fridges, or just buy all their dumplings from nearby shops and there is nothing special about the 28th day. On People's Day, the 7th day of the holiday, people used to wear special headbands and thought good weather meant good luck for everyone in the coming year. Everyone used it to count their age, even when it was not their birthday. None of that is common any more.


title: Chinese New Year

text: Some traditions have been ended by the Chinese government. People used to run to be the first to set off fireworks and firecrackers at the beginning of the New Year at midnight, wherever they were. The dirty air this caused in big Chinese cities made children and old people sick. Now, the police stop people from doing this in many cities.


title: Chinese New Year

text: Taoist traditions that are less common now are giving gifts to the home's kitchen god on the 23rd or 24th day of the 12th month of the old calendar. People said the kitchen god watched the house for the Jade Emperor, the boss of the Chinese gods. The special decorations and gifts were given to him so that he would say nice things. The gods would then be nicer to the house for the next year. The kitchen god was thought to return to the house on the 4th day of the New Year. During the time he was "away", people used to feel they could get away from some hard rules about family life without anything bad happening. In the past, love matches would marry during those days with less rules and expense than a full wedding. Today, the days after the Chinese New Year are a common time for weddings but this is because everyone has time off work and not because of any ideas about luck or worry about the gods. In the same way, people used to give animals to Cai Shen, the god of money, on the 2nd or 5th day of the holiday. People used to take a break from visits on "Red Dog Day" ("Chìgǒu Rì"), the 3rd day of the holiday, when an angry god was said to bring bad luck to anyone walking around outside. Now, fewer and fewer people worry about those things.


title: Chinese New Year

text: The reunion dinners on the day before Chinese New Year are often the largest and most expensive of the year. Some families use special and expensive foods to gain face; others use meaningful foods to bring luck. Jiaozi (a kind of dumpling) are common in northern China. People think they look like the old Chinese silver bars and hold luck inside. Egg rolls and spring rolls like lumpia can also be made to look like golden bars, and oranges and tangerines are thought to look like gold coins. Noodles like "yīmiàn" or Filipino pansit are eaten uncut to wish for long life. Some dishes are eaten because their Chinese names sound like lucky words, such as "fish" and "well-off". In Cantonese, "vegetable" sounds the same as "having money" ("choy") and "leek" sounds the same as "counting-and-planning" ("suan"). Because of this Cantonese people in China and in other countries try to have some during the New Year holidays. Niangao, called "tikoy" in the Philippines, is a kind of cake made from fried sticky rice and sugar. It is very common in southern China. In Chinese, its name sounds like "nián gāo" ("the year gets better") or "niánnián gāoshēng" ("getting better year after year"). Some people also think its stickiness is like a glue and use it as a wish for holding their family together. Indonesians call their niangao "basket cakes" because they mold theirs in bamboo baskets. They also have some special flavors in addition to vanilla and chocolate like pandan, a tree with good-smelling leaves. Some people fry tikoy with eggs; basket cakes are often steamed with pieces of coconut meat. Because most Chinese people in the Philippines speak Hokkien and not Mandarin Chinese, they also like to eat pineapples. In Hokkien, the word for "pineapple" sounds like the word for "having a lot of money".


title: Chinese New Year

text: Some Chinese also put out "Trays of Togetherness", dishes with eight different parts and eight different kinds of snack foods. Some common things to put in these trays are kumquats, longans, pieces of coconut meat, peanuts, candies, and melon and lotus seeds. Eight is a lucky number to many Chinese people, like seven in Europe and other places. These dishes are very common among Malaysian and Indonesian Chinese.


title: Chinese New Year

text: For the Lantern Festival, the special food is yuanxiao, small balls of sticky rice in a sweet soup. Lichun always happens near the Chinese New Year as well. It is celebrated by eating spring pancakes ("chūnbǐng").


title: Foreign policy

text: A country's foreign policy (also called the international relations policy) is a set of goals about how the country will work with other countries economically, politically, socially and militarily. It includes such matters as international trade, foreign aid, military alliances, and war.


title: Foreign policy

text: Foreign policy also involves dealing with groups that are not countries but that are still important. These are called "non-state actors", and might include religious groups, large companies, or even terrorist groups. The study of foreign relations is known as foreign policy analysis (FPA) and the work is called diplomacy. Most counties have a foreign minister who directs these things, with help from other officials.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The Democratic Republic of the Congo (), commonly referred to as DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa or the DRC, is a country in central Africa. It was known as Zaïre from 1971 to 1997. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world. With a population of over 71 million, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the nineteenth most populous nation in the world, the fourth most populous nation in Africa, as well as the most populous Francophone (French-speaking) country.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: DRC borders the Central African Republic and South Sudan to the north; Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi in the east; Zambia and Angola to the south; the Republic of the Congo, the Angolan exclave of Cabinda, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. It is separated from Tanzania by Lake Tanganyika in the east. The country has access to the ocean through a stretch of Atlantic coastline at Muanda and the roughly 9 km wide mouth of the Congo River which opens into the Gulf of Guinea. It has the second-highest total Christian population in Africa.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: When the Belgian Congo became independent, its leaders fought each other. The Soviet Union and later the United Nations helped destroy the groups who wanted independence from the new country.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The Second Congo War, beginning in 1998, devastated the country. It involved nine African nations and some twenty armed groups. Despite the signing of peace accords in 2003, fighting continues in the east of the country. There, the prevalence of rape and other sexual violence is described as the worst in the world. The war is the world's deadliest conflict since World War II, killing 5.4 million people since 1998. The vast majority died from conditions of malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The Democratic Republic of the Congo was formerly, in chronological order, the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Congo-Léopoldville, Congo-Kinshasa, and Zaire ("Zaïre" in French). Though it is in the Central African United Nations subregion, the nation is also economically and regionally affiliated with Southern Africa as a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The country is bordered by Angola, the South Atlantic Ocean, the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania across Lake Tanganyika, and Zambia.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: World Heritage Sites in the Democratic Republic of Congo include Virunga National Park (1979), Garamba National Park (1980),


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The country is divided into twenty six provinces. The provinces are then divided into districts. The districts are divided into territories.


title: Plum pudding model

text: The plum pudding model is an early 20th century model of an atom. It was later found to be wrong. It was proposed by J.J. Thomson in 1904, after the electron had been discovered, but before the atomic nuclei was discovered. During that time, scientists knew that there was a positive charge in the atom that balanced out the negative charges of the electrons, making the atom neutral, but they didn't know where the positive charge was coming from. Thomson's model showed an atom that had a positively charged medium, or space, with negatively charged electrons inside the medium. Soon after its proposal, the model was called a "plum pudding" model because the positive medium was like a pudding, with electrons, or plums, inside.


title: Plum pudding model

text: In 1909, not long after Thomson's model was proposed, Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden made an experiment with thin sheets of gold, to test Thomson's model. Their professor, Ernest Rutherford, expected the results to prove Thomson correct, but their results were extremely different to what they were expecting. In 1911, Rutherford discovered that the positive charges come from tiny particles called protons, and that the protons were in a tiny center called the nucleus, and that the electrons were orbiting around the nucleus.


title: Plum pudding model

text: Rutherford's model was quite simple, but it was later disproved because electrons have charge, and they should be attracted to the positively charged nucleus. In 1913, Niels Bohr added 'energy levels' to the atomic model. Electrons don't fall into the nucleus because they are contained in energy levels, and to change to higher energy levels extra energy is needed, and to change to lower energy levels a release of energy is needed. It is not possible to change energy states without changing the energy of the electron. If an electron gets hit by a photon (a particle that carries electromagnetic radiation) it will gain extra energy and go into a higher energy level (it changes states), then it will jump back down to a lower energy level, releasing its contained energy. This new model was called the Bohr model or the Rutherford-Bohr model. This added a whole new branch of science: Quantum physics.


title: Plum pudding model

text: In 1926 Erwin Schrödinger used the idea that electrons acted as a wave, as well as a particle, this is known as a wave-particle duality. This added a whole new layer to the atomic model and quantum physics. With a particle, you can know where it is in space if you observe (look) at it. But with a wave, it is all over the place, so you can't define where exactly it is. This is known as quantum uncertainty. With an electron, you can only know the probability of it being in a place, because it is a wave as well as a particle. (See diagram above)


title: Second Party System

text: The Second Party System is a name for the political party system in the United States during the 1800s. It is a phrase used by historians and political scientists to describe the time period between 1828 and 1854. People quickly became more interested in voting starting in 1828. More people came to political rallies and showed up to vote on election day. There were also more partisan newspapers, which supported a certain political party. People became very loyal to their party.


title: Second Party System

text: There were two main political parties during this time period. One was the Democratic Party, led by Andrew Jackson. The other was the Whig Party, started by Henry Clay. The Whig party was made up of members of the National Republican Party and other people who opposed Jackson.


title: Second Party System

text: There were also a number of important minor parties. The Anti-Masonic Party (1827-34) was important in developing political ideas and laws. The Liberty Party in the 1840s was an important abolitionist party (against slavery). The United States Free Soil Party in 1848 and 1852 was another anti-slavery party.


title: Second Party System

text: The Second Party System was an important part of the politics, society, economics, and culture of the Jacksonian Era. It was followed by the Third Party System after 1854.


title: Second Party System

text: The phrase "second party system" was defined by the historian Richard P. McCormick. He said that the system was:


title: Second Party System

text: A number of important historical people were political leaders in this system. Some famous democrats were: Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, John C. Calhoun, James K. Polk, Lewis Cass, and Stephen Douglas. Some famous Whigs were: Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, William H. Seward, and Thurlow Weed.


title: Second Party System

text: The United States presidential election in 1824 did not have any political parties. There were four main candidates for president: Henry Clay, William Crawford, Andrew Jackson, and John Quincy Adams. At the end of the race, none of the candidates had enough votes in the electoral college to win, and the United States House of Representatives had to choose the winner. The three final candidates were Adams, Crawford, and Jackson. Even though Clay was not one of these finalists, he was the Speaker of the House, and it was his job to negotiate who would become president. Jackson had the most popular votes (votes cast by citizens) and the most electoral votes (votes cast by the electoral college), but was not elected. Instead, John Quincy Adams was elected president. He immediately chose Clay to be his Secretary of State.


title: Second Party System

text: Jackson loudly declared this to be a "corrupt bargain." Jackson was a very popular politician, the most famous fighter of the American Indian Wars, and a hero of the War of 1812. He gathered his supporters in politics and the local militias and created the Democratic Party. Martin Van Buren, a brilliant leader in New York politics, was Jackson's most important supporter. Van Buren was popular in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and he had the support of their electoral college votes. The new Democratic Party beat Adams in the U.S. presidential election of 1828 and Jackson was elected president. Van Buren became the Secretary of State, and later Vice President. Adams, Clay, and their supporters in the Democratic-Republican Party became known as the National Republicans.


title: Second Party System

text: Andrew Jackson was against the idea of giving special favors to special interest groups. He strongly opposed the Second Bank of the United States. The Bank was a federal institution that worked somewhat like a central bank. (It was very similar to the Federal Reserve System that would be developed later.) The bank was controlled by the banker Nicholas Biddle and supported by Henry Clay. Jackson did not like any banks, and he did not believe in paper money. (He believed that money should only be gold and silver.) As president, he was able to close the Second Bank.


title: Second Party System

text: Jackson continued to attack the banking system. He issued his "Specie Circular" in July 1836. ("Specie" is a word that means gold and silver used as money.) The Circular said that only gold and siver coins, and not paper money, could be used to buy federal land. This made most businessmen and bankers join the Whig party. Also, cities that depended on commerce (trade) and industry became supporters of the Whig party. Jackson became more popular with subsistence farmers (farmers who grow crops to eat, but not to sell) and day laborers.


title: Second Party System

text: In US politics, the "Spoils System" was the practice of a political party giving its supporters positions in government. These government jobs were given as rewards and incentives (something that makes a person try harder) to keep working for the political party.


title: Second Party System

text: Jackson used the spoils system a lot when he was president. He rewarded his supporters and promised future jobs if local and state politicians joined his team. He believed in the theory of rotation in office, where people would only remain in a position for a short time. He believed that this would keep the civil service from becoming corrupt. Other leaders of the Democratic Party wanted to give civil service jobs to friends and loyal party members. In total, Jackson dismissed less than twenty percent (20%) of the original civil service.


title: Second Party System

text: As president, Jackson encouraged the use of the spoils system. It became an important part of the Second Party System and the Third Party System. The spoils system was ended in the 1890s.


title: Violet (color)

text: Violet is the seventh color of the rainbow--it is the color on the inner edge of the rainbow. Violet is the color between blue and purple. The name of the color comes from the violet, which is a small flower grown in most parts of the world.


title: NSDAP 25 points manifesto

text: The NSDAP 25 points manifesto is a 25-point plan written by Anton Drexler and edited and supported by Adolf Hitler for the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), Nazi Party, when it was founded in 1920.


title: NSDAP 25 points manifesto

text: The leaders of the Party promise to work—if need be to sacrifice their very lives—to put this programme into action.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: The Thirty Years' War was fought from 1618 until 1648. Though it was primarily centered in Germany, several other countries became involved in the conflict, including France, Spain, and Sweden. In fact, almost all of the powerful countries in Europe were involved in the war. It began as a fight about religion between Protestants and Catholics. As the war continued, the Catholic Habsburg dynasty and other countries used the war to try to get more power. For example, Catholic France fought for the Protestants, which made the France-Habsburg rivalry even worse.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: The Thirty Years' War caused things like famine and disease in almost every country involved. The war lasted for 30 years, but the problems that had caused the war were not fixed for a long time after the war had been over. The war ended with the Treaty of Westphalia.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: Firstly, the Peace of Augsburg (1555), which was signed quickly by Charles V, stopped the fighting between the Lutherans and the Catholics in Germany.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: The Peace made the violence end for a bit, but it did not fix the real reason for the fighting. Bothgroups thought that the Peace different things. The Lutherans said it was only an agreement that would last for a short time. Calvinism came quickly into German andas a third Christian group in Germany, but it was not part of the Peace of Augsburg. That meant that Calvinists argued with both Lutherans and Catholics.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: Secondly, the powerful countries in Europe in the 17th century often disagreed about matters of politics or economics. Spain wanted land in some of the German states because the Germans owned some of the Spanish Netherlands. The Dutch fought the Spanish to get independenceand got it in some wars that ended in 1609.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: Thirdly, the Holy Roman Empire was a broken group of nations inside a bigger empire. The empire had nations like the Austrian House of Habsburg, Bavaria, the Electorate of Saxony, the Margravate of Brandenburg, the Electorate of the Palatinate, Hesse, the Archbishopric of Trier and Württemberg and other small nations and towns. Only Austria was capable of operating on its own. Countries often made alliances with other places ruled by relatives. Because there were so many nations inside the empire, the nations disagreed with one another often, and the government could not control the whole empire very well. This meant that the government could not fix the problems in the country.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: Fourthly, religious groups did not agree during the second half of the 16th century. The Peace of Augsburg was not working because some bishops had not given up their bishoprics, and Catholic rulers in Spain and Eastern Europe wanted to make Catholicism strong in the region. This caused fighting between the groups. The Catholics made many Protestants leave their home lands. Some places gave Protestants permission to worship. The disagreements caused violence.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: Fifthly, the Holy Roman Emperor Matthias, a Catholic, died without any children to take his place in 1619. His lands were given to his cousin Ferdinand of Styria, Matthias's closest male relative, who became Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor. Ferdinand had been educated by the Jesuits. A Catholic, he wanted to make Catholicism the only religion again. This made him unpopular in the German state of Bohemia sinc most people there were not Catholics but Hussites. They rejected Ferdinand and launched the Thirty Years' War. The war can be divided into four major phases: the Bohemian Revolt, the Danish intervention, the Swedish intervention, and the French intervention.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: Emperor "Mattias", who had no children, wanted to give the throne of the Holy Roman Empire to Ferdinand II when he died. To ensure that the transition would work, he wanted to make Ferdinand the Crown Prince of Bohemia, a country that was part of the Holy Roman Empire, in the meantime. Some of the Protestant leaders of Bohemia thought that Ferdinand would take away their religious rights. They liked the Protestant Frederick V, Elector of the Palatinate better. However, some of the other Protestants supported Ferdinand. Enough people preferred Ferdinand that in 1617, he was elected to become the Crown Prince of Bohemia.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: Ferdinand sent two Catholic governors to Prague, the capital of Bohemia, in May 1618. Ferdinand wanted them to run the government while he was gone. Suddenly, many angry Protestants took them and threw them out of the high palace window. The Defenestration of Prague), that made the Catholics angry with the Protestants.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: The Protestants who had thrown the Catholics out the window created a new Protestant government in Bohemia. Many Protestants in Bohemia and the nearby countries started hating the rest of the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire wanted to stop them from doing so, to fight Bohemia, and borrow Spain's money. However, they thought that if that happened, Bohemia's Protestant friends might come in and start fighting them. That made them try to make an agreement with Bohemia to stop the fighting. However, when Emperor Matthias died in 1619, Bohemia decided not to make the agreement because they thought the Holy Roman government was weak now.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: Bohemia was so angry about the Catholics it they decided to not make Ferdinand II the king of Bohemia anymore andbut made Frederick V the king instead. However, because Matthias was dead and so Ferdinand was the next person waiting to be the emperor, Ferdinand was in charge of the whole Holy Roman Empire now. Some people also thought Frederick should not be allowed to be king of Bohemia.All of that made the Holy Roman Emperor decide to fight Bohemia.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: A large army got money from Maximilian I was led by Count Tilly invaded Bohemia. At the Battle of White Mountain, the Holy Roman Empire beat the Bohemian rebels. Frederick ran away. and the revolt collapsed.


title: Thirty Years' War

text: Frederick was also in charge of a German nation called the Palatinate. Maximilian I, who was in charge of a nearby nation, Bavaria, wanted more power and decided to take over some of the Palatinate. Spain, a Catholic country. joined the war to help Maximilian, who was disliked in the Netherlands. Other countries now became involved in this war. After some fighting, Maximilian and Spain won, and Emperor Ferdinand decided that all of the Palatinate should go to Maximilian. That made some of the other Protestant nations very scared because that meant that Protestant areas were being taken over by Catholics.


Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or attention deficit disorder (ADD), is a neurodevelopmental disorder. It affects how people think and act.


title: Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

text: People with ADHD may have trouble sitting still, being quiet, or sleeping. They may be rather impulsive.


text: They usually have problems focusing and remembering what is said or done around them. ADHD is called a "neurological developmental disorder" because it affects how people's nervous systems develop.


text: Experts think that, throughout the world, about one in twenty children (5%) have ADHD. Some countries have more people with ADHD than others, and not everyone uses the same tests. Psychologists have found more people with ADHD in North America than in Africa and the Middle East. In the United States, about one in every fourteen children has ADHD (7%), including one in every ten boys (10%) and one in every twenty-five girls (4%). This could be because more boys get ADHD, or because fewer girls take ADHD tests.


text: ADHD is most diagnosed in children. However, it is not uncommon for teenagers or adults to be diagnosed with ADHD. ADHD has no cure which means it is permanent. However, people with ADHD can treat it which means to help them get better. The difference between a cure and treatment is a cure entirely removes a problem, while treatment does not remove the problem but help make the symptoms go away as if you don't have ADHD.


text: People with ADHD can have trouble paying attention, be overly active, or be impulsive. There are three types of ADHD, based on which of the three symptoms is most common.


text: People with ADHD may have trouble making and keeping friends. They may also have trouble controlling their anger. While children with ADHD may have trouble doing some things, many children with ADHD will not have trouble paying attention to something they enjoy or think are interesting.


text: Most people who have ADHD also have other mental disorders, most often oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, dyslexia, Tourette syndrome, anxiety disorders (especially obsessive-compulsive disorder), mood disorders, substance use disorders, eating disorders and personality disorders (especially antisocial, borderline, histrionic, passive-aggressive and avoidant).


text: It is believed that the main difference between neurotypical brains and the ones with the ADHD is the deficit in amount of dopamine receptors release within the synapses in the brain. This deficit is said to be the main factor in regulating motivation and sustaining attention.


text: Research of twins has shown that about three in four cases of ADHD are caused by one or both parents having ADHD. Siblings of children with ADHD are three to four times more likely to develop the disorder than siblings of children without the disorder. Genetic factors are also believed to be involved in determining whether ADHD lasts into adulthood. Some scientists think that ADHD is common because when humans were first developing, it was good to be overly active. Others think that, because ADHD is more common in children when the mother is anxious, ADHD developed to help children in dangerous places.


text: There are other possible causes for ADHD. If a pregnant person drinks alcohol, it can cause fetal alcohol syndrome, which can include ADHD. ADHD can also happen if a mother smokes tobacco while she is pregnant. Lead, low birth weight, premature birth, and some infections can increase the risk of a child having ADHD.


text: There is no cure for ADHD. People with ADHD can be helped with therapy or medication. Therapy is recommended for children who do not have bad symptoms or are very young. Therapy for people with ADHD helps with attention and behavior. There is also education for parents and teachers to help children with ADHD. Some physical exercise has been shown to help people with ADHD.


text: The first line treatment for ADHD includes cognitive behavioral therapy and use of stimulants. Stimulants increase the amount of a chemical called dopamine in the brain, which helps with paying attention, planning, organization, and management of being overly active. These medications should not be given to children below the age of 6.


text: People do not agree about the diagnosis of ADHD. The number of people with ADHD has increased in the last several years. Some people think this is because doctors are diagnosing too many people. Others think it is because doctors are getting better at finding people with ADHD. Some people think that ADHD is made-up and not a real illness, even though it's the most researched condition in psychiatry. Most studies suggest that ADHD is mostly caused by problems with genes.


text: Several famous people have spoken about the rise in ADHD diagnoses. Actor Tom Cruise said that the medicines usually given to people with ADHD were like illegal drugs. Others disagreed with him because the amount of medicine given to people with ADHD does not cause addiction. There have been many studies about the effectiveness of the medicines used with ADHD. One certain study found that the medicine did help over a long time, but did not help more than other types of treatment.


title: National anthem

text: A national song is a country's official national song that the people of a country use to remember and respect their country.


title: Hummingbird

text: They are among the smallest of birds: most species measure 7.5–13 cm (3–5 in). The smallest living bird species is the 2–5 cm bee hummingbird. They can hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings 12–80 times per second (depending on the species). They are also the only group of birds able to fly backwards. Their rapid wing beats do actually hum. They can fly at speeds over 15 m/s (54 km/h, 34 mi/h).


title: Hummingbird

text: Hummingbirds help flowers to pollinate, though many other insects also do so. The hummingbird depends absolutely on the nectar, more so that any other bird.


title: Hummingbird

text: Hummingbirds do not have a good sense of smell; instead, they are attracted to color, especially the color red. Unlike the butterfly, the hummingbird hovers over the flower as it drinks nectar from it, like a moth. When it does so, it flaps its wings very quickly to stay in one place, which makes it look like a blur and also beats so fast it makes a humming sound. A hummingbird sometimes puts its whole head into the flower to drink the nectar properly. When it takes its head back out, its head is covered with yellow pollen, so that when it moves to another flower, it can pollinate.


title: Hummingbird

text: Like bees, hummingbirds can assess the amount of sugar in the nectar they eat. They reject flowers whose nectar has less than 10% sugar. Nectar is a poor source of nutrients, so hummingbirds meet their needs for protein, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, etc. by preying on insects and spiders.


title: Hummingbird

text: Most hummingbirds have bills that are long and straight or nearly so, but in some species the bill shape is adapted for specialized feeding. Thornbills have short, sharp bills adapted for feeding from flowers with short corollas and piercing the bases of longer ones. The sicklebills' extremely decurved bills are adapted to extracting nectar from the curved corollas of flowers in the family Gesneriaceae. The bill of the fiery-tailed awlbill has an upturned tip, as in the Avocets. The male tooth-billed hummingbird has barracuda-like spikes at the tip of its long, straight bill.


title: Hummingbird

text: The two halves of a hummingbird's bill have a pronounced overlap, with the lower half (mandible) fitting tightly inside the upper half (maxilla). When hummingbirds feed on nectar, the bill is usually only opened slightly, allowing the tongue to dart out into the nectar.


title: Hummingbird

text: Like the similar nectar-feeding sunbirds and unlike other birds, hummingbirds drink by using grooved or trough-like tongues which they can stick out a long way.


title: Hummingbird

text: Hummingbirds do not spend all day flying, as the energy cost would be prohibitive; much of their activity consists of sitting or perching. Hummingbirds feed in many small meals, consuming many small invertebrates and up to twelve times their own body weight in nectar each day. They spend an average of 10–15% of their time feeding and 75–80% sitting and digesting.


title: Hummingbird

text: Since hummingbirds are specialized nectar-eaters, they are tied to the flowers they feed upon. Some species, especially those with unusual bill shapes such as the sword-billed hummingbird and the sicklebills, are co-evolved with a small number of flower species.


title: Hummingbird

text: Many plants pollinated by hummingbirds produce flowers in shades of red, orange, and bright pink, though the birds will take nectar from flowers of many colors. Hummingbirds can see wavelengths into the near-ultraviolet. However, their flowers do not reflect these wavelengths as many insect-pollinated flowers do. The narrow color spectrum may make hummingbird-pollinated flowers inconspicuous to insects, thereby reducing nectar robbing by insects.


title: Hummingbird

text: Hummingbird-pollinated flowers produce relatively weak nectar (averaging 25% sugars w/w) containing high concentrations of sucrose, whereas insect-pollinated flowers typically produce more concentrated nectars dominated by fructose and glucose.


title: Hummingbird

text: Hummingbirds have traditionally been a part of the bird order Apodiformes. This order includes the hummingbirds, the swifts and the tree swifts. The Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy of birds, based on DNA studies done in the 1970s and 1980s, changed the classification of hummingbirds. Instead of being in the same order as the swifts, the hummingbirds were made an order, the Trochiliformes. Their previous order, Apodiformes was changed to the superorder Apodimorphae. This superorder contains the three families of birds which were in it when it was an order.


title: Mutual intelligibility

text: Mutual intelligibility is where the speakers of one language can understand another language because they are alike. This is sometimes (but not always) used to decide whether they are different languages or different dialects.


title: Mutual intelligibility

text: There are noticeable differences in accent, vocabulary, and spelling between British and General American English, but speakers can largely understand each other without serious problems. These dialects are therefore mutually intelligible.


title: Mutual intelligibility

text: Sometimes, even different languages can be mutually intelligible.Hindi and Urdu are called different languages, but speakers of both languages can largely understand each other if they are using everyday language. This is because the two languages used to be dialects of Hindustani, the official language of British India until India became independent. Since the two languages are so alike, they are sometimes called together as Hindi-Urdu.


title: Mutual intelligibility

text: Also, dialects of a certain language can sometimes be mutually unintelligible. Chinese, for example, has hundreds of different dialects, and many native speakers of those dialects cannot understand each other without knowing the other's dialect. For example, the local dialects of Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong are Mandarin, Shanghainese/Wu Chinese, and Cantonese/Yue in that same order. If natives from each of these cities were to talk to each other in their native dialects, they would not understand each other. This is because they are too different from each other. This is why the governments of China and Taiwan want their citizens to speak Standard Mandarin in public so that there can be a spoken dialect of Chinese everyone can understand. While the spoken dialects are mutually unintelligible, they all use the same written code, Chinese characters, so they can understand each other if they write to each other.


title: Mutual intelligibility

text: These examples above show that the difference between language and dialect is often hard to define, even for linguists, or people who study languages as their job.


title: Mutual intelligibility

text: When a speaker of one language can understand what a speaker of another language is saying but not the other way around, it is called asymmetric intelligibility. An example of of this is Portuguese and Spanish. While Portuguese speakers say they can understand Spanish without major problems, Spanish speakers, on the other hand, have a very difficult time understanding Portuguese speakers. This situation is actually quite common across languages.


title: 2018 FIFA World Cup

text: The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the 21st FIFA World Cup, which is a men's football tournament that takes place every four years and is organized by FIFA. The tournament took place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awarded the hosting rights on 2 December 2010. This was the first World Cup taking place in Eastern Europe.


title: 2018 FIFA World Cup

text: The defending champions were Germany. France won the tournament after defeating Croatia 4–2. This was France's second World Cup title.


title: 2018 FIFA World Cup

text: The teams were divided into 4 pots, 8 teams each. The number in parenthesis show positions in the FIFA World Rankings prior to the tournament.


title: 2018 FIFA World Cup

text: The top two teams of each group advance to the round of 16. Matches are played on a round-robin basis.


title: 2018 FIFA World Cup

text: If two or more teams are equal on the basis of the above three criteria, their rankings are determined as follows:


title: Predation

text: In ecology, predation describes a relationship and actions between two creatures. A predator catches, attacks, and eats its prey. Predators may or may not kill their prey before eating them. But the act of predation always causes the death of its prey and taking in the prey's body parts into the predators body. A true predator can be thought of as one which both kills and eats another animal, but many animals act as both predator and scavenger.


title: Predation

text: A predator is an animal that hunts, catches, and eats other animals. For example, a spider eating a fly caught at its web is a predator, or a pack of lions eating a buffalo. The animals that the predator hunts are called prey. A "top predator" or "apex predator" is one that is not the prey of other predators.


title: Predation

text: Predators are usually carnivores (meat-eaters) or omnivores (eats plants and other animals). Predators will hunt other animals for food. Examples of predators are hawks, eagles, falcons, cats, crocodiles, snakes, raptors, wolves, killer whales, lobsters, lions, and sharks.


title: Predation

text: Ambush predators or sit-and-wait predators are carnivorous animals or other organisms, such as some carnivorous plants. They capture or trap prey by stealth or strategy (not conscious strategy), rather than just by speed or strength.


title: Predation

text: These organisms usually hide quiet and wait for prey to come within striking distance. They often are camouflaged, and may be solitary. This may be safer for the predator, because lying in wait exposes it less to its own predators.


title: Predation

text: When a predator cannot move faster than its preferred prey, ambushing its prey is likely to be more efficient than pursuit. A predator that can move at high speed for a long time can be a pursuit predator, chasing until its prey tires and slows. There are however many intermediate strategies; for example when a pursuit predator is faster than its prey over a short distance, but not in a long chase, then either stalking or ambushing becomes part of the strategy.


title: IOS

text: iOS (previously named iPhone OS) is an OS for devices, made and sold by Apple's OS Company It is the mobile OS of the iPhone, the iPod, the iPad, Apple TV and similar devices. At first iOS was called iPhone OS, but it was renamed to iOS in 2010 to show that the operating system was being supported on new Apple devices.


title: IOS

text: iOS was released in 2005, simply known as running a version of OS X for the first generation iPhone. Apple said on January 9, 2007 at a conference that there will be a new product, the iPhone, and it would have a "revolutionary" operation system.


title: IOS

text: On March 6, 2006, Apple renamed this form of OS X to "iPhone OS" following the release of the iPhone software devo kit.


title: IOS

text: On July 11, 2008, along with the release of the iPhone 3G, Apple released iPhone OS 2.0, which introduced the App Store.


title: IOS

text: In June 2009, Apple released iPhone OS 3.0, which was released along with the iPhone 3GS. It was a minor upgrade to iPhone OS 2.0 except it could do a few new things. iPhone OS 3.0 was available for the first iPhone and iPod Touch, but not all features were supported on those devices. The last version to support the first iPhone and iPod Touch was 3.1.3. It was later available for the iPad when it was released (as of version 3.2).


title: IOS

text: In September 2009, Apple renamed "iPhone OS" to "iOS". The trademark "IOS" has been used by the tech company Cisco, so Apple licensed the trademark in order to avoid conflicts.


title: IOS

text: In mid-2010, Apple also released a significant update, iOS 4.0, which added the ability of multitasking, the option to have a wallpaper for the home screen and gives the user the ability to run several apps at the same time, while the number of apps are affected by the device's RAM. Not only that, but it also had a more polished design and was the first version of iOS to be available for the iPod Touch for free. Unfortunately, the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch (2nd generation) have limited features, meaning that they can't multitask or have a wallpaper for the home screen.


title: IOS

text: In October 2011, Apple released iOS 5, which introduced many new features such as the notifications pull-down bar, a free messaging service called iMessage, iCloud, and more. A voice assistant named Siri was also released to the iPhone 4S.


title: IOS

text: iOS 6 was released on September 19, 2012 with even more features. Siri was released to the iPad (3rd generation), iPod Touch (5th generation), and the iPhone 5. YouTube was removed and a YouTube app was added to the App Store. Google Maps was also removed and replaced with Apple Maps.


title: IOS

text: On September 18, 2013, iOS 7 was released with a new look and many features, and a new feature called "Control Center" where you can control basic settings, music, AirPlay, brightness, flashlight, and more.


title: IOS

text: On June 2, 2014, Apple announced iOS 8 at their annual Worldwide Developers Conference. It has several new features, such as a new app called Health, a feature called QuickType, which predicts which words you will type, and several other features. It was officially released to everyone on September 17, 2014.


title: IOS

text: iOS 11 was announced in mid-2017. It supports the iPhone 5S and newer, the iPad Air and newer, all iPad Pro models, the fourth-generation iPad mini, and the sixth-generation iPod touch. The update removes the labels from the main Phone, Messages, Mail, and Safari icons. The App Store and iTunes store logos are replaced with a simple "A" logo and star logo with a blue and purple background, respectively. The Control Center is also easier to use, with bigger buttons and custom controls for functions like Low Power Mode and Mobile Hotspot. On the Plus models of the iPhone 6, 6S, and 7, the Lock Screen can also be rotated. In the Control Center and on the Lock Screen, when a song is playing, only the song name and artist are shown instead of also showing the album name.


title: IOS

text: iOS 11 also allows users to "offload" apps, meaning that an app can be deleted while leaving behind the app's data. It also provides suggestions and functions for saving storage space, such as deleting old messages and files. Instead of the iCloud Drive app, there is a Files app that allows users to view their files in the iPhone itself and iCloud Drive.


title: IOS

text: The only way to get the software (apps) in iOS is the App Store. The App Store is an electronic market which gives you the ability to buy "apps" (applications), small user interface applications. By January 2013, Apple confirmed to have more than 800,000 applications in the App Store.


title: IOS

text: iOS Version 7, launched Sep 18, 2013, presented a radically different tone for the iPhone, than the aesthetic which had become iconic already under vers 1 through 6: first with sharper, brighter, flatter icons; less of the photographically detailed: fewer pigments but more uncommon ones, and second with a translucent smoke glass icon tray pulldown. A third major aesthetic difference lay in the shade of blue chosen, which was brighter and especially highlighted the style of version 7 over iOS 1.0.


title: IOS

text: iOS 7.03, released Oct 23, 2013, mostly disabled the gyroscopic compass on the Apple iPod Touch, including new-at-the-time models. Later software updates further restricted compass-related hardware features, to only devices with GPS/cellular connectivity.


title: IOS

text: A "soft update" over iTunes, of Sep 9, 2014, increased the size of every user's iTunes by U2's Songs of Innocence album, which at the time could not be deleted from many users' libraries.


title: IOS

text: iOS 8, which launched Sep 12, 2014, while not as radical an aesthetic change as iOS 7 from iOS 6, being virtually required for many users.


title: Sunnah

text: The word Sunnah (Arabic: سنة) is an Arabic word meaning "tradition" or "way." For Muslims, Sunnah means "the way of the prophet". Sunnites try to follow his words, actions and teachings.


title: Sunnah

text: Muslim scholars learn about the Sunnah by studying thousands of stories about Muhammad, his family, and his first followers. These stories are called Hadith.


title: Preposition

text: Prepositions often describe the position of something, the time when something happens or the way in which something is done. The prepositions "of", "to" and "for" have other functions.


title: Preposition

text: Prepositions may sometimes be used to end sentences. For example, "What did you put that there for?" (better English is the alternative: "Why did you put that there?") Example 2: "A pen is a device to write with" (better English is "A pen is a writing device"). In general, because they are links, prepositions belong in the middle of sentences, rather than at the end.


title: Peach (color)

text: The word "peach" comes from the Middle English "peche", from Middle French, in turn from Latin "persica", i.e., "the fruit from Persia". In fact, the origin of the peach fruit was from China.


title: 2020s

text: The 2020s (pronounced "twenty-twenties" or "two thousand twenties") is the current decade that began on January 1, 2020 and will end on December 31, 2029. When the decade began, the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the world, causing many disruptions. In 2021, Kabul fell and the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. In 2022, Russia would launch an invasion of Ukraine. And it is a decade where mental health was a huge challenge especially on Generation Z.


title: USB

text: The Universal Serial Bus (USB) is technology that allows a person to connect an electronic device to a computer. It is a fast serial bus type.


title: USB

text: It is mostly used on personal computers. USB is also used on other devices, such as smartphones and video game consoles. USB connects different devices using a standard interface.


title: USB

text: Most people use USB for computer mice, keyboards, scanners, printers, digital cameras, and USB flash drives. There are over six billion USB devices around the world.


title: USB

text: The standard was made to improve plug and play devices. This means that a device can be plugged into a free socket, and simply work. The computer will notice the device. The computer sometimes installs special software to use the device. The device can be removed after it stops being used. This technology is called "hot swapping". "Hot swapping" means it can be plugged and unplugged while the power is on. The computer does not need to be turned off for people to change the devices.


title: USB

text: USB can provide a small amount of power to the attached device through the USB cord. Devices that only need a little power can get it from the bus, and do not need a separate electric power plug. That allows gadgets like USB battery chargers, lights, and fans. They can also power external hard drives and SSD.


title: USB

text: As of 2022, almost all computers have USB and have replaced older standerds. Those include the parallel port, serial port and SCSI. These old standards are rare nowadays, but very few computers in the world still use these old connectors for a few jobs where USB cannot replace them.


title: USB

text: The first version of the Universal Serial Bus was created in 1995. This new technology became an instant success. Since the introduction of USB, people that make electronic devices thought about how it could be used in the future. Today, USB connects a computer or other devices like laptops and MP3 players to peripheral devices.


title: USB

text: The bus was introduced by seven companies which represent the leaders in the industry of information technology: Compaq, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, Northern Telecom, and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).


title: USB

text: Several years earlier, adopters and developers of USB held a meeting called "Plugfest" at a special hotel in California to test their devices. They selected a hotel that included rooms for sleeping and for testing. The meeting lasted three days. During the meeting, the representatives of about 50 companies connected their USB devices to one general host system.


title: USB

text: The logo of the USB device also has its own history. The USB logo was in development for several months.


title: USB

text: Currently, five different USB standards are used: USB 1.0, USB 1.1, USB 2.0, USB 3.0 and USB 3.1. USB 3.1 was released in 2016 and doubled the speed of 3.0. It optionally uses a different connector called USB Type-C, which is reversible (meaning you can plug it in both ways). USB 1.0 is now rarely used.


title: USB

text: USB offers five different transfer speeds: 1.5 MBit per second (called "low speed"), 12 MBit per second ("Full Speed"), 480 MBit/second ("Hi Speed"), 5Gbit per second (called "super speed"), and 10 Gbit/s (“super speed+“). Hi speed is only available in USB 2.0 and later, and Super speed is only available in USB 3.0. These speeds are raw bit rates (in Million bits per second). The actual data rate is usually lower due to protocol overhead.


title: USB

text: In order to use the "hi speed" transfer rate, the USB controller and the connected device both need to support it. USB is backwards compatible. Faster and slower USB devices and controllers can be connected together, but they will run at the slower speed.


title: USB

text: As of 2022, almost all computers sold today have USB ports, and most of them support USB 3.0 or later and have at least one USB-C port. Apple Macbooks only have USB-C ports. The number of ports they have is usually limited, though. Between two and four ports are common. USB allows connecting USB hubs to add more USB ports.


title: USB

text: The hubs themselves are also compliant to one of the USB standards. Devices connected to a USB 2.0 hub will only go as fast as USB 2.0 rates. Devices connected to a later controller can use different standards.


title: USB

text: USB was designed to be easy to use. The engineers learned from other connectors before they designed USB connectors. There are 3 connectors.


title: USB

text: A USB system has an asymmetric design. It is made of a host, several downstream USB ports, and multiple peripheral devices connected in a star topology. Additional USB hubs may be included in the tiers, allowing branching into a tree structure with up to five tier levels.


title: USB

text: A USB host can have multiple host controllers. Each host controller provides one or more USB ports. Up to 127 devices, including the hub devices, may be connected to a single host controller.


title: USB

text: USB devices are linked in series through "hubs". There is always one hub known as the root hub. The root hub is built into the host controller. There are special hubs, called "sharing hubs". These allow multiple computers to access the same peripheral devices. They work by switching the access between PCs, either manually or automatically. They are popular in small-office environments. In network terms, they converge rather than diverge branches.


title: USB

text: A physical USB device can have several logical sub-devices that are referred to as "device functions". A single device may provide several functions, for example, a webcam (video device function) with a built-in microphone (audio device function).


title: USB

text: USB device communication is based on "pipes" (logical channels). Pipes are connections from the host controller to a logical entity on the device named an endpoint. The term "endpoint" is occasionally used to incorrectly refer to the pipe. A USB device can have up to 32 active pipes, 16 into the host controller and 16 out of the controller.


title: USB

text: Each endpoint can transfer data in one direction only, either into or out of the device, so each pipe is uni-directional. Endpoints are grouped into "interfaces" and each interface is associated with a single device function. An exception to this is endpoint zero, which is used for device configuration and which is not associated with any interface.


title: USB

text: When a USB device is first connected to a USB host, the USB device enumeration process is started. The enumeration starts by sending a reset signal to the USB device. The speed of the USB device is determined during the reset signaling. After reset, the USB device's information is read by the host, then the device is assigned a unique 7-bit address. If the device is supported by the host, the device drivers needed for communicating with the device are loaded and the device is set to a configured state. If the USB host is restarted, the enumeration process is repeated for all connected devices.


title: USB

text: The host controller polls the bus for traffic, usually in a round-robin fashion, so no USB device can transfer any data on the bus without an explicit request from the host controller.


title: USB

text: The computer hardware that contains the host controller and the root hub has an interface for the programmer. It is called "Host Controller Device" (HCD) and is defined by the hardware implementer.


title: USB

text: For USB 1.0 and 1.1, there were two different HCD implementations, "Open Host Controller Interface" (OHCI) and "Universal Host Controller Interface" (UHCI). OHCI was developed by Compaq, Microsoft and National Semiconductor, UHCI by Intel.


title: USB

text: VIA Technologies licensed the UHCI standard from Intel; all other chipset implementers use OHCI. UHCI relies more on software. This means UHCI is slightly more processor-intensive than OHCI but easier and cheaper to make. Because there were two different implementations, operating system vendors and hardware vendors needed to develop and test on both of them. This increased cost.


title: USB

text: The USB specification does not specify any HCD interfaces and is not concerned with them. In other words, USB defines the format of data transfer through the port, but not the system by which the USB hardware communicates with the computer it sits in.


title: USB

text: During the design phase of USB 2.0, the USB-IF insisted that there was only one implementation. The USB 2.0 HCD implementation is called the "Enhanced Host Controller Interface" (EHCI). Only EHCI can support hi-speed (480 Mbit/s) transfers. Most of PCI-based EHCI controllers have other HCD implementations called 'companion host controller' to support Full Speed (12 Mbit/s) and may be used for any device that claims to be a member of a certain class. An operating system is supposed to implement all device classes, so it can provide generic drivers for any USB device. Device classes are decided upon by the Device Working Group of the USB Implementers Forum.


title: Kiwi

text: The kiwi is a type of bird from New Zealand. They are the genus Apteryx of the family Apterygidae. There are several species and sub-species of kiwi. The kiwi is a symbol for New Zealand. People from New Zealand are nicknamed "Kiwis".


title: Kiwi

text: They have a long beak and brown feathers. The feathers look like fur. Kiwi cannot fly, and their wings are so small that they cannot usually be seen. Kiwi cannot see well, but they can hear very well. They are the smallest ratite birds.


title: Kiwi

text: Kiwi are night (nocturnal) birds. They mostly eat invertebrates, like worms and insects. Kiwi keep a territory where they live alone or with their mate. In their territory they build several small caves where they sleep, or lay their eggs.


title: Kiwi

text: Kiwi are monogamous; the male and female stay together until one of them dies. The male and female live in the same territory and raise their children together.


title: Kiwi

text: Female kiwi lay 1-3 eggs. Compared to the size of the mother, the eggs are the largest of any bird species. Kiwi are mature when they are 2 years old, and they can live more than 20 years. One kiwi kept in a zoo even reached 35 years old.


title: Kiwi

text: The female brown kiwi lays enormous eggs, which are almost one-sixth of her own body weight. These eggs take 11 weeks to incubate, the longest time for any bird. In comparison, Yellow-breasted Chats' eggs take only 11 days, and chickens' eggs take 21 days.


title: Kiwi

text: Kiwi prefer to live in burrows they make in forested areas. They either make their burrows in the ground like rabbits, in between the roots of trees, or in hidden sheltered places such as hollow logs. Kiwi line their burrows with leaves to make them more comfortable and warm. Sometimes they hide the entrance to their burrows using piles of twigs. Kiwi may have more than ten different burrows in their territory and will swap between them sometimes.


title: Kiwi

text: Kiwi are threatened by many mammals. Stoats are the main threat for the kiwi chicks. Ferrets and dogs kill adult kiwi.


title: Pill bug

text: Armadillidiidae is a family of woodlice, a terrestrial crustacean group in the order Isopoda. They are commonly known as pill bugs or potato bugs or rollie pollies. Pill bugs are not insects, but are crustaceans. Crustaceans are animals with hard shells made from many pieces for protection.


title: Pill bug

text: Pill bugs look like gray pills. The pill bug's abdomen has seven segments. Pill bugs have flat bodies. The pill bug has three basic body parts called the head, thorax, and abdomen, moce and they can be many sizes.


title: Pill bug

text: The head has three eyes (simple and compound) and a mouth. Pill bugs have two sets of antennae. One of the sets is visible to see. The thorax holds the legs. The abdomen holds the exopods of uropods and is attached to some crustaceans' abdomens. Pillbugs eat rotten plants, rotten animals, old garbage, and even bits of food in animal dung. Pill bugs do not breathe through lungs; they have gills. Because of this, they need to be in a damp place or they will die. They also prefer dark rocks or any other dark place to stay that is dark. They are more active at night and early morning because of the darkness. Pill bugs are not beneficial to potted plants. If you notice your potted plants have one or two of them crawling around on the plant, there are probably many more that you don't see feeding off of the roots.


title: Pill bug

text: For some people, looking for Pill Bugs in their garden is helpful to their garden and also enjoyable, especially for small children. To some people, keeping Pill Bugs as pets is also an enjoyable thing. To keep a Pill Bug as a pet, it's area which it is kept in must be moist and/or damp, with plants that are fresh and plants that have begun to rot. Pill Bugs are still garden animals so please remember you cannot keep them or their full life and should never, under any circumstances, be released back into the wild once rescued.


title: Peter Crouch

text: Peter James Crouch (born 30 January 1981) is a former English football player and a current television judge for the ITV reality singing version of the United Kingdom The Masked Singer. He was born in Macclesfield and was raised in Singapore and Ealing, west London. At 6 feet, 7 inches (201 cm), he is one of the tallest people to ever play in the Premier League. Crouch played for Liverpool and England. He was the first player to score 10 goals for England in a single year. He is known for his famous robotic dance celebration, which he first performed after his goal against Hungary in May 2006.


title: Hmong people

text: The words Hmong and Mong refer to an Asian ethnic group. Their homeland is in China, especially along the Yangtze and Yellow river. In the 18th century, Hmong people started moving to other Southeast Asian countries. Today, they live in all of China, northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar. In 1975, communists took over Laos. After they took over, many Hmong people moved to the United States, Australia, France, French Guiana, and Canada. Hmong people divide themselves into the White Hmong, the Green Hmong, and other smaller groups.


title: Hmong people

text: Some of the origins of the Hmong and Miao clan names are a result of the marriage of Hmong women to Han Chinese men, with distinct Han Chinese-descended clans and lineages practicing Han Chinese burial customs. These clans were called "Han Chinese Hmong" ("Hmong Sua") in Sichuan, and were instructed in military tactics by fugitive Han Chinese rebels. Such Chinese "surname groups" are comparable to the patrilineal Hmong clans and also practice exogamy.


title: Hmong people

text: These Miao clans produced by Han Chinese men mating with Miao women introduced Han Confucian influence into Miao people despite culture in Miao society being transmitted maternally.


title: Hmong people

text: Han Chinese male soldiers who fought against the Miao rebellions during the Qing and Ming dynasties were known to have married with non-Han women such as the Miao because Han women were less desirable. The Wang clan, founded among the Hmong in Gongxian county of Sichuan's Yibin district, is one such clan and can trace its origins to several such marriages around the time of the Ming dynasty suppression of the Ah rebels. Nicholas Tapp wrote that, according to "The Story of the Ha Kings" in the village, one such Han ancestor was Wang Wu. It is also noted that the Wang typically sided with the Chinese, being what Tapp calls "cooked" as opposed to the "raw" peoples who rebelled against the Chinese.


title: Hmong people

text: Hmong women who married Han Chinese men founded a new Xem clan among Northern Thailand's Hmong. Fifty years later in Chiangmai two of their Hmong boy descendants were Catholics. A Hmong woman and Han Chinese man married and founded northern Thailand's Lau2, or Lauj, clan, , with another Han Chinese man of the family name Deng founding another Hmong clan. Some scholars believe this lends further credence to the idea that some or all of the present day Hmong clans were formed in this way.


title: Hmong people

text: Jiangxi Han Chinese are claimed by some as the forefathers of the southeast Guizhou Miao, and Miao children were born to the many Miao women married Han Chinese soldiers in Taijiang in Guizhou before the second half of the 19th century.


title: Hmong people

text: From 1919 to 1921, the Hmong people were involved a war. The French called this war the War of the Insane.


title: Hmong people

text: From 1962 to 1975, the Hmong people were involved in the Laotian Civil War, also known as the Secret War.


title: Hmong people

text: China has the largest population of Hmong people with 3 million Hmong people. Vietnam has 787,600 Hmong people, Laos has 320,000 Hmong people, and Thailand has 150,000 Hmong people. Some Hmong people live in Myanmar.


title: Hmong people

text: Outside of Asia, the United States has the most Hmong people; it has 186,310 Hmong people. France has 15,000 Hmong people, Australia has 2,000 Hmong people, and French Guiana has 1,500 Hmong people. Canada and Argentina have a total of 600 Hmong people.


title: Richard and Maurice McDonald

text: Richard James McDonald (February 16, 1909 – July 14, 1998) and Maurice James McDonald (November 26, 1902 – December 11, 1971) were American fast-food restaurateurs. They were the founders of the original McDonald’s restaurant in San Bernardino, California and inventors of the ‘Speedee Service System’. They were born in Manchester, New Hampshire.


title: Richard and Maurice McDonald

text: In 1954, the McDonald brothers partnered with Ray Kroc. Kroc took 1.9 percent of the gross sales, of which the McDonald brothers got 0.5 percent. The brothers wanted to only have a small number of restaurants, which Kroc did not want them to have. Ray Kroc eventually bought them out.


title: Richard and Maurice McDonald

text: On November 30, 1984, Richard McDonald – the first cook behind the grill of a McDonald's – was served the ceremonial 50,000,000,000th (50 billionth) McDonald's hamburger by Ed Rensi, then president of McDonald's USA, at the Grand Hyatt hotel in New York City.


title: Richard and Maurice McDonald

text: Maurice McDonald died from heart failure in Riverside, California, on December 11, 1971, at the age of 69. Richard McDonald died in Manchester, New Hampshire, on July 14, 1998 of a heart attack, at the age of 89.


title: Richard and Maurice McDonald

text: In the 2016 movie "The Founder", Richard McDonald is played by Nick Offerman, and John Carroll Lynch portrays Maurice McDonald.


title: Elizabeth Taylor

text: Dame Elizabeth "Liz" Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress.


title: Elizabeth Taylor

text: The movies she starred in were, "National Velvet", "Father of the Bride", "A Place in the Sun", "Giant", "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", and "Suddenly, Last Summer". She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for "BUtterfield 8". She played the title role in "Cleopatra", and married her costar Richard Burton. They appeared together in 11 films, including "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". Taylor won a second Academy Award in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". From the mid-1970s, she appeared less frequently in film, and made occasional appearances in television and theatre.


title: Elizabeth Taylor

text: Her personal life included eight marriages and several life-threatening illnesses. From the mid-1980s, Taylor supported HIV and AIDS programs; she co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985, and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1993. She received the Presidential Citizens Medal, the Legion of Honour, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute. The American Film Institute named her seventh on their list of the "Greatest American Screen Legends". Taylor died of congestive heart failure in March 2011 at the age of 79 after suffering many years of ill health.


title: Elizabeth Taylor

text: Taylor was born in London to American parents, Francis Lenn Taylor and Sara Sothern, who were Americans living in England. Her parents were originally from Arkansas City, Kansas. They returned to the United States on the onset of World War II.


title: Elizabeth Taylor

text: Her first act was in "Lassie Come Home" (1942). The next one was "National Velvet" (1944). Throughout her teens, she appeared in various supporting roles and easily made the transition to young adult parts.


title: Elizabeth Taylor

text: Her first major role was in "A Place in the Sun" in 1950, with Montgomery Clift. Working steadily during the 1950s, notable movies have included; "The Father of the Bride" (1951), "Ivanhoe" (1952), "Elephant Walk" (1954), "Rhapsody" (1954), "Giant" (1956), "Raintree County" (1957), "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958), "Suddenly, Last Summer" (1959), "BUtterfield 8" (1960), etc.


title: Elizabeth Taylor

text: In 1963, she played the lead role in "Cleopatra" and met actor Richard Burton, who became her fifth husband in 1964. They appeared in several movies together; "The V.I.P's" (1963), "The Sandpiper" (1965), "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf ?" (1966), "The Taming of the Shrew" (1967), "Boom" (1968). She also starred in "Secret Ceremony" (1969), "X, Y and Zee" (1972) and "Ash Wednesday" (1973).


title: Elizabeth Taylor

text: She has won two Academy Awards for best actress, the first for her performance in "Butterfield 8", the second for her performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". In 1999 she won the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, a lifetime achievement award.


title: Elizabeth Taylor

text: Taylor often received media attention because of her many illnesses and controversial marriages to well known figures such as Conrad Hilton Jr., Michael Wilding, Mike Todd, Eddie Fisher, Richard Burton (twice), John Warner. She has two sons with Michael Wilding and a daughter with Mike Todd. She also adopted a daughter while married to Richard Burton. She was the godmother of two of Michael Jackson's children.


title: Elizabeth Taylor

text: Taylor devoted consistent and generous humanitarian time, advocacy efforts, and funding to HIV and AIDS-related projects and charities. She helped to raise more than $270 million for the cause. She was one of the first celebrities and public personalities to do so at a time when few people knew about the disease and organized and hosted the first AIDS fundraiser in 1984 to benefit AIDS Project Los Angeles.


title: Elizabeth Taylor

text: Taylor was cofounder of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) with Dr. Michael Gottlieb and Dr. Mathilde Krim in 1985. Her longtime friend and former co-star Rock Hudson had disclosed having AIDS and died of it that year. She also founded the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF) in 1993, created to provide critically needed support services for people with HIV/AIDS. For example, in 2006 Taylor commissioned a "Care Van" with examination tables and xray equipment, the New Orleans donation made by her Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation and Macy's. That year, after Hurricane Katrina, Taylor donated $500,000 to the NO/AIDS Task Force, a non-profit organization serving the community of those affected by HIV/AIDS in and around New Orleans.The donation was shared by Taylor for her celebration of her 74th birthday and to help NO/AIDS Task Force continue their work on fighting AIDS.


title: Elizabeth Taylor

text: Taylor was honored with a special Academy Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1992 for her HIV/AIDS humanitarian work. Speaking of that work, former President Bill Clinton said at her death, "Elizabeth's legacy will live on in many people around the world whose lives will be longer and better because of her work and the ongoing efforts of those she inspired."


title: Elizabeth Taylor

text: In 1959, her purchase of Israeli Bonds caused Arab boycotts of her films. In 1962, she was prevented from entering Egypt to complete "Cleopatra"; its government announced that she would not be allowed to come to Egypt because she had adopted the Jewish faith and "supports Israeli causes". However the ban was lifted in 1964 after it was considered that the film had brought good publicity to Egypt.


title: Elizabeth Taylor

text: In 1974, Taylor and Richard Burton considered marrying in Israel, but they were unable to do so because Burton was not Jewish. Taylor helped to raise money for organizations such as the Jewish National Fund; advocated for the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel and canceled a visit to the USSR because of its disapproval of Israel due to the Six-Day War, along with signing a letter protesting the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 of 1975.


title: Elizabeth Taylor

text: She offered herself as a replacement hostage after more than 100 Israeli civilians were taken hostage in the Entebbe skyjacking in 1976. After the success of the operation, which freed the hostages, she acted with Kirk Douglas in a TV special, "Victory at Entebbe", broadcast in January, 1977. When she experienced the role, she stated, "I couldn't pass up this opportunity. I have strong ties to Israel and I firmly believe in the courage and dedication of the Entebbe mission."


title: Elizabeth Taylor

text: Taylor had a lot of health problems. In 2004, she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. In 2009, she underwent cardiac surgery for it. In early 2011, new symptoms related to congestive heart failure caused her to be admitted into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for treatment. Taylor died on March 23, 2011, surrounded by her four children at the same medical center in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 79.


title: New Delhi

text: New Delhi () is the capital of India. It is also a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT).


title: New Delhi

text: In traditional Indian geography, it is in the North Indian zone. The city has an area of about . New Delhi has a population of about 9.4 million people.


title: New Delhi

text: The foundation stone of New Delhi was laid by George V in 1911. It was designed by British architects. The new capital was inaugurated on 13 February 1931, by Viceroy and Governor-General Irwin.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk or Miensk (Мінск (official spelling in Belarus), Менск; Минск ; Mińsk) is the capital and a major city of Belarus. About 2 million people lived in the city as of 2021. Minsk is also a headquarters of the Commonwealth of Independent States. As a capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is also the capital of Minsk voblast (province) and Minsk raion. Minsk is built next to the Svislach and Niamiha rivers. The timezone in Minsk is GMT +2.


title: Minsk

text: The oldest mentions of Minsk date back to the 11th century (1067). In 1326 Minsk became a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and received its town privileges in 1499. From 1569 it was a capital of the Minsk Voivodship in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was annexed by Russia in 1793 as a result of the Second Partition of Poland. During 1919–1991 Minsk was the capital of the Byelorussian SSR. In 2019, Minsk hosted the European Games.


title: Hundred Years' War

text: The Hundred Years' War was fought between France and England during the late Middle Ages from 1337 to 1453.


title: Hundred Years' War

text: The war lasted 116 years and started because Charles IV of France died in 1328 without an immediate male heir (a son or a younger brother). Edward III of England believed that he then had the right to become the new king of France through his mother.


title: Hundred Years' War

text: Since the French did not want a foreign king, Philip VI of France said that he was king because the Salic law prevented French women from ruling or transmitting the right to rule to their sons. Both countries went to war because the English did not have that rule.


title: Hundred Years' War

text: When the war started, France was stronger than England as it was wealthier. French knights and heavy cavalry also enjoyed a great military reputation in all of Christendom. Also, France had about 17 million people, but England had only about 4 million people. However, France was a decentralised feudal monarchy in the middle ages and so it was less unified than England. France had an alliance with Scotland and Bohemia, and England was supported by parts of the Low Countries and by some regions in France loyal to the Plantagenet kings of England.


title: Hundred Years' War

text: The English won a major victory at sea in the Battle of Sluys in 1340, which prevented France from invading England. Most of the rest of the war was fought in France. England then won an overwhelming victory at the Battle of Crécy in 1346 against all odds. The use of the English longbow and stakes to counter the French cavalry played a decisive role in that victory.


title: Hundred Years' War

text: From 1348 to 1356, there was very little fighting because the Black Death killed many people in England and even more people in France. Edward, the Black Prince, then won a brilliant victory at the Battle of Poitiers for England. King John II of France was captured during the battle. The English invaded France again but were not able to take any more cities. A truce in 1360 gave England about one quarter of France. The first part of the Hundred Years' War is called the Edwardian War.


title: Hundred Years' War

text: The war started again in 1369. The new king Charles V of France was more successful, with Bertrand du Guesclin as his best knight. France allied with Castile against England and Portugal, and some of the fighting spilled into Spain and Portugal. France won back most of the land that had been given to England, and Bertrand du Guesclin won great French victories at the Battles of Cocherel and of Pontvallain. A peace followed from 1389 to 1415. The second part of the war is called the Caroline War.


title: Hundred Years' War

text: The most famous part of the war began in 1415, when Henry V of England invaded France and won the infamous Battle of Agincourt, again because of his great longbowmen. Much of the French nobility is said to have been killed in the battle. King Charles VI of France was insane and unable to rule, and nearly all if his sons died young.


title: Hundred Years' War

text: The queen of France, Isabeau of Bavaria, married one of her daughters to Henry V and signed the Treaty of Troyes to make Henry V the next king of France. Both Henry V and Charles VI died around the same time in 1422. The English believed that Henry V's son, Henry VI of England, was now the rightful king of France, and many French people agreed.


title: Hundred Years' War

text: Charles VI's last son, Charles VII of France, said that he ought to be the new king, but many French people said that he did not deserve to be king because they thought he was a bastard.


title: Hundred Years' War

text: The English continued to capture land in France and formed an alliance with Burgundy. They won another major victory at the Battle of Verneuil, but in 1429, Joan of Arc led the French to success at the Siege of Orleans. At the Battle of Patay the same year, French knights, led by La Hire, won a great victory, and the heavy cavalry killed most of the veteran English longbowmen. Joan regained many cities in northeastern France and brought Charles VII to his coronation, but she did not recover Paris.


title: Hundred Years' War

text: She was captured by the Burgundians in 1430, convicted of heresy, and burned at the stake in 1431. After her death, the French continued to take back their territory piece by piece. France won diplomatically in 1435 with the Treaty of Arras, which made Burgundy stop being an English ally and make peace with the French. In 1450, France won another great victory at the Battle of Formigny and reconquered Normandy.


title: Hundred Years' War

text: The war ended in 1453 by a crushing victory of the French at the Battle of Castillon in which nearly 300 cannons, made by Jean Bureau and his brother Gaspard, were used for the first time in a battle. The third and last part of the war is called the Lancastrian War.


title: Cataracts of the Nile

text: The cataracts of the Nile are areas between Aswan and Khartoum where the water is shallow and flows quickly. The surface is broken by numerous small boulders and stones that lie on the river bed, as well as many small rocky islets. This is called "rapids or "white water".


title: Cataracts of the Nile

text: River cataracts often go with a rapid down-drop of the river. They block the waterway, since boats cannot safely carry cargo though.


title: Cataracts of the Nile

text: The six first cataracts of the River Nile were the main obstacles for boats sailing on the Nile in antiquity. Counted upstream (from north to south), the First Cataract is in modern Egypt; the rest are in Sudan.


title: Cataracts of the Nile

text: In ancient times, Upper Egypt extended from the Nile Delta to the first cataract. Further upstream, in what is modern Sudan, the land was later controlled by the Kingdom of Kush.


title: Left–right politics

text: Left-wing politics is usually progressive, meaning that left-wing people think the government should be the entity behind social change. They believe governments should try to create more social equality and economic equality through direct intervention and the regulation of markets.


title: Left–right politics

text: Right-wing people tend to say the government should not be behind social change, instead delegating the authority to individuals. Definitions of "right-wing" vary, however conservatives oppose drastic changes by the government to the structure of society, occasionally supporting moves back to the way certain things were in the past (or the way people think it was in the past).


title: Left–right politics

text: Ideologies representative of the authoritarian wing of the far left include Socialism, while the libertarian wing is represented by Communism. The authoritarian wing of the far right is represented by Fascism, while the libertarian wing is represented by Anarcho-capitalism.


title: Left–right politics

text: The left and right groups get their names from the French Revolution. People in the National Assembly who wanted large changes in the French government sat on the left side of the room and people who wanted to keep the king and more tradition sat on the right side of the room and moderates sat in the middle. French newspapers started saying "left" and "right" to tell readers which member of the National Assembly thought what.


title: Confederate States of America

text: The Confederate States of America (CSA) was a short-lived government that existed in the southern United States during the American Civil War. It was established (made) in 1861 by seven southern states in which slavery was legal, after Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the U.S., but before he took office. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas declared their secession (independence) from the United States. After war began, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina joined them. The first capital of the Confederacy was Montgomery, Alabama, but for most of the war the capital was Richmond, Virginia.


title: Confederate States of America

text: The government of the Confederacy was much like the United States government. The Confederate States Constitution was similar to that of the United States; however, it emphasized states' rights and clearly protected the enslavement of black Americans. Jefferson Davis was chosen as president and Alexander Stephens as vice-president. As in the United States, the CSA president had a cabinet of advisors.